Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Hi! This also looks great!
She is still figuring out the balance of jumping on, so keep on rewarding. I am really happy with how she is moving into the position before you even do the target cue – that is what we want (getting into position with the board in the air rather than waiting til it is on the ground).
We are going to want her to look at you less on this game too. You can have the MM several feet out in front here too so she has it as a focal point (and doesn’t look at you or the cookies). That will also make it easy to get to the next step of you adding motion!Let me know if that makes sense! I think when she has the focal point, it will be very easy to add your motion and then also very easy to go to the Crazy Elevator Games 🙂
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! She has made really lovely progress! Tons of confidence on the end of the board and also when doing the downhills 🙂 Yay!
Looking at the end position: I like that you went to a MM to get her to not look at you – that was my main comment on the earlier part of the session, that she was looking at you a lot so perhaps a MM would be a good idea LOL! The MM instantly got her looking ahead and doing the end position. Yay! Having it that close to the board is a starting point and we can build on it. She was looking ahead really well when you were moving past the end of the board towards the end of the session – but that still counts as looking at you LOL!! Her position was great though.
So to get her looking ahead the whole time even when you are behind or parallel, I think moving the MM gradually further and further out can help that a lot! She will still have to choose position, but the MM can be a focal point where you can release to for the reward (or sometimes toss the reward back to her). You can start it 4 or 5 feet away then it will be easy to fade out later on. Let me know if that makes sense! Onwards to the elevator game!Tracy
Hi! Sorry to hear that work is so stressful, I can’t imagine how hard it is to be a teacher nowadays! How long til the summer break?
Maple did really well on these videos!!! Hopefully you had fun with the training!
Wind in your hair – looking really good! I was just about to type that you could add more distance between the wing and the jump… then you did it. Great minds think alike LOL!!! She was great with the distance and added more speed 🙂 Yay! So the next thing you can do is start closer to the wing wrap (stay there til she exits) and then run forward: this will get her learning how to drive ahead of you (which will set you up for the rear cross games). You can also play with the backsides and wrap transitions too!
The serpy zig zags are also going nicely! One suggestion: Try not to turn your feet as much, just use your upper body to push and pull her through the little setup. The next step is to go out to the 3rd wing and face her, standing still – see if she can do it only on upper body cues! She is getting the in-and-out rhythm so I think you can add challenge here too.
Great job!!! Keep on carving out the time for these little games, she looks great and hopefully it will distract you from the stress of work!
TracyHi! Thanks for sharing the entire session! It makes a big difference to see what is going on.
What had happened 30 minutes prior to the start of this video?
I am going to try to convince you to entirely change your thinking on this. Dog training in general, and teeter training in particular, are not about what happens in one session. It is about building a history through those sessions – both operantly and reflexively.
Operantly, it is that history of positive reinforcement for being successful, which is why it is important to split the behaviors down to little pieces and reward reward reward reward. I think you focus on this a LOT and you do a good job of rewarding. That is the good news.But the bad news is that operant condition is a distant second to reflexive response (classical conditioning) and that is where your teeter training is going wrong. If you build a history of a negative conditioned response to the teeter, it will completely override your operant conditioning. That is why you might feel like you have rewarded the teeter a zillion times but he still doesn’t want to do the teeter.
>>Well thinking back to the other teeter classes have taken, things go so well and then we get to a point where he just said no… sigh today my heart sank as it happened today.>>
That is the negative conditioned response overriding the operant training. Accidentally creating the history of the negative CER is the issue here. There are a lot of reasons why he has negative emotions about the teeter (noise, movement, weight shift, etc) but mainly when you get to a certain point, there is a ton of pressure on him and that is where he struggles the most.
In order to change the history and create the positive conditioned response, you have to look at things differently:
>>He really just does not like bang game.
Based on his body language and his response to the first rep, he thinks the bang game is fine… he doesn’t like the pressure. And the pressure gets associated with the teeter and the environment – which is why he doesn’t want to go near the teeter especially in those environments. You need to recognize that as what you are trying to train through – we aren’t trying to train the teeter here, we are trying to change his reflexive response to it. That is why I put such a heavy emphasis on one-rep sessions, and massively high value rewards. Then done! Full session, that is it.
