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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
Good morning! Wow, no snow and not too cold in January? That makes for fun agility training! Yay! These games looked super good!!!
On the first clip:The Go exits look really good, my only suggestion is to add a little more connection to her eyes when she is in your left, she seems to want to curl in to you more on that side – she seems straighter on your right. But she was really driving out beautifully plus your physical & verbal cues were well-timed.
on the lefts & rights: your verbal timing was spot on! You can turn your shoulders sooner, to match the timing of the verbals – your verbals were great but you were running forward so she was a little wide on the exit, checking for info. So for now, show her the shoulder turn to the left or right at the same time as the verbal to support it with motion – and then in the future you will be able to fade it out and she will respond on verbals only.
On the RC video – wow!!! Super nice on the RCs!! Those are particularly hard RCs and your verbals & physical cues were spot on. Yay! And the go balances looked great, she did not appear to ask any questions. That is terrific!!!
Great job on both of these! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
The teeter-for-meals program is looking GREAT, he is driving up it so nicely!!! Since he is so young, keep going with that and you can also add in a rear cross on the mountain climber game.
If you have access to another teeter, you can bring the PVC teeter holder to a new place and do a one-hit-wonder on a different teeter. It would be perfectly normal for him to be cautious on a new teeter so no worries if he is not as good in a new place as he is at home – the one hit wonders will transfer 🙂The bang game is also going really well! He seems super confident on those too 🙂 Yay!
>>watch his rear legs when he jumps onto the end of the teeter from his right side. See how he lifts his rear leg up? Is that okay, should I be concerned? >>
Yep, I see that on the bang game and some skip steps running up the board on mountain climbers. What does it mean? I don’t know – from the training side of things, it could be that he is not sure how to shift his weight back so is off balance (which is what Export did at this age – Export spends all of his life skipping with his left hind in the air but was fine in agility and had no patella issues). So two ideas for you:
for the weight shift, don’t add more height to the bang game yet as that will put him more on his front to leap on. You can add tugging in position or you can add tugging on a wobble board (toy nice and low) to begin weight shift. I have a game that will also help with the weight shift but I would start with the tugging on the wobble board at this stage.For more strength and balance, I suggest working on his backing up skills, cavaletti trotting, and fitness fitness mountain climbers (not teeter mountain climbers hahaha):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxuhEL2yRHU>>I’m trying not to be a helicopter mom but, well, it’s hard.
No explanation needed, totally relate!!
2nd video:
Yay backsides – he can do all of Sizzle’s games so far! There will be a spot where the youngsters won’t be able to do all the backside training, but that is a few weeks away. He is really good about the countermotion element of it and looks like the default of taking the jump is already well-established. Yay! One tweak, which will be very useful as you move further and further away across the bar: when he is in the sit, step away to your parallel starting line (but not forward), then start moving forward on the parallel path, connect… then release 🙂 You were melding the steps together so he was not always clear before he left the side. On some of the reps where you got zig zags, you were moving laterally away, then starting the parallel line & connection at the same time as the release, so he had to read it late or he read front side (like at :21). You can see the pattern more correctly at 1:01 (except you were a little too far across the jump for his level there, but everything else was really good! Make each element distinct before the release and it will smooooooth out his line 🙂On the RCs – these are hard skills, not intuitive to the dog at all! He did better when you added more pressure, right up on his tail (the one-jump work looked really strong) so make sure you are there to add that pressure without accidentally pushing him to the backside. The accidental backsides were timing moments – you were pushing the pressure line and turning your feet before he was past you. So keep your feet moving up the RC pressure line, towards the center or far side of the bar til he is past you, then cut in and turn your feet. The verbals are going nicely and your throws are helpful – I see no problem with early throws like at 1:37 to help with the turn. You are basically saying “when the momma does *this* (RC pressure) the toy will be *there*”. You can also leave a toy out there on the line or tuck a MM into the wing on the landing side to help out.
He is definitely getting better and better at these! If he gets it right – big party. If he turns the wrong way – show him the toy where you would put it if he got it right, have a small party, try again. The small parties of “ooh look when you see the pressure then the toy is here!” will help him read the pressure sooner so you won’t have to be as perfect when he is an adult. And if he ends up on the backside – totally reward because that was cued 🙂
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
That is weird that the posts went missing – I had something similar happen over the weekend when I was trying to post lessons, thought they were posted but nope, they were not. Hmmm! I will ask the tech guru to see if anything weird is happening or if 2020 is trying to hang on here.It was really good to see all of these videos and try to sort out his serpentine questions (serps are actually really complex from the dog’s perspective). He was really good with his jumping efforts (those are super hard and yet it seemed effortless for him – yay!!!). So I think his questions came down to 2 things – line of motion and anticipating the back out of the cue based on timing of the upper body. Here are details and ideas:
On the first video – super nice on the first reps where you were walking and smoooooth on the line of motion. At :24 – :26 you got your first accidental backside: it looks like this is casued by a combination of the upper body serp cue happening as he is approaching the serp jump, and then your line of motion pushing back in to the next jump (which does look like a backside push). Subtle, yes, but Kaladin reads subtle 🙂 Then I think he was guessing/anticipating – it is probably physically easier to go to the backside of the jump by making the changes on the flat than it is to find the front side of the jump at that angle and make the lead changes on approach to the jump.
