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Hi! The complete circle wrap is also known as a backside wrap (or some folks call it a reverse wrap). You can see it here:
https://youtu.be/OVdCLvhacRE?t=12
on jump 2.
How is Merlin feeling?Tracy
Hi!!
Game 1:
>> It is pretty subtle but you can see it. From 1:00 to 1:30 I worked very hard to not give away any hints. And I think he can do it without hints, he just wants some, if he can get them. Smart kiddo!>>Yes, I totally see it – I was jotting down a note to use less helpful body language for the next session, and then you stripped it out and he was all like “WAIT WHAT?” haha! I can see the slightest hesitation when he is on the backside of the wing, as if he is suspended in mid-stride to wait for more info. Well, getting him to do it without the extra help was great! And interestingly, because he had to think it through without help, his wrap turn immediately got tighter. It was really fun to watch.
You were stationary in a slightly rotated position, so that is the starting point for the next session. If that goes well, the session after that would be stationary but facing the tunnel. Then, when you add back motion, add back REALLY fast motion on the FC or a spin on the wing with you rushing away (because sometimes dogs don’t listen to the verbals or discern the motion when there is a lot of speed). And you can do opposite handling: without a lot of speed, say your wrap cue but turn and face the tunnel. So your body says tunnel but your mouth says wrap (and also do the opposite of turning away but saying tunnel). That might take several sessions to work up to but is totally worthwhile 🙂
>>Bottom line, this discrimination can use a bit more work but it is really coming along.>>Yes! But also when that jump wing is a ‘normal’ distance away from the tunnel, the nice tight turn will be super easy for him.
Game 2: Serp
This was hard! The serp has a little more value so he was offering that more when there was more motion.>>Here is what I’m thinking: If I cue “tunnel, tunnel” then I want him to drive to the tunnel immediately without waiting for any further information. If I release him with his name, then he needs more information (handler motion) >>
Yes, I agree with this. And the name call always means “turn towards me” which would effectively take the tunnel out of the picture (in theory 😁) in this set up. And ‘tunnel’ is a forward cue, meaning don’t look at me and just drive to the tunnel.
>>HOWEVER, if I am not in the correct serp position, then he is correct that he doesn’t know what to do. Therefore, I think most of this session was wasted because I wasn’t where I should be. When I was (:40, 1:05) then he came in correctly.
What do you think?>>>Hmmm that is trickier. I think the name call in this situation is always front side of the jump, never threadle (I never threadle my dogs on just a name call) So when you were not far enough across the jump, he was correct to take the front side as if it was a 180 but not when he threadled. To help clarify for him, you can stay closer to the jump and not move away when you serp it. You were tending to stay in closer to the jump on the tunnel sends, but pull away on the serps. And if you are not in serp position and are maybe only passing the first wing, he should still take the front side (otherwise you will be prisoner to having to be in great position all the time, which is really hard with a fast dog). One thing to support him with is upper body position: your dog-side shoulder can be more ‘closed’ forward to the tunnel when you want the tunnel, versus dropped back when you want the serp (but your running line is the same). To help him understand that it is not the threadle, you can also be in less-than-perfect position and just drop your shoulder back slightly less for the serpentines so he takes the front of the jump. Now if you are behind on a serpentine and need him to serp and not do the 180 and potentially run in front of you, I bet you can consider an outside arm to push him back out. Let me know if that makes sense.
Game 3 – discriminations – this looked great!!!!! His only error was when you were backing him up a little then let him go and he was not quite prepared for that moment – moving him backwards a tiny bit as part of lining him up was distracting. That is good to know! You can add in getting him a little distracted by moving him back then 🙂 You can add in not waiting to see where he is looking before the release 🙂 and some tugging beforehand so he is more stimulated (arousal can cloud processing, so we can layer in arousal now).
I think you should also add in starting him at your side and work both elements (and on both sides) so that will serve as the gateway to adding motion.
And I think the ‘uh’ of tunnel and the ‘ay’ in crate can be verbally distinct enough that it will be fine in the heat of the moment on course, he should be able to differentiate.Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! This was super! It is a really hard game and I think he did well! Starting him from the side position totally helped and then you were able to progress quickly to less help and adding more distance. Perfect! And he gets a double gold star for that very end, when he was facing the tunnel but went to the crate on your verbal. Two things to think about:
a bigger crate. LOL!! I think he was definitely heading the correct way but then couldn’t quite squeeze down into the crate at speed and turn to come out for the reward.
