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Good morning – so much good stuff here!!! Bummer about the yard 🙁 It is mud season.
Rocking horses went really well! She seemed to not have much of a problem generalizing to the cones or adding the speed/excitement of the toy (there was definitely more speed and excitement, which is good!) I think this was perfect, in terms of her questions (slightly wider turns and the one rep where she didn’t commit). For. The slightly wider turns, no worries at all: she was going fast and bending without losing her mind. Fabulous! To help promote tight turns without losing the speed, add in lots of turn-and-burn exits as well as lots of chasing you for the toy (rather than a stationary strike). The motion will give her a reason to drive back harder to you, which will also give her a reason to tighten up the turns. Also bear in mind that her turns do not need to look like spaghetti noodles wrapping the cone, because speed is very important and as long as she knows where to go and turns her head and sets her turns up: she can do what she likes 🙂 My 16” tall Hot Sauce is a good example of that – she knows how to set her turns up and they don’t look tight – until you look at her course time and yards per second, which is almost 8 yards per second on a jumpers course, fastest of any dog in my house (or at the trial LOL). So – as long as she knows where to go, we will let her sort out how tight she needs to make the turns.
She had one commitment question at :21 – I think you might have been a bit too far from the cone to give a backwards send cue without motion or decel into it. I don’t think the first little error there was toy-induced (it matches the error in the reverse retrieve) but then she was not sure what to do and jumped for the toy. You broke it down after that and she got it really nicely! As you add more distance, you can also add more motion of moving forward then decel then rotate, to help set up the backwards sending.
Backsides – yes, she is finding the backside really well. SUPER!!!! And also yes – I see what you mean about her not seeing the bump til you help her either with turning or with presenting the toy. Since the default behavior of taking the jump is key, we can approach that a couple of different ways to help get the behavior going:
First, we can change the setup to make the jump bump more salient to go over. 2 ideas on that (I suggest both for now, because we really want the bump to pop out to her more and be easier to go over) –
You can add the 2nd wing so it look more like a jump and she will hopefully focus on going between the wings when she arrives at the backside. And, rotate the whole set up about 45 degrees, where the entry wing is closer to her (so it is both easier to get to the backside and when she arrives on the backside, the bump is right in front of her). The exit wing is further from her (and from you) but that is fine for now.Second – her questions are not about placement of reinforcement, they are about value of reinforcement. The toy here is valuable when you have it and it is moving. It does not draw her focus to it and to the bump when it is placed. A tossed cookie is hard to see. So, changing the type of reinforcement so you can place it (and never have it come from your hand) should help get her eyes on the bump and off you. The 2 options for that are an empty food bowl (but you would still have to toss food to it, unless you can place the food in it in advance) or the Pet Tutor. The PT will be the best/easiest option. The placement point can be tucked in next to t he exit wing for now, on the landing side. Then we can move it over to the entry wing, but I don’t want her to have to run past it to the backside entry for now. Let me know if that makes sense.
Reverse retrieve – looking great! Her drive to the toy seemed faster than her drive back to you, so you can get her to drive back harder with a 2nd toy as a reward – when she makes it almost all the way back to you – Boom! Whip out the other toy. And you can start her closer to the toy you drop for now, so she is closer to it when she passes you, and has a shorter distance to drive back to you (sometimes the longer distances are not compelling).
Her question at the end when she didn’t commit to the toy behind you was identical to her question in the rocking horses at :21! It was basically a backwards send and she was also turning to her right. That is why I don’t think her rocking horse question was toy-induced at first, because the toy was on the ground here. So it is probably a slight right-turn-Countermotion weakness (very slight). So definitely on the right turns, start both of you closer to the toy and don’t move as fast on these for now – then you will be able to build it back up to full on speed and distance.Great job!!!! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! Good job carving out time for puppy videos! Her toy play here was great!
The barrel videos both looked really good. You can give her more of an arm/leg send to get her started (step to the barrel with your dog-side arm and leg) – I think she was not sure how to start (especially on the 2nd video) so you can totally send now that you are past the offering stages and getting further away from the barrel. On the 2nd video, you ran lengthwise (parallel ot the tunnel) and that was grea – gavey ou more room to run! Yay!
You can totally add your wrap verbals in now – say them as you send to the barrel.
>>We tried again with toy on the ground and she would not leave it – I decided to abort and do more tug and try a lower value tug next time.
