[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning! Lots of good stuff here!

I love all the elements of the baby dog handling stuff on the first video! Verbals, connection, lines, a little bit of backside, lead outs, a little bit of find-the-thing-after-the-tunnel. Super! He looks great and seems to have no questions about the handling or the distractions of other people. Woot!

Good boy on the wobbly board! I think the environment there pumps him up, the toy pumps him up, the wobbling was easy with the blocks under it, and his sister was noisy so he was a little pumped up. I do think the session is a little long, maybe break it into 2 one-minute sessions to truly leave him frothing for more.

Also note at 2:07 he reacted to the teeter slam in the background – so definitely be watchful of dogs on the teeter with him nearby so that you can jackpot the teeter slam noise – just to be sure there is a positive conditioned response. This could have also been a bit of depletion because he was already looking around before it (or he could hear the teeter)

Glad he wanted to get started on the teeter! Have you ever tried letting him watch Sizzle do a few reps of this set up, then he gets a turn (one rep, just one rep), then he watches then he gets a turn for one more rep? It is all about building arousal and excitement into it, without giving him time to overthink it. I think he is *not* worried about the sound, it is the movement only so watching Sizzle should be exciting for him.

Also, I think you should just do what you did in the final minute of the video as the entire session, not just the last minute of it – tunnel, teeter, breakfast, done. Or tunnel, teeter, toy, done. Once, maybe twice. Less is more! This ended up being a longer session than I would suggest, and I think he makes his best progress on the teeter when the sessions are short and high in value – the longer sessions for smaller food rewards don’t raise value as effectively because the reinforcement value is lower (smaller quantities, lower value, more repetition).

So set a timer on all of your skills sessions – do a minute, tops! I know I am a pain in the butt about that but the less is more approach will reap big rewards 🙂

Nice work!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!!

>> I helped him more since he had never heard the verbal before.>>

Whoa, this was his first time with the in in verbal? He looked GREAT!!!! I am impressed. On the very first rep, you twitched a little too soon so he ended up on the other side of the jump (that is his basis of knowledge for the most part) but then he was awesome on the rest! So now, you can build up his understanding that the threadle skill is a 2-parter based on the one cue: come in AND go back out. On this session, you were nicely stationary on the come in part, and then you helped with a bit of motion on the go-back-out part. On the next session – remain totally stationary, holding the threadle cue & position and saying the verbal until after he has come in and you see his head turn to the jump: then you can move and have a big party. I personally find it REALLY hard to stand still that long in the training stages so you will probably need to keep reminding yourself LOL!! That will really help him understand that he needs to come in and then put himself back out on the jump heading towards the tunnel, rather than wait for a physical cue from you.

The serpy moments went really well! He read the serp versus threadle nicely – on the ‘ok’ at :50 when he took the tunnel, it looked like your shoulder was closed forward to the tunnel so it was an appropriate response based on the physical cue. For the serps, you can open your upper body to him more, with your dog-side arm further back: think of serp upper body position as the center of your chest pointing to the center of the bar. The further ahead you are, the more your upper body will be rotated back to face the center of the bar (but not your lower body, so you will get a really nice yoga stretch going LOL!! And that way you won’t need to lean back to draw him in, just keep your chest open and you will be able to add motion forward.

>> I didn’t like my cadence of the in in in. I will try to slow that down next time.>>

Do you mean you felt it was too fast, like a patter? I thought it was fine 🙂 It sounded like what it will sound like on course, when you are running a zillion miles an hour with him because he is so darned fast. I love it!! He is looking lovely, great job here!!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning! Lots of good things happening here!!!
He did a really really strong job getting to the backside, even as you got further and further across the bar. If you feel yourself drifting, you can lay a leash on the ground as a line to travel along. I didn’t think you were drifting in a bad way – you might have been drifting towards the far side of the jump, which is good!!! We want to avoid drifting to the entry side, and I don’t think you were doing that 🙂 But I put leashes on the ground as lines for myself ALL THE TIME so I don’t get lost in space while trying to stay connected LOL!!!

