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Good morning! Lots of good work here! It is fun to be able to focus on the handling because so many other things are going well.
A general note is to remember to give him directionals before he enters the tunnel so you can have better turns on the exit. You were a little quiet, so when your handling was a little late, his turns were a little wider.Sequence 1 – the openings looked good!!! I think the trouble you were having on the rear crosses were you were a little too far ahead, which was causing the questions. Looking at the RCs and :10 – :11 and at :24 – you got ahead so you were pulling a bit to the wrap wing and decelerating so he was set to turn left and then you cut in so he was confused and pushed off. At :31 when you isolated it, you showed a better RC diagonal and more motion forward, so he got it. Yay! The RCs on these sequences are tricky because it is so easy to send to the tunnel. You might find it easier (ok, harder, but easier to get the rear crosses haha) if you run all the way to the tunnel entry with him, count to 2… then scramble up the line and show the RC with acceleration along the diagonal. Even being a couple of steps ahead was causing more decel than needed especially for a baby dog on mats – bearing in mind that it is easy for us to outrun the dogs on mats. I figure on grass or dirt you will not have time to run to the tunnel and still get the RC, but for now on mats you and run in and then scramble out with acceleration.
Seq 2 – Nice blind on the opening!! He reads those so nicely!
The RC had a similar question as above: you got a bit too far ahead and then did too much decel at :45 so he got it but was questioning. :56 was better – as weird as it sounds, the more you accelerate up the line into this tight turn, the better it goes! It is another good place to drive in way down the line to the tunnel then scramble out of it (then in the spring reset your timing to grass and dirt LOL!)FFC – he is reading these so nicely!! You can push the timing now, and start the FFC as he arrives at the commitment plane (45 degree line intersecting the feet and the wing of the jump). You can also push the timing of the BC on the tunnel exit at 1:21 – let him see it starting before he even enters, to get the tighter exit turn (and call him a little).
The wrap at 1:25 was really good!! Nice collection!!The FFC on the other side at 1:41 also went really well so now you should totally try to push it sooner – basically to be moving into the throwback before he even gets around the wing. He read the throwback line and exit perfectly, nice and tight and fast.
On the rear cross at 1:51 I think your running line was much better in terms of more of a rear cross diagonal. Try to stay more connected (you were pulling your arm and shoulders forward, so he was looking up at you a little – and this is another place to run in deeper to the tunnel so you can accelerate into the RC more. It is that acceleration which will drive him to commit so you can then cut in – at 1:52 you were trying to cut in before he was past you enough to commit – but it probably felt sticky. You were decelerating, he was decelerating, so it was hard to time the RC there. That gets solved by going in closer to the tunnel so you are truly behind him and maybe freaking out a bit because he is getting ahead LOL!
At 2:11 he did read the push but his thought bubble said he thought it was weird. Maybe he needed to see more of you across the bar? He is so very responsive on his turns that he will probably not need this very often (if at all) so you can actually reward him for driving to you and not worry about the collection on it.
The FC at 2:37 worked really nicely, he reads the lower body rotation SO nicely! You can also play with doing this one sooner (when he has landed from 1, start it and see if he can still commit, I think he can!) and also be positionally moving closer to 3 to get him to know it is 3 and not the tunnel.
Looking at his questions on the last go line – I think it might have been more of a connection question on that first rep – you said go at 2:18 but disconnected and went for the reward so he didn’t take last jump. He got it on next rep but it was decelerated, so he might have been watching you a bit because of the decel.
At 2:44 he went to outside of last jump. Hmmmm, I obsessed on it a little – maybe he read parallel path backside based on you line when he landed from the previous jump (I don’t think so?) But maybe it felt disconnected because you looked ahead and went for the toy a bit? The other possibility I can think of is that he was avoiding a little because the toy hit something at 2:28 after you tossed it and perhaps he saw the toy throw coming, and was avoiding running into the noise? Not entirely sure – but I think if you stay connected and don’t reach for the reward til after he has landed, he will be fine.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning! Very fun to see her in action here, baby dog is growing up!!!! This went really well – I only have handling suggestions which is awesome with such a young dog! I loved her speed and focus on course, so here are mainly timing and position ideas. The FFC was a little harder so there are some training ideas on that below.
