Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Hi!
>>I totally missed that in video review! Sorry! His kiddie pool is in that corner so I sent him in to swim. I try to use that one over the nasty bird bath that he prefers.>
Ha! I thought you left that in for my entertainment LOL!
>>I’m always so worried about speed since I really have to work to power Callie’s engine, so your feedback here is helpful. I tend to get fixated on it. Thank you!>>
Yeah, understandable! Sometimes they feel slower but they are not 🙂 And sometimes I let young dog training a little slower so they can be thoughtful – I personally think my Contraband is a little slow right now in the weaves, and that is GREAT because he is not screwing up, he is not killing himself, and he is not biting me as other BorderWhippets do to their handlers. So, if he wants to be a little slower until it all clicks into place? Perfect! We know how to get them to run fast when we want it 🙂
Hi! I will be heading over to the Teeters forum in a few minutes 🙂
>>Oh, I also included a video of Nikko doing her weaves (open at 2″ too), since I’ve mentioned hers. I think a key to her speed might be how she lowers her head to drive through.>>
Head position is influenced by a lot of things in the weaves – structure, size, experience, etc. How big is Nikko compared to Presto? The other thing is the reward – his head will come down with a toy reward instead of a Manners Minder, so you can switch to a thrown toy and see how he does.
Also, he will drop his head when he wants to go faster, and he wants to go faster when you move. And that is fine, because we definitely need to add more motion. Because reps are limited, you don’t need to do any more right now where you are completely stationary. Add motion to all of them!
Now one thing about the motion: start moving right away, as soon as you cue them – and move fast 🙂 When I was watching the video, I noticed that you had a tendency to stand still or move very little until he was just about at the end, then start moving. On the reps where you started moving fast in that moment, he had an error. So the next thing we need to show him is how to weave with you moving fast fast fast the whole time 🙂 So if speed is the difficult new variable, and if he has too much failure at 2″ tightness: do a session or two at 3″ width to introduce your running. Then you will be able to tighten the, back up to 2″ after that, followed by getting them even tighter 🙂 Fun!
Nice work here! Let me know if the plan makes sense 🙂
TracyHi there! Look at him, weaving straight poles Yay!
>> the early part of the video, Cowboy is able to find most of the entries but is moving slowly. His speed increases towards the end as he becomes more confident and I am hoping that it will further improve on grass.>>
One thing that I think will help both indoors and outdoors is a slight adjustment to how you start each rep. Have him come back to you, stop your motion and line him up next to you. Get him pumped up with a little ready ready or gentle hand on his chest or hold the tab: then cue the weaves. That explosive start will add more speed to the weaves right away for both of you – and it actually is a good next step for him! More speed driving to the weaves will also mean he really has to sort out the weight shift to get in and go fast in the weaves. On the first session here, you were in a calm, smooth, steady slow-ish pace… an so was he 🙂 But I think he is ready for you to turn up the excitement a bit with that moment before the send where you both get ready then explode into it. The accuracy is looking good and he has the striding, so now we add the speeeeeed 🙂
On the last 2 reps at the end with the red and blue poles, you can already see that he is happy to explode to the poles, he just needed your permission 🙂 So definitely let him rip! Wheee!
And you can that outdoors too, even if the poles are not totally straight yet: after the reward, reset the training loop with a moment of engagement and excitement before the send.Nice work! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
Were you wearing the white claw a little at the beginning? LOL Too funny!>>His speed wasn’t there for me so I didn’t close the channels any.
I think for the most part, he was moving at a good speed. Was it the same as “early morning chilly day” speed? Not necessarily, but it would probably be more successful to close the poles when he was being more thoughtful anyway – he was still moving fast enough to be able to stride properly. He was a little slower on the rep at 1:35 but then he had a short break when you moved the giant tree limb LOL! and he came back fast after that 🙂 And then he looked a little hot on the last rep – you rewarded him but I could not tell if he had weaved successfully or not? But anyway – other than those 2 reps, I think his speed was good and you can close the poles. If it is crazy hot – just do 3 or 4 reps and end the session so he doesn’t slow down.
>> I’m not sure why he was lacking in that department- we did have a day of training earlier and he had steak for dinner>>
So if he already had a day of training AND a steak dinner… I can see why perhaps he was not as speedy 🙂 I would also be a little less speedy in that moment 🙂 It sounds like it is getting hot there and also you are training more frequently. So you can plan for the speed stuff to happen when he is fresher during the morning when it is cooler, and the brain stuff can happen later.