Do you mean on the ground as a target for her to drive to? No worries! I want her to be wild for the toy, so you don’t need to worry about a toy on the ground for now if she can’t ignore it. You can throw it out ahead like you did at the end of video 2, or use a balance perch or something as the target and when she drives to it -throw the toy 🙂
Her backing up is also going well! You can add in being a step further from her target now and if that goes well, take another step so she can back up more and more.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>> I’ll try to stay more connected on exits.
Think of it as having the fingers on your dog-side arm pointing back to her collar while you make eye contact. And if you want to cookie reward at your side, you can move the hand to your leg when she is arriving at your leg.
>>. But, with a toy I think you were dragging it on the ground. Do I want to drop it on her line or have her grab it from my hand? The line makes more sense to me. I’ll need to figure out which marker to use. That’s the issue with LSM words!>>
If you think the dog might mistake your flesh for the toy, or get lapy – you can have it on a line and dragging. I was using a pretty long toy so it was pretty low. I might not have had all of my markers in place in the demo video (the demos were all first-time sessions with the dogs being very young) but for moving-toy-chase-and-grab, I use a shhhhhhhh noise til the dog grabs it 🙂
On the video:
>>This would turn into my backside wrap cue eventually I think. Correct?
Yes – the start of this is mainly just about getting the pups to turn their heads as part of the game, to set up better turns. The advanced level that you did here is now the backside circle wrap – and you can add your verbal bause she has the behavior. I also suggest dropping the clicker from this (she looks up at your face when you click at the beginning, then looks up in anticipation of it towards the end) – you can move to a LSM depending on where you want to reward her. I recommend moving to a toy on this as the reward and using your ‘strike’ marker. You can also take this outside so there is a little more room so she can drive ahead of you, and also so you can add more motion: jogging then running. Wheeee! And as with the rocking horses – moving to a cone would be perfect too!
Great job here!!
TracyGood morning!
You did a great job of cuing the tunnel threadle without flipping him away as much! I think his questions had a bit more to do with the toy excitement and ignoring the toy in order to get the toy LOL!! He was ON FIRE for the toy. And that is good, we want him to love his toys! So you can reward the FC on the tunnel exit on the first part of the double whammy so he doesn’t come shooting out looking for the toy 🙂
Then when y uadd in the threadle, keep moving slowly and doing the cue, be super patient until he turns his head away – then use a toy marker like ‘get it’ if you trow or a ‘bite’ barker if you want him to come tug, rather than ‘yes’. The ‘yes’ was drawing him to the toy prematurely 🙂My only other suggestion is to take a moment between getting the toy back and starting the next rep – let him take a breath, you can set him up, ask him if he is ready, then cue the rep. If things move too quickly between getting the toy back and the tunnel send, he is more likely to not be ready and make a mistake.
I think he probably just needs one more session of this to hash out how to earn the toy and when to ignore it, then he will be perfect!
The tight turn game looks great, he is leading with his head and bending really nicely – he wants to lift his head more on the left turns which might indicate tat they are harder, you made and excellent adjustment on the last rep by getting lower ot hlpe keep his head lower. Yay!
>> can we transfer this to the collapsible barrel or a wing now?>>
Yes! He is ready for the barrel and also for the Advanced Level of the moving 360s (backside circle wraps).
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!!!
I figure since we are not exactly tall, we have the advantage of being closer to the dogs to deliver reinforcement easily, right? LOL!
>>I know you said not to worry about spinning the wrong way after getting to the prop, but Leo was pretty dedicated to doing just that most of the time, so am looking forward to your feedback so I can give better info to Leo >>
He was starting to figure it all out! I ask folks to reward the dogs even if they turn the wrong way, for 2 reasons:
first, it is possible that we might have been late with the cue… that is what was happening here 🙂second, the dogs need to learn that the rear cross ‘pressure’ predicts the placement of reinforcement on the new side after turning away – which is also what was happening here 🙂
To help explain, I grabbed some screen shots:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1B3ks7V-vpLokyqfW_8Ka9asxzJcK0DXWElB_itCl31A/edit?usp=sharing
On the reps where he did not make the rear cross, you did not start the pressure for the RC cue early enough for him to make the adjustment. You will see this at :09, :33 and :43 where he was already very close to the prop and you had not started the RC info yet.