Your connection to him on all of these looked really great (the wrapping the tree rep threw you both off, we will just write that off as an anomaly haha)

And your front crosses all looked strong. (and also remember to throw in some cues to come to the front side so he is listened and not just backsiding haha)

The Blinds are much harder for him, and that also highlighted something in his understanding that we can strengthen (it is a common question with young dogs) – he is doing really nicely getting to the backside of the jump… but doesn’t exactly know what to do with himself when he arrives there 🙂 When your FC is happening, he is able to commit to the jump and jump it nicely. On the blinds, it was much harder because he was needing your blind to be perfect to help him with both the commitment and the jumping effort. I felt that your blinds fell into the ‘pretty damn good’ category – the rep at :55 maybe could have started sooner but was overall really good (he hit the wing). The rep at 1:17 was a little late started (he ran past the jump). The rep at 1:27 was good timing but he hit the bar.
So any time handling needs to be super perfect, I believe there is a dog training thing we can do: rather than obsess on perfection of timing and connection (because, truly, it was good!) we will look at his dog training question. I saw this a bit too on the early reps here – he is not automatically committing to the bar on the backside, he is waiting for a handling cue (normal young dog stuff). From the handling perspective, it is too hard to have to give all of those cues perfectly at his speed… so we will just train him to automatically take the bar. Your backside cues means “go to the backside and jump the jump” so that will eliminate the questions he had here.

To get it – cue to the backside as you did, and as he is approaching the entry wing = drop the toy on the landing side no matter what your handling is…. except don’t do any foot rotation (like a FC) or handling to bring him over the jump. The reward is for committing to the backside, and it is placed on the landing side to develop the default (before he makes a jumping decision for now). The two things I suggest doing as a handler as you do this is either disconnecting for the blind or moving along the serp line towards the tunnel.

After a couple of sessions of dropping the reward in to create the default, you can delay it and see if he starts to automatically choose the bar. Then lots of rewards for that 🙂

Let me know if that makes sense – I think the default to the bar is the last piece of the puzzle! Great job!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
On game 7:
Yay, he did such a good job here! This is a really hard proofing game. When you were more in threadle position (outside the wing, like at :18) he did better, which is good to know- he had more questions when you were in between the uprights or moving. So a couple of ideas for you to build on his success here:

Do separate sessions with motion and no motion.
With the motion sessions, start him on the easier angle of entry for the threadle, like you did at the very beginning of this video. Then show him the threadle and the serp and the tunnel cues, with you moving a bit but him starting on the easy angle.

Separately – change his start position to add angles – but do it without you moving 🙂 So for example at :27 he was at a perfect angle to add challenge – show him the 3 different cues without motion (standing still in threadle position, standing still in serp position, shoulder closed to the tunnel) and then gradually make the angles harder (but without motion). He will let you know how quickly you can progress to harder angles, based on how crazy he thinks you are with the easy angles hahaha!

Then… we can start to blend it together by adding motion to the angles. The goal is that you can really run through these, but that takes time to build to. No rush – he is off to a great start here!

>>We briefly tried game 8- I haven’t edited the footage but we couldn’t think about our RC mat in the presence of the tasty tunnel so that training session didn’t continue past 3 attempts.>>

Ah yes, the mat fades into the background! I think this would also be helpful for RDW training because it teaches the dogs to hit the target even when something exciting is nearby (like the human sprinting, or a tunnel out ahead). Have you tried a raised target, where the mat is attached to something that elevates it and makes it more obvious? That might make the mat more salient when the tunnel is right there. I have my RDW mats attached to an aerobic step thing at the moment to start that, and now they are taped down on a smaller plastic box which is probably 18 inches on each side, or less? I can measure it.

Great job here! Keep me posted!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi! These are going well!

>> So I worked on it a bit. It seemed to me that if he’s lined up to the backside, he will go there even when I move across the bar. Then he was “backside crazy” so I had to send him to some straight jumps. Then back to backsides.>>>

Yes – the the parallel path backside work looked good, in terms of going to the backside and jumping the bar (and not going in the tunnel :)) He was still finding that little bit of step/push helpful to commit to the backside but you didn’t need to hold because he was leaving to commit nicely! At :20, the physical cue said backside (you were still on the line to the center of the bar) but the verbal said jump so when you moved the physical cue over so he saw more of the bar, he seemed totally fine reading the front versus the back.

>> I got one refusal to jump but mostly it looked good.