Also, I think his crate cue is ‘go to jail’ which is hilarious and amazing! But it is possible he was confusing the ‘go’ with ‘go tunnel’ so for purposes of this game, maybe just say ‘jail’ and see how it goes?
Great job here!!!
TracyHello!
Oh, Spree!….. LOL! I guess she figures she knows the game and should reap the rewards LOL!
I think this session overall went really well! Your clicks seemed to be slightly better timed than your MM hits, in terms of nailing the back feet moment. The MM were a little earlier, more of the front feet moment, so try to delay the MM ever so slightly to get that 2nd back foot.
Make sure you MM finger is not too excited LOL!>>He doesn’t know what that means yet but I’m guessing he will figure it out quickly.>>
Agree! I think he had a lot of really good hits here and the understanding will come very quickly.
When you are getting him started, try not to say “go” (because it means something else LOL!), so you can use a noise or interim cue like ‘hit it’ for now.
When you added the angle, he did really well going away from you. He was missing it on the way back a bit but you did really good dog training of recalling him over it and that seemed to help. You can also move your position over so it is more on his line on the way back, for now.
Those angles are known as “the banana line” lol and that is good! You can add a little of your motion on that set up – you go straight past it and he does the banana line, if that makes sense 🙂
You can also add challenge by using a toy when he gets back to you! Challenge comes in the form of more excitement 🙂
Great job! He is doing well!!!
TracyHa! Yes, tell the snow to behave itself. We are getting snow here tomorrow and I am NOT IMPRESSED hahaha 🙂
Thanks! It sucks but I am keeping it in perspective that it has been narrowed down to one of two things, both of which can be fixed. I just feel badly for this poor pup who has had this going on for a year.
Perfect! I highly recommend you use the same verbals for all the dogs, or you will drive yourself nuts LOL!! Although we might add verbals for Ruby that Jedi’s generation does not have. Jedi is the exact same age as my Voodoo and we definitely have more verbals for the puppies now 🙂
T
Hi! These are looking good, you are not behind – there are just a lot of things to do with puppies 🙂
Tunnel games look really good – when she was on the outside of you (you were between her and the tunnel), she had no questions – you started nice and close and worked your way back. Be sure to follow that same progression when you do the threadle foundation – you started her really far back and she had questions, but did much much better when you started close. So on the next session, start her close on the threadle side too so she can get success right off the bat. And if you get success… add you threadle word! Do you have a verbal selected for tunnel threadles?
Rear cross flat work – these lap turns looked really good! Try to wait til she is within 2 inches of your hand before your arm and leg move, as that will help her propel back and makes it easier to turn her away. When you were a little early especially with the step back, it was a little harder to turn her. But when you were super patient, she did great!
The tandem turns look good too, she is bending really nicely in both directions! One the reps where you kind of smacked into her butt, you turned a little too early but on the rest you waited longer and it was really smooth.Strike a Pose –
Really nice too! You had really great position with your hands and feet and that helped her come in to the correct hand. You moved a little to get engagement with the toy, which was fine because I don’t think she would have turned to the new side yet – but you can start to fade out that movement by presenting the long toy and wiggling it when she moves towards it. And you can use treats which I am sure she will be happy to go to LOL! We added this to a jump this week, so feel free to move directly to that.She is also doing well with her stays – I don’t think you actually need a stay word (because sit also means stay, right?) but more importantly – is ‘break’ her come-forward release? If so, use something else to throw the cookie back. I use ‘catch’ for when I am throwing the reward back versus “break” when I want the pup to drive forward out of the sit. This will help as we really build up into the bigger stays, because she will know exactly where to expect reward and what to do. But the stays here and on the other videos are looking SUPER! Keep up the good job making them very reinforcing 🙂
Great job!!
TracyHi!
>>Also wanted to make sure – i should just add videos to this one post (rather than creating new posts). If that is correct – do i do that for the whole session or new for each week?
You’ll find it easier if you keep it all in this post – just use the reply feature or post feature at the bottom. That way we can scroll back and forth and watch his progress 🙂
T
Hi! Great start on these!
Serps:
As a side note: her stay is looking good! YAY!!!
She is driving in beautifully on the serp and also nailed the tunnel cue – perfect!
