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Good morning!
Nice work on the backwards starts here – we actually saw one this morning at the US Open! The dogs over 2 years old totally think we are a bit nuts to release with the directional but then they get it. – both Chief and River were picking it up nicely! Plus you got waaaaaay ahead which is great 🙂You can line Chief up on a slice facing the landing spot more, rather than to the center of the jump, so he more naturally finds the turn – plus he can turn tight without collection, so the slices will be faster for him (he has to collect when he is facing the center of the bar which is slower than letting him rip :))
He did really well with the backwards steps, I think there was a little extra motion and he liked that 🙂 The backwards step created extra collection so it depends on the context – I would only use those for him if you needed a SUPER tight turn on 1, otherwise the forward sending will be perfect! For example, the one we saw today would be a forward send.
River also thought the release with the verbal was a little odd – so start her closer for now. The further you started her from the jump the more she thought you were nuts 🙂 You can even start on just a wing because it is a more natural impulse to go to a wing, then build it back to a jump.
As with Chief, start her on a slice so she doesn’t have to collect as much if the sequence calls for a not-so-tight turn on 1 – she will only have to turn a little tight with the forward sending. The backward sends get REALLY nice collection for her, so definitely consider those when you need a tight turn on.
On the backwards sends, you can use a bigger arm/leg step back so that you don’t have to lean back, that will get you up the line nice and fast too 🙂 Yo can start with your arm and leg in front of you or even pointing to her, then you can ‘swoosh’ them back to indicate the jump.
Threadles:
At the very beginning with you relatively close to the jump, she had a little trouble with the pressure of getting in next to you on the threadle wrap. You can release her and have her come in to your cookie hand for a cookie. When doing that, because there is no default to the wrap, you can use call her name 🙂 And for the wraps, you can even pull away a bit from the wing so that she sees a different line of motion and has a little more room too. To jump start the behavior, you can use just a wing to be able to add motion: the bar there is very much a slice inducer so you’ll want to isolate the skill as you add more motion, because you’ll definitely need the skill in motion. The slice threadles are looking good! I think you had a clearer line of motion, arms and footwork on those to help her out as well – all those factors work together.
Great job with Chief – you were clearer with your feet and arms for sure! Be sure to keep taking that extra step across the bar for the slices so he can really differentiate – when balancing back and forth, you were starting to ‘proof’ the slices a little by not stepping to the bar (and moving forward like you would on the wrap) and he had some errors. But he was *flying!* and I think that is great – he threadle value looks fabulous!
Great job! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Good morning!
>>I hope you’re having fun at the Open!! It’s fun to take the young ones for the first big event. >>
Yes, it has been fun – I didn’t enter much because I am on the work crew here, but it has ben cool to see every single challenge we worked on here show up on the courses, sometimes almost exact to how we trained on them LOL! And yes, I totally believe the UKI trial had similar challenges even at the Novice level. Very cool!!!!
On the video:
He is doing well here but I think we can clean up the verbals to help him understand the lines better. You are using ‘go’ and ‘over’ in ways that dilute them a bit, so that is part of the reason why he was asking some questions (the other part of the reason is that he was still sorting out that it was OK to have the verbal override body language :))At the beginning:
Try to resist saying ‘go over’ – because it is diluting the go (it was often followed by right or here, so he was learning to ignore go).To clarify for him: do your left/right/here also mean take the jump? I think they do – so you don’t need th ego over as commitment cues because the right cue, for example, will be both the commitment and the directional: you can start it when he lands from the first wing jump (riiight, riiiiight….) as well as pull away. At first you were using her and go over, then the right or here was happening over the bar so it was a little confusing for him. At :52 and after that, the right got sooner and it helped the turns a lot!!
He was having trouble realizing that he was fine to ignore the body language and go to the tunnel like at 1:18, where you were not moving as much, plus the go had lost some value you because it doesn’t always mean go in this session 🙂
And when balancing with the GO TUNNEL lines, keeping the go for the true go lines will help a lot. And also , for example at 1:32 to help him drive to the tunnel, you can get closer to the first wing jump so you can move forward for a couple of steps. He is not yet having the go tunnel override the pulling away motion he needs a little more acceleration – the go cues can start as he lands from the first wing and you can accelerate more to help him feel very confident that it is perfectly fine to leave you for that tunnel 🙂
When reversing it and having him exit the tunnel to carry on to the jump, he did find it nicely, he just needed you to start those cues. Before he entered the straight tunnel so he could exit looking more forward.
