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Hi!
This is a great game to work with her, I am glad you went back to it! It was haaaaaard for her! That tunnel is very exciting 🙂 You can see that she was able to make the wraps but it was VERY hard for her and she needed you to rotate or move the cookie hands. And the turns were a bit wide – and that is fine for the beginning stages, because we reward for getting it right without caring so much about how tight the turns are. This wa sa great first session for her! And it is also insightful as to why she might turn wider than desired on course: the draw of running fast to the other obstacles is very powerful!
Two ideas to move forward with this game:
your next session should be just like this one 🙂 If she is able to make the turns but the turns are still a little wide, the session after than can have more distance between the wings and tunnel so she is less tempted 🙂 the goal is to see her make the collection to turn before arriving at the wing.
If she is able to make the turns AND she is nice and tight… you can move to the advanced level where we add the wrap cue in after she exits the tunnel 🙂
Her success will guide you and I think this will transfer over very nicely into her turns on course!!!
Nice work here 🙂 Let me know what you think!
TracyCan you have her brother in a stay, then when she leaps on the board you can release them both for a big run?
About the 4-wheeler… is that a game she gets to play? If it is a safe game for her, you can use it! But I wouldn’t want to recommend it if it is at all dangerous.Hi!
Nice work here, he is really getting this behavior going quite nicely! Yay!!! And it helps that he is really confident about the movement of the board and the noise 🙂 So with that in mind, I focused more on the 2 different approaches to the line up:
I see what you mean about the pulls on the collar with the tab. On those reps, though, he was more independent with the getting on (watching you less because he had a moment to look at the end of the board, and so you could move more easily) and his weight shift was MUCH better on those reps too!
On the cookie throw approaches, he didn’t get the pull on his neck at all, which is good 🙂 Those reps didn’t have as much independence though – he was watching you more and trying to line up his position with your position more, seeming to rely on where your feet were. And the weight shift was not as good because he was looking up more.So I think we can get the best of both worlds with some tweaking of the mechanics! Bring him near the board, to the line up position right next to the end, without holding the tab – a cookie lure is perfectly fine for that 🙂 Get him right next to the board, and as you feed him a cookie, take hold of the tab. Then stop the cookies, let him look at the target (you can give a little ready ready) and then give the target cue and let go of the tab.
That should eliminate the pulls on the collar that were happening when you were moving him bu the tab, while also allowing you to have the independence and weight shift that starting him that close to the end gets. No need to push him back or anything (he didn’t like that and ended up jumping over the board there), just line up. And a bit of gentle opposition reflex is fine 🙂
That can also set him up nicely for the next step: since he is understanding it so nicely, you have now entered what we are affectionally calling the Lava Zone: the area next to the target is lava (for you) so your feet can be anywhere except next to the target. So when you cue the target position, either still back in the yellow like you did in the first couple of reps, or start to walk forward immediately so you are moving the whole time (slowly at first) – staying in motion for at least 2 more steps after he stops. That will help him not rely on your foot position or your deceleration. That is the important next step for the bang game.
So working out the mechanics of the transition into the leap on plus adding in your motion forward will help really solidify things! Let me know if that makes sense: he is doing really well so it is fun to move to the next steps 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi!
>>That was Jennifer Thomas.. she said to stop asking for the full teeter and just work on elevator with me moving after. Since he was not successful at full teeter>>
I thought that might be her, that is why I wanted to hear her advice: she is a terrific trainer/handler!
And I loved his speed across the full teeter, he just couldn’t stop at the end. I reward that then stop the session if the dog has any history: thanks for going fast buddy, let me figure this out before we try again 🙂>>I think I wear my heart on my sleeve a bit too as I was disappointed…sigh>>
TOTALLY RELATABLE. I feel that – I shed many tears over Export’s teeter issues when he was a baby dog but he & I got it figured out and he went on to have a spectacular career (if I do say so hahaha!) And anytime I want to stick a needle in my eye with my young dogs, I remind myself of how we got it done with him and then I can carry on with the training plan 🙂 And to keep myself from getting too emotional, I obsess on the science behind the training and it always comes back to conditioned response (and maybe some chocolate too, that always helps haha)
>>As soon as I saw him duck under table I recognized avoidance..