Because she did so well here, I think that you can use less arm motion back on the serp cue. You were making a really big clear cue and it was causing your feet to rotate back. So you probably don’t need to swing your arm back at all, just leave it out there and a little back, so you can keep running forward.To add challenge, you can lead out more so you are as little more past the jump when you release her and closer to the tunnel – she might look at the tunnel as more of a distraction there 🙂
Wraps versus tunnels:
I think on the first couple of reps you were doing a post turn with the wrap verbal, which looks very similar to the turn to the tunnel so she went to the tunnel a bunch 🙂 When you moved a little further away from the cone and were not moving as fast, she got it really nicely! And at 1:38 you started to rotate in more of a front cross fashion and I think that really helped her.
When you did tunnel to the post turn wrap – she got it! Good girl! The post turn that is a little decelerated and not heading to the tunnel (or the FC to rotate away) really helps. Like at 2:53, you stepped back towards the back wall on the post turn and also at 3:11 3:19 and she nailed it. Yay! It was really cool to see her thinking through the puzzle! So on the next session, start line you ended it here.>>Am I showing too much motion, is it supposed to be mostly on verbals?>>
I think the motion is helping her for now – and then you can fade it out so you can get it all while standing completely still 🙂
Contacts discrimination video
This is a really really hard game! Definitely not a train wreck and sometimes we need a session like this to figure out the mechanics and which hand goes were and what might help the dog 🙂 I am fine with rewarding for going towards the crate rather than in it, I think that was helpful for her and really helped raise the rate of success! You can also do it on a mat or dog bed rather than a crate if she likes to get on those – it might be easier to mark and reward.
Ideas for the next session –
You can jumpstart the game even more by doing a couple of reps by starting closer to the desired obstacle (more directly in front of the crate or tunnel) so you can pump up the reward for recognizing the different things with the presence of the other. You can do a session or two being right in front of each, then gradually work your way back to the middle and see if she is pairing your verbals. A bit of body language help is perfectly fine too 🙂 You were getting some really good reps of recognizing the crate at about the 2:45 mark and after it! And I like that when she was out there thinking about which one it was, she was trying to process the verbal, I could see steam coming out of her ears LOL!
The other thing you can do to jumpstart it is to start her at your side and use a little arm/leg step to help point out the one you want. For example, with this set up, you can start her on your right closer to the tunnel entry, then give a little step to it,. And then switch and start her on your left for the crate, then step to it.
Then we can fade that out too – it is easy to fade out the help once we get it rolling. Overall, this was a productive session because it got her thinking that *something* might happen near a tunnel that is not always about the tunnel LOL!
So this session might not have had as much success as the other two, I still think it was a good start to a really difficult behavior. Great job! Let me know what you think.
TracyGood morning! You posted perfectly, both links look great 🙂
>>Realizing – I can’t be still or quiet. It’s a miracle I’ve taught my dogs anything…they are good to me!!>>
Don’t be so hard on yourself, I thought you did a GREAT job here!! TONS of good reps and also good info from Tease about what will help him. And he is *really* fun and also a powerful, athletic dog. Very exciting!!!
On the first video – you did a bunch of tunnel reps at the beginning and I think Tease thought it was the greatest day ever LOL! but that made the first wrap rep harder. So you can do maybe one tunnel rep then one wrap rep 🙂 I think your mechanics at 1:13 and 1:23 were perfect – standing still, giving the verbal, letting him go, rewarding. You helped him with a tiny bit of motion to get those good wraps going before those reps, and that was a good training plan. This is a new (and probably weird :)) game for him, so I think helping with one step of motion will make a difference and then we can fade it out.
So on each rep where you are changing from wrap to a tunnel or vice versa, you can also support with one step for the next session. At 1:57, he needed that one step to the tunnel, I think, to help him switch back to it. When you were stationary needing the tunnel, he was offering the multiwraps because it is probably what the physical cue for those is? But on the 2nd video, you had the one little step to the tunnel going, just a bit of turning to it: perfect! So you can plan that on the next session: one little step or rotation then we can fade it out.
You are off to a great start!!! Let me know what you think 🙂
TracyHi! Happy New Year!
I am glad to play with contacts here, it helps these pups get ready for them and it kicks my butt to train my own dogs LOL!!!!>>The one thing I did train over the break was your suggestion for working on weight shifting for his down on the teeter. I didn’t video it, but I think it was definitely helping to have him back onto a board and then shift back into his “spot.” Next time I have access to a full size teeter (hopefully Friday), I think I’ll do that same exercise with the teeter lodged in the down position to start to transfer that behavior.>>
Great!!!! And one other thing I just thought of, since the down is part of it – on the flat, you can try to get him to play tug in a down! You can try it by sitting on the floor with him, or with you standing and he is in a down on a table. If he holds the down and shifts back, the toy play continues. If he gets up, toy play ends. Let me know if that makes sense!