Compare that to :28 and :38 and :48, for example – you started pressuring in sooner, so he was able to make the adjustment and do the rear cross. Yay! This was also working because you wer erewarding him in the new direction, even if the pressure was late: he is smart and quickly figured out that pressure means rear cross. Yay!
So to make it even smoother for him, we can get you pressuring in on the RC line and cutting behind him sooner. Think of the prop as the center of the bar of a jump, so you will be moving towards the prop very directly and then to the other side of it, all before he arrives at it. The goal is that you have changed sides behind him and you are on the new side before he reaches the prop – the prop is a jump replacement, so we would want to be fully finished with the RC before the dog reaches the jump.
Part of it is starting closer to him and not as far away laterally – that makes it easier to show pressure and get to the new side nice and early. You were nice and close to him on that very first rep – he didn’t get it on the first rep, but that might have been because you were a little late and he is new to rear crosses. Start him further away, maybe 15 to 20 feet away, so he has more room to drive ahead and so you can start moving forward and cut behind him while he is still about 6 feet from the prop (if he turns correct but doesn’t touch the prop, still give a big reward :))
You might feel like yo uare very close to him and almsot stepping over his tail 🙂 but that is correct and will help get the RCs going nice and early.On the screenshot document, I added 2 screenshots at the end of me cutting in behind my puppy – you can see I am just about fully on the other side of her and she is not yet at the prop, so she was able to turn the new direction on the RCs.
Rocking horses looked great – the forward send to the barrel looked good and the double FCs looked good too. He is bending really nicely!!!!! and he was almsot perfect too. I think he likes this games! He had a couple of questions:
at :19 he had a question and didn’t go to the barrel that smoothly it is possible that you were a little further away than he was comfy, so you ca ndo those one step sends starting a little closer then gradually adding in more distance, especially when you are not using motion.One detail to think about it try not to switch the toy from hand to hand during the FCs. That causes a delay in the rotation & connection (and he is speedy, so you don’t have any extra time :)) Also, he is seeing that toy movement and it confuses him as to when the toy is in play as a reward, versus when it is not – so it draws his focus up to you and away from the barrel. That is why, at :31, hr didn’t commit when you stepped back a little early and reached for the toy – a moment of confusion as to whether it was come to reward versus keep wrapping. So definitely leave the toy scrunched up in one hand for the whole rep – he will learn to ignore it til you present it as the reward. For example, at 1:31 you had the toy in the send hand, and he was a super good boy to ignore it and wrap the barrel!!
The other thing to add to the toy is a ‘take the toy’ marker. I added “bite” for my dogs, meaning that they could now grab the toy in my hand (and implying that they should ignore it til I say “bite”). You were saying’yes’ but that is a general word that we all say all the time, so it gets confusing 🙂His only other question was at :49 when ou wanted him on your right but he ended up on your left – that is because there was no “Hallmark Moment” 🙂 of connection/ eye contact as he exited the barrel. You were looking forward. You can see him look at you then based on what he saw, he took your left side then went to the barrel (GOOD BOY!) – you can totally reward that becauae even though it was not the side you intended, he still went and found the barrel. . When that happens (pup ends up on the wrong side), assume it was a human error, a connection mistake and reward especially since he went and committed to the barrel.
Adding motion on the last couple of reps was great, it really supported his commitment and allowed you to leave earlier. He was great and seemed to really have fun with all the speed!
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>>I dug a metal garbage can out of the snow in the backyard and brought it up on the porch. Perfect wraps! So I’m going to go get another one tomorrow so we can do 2 barrel things.>>
YAY!!! That is super exciting to hear! Yes, if you can get another one, you can definitely do more of the rocking horse games – I think she will really like the action 🙂
>>Here are some baby lap turns that we worked on tonight. Apparently they are hard for her brain and require string cheese and not pet fresh.>>
Ha! Lap turns are hard: the pressure of driving into you with you facing her, and then turning away (turning away is WEIRD for more dogs LOL!!!) So cheese is definitely a good paycheck for this skill 🙂 Plus, I like it because she doesn’t have to chew – she can swallow it and be ready for whatever if next.
She was great here – you got quicker and quicker with being ready for the next rep after the tossed reward, and that really helped her know where to look as soon as she turned towards you. My only suggestion is to bend towards her more and fully extend the magic cookie hand towards her, elbow locked, in that magical “do you want a cookie?” position. That makes the cue hand even more salient plus it gives you more room to draw her back as you step back – and she is big so more room can help!I think she is ready for you to add the prop on the exit, so she learns that the lap turn also means “turn away and commit to a thing” 🙂
Great job here! Stay warm!