That will allow you to gradually build in the pressure of the environment and the pressure of repetition.
If you keep going, and he gets stressed and says no, and you keep trying – it gets into this pressure cycle and builds even more history of the negative conditioned response. That in turn is going to make it harder and harder to get to the finished teeter in class or competition settings, because it becomes associated with the negative feeling of pressure and having to do it again.
>>then could hear you yelling at me for keep going>>
LOL yes! I would have ended at :15, when he did a nice bang game rep with barking dogs in the background. It builds a positive association AND gives me more time for a nice glass of wine. Winning! There were a bunch of times that I would have suggested ending the session. And trying to engage him when he is concerned is great but it doesn’t have to involve the teeter – the weaves were good and the tunnel was fun – but then don’t go back to the teeter.
You got him happy in the environment… but then asked for more teeter and that produced more negative associations. That can poison the teeter and he won’t want anything to do with it.One of my favorite agility (and life) mantras is:
“‘no’ is a complete sentence”This is for both humans and dogs. In agility, if my dog says “no”, I accept that and step away because I know if I push it then I risk poisoning something: the obstacle, the cue, the association with the environment… And I won’t ask for it again until I have a plan to make it super awesome.
So with Krome, he is already a little concerned with the environment in general, and separately with the teeter. Adding them together makes things difficult which is why you need to be hyper-focused on his conditioned response to the situation and not getting a lot of repetition in. Operant repetition is very easy when the dog has the right conditioned response – but I think you tend to focus more on getting him to do more so that skews his conditioned response negatively and sets you way back in the training.
Let me know if that makes sense. I am confident that if you can focus on reducing the pressure while changing the history of his conditioned response, he will be able to produce great teeter performance! We can see that happening with the crazy elevator game – but we need to protect that like gold and not have any negative conditioned responses get built in.
Let me know what you think!
TracyHi there!
This was a much more successful session on the end position, yay! You were good about staying in motion – I think the decel you were seeing was you trying to watch what he was doing. So keep reminding yourself to take an extra step or two or 3. Since we are obsessing on mechanics, don’t move the cookie hand til after you say get it – otherwise he locks onto the cookie hand moving. That might be what was happening when he had the errors in the middle on your right side (cookie hand more obvious to watch than when he was on your left, because the cookies were in your right hand)
Also don’t anger the training gods, he failed immediately after each time you said this is going better hahahahaha Just kidding! It was a really strong session 🙂The downhills – these are going very nicely, it was fun to see him kick into a higher gear of speed! And he was strong with his end position here too, I think the clearer mechanics really benefit him. One thing to remember is to keep moving after the blinds – you did the blind and stopped and we don’t want him to cue off the stop.
>>Since we are getting near the end of the course and Chapter will be out of training for about ten days give or take starting next Friday- what should I focus on?>>
That’s easy: the elevator game, then the crazy elevator games 🙂 They bring us to the finished behavior. They both require really obsessive mechanics, so feel free to practice without him at first so you can have great mechanics – there is a lot of speed that gets involved, and a lot of moving parts 🙂
Great job here!!!
TracyHi!
It is great to be able to see these things here, it will make your course running much easier!She is finding the serp jump really nicely, even with the backside push. One detail on the serp is to rotate your upper body to ‘face’ the jump more (your line of motion was good!) What I mean by that is as your feet are running forward, turn at the waist so that the line from your shoulder to shoulder across your chest is parallel to the to t he jump bar, so the center of your chest points to the bar and both of your shoulders line up to the both wings of the jump. You were turning your shoulders perpendicular to the jump so she was coming in but reading it like a post turn. She did go back out because the MM was there, but she did it after landing. So to get the turn before takeoff, ‘face’ the jump more with your upper body. Let me know if that makes sense 🙂
For the FC wraps – that is a connection thing! The connection was not clear enough so she was relying on motion – and Ruse loves big lines and going fast, so she chose the jump over the turn. And she was correct on a lot of them too, based on what she could see:
At :33, and :37 and 1:01, you had connection as she finished he wrap but then broke connection to point forward so she read it as a blind cue and took the jump.
At :41, :43, :46 :49 – she took the jump on those because there was a lot of motion right too it and your dog-side arm was blocking the connection, so she didn’t really know to come into the gap.
