[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!
He is doing well here!

On the uphill mountain climbers: He definitely got more and more confident about moving through the tip! Yay! I think the in inch tip was hard – is there a way to split the tip so it is not in 1 inch increments? If the device only moves in one inch increments, you can pad the top of the device where the board lands with a towel or too, so it is more like half an inch – that will help him drive to the end even more. I think one of the things he was thinking about was the noise of the board – the towel will help too, but it is possible that the base was rattling too? So you can put a tunnel bag on the base to help reduce the rattle so he drives across it even more. Eventually, I think think he will be at all concerned about it but for now, reducing it will help (especially when he turns around to come down and get off the board.

>Or maybe I’ll invest in one of the devices you use. I like how the tray stays flat, instead of moves with the seesaw.>

It is a cool device because it raises the target plate to the edge of the board! I use the small dog version with all of mine (I talked them into making a small dog version because the big dog version had too much reach down for the dogs, imo)

Your end position on the plank is going well – he was hitting his target position with you being with him and with you sending ahead. Yay! You can add in more of your motion moving past now, like you did at 1:19, I don’t think he will have any trouble with it. And he will like the action of your motion 🙂 And since he is doing so well, you can add in more excitement, getting him pumped up and wild before asking for target position. The added excitement plus you moving past (and adding crosses) will be a good level of challenge for him (but my guess is that he will do just fine 🙂 You can change the challenge on every rep or every two reps, to keep things spicy during the session and cover all of the challenges 🙂

Great job! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

>> I have to shorten it by 20cm on each end. The new regs have just come in, but won’t be manditory until 2024. Most clubs have already lowered the seesaw, some have shortened as well. So it’s going to be a bit messy for a couple of years. I am hoping that if I build a strong end behaviour, the length won’t matter>>

Yikes, that makes it less predictable for the dogs but I guess teeters in general can be unpredictable. I have a game coming for how to make things different for the dogs, in that respoect (in the last set of games).

He did really well walking on the plank here! Because he seems so confident, I don’t mind that it was rattling a bit. If he ever shows any concern, you can put a towel or dog bed under each end to reduce the rattle. But as long as he is happy, let it wiggle and rattle. He was SO FUNNY leaping back on when you went to turn off the camera!
The only thing I would add to this is seeing if he can turn in a circle in the center of the plank, in each direction – it will help make sure that he understands how to balance. Use a cookie lure to control his speed – it should be a slow circle 🙂

And if he will hold a stay on one end, you can go to the other end and recall him across – I don’t think it will be hard for him at all.

>>I didn’t do any tipping, as we have not played the bang game, or done any target touching. I felt like I should teach these things first? >>

To add tip to the downhills, we don’t need target behavior yet (because you will get the reward in before he makes a decision about targeting) but we do want him to be happy with things that move. How does he do with wobble boards or anything that moves? If he is happy to play on wobble boards and will shift his weight on them… then you can go ahead and add some tip to the downhill game. The reward will come right at the end of the board (where yo uwould reward for the 4on) as long as the cookie gets there before he does 🙂

And if he is happy with the wobble board movement, ou can separately introduce the tiny bit of movement in the beginning of the bang game (no target behavior needed for the first stage of that game because we also get the reward in really fast before he makes a choice).

>>To get him to touching a target, I was just going to use a plastic lid that I can transfer to the end. Should I be shaping him to touch it with his nose?>>

You can shape a nose touch to it, or use a longer/wider target like a strip of something to get him doing a foot AND nose target. I like LOTS of layers 🙂 My 4on dogs are taught a foot target and to scratch at the target – and the nose touch ends up getting built in because they lower their heads as they scratch the target. I personally only use a true nose touch for a 2on, 2off behavior but it does get built in for the 4on as well. For the 4on, the longer ‘strip’ of a target gives the dogs a place to put their feet and their noses. I use duct tape across the end of the board to get it started 🙂

Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning! Great to see you in the Zoom last night 🙂 I saw the photo of a tiny bit of grass peeking out of your snow, so I am excited that you will be able to get back outside soon-ish!!

These games are going well.
Uphills: Very smart to refresh it by starting a couple of steps back. He is doing really well. One thing I notice is that he doesn’t love the whip/noise of the board as it bounces on the chair at the top, so you can drape some towels or a dog bed over the top of the metal chair on the up side to quiet the noises for now (I do that with Hot Sauce who doesn’t like the clattering on this game either) – he is hesitating ever so slightly to let it hit before running through it, probably because the top of the board bounces and clatters a bit on the metal. That will go away as the get gets outside and as we add more drop, but for now the towel will quiet it and then he will drive even more to the end.
I feel the pain of the cookies falling off 🙂 You can duct tape a plastic measuring cup to the underside of the teeter to hold those pesky meatballs! He is hitting it hard enough that the cookies are falling off – that is a good thing (driving hard) and since the teeter is not hitting the ground, a measuring cup might do the trick. I use the full cup measuring cup for that LOL!
He didn’t seem to worry about any of the challenges of your movement – easy peasy! So if you can get him driving all the way to the end without thinking about the noise on the next session, add a tiny bit more tip 🙂
My dogs heard you say “have an extra just in case” and they are all jealous LOL!!

