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Hi!
>> I was planning on do four on- not sure why- maybe because a previous class I was taking was four on
4 on has gotten really popular with big dog handlers lately… based on some research about 2 years ago, I think this was partially because the dog arrives at criteria sooner so gets released sooner (in theory). But the problem then becomes that the dog doesn’t drive all the way to the end as well, so the teeter ends up either being slower or they get flyoffs.
>> but he also has a running dog walk so I wasn’t sure if two on two off would be confusing. Now I’m seeing that wouldn’t be be an issue since it’s different contexts.
I agree, it is not confusing to the dogs. They have us well-trained LOL!
>>When I do the backing up to teeter and backing up to a target (like fit bones, Cato board, etc) I struggle to get him to back up to four on so it ends up being a two on two off.
2o2o is a very natural position for the dogs and a very clear one. Plus it allows them to control the whip of the board better when they land in position, if you are going to hold them in position before the release (the 4on folks almost never hold the dog in position, it is almost always a quick release… which is why they also have issues with criteria slipping)
>>But we’ve also done a fair amount of bang game where he goes into the four on. Since we’re so early in the training, I’m wondering if I should do a two on two off? What are the advantage/disadvantages of each? Not sure if size matters but he’s probably around 35 pounds. I’m interested to hear your thoughts.>>
He is big enough that you can choose either! I personally would begin the training for a 2o2o. We can get him really driving into that position and shifting his weight. That is the position that is super clear to the dogs and easiest to maintain! And, it is super fast because the dog is more at the end of the board than a 4on, so the 2o2o drives the board down faster. Now, in a normal trial run you would make sure you released when he arrived at criteria in the 2o2o, so the 4on dog might get released sooner… but that doesn’t mean the 4on dog will be faster (when I compare video) because criteria gets cloudy – and if you wanted to release him quickly to try to win a big event, he will be happy to release and you will be super fast… but you can easily go back to your 2o2o. I did that with my oldest dog – for about 10 years, I maintained his 2o2o *except* in big events, where I released him as soon as the board hit the ground 🙂 He had a GREAT teeter, far better than my other dog who did a 4on, touch and go – he was slower because he didn’t drive to the end as well. Plus, when I did maintain the stop for a heartbeat, the 2o2o dog had an easier time controlling the bounce-back of the teeter under him because his front feet were on the ground (we have a game coming up for that.)
Food for thought!
TracyYay! I think it is all sorted out: refund sent, and the weaves class should be visible. Let me know!
T
Hi!
The rear crosses look great, and she was not asking any questions about driving ahead of you to the end! Very nice! And the front crosses did not distract her at all. I couldn’t see the wing in the video but she *definitely* had more speed. Love it! It all looked fabulous 🙂
So, on this teeter… add the tiniest bit of tip and be ready to jackpot! When adding tip, start with the easy stuff like you moving with her, and then move back up to the speedy stuff like the wing and crosses.Do you have access to other teeters? The mountain climbers without tip should go on as many teeters as you can get to.
Great job!
TracyHi!
>>I had debated 4o but decided it would probably be easiest to just stick to 2o2o to maintain. I’ve always been interested in a touch/go teeter (board hits the ground and the dog releases). Do you have any insight on that? Would you still have 2o2o? Or what would the criteria be?>>
About 2 years ago, I researched the various ‘popular’ teeter positions for large dogs like BCs to see why people were going to the touch and go, for example – turns out, the fancy touch and go releases we see in competition (particularly in Europe) are just quick releases where the 2o2o or 4on or down were simply not maintained, and the dog learned to run through with a touch and go. The result I found with many dogs had 3 things happen:
the teeter performance was slower, because the dogs were weight shifted earlier rather than driving to the end
the ‘don’t fly off’ element needed a lot of maintenance and very often, re-training
and, lots of flyoff calls because the dogs were anticipating the touch and go element.so, for me, it was not worth it to train for a touch and go – too risky and not reliable enough. I can still drop criteria and release early sometimes in big events (like a national finals) if I want to, but the layers of criteria will allow me to ‘get away with it’ without losing the end behavior.
