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Good morning!
The serps look good, he is driving in on both sides and you are moving a bit faster (but not so fast that it is messing him up). Placement of reinforcement and connection Yay!One little detail to help him really understand the countermotion exits:
Compare the back-to-back reps at :21 and :36 –
When he is on your left arm (:21), you are releasing when you are on the landing side which is a little early for the countermotion element.When he is on your right arm (:36, for example), you are better about releasing when you are passing the wing and getting to the takeoff side.
So do more of that timing of release on the left too – your goal is to get to the takeoff side before the release so he can understand countermotion the same way as he does on the right arm side.
You can revisit this here and there, adding more motion each time too! And remember to praise him after you drop the treat – the session was very quiet and serious LOL! Praising him will build value for your voice which will be useful when he is trialing and there are no cookies available 🙂
>>Also, we have been practicing the tunnel discrimination and to start this game, me holding him is too much pressure. Thoughts? Also, he doesn’t want to go all the way in the crate when he makes his crate decision.>>
Too much pressure, meaning, he is avoiding being lined up? Isolate the skill of being held, going back to the early toy race/driving ahead games: hold him, drop something, let him grab it when you let go 🙂 You can hold his collar, hand on chest, etc – just to get him happy with being held.
And for going into the crate – use a really big crate and isolate that skill too: be sure he has a ton of value for going all the way into it even with a bit of speed, and toss the treats into it. When he loves driving into it, then you can add it back to the tunnel game 🙂Nice work here!
TracyGood morning!!
I am happy with this session!!
>>She is taking off way too early and is not adding a collection stride at all. We really haven’t done much jump work at all. But, she’s clearly not centering over the bar.
Actually, she was making very good adjustments especially when we consider how young and inexperienced she is. She had trouble going from the Go extensions to a wrap on the next rep. But when she did a couple of wraps in a row, she was making adjustments to take off closer, collect, and bend. Yay!!
So with that in mind… since doing the Go reps was creating a question on the wrap rep after it, let’s separate these 2 cues for a couple of sessions: do a session of only Go cues. Take a break, then do a session of only decel/wrap cues. After 2 or 3 sessions of each, you’ll be able to merge them back into one session. And yes, continue rewarding her decision to come back around the wing on the decels, even if her collection is not perfect. She is sorting out how to use her body and we will keep reinforcement flowing for that.
Great job!
TracyGood morning (or is it afternoon there? Lol!)
I’ll post the recording shortly. We didn’t discuss much about jump height, but I do discuss it in the 2nd game (where we replace the wing with a jump)Juno. These games all begin with low bar. One of my demo pups also jumps 500 in competition, so he was doing these games with the bars at 300 I think (12 inches). My smaller dogs who jump 400 were doing the games at 200. The low jump heights help set them up for success as they are learning the games, and we will raise the heights later in the class 🙂
Have fun!
TracyGood morning and welcome! Great seeing you in the Zoom last night 🙂
Training the verbals will help her know what to do even if you are late or mess up 🙂 Pay close attention to her success rate – if her effort is good even if the response was not perfect, you can reward! That will help reduce her need to deliver tooth hugs 🙂 Biting is a frustration behavior that goes away when we raise the success rate.
Have fun!
TracyHello and welcome!!!! This will be fun for him – he’s powerful and fast, so more verbals will be helpful!
Tracy
Good morning and welcome!!
>>We’ve been working on verbals, but they seem to decline at the few trials. Mostly that’s because I don’t think on my feet fast enough to use them consistently/correctly. I’m looking forward to improving my ability to get the words out at speed and I know Mr. Spot will certainly appreciate it too.>>
Processing is hard for dogs and people at trials! Both of you are working at higher speeds with more distractions. The rehearsals here will help and we can definitely get you rehearsing them at home and in walk through so you feel very comfy spitting out the correct words at the correct times 🙂
Good morning and welcome!!!
Yes, you can totally swap out dogs based on the games and the needs of each dog.>>Is there ever a way for verbals to overcome our motion?
Yes! That is one of the goals of this session: getting the verbals to override body language especially if we do things like disconnect, move arms at the wrong time, etc.
>> should we even want that?
Yes we totally want that 🙂
>>I’m thinking our motion will be “listened” to more than any verbal.
The dogs ‘listen’ to motion naturally which is why things go wrong when our motion is not perfect. And they can totally learn to listen to verbals too!
>> I looked at the syllabus for the 5 weeks of this course. Where would pinwheels fit in?
Pinwheels are “soft” turns, which begin in week 2. And those verbals can be applied to pinwheels specifically later in the course.
>And, how long will tonight’s chat last? Winter Olympics is on and men’s short program in figure skating starts at 8:15 Eastern time>
Chen’s short program was AMAZING!!!!!
Tracy
Good morning and welcome to you and the Pointer girls!!!
I’m glad the worksheet is making you think hard about it LOL!!! Clarifying what everything means to you will help us clarify things for the dogs. You can try a different approach – for example, when you say ‘sit’ or ‘down’, what do you want the dogs to do, exaclty, and what do they have to do to make it happen? Then we will apply that same thought process to the turn verbals 🙂
Let me know if that makes sense!
TracyGood morning!
Great job on this list!!!! The details you’ve added will really help the training.
A couple of things for you to consider as you plan your training:>>Wing Wrap Cue
Verbal Cue: Check, Check, CheckI recommend having 2 separate cues for wraps – one cue indicates wrapping to his left, one indicates wrapping to his right. That will create even more independence and he can process sooner/faster, because he won’t need to see where you are before driving into the turn.
>>Side Change / Turn Cue: Rear Cross
Verbal Cue: Switch
* What should the dog do in front of the jump? The dog should drive ahead of the handler, take the jump and turn on the landing side (handler switches sides with the dog on the takeoff side of the jump / obstacle)>>The switch cue can be more specific to include how tightly he needs to turn – is it a sort turn, or a wrap? If you can clarify how tight the turn would be, you can then clarify what he needs to do on the takeoff side and where to look which allows him to process and execute faster 🙂
>>>Wing Wrap / Turn Cue: Push to the Backside
Verbal Cue: Push>>For backsides, I suggest a cue that indicated backside slice versus backside circle wraps 🙂 I know, I’m being a pain LOL! But the separate verbals will give him info sooner, which speeds up processing of the cue and builds confidence.
>>Tunnel Discrimination
Verbal Cue: Pass>>
* What should the dog do in front of the tunnel? The dog approaches the tunnel, passes the nearside entry and continues on to the entrance that is further away.
* Default Behaviors: Looking straight until cued to enter tunnel>>Awesome! I love that you have a tunnel discrimination cue. My only suggestion here is that you add taking the far end of the tunnel as a default behavior. He can just go do it, and not wait for a cue to do it. So the Pass cue would mean both pass the nearside entry and go into the far side entry 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHelllooooooo and welcome!!!
I will put the worksheet into a Google doc, so everyone can download it that way. I’ll email when I post it later this morning.
And yes, we can look at adding other nights! I’m thinking maybe a couple of Thursdays?
T
Good morning, and welcome!
Poor Flurry! Did the vets figure out exactly what the source of the pain was?
I agree – improved verbals will really help Skye sort out what to do with his body, which will improve confidence too! I’m looking forward to seeing him work!
TracyGood morning and welcome!!
You can train both dogs, pick and choose based on the exercise!
Callie might do better with bigger distances because she has more processing time, so playing games in small spaces can help that!
And thanks for the feedback on the aesthetic, I figured I could up my style game LOL
TracyHi!
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Tracy
