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Bummer about getting more heat! You’re due for some nice weather 🙂
Great job in this class, you and Indy are really developing into an amazing team. It has been a pleasure being able to see you two in action!
TracyGood morning!
She looked great on these! You had really nice connection and your handling was clear, and that really helped her be successful! On the “no tunnel” reps where you wanted her to go past the tunnel, you rewarded nice and early 🙂 So now you can wait longer to reward – keep moving and reward her a few steps later, to be sure of two things – that your handling remains clear 🙂 and also that she doesn’t duck behind you into the tunnel as you move past it 🙂
>>But when I got to the backside tunnel, she would never take it. I need to start all over with that. She don’t want to take it on a straight tunnel either. >>
That is not unusual with young dogs – backsides of tunnels is a weird skill LOL!! The dogs have to really collect and behind to get into the tunnel and that is so hard. So you can break it down: using a short, straight tunnel, start her on the backside angle but close to the entry, without you moving – and send her into the backside tunnel entry. Then Work your way further and further away from the entry. Then add your motion, just walking. I think the dogs find this hard because we humans are running and they have to collect while we accelerate, and usually we decelerate when we want collection. But as soon as she figures out that she can collect into the tunnel backside, it will be very easy and then you can extend and curve the tunnel 🙂
>>Oh the seminar went good! She stayed with me pretty nice. If she did run to Jacque, I got her back always. It was her first time there, so she did check around a little bit. But not to bad. Boy she was speedy and had fun!!!>>
Yay! So fun! It sounds like she did really well 🙂
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning! Long time no see haha!!
He looks great here!
On the first two right turn wraps, he was sorting out a lot of info (motion, collection, verbals) so dropped the bar on the first one then maybe his breeze dropped it on the 2nd one lol! He was sorting out his coordination well, but just needs more experience with the right turns. Are your jump bars hollow? If so, you can lock them into the jumps but putting the cup inside the bar. That way he feels the nat if he touches it but doesn’t get desensitized to dropping it as he sorts out the turn.
His left turns all look good! He is overall a really nice turning dog 🙂
Only 2 small suggestions for the next session:
When he was doing the collection on the 2nd jump after the tunnel, give him more connection over the first jump after the tunnel as you move to the 2nd one. When he was on your left, you could see him looking at you over that jump before proceeding to the wrap jump, so you can add more direct eye contact as you run to support his commitment. You won’t always need to do that, but it helps the baby dogs.His GO looked great! You can do a ton of Go reps whenever you work wraps (you might already be doing this and edited them out). As you saw from the courses yesterday, GO GO GO is really helpful LOL!! So even if he has more GO emphasis than turn emphasis for now, perfect!
Great job here!
See ya later!
TracyHi! I thought I posted this yesterday but obviously not. Sorry!
Good job on these- I think all of our other handling gets MUCH easier when the dogs can respond to deceleration 🙂On these, the jump height is a little higher than it has been. That was fine when you were sending from the tunnel exit and standing still, because she only had to think about decelerating into one variable (height of bar). Her turns were quite good on those!!!
When there was motion, though- through the thbbel and/or you moving – the bar was too high for her at the moment. She had to think about 2 variables: decelerating and how to do it on a taller bar. So, she chose to think about gettin g over the bar, which is good!!!! But it also meant the turns were wider, no real collection before them. To help her, keep the bars lower for now when there is any motion. You’ll know when to raise them, because her collection before takeoff will match her collection on the sends 🙂
And reward all the things – it was hard to tell which ones got rewarded or not because of quick edits, but we are using the reward as a predictive cue of where to go next. Decel will mean “reward is about to run away the other direction” so she is going to work harder and harder to collect.
So even if you think the turn goes into the “not great” category, reward anyway with the FC and run as she will drive back faster and faster, which means more and more collection on the decel. Also, if we are late with decel, the dogs won’t read it all that well at this stage so we read anyway in case we are late 🙂 I thought you were pretty timely but it is worth it to teach her how to cover you in case you’re late lol!
You might have been rewarding all of it, it was hard to see 🙂
This is the type of thing to revisit maybe once a week, as a general exercise 🙂 I think she is doing really well so far and will continue to read the decel more and more.
Great job!
TracyHi!
I think he is doing well with his jumping for sure, and I am glad he did well at the trial! Yay!
On this video, he is doing really well. I don’t think he is confusing this grid with weaving – I think he is sorting out the footwork. A couple of suggestions to help:
The reinforcement target is too close – in order to jump this properly, he really has to power through it. With the cooler this close, he has to slow down and add strides. Ideally the reward target is one full stride past the extension landing spot – so about 10 feet from the last jump.
