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Hi! I think the addition of the MM is great, it is something we do with dogs that can handle the distraction 🙂 His value for the touch spoon is high enough that you could add the MM and he didn’t lose his focus on the spoon. It was challenging, for sure! But the MM simulates the challenge of another obstacle out ahead on a serp and he has to come in on the serp anyway 🙂 I would move the MM about 2 feet further from the jump and also closer to the landing line if that makes sense – it will be on a line closer to a tight line for him, but he will come over the jump and turn and take 2 or 3 steps to get to the MM 🙂
You can also use the toy on the ground! We have that added in with the next stages of the Strike A Pose games 🙂
One more suggestion: be closer to the jump. He was able to come straight over the jump and turn after all 4 feet were over it. To encourage him to turn as he is arriving at the jump so he ‘lands’ already turned (teaching him to set up the collection before the jump when he sees that cue. So your ideal location relative to the jump will be close enough to touch the wing, with a relaxed arm/slightly bent elbow. You should then see him turning before he arrives at the bar and when he is on your side of the jump, he is turned and facing the MM. Let me know if that makes sense!
Great job 🙂
TracyHi! He seemed to have a little trouble leaving on the sends on some of these at the beginning, so you can tweak the mechanics of it a little to smooth it out. I could see your feet and they were good! But I could not see your arms or eyes, so be sure that the arm cue and shift in connection also goes with the leg step (it might have been :))
The thing I think will help the most is a ready moment to reset between the reward and the send (rather than looping the behavior by sending right after the treat). After he gets the cookie, put him back into handler focus by having him come in front of you, talking to him (I say ‘ready ready ready’) and when he is fully engaged: do the send. I think the send was happening a little too quickly after the treat and he did not see it clearly on the way back to you, so his response was not as crisp. When you had a little more of a reset towards the end of the video, things got much smoother and his commitment looked good! So the handler focus reset moment should be a solid 2-3 seconds long until he is looking up at you and saying “send me! Send me!” And then you will be able to have those lovely responses on each rep.
I see a recording of the rocking horses below! Yay!!!Tracy
PS – you can also build on this by changing your position to sitting higher or standing. He can certainly see more challenge here.
Hi! This was really fun to see, he totally sorted out the target to hand, no problem. What was really interesting was the more difficult concept of “there is food in it, put it in my hand to get the food.” (At least, I think the food is in the yellow thing and the fuzzy thing you used after it :)) That is a difficult concept because of the distraction level of the scent of the food and the proximity to it (literally in his mouth!). That appeared to be the initial distraction – he would grab it, start to retrieve, get caught in the food smell (and maybe taste) but then finished the retrieve. That is amazing on several levels! Very cool!!!! It should make toy retrieves even easier 🙂 I have friends who have taught their sporting dogs to retrieve things like eggs or hot dogs, because sporting dogs have ther ability to carry a hot dog to us and not eat it LOL!!! I am sure other breeds can do it but I am not brave enough to try 🙂
Great job here!!!
TracyHi! Thank you for the update, I love to hear about her progress!
>First work week of the year was very busy! Indy & I are further behind.
You are doing fine! We have a break week this week to give everyone a chance to catch up a bit.
>>Our small space Blind Crosses are good.
Excellent!
>>She will get on almost anything but likes to default to the sit position.
That is fine, a sit is a good default 🙂
>> We need to work the Buja a bit more and then the stay part. I also started the plank work on an aerobic step.>>
That is great to add this week or next week, I think she is ready for that.
>> With treats she is all over anything, but if they stop coming she loses focus in a moment.
Do you mean in shaping sessions, if they are not coming because you are waiting for something more, she loses it? You can do a session in a small room like a bathroom (where there is no place to go, not much to look at) and let her work through that – delay the cookies to get a little more and if she loses focus, just wait… when she returns to focus, the cookies start coming again. Yay!
You can also break off cookie sessions with toy play – so she has shorter sessions with more energy between. That way she won’t go into a cookie-zen-mode where it is easy to lose focus 🙂 Toy play will help keep the engagement high.>> I shaped her 4 feet into a large bowl in just a few minutes! (I lowered all my adjustable contacts to puppy height because she won’t stay off of anything – she has no fear. I was out there just cleaning up with both dogs. It turned into catch the puppy before the down side).>>
Hooray for being fearless, but also it was smart to lower all of your contacts haha!! She is keeping you on your toes!
