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Good morning! Hope you had a fun Thanksgiving!
Lots of good stuff on the video!
Her questions on the remote reinforcement procedure were small but also a good indicator that she still needs to have more experience with this. And then it will be much easier to transfer to the ring. When the dogs understand remote reinforcement, they move away quickly and start offering engagement and behaviors because they recognize that is the gateway to getting the reinforcement 🙂
You can make it easier by having a bag of treats not naked treats LOL!
What was your word here? It was hard to tell exactly what you were telling her, I think it was slightly different over the course of the sessions so be loud and consistent 🙂Things were a little harder with the good toy but she did really well!! Good girl! Now, as you move away from the food or toys, add in asking for a simple, fun trick before marking and going back to the reinforcement. We build this in to sporty stuff starting on Monday.
For the ‘catch’ procedure:
>>I often throw back a treat on her start line with a get it command. I am changing that to catch. But she’s used to that being her release. She thought for sure I was trying to trick her on the AF. Yes I’ve been doing a lot of proofing so I did use my release cue in that moment when I realized she thought I was tricking her by throwing the toy.”
Working the catch procedure separately at the end of the video, on the flat, was smart to get the marker/procedure clearer. On the a-frame, you can use a cookie and get it right between her feet or behind her, to teach her to get the reinforcement and that it is not a proofing thing. If she thinks it is a proofing thing, then catch will not serve its purpose as a reinforcement – it will be a stay cue. So work it separately like you did here and then when you do add it back to the frame, don’t use the ‘you’re free’ otherwise it will devalue the marker.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning! Hope you had a lovely Thanksgiving!!
>> In the first video from October you can see Buccleigh being over aroused with frantic barking. We took your engagement workshop and he is now more relaxed at trials (also in day to day activities and agility classes-it’s been a real improvement and we are definitely having more fun and less stress). He is able to pay attention and stay engaged, but now I think he is more aware of his surroundings and he is nervous.>>
If you think back to the engagement seminar, we talked about the Yerkes-Dodson bell curve. The frnatic barking was probably on the right hand side of the bell curve (overarousal, where he is distracted by internal distractions) and the noticing more things in the environment means he is more on the left hand side of the bell curve (underarousal, where he is distracted by external distractions like the judge). And dogs do seem to be able to slide back and forth between the 2 from one moment to the next. However, based on what you are saying, he is closer to optimal now (that top part of the bell curve) and not way down low on the left hand side. YAY!!!! That is fabulous progress!!!!! I am so glad you are both having more fun and less stress.
>> You can see in the second video that he is aware of the judge and seems a bit nervous.
The second video is marked private, can you repost?
>> I also observed that when he can go in a tunnel or do a contact his worry decreases. (When he was on the table in video 2, I was telling him what a good dog he was.)>>
I noticed that in the first video too – and also in that first video, he seemed to really love the weaves! So… he likes action and he likes things that have been heavily reinforced (like weaves and the aframe) He did NOT seem to like the table in the first video.
>>> He loves agility so I am wondering if these rewarding activities help to relieve some of his worry.
Yes, making agility as reinforcing as possible will TOTALLY help! And also, enphasize rewarding a lot of jumps. The one thing he is guaranteed to see in every agility course? Jumps. Reward jumps so much that they are as reinforcing as tunnel or contacts.
>>If that is the case, I am hopeful that we could build on this maybe with other reward applications to help him to find his confidence.>>
Yes, in some ways, but also bear in mind that we cannot rely on the obstacles as the reinforcement – we don’t always have access to the obstacles (like outside the ring) and we want to be able to control the lines on course and reinforce certain behaviors, not just doing obstacles.
But yes – you can use obstacles to build value for other things. Have you gotten a chance to watch the building value for toys video? I am totally using obstacles and the dog’s love of ‘action’ as a way to build value for a tennis ball (I really wish I had video of how little value he had for a tennis ball before I started this – he didn’t even look at a tennis ball).
The first thing you will want to do is build value for food or toys in that situation – simple fun sequence, toy then food then sequence, and so on in a bit of a loop.
Then you can slide in a distraction – run pass a person then he gets to do the sequence then he gets the toy or food and so on.