Video 1:
These are going well!
Because she is reading lines really nicely, you can lead out more laterally, so your path is still parallel to 1 and 2 but you are 3 or 4 feet closer over to jump 3 – that will help her see the turn coming sooner. On rep 1, your path was a little forward and close to jump 2 (so it looked like a jump-jump-tunnel line) and the BC was a little late starting (she was taking off for 1) so she couldn’t see the reconnection in time to pick up 3. On rep 2, the BC was much earlier (at :13) so she read it better – Yay!!! I think she ticked the bar at 2 on this one, which means your line of motion and be further over 3 rather than moving as much towards 2. The 3rd rep had really good timing!! As you exit the BCs (or any cross), try to keep the new dog-side arm back behind you so she can really see your eyes – that will give her a very clear view of the next line.
The Go looked great at the end! Yay!!!Video 2 – this one started with the same great run from the end of video 1. On the 2nd sequence here:
I don’t think the sliding on the tunnel exit was foot hair 🙂 I think it was more of her seeing the cue after the exit so she was figuring out how to get on the new line. At :19, she saw an extension exit cue based on your post turn as she entered the tunnel, so without the verbal or rotation she legit thought she was driving out straight and then skittered a bit to make the turn. On the exit of this cross, it is also a good place to keep the new dog side arm way behind you to make eye contact so she can find the line sooner.Compare the tunnel exit at :19 to the one at :33 on the 2nd rep: You showed her a FC on the tunnel entry so she was expecting the turn and was more prepared so didn’t slip. You can get it even tighter by being closer to 3 before she exits so she can chase the line.
LOVED the turns on the tunnel that you got at :43 and :55 and 1:08 with the FC on the tunnel entry and running on the landing side of 3!!! Really tight!! You can totally be adding your left verbal to these too.
To help her see 3 and the line, it was all about connection: on the first rep at :43, you can open your left arm further back to get more eye contact and she will commit to 3 better. You totally made that adjustment at :56 – you connected and she got 3 but then you disconnected to point forward to 4, so she did a blind and picked up your right side (good girl, she is very honest LOL!)
You got connection at 1:09 beautifully and maintained it til the end and it looked great! Yay! Baby dogs need us to maintain that exaggerated connection.Going back to looking at what got the best tunnel exits: At 1:20 and 1:50, the post turn to the tunnel then BC 2-3 caused a wide turn on the exit – so far the best ones were where she saw you do a FC on the entry and drive away immediately.
Good verbal check check at 1:24 and 1:52!!! The first wrap did not have quite enough transition into deceleration but you made a lovely adjust for 1:52 and she collected REALLY nicely!!! You can make a bigger connection as she exits the wrap to drive her back to 6 on a tighter line too. Nice ending line there!
Video 3, forced front crosses:
my internet is having a blurry day because of a snow storm so it was a little hard to see which arm you were using – was it your left arm here (further from the jump)? I think you were holding still and in the right position – but using the outside arm (left) might have been causing a slight upper body rotation to the front side of the bar, and maybe that is why she was taking it? You can exaggerate the cue and use the arm closer to the jump (right arm here) which closes your shoulders more, making the front side of the bar less tempting. That can help teach the skill, then when she recognizes it more, you can go back to the left arm? There is nothing at all wrong with using the left arm here but it is a little harder for young dogs because it is more of a threadle than a FC.And if that doesn’t work (or if you were using your right arm here) then you can tweak the set up and angle jump #2 so the backside is easier for her to see and the front is hard – you can more the exit wing closer to the tunnel and the entry wing closer to jump 1. Let me know if that makes sense. You broke it down nicely and that totally helped her! And then when you got her to the backside, the rest looked great!!!
Overall – great job!! I am really excited about how well she is reading these sequences! And I hoe she gets a big party for her birthday!!!
Tracy
The winter storm is messing with the internet, looks like it only pasted part of it. Try this and let me know:
https://youtu.be/5GcPedWCdJ8?t=157
TracyGood morning!
>>Coldest few days for us so far this year and they’re predicting real snow on Tuesday.>>
Yes, we are getting the snow here today and tomorrow… bleh! I normally wouldn’t mind but I need to get one of the dogs to a specialist on Tuesday morning so figuring out the drive tomorrow will be an adventure!