Overall, the main thing he needs is experience that it is OK to layer 🙂 This will also help those wicked ASCA Gambles!!! So keep supporting with more body language for now, moving along the lines a little more and then we can fade it out 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi again 🙂
Toy games:
Nice quick out-then-take, it keep the value of he out very high with the quick reinforcement, and her out was very quick considering how engaging the tugging was.
Get it looked great, and she has lovely forward focus to the toy. And lovely self-control in that she did not go before you said get it and also she did not try to grab the toy until you marked that it was available. Hooray! She was showing a really lovely balance of being thoughtful but also in a high arousal state.
I love that when you said ‘catch’ at 2:20 but did not immediately throw, she did not move forward, she stayed in place waiting for the toy to arrive.
She started to get tired after about 2:30 and you can see the ‘out’ getting a little more sticky. That is great info, because you can end sessions before that so there is no mental fatigue in training. It was a tiny sticky but really – still great especially on the new toy at the end. I think more high arousal precision sessions are in her future, because that will bubble over nicely into the trial environment! G
Great job!!! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
This is going really well! One little reminder for the search and snacks cues – be sure that you use the word then move your hands (I remind everyone AND myself of this all the time LOL!) – sometimes you were really clean with the mechanics of word-then-hand, sometimes they were simultaneous and sometimes the hand moved before the reward. Since search and snack are both S words, try to have them delivered in a slightly different tone so they don’t sound the same especially in the same session.
The follow the cookie noise was fun and exciting LOL! She liked that! I bet that will be useful outside the ring to get her into a good arousal state.
Catch – were you cuing back up? We don’t want her to offer it too much 🙂 She did well waiting there for the catch!
Nice job experimenting with food and toys in the NFC runs! As you both get more experienced, the answers will get clearer 🙂
>>For non FEO/NFC, she knows her toy is back at her crate and wants to tug when we come back after a run. She usually checks to make sure I’ve left it. 😉 She definitely knows where her toy is at – either on me or at the crate.>>
Onwards to getting started with both the food and toy for the remote reinforcement. I think the dogs are in a better arousal state when the reinforcement is right outside the ring, rather than at the crate, so we can work up to that 🙂
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
I think this is going really well – definitely NOT nails on a chalk board!!!! And it is funny about editing out the lengthy toy retrieves – he was REALLY great about a lot of the retrieves, so be sure that retrieves are always reinforced with play or a 2nd toy or a cookie. If the dogs find that we take the toys away when they retrieve them, even if we are setting up to do something else, we often lose the retrieve because taking the toy away can be perceived as negative punishment by the dog, which will suppress the retrieve.
On the video:
He did really well with the bite cue as a new marker! To continue to help build the bite, you can say it then move the toy, wiggling it as added ‘permssion’. He did not seem to understand it when you had it directly in front of you or perhaps he is not comfortable driving into you like that – he was much better off to the side. So you can get it really strong off to the side and then gradually (eventually) move it in front of you. Keep working the bite cue in – the occasional ‘git it’ slips out but that is because you are very used to saying it 🙂For the ‘hand’ cue of following the toy – you don’t need to face him, you can be turned away and moving away, as if rewarding on course while staying in motion – this can also help keep it really different than when you use cookies, and it is more like how we would use the hand-toy procedure. You did a variation on it at 4:45 with the ‘shhhhh’ noise and that is more like how I use the toy in this scenario (chasing the handler for the toy reinforcement, after a great FC for example)
For the mine cue – it was hard to tell when you were using it – I heard it sometimes but it was after he had dropped it on the ground and you were whisking it away. It should be more of a cue for the out behavior, while it is still in his mouth (he had his back to the camera so it was a little hard to see) You can tug with him then relax your hands while still holding the tug and then say mine and just wait for him to let go, so he lets go of it while you are still holding it. If that is what you were already doing… carry on 🙂
“Git it” went well and I love that he brings it right back on a lot of those!! Good boy! he also had a strong forward focus to the toy. And he was offering good stays for the catches – this will definitely help his stay behavior overall because we will be taking this procedure into the ring.
It looked like you might have also had some food rewards happening too, but the camera edits cut that out – you can totally work the combos too! And onwards to the remote reinforcement as well.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>>I accidentally used my backside wrap verbal and after a few reps they seemed to be ok with it. Can you foresee an issue with that since the verbal still means: take the backside and wrap the wing? >>
I think it should be a separate verbal, because the verbals differentiate which side of the wing the dog should be on relative to you, plus the push-wrap is a turn-towards-us behavior and the treadle-wrap is a turn-away-from-us behavior. And those threadle wraps are getting really popular now! And they are happening in situations where we are not close enough to help with physical cues – eek!
Nice work with both dogs here!!! They were able to have a lot of success on 2 really challenging cues and also balanced to the front side really nicely.