TracyGood morning!
he totally caught onto this very quickly, of course 🙂 Yay! Little suggestions to keep building it up:
Now that you have shown him the turn-away element of finding the tunnel entry, take the arm & foot help out entirely. You can still have your threadle arm visible, but keep it in threadle position until after he turns and finds the tunnel (and don’t turn your feet at all :))The only other suggestion is to have a mat or empty food bowl out past the tunnel exit, so you an toss the ‘search’ cookie into it. The only hard part for him in this session was finding the cookie, then trying to reset himself for the next rep. So having a clear “this is where the cookie is going to land” will help set up a clean reinforcement. And, you can also reset him at your side (after the search cookie) – he won’t be sad about an additional cookie in that moment, and it gives you a moment to then show him the in in cue while he is ready for it.
Speaking of ready: I think he is ready for you to add more motion. Set him up maybe halfway down the length of the tunnel, give yourself a 1 step lead out – then release with the in in verbal and arm as you move forward slowly. Your motion should be parallel to the tunnel, resist the temptation to turn to show him the entry. Then when he gets it = big party and throw the cookies 🙂
My guess is that he will catch onto this immediately when you add motion, and then you can do the double whammy game which involves the 2 tunnels in a row (he will also not be sad about that LOL!!)
>>hen watching the video, I realized I did not do the verbal the way I intended. Instead on one slow “In”, I meant to do a Short “In,In”.>>
No worries! I think the one in verbal had to do with basically standing still to get the behavior started. As soon as you start to move, you can repeat the in in in in with each footstep and I think repeating it will come very naturally when you are moving, especially if you bob the threadle arm up and down too.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>>the ever present barking JRT was out.
OMG totally sounds like a JRT too haha!!!! Sprite was great, completely ignored the barking – good girl!
On the videos:
All of this looks fabulous on the ‘forward’ sending stuff, both with the rocking horses and the turn and burn exits. One handling detail is to have your dog-side arm a little further back so your shoulder is more open to her as she exits a wrap: that will keep you more connected. You were tending to close your shoulder to send forward or feed at your side, but we can that should to stay open for longer so she can see more connection as she exits the wrap. Her commitment looked great, and that is the plan: train commitment so well that we don’t need to rely on perfect connection as much as we did with prevoius generations 🙂The right turn wraps sideways and backwards were harder for her – she is a little stickier on that side when you are sending especially now that there is more distance, but she nailed it on that last rep!! Yes!!!!!! Also, you can add a little more motion into them for now, to help her out – spread the tables out so you can send to the first one, do a FC and take a step or two towards the next one to help commit her, then roate and send sideways/backwards.
Two other things I would add to this:
– toys! Wheeee! She is ready to feel the wind in her hair, either driving to you to tug or chasing you to tug after a turn and burn exit.
– A barrel or something rounder to go around (large cone?) so she can start rehearsing that body bending that we will put onto jump wings soon.Great job!!! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
I like the beep beep cue for him and he seems to have a really strong grasp of doing the full circle wrap as you continue to move forward. You can use beep beep as the release cue (verbal directionals and obstacle names are valid release cues to help get the info flowing as early as possible).
You can add more motion here here, starting a little further back from the barrel so he passes you sooner and you can jog right in behind his tail, building up to running – starting further back might help him come in a little more directly to the barrel (he bends out away from it on the way to it, probably feeling the pressure of your motion when you motion starts). And you can add in a bump so he can see that the 360 is a backside turn and helps build default commitment to the bump.>>My LSMs are not as clean as I’d like. I just need to do a bit more of a walk-through of what I’m training with the verbal cues, body cues and then LSMs in place all before I start the exercise with him. >>
I think I did hear a couple of different LSMs? But you kept the rate of reinforcement super high so I didn’t see him get frustrated at all. You can also delay the marker and reinforcement for a couple more steps: let him clear the barrel before you mark and present the toy. When you were marking/presenting as he was still wrapping, he was pushing the barrel in his drive to get the toy. We don’t want to build that in, so the easiest thing to do is let him finish the wrap cleanly and then mark/reinforce when his tail has cleared the barrel (which is also a good next step because it marks completion of the behavior).