>>For a target, would you use the treat and train? I can try adding the toys in too. She does like her food.>>
I might use the treat and train to reward sometimes with it placed several feet away, but the target can be something like a lid or strip of plastic for her to focus on without a reward on it – and it is small enough to fade easily 🙂
Tracy
Good morning!
>>Please let me know if it’s too late to be submitting more video for this class. I’ve completely lost track of when class was supposed to end.>>
Hooray for the snowing melting! Hopefully some of the high winds will help dry things out? Fingers crossed for spring weather!
I have also lost track of when this class officially ends LOL!!! I will go look – but keep posting, now that the weather is clearing up!!
The decel work is great for when you don’t want to move (generally the dogs do fine in squishy footing but we slip and slide doing the decelerations.
She was a bit wide on the first rep but then it looks likes she realized that she needed to add the collection without a lot of help from you… so she did! Good girl!
I think she was a little better turning to her left here, especially at :22 and :33 when she powered out of the tunnel and into the wraps really nicely. She did well on the left turns too, but you can help her set up the collections by angling your position a tiny bit – your right hip will be facing the wing a bit more rather than you facing forward.
She also did well at the end with the decel on the 2nd jump up the line – she just needs to see that more to practice collecting when there is even more speed.When the ground is less squishy, add in more motion and transition to see how she does reading the decel element of that. Great job here!
TracyHi!
>>Your motion with CB looks a lot better in this video (compared to E). So my guess is that he is farther along with his send aways in general or it has been more natural for him completely understandable given their age difference.>>Actually, I think Elektra is much better at independently hitting it, in fact she kept trying to start without me LOL!! But I did her session first and then realized I was ‘over-helping’ so I tried to help less with CB. My flyball homework is also to help less, just let them go do the thing without me and while I move away.
Elektra is also more ambidextrous so her turns in each direction are going ok – CB is a VERY strong lefty and the recent flyball box work has caused me to lose some of the balance on the mat work here. He is still pretty balanced on jumps though.
We will keep working! Thanks for the feedback!
Tracy>>The problem was that I had cheese curds in hand and MM had kibble – hence my Facebook post yesterday!
Ah! Got it. I mean, I would be distracted by cheese curds too LOL!!!
>>I went shopping last night and kibble is now marinating in stinky cheese and teriyaki beef jerky – and there are also hot dogs, peanut butter captain crunch AND Zukes in the house). My hand will have the plain stuff! Dogs are too smart…>>>
The things we do for our dogs… I would eat the captain crunch though, so it is not allowed in my house LOL!!!!
You can also have empty hands – nothing coming from the momma, it is all out ahead. It will be interesting to see how that shifts where he looks.
Keep me posted!
TracyHi! You posted in a separate thread – I copied the reply from there to here, in case you wanted to keep things all together:
He looked FABULOUS on the 2 reps here – I think the squeeze cheese was an excellent choice of reward! It was interesting that he had to take off for a run after the first rep. Perhaps he was relieving a bit of stress? But then the 2nd rep was great. Nice work convincing him that this is FUN. Because, historically, he will stop short and he jumped off when you introduced this game, I agree that he might not yet be fully comfortable with this. I suggest another session or two with you adding some of your motion by walking past the end of the board as he eats his cheese. And, if possible, moving the teeter and the set up to a different spot in the yard – even 5 feet away might feel like a totally new environment!
And, before adding tip, you can have him wrap a wing then run up the board. If he remains happy with all of that, then add a tiny bit of tip and see what he says. Definitely take your time building the love for the end of the board because we really want him to love driving there.
Great job!!
TracyGood morning!
