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Hi!
Brrrr, that sounds cold, I guess I will stop complaining that it is 40 degrees here LOL!She is doing well on the sequences!! A couple of ideas for you:
1st run – one of the things I have noticed with this generation of dogs is that the send into the turn produces a nice turn (like you did at :02) but when we move into the turn and show a decel, even if we are a little late with the rotation – the turn is REALLY nice. So, add in moving forward then deceling, leading out less an the turn will be even better.The same will hold true for the wrap at 6 (:10) – the more transition that she sees from you showing a big acceleration then a decel, the better the turn.
(I have also made a note to do a game where we gets this generation of youngsters to also collect on sends, when we don’t show the transition. I have some ideas :))
run 2 – moving in to the FC wrap on 2 at :24 will also get a better turn (rather than sending) – but also making a very direct eye contact with your arm back as she comes around the wing at :25 will help her know where to go. You were looking forward and pointing forward, so she slowed down trying to see which side to be on.
She is reading the wrap cues at :33 and :43 on the sends but the transitions will get even better turns especially in her being more prepared to drive out of them to the next line.
3rd and 4th and 5th runs both have the forced front crosses – she is reading the position really well (I think it was harder when you were on the side closer to the tunnel) and yes, a bit of throwing the reward back will get her even quicker. She is starting to get faster on these already because she is recognizing them now. Yay!
Her commitment on the sends at 1:14 and 1:37 was really good but these are spots where a transition will help get a better turns. You don’t have to get closer to the wrap jump. you can show more acceleration then deceleration before the send – that should get a more collection there because takeoff.
And then remember to call her before the tunnel at 1:19, I think you wanted her to turn but she did not hear a verbal. The same will hold true at 1:31 – you called her a little late so she did make the turn, but it made the blind late.
Great job!
TracyHi Pam!
He looked great on these!!!!On the serpy stuff at the beginning:
It looks like he was pretty perfect on processing the different cues. NICE! Question – on the first couple of reps, you said OK then something else, sounded like go? Then you were quiet on the other serp releases after OK. I think he did better on the release and no other cue there (you can call his name) but try not to say go if that is what you were saying early on (because go is a giddy up cue LOL!!)>> Not sure if toy reward placement is correct on the SERP exercise and he is also 100 mph so should I be working collecting on these.
I think the placement was good – you can add more collection cue by placing yourself closer to the jump on the exit wing (close enough to touch it without having to reach too far). That will challenge him to collect before takeoff because the turn is much tighter.
He looks to be ready for the serp-threadle-tunnel game I posted today! Perfect timing for him to look so good on this game!!
On the wraps section:
I liked how your shoulder turn was basically the same on both the tunnel cue and the tight cue. He couldn’t just read the body, he had to listen to the verbal too – nice!!! He had a big break through at :45 when he realized the difference between tight and tunnel verbals, then he stopped spinning. I think on both the tight and tunnel you can repeat the cue a few times so make sure he processes it as you add more motion (he moves really fast, so repeating it help guarantee he will hear it LOL! Also for the tight verbal, there were a couple of times where I couldn’t tell if you were saying ‘come tight’ or his name or ‘go tight’ – the come or his name would work well, and Go might confuse him (it was on one of those reps where he ended up in the tunnel). I think it worked best for him when you said tight tight a couple of times.One small detail on this: you can move your position further over to be closer to the tunnel, so he can see the wing more clearly. This will help when he is moving fast out of the tunnel heading to the wing, so he can lock onto the wing even earlier when you say your tight cue.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Hi!
>>This all makes sense and focusing on the basics for baby dog is what I need to commit to and stop my obsessing. I can adjust as we go.>>
Yes! The more I learn about agility, the more I realize that the training is perpetually unfinished LOL!! The sport evolves all the time, so making a list and getting started helps me to stop obsessing LOL! I prioritize based on what I think I will need, and when: for example, I need my 2 young dogs to understand GO, tunnel verbals, left/right ‘loose turns’ and wraps when they start trialing, so that is what I have focused on. They really won’t need backsides any time soon and they DEFINITELY won’t need jump threadles any time soon, so I have those much lower on the priority list.