>>You are not kidding when you say the ZigZag grid is difficult. I played with it with Mags who might just be one of the nicest/smartest jumping dogs I’ve ever known and it was hard for her.>>
I think it is one of the hardest jump grids out there – and it mimics the backside slice jumping which is one of the hardest jumping efforts out there. It is pretty hard but worthwhile for the difference it makes in slice jumping. It just takes a while to get it to a comfortable place.
On the video:
These are going well! He did really well driving to you on these, and all of the rewards tossed backwards will help a lot in terms of maintaining that drive to you. Adding the visual of the jump made it harder for sure – when the jump is there, be a little further away from the wing (maybe a foot or so) so he can clearly see your hand cue and foot placement as not indicating the wing. I think that is what happened at :36 when he took the front side (with a beautiful collection LOL!). Your hand/foot was close enough to the wing that it looked like the end of a rotated FC. But the rest all looked really good!
Now about the feet:>>When I learned these way back when I was taught to back up into them and I think that allowed me to move and “finish” with that backward step as part of turning him away.>>
This is interesting and one of these days I am going to do a regional survey LOL! Different parts of the country have different foundations on this: your area has more backwards movement into them, other regions have different tweaks, it has been interesting to see the regional variety LOL!
Being stationary does tend to get the tighter turn and has fewer errors caused by backwards motion.>>t I didn’t feel myself doing when I was doing this but I saw it when I edited the video was I wasn’t stepping back when I turned him away….did it all with my hand. >>
Actually, you had the opposite leg back and you leaned back and forth (along with the hand) and got the turns. Now if this is consistently works for him – cool!! I think, though, that when your opposite leg was back, you had all of your weight shifted onto the leg next to the jump and that is why you were not stepping back. It didn’t seem to make a difference in you getting out of there easily, but if you wanted to experiment with what works best – have you feet together as you get into position and extend your arm to him – then it will be easier to use the dog side leg to step back and cue the turn. I think the feet together will also help when the angles of these get harder (for example, when you are parallel to the front side of the jump for the lap turn and not bringing him to the backside, so it is more of a threadle rear cross on the front, if that makes sense).
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
He did a great job with his goat games, what a good boy! He did end up with all four feet on the disc, but you can jumpstart it by having more than one disc out there (or a single really big disc or fit bone) to expand the playing field 🙂 He will feel more balanced on the wobbly thing if he is not as compressed in posture and then when he is very happy to get all feet on – you can go to back to the single smaller disc. He was a good boy in the boxes – the bigger one was easy, so be patient on the smaller one, he will figure it out. You can split the difference by having a lower edge on the smaller one so it is easier to get into. But overall, he is doing fabulously well with his goat activities!!>> I also added in the box work from the RDW class since all the dogs are doing it and I figure why not?>>
Exactly! I would say the entire first set of games can be done with the baby puppies, so totally start it!
>>One challenge I am having is I had to work HARD to get him to tug. I’ve been using kibble which seems to be perfect value to get tug or behaviors,>>
>>I don’t want to lose the switching between toys and food.>>That is a pretty normal challenge at this age because of teething and also because the food-toy value pendulum swings back and forth regularly. A couple of ideas for you:
– train when he is *not* hungry. Feed him part of his meal… then maybe an hour later, do a bit of training. The food will be enticing but he might also be better able to switch to the toy because he is training on a full belly (I almost never train dogs when they are hungry – I know that bucks the conventional wisdom but it really helps the dogs!)
– keep toy play entirely separate from food training til he is back on kibble and feeling good. The chicken might be too distracting 🙂 so you can start like you did here with toy play before food is introduced, then train with food and not try to break off for any toy parties. Separately, you can shape behaviors using the toy only (no food in the picture at all).
– when kibble comes back, you can physically separate the food and the toy: boring ol’ kibble in one spot, then run to another room and play with the highest value toy (also, because of teeth, softest and easiest to grab). That takes the toy away from the pool of scent that the food leaves. Gradually you’ll be able to go back and forth very easily in the same spot, but separating them really help keep both exciting.
separately from shaping behavior, when he is not hungry, you can just go back and forth with a tiny bit of chicken taste/smell and a toy – just throw the toy around and get him grabbing, chasing, pulling in the presence of good smells and small licks of it 🙂
Let me know how it goes!