Dog walk – KAtarina has a lot of great foundation exercises!
The yes on the way back to you seemed back feet bt the MM click varied front and rear
add tugging before it (if he will tug in the presence of the MM) to simulate arousal because in the winter we don’t tend to have a lot of running
angles were harder! You can line him up before starting so he doesn’t have to turn and then hit it – he can start off facing itI use run run run for my general dog walk cue – so many words LOL!
Aframe – his box work is looking good!! And the banana lines look good too! You can put the box into little jump grids too to add challenge without having to do the full a-frame, it can be in the middle of a balance gird with a really low jump on either side then with 2 jumps on either side (6 feet apart is probably a good distance for him).
>>I also flinched a little to see his body hitting that hard.
The upside of the a-frame has soooo much impact on the dogs, I don’t do a lot of full frames for that reason.
>>He turns 1 on Jan 31 and has a visit in early February to evaluate his physical development. So, I’m going to keep his box work on the ground until after that – plenty of valuable proofing to be done!>>
Perfect! And you can lower the frame and have him leap on the side, through the box, the out to the reward.
On the backside wraps – he is getting the idea for sure! I think he is slightly better turning to his left, it looked more fluid but that might also be that it was the 2nd part of the session. 2 ideas for you to get it even more independent – I know he can turn really nicely, so you can change the timing of the marker/reinforcement throw to be the instant he turns his head and then throw it a bit more out on the slice line so he sees it sooner. He was tending to watch you when he got to the wing so the earlier reward will help and throwing it to the different place will allow him to see if sooner (and stop watching you sooner too LOL!). It will not cause problems with the turns because we won’t do it for too long.
The other thing you can do is tuck the Manners Minder into the wing on the ‘landing” side, so he has to pass it to get to the backside – then when he gets there and turns his head, you can click it and keep moving, Let me know if that makes sense; I think I have video of it somewhere.Great job here!!!
TracyThanks everyone! The good news is that I am learning a lot especially how to be an advocate for the dog. The bad news is that we have no real answers and more waiting. Sigh. Poor Hot Sauce 🙁
Good morning! Nice hack to just get a little more movement!
Yes, he totally noticed! Cookie him up for all efforts 🙂 You can also introduce the new tips each time with a ‘guided tour’ where you walk him up the ramp and reward, then stand at the end of the board and recall, so that he is never surprised at full speed.
I notice that the board also whips and shakes and rattles under him as it lands on the holder – you can play with more sandbags on the base and see if that helps add more stability and less rattling under him? It is definitely something we small dog people have to think about because the teeter won’t whip like that under a 30 pound dog. I do add in all the crazy things teeters do with under the small dogs, but for now if you can eliminate some of the factors he will think about it less.>>He worked through it but never quite as confident as with no movement.
>>but still has this “crouchy” stance at the end. He’s a dog that usually if he sits on something that he has concerns about for a day or two when we come back to it he’s totally fine with it. So it will be interesting to see how he responds in a few days.>>I think he will be fine, by the end of the session he was offering to start it without you 🙂 The other thing you can do is jackpot sessions of intro the tip for one high value rep, then do one more rep for an entire bowl of food… then done, session over LOL! He will of course want to do more, and so will you – but these one or two rep sessions (no matter how fast or slow he is, he still gets full on jackpots) will raise the arousal for the teeter because it is paired with jackpots and also because he can’t have it when he wants it LOL!!! That is how my Export was trained – and he was the most teeter-terrified dog I have ever seen. He got one or two reps on the teeter for massive rewards (a whole can of Vienna Sausage was a memorable moment for the bang game a teeter in a different place) and he ended up loving the teeter 🙂 Sly starts from a place with a LOT more confidence already, so I am sure he is going to have an amazing teeter 🙂
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! For the weaves class, I will be using channels for my own dogs but you can also use 2x2s for the games (I might throw in some 2×2 games as well, because I really love that method too – I have not started either dog on the weaves so I will probably do both methods LOL!)
For the seesaw – the games we started here will be included and advanced on, plus I will be adding games that will not be posted here, building to putting the finished teeter in sequence… by really focusing on that weight shift to get the dogs in a great spot to balance on the board.
T