She was getting it by the end but there was a lot less motion and your hand lower down by her face. Now, that cue works (standing still with a low hand) but then she will smoke you on the next line 🙂
So one thing to try is that cross body connection as she exits the wing wrap so you can keep moving: if she is exiting the wing on your right side, don’t try to pick her up with your right arm. Instead, show your your left hand across your body, on your right hip, and make eye contact as you keep moving (and maintain it til she is parallel to you). That will exaggerate the connection by moving the dog-side arm back and opening up your shoulder. She should read it nicely! And it gives you the muscle memory of the connection so you won’t always have to use the arm across the body (it is not a threadle arm, it is more about laying your opposite arm across your belly and onto your hip as you look back for her eyes).Let me know if that makes sense! I think it will help her find the wrap side very easily 🙂
TracyHi! Lots of good work here!
Rear crosses after the tunnel:
I think two things will make this easier:
Focus on connection, both to the tunnel and after the tunnel – try to keep moving AND make eye contact. The eye contact turns your upper body more to the line so she will take the obstacle your upper body is turned towards. When you did that, she was really good about finding the tunnel and going to the jump! But if you looked forward, she was not sure which end of the tunnel to go into or didn’t lock onto the jump – that was because looking forward turns your shoulders away from the line you want, and dogs follow our shoulders.The rear crosses are coming along nicely! Your first one and your last one were the boest ones, because you had the best timing and connection on those. The other suggestion for you is about timing:
You were trying to cut in behind her too early on the reps where you got a little tangled in her line – keep running forward for longer, towards the center of the bar, until she is past you and looking at the jump – then you can start cutting in behind her. That plus connection will get the rear crosses done really consistently 🙂Transitions – connection will help here too, and more acceleration – you were moving but not really accelerating so she was not sure if she should drive or not. Warm up with lots of driving ahead and thrown rewards, really running 🙂 Because you can probably run pretty fast on the mats – as soon as you get her driving to the jump, you would want to place yourself very close to the wing and not run until she is just about done wrapping it, so you don’t get too far ahead.
Also, one other thing that I think was making her sticky to you: she is staring at your hands with the treat even when you are good with your connection. To help fix this, no more reinforcement from your hands here, all thrown even on the wraps 🙂 I know the directions say to reward from the hand after the wrap, but we can change that to get commitment – when you cue the wrap and she commits, you can toss the toy to the landing side. That will help get her eyes off of your hands.
Zig zags – she is doing well here too! One thing to smooth it out even more is starting her from a stay next to the first wing. It will be much smoother if you are ahead by at least by a jump so you can cue her earlier. It is harder to show her the line when she is next to you- and you can also use more dramatic upper body handling so your feet can go straight, no need to move your line of motion in and out (just the upper body/arms for that).
Get Out
This is also working really well!!! On the reps where you cued it but she did not do it – try starting the cue sooner, as soon as she gets around the wing – that is when she is making the decision on what is next and I think that will help her find the jump when you want it (she was really great with the get out when it was a little sooner, and also with following your line on the other reps).
You added the outside arm later in the session and it worked really nicely!!! It is a really strong cue – it also gave you more leeway with the timing, because it is so strong that she was getting out even if it was a little late. Yay!Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>> . I see what you mean about the layering. It’s not something we do in agility usually. >>
It is not something any of us worried about for literally a couple of decades… but now it is making a big comeback on European courses and has found its way across the Atlantic so we are starting to see the need for it here. Which means it will then be making its way across the Pacific and will arrive on your shores soon 🙂 Course design elements always spread so we will be adding in layering more now. (BTW, we will be doing it in the CAMP class – you had mentioned needing interested in taking it. I am closing out working spot registrations today, so if you wanted a spot and see it is closed, just email me and I will get you in :))
>>When I stepped past the weaves with motion and helped Hero to the tunnel he got it right every time. When I slowed my motion and gave the weave cue early he was able to make the decision to go to the weaves no problem.