The ‘chute’ session also looks good! He is also showing strong understanding of this game. I think your first rep & 2nd rep were the best – clear arm cue, he found the tunnel entries independently, and you kept moving. The other reps were also strong but you were stopping more, so the motion of those early reps where you kept moving until after he was in the tunnel were my favorites.
I think it is safe to say he probably recognizes this game now 🙂 So, we can mix it up by habing 3 possible answers to the ‘puzzle’:
1 – just like you did here, the double whammy 🙂
2 – 1 tunnel send, FC on the exit like in option 1, and have him chase you past the tunnel entry but not go in it (name call but no threadle cue)
3 – add a ‘go’ exit to the double whammy game: as he is entering the tunnel for the 2nd time, give him your “go” verbal, as you turn to accelerate to the exit and throw the toy. You can do a ‘go’ exit on any of the tunnels, so he stays happy driving out of the tunnel straight when cued.Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>>LOL! I didn’t realize that I was doing that. She does respond really well to me calling her with a higher voice and strectching it out though so she has propbably shpaed me to do that when I really want her to come to me.>>
I figured it was automatic and you didn’t realize it. it is perfectly fine for smaller spaces but at some point you will need to breathe LOL so getting her used to shorter name calls will help LOL!
>> <
It is definitely preferred that we use a marker, if the dog understands the marker and if we humans remember to use them 🙂 It is also important to understand that the dogs read context brilliantly and 100% know the difference between me dangling the toy, temptingly, in a game on position that builds off of the other games/contexts they have experienced versus me placing the toy on the ground for, say, the strike a pose game then getting into position. The contexts are super clear if we have built things up through the different steps and it will be no problem for the dog. Yes, ideally we have the markers going – but also, too much control or proofing or too many errors (or skipping steps) is where confusion comes from – so that is why teaching things in tiny slices and building up the steps with a super high rate of reinforcement is the most important element 🙂
>>can easily take the TnT out for now – she does REALLY like it.
Right – that is why it needs to come out, for now – she really likes it and does not yet understand all the slices of the behavior, so the Tnt in the picture creates too much failure.
>> I am hesistant to go to a toy only situation because of needing to call her out of the tunnel to get it both from the perspective of not wanting her to default that way and she is still a growing baby so don’t want a lot of tighter turns. I could end each session with a few straight runs through the tunnel to the TnT to rebalance, plus I won’t play with this very much because of her age.>>
This is definitely not an everyday game (none of these are, really). And you don’t need the TnT to balance for straight lines – throwing the toy will work wonderfully well too – throw it as soon as she turns her head to enter the tunnel so she sees it landing while she is still in the tunnel. That will get even more propulsion forward on the exit that the TnT will.
T
Good morning!
Look at you without snow and without wearing 55 layers of clothing! I am jealous LOL!!!!
Really nice session here! He was a tugging maniac 🙂 he it totally understanding the tunr-away into the tunnel for the threadle, so now we can build it into a more independent behavior. The skill has evolved a lot on course, so basically think of it like this: the verbal and threadle arm indicate the behavior you want… without actually indicating the tunnel itself. What I mean by that is you can have your arm and verbal going but you don’t need to use the arm to turn him away into the tunnel. He gets to turn himself away (and I am sure he will be happy to do that :)) That will give you both greater independence and speed on course, and he won’t need to rely on your timing of turning him away to the tunnel – he will just go do it by himself, on cue.
So now that you have taught him the turn-away behavior, we go to the next step of teaching him to do it without extra help from an arm cue (and without needing to wait for an arm cue to turn away): using the double whammy game, send him into the tunnel on a normal tunnel send. Then when he exits, pick him up on the inside and use your threadle arm and verbal – but keep walking slowly forward on the line next to the tunnel entry, kind of heading to the entry. Be patient, just keep the arm up and keep saying the verbal – when he turns himself away to go into the tunnel, have a big party and reward.
If he thinks you are nuts and doesn’t do it, waiting for you to flip him away to the tunnel, we can break it down and have you standing there cuing it, without motion and without flipping him away. I bet he figures it out quickly, though!
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyYay! It will be fun! And lots of stuff that will be perfect for outdoors as the weather gets better 🙂
T
Good morning!
>> it has taken several days to get Dellin back doing the threadle – she took A LOT of offense at my stepping on her (memo to self – don’t do that again).
