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I forgot to put in the RDW comments, oopsie! This was a good sesson to start bringing it outdoors. I didn’t count the rate of success, but he had enough misses that I think it was lower-than-desired but not toooooo low. In the new locations, when he is a bit excited 🙂 You can take the verbal off so that he doesn’t have misses associated with the verbal. Sending quietly will work here. And in a new environment you can reward interaction with the mat – a good boy single reward for front feet, a MASSIVE FIESTA for rear feet. No rewards for leaping LOL!
He is a bit upwards in his striding due to the excitement on some of the reps, I imagine his sister will be too – Hot Sauce was THE WORST about leaping upwards when she was excited so I delayed the clicks so it was through the mat then one more stride – then the click. That got striding/trotting/running and was got rid of the bouncing/leaping.
One other thought to keep the success rate really high:
try to change/add only one thing in each session. Each session can be short, but try to not have a lot of different things such as adding motion or wings or angles etc. That can all get in there later on, but in the early stage the new environment is a big change, so we don’t want to throw a lot of things at him because he will miss too often. He is on the right track! Can’t wait to get started officially next week!
TracyHi! This was a really good session! Hard angles of entry in a safe way, and well0timed clicks of the MM.
>>She trotted rather than flew, and her angling up to the ramp was pretty good.
Yes, really good! You can start on slightly less difficult angles and add your motion, running a bit more to challenge her to maintain that nice hind end us even when things are more exciting 🙂
>> She only tried to short cut once, and I think that was because I started quite far back from the ramp entry.
Yes – that was a backside entry to the ramp and she got it right on the next rep. It was a really good challenge!
>>Sometimes you’ll hear the MM go off twice. We are running out of kibble that fits, so sometimes nothing came out and I wanted to be sure she got rewarded.
MMs can be very temperamental LOL!!! She was happy to have it go off twice 🙂
>> You will also notice I started to narrow the entry space and then started moving the boards back along the ramp. Should I keep fading them in that manner, or do you have a different suggestion?>>
That is the exact fading process I would recommend. You can leave them a little prominent for now, and add more challenges: more running as I suggested above, and also more angle of plank if you have a higher table. Question: when she learned the teeter, did she run up it to a table at all? I think so but I need to scroll back and look. If so, you can have this game get applied the same way but with a teeter replacing the ramp!
Nice work here!
TracyGood morning!
Nice work on these! The Bang game is looking really good, he seems really confident and driving directly to position! And it looks like the 2o2o nose target is very clear to him which is exactly what we want 🙂 He has trouble maintaining position while tugging – he can maintain for a couple of seconds, so just release him with the toy after about 2 seconds and before he kind of falls off, so he can be successful. The pups need a lot of core strength to hold that position and tug for a while, and he is not yet 10 months old. Strong, but still a baby. When you stop the game and he resets, it is not the same quality of drive to position as it was when you had him leap on, so it seems unnecessary to rehearse poorer quality reps when you can get great quality reps pretty easily.Mountain climbers look awesome! And yes, don’t say bottom yet. LOL! I am super happy with his drive to the top. To add challenge:
One thing you can do is move the teeter to different parts of the yard so he goes on mini teeter field trips – a new location is enough to make it all feel totally different. Or turn the teeter around. Crazy, right?
In this location: is there a way to change the height on your teeter support thing so you add the smallest bit of movement, less than an inch? If so, add the tiny by of movement (half an inch!) and go back to one-hit-wonders: one run up the now-moving board for his entire meal, then that is the end of the session. He might thing is was weird and terrible – so one rep is perfect. Or he might think it was perfectly fine – so one rep is perfect because we don’t want him to over-think it 🙂>>We did some work on backsides, backside wraps and rear crosses. But no video.
How did it go? Any issues?
Great job on these!
TracyHi Summer!! He is looking great!!
He is doing really well with the wrap cues and the jump present!!! I think you can move the wing in a little closer to the temptation jump to add more challenge 🙂 He did beautifully with you being stationary, on both sides. So the other challenge you can add here is “GO” when you are not moving. And add motion into this game too – if you have a tunnel, you can get him a little wild and then run through the tunnel into this game!
With the 2 jumps: check versus GO looked really good, the go reps were great, he never looked back!! No worries about the throws, I thought they were good LOL!! As with the wing & jump game, you can add in more motion (especially on the wrap cues, that is when the dogs really need to process the cues) an you can even add the tunnel before it.
>>Question – I only use one word for tight turn – not distinguishing between left and right. In my mind it means turn tight into me. Is that a problem??>>
It depends on how often you will need to use it, and if the courses you run will allow you to be close enough to him that he can see where you are for the ‘into me’ part and that you can cue it. So with one of my dogs, that was exactly how I used the cue: one verbal to mean tight turn into me – and the courses I ran (USDAA and AKC, mainly) were perfect for me to apply it and the dog was happy. With my 7 year old dog, he got really frustrated with just one cue – the courses were much bigger (UKI), he is much faster (and I am slower than ever LOL!) so he didn’t always know where I was, in order to process the ‘towards the momma’ part of the verbal. And he was ANGRY about it LOL!! So, for him, I added a second verbal. That way he understood which way to go and didn’t need to see where I was 🙂 Then he was happy LOL!
