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Hi!
>>River is better than Chief for some reason!>>
It is probably generational 🙂 With Chief’s generation, we did a lot of TAKE ALL THE THINGS IN FRONT OF YOU (especially because he is little) and not a on of emphasis on verbals. With River’s generation, we trained a lot more of a lot of different things, so I am not surprised she did really well!
She was definitely thinking hard on the reps where you were standing still! She was super successful. She slowed herself down to process the verbals, because that was the only info she had when you were stationary – good girl! So nice!
Adding motion was harder because you mentioned, the motion was not too specific. I think one thing that can raise the success rate is to change your line of motion so that the wing and the tunnel are both equally visible without her having to cut in front of you for either (in this setup, bringing the cone closer to the camera would give her a sweet line to both).
It was hard to see from the camera angle, but on the motion reps when you were cuing the wrap but moving forward, she would have had to run in front of you/across your feet (at :46 and 1:01 for example – your line was blocking the wing and she was not comfy cutting in front of you). She does pick it up but you can see that she is moving in front of your line when ideally she would be more parallel to it, if that makes sense.And that can be the same for when you add the jump – she had to run in front of your line and we don’t want her to cut in front of you, so the reps where you turned your feet made more sense to her (like at 1:50). She did get more comfy with it, but then she got into the habit of cutting in front of the line like at 2:27, a little patterned to it and it was hard to convince her otherwise for a few reps LOL! (couldn’t really hear the verbals but I think that is what was happening there and at 2:47 and 2:56 too?)
So with the jump, you can set the sequence slightly differently by moving the cone to about where Chief was in a down at 1:09 🙂 that way you can continue the hard challenge of motion that is not pulling or sending too much, but she can see each on her line and will have to decide which one based on verbal without cutting you off. Angling the cone that way also will add more speed, which makes it more challenging too (but also simulates the exact angle we see on course for this challenge).
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyWelcome! I think the goal here is to get the reinforcement procedures firmly established, then we look at applying them to behaviors and trials. Whenever we are fighting with the dog about something, it always comes back to reinforcement procedures. And then when they are in place? Everything is so much easier 🙂 Have fun getting started!
TracyHi and welcome!
Thank your for the update! Dr. Overall is the best 🙂>> but I still have the overarousal or stress eating and grabbing behavior. I’m hoping that clear knowledge of how reinforcement is going to be delivered will help.
We can definitely look at this!!! Try to keep an actual spreadsheet of antecedent to the behavior – literally, what happens right before it. And also it might be a list of things that happen before it (I look at umbrella success rates as triggers for that stuff).
>>I’m still having issues if I disconnect after a sequence that he’ll go grab something. I don’t mean to disconnect. I thought I reinforced a behavior, but at some point, I actually do have to reset a jump:-)>>
You might have reinforced the behavior for sure! But there might be other things in play: low overall success rates, self-control depletion, perceiving that disconnecting to reset a bar or something is a negative punisher (punishment is in the eye of the dog, not us LOL!) or anything, really… so for now, insert a behavior into your loop: do the thing, reward him, then insert something to do as you reset: get on a mat, go in a crate, hold his collar, something that you can then reinforce him for and then carry on to the next part of the session. It is a big of management as we try to sort out his needs 🙂
>> The marker words like snacks, Get It, Shhh, Catch, will replace the marker like “yes” or the click?
Yes and no 🙂 Nothing really replaces a click, if you are using a click… but we don’t always need to click. I use the clicker for a precision behavior, so I might click then use the marker. If I am going to throw the toy out ahead? Click then “get it” If I want the dog to come to me for a cookie? Click then snacks. Or come to me for a tuggie? Click then BITE. We work more of this in the next set of games.
As for yes… it depends on how you use it. You can use similarly to a click: yes then reinforcement marker. Or, you can use it as just a general praise but not paired with positive reinforcement (this is what I try to do consistently now – yes is praise but not a reward mark(. Otherwise the dogs just come to us every time we say “yes” even when we want them to keep doing the thing (ask me how I know haha!)
>>Then for Catch. . . I’ve already taught them that Catch means something is getting tossed to your mouth either at my side or somewhere else. So, I think it means be prepared to catch it with your mouth. So, should I have a different word for things getting tossed to them away from me?
I might need to see a video to see what you mean, by if ‘catch’ means: Stay where you are, cookie coming to your location’, then it is probably fine.
>>Is there a list possible words to use for things? My creativity level is a little low right now:-)>>
We can start one in the forum!
>>ALSO, I LOVE the word snacks!!!!!
Ha! Everyone loves eating and saying snacks. And I have a marker for Hot Sauce for a certain reset and style of reward delivery: “ice cream” LOL!!! (she comes back to me and licks string cheese lol)
T
Good morning!