Downhills – the plastic lid target works well here! You can also put the PT there as long as it won’t fall – we don’t want it to break, of course.
And he clearly had the confidence to leap on the middle to start!
It took him a minute to assess the setup and then he was fine moving downhill, and he added more and more of his own speed on each rep. I liked the quietness of the blanket or towel here, I think it helped him not try to find a way to control the whip higher up on the board.
You can also totally do this for his dinner, placing the bowl where the target it and then let him run down to eat his dinner as a one rep or two rep session.
He didn’t seem to worry about most of the challenges except he did thing the rear cross was nuts haha!
He will add even more speed when you add more speed as soon as the snow melts and you can get outside, but I am happy with how much speed he was already adding here! In a session or two, you can add tip here too 🙂
Great job on these!!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi! Good to see you in the Zoom last night!
You mentioned this session didn’t feel great – but I agree, looking at the video – NICE!! Yes, you had too much speed on the first rep, and he didn’t fully understand the set up so he bailed (which is a better choice than going splat :))
But then he rocked it! Independently drove up the board, got his cookie, let you lift him off. You were quickly able to add back speed. So, on the next session, do the intro/reminder rep first, going with him to kind of say, “dude, remember this set up?” and then you can add more challenges.
If he continues to excel with this set up without the board moving, you can add a tiny bit of tip – and start off with that same reminder rep where you go with him, slowly, to let him feel the tip so he isn’t experiencing it with speed the first time.

About speed – you won’t see a ton of speed across the board on this game yet, he can’t really sprint across it because he has to stop pretty quickly. So it will feel a little slow until the board really starts moving – but he was plenty fast here and looked pretty confident!

Great job! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning! Great seeing you on the Zoom last night!

Thanks for the video, I have some ideas for you!

Looking at the separate elements: the main thing is going to be separate the games for now (uphill, downhill, end position) and we will marry them back together when each one is independently solid. Systematize the mechanics of each game rather than blending them all together – that should eliminate some of the things you mentioned, like stopping short or sitting instead of targeting.

The uphills look great! Be sure to place the reward in the holder before you let her go up the board on those so she continues to drive to the end, every single time. And work on adding the challenges like you moving past and sending ahead (you can see the list in the field guide). That will actually also help to get rid of the stopping short that you describe. And when she can do all the things with the board not moving, you can add in a tiny bit of movement and see how it goes (but only after you work through the challenges).

For the downhills – keep these separate from the uphills for now, because when she turns around and runs down, the targeting is getting muddy and we aren’t getting as much speed. So the downhills will still be table-to-table and she will not run down to target position yet – right now it looks like her understanding of target position at the end is a bit body dependent, meaning she is doing it when you stop near the end but when you run past, she comes off the end and/or confuses it with a 2o2o. That tells us we have some details to iron out on the end position before adding it to the teeter itself.

>>her bang is going very well, then I lowered the teeter to have her run down, she is stopping pretty high to push the ramp down. How do I correct that?>>

For now… don’t do it 🙂 It is too soon for that amount of angle. SO, keep the downhills to have very limited motion and a table (or something :)) under each end so she runs runs runs to the end and doesn’t stop in the middle to push the ramp down. Stopping high is an indicator that the challenge is too difficult, so go back to the board barely moving and not hitting the ground.

So for the end position – how is she doing on a small travel plank? It looks like you are doing a 4on – do you also want her to do a nose touch? The more criteria you can put on it, the stronger the behavior will be. Let’s get the end position super solid on the plank before it goes onto the teeter – so using a slightly angled plank, work the progression of getting the hopping into end position with you working through the progressions – next to her, moving past slowly, moving past fast, crosses, sending, etc – all just using the end of the board. On thing that will help her stay in 4on and not sit or step into 2o2o is if you reward really fast, either by handing it to her on the target immediately, or if you have moved past the target – tossing it back to her so she doesn’t have to wait for you to come back and deliver it 🙂 I use my ‘catch’ cue for that, to mean “stay there, the cookie is coming to you”.