Let me know if that makes sense. Great job!
TracyHi! This is progressing well! He is working to be sure on the mat when he is leaving you, thoughtfully getting the feet on it. Really nice! I like thoughtful behavior at this stage, because it means NO LEAPING LOL! And when the running starts, things get exciting so it will be good to have a thoughtful foundation.
>>Should I be rewarding if 1 hind foot misses or hits the edge of the mat?
Yes, I would reward. But you can make it different when both back feet get on the mat – go wild! Hit the PT then run over and add more treats and lots of praise. The one-rear foot (or front feet only) hits can be just a single PT moment 🙂 On the reps where he did not get both back feet on, I think those were strong enough hits to get a reward. Any leaping or total bypassing – no cookies for that LOL!!
You are now at the stage of RDW training where we just keep building value for the mat. You can also start adding the ball or a tug toy in!
Nice job!
TracyHi!
>>In other news, his neck did need adjusting last Wednesday. When he turned his head to the right, the left side was stuck and didn’t make a corresponding move out so it was harder for him to tutn turn right.>>
Ah that is interesting!! I am glad for the chiro and PT people out there who keeps our dogs loose!
This was a good session! I think this one error (:39) was that the flatness of jump 2 was significantly different than the previous rep that he needed a moment 🙂 I don’t think it was a late cue, because your running and position are part of the cue and those were not late, even if we can obsess on the timing of the arm. But overall, he was doing a great job on his serps! With that in mind, I would open the line of jumps back up and do 2 things:
get close, very very close LOL!! We don’t want him to think that you will be that far away on serps so you can make the serp line easy and get nice and close to it.
Also, so he doesn’t rely on the exact arm cue – just basically run, no real cue needed other than being connected – he should still serp even if you are not very precise with the serp arm movement or timing. Basically, we are going to have him read your line of motion and connection, but with the barest hint of serp arm rather than exaggerating it. Let me know if that makes sense.Great job!
TracyHi! What a perfect use for Amazon boxes!!! Love it!
She did seem to love this – planks are fun and there was running involved 🙂
She did well coming from the wing here on the straight-ish entries without the boxes – she was really lining herself up nicely! And the boxes worked nicely for crazy angles – she hit a box on one rep and then worked EXTRA hard to line up better. Good girl. She totally jumped over the box on the 2nd to last rep – you can tell her she is cute but not reward on that one. She fixed it on the next rep, but if she was unable to fix it, you can use a bit of handling to help her. You were really good about NOT helping on the handling, but if she struggles on an angle it is fine to help her out to show her.I think the left turns around the wing were hard for her – maybe because she had to turn away from the plank? So that turned out to be a useful handling exercises: turn away from something exciting 🙂
Great job here!!
TracyHi!
>> I had been thinking of using the mat for the obstacle discrimination exercise, so I’m glad you think that’s a good idea.
Great minds thinking alike, once again 🙂
>> We’ll soon see what Keiko thinks.
If toys and cookies and you are involved, I am sure she will be happy to play 🙂
>>I really like the idea of the MM on the table. When I saw her leap the whole second yellow section on the ramp, barely touch the table, and leap off into the leaves, I figured we needed a stop sign somewhere.>>
Right! We don’t want her to practice her dock diving form on the plank LOL!!!
T
Hi!
>> I was really worried he would think the more advanced part was the biggest spread jump ever>>
I totally felt that too when I first set it up, but the verbals help a lot 🙂 He did not seem confused, he was awesome!
He did really well on the wing and on the jump here! I think the jump out there *was* a distraction because he did not really get tight on the turns til the very end – it is possible he is a lefty so he was tighter turning to his left at the end? But at the every beginning, he was turning left on the wing and was wide, scoping a bit (the distractions are TEMPTING LOL!!)
So 2 ideas for you to be able to convince him to turn tighter – you can leave earlier on the handling, really trusting his commitment so that he drives back to you harder – which will create more collection to get it done. When he is collecting before takeoff (or on approach to the wing) you can mark that moment 🙂
Separately, you can do it without motion, just with verbals… but mark a slightly different moment to get started. Send him him to the wing or jump on just your verbal – Wait til he has turned more fully and is starting to come back around the wing – mark that moment and then go wild. I think on some of them he was waiting for you to get excited and then deciding to come around the wing, so try to be completely stationary and quiet til he decides 🙂 So the criteria starts as “come back around the wing” and then I bet he starts to get tighter and tighter naturally because he will be driving back for reward.
Let me know what you think! He is doing really well, so we can add challenge and see what he does 🙂 Have fun!