I couldn’t decide if the refusal moment at :59 was a product of hitting the wing on the previous rep (he didn’t have a lot of room to jump with all the acceleration on the cue or your countermotion without helping him by hesitating or cuing the jump or both. He got it at 1:08 on basically the same cue, so you can revisit the countermotion on the next session and see how he does.

>> Tell me how to continue to progress this.

Add the wing in near the tunnel exit, so you can send him away to wrap the wing and then as he exits the wing – you are moving more towards the exit wing of the backside jump (closer to the tunnel) and cuing either the front or backside, with your handling as ‘neutral’ as possible: connection, verbal… but very limited stepping to the backside or shoulder turning to the front. Give him as much as needed… but as little as possible 🙂 The goal is that we can strip out everything but the verbal, and even eventually show the opposite, and the verbal overrides everything. It takes a while but worth it – you might have to be walking to start this so he can process the cues.

And stay tuned for next week’s game, which expands on this and makes it really hard for the dog to rely on motion (it is a bit wicked :))

On your serp/threadle video – he did really nicely!!!! 2 suggestions to make it easier but also more challenging:
from the stay, show the upper body cue before the release, so he has the extra heartbeat to process it. That will help as you add a bit more challenge with running more, or starting with a wing to wrap him around, and also being closer to the wing on the threadles.
He did really well on the threadles when you kept your position a few feet from the wing. When he ended up on the front side at :23, you were in what I would consider a perfect threadle position but dang it is hard for the dogs 🙂 And by releasing and showing the cue simultaneously, he didn’t read it before making a decision.
So now to increase the understanding of threadles, your line of motion should be basically the same as on serpentines – moving very close to the wing of the jump and not being lateral. For now, release him before you get too far past the wing but then eventually it works up to being in serp position and releasing him either on the serp verbal or the threadle verbal 🙂 That is another way to help verbals get stronger rather than physical cues being required.

Let me know if that makes sense! We are really pushing the envelope here and I am happy with what he is doing!!!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi! This is a great question!!
I have found that the dogs look at the bar as the frame of reference for front side versus back side of the jump, so when working on the single wing (no bar) it has not been a problem to send the dog around either side using the front side wrap cue. The dogs don’t seem to relate front or back side with the jump cups, only the bar. It *has* been a question from the dogs when we use the backside cue with just a wing – “mom, there is no bar here!” – unless it is a backside circle wrap.
Sometimes I get twitchy and turn the wing around so the cups are facing the right way LOL! But the dogs never seem to have trouble with the difference, they are looking for bar or no bar 🙂 Let me know if that makes sense!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi! This didn’t go too badly, actually – it helped sort out 2 important things for shaping the retrieve:
first, she had to get in the groove of tugging while the clicker and cookies were present. That was hard at first – every time you moved a cookie or your hand, she was looking at your hands. But then you got it going and she was able to tug while you were holding the treats and cookies.

Then the 2nd small issue cropped up: she was totally trying to pick up the toy and move it to you… but she didn’t realize that standing on the toy made it impossible (ok, it was pretty cute and funny!!) She did gave a couple of good reps like at 1:26 and the end when she was NOT standing on the toy by accident – but I agree with your idea to use a smaller toy that she won’t step on LOL! I like the ball idea – a tennis ball is perfect for this, and she probably likes them too!
So while it was not a perfect session as planned, it did get you closer to the goal and helped her understand how to play while cookies were right there under her nose. I am looking forward to the next session. Nice work!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
He did really well here too! Fun!

>> I’m deliberately pushing his envelope on the entries to see what he can do.

He was great on just about all of them – my only suggestion is that when you are behind the tunnel, reward back towards you because that positional cue asks for the dog to exit turned towards you unless we override position with a verbal.

>> There was one rep with a blind entry off the back of the curve and he missed his entry because he was watching me run. I’m going to consider this baby’s first layer! LOL!>>

Ha! Yes, it was a hard entry and a lot of motion and he couldn’t quite sort the 2 of them together. No worries, he will get it, you can send from the angle with less motion or now.

>>This is my 10′ tunnel. Do you think it is best that I keep working with this one or should I swap in my 15′ tunnel soon?>>

Yes to both? LOL! I think the 10 foot tunnel can’t curve more than this without having too much bend for a big dog, so you can use it with this slight curve for entries and the double whammy stuff. And the 15 foot tunnel can be used to show more curve.