OMG that is a LOT of grudgement (judgement plus grudge-holding for one tiny error) LOL!
She was great here, so here are a couple of ideas for the next steps:
Try to fade the ‘break’ cue which is generally associated with taking the front of a jump – in in can totally be a release word and it will tell her what to do sooner than break-in in does. Also, will she hold the stay if you put the threadle arm in position before the verbal cue? That will help too – and we don’t want her to associate the release with the arm movement.You can totally add in the 2nd wing for this. And the in-in threadle behavior does imply getting the toy on the line, but you can also use a get it marker as soon as she turns her head to the bump, which will mark & solidify that moment of the finding the bump independently.
Reverse retrieve – while she was technically correct, she literally made me snort with her passionate (not!) trot to you during the retrieve portion LOL!!! She is a big personality and cracks me up!!! She was fast and happy to get the toy that you dropped and asked her to get – explosive! But then she was all like “I will get there when I get there” when bringing it to you LOL!! I don’t think more running room will help that – you were pretty energetic and I don’t think increasing your energy or speed will be more convincing.
So we can convince her to run to you by doing doing reverse retrieves: start like you did here – and then when she gets close to you with toy #1, immediately throw toy #2 past you for her to drive to as the reward. At first, that can be the end of the rep – the reward thrown past you. Then, that #2 toy can be the middle of the rep: when you toss it, tell her to get it and you run the other way (snagging toy #1 on the way) she retrieves it, chases you, and then you throw toy #1 as the reward.
We can also split the behavior by throwing toy #2 before she gets to you, as long as it doesn’t become a lure.
The goal is that she goes faster during the retrieves, but you do not need to go faster as well 🙂 Let me know if that idea makes sense.>>Is position 2, like the middle of the bump? and position 3 where the second wing would be if it was a jump?>>
Yes – position 2 is more of a line to the center of the bump, and position 3 is more like a line to where the wing meets the bar on the exit side of the jump.
Before moving to position 2, though, try position 1.5 🙂 where you are halfway between the barrel and the center of the bump, where she sees a tiny bit of the bump but still goes around to the backside.Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
He did a great job ignoring al of the distractions – that is the best trial prep ever (thanks, neighbor kids LOL!!!!) During the holidays, my neighbor had 3 or 4 little kids running around, shrieking, with 2 Lab puppies and he also has a field of cows that were running around too… all on the day that I was out there doing my UKI At Home trial runs LOL! It is a bit annoying but I figure it our youngsters can ignore all of that, then trials will be super easy peasy 🙂 I am jealous of your camels, it would be great fun to train around them!On the video:
>>he seemed to be picking it up pretty quickly
1000% yes! He has the behavior, brilliant boy! You set him up to get it really well with helping just enough to start, then starting to fade out the help by the end of the video. Great session! So now we can obsess on the handling 🙂 I like ‘chute’ as the verbal, it sounds incredibly different from the tunnel cue and I think it can be said at a run in a way that is very attention-getting which is good for a turn cue.
>>The non-flipping arm cue here is new to him and me so not quite fluent
Yes, it is definitely an evolution from previous tunnel threadle arm cues, thanks to the course designers putting the handlers further and further away LOL! And also too many of us had imperfect timing on the flip-away to the tunnel, which messed up the dogs – and the dogs basically told us they didn’t need the arm flip anyway by turning themselves away.
So with that in mind, the threadle arm cue is not intended to actually indicate the obstacle but rather indicate the behavior. That is different from the send arm, when we do actually indicate the obstacle. On the first reps here, your outside arm was indicating the ‘chute’ entry, which was turning your body towards the tunnel. That primed him for tat very last rep, where your outside arm was engaged but your motion and and arm indicted the behavior without needing to point to the actual tunnel entry. He was perfect 🙂 Yay! So since he is getting the behavior so nicely, you can change the threadle arm position to something that is easier to do at a run – I personally prefer to have my threadle arm at shoulder height, elbow bent and across my body, palm pointing towards the dog – all to indicate the behavior without needing to point to the tunnel (while saying the verbal too, of course LOL). Your last rep at 1:26 had your arm pointing towards the tunnel entry, fully extended. That might be harder to run with when we start adding more and more speed, so you can play around with how you want to use your arm to indicate the behavior (while still being able to run fast :)) Since he is easily able to process behavior cues while also running (HOORAY – thoughtful processing at high speed? YES PLEASE!) the sky is the limit with how you want to cue it – a combination of salient for the dog while also allowing you to run fast is going to work best.