We are going to add more about the distractions and engagement on Monday too, because he totally needs to work the engagement games with the distractions that are stimulating and/or make him nervous.
>>This is a venue where we have trialed in the past but rarely have an opportunity to train with food in the ring. He can do all of our tricks, etc before we enter the ring. >>
This is where the remote reinforcement of being able to do agility with the food reward behind him becomes critically important! More on that coming on Monday too, so be sure you have practiced the foundation procedure for it. It is great that AKC, USDAA, UKI all have training-in-the-ring opportunities… if you have a dog that loves toys. It can be pretty useless for dogs that only love food, and that is why the remote reinforcement procedure is so critical for our foodies! But once he understands it with food… then you will see him be less over- or under-aroused. The lack of clarity on how to earn the food is part of the underlying issue at trials.
>>I haven’t tried our start line stay (we are working on your start-line stay class, too) because I am not confident he could do it once we are in the ring. We can do it most of the time in class now.:-)>>
It is smart to not bring it to the trial environment yet, because we really really don’t want him to fail in a trial. But doing it most of the time in class is GREAT!!!! And, we work more specifically on it here:
The catch procedure that is posted really helps!And I have another one coming for you on Monday 🙂 that will help the start line.
The next set of games will has a major emphasis on engagement and remote reinforcement, I think you’ll find them very useful to help him in the trial ring 🙂
Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning! Hoe you had a very delicious Thanksgiving!!!
This game went well, lots of good reinforcement and also use of distractions.
Very smart to move this to a new location in the house!
He played well with the toy, even with bags of treats on the table and I think there was one behind him too! It all builds into remote reinforcement, great focus and a great stay.As you lead out for agility, try to make it match what you would do in the ring – you were turning and facing him here, which is perfect if that is what you do in the ring… but if you face where you are going next before the release, make sure you show him that so that he doesn’t predict that when you are facing forward, it is a release forward (not a catch). That anticipation can cause him to leave the stay early.
And you can also face the way you want to go, prasie him… then do the catch. That way he doesn’t anticipate that you’ll do it when you stop or when you look back at him. He is VERY smart so we need to be sure he is not one step ahead of us LOL!!!>>… catch quandary if he brings it to me is going over the bar ok or do I move toward him?
Bringing it over the jump is perfectly fine, good boy for bringing it! When you are out in the bigger field and the bar is higher, you can step to the side and encourage him to bring it around the jump, only because we don’t want the toy to knock the bar which might be startling to him.
Great job here!!!
TracyHi!
>>I tried a little experiment – grilled chicken and bowls. It went well for a few reps before she lost interest.
It is possible that she is not ready to work only for food – you might have to continue loops like behavior-food-toy for now at the 1:1 ratio. Then we fade the toy gradually by doing more cookie reps before the toy comes into the picture.
>>From all of the toy work we have done I am noticing that this game is causing her some frustration. When we do tugging, she likes to win, so I try very hard to do short tugs and let her win more than 50% of this time (also to encourage the return to hand, which is really hard for her and still a work in progress. I do a lot with 2 toys and then she willingly comes back and drops the first one because the desire to chase is so high). Here, although she gets to tug a lot, she does not get to possess the toy and that is frustrating for her. I know because there is a lot of regripping the toys and with regripping usually comes biting my hand on the regrip – a big tell. So I feel like I am undoing some of our toy work since I am not abiding by the rules we have set for certain things. And Dellin is pretty serious about her rules and more of an old soul (unlike her brother), so I don’t want to erode the trust we have built up.>>
At only a year old, I think we are still in the building phase and we don’t need to abide by the rules – we can build up to have all the tools in the toolbox, but using her preferences to build up to our preferences. This is more important than the sport-specific behaviors, and also it will happen quickly – and then so will the sport behaviors. Otherwise, you get locked into certain things and that can be limiting. So for the cone shaping you can get a little play on the toy in your hand, let her win, get it back, wrap the cone, tug in hand, let her win… all starting on a 1:1 ratio of tug in hand to winning the toy in the context of the cone wraps. She won’t get much in the back-and-forth of it *yet* but that is fine 🙂 Then we slowly and gradually change the ratio of tug:win and you will be able to develop more tug-in-hand (which in turn opens up more ways to train things).