The other element that I think was contributing: the upper body serp rotation (arm back, chest facing the bar) can come sooner and then not move, so he is seeing it long before the jump – by showing it to him a little later, he is seeing the come in cue a little late which then causes him to anticipate the back out element, leading to the backside. Even with the jumps angled I think you were feeling that he was considering more “back out” than we need.
You can see this on the flat angles of the serp jumps where serp was jump 2 – the cue was in place sooner and you didn’t pull in as much or push back out and they look really strong!!
On the 2nd video – (tunnel – jump – jump) – this is where I see more of the itming of the upper body contributing to him added extra go-back-out: As he approached the jump after the tunnel you were opening up, so it is possible he was reading that cue as an anticipation/wind up for being pushed out. So switch the timing a little: as soon as he is in the tunnel, get your serp arm back to a comfortable posture and then run up the line without moving in or out (upper body frozen while feet move) so he sees the come-in sooner and doesn’t anticipate it as being paired with the go-back-out. And that way you won’t have to change your line to exaggerate the arm back.
For now, leave the angles of the jumps pretty open so it is really really hard to find the backside, and then you can stay in a fast steady motion – then angle the first jump after the tunnel closed… then we can angle the 2nd jump after the tunnel closed.
3rd video – I can see that anticipation here too, with the cue happening on approach to the serp jump so he is pushing back out – on the angled lines he is not finding a backside but I think I see what you were feeling about him pushing away. That is causing you to work harder than needed to get him all the way in and not anticipating the back out to the other side.
Nice job working the timing of the verbals on the tunnel exit – you were a little late on the left cue at :54 but that is also a wicked hard serp angle – you worked it a bit sooner and dang – it was stunning at 1:07!!! Look at that exit and how he drove in for the serpentine!!!! That was a happy dance moment for sure.
So for now, keep the serp jumps angled so you can run the lines nice and close to the jumps (about an arm’s length away) and the backsides will be hard to find – that way you can have your serp arm back sooner and that can help him to not read it in a way that anticipates the back-out element, and then you can stay nice and close without having to change speed or open up more. A happy cycle!! Let me know if that makes sense!
Nice work!
TracyHi Joni! This was also a really lovely session!!!! You were great about sending, being patient, and then smooooothly moving away when she was reaching the stick. Super!!!!! My only suggestion is the same as above – no need to support as much with the send arm, don’t let it curl across you. Just send and then let it drop. You can definitely start leaving sooner and sooner now, she is rocking this. Question: have you decided what you want your wrap verbals to be? You can start using them (you were saying go, which is probably what you say to cue extension, so we want to add the wrap tight turn verbals in). Do you have a wrap verbal for Jedi? Let me know and then we will add them in.
Great job!
TracyHi! This is going really nicely!!! Was the barrel/trash can a new object to go around? She did a great job committing.
>>sometimes she seems a little wide at the beginning of the turn. But then she comes in tighter when chasing me/toy. Should she be tighter? Maybe not. >>
I think she was looking around a little bit – the environment is still relatively new, the game is new, there was other stuff visible and dogs were barking in the distance. So I am not worried about tightening it up at all, she will get it really nicely. Yuo were just about perfect on all of your patience in letting her come all the way around the barrel, I think there was only one time at you left too early (:50). One suggestion is that you can use your dog-side arm to send, but then you can relax it, no need to support her line with it by twisting it across you. That will help her commit even more independently because you will working up to leaving before she even gets to the barrel 🙂
>>Oh and sometimes I use my outside arm and sometimes the dog side arm. Probably good to just get used to both>>
For now, try to convince yourself to use the outside arm to reward, the connection looked fantastic when you did that and she really drove the line. By doing that now in the early stages, it becomes less important in the future and then you can connection with whichever arm you like 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi Dixie, great to see you here!!!
>>Auditor but thought I would start my own thread and ask questions here. Is that ok?
Yes, it is perfect 🙂
>>I have trouble with words sometimes so verbals are challenging for me more than the dogs.
That is something I have heard from lots of folks and also have had trouble with, myself! When I started agility, it was a real badge of honor to run silently… back when I was 20 years younger, 20 years faster and my dogs were much slower LOL! Two things that I have found to help are:
– prioritize the important ones and really focus on those. Otherwise your brain will not be happy!
– practice, practice, practice – using the one or two important ones, say them at every opportunity on course until they are second nature. So in my walk throughs at home, classes, seminars, and trials, I really focus on making sure I am saying the correct words by saying them during the walk throughs, out loud. I am sure people think I am a weirdo (they are correct haha) but it really really helps me pattern the words for myself.>> Both are Papillon 4 years old and 2 1/2 both on the larger size. (not huge).
I have 2 Paps as well! And a half-Pap haha 🙂 The 2 Paps are on opposite sides of the height spectrum: one is really big (11.5 inches) and the other is really small (8.5 inches). I love the breed – so much sass and personality, they are awesome!
>>We have 24 x 30 heated indoor training room so should be able to do most everything indoors. Looking forward to this class have been in a slump and not doing any training. So joined the class to get me motivated.>>
Perfect!!!! Keep me posted on how they do, feel free to provide updates as often as you like 🙂
Tracy