Yes, I thought the first part of this session went perfectly!!! You will soon be able to not have to worry about your motion and you’ll get it on verbals – because we won’t always be close enough to get it with motion (darned European course challenges hahahaha)
>>When I added more motion by sending him round two wings first and then asking to go to weaves, I blew his mind lol.>>
Yes, I think it did haha! The first rep with the error added more motion from you so at first I thought that was the challenge? But then you dialed it back on the next rep and nope, he still took the tunnel. So it was an arousal thing! But he will work through it: start the next session just like you did on the 2nd failure rep: around both wings with not a TON of motion from you. The wings added a lot of stimulation so we will let him sort it out there first, and then add back your motion. I am confident that he will have it perfectly next time, that seems to be how he works when he finds something challenging 🙂
Separately, you can go back to the 6 poles and work the straight pole stuff! And more games are coming shortly that bring him to 12 🙂
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
He was a super good boy in a really hard setup! He was at 63% rate of success here, so we want to keep raising it. The physical presence of the dogs and people was not a big issue – when they were present but quiet, he was 100%. And that is a GREAT thing because it was an impressive visual distraction. The errors all correlated to noise – crowd noise on 2 of them and toller noise on the other. Does correlation equal causation? Not sure entirely but my guess is that in this session…. yes. So that is good to know for the future to layer in noise in very small increments to setup success. – too much as once guarantees failure.
Now, for planning: Because his success rate was averaging 70% over the course of the last several sessions, the next sessions need to pump that up to get back to 90% and up. So, since you’ll be on 8 channels, do 3 or 4 sessions over the course of this week that are greatly reduced in distraction level so he can be ultra successful.
I am whipping out the calculator for everyone because the umbrella rate of success will affect his internal state when he sees the weaves. If the overal rate is too low, we see fallout behaviors that go unnoticed til they are VERY noticed LOL! Some dogs sniff or leave, I don’t think Presto would do that. But some dogs bark and get over-stimulated, which leads to errors… and he might fall into that category 🙂 So keep an eye on the success rate for the next few sessions and when we are back up to the 90% range, we can make the poles tighter 🙂 Yay!
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
She was a good girl here – very nice entries on all reps with all angles!!!! And she is finding her bouncing really nicely. Watching this and then scrolling back, I think that she might be thinking really hard because the weaves are different every time (or almost every time) so she is working out what they are doing before she enters.
>> She is thinking as she approaches the poles, so steps through, then seems to gather steam (read confidence) and usually bounces 2 times on her way out. We’ll do this sort of thing again. I am wondering if she will always prefer to be careful on entry, then speed up? Being right seems to be quite important to her (loves those toys, treats, and praise). Quite frankly, it doesn’t really bother me. She is so good at nailing the entries and doing things from all sorts of angles. >>
So I think the being careful on approach has more to do with them being slightly different each time, as well as the different angles. I like that she is working to get it right!!!! But I also want her to run to the entry more, because trotting in changes the weight shift and then she might struggle with it when she is going faster or at full height.
I think there are two simple ways to help her out though. Since we can’t necessarily reward for speed, we can let her percolate it on her own by leaving the poles in the same exact position (in terms of all 4 being straight) for multiple sessions now. If it is always the same, then she won’t have to assess and she can just run 🙂 If we keep changing/adding, she is going to keep slowing down as she approaches them, and then it is going to be harder to convince her to run if she has a lot of rehearsal of trotting.
And the other suggestion is to throw the reward after the weaves more now, instead of past the next obstacle. That is trickier LOL!! You can throw it ahead as soon as she is completing the weaves, and it can land either near or after the next obstacle, but as long as the throw begins as she exits, I think she will realize it is specifically for the poles. That will also get more wind in her hair 🙂Let me know what you think! Fingers crossed for continued good weather so we can do lots of short 4 pole sessions 🙂
TracyHi! Great session here!!! He was nailing it even without the target!
So in keeping with the general theme, 3 things you can add, in this order:
– more motion, of course 🙂
– realistic position of ‘rushing’ past him like we would do on a course: go deeper to the tunnel and then he will get on the plank a little ahead of you. You then keep moving past him towards the tunnel like you did here.
– if he is happy with you rushing past him, we add a rear cross of the plank 🙂 Go much deeper to the tunnel then let him drive ahead on the jump before the plank – then rear cross the plank.These are all things we want him to do on the teeter, but the plank has no concussion on his body so we can work out all the games here 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
Really strong session here!!! He is driving through the pivot to the end, he is super fast, AND he is happy 🙂 And you are doing a great job of catching that board LOL!!!