>>At one point she sat at looked at me, like there were just a lot of questions, so I did another little experiment of adding a cone for some context since she is familiar with it. That did seem to help and she went back and forth more easily with the cone there (dumb luck? maybe). So wondering if it’s ok to keep the cone there? I was right up against it – no space.>>
You can keep the cone there, yes – but the cone is not the priority – building the reinforcement procedure is. The cone probably stimulates her to move, and based on her other preferences (chase, winning the toy, etc), movement is also high on her list of fun things 🙂
>>>I tried this out too and did a couple of the little sends – she did think it was great fun. And she is so sneaky – takes the cookie and appears to have eaten it and her mouth even opens, but then it falls out with the toy.>>
Ha! That cracks me up 🙂 OK we insert one more behavior – does she like to lick your hand? Will she bark on cue? Can you blow on her nose? All of those will stimulate her to swallow (Voodoo barked on cue to make sure he swallowed the treat, and I would have Contraband lick my cheek LOL! They are both foodies now). So the inserted behavior gets rewarded with the toy.
>>This morning I also tried starting the session with frisbee, then going inside for work, then back out for frisbee. Too early to tell anything. It was warm this morning, so this option may not always be available in the dead of winter.>>
What does she love to do that you can do in the house, in the training area? It is that old Susan G thing of work=play=work, right? So you can go to the training room, do something she really loves (short toy races?) then something you want to do, then back and forth between various games. I really think the next couple of weeks will be more about sorting out all of the reinforcement procedures and building up the ones that need to be stronger… then everything else is going to be really easy with her!
Let me know what you think! Have a great Thanksgiving!
TracyHi!
He was a tugging fiend!!! Yay! This looked great and yes, you were smart to try this out in a neutral place before taking it on the road.Does he have a word to grab the toy in your hand, such as ‘get it’? I think what is what you were saying on some of them (or a variation of it :)) so you can let the toy in him mouth get a little ‘dead’ then say get it and the other toy can come alive. That helps begin to add the marker that is specific to grabbing the toy in your hand. Markers are really useful!
>>I was thinking I’d try again and possibly add the cone for playing the wrap game?
1000% yes – add this to the cone. We sometimes lose toy play when a behavior is associated with food for too long – so the sooner we get toys involved in all the things, the better the toy play will be throughout his training.
Great job here! Looking forward to seeing this with the cone!!
Tracy
Hi!
>> am I actually supposed to be staying more upright until the exact moment that the moves in for the turn and that’s when I put my hand down?Yes, you will want to be upright as if you are running an agility course and then bend in with your hand when he is maybe a foot away from you. Or, since he is little, you can use a long wooden spoon with a little dab of cream cheese on the end to replace your low hand to deliver the reward.
You were indeed bending over a little too soon here – you can wait a little longer and then pivot when he is just arriving at you hand – if you wait to pivot til he is just about at the hand, he will be decelerating to turn which is good! If you turn too soon, he won’t collect as well so he will be a little wider.
And also being later on the hand dropping in an pivoting when he is just about ariving at your hand will keep you better connected – you turned too soon at 210 which caused a disconneciton, so he didn’t know which side of you to be on. But compare it to the last rep – I really liked your connection and pivot timing there and he was super tight! NICE!!
You can also play this with tug toys – the hand he drives to is empty and then he gets a tug toy after you pivot.
Only one other suggestion:
When using a stay to start this, release him with his release word like you will do from a start line rahter than his name, You can use his name if you are starting with a cookie toss, you don’t need the release word there because he is not in a stay,Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>Cookie catch game went perfectly. Starting to work on wing wraps which he is pretty good at too. Although I think you should have a disclaimer for your courses that if you have three dogs all three will insist on playing!>>
Ha! Yes, the games are fun so I only have one dog in the room at a time 🙂
>> He also does great entering the ring on the leash and sitting with the leash on. Once I try to take the leash off he immediately stands up.
So I was wondering should I continue for a while to just enter the ring on the leash have him sit and reward this behavior for a while and then try to add the off leash piece? I also wondered if I should try moving the jump further away and see if he will sit? Should I try the whole sequence in a less exciting place?>>
So if I am understanding things correctly – he is perfect with every step of the process and goes into his sit. Then the leash comes off, and he stands.