Be sure to be watching his shoulders after the entry and throw the reward no sooner than when you see his left shoulder passing pole 3. That will help prevent the accidental early throw 🙂
Overall, you did a GREAT job of working the hardest challenge of being way ahead of him. He was a superstar and nailed the entries! So I think you can definitely tighten up the poles 🙂
Nice work! Fingers crossed for cooler weather!
TracyHi!
>>Well that debunks that myth of her being sided and turning better to the left! lol. Always something novel with this Rusey haha. Those tunnel exits will not beat us lol.>>
Ha! Well, I think she does have a stronger side indeed but the tunnel adds different element.
>>So do you mean the wing that was out of the shot of the camera that she was running to at the beginning of the session I should leave in place as a trap to make her think? Crikey, cuing the turn 2m before she enters will be a challenge for me. What is Gott?>>
Yep! She is very similar to my dog, Voodoo. He goes as fast as he can at all times, which means decisions are made VERY early – which means cues must be given even earlier. He is great for learning about timing! Now that he is 8, he is much more forgiving but when he was younger it was much harder to sort the timing.
>>When she was a puppy I sort of taught her to turn her head by saying the direction and then tapping her on the shoulder of the direction and feeding. But I had for gotten about that game so yes, I would like some games to help teach that.>>
I approach it differently now. This is from the most recent MaxPup 1 class:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNUvCv0zWVk>>It’s so cool going right back to basics and figuring out all the places where there are holes. I really want her to be competitive as she has the speed, but it’s just her understanding of what I want and being able to do it even when I mess up (which is a lot lol).>>
Yes – many of these games were built off of me trying to fix holes with my older dogs LOL!
>> She took the tunnel instead of the aframe like she was supposed to and I was so excited.
Good girl!!
>>I got told off for saying my left turn after the tunnel cue more than once. I said left left left left, until I saw Ruse’s head appear and turn left. Is it not correct to say the command more than once? >>
Agility is a game of repeating cues so the dogs can process them with all of the other things they need to process. I have a couple of mantras:
“Say it early, say it often”
“This ain’t obedience, y’all” (haha)Basically, I look at it like putting butter on toast. To make it delicious, you are not going to put a little dab of butter on one corner and hope for the best, right? NOPE! Because you will not end up with what you want. You are going to try to smear butter all over it and then that guarantees a tasty bite (can you tell it is lunchtime here? LOL!) So, smear the verbal all over the line so you are guaranteed she can process it (she has a LOT to process on course!
>>Apparently then she wouldn’t know my wrap cue, but my wrap cue sounds completely different was my argument.>>
Well, if ‘left’ was your left turn cue and ‘leftleftleftleftleft’ was your wrap cue then yes, it would be a problem. But my left turn cue is left and my left wrap cue is tststststststs, so there is no problem.
So, say it as a few times -and urgently – on turns that are harder for her. And plan when to be quiet on course as well, for two reasons:
first, you have to breath 🙂 You can’t run and yell the whole time, you need to breath LOL!
Second, if you have quiet spots, the important verbals will be more salient for the important parts 🙂Let me know what you think!
TracyHoly cow! Was this video in fast forward? He looks great!!!! FUN!!!!
Was that him making monkey noises on the way to the tunnel? Little grunty noises LOL! If so, it was because he needed to see more of your connection coming around the cone: keep your left arm back and look at his eyes as you run and give the tunnel cue, that will be lovely connection (try not to look at the tunnel, just trust you are running in the correct general direction and he will do the rest 🙂
Two other tiny suggestions:
Right before he enters the tunnel, start giving him his GO GO GO cue to name the behavior of finding the jump (which is he doing beautifully 🙂
And, throw the toy sooner: when he is perhaps halfway between the tunnel and the jump and looking at the jump, throw it so it lands before he looks back at you. You were waiting til he was over the bump, but he had nothing else to look at at that point… so was looking at you. Think of it as rewarding the choice to drive to the jump rather than rewarding actually arriving at the jump 🙂He looks great here, so you can add one more element: since he had zero trouble with you being ahead, you being lateral, and you being FAST, now run very close to the tunnel and kinda of run the curve of the tunnel so he exits with you either parallel to him or behind him: that will get him driving ahead of you to the jump! And that will then set you up very nicely to add on the rear crosses.