>>I was struggling with using a verbal that doesn’t currently mean anything to him.

You can start the physical cue with no verbal other than his name, then attach the ‘here’ verbal. I think it will make more sense when you are moving into it from an angle where he changes his line towards you rather than drives ahead of you.

>> I looked ahead at the week 9 double whammy tunnel material, and I see what I need to do with the threadle verbal baby steps.

Yes, the Double Whammy game will help solidify that 🙂 Have fun!

Great job here! Any issues with the ipad booting you out with posting the links?

T

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!

>>Our target is hard for you to see in this video, but you’ll figure it out because he did GREAT.

100% correct – I couldn’t not see where it was but he made it obvious LOL! Great job! I think he totally had the lead changes going here, both directions. Nice!! And rewarding with less excitement for an ‘almost touch’ is fine – soon enough, it goes to a wing or jump and then it is more obvious in terms of commitment (or not committing :))
On the get outs, you can probably play with a softer arm cue, meaning not quite as extended – the more you extend it, the more your feet will want to turn. So you can add a bit of jogging and experiment with what the balance will be: how much does he need to see, and what is the minimum needed so you can keep your feet straight and keep running? He will let you know.

And on the balance where you do not want the out – you don’t have to cue it, just stay connected and moving forward. He should follow your line to help clarify the default of ‘stay on the line unless specifically cued otherwise’. Because the target is a lead change away, you don’t need a bypass on it or a here cue. Let me know if that makes sense! If he offers the get out without being cued because of the target’s value, you can move your line further away.

Great job here!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

Nice job on the banana game here! He did think the toy was a little silly for this LOL! You can throw the toy, if he likes that better rather than tugging. But he loved the ball – and it brought more excitement to the game but he did not lose his mind: perfect! That is what we want – excitement but no massive brain explosions. He had 2 misses at about 1:20 (good catch!) then he got back in the groove. The misses happened when he started to gallop a bit: so you can go back to a slightly bigger mat for a session or two (easier to hit!) and add more speed – then you can go back to the smaller mat again after that. I don’t mind that he had a couple of misses because it helps the dogs solidify exactly what we are looking for – but his overall success rate was still really high.
We couldn’t see you on the video but based on his path, it appeared that he was doing the real banana and you were straight. Yay! Great job!!!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!

It is fine to use her name for now! We can add the verbal later on. What was happening here was that you were rotating towards her to cue the threadle – and if you stopped moving or ran backwards to the threadle entry, she got it (like at (:01 :16, :43, 1:02, 1:10, 1:37)
But if you ran backwards on even the slightest line to the straight ahead entry, she didn’t threadle (like at :10, L23, :27, :37, 1:27)
Backwards motion works the same as forward motion 🙂
Ideally, you turn and face the threadle end of the tunnel and move forward towards it, with the verbal and hand cue getting the turn (plus turning and moving towards it helps too) – that is definitely a trained cue but totally worthwhile because you won’t have to rotate and you will be able to keep moving (and get her to do it even if you are not ahead of her). So take out the speed for now (and you can even more the wing over a more centered position relative to the tunnel – use your wrap cue on the wing like you did then her name – but turn your feet to the threadle entry of the tunnel and use your arm cue and keep calling her til she gets the correct end. Walk slowly the whole time, so she doesn’t see motion and just have a giddy up to the tunnel 🙂 If she can’t find it with your feet turned towards the threadle entry, you can turn the straight line entry a little away so it is a little less visible, or you can start with the wing wrap closer to the threadle entry of the tunnel.
I think she will figure it out really quickly, because the arm and verbal are so different plus she will be able to see your feet turning.

Let me know if that makes sense! Have fun!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
These are also looking good, she had a nice balance with turning to the far end and staying on the line. She seemed to have no trouble reading the difference (and she definitely enjoyed the race track moments :))
One thing to fine tune, which will become more important on bigger courses: on the threadles/ “far” cues, keep your feet pointing towards the tunnel entry you want and don’t rotate towards her. At :46, 1:12 and 1:34 you were generally pointing your feet to the tunnel and that is what we want her to read – the arm & verbal so that you can keep running. On the single wing reps at the beginning and at 1:00 and 1:52, you were turning your feet towards her as she came around the wing – she will read it that way, but it causes you to stop running and also might cause her to rely on rotation (which also makes it harder to keep moving). So, as she is going to the wing, add in the wrap verbal then the ‘far’ verbal but turn and face the tunnel entry. It is a fine line to show upper body without turning your feet, so you might find you show her a little less threadle arm in order to keep moving.