I think for both dogs a couple of little physical details will help them differentiate the cues as well and answer any of the questions they had:
for the threadle wrap, I like the lower hands that you used. Positionally, it helps them both when you pull away a little from the entry wing, and they also did best on the threadle wraps when you kept your feet facing forward the whole time.To differentiate that set of physical cues from the in in threadle slice, I think you can use a higher arm on the threadle slice – those arm cue was also low-is and by your knees, and it looks liked maybe both arms were in play? So you can do a higher arm for the threadle slice (especially with River) and a 2 lower hands for the threadle wrap. And for the threadle slice, positionally, it helped them both when you were closer to the entry wing and stuck closer to the jump in general, turning your feet to the center of the bar and taking a step to it, kind of like what you did with River at 1:16 and 1:30. When your physical cues looked like these, I think they both got it right every time. Yay! When your physical cues were too similar or you moved too far away from the jump, they had questions.
That is important when you add the tunnel and there is more speed – the positional cue really helped them! For Chief, a strategic thing to consider: run closer to his line in the tunnel, so that when you are cuing the threadle you are up ahead at the wing, but so far ahead that you stop and wait for him 🙂 You were ending up a bit too far ahead so you either had t stand still, or you got past the jump and he was unsure. With River, your timing of getting up there was good! She probably needs you to stay in motion but not at a run yet, as she sorts out the difference between the 2 cues.
Nice work here!! Let me know what you think!
TracyThanks! This session went really well – Cody seemed like he was suspicious if how easy it was and he felt perhaps he should be doing more to earn the treats LOL!!!!
For the Get it tosses, you got into the nice mechanics by rep 3 – it looks like you had a really solid timing of marker-then-move (he did think he needed to offer behavior, but that is fine because it won’t always be this easy LOL!)
Cookie is a new cue and it went well – his history of getting cookies from your hand will make this easy 🙂 You can have cookies already in your hand and visible so he can hear the cue and you don’t have to move or dig them out. I think this will be a SUPER useful cue because looking at the very beginning of this video, he was jumping up at your hands looking for the treats (poor starving dog haha!) until you got to work. If he knows that the only cue is ‘cookie’ to look at the cookie hand, you’ll have an easier time getting him to look at ‘work’ and not at your hands 🙂
Catch looked great! He immediately figured out that the cookie was coming to him, so he didn’t need to come close to you, probably an offshoot of ball play. Really nice!!!
Onwards to the toy play! Great job here!
TracyGood morning!
>>Another question. For the food verbals I think our goal is to have them know when they can get a snack and that they should take the snack gently. With the toy verbal we are using bite to tell them when they can take the toy and that they can take it more aggressively than food.>>
That is part of the reason (the difference in how hard their mouth should be). The other reasons involve helping the dog ignore the reinforcement in our hands until it is “in play” (so many dogs have trouble with that!) and also to help the dogs know which reinforcement is in play when we have food in one hand and a toy in the other, for example.
>>I’m a bit confused then on the verbal for movement toward the reward. You use shhh on both food and toy to cue movement toward the reward, and yet the dog is supposed to take the food easily and the toy can be taken more aggressively. How do they differentiate how to take the different rewards? >>
This is a situation where, for now, I use the same word and rely on the dog’s ability to process the context. When I am moving my hand, the presentation of the reward is very very different: the toy is dangling and the cookies are in my finger tips. The hand that is moving is the hand that is “in play” and if I have reinforcement in both hands, I will only be moving one hand. So, using one cue has not caused any confusion for my dogs in this context because there is always a physical cue with the moving hand and the reinforcement is very obvious. Using the single marker is an effort to reduce the number of verbals we need 🙂 but if, at any point, the dogs show any confusion then we need to add an additional marker to differentiate. I have not seen any confusion because the physical cue is so clear.
Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning! Lots of good stuff here!!!
Let’s look at the food procedures first. These were strong – keep reminding yourself to say the word then move your hand – it is so hard, I know LOL!!!
He does well with the food catch and the food get its, only had a little trouble finding it in the leaves during your outside session. You can differentiate catch and get it a little more (see below) so he knows exactly what to do.
When you want him to follow the food, you can move your hand more slowly and feed more often to encourage him to follow it. I think it was moving a little fast so he was hanging out waiting a bit 🙂With the toys: he was a really strong tugger here!!!! Nice! And he really seemed to like the toys you chose. You and he are fighting a little bit about letting go of the toy, and also the leg-climbing to grab the toy you mentioned (after the camera was off).