>> Class this week had a huge send to a tunnel with a dw discrim to a tunnel and he nailed it. He is picking it up fast.
He is brilliant! I love it!!!!!!
T
Good morning!
>>I keep taking classes from you is that you can deliver feedback which is informative and doesn’t make me feel like a doofus. >>
Thank you for that feedback – dog training is a collaborative art in many ways, filled with risks when we put ourselves out there for critique (especially with a dog that we love so much). It is easy to feel like a doofus (speaking from personal experience) so it is important that the feedback is collaborative and supportive so we can all move forward and try to learn (that includes the canine AND humans :))
Also, you are most definitely NOT a doofus 🙂
On the video – this was interesting to watch and obsess on a little bit. I think this is the first time I’ve watched him for head turns on a 20″ bar and with speed from a tunnel? I need to scroll back.
>> I don’t think we’re progressing – maybe even going backwards. I don’t think he turned his head before takeoff on any of these.>>
I agree – he was not turning his head on approach to the jump BUT the quality of the wrap was very high! He was landing prepared to turn and power out, as opposed to landing, take a stride to turn, then power out to the next line.
>>At the end of this video, I even tried to just isolate the left head turn. Short of removing the jump entirely and circling a cone, I’m not sure what to do.>>
A couple of ideas that I can think of to play with:
– bearing in mind that structure plays a role, if Enzo can pull off high quality turns where he lands and powers out with no extra adjustments needed but we don’t see the slithery head turn he can produce on a lower bar – I still consider it a ‘mission accomplished’ moment (and not in the Dubya political sense, if you know what I mean LOL!!!) For example: my Voodoo is not what I would call highly angulated in front or rear (he is mixed with Croatian Sheepdog, which is a bit of a squarer dog) so his head turns are not as obvious but after I started working on the skill, the turns he can produce look sooooooooo much better. Somehow I got the point across and he is looking the new direction, better prepared to turn – but will never have the slither at high speed that, say, the whippet cross can do. And I am fine with that because the turns look great, they are safe, he is wicked fast. Enzo definitely has better angles than Voodoo but if you have gotten the point across and Enzo has taken the info and tweaked it to make it work for him: perfect! How will we know how these turns look for real? When you are back on grass or dirt where he can open up and dig in. That brings me to the other thought:
– I think he has good understanding but he also understands the mats so he is making sure to balance the concept with the footing. That means we won’t really see what it looks like full on til he is back on grass or good dirt or good turf (some turf out there is NOT good for fast dogs like Enzo and they scramble). When I slow down videos and obsess on how the dogs use their feet on takeoff and landing on these turns, thy change what they do based on footing – and grass/dirt gives the best read (good turf also), So no worries and we can revisit it when you are on turf or when the snow melts.
– one more thought – when you feel that there is a slide backwards or the dog is not turning as well, do a chiro check or PT appointment. It rang true again for me this week: Voodoo was doing weird things over an 8 inch bar on videos for the backside class (I mean, a 21″ tall dog should really be able to clear an 8 inch bar, right?) but he was way out in his hind end. And I felt that Contraband’s turns looked not-as-good even though he was working his hind end beautifully: his neck was waaaaaay out. So, 5 minutes with the chiro for each of them then a day off – what a difference in their skills.
– the other training idea I have is that you can occasionally throw in the cue for the head turn on a double wrap on the 20 inch bar after the tunnel: do a wrap then turn him back to it, clicking the head turn. I don’t do toooooo much of that because it is physically demanding on the body at full height, but doing it sometimes will serve as a good way to reinforce the skill.
>>I may just pick up the new exercises when they come out and leave this alone for a while. >>
Yes, back burner it, play with the other games I posted this morning – I bet we see the skill show up there, if he understands it. Then we can revisit it in different contexts.
Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
Wow! The wrap versus go video looks terrific! I like how he was really setting up the wrap turns to each direction, but also got the go when you asked for it. Yay! Super high rate of success!
I couldn’t see what you were doing in terms of line up or motion – it looks like you had a little bit of motion on the go cue. If you also had a little bit of motion on the wraps, that is good – clearly you were not helping too much because you were out of the picture LOL!! So now you can start to do two things (separately):
Fade out the motion, to the point where he can start between your feet – and you just stand there and yell the thing you want him to do 🙂
And, you can add a wing in front (15 feet away or so) of it so there is motion into it – and wrap him around a wing and as he exits the wrap, start the verbal for whichever you want him to do. You can handle during this too, but don’t worry about being perfect: it is meant to be a test of verbal understanding and getting it right without you needing to be all perfect about it 🙂Simple decel video – I love this game for young dogs because it teaches them to read the beginning of the cue (decel) rather than requiring us to be perfect.
Nice job on the early GO cue and the toy throws on those – my only suggestion on the GO lines is to keep repeating the word rather than to say it once (GO is one of those cues which is loud and repeated to help support the line, as it gets bigger and bigger 🙂
His reading of your decel was terrific! GOOD BOY!!!! You can add your verbal wrap cues in now too. Is he jumping higher heights yet in agility training? If so, you can add a taller bar here.
And the tunnel breaks at the end were a great balance to finding the line to the jump. He looked strong here too.
Next step on this one would be to turn it around so his line is facing the tunnel to challenge him: can he read the simple decel with that delicious tunnel straight out head?
Great job here!!! I am loving how well he is doing, especially at such a young age!!!
Tracy
Hi Maureen, I am glad you are having fun!!!
Thank you for the question, is it a GREAT question!!!!
I suggest breaking down the behavior separately from the proofing, so he understands that it is legal to wrap away from you LOL!! Many many dogs struggle with the concept of turning away from us.
Here are 2 ideas on how to help him out:
One way to help is to add a physical cue – a hand cue to turn him away on the wing or jump, like a tandem turn or anything that helps him turn away from you. Start it on the flat, so you can see what he knows/understands about turning away from you. Then add it to a single wing, saying the verbal first while being totally stationary, then going to the physical cue. That will help him realize that the verbal can also mean turn away not just turn towards, and will lead to a deeper understanding. Then you can fade out your hand cue and just start next to or near the single wing: then you can show him the different verbals and your position relative to the wing will help.
The second way comes after the first way: using 2 wings, start them pretty far apart so it is harder to be wrong and easier to be correct 🙂 Set up the session same as you did with the single wing, first with the hand cues then fade them out so it is verbal only, starting nearer to the wing you want. Then you will find it is easier to move the wings closer together and also to have yourself more in a ‘neutral’ position where he won’t read your body position as part of the cue.
And you can also refresh the skill with the physical cues as well, especially when you add the bar back in and have the distraction of the go jump.
Let me know if that makes sense! And let me know how it goes 🙂
Tracy
Hi! What a good girlie to ignore the other dog working!!!!!!
I agree that she was a little hesitant on the first clip (the :39 second clip) but much better on the 2nd clip (:56 second clip). The main difference I see if that you were more forward-facing on the second clip, so you had a better/clearer send to the wing, then a nice rotation after she got there. The times she had questions on that second clip were when you were too early on the rotation at :20 and :42 so she stopped.
When you were showing her the transitions on that clip (moving forward, then sending and decelerating while facing forward, the rotating when she was committing to the wing): she was great! Really lovely!On the shorter clip – you were trying to send and commit starting with you already rotated sideways and without a lot of motions… so she was not as clear on where to be. So definitely keep showing the transitions with facing forward then slowing and rotating (not hitting the brakes too hard).
Let me know if that makes sense! Great job!
TracyPerfect, thanks! We are looking at it. What happens, historically, with iPads and iPhones is that the updates are buggy with Facebook, YouTube, PDFs, and other sites particularly in Safari. Then either Apple or the other sites catch up and fix the iOS bugs so the iPads/iPhones are fine for a while (til they do another update).