And that is why it is good to have video – sitting here watching, I could see it much sooner but in the moment, it is easy to miss the early signs.
>>I was so happy he offered weaves I did not see avoidance because we have been working weaves just as much as we have the teeter.>>
Right! Good boy! And you can reward that offer. He seems to have the positive response to the weaves that we are going for with the teeter now too 🙂
>>Class yes.. he had history of flying off.
He has no history of teeter work at place on video..just jump sequences
Again bright side for me is he’s coming back. And trying things.. a year ago. With the Jennifer dogs barking in down stay 30ft away..he would never even had attempted to work….so progress>>>Ah, that is good to know – so even though the teeter work was not as good as at home, the overall session was a massive improvement! Lock onto that! The teeter will get there too!
T
Hi!
Both of these are really good sessions! On the Bang Game, the rate of success is already higher with you adding motion: you are moving faster than you have been and he is MUCH more successful when you on his left side. You can’t explode into motion yet (that is why he had the error early in the session) so keep it smooth for now, we will add exploding later 🙂 And he had one error on the other side but I think it was mainly that he was not fully line up and couldn’t balance – you gave him a better line up on the next rep and he was great.For the next session, do it just like this! And if his rate of success is super high like here, you can add more height on the next session 🙂
I think the throw back rewards are working well – yes, he has to gt off the board to gt them but the are predictably behind him: note how by the end of the video he was weight shifting back while holding position, in anticipation of the reward, while you moved forward. YES!
The elevator game is going really well too – his scratching at the target cracks me up!!! He seemed super happy and very successful here, even as you added motion. Super! So on the next session, add more height 🙂 When you change that variable, don’t also add motion til he is comfy. Then you can add the motion back in.
Great job here!!! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
He definitely was figuring out the game with the wobble board by the end of it but it is still really hard for him. A couple of ideas for you to help smooth it out (because it will help his general target position on the teeter too!)– try to clarify the release out of position. On most of the reps, you were releasing with ‘yay’ or ‘yes’ but I think the specific release word will really help things – the dogs do really well with ‘stay’ behaviors like this one when the release is super clear.
– the MM plus your motion is a massive distraction combo for him. Even further away, the MM was really hard to ignore. So let’s separate the two for now – add your motion to the wobble board without the MM out ahead, so you can keep moving past and he stops (he might look at you a little but that is fine for now).
Separately, revisit the motion override game (I think you did that one in the MaxPup class). Review it on the flat and if he remembers it, do it with the MM out ahead of him. Let me know if you remember that game, it is really useful 🙂When he can do both separately, we can add them back together 🙂 But the motion is a really important piece to focus on for now.
On. the target fading – Border Collies certainly make up interesting rules for themselves LOL!!!!!! So funny!!! Rather than have to worry about the space aliens on the target, I like your plan of just cutting the target down. He was fine when you pulled it out, but be extra careful that you keep moving and do not stop as he is moving into position. On the last 2 reps, you stopped as he stopped – try to stay in motion for 2 more steps, so he doesn’t cue off of your decel. I think he will be fine about letting you fade the target by making it smaller, so I will see bugging you to keep moving 🙂
Nice work here!!! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning! Thanks for posting the video! It was really insightful. What was the videographer’s suggestion? Cliffhanger LOL!!!
A couple of ideas for you – it is important to bear in mind any previous history which is why we see massive success in some ways but not in others. History (baggage LOL) plays a part.
>>I tried to do the game plan Wednesday at class but he avoided the teeter,so I did not push the interaction.>>
This was probably history rear its head. Was this in the same place as the video, or a place he has a history with the teeter?