Great job with your connection on all of these! And this is a good game for Fizzy P also, to help her understand this commitment too!!
Great job 🙂 Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
I am very glad to hear that 70s are in your forecast and not snow!!!The elevator game looks fabulous! My only suggestion is to remember the hop on cookies. They give you a moment and prevent him from trying to start with you, and also maintain the high value at the end of the board. Plus you will need them on the next levels (posted today :))
He is definitely going faster on the downhills here – and that is a hard game to go fast on! Yay! And the send seemed just as fast as the rep where you ran with him. YAY! Wow!
Now that the teeter is going to head outdoors:
>>How much space do I need to run with the teeter for the next set of games?>>
Where is your tunnel living nowadays? You will want room for a curved tunnel and then at least 15 feet to the teeter. You don’t start there, all you need is the wing and a teeter (about 10 feet apart) for now but you will get there pretty quickly and you can plan to NOT have to lug the teeter around more than needed 🙂
Nice work here! Fingers crossed for continued good weather!
TracyOoh a seminar, sounds like a blast! I bet she rocked it!
She had no trouble reading these bounce grids, straight or angled. Yay!! And nice stay, too!
What are the distances here? They might be a shade too short for her at this point – she is not centered in each gap – she is landing with her front feet just past the bar rather than in the middle. So two ideas to see if we can get her to do a centered arc:
try starting her just a shade closer to the first jump, so she is maybe3 inches or less from it? She might be starting a touch too far here and ‘reaching’ to get in over the first jump, which changes the arc on the other 2 jumps too.
And, move the jumps in 6 inches closer to see if that helps. Because she is still young, we can look for the ‘sweet spot’ distance for now and as she develops and matures, we can change it. For example, my 17 month old dog is just now physically mature enough to be in his “adult” distance – and the 13 month old dog is nowhere near ready for that LOL!!
Nice work here!!! Let me know what you think about the distances 🙂
TracyHi!
Yes, this was good to have the down target in position now.
One thing I notice with Yowza is a pattern: with new skills or new variations, she watches you and the reward a LOT. So then we move it off of you, she stops watching you, the skill solidifies, then we can have it on you again and she is fine 🙂 That is what was happening here: she was watching the cookies a whole lot and that was making the down slower and then she was slipping a little at the end (because she was craning her head up to watch the cookies LOL!) The confidence on the board looked good and the downs looked good… so let’s move the reward off you for a while and see what she does. It is like a ping pong match 🙂 I think the next session should be with the MM out in front, maybe 4 or 5 feet away. No cookies in your hands to start: doing the bang game, have her leap onto the board and assume the down position: then give her a verbal release, then click the MM. That should help her understand to NOT watch your hands. Add in your motion there too! And I bet you can do the same with the downhills. A couple of sessions like this should get her looking at her target position more and less at you, at which point we can go to a toy either out ahead or in your hands or both 🙂it is a familiar progression for her, we have played with this with the teeter and the weaves LOL! So that is why I am fine with putting the MM out to remind her where to look, then it will be very easy to fade out again.
Great job! Let me know if this makes sense 🙂
TracyHi!
Yes, these blinds are HARD at first but so useful when they are comfy for you 🙂>>I think in the video it seems like you do it farther down from the wing. Closer to the tunnel. Is that right?
I was on the line between the wings for the blinds. I was moving in and out of the tunnel to stay in motion and stay connection, I think that will help Ruby too.
>Will that help her not go so wide? Yea. Gotta really stay connected.>>
Yes – the connection is the critical element of the tight blinds, and the mechanics of how to connect will get her tighter: to get the connection on the blinds, you should have the toy in the same side she starts on then show it across your body to open up connection on the new side.
On these reps, you had the toy in the dog side hand and were trying to connect like that – but that dog side hand delays the connection because it blocks your eyes and ‘closes’ your upper body away from her – so she didn’t come in until you kind of stopped and looked all the way back at her to show a LOT of connection. But showing the toy across your body you will get the connection opened up much quicker and you can keep moving – which will tighten the turns right up. And then you can start them sooner too!When she was having trouble committing to the wing – I think that was a just a little connection issue too. Try to move in closer to the tunnel so you are moving when she exits, and connect more on the exit so she sees the line. Then make sure you don’t swing your shoulders forward until after you see her looking at and heading towards the wing. Baby dogs require a LOT of connection 🙂 And then they figure it out and the verbals help too 🙂
You are off to a good start on these! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>Go to 4 ft. and yea, use the MM. But then do you mean to use the toy later after she has learned the striding? Or just play with it? It says ,Layer in the speed. Does that mean to use the toy?>>
Yes – after she sorts out the striding with the MM, you can first just play with the toy to see how she does when she is more excited. Then you can replace the MM with the toy, to get her even more excited and see if she can maintain the striding.