That is not uncommon – taking the leash off might produce a conditioned response (moving, which is often what happens when the leash comes off) and also a reflexive response – opposition reflex might cause him to move. So an easy tweak: do the process exactly as you are, except take the leash off *then* ask for a sit or stay position. This is how most of my dogs enter the ring (leash off before the stay). Of course, work that at home first so it is familiar to him and also make sure he gets rewarded for not leaving when the leash comes off. Let me know what you think!
>>P.S. Bisbee was champ at catch game. She laid down in front of the jump like the Sphinx and capably caught cheese!
She probably is wondering why we have not played this game earlier in her career LOL!
Have a great Thanksgiving!!!
TracyHi!
This went really well!
When he brings the toy, you can tug then give a cookie lime you did just to maintain the strengthen of the bringing and letting go – that was a really nice process!Double gold star for Merlin on that 2nd rep where he *almost* cut in front of you to the toy but then processed the cue and decided to do the behavior of wrapping instead of toy grabbing. YAY!!!! You gave him a good tug then a get it then cookie, all good.
>> the one rep is my error he clearly didn’t understand back from where I was>>
yes, I think your transition into the release was actually too quick. I know I bug everyone about quick transitions but he needed a moment of connection to assess the new side before you gave the back cue (the distraction of the placed reinforcement requires a little more processing time at this early stage). It was good to reward him any way.
You were clearer on the next rep but never said his get it cue so he went around but did not get it – then at 2:32, you said get it… so he did. Little guy is developing some self-control! He might have been mentally tired for the out after that (self-control is very depleting) so the out was slower, but no worries – then he needed a chew moment. This is all interesting insight into how mentally hard self-control on the toy is! But, he is doing really well!!! I am excited by his progress!!!So a big thing to remember here is to limit the # of reps that require self-control. The getting on the couch and chewing might be the sign of the brain getting a little tired 🙂 So you can do one or two reps of the placed toy or remote reinforcement (both of which require a LOT of self-control) and then go do something really easy, like get its on cookies LOL!
Great job here! And have a fabulous Thanksgiving!!
TracyHi!
>For the longer catch toy do I let go of the end or ?
Only if you think he will bring it back LOL! And if you think he won’t bring it back, combine the catch with the magic egg&pumpkin remote reinforcement plate! You are basically creating a bit of a loop:
stay – catch – bring it – egg&pumpkin – stay and so on.T
>>I didn’t let him have it until after he brought me the thing and gave the toy back. Is showing the reward to be earned something I need to phase out?>>
It depends on where the behavior will be used. In this case, I think the the egg/pumpkin plate was a remote reinforcement: go do the thing and afterwards, we go get the reinforcement. I think it can work really well!!
T
Hi! This went really well!!!
Good job getting a really high success rate but also having good challenges in there.
Some little suggestions:
stay on the flat – if you are working towards an agility stay, you don’t need to face him (unless you are specifically assuming the obedience stay position) – and you can toss the toy back after the catch cue while you stay in motion (I recommend this staying in motion for all behaviors with the catch procedure so he doesn’t pair you stopping/looking at him with the release)
You can sometimes stop your motion – and when you do that, insert some praise between your stop and whatever happens next (the catch then toss, or the release forward) – on the last stay rep he wanted to move as you stopped so we don’t want him to anticipate the release when you stop or look at him.Stay in front of jump – also super! Your position was better here in terms of facing forward more.
He doesn’t quite have the whole “stay there it is coming to you” thing down pat yet (he was moving forward when you said catch but I think that was lack of experience with this scenario. More importantly, he had a good time, high success rate, and it will get better with the ‘don’t release forward’ – maybe throw the toy behind him to help him want to not move forward as much. And as with the stay on the flat – you can be moving while you say catch then toss on some of the reps, you don’t have to stop all the time.The 2o2o on the plank also looked good! You will want to add in staying in motion on this one too (I am pretty sure the demo video shows staying in motion on the teeter 2o2o and doing the catch/toss back while I continued to move forward). You can also ramp up your speed – you ha a fast walk going here, so you can ramp it up to a jog then a run!