Good boy here, Nuptse!!! Great job with the backing up, he was really thinking about his back feet! He did best when you got him to lower his head a little at :16 – you got him to come to your hand which was a little low, then he kept his head low as he backed up onto the bigger disc – perfect! Keeping his head a little lower frees up the hind end movement to be very independent.
He really loves that Manners Minder LOL!!! Backing up away from it was a great challenge, he was super. When you add backing up onto the teeter board, TOTALLY use the Manners Minder, I think that will get him really excited to do it – have him start with his chin near your hand too, to keep his head low. Great job!!!! Onwards to putting this on the end of the teeter with a tiny bit of tip 🙂Tracy
Good morning Helen!
He looked FABULOUS on the 2 reps here – I think the squeeze cheese was an excellent choice of reward! It was interesting that he had to take off for a run after the first rep. Perhaps he was relieving a bit of stress? But then the 2nd rep was great. Nice work convincing him that this is FUN. Because, historically, he will stop short and he jumped off when you introduced this game, I agree that he might not yet be fully comfortable with this. I suggest another session or two with you adding some of your motion by walking past the end of the board as he eats his cheese. And, if possible, moving the teeter and the set up to a different spot in the yard – even 5 feet away might feel like a totally new environment!And, before adding tip, you can have him wrap a wing then run up the board. If he remains happy with all of that, then add a tiny bit of tip and see what he says. Definitely take your time building the love for the end of the board because we really want him to love driving there.
Great job!!
TracyGood morning! (or is it afternoon there? Night?)
OMG he is a total cat LOL! He seemed to love the hopping on and turning around on the board. And talk about confidence!! He was so fast and confident on the downhill reps across the board. Gorgeous! Because he is so confident… add a little bit of tip! The goal is to add a tiny amount, very incrementally, so the behavior you got here is the behavior we get on every rep 🙂>>I will see if the wooden saw horses I have a low enough.>>
In the past, I have used adjustable saw horses for this game – I went to the local hardware store and explained what I needed 🙂
2nd video:
>.The easiest way for me to do that is with duct tape!>>
Ha! Duct tape is magic! I use it along with a piece of paper for my fancy targets LOL!!!!!
This session went really well. Like you said, he was totally on the behavior as soon as he got the first reward. The session length was good, definitely not too long – but I think the placement of reinforcement was encouraging the down by being a bit too low. You were really good on the first couple of reps to get the reward right down on the tape, to say to him “yes, it is about the strip of tape”. Then you can raise the reward so his head is higher to receive it, almost like he is supposed to get on the tape and do a stand stay. You’ll need to experiment for the best position for it, but I am guessing that delivering it in a plane near the bottom of his neck will work: he will turn his chin down to get it and will offer a tiny bit of weight shift, but he will not be thinking about the down. And the other placement of reinforcement you can mix in is to release and toss the cookie off to the side: that will be a response cost if he tries to move into the down after hitting the target. It will be inefficient for him to offer a down only to have to get up again and run to get the reward, so he is likely to stop offering the down and will be in more of that crouched/bow position you want.
>>When is it ok to give the behaviour a cue? I really want him with two paws on and head low and crouching, not lying down. Should I name it once it’s actually on the plank or seesaw, when the behaviour is closer to the end product? I want my target/seesaw cue to be “slam” like Ruse’s cue. That way I won’t get confused when I swap dogs at a show.>>
Excellent question! When you move it to a plank and you can consistently elicit the correct behavior with the context and the target… then slap the cue on right before you elicit the behavior.
For example, on the plank: I hold my dog’s harness, I get her excited (‘ready, ready’) and then let go. If that context and the presence of the target is enough to elicit the correct behavior regularly, then I add in the cue: same physical context, hold her, say ready ready TARGET! then let go 🙂We can name it on a plank and then transfer it to the seesaw because it is the same behavior, just in a different location.