>>Hypothetical situation … handler did way too many threadle reps (like 12 on the angled setup and 12 on the traditional setup). She knows she should set a timer for future sessions so she doesn’t overwork her dog. How would said handler decide what to post for feedback? Say, for example, this handler had trouble with balance on the angled setup, but finally got it, then had trouble with the threadles on the traditional setup, but also eventually got it.>>
Hypothetically, with a herding dog… you are probably going to get “all threadles, all the time” so that might be why said handler had a hard time getting balance then got balance so had a hard time getting threadles back if I am reading this correctly LOL! So, for the next session, I strongly encourage no more than 2 reps of the same thing in a row – balance every other rep, or every 2 reps. And separating the angled setup from the traditional setup.
So for feedback, if the threadles went well on the angled setup and the balance was hard after a lot of reps – the answer is more frequent balance. For the traditionals, it is was hard to get the threadles – post those up and let’s see what happened.And BIG HOORAY for ZIP!!!!!!! That is awesome!!!!! Congrats 🙂 I am doing a happy dance for you and Zip!
Tracy
Hi!
>>Just a word about the lotus hand changes — I had to work hard to train myself to do that! When I was first training Yuki, she would jump up at the hand with the lotus or other treat. To save my hand being attacked, and get her to focus on the task and not the food, I taught myself to change hands so the hand cuing the dog was always empty.>>
That is actually one of the reinforcement procedures we look at in the Reward class: teaching the dogs when they should look at or approach the reward in your hand, and when to ignore it completely 🙂
>>Given my rather long history doing this, is there any other reason, besides my cue timing, that I should not be changing hands? Can I improve my cue timing by switching the lotus sooner? Other ideas? I just really like not having the reward in my cuing hand…>>
The hand-switching is a distraction to the dogs, because that hand motion could be a cue, or not a cue… so it makes it harder for the dogs to know where to look and they might ignore the subtle hand cues, thinking we are just moving the reinforcement (plus we end up being late :)) So, you can do two things:
– run with nothing in your hands on sequence work, have it in your pocket then dig it out as she is finishing 🙂
– separately, we will teach the dogs to NOT attack your hands. I am not sure if Yuki still does that, but she is a perfect candidate to learn that present of the food does not mean that food is going into her tummy LOL!Then you can merge the two together. Being able to have food in your dog-side hand can really open up precision reinforcement opportunities, so it is worthwhile to teach the dogs how to let us have the reward there while protecting our flesh 🙂
T
Good morning!
>>Plus when I am running on course I don’t have the inside arm back as much. It was just showing up in training when I slowed things down
I agree – we see the tiny details of mechanics when we take out motion. And this move is definitely a high motion move on course! But it is also good to work out the mechanics of connection because connection with smaller dogs is different than bigger dogs (harder, in my opinion – it is just easier to see a 21″ tall dog!)
I definitely think more arm is better for Min – when you over-connect, the shoulder drops back too much and looks like her threadle. As soon as you closed it more – easy peasy! Yes, I did just write ‘over-connect’, who woulda thunk there was such a thing! I think the arm cue, that gentle low swoosh, will actually do the connection work for you and you won’t have to use your eyes as much – eye connection rotates the upper body, which is generally helpful but not for Min, in this case.
Also, one other thing I see here – timing the cues. In terms of timing – she should be hearing/seeing the backside cue before she exits the wrap wing. You were waiting til after she was fully around and that was late so either she took the front or you pushed her back out. You had a really great angle at 1:20, she was a full stride past the wing exit and already looking at the front when you started the cue, so she took the front then stared at you very judgementally LOL!!! Girl dogs… HA! So, think of entering the wing wrap as being in the air over the previous jump: you can start giving her the info as she is wrapping so she knows where to go immediately upon exit.
Holding your pants got the shoulders closed forward and that totally helped! You were compensating a little by moving your running line closer to the entry wing or adding a step – but that might jut be because you felt a little weird holding your pant leg LOL!
The good news is that Kal has reached a Masters-level of training too on this skill, so you can handle things for him the same way you do with Min (I find it good for sanity to do things the same way with my dogs :)) Like Min, I think the low arm swoosh and earlier timing will help (the earlier timing in particular, because he has a big stride and it is still getting bigger).
The other thing with him is that you can progress the independence more slowly (baby dog!) – a couple of sessions of you moving to the center of the backside bar til he is really solid for several sessions. Then you can start to inch your way further over. That will raise the success rate overall as you get further and further across the bar.Both dogs were terrific with the balance reps and the front side wraps! Nice!!!
Well done here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>>So dark, so soon now!
So true!!! I like daylight and warm weather!!!