The MacBooks do not seem to share the issue (nor do Android tablets/phones or PCs). This morning, my iPad booted me out of YouTube (in Safari), just as you described. So annoying! LOL!Keep me posted if you see it on the Pro and/or in Chrome. And we will look and see what our back end has done to fix any issues that they might have found while keeping pace with the various updates.
Hi! These look great! You can add a little more curve to the tunnel each time now 🙂
>>To my eye, he doesn’t even notice my motion in these reps.
I agree, he was cuing off the motion but not distracted by the motion. Yay! And the rear crosses went well – he committed to the tunnel and you got the reward in nice and early so he also got the correct turn on the exit.
The tunnel threadles looked strong too! So – a question: have you chose a word for your tunnel threadles? “Tunnel” means ‘take the entry on your line’ and the tunnel threadle verbal will mean ‘come in towards me to the other side’. I highly recommend that you don’t use the same word as your jump threadles will be – we accidentally stumbled on a series of sequences where the handlers needed different verbals or they couldn’t get it right. We will be adding the verbal to this very soon, and he looks ready for it 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi!
He is definitely off to a good start here! He was really showing some nice ability to turn and bend – that is going to make for a lot of lovely turns in the future! Following the cookies is fine for now; that lure is how we get it started 🙂For this game, I also suggest taking it off a full jump and juts working on a single upright or barrel before the wing. There are too many visuals associated with having the full jump there, even with just a bump, at this early stage of sorting out the mechanics.
The mechanics of the hand and cookies and clicker are the hardest part! I think the rep at that start at :37 was when the mechanics were getting nice and clear. A nice slow hand to draw him in and turn away helps and you had the cookie in the other hand and dropped it in. Yay! That was the smoothest and seemed to help him. If the ‘grab’ hand moves away or tries to turn him too soon like at :56 and 1:04, he was not as sure and was tending to follow the cookie that was tossed. So take your time getting him focused on the hand, drawing him to it, then turning away.
You can delay the click a little – it sounds like they were coming when you turned the hand which is just before he turned his head – so now you can delay the click until after he his head has fully turned and you see him look the new direction.Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! We can totally help smooth this out! A couple of mechanics ideas to tweak this set up to help him out –
>> He really seemed sure that he should be pointed toward the middle of the bar and not to the outside of the wing.>>
For this game, start it on one wing and a bar/bump: having both wings can be a little too distracting as to whether it is front side or backside. Even with limited experience, the visual of a full jump is pretty distracting. The single wing makes the wing more salient and it doesn’t look as much like the front side/parallel path that he learned recently. If he still is looking a lot at the bar, take the bar out and just do it on a wing (but I think he will be fine with 1 wing).
>> Do you think it would help if we started farther away and just walked toward the jump in parallel path mode with a lot of connection?
Not much further away is needed, but definitely more of a parallel path on the single wing. More importantly, though, is that he sees the wing: your path should be to the side of the wing with the cups, where the wing meets the bar. On these reps, you were over-helping by walking to the outer edge of the wing and then curving your shoulders around – that blocks the wing and causes the pups to look at us more. It was a little more exaggerated when he was on your left than when he was on your right, but either way your line should be further over to reveal the entire wing.
So ideally he is in a stay or on a cookie toss so you can be a few steps ahead of him, moving on that line, with connection, before he moves up the line. If you start with him too far away and the jump is obvious, then he might mistake it for a parallel path to the front side.
One other thing that might have been causing him to be sticky:
When he was on your right side at :09-ish, you were moving your hand in and out of the pocket a little bit. That is the international sign for cookies-or-toys-are-coming so that immediately drew his focus up to you – so keep your hands comfy at your sides and not in pockets 🙂 Your hands were in pockets on a couple of the other reps too (but not moving as much) so be careful to have your hands pretty relaxed and not in pockets.Let me know if that makes sense! Keep me posted on how it goes 🙂
TracyGood morning!!