A couple of little details on the mechanics to think about as we build towards the finished product:– on the countdown, be sure you hold the board until after you say the paw cue – then drop it. On these, you were dropping it either just before or simultaneously with the paw cue. Saying the cue then dropping it will give him a better preparation moment for the weight shift.
– You can now catch the board later, so it moves down a bit before you catch it 🙂
– looking at the reinforcement mechanics: it was hard to tell if there was something on the target already or if the cookies you were delivering at the top were sticky? He was still licking/chewing when the board was landing LOL! So ideally you don’t have anything pre-loaded on the target, and the cookies from your hand are tasty but easily swallowed (I was using meatballs). That way you can grab the board, pop a treat in his mouth – then wait for him to swallow it, then start the countdown, cue the paw, drop the board: then reward again.
That means at this point, he won’t be eating during the countdown, which means he will begin to focus downwards to the target and shift his weight back. Then you can also reward end position decisions.let me know if that makes sense! I think on the next session, with catching the board a little later, we are getting closer to the finished product of cuing the paw behavior as he gets on the board and not catching it, but let’s do one more session of crazy elevator and see what he thinks.
Great job!!!
TracyGood morning! This was a worthwhile session – he did a good job sorting out how to stay balanced! And I guess he is really liking the teeter if he jumps on the high end before you even finish spooning out the food haha!!!! I think he was doing a really good job of finding the entry and then working his balance across the board. Nice!!
If he jumps over the guide to get on, I do what you did at :33 – I call the dog back, have a laugh and use a little more handling to convince them to go around the outside of the guide. He was pretty good about NOT jumping over it but he did try the shortcut once or twice LOL! But since it is a line up game that is really safe if he makes an error, if he cheats a little and ends up getting the cookies: no problem.
This went really well and now it goes into a rotation of just being revisited every now and then. I think you can now shift your focus to the crazy elevator game this week and I bet he will quickly be doing full teeters 🙂
This is exciting! Great job here, fingers crossed for good weather so you can get lots of teetering in!
TracyGood morning!
I am glad you posted this! First: there is a LOT of good stuff happening here! She is focusing forward beautifully and she has an understanding of the weight shift and target position. The down will be very easy to add on. I like your clicks! And you do not appear unsure, even if you feel that way inside LOL!So then why is her performance still a little sideways? You are spot on in your assessment that the teeter is too slippery. She is trying to weight shift and get into position but her hind end keeps slipping out from under her on the board when she tries it. I can see her working good mechanics and showing understanding – but she does not have enough grip on the board to make it happen.
Let’s brainstorm to help her out:
I like your yoga mat idea, it was the first thing that popped into my brain when you mentioned the slippery seesaw before I watched the video. It will work for the bang game and elevator game, but it will not work for the downhills and the crazy elevator game (because a yoga mat will have too much grip, they have more grip than the contact rubber would).The other option is a painting party 🙂 You can repaint the board using a combination of outdoor paint (not the shiny kind, I can go look up exactly what it is called) and sand. I have done that and it works great – lots of grip but not too grippy. Let me know if you are interested in arts and crafts and I can get the exact type of paint.
And the other option is to purchase rubber skins – there are a few places that are good and a few that are terrible. I can get you the list of good place if you want to go that route. But in the meantime, the yoga mat option is great!!
Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
Most of the reps on this session were super strong! I have one small tweak for the structure of the session: rather than start with the wing to the plank with you adding a lot of motion (her motion and your motion) – give her a couple of high arousal warm up reps by getting her nutty, maybe with some tug – and then doing some targeting right at the end with you moving forward (just like the bang game). That can help set her up for success right away and then you will have an easier time getting to the reps with the wing and running. She is able to do them successfully later in the session, but asking for it right off the bat was a little too much.
And the high arousal warm up will mirror what we do on the crazy elevator game, plus it mirrors how I recommend we move the behavior to the trial ring. So she will recognize it more easily, which then makes it easier to fade out because it will generalize into the full teeter behavior.
She had a TON of great reps in the middle section. It looks like she had one miss, after the ‘break’ in the middle of the video – so that first rep is the hardest one! The high arousal warm up should help get the first rep to be great too.
Nice work!! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