Great job here! Stay warm and safe!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
Bummer about the snow and ice! Ick! Hopeful it comes and goes quickly. I am hoping for an early spring LOL!
She did well with the serps here (actually, did well with ALL the things) so we can fine tune it a bit: -one thing you can add on your serp handling is have your serp arm back (showing shoulders facing the bar) sooner so she can do the in and out without you needing to pull her in and push her back out. For example, when she is exiting the tunnel and heading to the serp jump at :03 :17 and :37, your arm can be back already and you can be moving up the line with your shoulders facing the bar. That way she will get the come in cue sooner and more importantly – set herself up to turn back out before takeoff rather than after landing. It will make a clearer difference when the bars are higher in the spring. You were tending to open up your shoulders for the serp cue as she was approaching takeoff to the jump, so she was not coming in directly after the tunnel and was looking at you over the bar rather than thinking about going to the next jump. We can see it on the other side at :29, :45 and 1:01 – she is waiting for your shoulders to cue the in and then the out, so you can help her do it more independently on the serps by opening the shoulders sooner and leaving them open as you move up the line so she sets up the next turn before takeoff.

All of the backside sends looked good, she had nice commitment on those – both going to the backside and taking the jump when she was there! Yay! And she was really strong about responding to the cues whether it was just a post turn or a serp, or the FC on the backside or the BC to the tunnel at the end! Very nice to see her being able to respond to the cues!

Great job!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

The raised target platform will also balance turns in both directions – in Contraband’s first session, he was fine turning one way but couldn’t do it the other way at all. He would go near the target but not ON the target haha!! It is a great snowy weather game.

>> When I put her reward far enough away so she had to run through the grid, that seemed to help her bounce, so we’ll experiment and see what we can do with this serp grid.>>

Perfect! She just needs to be convinced that it is not a boring jump grid 🙂

>> I’m assuming you don’t try to do a bounce with the jumps completely flat and lined up? That sounds tricky….>>

We totally do want them to bounce with the jumps completely flat… and at full height! BUT that is a very long way off – I don’t ask for that until the dogs are fully mature adults. It is very tricky and so my 6 and 7 year old dogs see it sometimes totally flat and at full height – but the youngsters only see low heights and open angles.

> I hope you’re having decent weather.

We might get an inch or two of snow tonight, so everyone local is freaking out LOL!!!! I guess I won’t complain 🙂

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

You have a ton of good stuff happening here so now I will bug you about planning how to incorporate it all, so it gets built into something super and not have any pressure added to something that worries him. I have found the less-is-more approach will actually bring faster results with fewer slide backs. He has a lot of really good skills on the individual elements, and that will be super useful! With all the stuff, think of it as needing a workout schedule so it all gets done eventually but not all at once.
Because this is a lot of stuff all in one day and adds up over the course of several days, plus the training that is not on video… I think you can calendar it and slide it in in smaller pieces, sandwiched between things he finds really stimulating. You already saw that with the tunnel 🙂 that was a great addition to the fun! That will help build value for the movement without added pressure and you’ll see quicker results and fewer “no thanks” moments or times where he poopoos things. I find that shaping with food adds pressure… but playing with toys, balls and tunnels turns it more into a dance party 🙂 So yes, train for the big jackpots with him meals, that is a great opportunity to work skills – but also do a lot of wild stuff with toys and running around. If he has a most favorite toy, save it for a wobble board – tunnel – toy session.

So each day, pick one or two things, one element on the list of training something that worries him to work on – do maybe one session in the morning and one later on. The stuff that is not worrisome or is adjunct to building value for the teeter can be done more regularly – but the stuff that might worry him should be done in tiny bits and ideally every other day (because of the stress hormones that might be associated – even if he eats treats/plays with toys, he will still have some stress associated with it and we want to make sure that is not still floating around in his system the next time you attempt something that worries him).