TracyAha! This was a really nice session! This lends credence to my leg theory from above. You were using the dog side leg on your sends here… he was perfect. Woot! So keep reminding your dog-side leg to get involved with the sending. I don’t think he questions on the first rep above were ‘squirrel!’ moments but more like a bit of a question about the cue. You were almost perfect in your connection and Hallmark moments – on most of the reps you were really isolating that moment and it was a huge help to him. At :30 was the only little moment where you broke connection and looked forward, so he did not go to the wing (an experienced dog will not be as sensitive to the little connection breaks, but baby dogs sure are.)
On the single wing – great job adding the running on the turn and burn exits! He likes that! You can mix in a toy here and there along with the treats – it will add a little but of arousal and then he has to stay centered and still focus on the wing task, which is a great skill for a young dog 🙂 And also, since I am obsessing on legs… be careful to use your dog-side leg on the send step here too. When you did… perfect! When you did not, and used upper body and the opposite leg (1:27 for example), he had a question.
You were doing really nice spin exits and reinforcements here, so also plan some FCs. I think he is also ready for you to start leaving earlier.
Great job!!! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
Yay for good weather!!!!!! I love it! He is doing well on these games!Since he has grown and his feet are now in a new zip code, you can help him isolate what you want on the first few reps. I think he was not sure if he should get on it, back onto it, get into 2o2o, so he was tap dancing a lot and offering a whole lotta stuff. To get the bal rolling, Yyou can reward him for all 4 feet on, getting on the from the front – then have him lean forward to a hand target, then lean back. Then step off into 2o2o (a hand touch will help) and then reward for stepping back. And you can gradually ask him to come off more and more, to get more backing up. Each time he has a growth spurt, you can refresh the game this way – and then he will recognize the context and is more likely to go directly into hind end offering 🙂
Rocking horses – he did well in the distracting environment and was turning beautifully!! Good boy! You can help clarify the send to each wing by using your dog-side leg more. Your arm and connection looked really good but the dog side leg was staying back, so he was questioning if he should leave you or not. A good example was at the every end – your right arm was great, you were connected, the wing was right there… but your right leg was saying something else so he was not certain. I don’t think it was lack of reinforcement, I think he needed your leg to also give permission to go to the wing 🙂 So, as your right arm goes forward, have your right leg step forward to the wing as well, I think that will smoooooooth it all out 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi!
She is so cute!!! Loving her tug drive and ability to go back to the toy after food!
She seemed super confident getting right up on the thing for the goat game 🙂 You can ask her to turn around on it or sit on it, it seems big enough to do several different things. And, since she is so willing to offer – play goat games on all sorts of different things. Have you tried this with something unstable?Restrained recalls – wow she is so tiny! I think she is recalling beautifully. The connection looked really clear on your 2nd, 3rd and 4th recalls (looks like you rewarded across your body) – the first rep was good but it was not as clear (I the reward was a little late being shown) and so she was not as sure of where to be. Overall really good and insanely adorable. Also, because she is 50% Papillon, notice how she is starting to squeak when you say ready ready LOL!!!
Toy races look great, she is happy to leave you in the dust. I notice that she backed off when you leaned in to get the toy on the first rep – I like you how delayed that on the 2nd rep to give her a moment to get engaged. That helps for sure! I think on the 3rd rep when it hit the wall, it was weird – so you can definitely add in some near or on the wall stuff as she gets better and better here, to help reduce the weird factor LOL!!! And since she seems to be fine with going back and forth from food to toys to food, you can give her a treat for the collar grab stuff: she is not a huge fan of that at the moment (Paps are generally not huge fans of that) but cookies will win her heart LOL!
Great job here! She is tons of fun!
TracyHi! So good to see you here 🙂
>>. I’m worried that a nose touch to item in my palm *right now* might be confusing. Can I just use my palm for the time being until the paw touch to target is trained to the point of being on cue?>>
Yes – and you can also do a nose touch to an object sticking out of your hand, like a spoon or spatula or something! So it would be 3 distinct behaviors, the more the merrier 🙂
T
Hi! Feel free to use your arms as you would on course 🙂 For all of my serpentines, I personally only use the dog-side arm and chest rotation (not really a dip, more of an upper body facing the bar). So on the proofing game, I use the serp posture the dog would see on course. If you use a cross arm (opposite arm) for your serps – then you can totally use it here as that is what your dogs would see on course.
Same with threadles when we get to them – use whichever arm(s) your dog will be seeing on course 🙂
Now about the reward… you can have it in the serp arm and then move the arm to reward (or toss the reward) or you can have the reward out there, like a manners minder – it will also be a great distraction for the tunnel cues 🙂
Let me know if that makes sense!
TracyHi! I hope you are feeling better!!
On the serp – You can totally use a jump cue and his name. That should work nicely!!
On the wrap game – yes, I do use the verbals to mean turn away but not yet in this game 🙂 You will see more of that very soon
LOL!! I mean, you could use it in this game but I like to proof one concept at a time, at first, before adding in another one. T