Yay for so many things here!
Yay for outside! It looks like he was still a good focused boy 🙂 And he went right back to the toy at the end after all the cookies: definite happy dance moment!!!!!
>>Letting go of the toy. I did this with Squeaky too and he was just like ‘why did you stop’, Will Smith a little too, so even if they don’t run around is it rewarding? >>
Well, he certainly did look at you like you were dullsville when you dropped it LOL!!! It is entirely possible that running around with it is *not* reinforcing! So you can make it a retrieve game: drop the toy, encourage the retrieve, and the game resumes when he moves the toy towards you. If tugging is more reinforcing than running around with it, then the retrieve will come more easily.
He also did well on the the prop sends! Connection is key, as you discovered:
:52 was disconnected, you pointed forward without connection so he did not know where to be.
1:02 was connected perfectly, lovely! The next two sends (1:25 and 1:36) were a little less connected so not as smooth – a little too much pointing forward & looking forward at the prop, so try to look more at him and the pointing arm can be softer (meaning, lower and moving more with your leg as you step to the prop, so he can see your eyes more).One thing that will help get the connection even clearer is to use your ready dance to start this, not a cookie drop or any kind of loop or reset cookie before the send. You can be a bit sideways to the prop, and having him in front of you: make eye contact, get him engaged with a bit of ‘ready ready ready’ – then with connection turn and step/send to the prop. That accomplishes getting him to be more ready for the send, you’ll be showing more connection, plus it teaches him to go from handler focus to line focus.
Nice work here!!! He is learning this so quickly!
TracyHi! Good job on the sequences and also on adding lots of fun variations!!! She is reading them all really well. Here are some thoughts:
About the FFC at the beginning – you were doing a good job of trying to turn earlier and I really liked the timing at :14 and :25!!! You were really challenging her commitment and understanding by turning just as she was arriving at the commitment line… and she was perfect AND fast. That is terrific!!!
She had a question going to the backside to 3 at :18 and later on at :59: she was not quite as sure about driving away from you there, so you can keep your arm back and shoulders open to her a bit more. That should help her see more of the connection to help propel her out there.
One thing I noticed in that moment and in other places: she really likes it and goes fast when you repeat the verbals energetically especially on sends. If you are quiet, she slows down and asks questions. So since it was too muddy to run here, you can keep saying the verbal and I bet she will drive nice and fast!
When you added the tighter turn with the throwbacks at :40 and :48, she did really well reading the lines! One thing I notice on these and on some of the others later is that she slows down when you are stationary and facing her (or even moving backwards a little) so you can add reinforcement into that position: show the position and just as she arrives at your hand, fling the reward straight back behind you (but you don’t have to turn, you can keep facing her). That should help her power into the rotations.
Another place you can use that reward being flung straight back behind you to get more driving into you is on the backside forced fronts after the tunnel exits – she was totally reading it, but not sure if she should drive in fast or not. The stationary and rotated position is a strong turn cue, so flinging the reward back will help her drive into it while maintaining the quality of the turn.
Very nice lead out push at 1:23! You can challenge her more in 2 ways: you can be closer to her line (more in the middle of the bar or even on the wing closer to 3) and closer to 3 if you are going to the front side (positionally, you will want to stay closer to 2 if you are going to ask for a tighter turn and send to the backside of 3).
The last sequence with the forced fronts after the tunnel was creative and fun!!! It is a good spot to add in some of those flung rewards to get her to run hard into the FFCs when you are in position like that. Connection and timing and position all looked great!!
Great job here! Let me know what you think. Fingers crossed for more good weather but less squishy ground 🙂
Tracy
Here is Miss Elektra! She also has a side that was stronger than the other.
Here is first bippet video on the elevated target. He is stronger going one direction than the other (this is not unusual for him).I changed the placement of reward a tiny bit to give him a better angle on it, then he sorted it out. Not sure that my choices of things to elevate the target on are all that great but he is stuck with them til I can find other things LOL!