T
Good morning!
Super nice work on both of these sessions!On the first part: she seemed to have a higher rate of success on these on both sides! On the left side sends, was she going wide towards the middle wing on some of those reps? It was hard to see from the camera angle but that I what I think it was. You can do a spin on the wing so that she doesn’t think you want a ‘soft’ turn there. On those left side sends, start walking the you send to the weaves, even if she goes wide – don’t stand still until she enters. If she can do them with you moving up the line immediately, you can move to jogging then running immediately too 🙂
The right side sending liked great and she seemed to have no trouble with the challenges! She did look at you a little sideways on the first countermotion/extreme rear cross at :46 but I think that was because you started to push into her line too soon. You helped her with a verbal and she was fine. And then on the next rep your timing was better and she was perfect.
Interestingly – the looking at you from the previous session did not appear to be here on this one. We will keep watching for it but just proceed normally for now 🙂So…. let’s focus on tightening the poles another notch! She is definitely striding here and I think you can get them even tighter. Check out the video that talks about getting the channels straight (by just tightening the middle poles one by one for a bit :))
Her Find’Em looked GREAT! I think there was only one miss, no big deal (and you had one verbal mess up when the mouth said tunnel but the body said weaves LOL!) and some of the handling challenges were HARD! So if you wanted to revisit them, move the tunnel in closer and the wings further so she is coming in with more speed and the tunnel is even more tempting 🙂
Great job here!
TracyGood morning!
Nice work on these!
The higher bang game looked good and so did the downhills to the ground. He is starting to shift his weight very obviously (yay!) and he seems super happy to be doing it. And, it looks like you faded the target out too. Nice!
So one thing we can think about adding to these games is a bit of pressure. What stuff at home will add a little tiny bit of distraction and pressure, to help prepare him for new places? Can you get one of your dogs to bark? Or stare? Or both LOL! Or maybe just something new and weird in the environment? We don’t want a LOT of pressure, just a little, to be able to start to transfer these games to different environments more easily.He also looked really good on the elevator game! One suggestion: make each element more distinct. So have him hop on, get the cookie delivered right at the end of the board (to keep encouraging him to hop on there), then you raise the board – and when the board is at the spot you want it to be: start the countdown then drop the board. On these reps, you were raising then dropping without any prep moment between that so he was asking questions about the weight shift (the balance as you raise the board is different from the weight shift needed to ride it down) so you can see he was more upright as you dropped it, and stopping further up the board. Since we don’t want him to ask any questions or over-think it, that moment of “I am bout to drop it” will really help him drive into position. He might still need the target visible on this one, so he keep coming to the end (we will fade it out in the next week or so).
After making the steps of the elevator game more distinct and continue adding the motion you had at the end – move to the Elevator Game Part 3 that I posted this morning. He looks ready!
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! Sorry about the cold weather, ick!!!
This is a handling video 🙂 Can you repost the teeter clip? Thanks!!
TracyHi! Both sessions are looking really good. He definitely has a harder time on your left side (for whatever reason, perhaps having to look away form you in the 2nd base?) You can put the pet tutor out ahead and see if a focal point helps him?
The right send entries are looking strong!>>I feel like he’s a pretty happy bouncer, but that I should do another session with the easy entries and more motion. I need to dig a tunnel out of my basement too so maybe I’ll play around with that instead of of the jumps. (it will be easier to fit in the yard if nothing else!)>>
Yes – because he is actually weaving at this point, we don’t need to tigten the poles more right just yet – I agree with your ‘more motion’ idea on the easier entries. On the left side entries, you can start him without the jump before it just to get back the accuracy before adding back the speed from the jump.
Then, you can add in harder angles – some dogs solidify the ‘easier’ entries when we show them the harder ones on that side, so try some harder left-side angles and see what he does!And yes, on the easier ones – add more motion 🙂 That will also help embed the striding, and then later this week (depending on weather) we can finish closing up the poles. Yay!!!
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