Also, for now in particular, have the reinforcement on top of the target and he can go to it. There are 3 reasons for this:
– it will keep him from looking at you. Even with the cooler as the target, he is still lookin at you. With a cookie or toy out there, he will look straight and not at you, which will improve form.
– it will improve consistency of reinforcement because you will end up rewarding ALL the things. In this clip, the reinforcement was a bit inconsistent – for example, on a couple he didn’t get rewarded when he added a stride (like at :39) but then at :44 he did get rewarded for the same striding and he also dropped a bar. So it is a bit grey for him and rewarding all the things will help. I personally don’t withhold reinforcement in jump grids unless the dog is really experienced and confident, and the dog rarely ‘fails’ and I can mark the reason why he is not getting the reward. We don’t want him to get to the end and then be told he is not getting the cookie… he won’t know why. But we also don’t want to spend a lot of time telling him he is wrong if he doesn’t know how to be right. That brings me to the 3rd reason:
– rewarding a LOT builds confidence, and confidence builds great jumping 🙂 In this session, he was at about a 60% rate of reinforcement, which is not high enough to produce the confidence. You can leave the grid open to where it was at :27 so really build confidence with the movement and reward all the things 🙂 with the reward on the target, to keep him looking straight.Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
She did well here too! She might have been tired on the sends at the end, but her commitment looked really good and you can totally reward those anyway – on just about all of the reps, she as collecting before the jump which is exactly what we wanted her to do with the decel. She wasn’t not exactly turning, and that was because we were not doing the crosses – so now, let’s ‘seal the deal’ b havubg you do the cross rather than just the decel. Using the same timing on the decel and verbal, add in the front crosses. If you are doing the decel ahead of her, you can rotate as she is passing you. On the sends, you can send and do the FC just before she arrives at the send jump.
Great job on these! Have fun at the seminar, I want to hear how it goes!
Tracy
Hi! This went well, it is a hard skill!
1st rep – she was a bit in ‘catch up’ mode, note how she had her hind end go flying up high over the 1st jump after the tunnel – your timing was good but she just needed a moment to process it 🙂2nd rep was better and so was the 3rd rep! Considering we were not really helping with more than just decel & verbal, this is good! So now you can add in the rotation and leaving sooner to the skill: decel nice and early like you did here, with the verbal, and before she passes you, rotate into the front cross – that will make for great turns. She is collecting nicely before the jump on the decel here, so now you can add in the cross and it will get the turn nice and tight 🙂
Tracy
Good morning!
She did well on the teeter here – the cookie at the bottom helped her a lot! You can try to fade the cookie out by replacing it with a small target that cookie is on, initially, then just the small target with no cookie… then make the target smaller and smaller (like a piece of tape of something).>> I am not sure if it’s in this clip or not, but as I try to move more laterally, Maia jumps off the teeter.>>
Do you mean starting at about 2:44 when you were moving laterally and she did not get on the teeter? That was because your body language never indicated the teeter, your feet/shoulders/motion were moving away from it even though I htink you did say ‘teeter’ there. When you stepped towards it at 3:04, she got it – so be sure to step towards it til she sees it, before moving away laterally.
If she was on it and then jumping off sideways, then yes – move through that challenge more gradually with narrower Ws then gradually expand them, and also a small target will really help too!Great job here! Have fun!
TracyHi! This run looked fabulous – the perfect combination of aggressive and connected. YEAH!!!! He read all the lines perfectly and you did not lose connection at any point. Thanks for trying the different (crazy) handling LOL!!!! The blind to the weaves looked great, the 7-8-9 line looked great, and the send to the tunnel to pick him up on your left looked fabulous too! Yay! This is how you should run at NZDAC, whether it is this year or next year (damn covid!). Fingers crossed we will have easy times ahead. Stay tuned for more classes 🙂
Great job with both dogs here!
TracyHi! If I am reading this correctly, I think what you are talking about is here:
And then in the Package 5 games we add them in sequences. I don’t use it with weaves, only jumps, so let me know if I am misunderstanding 🙂
Tracy
I am so glad you had fun! It was awesome to see how we could do crazy things with Min while getting Kaladin running the real courses! Yay!
See you in a few weeks!!! Great job 🙂
TracyHi! It has been a crazy month, I can’t believe how fast the summer went!
Great job with Demi and Wilson – you have done a great job with them and they looked great on all of these crazy challenges 🙂
Hope to see you soon!
TracyHi again!