TracyFound it! Here is a video with explanations of the get out versus the threadle (and some of the other uses of the outside arm) – it is scrolled up to start at 2:37 where the explanation begins:
OMG that is SO FUNNY!!!!!!!! That is making me giggle, I can picture him doing it and being so proud of himself. LOL!!! Where is the video camera to capture moments like that? LOL!!!!
Thank you for sharing the story, I will be giggling about it all day, and look forward to the day when he is on some podium somewhere and we can giggle about it again 🙂T
Good morning! Hope you are enjoying this snowy weekend!
>>My positional cue for a threadle is a bent, opposite side arm across and close to my body with my hand closed in a fist. Your most recent suggestion on our Get Out video was that I start making my arm gesture more subtle. So, I’ll be working toward an opposite side arm that is pointing at a line rather than tight to my body and my hand will be open, rather than closed in a fist. Is this enough differentiation for the dog to recognize the difference?>>
Excellent question! It turns out that the dogs are able to recognize 4 or 5 different positions of the opposite arm (yes, I do obsess a lot LOL!) Verbals help this of course, but they are able to recognize them without verbals and while we are running. So for the threadle versus the get out arm this is what they are seeing (ideally)
– threadle: as you mentioned, it is a bent opposite arm across the body and close to the body. The other elements of the threadle arm are that we are generally pointing our threadle hand back to the dog’s eyes (which causes our opposite shoulder to rotate towards the dog as well), and also (from the female perspective) the arm cue is across the chest above the boobs.
– the get out arm: as you mentioned, it points at the line out ahead – that is away from the dog’s nose and it pulls the opposite shoulder ahead of the body and not towards the dog. It is away from our body (not across the chest) nd the height of the arm is generally at the bottom of our rib cage and not as high as the threadle arm
about open hand versus closed hand? I think that will be handler preference and doesn’t seem to make as much of a difference to the dogs, or at least not as much difference as arm position does. One thing that does seem to make a difference is movement of the hand: some dogs find it helpful for us to shake our threadle hand (I believe the scientific term is “shakey shakey” :)) and the get out hand is more stationary and frozen.
I have a video somewhere explaining the differences – let me find it, as I am sure it will make more sense than this under-caffeinated written description haha!!!
T
Hi! Really lovely session here!
On the first part of the video (I guess I am considering the first minute to be the first part LOL!), all of the threadles looked really good except very first rep. I am thinking it was a young dog error because he was a little excited and needed a warm up. On the second rep you were like HEY POTION IT IS A THREADLE and then he was great LOL!!!!
His understanding of the serp and tunnel cues looked really strong! Great job showing the different physical cues along with the verbals. On the tunnel rep at :46, you said “ok tunnel” so he zigged in towards you on the OK then back out on the tunnel – good boy 🙂 He was listening! For this game, you won’t want to say OK before the tunnel cue – but on a real course, it won’t be an issue ever because you will only find this challenge in the middle of a course, not from a stay 🙂On the second part of the video, he had the one threadle question. It might be that there were 2 new elements at once. Here is what I mean:
At :58 you were in a slightly different threadle spot (a little further past the entry wing) and he was set up on the same angle as precious reps. Your position was a great spot to challenge him with, he was perfect.
At 1:11 – you were in the slightly harder threadle spot plus he was also at a harder angle. This is on the where he went to the front of the bar and not the threadle. I think it was a combination of your new spot, his new spot, and perhaps your left foot twitched the tiniest bit 🙂 So when you change his angle, put yourself back in the easiest spot for now, which is closer to the entry wing so he can see you you completely on the in in side of it (and not any part of you across the bar, not yet). And stand perfect still because it is really hard 🙂The rest of the session looked great – you had him back on the easier threadle spot for these (which is perfectly fine as it is the place her will most commonly see threadles from), plus all the serps looked great. And on the tunnel rep, you didn’t say ok, you only said tunnel and he went directly to it. Yay!