He did really well on the fit bone! He was on the smaller side of it but still got all 4 feet on and balanced. Good boy! No worries at all! For this movement element: can you borrow a wobble board or a tippy board (miniature teeter) mainly because of the noise element – the fit bone won’t make noise but you can take a wooden thing and see how he feels about the noise it will make. You can take a piece of wood and make your own noise-maker: I took a piece of wood, put a towel over it, put a tennis ball in a sock and then taped the sock to the underside 🙂 It was not very fancy but totally did the trick on hard floors to make noise LOL!!
>>We are really enjoying the games and the learning, and the fact that we don’t need to rush!>>
Yay! He is looking great and we definitely don’t want to rush! He will tell us how fast or slow to go 🙂 How old is he? I don’t think I saw it above.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
On the first video –
His end position spot looks good in terms of driving to it and assuming the position but we are going to want him to look down more and for longer when he is on the moving board – as he is moving into the down, he is looking back at you. He is getting there looking straight but curling his head to look at you in the down. That might be why he was losing a foot off the side here and there. If you watch it in slow motion you can see he is driving to the end but on most reps – he is turning to look at you before his elbows are down on the plank.1:14 is an example of him looking forward the whole time – he didn’t look up at you until you got excited with praise 🙂
Yes, I am obsessing about a tiny detail but I think it will be useful!
So to get the behavior from 1:14 more reliably, we can tweak the placement of reinforcement to get him to be looking straight the whole time and not looking back. Move the MM in closer, so it is about a foot (or so) from the end of the plank. And for now, all rewards come from the MM – no rewards from you hand, because he is turning to track the movement of the reward coming in. If all rewards come from the MM, he is probably just going to run straight towards it, assume the position, and stare at it til it pays LOL!!!
At first, you can pay really quickly: release and beep the MM almost immediately. Then when he has stopped looking back for you, you can delay the timing and we will move the MM further out (but it will take a couple of sessions, probably). I think this is the final piece of the puzzle for the end position. You can also use a toy there (and release him to get it) if he can hit & hold the position with a toy out there.On the 2nd video – well that is convenient that there was a table available!
He was moving across it nicely – I don’t think he was worried about the tip but he just needed to sort the parameters of the game. The reward in the cookie tray is helping him go all the way to the end before doing the down – he was wanting to stop a little short and offer the down, then he fixed it by going all the way to the end then doing the down. That is the correct order of festivities: run all the way to the end *then* offer the down/. Good boy!! Of course, as the games merge there won’t be a cookie there to eat before the down, but for now I am liking how he was going allll the way to the end before the down.He did perfectly with all of your challenges – no problem with more speed or crosses (he seemed to enjoy when you added more of your motion running past!) He had to think about where his back legs were and that is fine.
>> I stuck with a very minimal tip, but didn’t get all the way through a rear cross or more speed with a wing. Does it make sense to keep it at this tip level and do those – or start to add just a bit more tip? >>
The rear cross and the wing games are better suited for the mountain climber games, where he will be able to climb right up the board (and not have to jump on a table before the board) so no worries that you didn’t do that here. If your next session is on a different teeter, start by recreating the start of the session here (minimal tip, moving across with him) so he recognizes the game. Then, if he thinks it is peachy keen – add a little more tip 🙂 If it is the same teeter in the same place, you can just add more tip right away but I like the first rep to be a warm up/reminder with youngsters 🙂
>>The weather has warmed up a lot around here…I’m crossing my fingers a patch of grass opens up by Sunday so I can pull out my own teeter. I mean, you can back up onto a teeter even if the ground is frozen, right?>>
Fingers crossed for an early and long spring so we get tons of good weather 🙂 And yes, you can totally back up onto the teeter and also go uphill and downhill on frozen ground 🙂
Great job here!
TracyGood morning!