>> However, towards the end, Cowboy wasn’t as wowed by the Lotus Ball. With a tennis ball, he will continue to engage with it but with the Lotus Ball, he lost interest once he removed the food (dead toy syndrome, I guess).>>
I think that is fine – the function of the Lotus Ball is to be a food delivery mechanism, so it makes sense that he was not as interested in it when there was no food involved. I can relate – the Fritos bag is boring after I have eaten all the Fritos LOL!!! So you can totally keep doing this with a ball (the arousal from the ball will add challenge for sure!) and also the lotus ball can have food in it.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>Getting the ball back is going to be successful and fairly easy I think. We’re already making some small progress on this just by me giving the ball back to Annie.
Perfect!
>>>Staying in the weaves without hand watching is going to be hard because Annie really doesn’t have “remote” skills, but I feel like I know where to begin with this. The toy on a stool seems like an easy way to start. Also, I might be able to build a little value for the manners minder by sending Annie to it and then giving her the ball, kind of like what Contraband did on the demo video with getting the ball first, then the toy.>>
Thinking back to my Rat Terrier, Rebound, who thought that my touching the pocket was a click – I also did something to help break that habit by asking him to do a relatively easy thing (NOT weaves LOL!) and I repeatedly touched my pocket in the “I am pulling out a cookie” motion – when he did the thing and stopped obsessing on the pocket, I gave him a reward from the table behind him or from my other hand. I think I did this with 2o2o targeting, but it can really be anything. Alas, this was 100 years ago so there is no video (2004 maybe?) but I remember he had to learn to take his eyes off the hand moving to the pocket. You can do this maybe with a hand touch? What other simple things does she know? Then we can work it up to the weaves.
>>However with the speed goal at lessons, I’m having trouble figuring out where to begin. Over the summer I worked shorter sequences at lessons, breaking each course into about 3 sections, but it didn’t really translate to an increase in overall speed.
Shorter sequences don’t necessarily translate to more speed. You might need to do shorter sequences, but type and placement of reinforcement will make a big difference. For now, start with getting her to do some tricks with you (not agility, just some trick) with the big reinforcement on a table behind her somewhere. Next week we will build on it and add more speed-specific procedures.
>>I wonder if I should break my goal down into something more specific, like driving fast to the end of the contacts. Annie can probably take a full second off her dogwalk and A-frame just by running down the ramps instead of creeping down them. I can get a fast dw at home after a few reps of throwing the ball once she gets to the end. It’s definitely a habit to be slow on the way down though, especially at lessons.>>
>>>>What do you think about this idea of focusing on contacts? Is this a good first step toward increasing motivation and speed? If so, is there a specific game that would help me get started? >>Well, taking a full second off will definitely help! The get it procedure (throwing it forward as soon as she hits position) can help provided that you do not lose control over the behavior because she anticipates and self-releases. I use the catch for that, throwing the reward back the instant the dog hits the position (it is in this week’s demo video).
I don’t think speedier contacts will also increase speed through jumps and tunnels – it won’t hurt, but probably won’t make them faster.
>> Also, would you get the down ramp speed going great consistently at home before working on it at lessons?
Yes, and also work only the down ramp speed at lessons rather than doing the whole obstacle.
>> Lastly, I know I would reward the great reps, but what about the mediocre reps? Do those get rewarded too?>>
I do! I reward anything that is correct because marking speed is nearly impossible. And I mark it fast with a high value reinforcement, and the placement of the reward is what helps produce the speed. Tell the dog “that was not fast enough” never produces speed and accuracy – in fact, they either slow down to be correct, or they get frustrated and check out. So I reward it. I *might* save the best rewards for super fast & accurate behavior, depending on the dog, but also I wind the dog up before each rep so they are ready to go fast 🙂
Tracy
An old sock: Perfect! And inexpensive LOL!!! You can use a really long old sock and let him tug on it (I have filled old socks with food in the pas to get tugging, not sure if he needs this). Does he also like to tug on old slippers? You can also try tugging on bully sticks or any chew bones – anything can be a tug toy 🙂
T