We can clarify that for him:
First, we can clarify when the toy is in play so he knows when he should grab it or not. It was a little hard to tell what the marker was to give permission to get the toy from your hand – and I think that confusion is causing some of the grabbing of the toy when you don’t want him to and some of the difficulty getting him to our it. You had a couple of different markers happening so when he should come in to get the toy, use only the maker for that (I think you had ok, get it, and a couple of others happening so it was hard to tell). And hold the toy still after after you say the marker: then it can start to move. Giving that bit of permission can really help him understand when to grab or not, especially because toys build arousal.About the out: same as with getting the toy, be clearer with your out cue – you had different words, repeated words, ah-ah markers, etc. So, you can clarify that so he outs it better: say the word, then relax your hands and wait til he lets go a bit. Don’t keep moving the toy or pulling it or repeating the cue, just wait 🙂 And here is the important part: as soon as he relaxes and releases, reward immediately: you can reward instantly by either giving him the toy back, or whipping out another toy, or whipping out a treat. What was happening here was that when he did release the toy, you took it away and did something else, so the reinforcement for outing the toy was either delayed or he perceived it as a negative punishment (taking away something desirable). So we can get a better out by rewarding within a second or two, for now. When the out is stronger, you won’t need to reward as quickly or as often. But for now – lots of quick rewards for the out 🙂
>>Right after I turned the camera off I did get over aroused climbing my leg to steal the toy. I made an interrupt noise and then played for cookies. Is this the right thing to do?>>
When that happens, he is just confused about the toy procedure so you can just wait til he releases the toy, then give him a cookie. Clarifying the toy procedures will help with this a lot.
One last detail:
You can differentiate catch from get it based on which direction he should move. If he is facing you and you throw it towards/behind him, then it is a catch because we want him to basically stay where he is or turn back for it. For a get it, we want him moving away from you off to the side for example, or driving ahead of you. Subtle difference for us, big difference for him 🙂Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>Reilly has been really solid in offering the sit stays in the start line class. For the catch in this class I’m guessing I could get him to stay and then move off a ways and begin to throw the cookie behind. Would that work?>>
Yes – that is exactly one of the uses for catch! And bear in mind that it is a release to get the reinforcement, he does not have to remain in the stay after you say “catch’ then throw the treat.
>>Now a big toy question. We have always used git it for going after the toy whether on the ground, thrown, or in the hand. Do we need to have different words for each of these “toy events”? Especially do we need to have another word for the non-motion toy in the hand?>>
I would say yes – different markers needed. The different markers tell him when (and if) the toy is in play. That will help in a number of ways: it clarifies the availability of the toy, helps him stop looking at it (and where to look instead) and that way he can think less about the toy and more about the behavior. If git it means everything, then he is probably not processing the verbal that well – instead, he is watching for the movements that we do that predict the toy is available (meaning he is watching more than we want him too, which can lead to errors and frustration). In the past, we have not had this clarification for the dogs and we have had trouble getting the dogs to be able to run well with the toy present. That generation of dogs gets overstimulated when the toy is present, because they are not sure when it is in play or not so they get frustrated 🙂
Tracy
Hi there!
I am glad the backsides game went well! Those independent backsides are cropping up everywhere now!
>>The threadle exercises went smoothly for Mookie but Buddy needed extra connection from me.
That makes sense, based on experience levels.
>>For the the threadle discriminatiom, pinwheel and get out arm Mookie read it easily and reliably while again Buddy needed extra focus from me but still did them well.>>
This also makes sense – for now, don’t do too much threadle stuff with Buddy, just let him run really fast and happy to whatever is in front of him 🙂
>>The judges are really making the angles of the jumps severe which is hard for a fast dog like Mookie.
Should I be setting up jumps in severe angles and practicing these when I can ???>>100% yes! Practice the severe slices because they are popular in all venues right now. And if you are in a class, ask the instructor to make the slices harder 🙂
>>As for Buddy who is 20 seconds slower then Mookie on a course he did well and got his first Excellent Standard Leg with a woman judge. Only 3 dogs qualified in his class due to the extreme angles. In jumpers Buddy wanted to visit the male judge to check him out and went overtime. We are working on this. At least he did not try to avoid the man as he has done in the past.>>
Yay Buddy! Congrats on the Excellent Q! And I am glad to hear he is doing better about feeling comfy with males judges.
>>There is a very slight chance of a puppy in my stars at the end of Feb.
OOH! A puppy! Spots? Or a BC?
Thanks for the update! Keep me posted and have a great holiday season!
TracyGood morning!
I agree, more clarity is great – mainly because without the clarity, the dogs expend a lot of mental energy looking at or looking for the reinforcement – and then they get frustrated with us 🙂
The video is listed as private, can you reset to unlisted?