>>That said…I couldn’t resist and I just ordered one of the ones like yours…hell, call it a business expense, right? 🙂 I really like the reward plate attached to it rather than the end of the teeter! Can’t wait for it to arrive.>>
That was 100% my rationale for ordering it, my two favorite words: tax deduction. I figured it would not get used much and it would help a friend whose business took a massive hit because of Covid. Well…. I love it! It lives outside, needs no special care, easy to move and adjust, and can be adjusted in big amounts for my more confident pup and in the tiniest increments for the less confident pup. And I am using it for other things too (like propping the ramp for RDW training :)) Totally worth the price, imo.
>>Question….actually 2. Should my training goal be to “add tip” in such small increments that he almost doesn’t even notice?>>
Because I think he is thinking about where the tip is, yes – the tip is faded in incrementally so he doesn’t think about it enough to look for it.
>>And 2nd question….. I haven’t seen the refund for the MaxPup class that I signed up for that I had already done…..
Lordy, I really thought I had put that through but clearly I did NOT! EEEK!!! Sorry!!!!!!!
>>but I’ve been thinking about it and I’m dieing that I didn’t sign up for weaves too. I was (and still am a little bit) concerned that with teeters and Katarina’s RC class that adding weaves to the mix as well would be too much but I’ve started to work with him on them a little bit already and I’m thinking if I’m going to start training them I’d much prefer to do it in “class” with your feedback.>>
I am excited for the weave class 🙂 And it is not going to be that labor-intensive for 2 reasons:
1 – we are all training about a zillion other things
2- we can get the dogs understanding weaving in very few sessions – I am really excited about how quickly they pick it up (at least compared to, say, the RDW :))>> SO….would it be possible to not refund the $ for the MaxPup class and just enroll Sly and I in weaves? I think I’ll still owe you some $. If I remember correctly MaxPup was only $175 and Weaves is $225? Let me know ….and I totally understand if that doesn’t work for you.
Of course! Totally a great idea!! But actually, there is a double discount for the MaxPuppers for the skills class if you take both so I still owe you money. So follow my math here and make sure I am doing this right LOL!
If you take both classes as a MaxPup alum, the total for both is $339.15 (discount for both, discount for MaxPuppers). You have already paid for the Teeter class ($225) and the other MP class ($175) so if I am doing the math correctly, you get a refund of $60.85. I can paypal that right over if it all makes sense. Sorry for my confusion!!!Talk to you soon,
TracyGood morning!
Oh she is such a cool looking dog! Love her!I can see what you mean by her being a little leery of the board possibly moving. You can reward all of her offers of getting on the plank at this point – get on,: cookie. Turn around: cookie. End position: jackpot! (which is what you were doing :))
When she gets into her comfort zone (which she did here at about the 1 minute mark) you can fade the rewards for offering getting onto the plank and shift to rewarding the end position.>> I have done very little with end position work.>>
She did really well!!!! It looks like you want a 2o2o with a lowered head and weight shifted back (I like that choice for her!!) And I like the cones as props and visual aids to help her sort out where to line up. My only suggestion is, for now, to use some type of target in the 2o2o position so she has a focal point and doesn’t look at you. For example, she was brilliant at 1:12 – got right on the board and moved immediately into target position, shifting her weight, YAY!!! She was curling to look at you, though – so in order to keep her independence because we are going to start moving you all around, a target will give her something to look at and anchor to while she goes to position. You can use something super NOT fancy like a plastic lid or piece of duct tape LOL!!! It will be easy to fade out – considering that she has done very little of this, she is picking it up amazingly fast!!! Great job!!!!
One more thing about the cones – when we add the bang game on the teeter board itself, you can totally use the cones as a prop/visual aid for her to help generalize the value of the end position on the non-moving board to the end position on the moving board. The cones will also be easy to fade but they are incredibly useful 🙂
Does she like toys/tugging? If so, you can get some tugging going before and after the reps of this game – it will help her think less about if the board is moving 🙂 If she doesn’t like toys, no worries – she certainly loves the food!
Great job!!!!! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