I think you can start adding motion to the serp versus the tunnel – your feet move forward on the line but your upper body position stays in that ‘frozen’ position. And you can add threadle motion too, but on the easiest possible angles for him. Because he is young, the serp motion and commitment takes priority over threadles – he will need to do serps a lot sooner than he will need to do threadles on course.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! Another excellent session here!
A few ideas, and a couple of answers for you:
When the Manners Minder gets involved, you can use the beep as the click and you don’t need to have the clicker in your hand.That way you can mark the behavior with the MM directly, which means the treats will be there before she arrives and you won’t feel like you need to attach a third arm to have all the things LOL!!!For this game, you can stand still as well (or sit LOL) – stand on a line so it goes you – mat – manners minder, Let her leave you to hit the mat and get the MM as the reward. Then it is perfectly fine for her to hit it on the way back to you – and you can reward again. I think rewarding with the tug for that is great because it asks her to do the mat behavior when she is a little wilder (which is always good to prepare her for running full out) and also because when the MM is out there, she was not as interested in tugging 🙂 She REALLY likes the MM haha! So adding the tugging will get her to maintain the balance of toys and food even as the MM takes on more and more value.
She is doing a great job with her foundations for the running dog walk, so I think it is very possible to have a great running DW with her! And Jedi’s generation (he is the exact same age as my Voodoo, they have the same birthday) doesn’t have the same benefit of us humans having a better procedure for training the running contacts – so I think Ruby’s generation will not need nearly as much maintainence and training, if that makes sense.Great job here!
TracyHi! This is also super nice! She is quite brilliant at this already. Two ideas for you, because we want this to be super independent:
– stand still 🙂 Let her do all the work haha!!! You can stand there or sit on a chair or even your couch 🙂 I am currently doing all of my running contact training from the couch, in my pajamas 🙂 And then you can click and toss a treat so she gets it then heads back to the mat 🙂
– have your treats ready on your hand, have a handful that is ready to go – she is so quick that she looks at you as you are getting the treat out and thrown, so have it ready so you can toss it before she looks back at you.
I love what she is doing and how she has added speed. Did you notice on the one rep where she missed that as you turned around to reset her, she went back to the mat and offered a perfect hit! Good girl!!!!Onwards to the next video 🙂
TracyGood morning! Yes, this was super easy for her! I think after all the goat games and shaping that this was easier than what she has done in the past. Very nice value building session here! I see you posted more so I will look at those before deciding what the best ‘next steps’ for her are 🙂 are you considering a running a-frame or dog walk for her?
T
I can’t believe he is 1 already! Time flies, but also I can’t believe he is only 1 – such a grown up dude!!!
I picked these games because I am trying to figure out how to help these pandemic puppies transition back to the real world, beyond crossing our fingers and hoping that the magically can focus haha! And I figured we were all going to have poopy weather. The ankle issue was just a surprise LOL! But I hope you heal up FAST so you can get back to running!
TracyHi!
>> A bit of Luring is okay to get her to trot. Yea. I did not want her to get in the habit of running through.
I have learned from the fitness professionals that is it perfectly fine to just use lures to get things started, because form is the most important thing. I used to NEVER use lures and now for this stuff, I am all like: let’s just put a cookie on the nose 🙂 I also use a tiny dab of peanut butter on a spoon.
>> Hmmm…wasn’t going to tell you but my Trainer had her doing it a wk ago and she let her run through and skip bars, take two bars at a time. Had the buckets on each end. I didn’t think it was right but I didn’t say anything.
No worries, one session won’t make a big difference 🙂
>>>Toss a treat out from the ladder. Ooo…yea. that was the problem. I was never ready going back. And then she went ahead of me.
Yes – she is so quick that it looked like you were in catch-up mode 🙂
>> I can take the legs off and then flip it over and it will be a little higher resting on the “T’s” I’ll do that.>>
That should be perfect! Keep me posted!
TracySounds good! He may never drive as fast to the MM as he does to the toy, partially because the toys might be more stimulating, or partially because he has to decelerate to a stop to get to the MM (pups can grab toys and keep running LOL!). But as long as he is not afraid of it, you can use it to shape behaviors and then eventually fade it and replace it with a toy instead 🙂
Tracy