This was Course 1 – this also went well! Little details to tighten up the lines:1-2-3-4 looked good – she had a question on the way to 5 (:06 and :48) and looked up at you – a bit more connection and earlier tunnel cue will smooth that out. (She also looked at you at 1:08 over the jump before the tunnel so it might be something that needs more acceleration in general towards tunnels?)
7-8 FC at :10 and :52 – you started it on time but then kept moving forward so ended it late (after she landed at :11 and :53) so she was wide. Start it and finish it without trying to get her attention with your outside arm – our foot rotation will do the work 🙂
Great connection between the 2 tunnels (8-9) at :14 and :57.. That is what you needed on the previous course 🙂
On the 12-13 backside, you can drive in there, really accelerate – then decel and use your arms to get her attention. It was smoother at 1:03 – I think lower, s.lower hands will help to set the turn. It also helped her when you turned your shoulders a little bit away from the line, because it brought her in to you more smoothly.
Then stay connected on the 14-15 line to keep her on it, more like what you did at 1:06.You rewarded after the last tunnel, but you can get the last 2 jumps with a rear cross, or you can BC between the 2 tunnels if there is room.
Great job here! I am glad you had fun this summer, you and Josie looked AWESOME!!!
TracyHi!
Hi! Well done here! This is a challenging course:Looking at it in sections –
On the opening line 1-2-3, your lead out push was too far across the middle of 2 and late moving out of it, so she read your position to jump long – so she was wide at :08 and :38. Good connection saved it! Yay! The blind at 1:56 was SO MUCH better on the line and also got you much further ahead of her for the #4 tunnel.Speaking of the #4 tunnel: the 3-4 line is a “get out” where she has to lead change away from you, so add more connection directly to her while she is still in tunnel #3 🙂 You were better at :41, but not as good at 1:58 – more connection, less pointing LOL! It is a good spot for ‘angry’ handling with really intense connection to her eyes.
She had questions on the back line 5-8 and back to 11 – I think you can do more accelerating up and down the line, because you were laying back and that was drawing her into you. You can drop your shoulders forward and hit the gas pedal 🙂
For the Backside on 11- the push cue needs a lot more connection especially when you get behind. You were turning your shoulders forward and so she took the front. If you are not all the way up there, because to turn your upper body towards her to send her away to the backside (another good “angry’ handling spot LOL!)
On the 13-14-15 line: 1:04 indeed looked like a tunnel threadle based on arm and your motion, you were moving in and so she was correct (it was not a redhead thing LOL!)
You were much better at 1:17, earlier cue for sure! And when you had more motion at 2:20 the cue was a bit late but your line was good and that break arm was good so she got it nicely.The ending line looked good! The only suggestion after the tunnel threadle is to give a clearer cue with a decel to the 18 jump at 1:42. You got it really nicely at the very end! Yay!
Well done. Onwards to the next one 🙂
TracyHi there!
>> He’s so funny – he’s starting to get pushy – I stopped after setting him at the start line to look at the exercise and he whined and grumped at me. LOL!>>
Ha!!! He is turning on to the game and getting pushy, I love it!
>>> BTW – what is it about the orange tunnel that makes me say ‘ready’ each time I pass it? I don’t even realize I’m talking till I see the videos.>>
OMG that is too funny – superstitious behavior 🙂
The skills sets are going really well! It is a really important skill for him 🙂
I think just about all of the reps were great! I will point out any of his questions but really, it was overall lovely!
The first bunch of reps all looked great.
:27 was a bit unclear – I think you were wanting jump to tunnel but your shoulder was closed so it was unclear. Try a more open shoulder/arm back to him so he can see the connection and the turn. You gave a threadle arm at :33 but I don’t think he needed it there, the open shoulder is probably all he needs.All of the wing wrap stuff on the other side of the orange tunnel all looked good, it seemed like he had NO questions. Yay! And also when you got him to the blue wing next to the other tunnel too as well as the blue wing next to the orange tunnel. YAY! And he also had no trouble with the other side of the tunnel and not the wings – good boy for following all of the cues!
And when you started going for the bigger sequences: super! The first big one at 1:14 looked great. Yay!You had a couple of questions later on – at 1:30, you disconnected and there was a bit of Golidlocks too hot, too cold:
1:38 you were early on the blind so he was correct to go into the tunnel.
Then late at 1:47 for the reconnection So he didn’t find the new side. Honest boy!
But then you got it nicely 🙂 And well done on the bigger sequences at the end! You needed a tiny bit more patience at 2:19 but then you nailed it at the end. Yay!Great job on these – it has been really fun watching him do the grown up stuff, he has turned out to be a major agility rockstar!!!
Tracy