Great job here!! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
The reverse retrieve is going really well! She is doing a great job of getting it and bringing it!!! I am really excited about how much you have gotten her to enjoy retrieving!! One little tiny detail is to call her once (Beka!) and be quiet, mainly so you can breathe and also so the extended name call (Bekaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!) doesn’t become the cue – because breathing needs to happen LOL You might not even have noticed your were holding her name call as long as you did 🙂 it was cracking me up – lungs of steel!
On the rep where you took out the 2nd toy, I think it was a little confusing – you might have ben trying to prevent her from heading into the living room but the name call helped her there. To use the 2nd toy, you can clarify with an ‘out’ verbal then present the other toy, if she has an out verbal. Otherwise it went perfectly well with one toy so you might not even need to incorporate the 2nd toy.
>.And she really isn’t ‘giving’ me the tug yet, I am still really just taking it as she gets close enough to me. Need to work on that separately but since it’s more of a shapped thing it’s a bit harder since it involves food mostly.>>
No worries on that at all – she is bringing it directly back for the most part and bringing it close enough for an easy grab and play session. That is AWESOME! You can shape the retrieve-to-hand with food, yes, which makes tugging harder but you can also play shaping games with other objects being placed in your hand for food rewards, then build the tugging back in. You can also shape it with toy(s) only but having her placing it in your hand be the ‘button’ that gets you to throw that same toy or a second toy. I do this will balls and toys.
About the reverse retrieve:
>>1 – shouldn’t we use ‘get it’ or whatever our command is to have them grab the toy all the time on this since we are leaving the toy, like we do in the first part?
If you feel the get it is strong and ready to be used, then yes – totally use it. But primarily, to prevent them from chasing us, start without a lot of motion.
>> Otherwise, shouldn’t they ignore the toy and follow us?
Not necessarily – they recognize the context of the game. We are dangling the toy, making it salient, using a release verbal if they are in a stay – so the context of the game means they can get it. I know that a lot of people like to proof that, but that sets the dog up for failure and dampens the excitement of the game. I mean, in what other context would we use this setup and NOT want the pup to get the toy? If we wanted to place the toy as a reward for something else, the context would be entirely different. I liken it to tunnels: yes, I try to say “tunnel” when I am running at a tunnel with the dog – but in the context of doing a sequence and I am running at a tunnel, the context of the motion and situation means “take the tunnel” even if I don’t say ‘tunnel’. If I don’t say tunnel and the dog is on the line to a tunnel that I am running towards, should the dog *not* take it and just chase me? Nope. So allowing the pups to read teh context as we develop our various verbals (or remember to say the right ones LOL!) will allow us to play all the games with high success.
>>2 – Are you wanting us to move off at a lateral angle from where we drop the toy, or more of back to where the dog is, or on the the same line we left the dog, or ‘all the angles’ so they get used to finishing a behaviour before coming to us how ever we move away??
Starting with moving off at a lateral angle is a bit easier because it is a little less countermotion. Then move back towards where the dog started. “All of the angles” is the eventual answer because that simulates what they will see no course – but it takes a while to get there.
Tunnel Double Whammy game:
She is doing really really well here too! I think the main suggestion I have for you is to take the TnT out, it was too confusing for her. Great job getting her to read the difference between the 2 cues and to turn herself away on the threadle part!>>This is not easy to do on a short tunnel and get the words in at the right time,>>
yes 🙂 Quickness is part of this and verbal timing – I think having the TnT in the picture made things much harder – she had too many questions about it, she wasn’t sure where to look and that made the timing harder too – so take it out and use a toy for now. Eventually you can add in a ‘go’ verbal on tunnel exits to cue the drive to the tnT but for now, it muddies the waters (too many errors) and we don’t want to reduce the value of the TnT by calling her off it a lot for now.
>> On the second last rep she started to turn to me out of the tunnel and then turned to the TnT,>>
It is confusion about when it is available or not, the body language looked similar enough as at 1:09 when she came to you then you sent her to the TnT. For now, so you only have to focus on one thing, taking the TnT out will help. You can throw a toy after the 2nd tunnel and use a ‘get it’ to let her drive to it. or a name call to let her come tug from your hand (I think throwing it is better because it maintains driving straight out of the tunnel better after turning to come in for the threadles).
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