>>Worked the wing wrap with a barrel. She is doing awesome. Work both with treats and with toys. I believe I have learned she is left pawed. And I can cue it from a few feet back standing and she flies around it. Occasionally, doesn’t make it all the way around.>>
This is great! If she doesn’t make it all the way around, you can wait one heartbeat longer til she is turning her head and more likely to come around. If she is left-pawed 🙂 then you can keep the right side reps a shade easier for now as she evens out in her balance.
>>We have done the basic back up a number of times and it has improved nicely.
Perfect! Keep revisiting it as she grows, so she remembers where that hind end is 🙂
>>Hopefully, we can finish up week 2 and start on week 3 this week.
Excellent! You will find that things build on each other so it won’t feel as much like you are behind.
>>PS Seems as she is getting taller, my shoes are less of a target.
Ah, perfect! Plus she is maturing and that helps!!
Tracy
Hi!
On the cone wrapping:
OMG the videographer “is that allowed” was too funny, he should do a sports announcer narration on the training videos! LOL! She is doing well on these – don’t move the cone out away from you until the back and forth is pretty automatic and almost irresistible to her. She was getting invested in the game, but was still considering her other options 🙂 You can also use loud cookie drops – it is an auditory lure 🙂 – as a warm up to get it going. And, thinking about it – you can totally play this game with 2 toys. She likes food and you have done a great job bringing up the food drive but I bet she will get fully invested in this game with 2 toys. That is how I taught it to my BWxPap! Her drives are VERY BorderWhippet (toys first, food later) so when she was in the 12-16 week old range, I did most of this with toys.She is the queen of the goat games! Super confident! And I love this inflatable thing, I need to get one. She seemed just fine to get on it, stay on it, no worries about the movement or the height. You can challenge her balance with a bit of tugging on it, it is a wide enough platform. I think she will be fine to do that. You can also have her turn around on it or sit on it if she will offer sits (just to get more balance and hind end stuff 🙂 )
Great job!!! She is doing really well!!
TracyHi!
Excellent choice of prop – it is very salient and super cute too. I love her very obvious front foot hits! Lots of intent. She was a good girl when you moved to the sends and also hilarious 🙂 Try not to say ‘go’, as that will mean something else – no verbal needed at this stage but you can totally make a noise to say something silly 🙂 For the distract portion, do you have an engagement word you like? You can talk to her and engage her (I do the Ready Dance) and then send – so it teaches the pups to go from handler focus to obstacle focus. And it builds a lovely engagement word: my dogs could be passed out asleep and if I say “ready” they spring to life with total focus LOL
“”Not totally crazy about her turning it into a drop, but I assume we can work that out over time. “”
On the sends, when you feel value for the prop is high enough, you can get rid of the drop by changing the placement of reinforcement. Send her to it then have her come back to your hand for the reward. She is unlikely to want to drop when she will be coming back to you (and you can use a toy for it too!)
>>Also tried taking the show on the road to a petstore. She wasn’t willing to work avidly for food, but we were able to get some basic work for a tug. (She above — paps and play>food).>>
Road trip! Yay! Again, that strikes me as BC behavior, not Pap behavior. Usually we can get the Paps to eat but we can’t get the BCs to eat. SHe is super cute, she looks like the Budi dogs from Seiter/Tucci in Florida! She did a great job playing and targeting in this new location! Yay!!! Was she willing to put a treat in her mouth? You can work on eating in new places by using a super high value treat – and when she swallows it, reward with tugging (swallow is key so she does not spit it out when your head is turned haha) She doesn’t have to work for the food, the ‘work’ is swallowing the cookie 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi!
>>Yes, the pap makes for many new experiences. When she came home at 8 weeks she was NOT interested in working for food.>>
That is really interesting! I would think that is more of the BC than the Pap? Paps are PIGGIES.
>>Happy as a clam to play-play-play, but food, eh … not so much. I’ve also noticed that weirdness about walls and interacting with something up against a wall. Huh?>>
This also sounds very BC. Maybe Mudi too, I just don’t know enough about the breed. Voodoo (half BC) was very similar in the All-Toys, No-Food at this age. I had to teach him to eat, it was bizarro. LOL!! Not sure about the wall stuff? That could be any of the breeds LOL!
Good job working the harness grabbing – that was TOTALLY Papillon hahaha You might need to start with reaching towards and building to touching because she was really avoiding it with some impressive skills and a little drama hahaha! I am sure you are already doing hand touches? This helps with Papillon collar grabs and you can also do body targeting where they target their side or hip to your hand? This is a definite life skill for all Pap types 🙂 Nice work!