The avoidance tells us that we have to get him happier to just be near the teeter and raise his arousal into an optimal state being near it, before asking for it. So next time, rather than ask for the teeter in class (even just the little end games) – ask for a bunch of silly tricks near the teeter and reward each one. We need to change history and that is one of the ways to do it. A spin for a toy, or a high five for a cookie – do 5 or 6 tricks for treats, then carry on to the rest of the course. Do that a couple of times and you should be able to see his expression and body language change – then we can ask for the teeter in that environment (my guess is that is what he will need for his first couple of NFC trial runs too!) He wears his heart on his sleeve, which is actually very helpful for us to ‘read the room’ in terms of what to ask him for.Speaking of wearing his heart on his sleeve – he is very good at telling us when there is toooooo much pressure (well, it is easy to see on the video and probably harder to see in the moment when you are training – I have found that to be the case with my dogs as well). He does not do well in longer sessions when there is pressure, especially pressure to do a harder behavior with more distractions. On the video here, I think that is what happened:
his response to pressure is to leave, to “check out” – he was doing that here a lot by offering other obstacles. There were a lot of distractions: I could hear people and a dog was barking the whole time. That is a significant increase in distraction and he was feeling the pressure: offering the other obstacles was a stress behavior here, not an happy ‘let’s work’ behavior.
He did REALLY well sticking around and executing the elevator game reps. Good boy! It was difficult but he did it. That took about a minute. When you asked for more, he started offering avoidance behaviors – I would have ended the session on the success at 1:02 and not asked for more. That is when we saw a lot more avoidance and failure. Yes, you got him back and got some success but the failures and stress will build into more stress in terms of negative conditioned response. Recognize that as stress behavior and don’t press him for more because even if you do get some successful reps, you risk building in stress to the teeter. I think he is a dog that will be most successful with one hit wonders as the main approach: do it once, get a massive reward, go do something else. Come back later, do it once, get a massive reward, go do something else. Give him less time to think about it and build in a TON of reinforcement, rather than thinking about doing full sessions with multiple reps like you would with, say, weave poles or handling.
The key for him is now going to be shifting the conditioned emotional response in higher distraction situations or any place where it did not go well previously: in those situations, it is a negative CER so we lose the trained behaviors and get stress-related behaviors. In places where the CER is very positive (like at home, or in places with lower levels of distraction), he is *fabulous*. We are seeing great behavior there!So the conditioned response is the last gap to bridge! It is pretty normal on the teeter to do this – and for me personally, required a LOT of self-control to only do it once and not ask for more. So hard!!!!!! We humans see success and want to go to the next step or try another but that is often the wrong answer for the dog (my BorderJack, Export, taught me that when he would flee the building if he even see the teeter as a youngster LOL!)
I think the next steps will be two-fold: in the home and very comfy places, continue with the training progression as you have been doing – he is looking great.
Separately, and in any environment that has any pressure (people, dogs, etc) or any history on the teeter or both: work to shift his response to the teeter into a very positive one. The tricks-for-treats (or toys) is one way to do it if he doesn’t want to interact with the teeter. If he will interact with it without avoidance, then do a one hit wonder and then do something else completely unrelated.It might seem like it will take longer to get him on the teeter this way… but it will actually be faster to do it like this because we are hitting his emotional state and not his operant state. The emotional state is the most powerful one and when we change it – the operant state will be very easy 🙂 I totally relate, because I worked through this with my Export and more recently with 2 of my youngsters. But now they all have amazeballs teeters because I focused on emotional state for a while.
You will know you have him in the right conditioned emotional state when he starts to drool as soon as he gets near the teeter LOL! My boy dogs had big stringers of drool during training because of all of the conditioned responses to the reinforcement: ewwwwww but also YAY!Let me know if that makes sense!
TracyGood morning! Great job building the value up again!
>> Then tonight we went to our lesson. The lesson really helped her build confidence again.>>
Yay! I figured it would be good for her, because your instructor is soooo helpful and that environment has so much value already. I am glad she did well – great job breaking it down and making it fun fun fun fun for her.
>>we could get more reps without her thinking and LOTS of rewards.