Continue to make the sessions super valuable in terms of rate of success, quality of reinforcement… then be finished. Set a session timer and also a total daily timer 🙂 Resist all temptations of adding something more difficult towards the end of later in the session especially by adding more of what worries him. Think of the sessions as a bell curve – start with something easy, easier than where you left off last time, then go to the harder stuff earlier in the session, then towards the end of the session back it off into the easier stuff and end there. That will help progressively add the harder stuff without the hardest stuff coming when he is the most depleted.

Don’t do ALL the things in one day, even spread out – because what happens it is looks good til the dog gets depleted (which generally coincides when we humans ask for more) and then things go backwards – especially in the evening, for most of our dogs. The science behind depletion and behavior is pretty interesting and has changed my approach to training. I feel it in myself too, when depletion is happening.

He did well on the inflatables! Since those challenge his body (not just brain :)) and build muscle/strength/core – the conditioning vets recommend we limit those to every other day at most or every 2 days, so he doesn’t associate any potential soreness from a workout with something that moves as you work on that positive conditioned response on things that move. That makes it easy to schedule: it can be something like Tuesday/Thursday/Sunday are inflatables days, which leaves Monday/Weds/Friday days for other games. Saturday is for wine drinking lol

And keep the toy involved a lot. He is working nicely for food but he goes cuckoo for the toy – and we like the cuckoo, in this situation 🙂 We want him to loosen his tie and forget himself – and in shaping and cookies, the dogs get thoughtful. With toy games, they get wild and that is good here 🙂

>>We went to LU last night and today but I don’t have video from there. But, we did a wooden wobble board and he was not liking it. I got him to put a paw on it and then I threw a treat away from the board. I did that with him last night and today.??

I think a toy is a better choice for this and if there is a tunnel available, use the tunnel and then the toy. Also, prop the wooden wobble board so it moves a little less for now (tunnel bags or towels or something) and then build the movement back in – make it as easy as possible for him to earn the party then gradually build in more movement.

>>I also got him on an elevated flat teeter and going across 2, 16” tables. I added in him running through the tunnel after her ran across the teeter. Whoa! He loved that.>>

YESS! Fun! More of this! A mini course: tunnel, teeter/tables, tunnel. You can do it at home on the lowered teeter: tunnel, lowered teeter, tunnel – cue the tunnel as soon as he moves the teeter (it doesn’t matter if he stops or not for now because it is relatively easy to install the end position)

>> I added in the finest bit of movement.

Don’t do that LOL! Working through worry about movement takes human self-control because we want to ‘boil the frog’ and add movement in so gradually that he barely notices it because it is so much fun. He loves it? Great! End. Let him be foaming at the mouth for more. If he can love it twice, 2 separate sessions over a couple of days? Cool – then perhaps on the 3rd session, you do a warm up with where he left off, then the early rep has a tiny bit more movement rather than the end of the session. Bear in mind that this applies in the same environment – so if you get to LU and the teeter is in a different part of the building, the best bet is to do the same session as the last time because a change in location is meaningful to the dogs even if we don’t see it that way. Environment is a different training track, so if environment (location) changes then that is the only change, for that session. He will let you know if he is fine with it or not.

>>He poopooed that but did it anyway.

I am glad he did it but we do want to avoid any poopoo moments where he doesn’t enjoy it. That is where we see the up-and-down coming from. A more gradual approach will have a steadier increase in behavior, working each track separately.

>> I probably won’t be able to do that with him again until next week. I can stop by there and do the disc with him again though.>>

If you go and do the disc there, be sure that it is sandwiched in tiny amounts in between other much more fun things. Make sure it is not first and not last at this point (primacy and recency play a role in association) until we are sure he is loving it. Doing something else easy and fun will get him in a high state of arousal and then a bit if disc then back to something else really fun (tunnels are perfect for that). You will also find that sandwiching it in among other little fun things will help make sure he doesn’t make any negative associations with that environment – for example, if he goes into LU then does the disc right away especially if he is not liking it… you run the risk of him associating going to LU with the pressure of the disc. So sandwiching it in tiny bits will take that pressure off and help protect associations.

Let me know if that makes sense!! I jot out training calendars at the start of each week on a white board, to make sure that I try to get things done without over-balancing any specific behaviors. I am really not all that disciplined about my training, but having the framework jotted out helps me keep all the little bits on track in small pieces, across several dogs – without losing my mind 🙂

Tracy

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