When we are happy with all the things involving end position on just the end of the plank… then we will add that to the end of the teeter (games package 2, on March 15 :)) but not moving across the entire board any time soon. Keeping the games separate will make all the pieces work nicely together 🙂

You are off to a great start! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi! I feel the pain of lots of soggy grass! Fingers crossed for good weather ahead 🙂 Keep rewarding for the end and he will get more and more confident running through that tip. See you on the Zoom!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
This is also going really well! The backing up onto the box looked really good, no problem! So did backing up onto the plank (that is harder to ‘find’ because it is so much narrower) – he was really ‘looking’ for it with his little feet. Good boy!!!!! You can try some tugging in position (first on the box) to see if he will also weight shift on the board too.

Do you have a fitbone or a balance disc? With it a little under-inflated, see if he will back up onto it to add a bit of moving surface underneath him. Separately, you can work on backing up onto the bottom of the teeter, but there should be no tip of the teeter yet – totally stationary, just to begin to transfer the concept.

Great job!!! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi! You must have posted this just as I was sending the thoughts on the previous video this morning 🙂

He did well moving into target position here! Staying next to him and sending him looked good! He was consistently correct even when you added more excitement. He had the little oopsies – I think that might have been when he was kind of weight shifting into the stop as you sent ahead? It is something to revisit, but only once or twice and not a whole bunch in a row (so he doesn’t start thinking about things too much). Also, he is understanding the position pretty nicely so you can mix up the challenges more frequently. Do two maybe 3 reps of one challenge then change it up to the next one, otherwise it gets boring 🙂 and also it gets him too thoughtful and that might be why he was more sensitive to whatever tiny movement happened at the end. So on the next session – definitely stand up for the standing still and sending ahead, but add in moving past (as slowly as needed) and the other ‘action’ challenges – he is ready plus I think he will like the action 🙂 That is also a good time to add in tugging in between cookie reps.

Great job here!!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi! Sorry to miss you tonight, we will mix up the days/times of these in case you want to join on at a time when you aren’t teaching.

>>If he happens to offer a down, that’s fine, but I’ll be rewarding more his speed with going up and down, not waiting for any downs.>>

Yes – we won’t be doing that many reps of it and the games will progress pretty quickly 🙂

This session went well! All of the reps had you sending him ahead so while he was doing well finding position, I see what you mean about him being crooked (mainly because he was looking at you). The foot target makes it hard for you to be right at the end, so you can adjust your position to be closer to the end by being a little bit at the foot target. And adding in moving past the target will also help him be a bit straighter because he will be looking more ahead at you. But, since he will still want to look at you (nothing else to look at LOL!) you can add in something to look at 🙂 I think adding in a Manners Minder can help give him a focal point, which will help him be straighter for now. Some of the rewards can come from the MM (when he hits criteria, you can release him forward to it) and some from your hands – and then release him forward to the MM. The more we can convince him to look forward, the straighter he will be 🙂

On other thing that I think can help keep him straight is if you look for and mark that little bit of hooking of the wrists to the edge of the foot target – you can see him do it at about :26 and also 1:42. That helped straighten his body position and it is a clear criteria that both drives him to the end of the board and encourages the down!

Nice work here! Let me know what you think! You can totally add in more of the challenges here; I think he is ready!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Oops, I guess I only answered in my head! Sorry! My tunnel threadle verbal is “kiss kiss kiss” 🙂 As in, I will kiss you, dog, if you get the correct end of the tunnel. LOL!!!! And yes, it is different than my jump threadle verbal.

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!

>>On the first one I tried to push on her line. You’re right. That doesn’t work. That’s how I was taught. >>

It is not that they don’t work, it is more that if we train a bit more independently, you won’t need to push on her line and you can get further ahead. She is small AND fast and that means even less hang time than Jedi and Sport… which also means you need to move faster 🙂 So, we train for more independence. We do push the line when the dogs come in from harder angles but on these simpler angles we try to get the dog to go independently on the verbal without needing to step to the line.

>>Maybe I should just stay on level one for awhile. It says to stay there and make sure that is really good>>

I think you were fine to add a little challenge, but you were forgetting to show the line then release like you did in the first video. It won’t be a problem when you are close ot the barrels, but when you are adding distance, it becomes more important. So, be sure to connect, move, THEN release – that will help her read the line with the added distance. When you did that, she was great! When you tried to do it all at the same time (release, move and cue), she ended up on the front side of the jump. For example at 1:58 she took the front – she was in her stay and you were lateral, towards the center of the bump – that is fine but you will need to move and connect for 2 or 3 steps before you release her so she can see the line. When you release then move & connect, it looks like a front side cue and she zips past you.

The cookie tosses worked nicely on this one, because it gave you the opportunity to be moving up the line with connection earlier – those were really nice!! So you can use those as you add more distance, and also her stay is looking really good so you can use that too as long as you move, connect, then release.

The only other thing to add into the mix is asking her to take the front side sometimes 🙂

Great job on these! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!