Yes! Think less, teeter more. It is my mantra with my 2 thoughtful dogs. While I am thinking about it, is there anything that she is absolutely bonkers for? Anything that she loves soooo much that she almost loses her head? For my thoughtful dogs, it is the frisbee. One of my previous dogs was insane for those Cuz balls so that was his teeter reward (and he was incredibly terrified of the teeter as a babu dog). And one of my first dogs was out of his mind with excitement for water – so I dragged a teeter near any source of water (pond, baby pool, hose) and he learned his teeter for water. Now that you can be outdoors more, what is she insane for? We can use that 🙂
>> She could get off the teeter whichever way she felt like it, but if she went down the board we rewarded her getting off the board with the MM. That was great because she was exiting the board exactly how she had when she got spooked and she wasn’t thinking about it cause she was so excited about the MM. >>
Yes! I noticed that she was super happy to run down the board LOL! She appeared to be just running down for a reward & reset , rather than thinking it was an actual training moment haha! Think less, teeter more 🙂
I notice also that she doe NOT like getting onto the board when it is in the air and not entirely under her control, like on the elevator games or even going around the cone. I have seen that before, and my blue merle dog was the same way. I think he didn’t know how to handle his hind end in that situation, so was trying to push it down with his front feet, but it wasn’t moving because I was holding it. So, I broke it down for him and used my Teach It device to show him how to confidently ‘hop on’ for the elevator game. It is in the demos – I will go find the exact spot and post it here for you. It was the game changer for him (how to hop on paired with his fave rewards). He was doing exactly what Emmie was doing here at the start of the video, and had also had a setback where he spooked himself a bit while trying to go fast. I think if we take that detour with her, we can get the same results that I got with Contraband (who is now running the complete seesaw with full confidence). Very similar dogs 🙂
Let me know if that makes sense! I am excited because I think we are getting close to having the full teeter! Let me go pull out that specific moment of the hop on training…
Tracy
Good morning!
These look fabulous! She only tried to splat herself once, so keep being vigilant about not letting her start without you LOL!!!On the Bang Game: super good. The board doesn’t need to get any higher. My only suggestion is to be more systematic about the release – use your real release that you will use on course at this point. She is super good about catching the thrown treat that you can now release her forward off the board 🙂
The next step on this game is to take most of the tip out so it is easy… and fade the target 🙂
That is for home training: if you get to any new locations, do the bang game with the target visible and some tip but not as much as at home.Uphills – also super good! You had your lateral distance going, she did well. No worries if she slows a little – for her, it is a GOOD CHOICE because I know she is also happy to splat herself sometimes 🙂 You can add in a wing before it (5 or 6m away) so she has more speed coming up the board, and so you an also do rear crosses. The board is pretty parallel to the ground now so you don’t need to change the tip, just add more challenges 🙂 You can also move past and do front and blind crosses (you might be already doing this off camera :))
Downhills: sorry/not sorry for the boring feedback: Also super strong here! yay! Now that the board is meeting the ground, no more need for pre-loaded targets (I think they were loaded here). When you give the ‘tee’ cue, you can let her make the decision same as you do on the bang game. I am very confident she will be fine with it 🙂
If she is fine with the target position without the pre-loads, then you can change the tip a little so the board goes slightly up before coming down. And no worries if she slows a tiny bit on that because the speed will be easy on the next steps 🙂Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
The position of the weight can be either on the ‘get on’ side or the ‘target’ side of the board. And it can be right at the end of the board, or slid a little further to the center – all of that changes the tip a little.T
Hi!
>>Had in person class again last night it appears toys decrease in value when outside and the environment and dogs increase; going to keep trying to build the value. >>That is pretty normal. Most dogs improve with the toy play as they get more experienced with different environments.
>>However, when I run FEO I was thinking of carrying an empty treat ball and leave a pile of yummy treats just outside the ring… any other thoughts?>>
Ask the judge if it is OK, some get twitchy about empty treat balls if there are crumbs in it. And the treats outside the ring will work if he understands the procedure on how to earn them – otherwise it might get stressful for him.
T
Hi! This was great – many reps from all over the clock, most of which had you outside the Lava Zone 🙂 And he was VERY successful!!!! And that makes me happy to see the success when you are ahead like that AND blasting. Love it!
So… tighten these up another finger width. And if it is all good like this with motion and angles and no lava zone… tighten again 🙂
And before you tighten too much, visit the Find ‘Em 3 game, that is very challenging and we want the poles to be very easy for him 🙂Great job!