>>Get It is my cue for tossed food or toy
Perfect!
>>Cookie from hand, never really had a verbal for this, just a presentation of my hand -going to use cookie as a verbal for this, although this may lead to a conflict with when I use food in a remote bowl for reward – get the cookies is my cue for accessing the bowl
I agree, this might cause confusion:
if ‘get it’ is a tossed reward, and ‘get the cookies’ is find the bowl, and ‘cookies’ is treat-from-hand… I think they are too similar. So take the one that you think if strongest (if ‘get the cookies’ is strongest, for example) and leave the strongest one in place. Then change the words for the other two: toss for the tossed ones, or hand for the ones from the hand 🙂 I know, I am not very creative haha!>Catch, never used a verbal for this other than get it – going to use “catch” as the new cue
Follow the hand, never used a verbal for this, going to use “follow”>>These both sound good!
>>I have to keep a pace with rewards, any delay and Cody gets Operant with offering, you can see a bit of this in the food from hand game in the video. I did not ask him to down>>
That is fine for now, probably because he was thinking these games were too good to be true LOL!! Free cookies! We will get to offering behavior and responding to cues really soon, so he will have to earn his treats LOL!
Toy Cues
>>Get it has been my cue tug from hand -going to change this to “tug”
Take it is my cue for getting a dead toy or ball off the ground. No more chasing toys or balls for the boy. He has no regard for his body and he is 9 1/2. I worry about him getting hurt with his chase anticsThese sound good! And I agree about ball chasing… we need to make sure he doesn’t break himself!
>>>Going to use “catch” for a tossed ball. these get presented so he can easily grab them>>
Tossed back to him to pluck fro the air, like the treats? Perfect!
I am looking forward to the video – let me know when it is unlisted 🙂
TracyHi! This is looking really strong!
For the first two procedures (get it and snacks) – your placement was really very clear and that is great. One suggestion: try to say the word and *then* move the hand – you were moving the hand with the word for get it and moving it a little before the word for the snacks. Word-then-movement will help isolate and strengthen the word and get him to look at your hands less.
When you worked these as the combo, your hand was pretty stationary for snacks so the word was really distinct, and that was great!For the follow-the-cookie: “hand” is a really good choice of words because it can be elongated to match the movement of the hand! For the most part your hand was stationary til just after you started the word, so keep it like that: start the word then starting moving the hand.
He is really ‘catching’ on to the ‘catch’ procedure (pun intended LOL!) He was starting to stay where he was and also starting to offer sits! Yay! To help really solidify the position, you can begin with him on a mat or bed or something, so he is already away from you – it is hard to start the catch when he is right in front of you.
catch – you can start him on a mat or something so he is already stationaryWhen doing catch and get it in the same session, you can differentiate them more clearly: catch is where he has to stay where he is or turn back to find the reward. For get it, if he is already facing you, toss it off to the side so he moves away to get it, rather than turning back to it.
Nice work here! Onwards to the toys!
Tracy
PS: >> I tried the get game with Jackson and he reacted like a Jai Alai player!>>Oh dear, did he tackle you? I don’t know the ins-and-outs of Jai Alai!
Hello and welcome, great to see you here!!
>> He is definitely a foodie but I am trying to get him interested in toys. He will tug and chase a ball but only in the most relaxed environments. He has been pretty clear that an agility field is for running agility and not for playing with toys.
Because he will chase a ball and interact with a tug, we can work to ‘insert’ that into the procedures to build value. Stay tuned for more on that – I just did that with a tennis ball for one of the youngsters who had no interest in tennis balls… but is going to learn flyable, so the ball had to become exciting LOL! And we can do the same for Keltie!
>>Keltie is almost 4 years old and the polar opposite of Buccleigh. She likes agility but it’s kind of a fun game and not an intense experience. She is consistent but often slow. She runs faster when we are both confident and I think there is potential for improvement. She is an intense foodie and has been know to stop mid stride on a course if she smells a cookie anywhere in the vicinity.
She not too excited about toys but she will tug and chase things when she is relaxed. She absolutely thinks that the manners minder is the best thing that was ever invented.
Both dogs do better when I can reward with food while we train. I think this course is really going to help us transition from rewarding in the ring to rewarding outside the ring.>>Yes! We want to be able to ‘do it all’: reward in the ring as needed, but also teach the dogs how to run courses with the reward outside the ring and still love to run! The remote reinforcement procedure gets that started. And her love of the MM might prove to be incredibly helpful!!!!
I am looking forward to work on this with Keltie and Buccleigh!
Tracy