Both dogs did well here! I think the #1 thing to make things perfect as you get further away from the backside jump is to emphasize the placement of reinforcement. When you were close to 2 and threadling or doing the FFC, they were good about taking the jump but I would still toss the reinforcement to the landing side of 2 for both of them: it will strengthen their commitment for when you move further away, and it will also help River keep her head down and jump the center of the bar more – she was a little inverted in her form and also jumping all the way across the bar near the exit wing, which usually indicates a late commitment decision.
River is also a master of predicting the release, so be careful of releasing at the same time as the arm cue for the FFC or threadle – she is too darned smart and will think the arm cue is the release LOL!
On the FFCs – both dogs read these really well – you were early on the first rep with both of them, so remind yourself to be patient and let them get closer to the wing. This is especially true for Chief who takes more strides because he is little – it is so hard to be patient while standing there! LOL!!! You did a forced blind on the 3rd rep with River – I personally love those types of blinds (I am sure you are not surprised hahaha) but they are easier when you move into them rather than starting from a lead out.
I think you can challenge them both a bit by tucking yourself more fully behind the wing, so only your eyes and part of your arm is visible. You were already doing it on some of the reps and they seemed fine with the challenge. And, you can totally add in a verbal – yo u were quiet on the release which makes the physical cue the only info. I use my threadle verbal because it is the same behavior for the dog, or you can call their name.Lining them up on a more severe slice facing the entry wing of 2 can help make it even easier! And I don’t think either dog had any distraction issue with the tunnel discrimination, that is great!
Both dogs did well on the threadles – the verbal is helpful for them, and they both seem to have a stronger understanding of commitment after threadles especially when you are further away. For example, on the 2nd rep of River’s day 2: look how independently she went and found 2! Yay!
So keep working the placement of reinforcement on landing of 2 for those – as you got further away, like at 2:32 and 3:04, she lost some of the commitment and was heading to where the reinforcement was placed (further up the line, closer to you). Having the reward consistently on landing of 2 as you move away will help her be super independent on those too. Same for Chief – the further from 2 you are, the more you will want to toss the reward to landing side of 2. You can toss it as soon as you see his head turn to the jump: that will mark the correct choice and allow the reward to be visible as he lands and as you move away.Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>>We did a bit of running between the tunnel and jumps in the last exercise and Kieko stayed parallel, didn’t try to take the outside (off)jump. Nice.
Terrific! We are seeing this challenge a LOT lately!
>> I think there may still be another set we missed, but I was pleased with my girl and what she did>>
She did really well! I have some timing ideas for you and some mechanics but overall this went super well. There is more about the brake arm in the threadle game before this one.
One thing that went REALLY well was the difference in your verbals/handling when you wanted her to go go go versus turn : Great job changing your volume and intensity of the verbals on the big send versus the soft turn! You can also use your left/right soft turn verbals, rather than a softer over cue.
One little mechanics thing (we will work on this in the Reward class too 🙂 – when running with the reward in your hand, don’t switch it from hand-to-hand, just leave it wherever it is. You were switching it to the other hand before giving the turn cues, and that moment of switching made your cues late. I am not sure you even realized you were switching it LOL! so you can also have it in your pocket for handling – we don’t need a precision reward for these types of games, and so the slight delay of digging it out is fine 🙂
She responds beautifully to that little brake arm! You can give it a tride earlier: after she exits the tunnel, slide the brake arm in when she is looking at the jump but before she can make a decision about how she wants to jump it. That way all of the soft brake arm cues are done before takeoff so when she lands, you can be cuing the next thing. At :12 you were pretty close to that, and the other reps were one stride later – at :27, :50 , 1:13 and 1:33 , you are doing the arm as she is lifitng off so she reads it, but after landing so she is pretty close to the pinwheel jump
Then you can release the brake arm when she lands and you want her to get on the big line again – at :27 you had it up as she was also approaching the next jump, which you don’t need in that situation (but works really well when you also need a turn on the next jump as you did on the last rep!)
She had no trouble with the ‘out’ wing! The tunnel exit was pointing towards it a bit, so on the next rep when you didn’t want it she exited the tunnel looking for it (:42) – be sure to use turn cues before she enters the tunnel so you can cue the exit. I spend a lot of time obsessing on what the dogs se a the tunnel exit so I know what to tell them before they go in 🙂
>>When I did the threadle motion I did something strange on the first go-round>>
1:15 was a FC to the tunnel not a threadle – a really nice FC! You were a in great position so the FC made sense and your muscle memory took over.
1:35 was a really nice threadle! What worked really well there was NOT releasing the soft brake arm, so she was ready for the threadle (versus at :28, where we wanted her in extension over the jump after the soft turn so you can handle it with the dog side arm ).
Great job on these! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! Welcome!
I agree – this is so important! And we are still learning all about how to help the dogs but also the dogs are teaching us what they need. It is really fun! The first games are live – have fun!
TracyHello and welcome!