TracyGood morning! Not remedial at all! We are all finding any gaps in understanding and working through them. Totally normal. And I am doing the same thing with my critters.
He did really well here on this session but from this point on, I am going to bug you: you are allowed to be anywhere when he enters… *except* near the entry. The entry is lava for you LOL! His questions are when you are past pole 2 before he enters, like on rep 1. You had good stays and lead outs but other than rep 1, released him to the poles too soon because it ended up placing you at the entry when he enters. Same with the wraps on the wing – you were consistently at pole 1 when he entered. He is GREAT with his entries when you are there, pretty close to 100%. So…. I will bug you to NOT be there anymore because we need to get him as great when you are everywhere else 🙂 I personally have had to put markers on the ground to tell myself where to be LOL! A cone or a leash or something. So on the next session from the stays, don’t release him til you are past pole 3 or 4. And on the wing wraps, send him from further away so he is behind you enough that you will be past pole 3 when he deciding on the entry.
And you can also do the opposite – get close to the wing wrap so he drives ahead of you to the entry, or without the wing wrap start right next to him.
When he is happy with you being way ahead or way behind, then we can add more speeeeeed 🙂>>I do think I’m still too early with the toy- I felt like I was waiting but the video says otherwise.>>
I think one or two maybe were early but overall the timing was good because poles 3-4 were easy for him. As those poles get tighter, you might want to delay the throw til you are sure he has them.
Nice work here! Let me know if the Lava Zone makes sense 🙂
TracyGood morning! This looked great, easy peasy for him to have poles 5-6 added and angled. Nice!!!
before we tighten the poles more, I want to do 3 things:
– add more of your motion. After the first warm up rep or 2, build to running. We want to make sure he can tolerate you running before we tighten more 🙂
– add in the harder angles (first with less motion, then add in more motion :))
– we can start to fade the MM as the source of reinforcement. I know he is a foodie, so a lotus ball or some type of thrown food rewarder will be great here. Leave the MM out there as a visual target but don’t trigger it. Throw the reward towards it instead (he might look at you after he exits as you are throwing, but that is fine for now).You can do all of this within the structure of a session, it doesn’t have to be completely separate sessions 🙂 And then when the MM is faded, definitely do the Find ‘Em 3 game because it challenges entries AND exits and motion and all the things haha!!
Then we tighten up poles 5-6 and move into the straight poles sessions. Fun!!!! Let me know if that makes sense, he is doing beautifully!
TracyGood morning! Very good sessions here, great job adding in the motion!!! And he looked much happier with the MM now that there was a clearer procedure in place – I think it produced a really really nice balance! Yay!
All of the left side sending/moving looked good on both sessions, so you can add more motion here – we don’t want to tighten the 2x2s more until he can handle you running. And I think you can tighten the ‘channel’ setup to basically match the 2×2 setup.
And I totally see what you mentioned about the harder right side entries being generally unsuccessful. A couple of ideas for you:
>>S
hould I do a short session on just that side with both the channels and 2x2s? I don’t want to over weave him but I also don’t want to skip over the harder entries.>>Yes – but on just one base, slightly angled, with motion. Basically, we are looking for the ‘hole’ in understanding. After all, these are complex behaviors and it is entirely possible there is a gap in learning somewhere (each of my dogs has had at least one that I found and went back to fill in). So go to one base, at 2&8, send and move from those angles and see what he does. If he can’t find the entry, go to an easier angle and introduce the motion. Still struggling? Take out the motion until he has a ton of success at that angle and then we add the motion back. I think the gap in understanding will become clear when you look for it and isolate it – then it is easy to fix 😉
The other thing you can do is put the MM right smack in the space between poles 2 and 3! So he enters even with the distraction of poles 3-4 there and gets rewarded instantly. You can start with that, or start with just 2 poles – but either way, when you revisit 4 poles from that angle, I would do a session with the MM there and then move it gradually out again. Do the whole session just on those 3 to 5 o’clock angles to really isolate it.
Let me know if that makes sense! Everything else looks great, so you can keep moving forward on those angles. It is pretty normal that we find at least one spot that is really hard and needs to be isolated and built up 🙂
Tracy