Adding distance: you read my mind hahaha and you were further across the bump here and also worked the other side. Nice!
I like starting from the stay on this one too, starting from a cookie toss makes you rush and it is not as smooth. You also started with her next to you on a couple of the reps towards the end and that worked great too!
She did a really nice job finding the backside on these. At 1:34 you started behind her and released before you were really past her so she ended up on the front side of the jump. The motion up the line is what sets the backside as she is learning the verbal, so for now try to be several steps ahead before releasing her. Eventually, she will know the verbal really well so it won’t matter as much, but for now she needs the motion.

>>I suppose I should not do the FC. Hmm…but if you are heading to the left a FC would be okay. Or is it okay because the other backside will be a wrap.

You can totally do the FCs here on the landing side, or the serps – those both count as ‘slices’ for me because you stay on the landing side. The backside wrap is the full 360 degree circle, where you move past the barrels to the takeoff side. Let me know if that makes sense.

Great job here too! Onwards to video 3!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning! Good job on all 3 of these videos! Some thoughts on this first one:

Nice job with your parallel path motion here – you were really good about showing her the full “wing” (not blocking it) with your parallel path and she was perfect about going to it. Great job rewarding her for coming back over the bump. And great job with the backside verbal getting adding from the stay, and adding the serpentine line. Stays look good, and lots of good rewards too! And lovely connection too – great session!
On the next session – you can move your parallel path a bit further over to the center of the bump and also mix in some front side reps where you call her name and turn to the front so she pays attention to the difference.

Great job here!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hello and welcome! I am jealous of your beautiful summer weather!

Hero is so fun! Really nice first session here! And I see what you mean about him being cat-like, jumping off then on. I encourage ALL of that confidence at this stage because it is GREAT for balance as the board starts moving. Because he is cat-like, you just have to be quick with the cookies and getting him off the board. You can also give multiple treats for staying on the end as you begin to add in moving past – he will get the treat at the end and learn to wait for you to come back and give him another treat as you reach for his collar and help him off.
For the next session, you can start him in his stay further back from the board, partially to give you a chance to get ready and where you want to be, and partially because the added distance will allow him to add more speed driving up the board. It looks like he will have no issues with that so you can add that as well as the other challenges (be ready with your treats; I think he will be moving pretty fast along the board!)

>>Is it OK to make a reward plate with sides? I screwed it to the underneath of the seesaw, but he knocks the treat off and then jumps off to find it. >>

Absolutely! I had the same issue with my smaller dog – the treat would bounce off so she would just go find it. Sides would work really nicely!

>>He’s ruled by his stomach and no treat will get left behind.>>

Totally relatable!! LOL!

>>Tomorrow I will do a game from the Downhill Track. Is it OK to do two sessions on one day spread apart and working on different tracks? >>

Yes, that is fine! The goal of keeping the tracks a bit separate right now is to avoid over-training and also to allow us to be able to isolate any issues, if the dog has a question.

>>I can edit my vids a bit more so you don’t have to watch everything next time. Just thought you would be able to give me a lesson on mechanics lol.>>

Full session vids are great – this was a nice short session with a high rate of success. Yay! I think the hardest part of the mechanics was getting the treat to not fall off. On the first rep of the next session, you can also reward along the board and not just at the end like you did here early on, just as a reminder moment before adding driving across the board. And when he is understanding to stay at the end of the board and not jump off, you can add in the driving past and crosses.

>>Ruse will do the games as well in the background. The seesaw has been lowered since you saw her in NZ from 700 mm in the middle to 500 mm.

Wow, that is great! So this is a full height seesaw? That is nice!!!!

Great job! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!

Min was hilarious! And I have found that the dogs are fine with our bad throws, as long as we use a “bad throw coming” cue (I use ‘catch’) which means the treat or toy will be heading to their general location and they are allowed to move to get it.

His end position work is looking really good – he didn’t seem to have any questions here in terms of what to do in the face of the different challenges. You can have the cookies ready to toss in more quickly (I usually hold them in the same hand as I am holding the collar with, but you can also toss with the other hand) so on the harder challenges you can toss in immediately.

The angle of the board with the disc didn’t seem like a problem at all for him, so add more angle and either a bigger inflatable if you have one or stack 2 discs? That will give more angle and movement during this game, which also help prep for the bang game.

Looking at the challenges of sending ahead or you driving past or adding crosses – no issues r questions on any of them, and you got he rear cross too, well done! So you can add more wildness – more speed, having the ball in your hand, running towards Min, etc. I think you are not likely to find anything that will be too hard at home, so you can take the simpler challenges to different places – have it off to the side at class, or do this in front of a tunnel, etc. Add toy play between reps to see if he can still hold it together when he is more stimulated (I think this will also not be a problem for him, but it is good to ask him at this stage 🙂 )

Great job!!!
Tracy

where else can you take this?

[Author]

Posts