Yes, I agree that knowing when/how to deliver reinforcement will help but also he will learn to predict reinforcement in different environments so he will get much more confident at trials. We can also apply these to learning to ignore the judge, etc. He is doing really well and I am excited to see him work here!
TracyHello and welcome!!!!
You can apply reinforcement procedures to any of your critters! It sounds like you have quiet an amazing assortment (I admit to being biased towards wanting to see the Camels!!! I am curious to learn about their reinforcement hierarchies :)) We night need to tweak things for the horse/donkeys/camels but the reinforcement procedure concept applies to all animals.Have fun!!
TracyHi! Welcome to class! We officially begin today. Since you are able to post here, it means you have registered already.
Tracy
Good morning!
Kaladin is doing really well here! He doesn’t commit to the backside line til he is relatively close to the wing or wing+bar, so I watched it a few times to see what his question was – I think it is a shoulder question: the dog side shoulder is opening up more than needed, dropping back a bit more like a threadle. The connection for the backside is pretty strong, and we definitely don’t want you to point forward ahead of him… but I think that you don’t need to open your dog0side shoulder back as much unless your are using your outside arm, otherwise it looks a little threadley which could be why he wants to come in until your line of motion affirms that it is the backside.
The mechanics of shoulders are slightly different when the outside arm engages – it pulls the opposite shoulder forward, which changes the angle of the chest and pushes the dog away rather than pulls the dog in. Without the opposite arm, if the dog side shoulder drops back, then both shoulders are back and it looks like a threadle. And yes, I am walking around the RV trying to be sure I have a chance of describing it correctly. So the connection can be dog arm a little back and down by the top of your hamstring and if you think he needs more “push” to get out, you can add the opposite arm for exaggerated connection and shoulder pointing. I personally don’t think he needs that, so just a soft/low dog side arm, some connection, and now more motion.Let me know if that makes sense or if more coffee is needed.
You can add more motion now, jogging, building to running – which will help bring your dog side shoulder forward a bit and also the added motion will affirm the backside line even sooner.
Min had a similar question at :13 and :22 and :33 (and :41, she got past you and took the front) – and since she is super experienced, I think that Kaladin was reading handling too because he had the same questions, and not just doing puppy things. While walking, if that outside arm pulls back, she asked if it was a threadle (it is also possible both dogs can see the toy and are asking if it is in play) – either way, you can soften the shoulder drop back – stay connected like you were, say the verbal like you were and you can keep your hand more at your side and not as dropped back.
You can really see it at 1:04, perfect angle of the video: there is decel because you are walking (and there is some decel built into the threadle cues) and if you freeze it as she is about halfway between the wing and jump: both of your shoulders are back – dog side is far back like an open arm threadle, and the opposite shoulder is also a little back (I retract what I thought my be the looking for the toy, the toy is not visible here). As she passes you, she is convinced it is a threadle.
This is also a good angle to show what the opposite shoulder should be doing of you want to engage it – your opposite shoulder should be pointing to the outside wing, the entry wing for the backside. Otherwise, the upper body looks the same as the threadle cue.So, since we are obsessing on arms: you can have a little bit of low arm back to her when she is behind you and then let your dog side hand kind of track her collar and give a gentle swoosh to the backside as she is moving up the line. That will really make sure it doesn’t stay back or look Iike a threadle.
Also, more motion will help because on backside push slices we really don’t have a lot of decel built in, so that naturally shifts the shoulders forward more and doesn’t look like a threadle (which does have a little decel built in because there are collection cues there, as opposed to the backside pushes which are sends).
Let me know if that makes sense! Finding the sweet spot of shoulders will put the finishing touches on the independence 🙂
TracyHi!
This session looked terrific! You totally did it right 🙂 She is finding the backside wing perfectly. What she needs more of is the “turn right back to default to finding the bar” – she is all in GIDDY UP mode and continuing past the wing LOL! Your toy placement was perfect. The only suggestion I have for the toy placement is that as you continue to drop the toy in that same spot – don’t stop your motion. Keep moving forward as you drop her toy so she doesn’t default to taking the bar only if you decelerate or stop. So you will be walking towards the camera in this setup the whole time, until after she gets the reward that has been tossed back to where the bar would be.
For the next session:
For her, let’s make it all about “find the bar” rather than staying out around the wing – she has that one down perfectly! So rather than move further away to the different positions (which she did perfectly here) – stay in the position 1 and 2 lines of motion, but add that added bar in. And that way the bar being in the picture will get built into the behavior. Everything else remains the same: cue the backside like you did, toss the toy like you did, keep moving – the only new thing is that she will go over the bar to get the reward. That will help teach her that after getting to the wing, she needs to look for the bar even when da momma keeps moving :). And you can also balance in some front side too.Great job here! Let me know if the ideas make sense!
TracyPS – how is Breeze feeling?