TracyBummer about the lack of more nice days!!! I am ready for spring weather 🙂 But he did really well here!!!
Parallel path to the jump:
He did well on the parallel path! It think the hardest part was finding the food after the throws! He was wanting to look up at you a little which is normal because there is not much to look at other than you! So, to help keep him looking straight: mark the moment he looks at and begins moving towards the jump, and then throw – so the food will be flying before he even gets to the jump. If the arrives at the jump, he will look up at you – so throwing sooner for the choice to look at and moves towards it can keep his head straighter.Serps – once you got the angles going at the beginning, he did really well targeting to your right hand! Very nice! He had a little more trouble one the new side with the chain, he was wanting to go directly to the right hand (cookie hand) and had to think hard about hitting the target hand first. Are you right- handed? He might have more value on treats coming from your right hand, which makes this side of the serp a little more difficult. You can help him by moving the left hand/target hand a little, and the visual of motion might help catch his eye (and up and down movement, like a wave). On both sides, you can move the cookie box out to where you want him to start from, and use your cookie through to reset that next rep – so he targets, you show him the treat in the reward hand, then let him see you toss it to the cookie box – he eats, and comes right back to the target hand.
Turn and burn/wing sends – these were really good commitments! You were using the sideways send leg with is good – he really cues off the leg, so I will keep bugging you to use it. Working in a small space, you can add in more of the turn-and-burn feeling by starting closer to the wing, right next to it – cue him to go to it then move away right as he starts moving to it. That can help with the countermotion concept without needing to wait for good weather 🙂
Great job!!!!!
TracyHi! I think it will benefit you more in the long run to get that great connection across your body with the outside arm after crosses, especially because she is small. So…. keep doing it! It looks comfy, she reads it well, and it works like a charm 🙂
T
Hi!
I think this went well! Don’t forget to exaggerate the decel before you turn – you were running then trying to stop really fast before the turn, so she didn’t have time to read it. Plus it is hard for for you (and me LOL!) to maintain balance when we are stopping suddenly. So think of slowing down gradually when she is maybe halfway to you, really letting her see it and you taking small steps, rather than slamming the brakes.>> And…I always want to treat her with the outside arm like we do with the toy. But I notice in the video I think you treat with the dog side arm so you can bring them around from there. Is that right. I can’t stop doing it.>>
I could see you sorting out which arms to use LOL! There is no single way to do it correctly, as long as you are connected. So if you feel better with the arm across your body: perfect! I thought you were connected nicely and she seemed perfectly happy with it. So if that is comfortable and she reads it, then go with it 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi Joni!
This was a really fun session – getting really good stays in a high energy session. She is a high energy girlie so will need to be able to hold a stay when she is feeling pumped up. I think she gets really pumped up and can’t always offer the sit – I think you can click and reward a couple of instant sits mixed in there, meaning as soon as her butt hits the ground: click/reward.>>Did I do that right with the sit (and I did the “good girls”)duration…and I moved back too. She stayed really nice. >>
Yes, you nailed it. Lovely!!!
>>And then you still say “catch” at this point? I think we are ready for the “Break!”. So next I replace the “catch” with the “break”?>>
You can start to mix in the break cue now, and reward her for coming forward to you. You can fade out the click too – it can either be ‘catch’ and you throw the toy to her, or “break” and she comes to you to tug. Surprise her 🙂 And do LOTS of ‘catch’ so she maintains the joy of staying.
I also posted more sit games to play from our stay class if you want to check them out. The goal is to make stays FUN!
Great job 🙂
TracyHi! Good session here! A couple of ideas for you:
Blind crosses:
She read this really well and is really understanding blinds in general, so you aren’t needing to work that hard to get connection on the exit. Yay!!! One thing about the line of motion to get better turns and better position for you:
As you move up the line, move directly to jump 3, and don’t converge towards 2. Moving in towards 2 as it shows her a straight line (as if you are heading to the tire out in the distance). Your line should move you towards the position which should be same as when you move to the far wing of the jump as if leading out to the throwback FC. Motion on the parallel line and verbal support jump 2 so you won’t need anything else to convince her to take it. That will help her set up a turn without any extra help – and also means you won’t need to be perfect on timing because your running line is already showing the turn. Yay! Timing and connection were really good here; I think this will be a useful lead out!FC lead outs –
>>I am used to the idea that the FC should be done before the dog takes off for jump 2. But when I tried that, Keiko just skipped jump #3. It was especially bad on the right side. So I turned later and slower. What should I try in this situation? >>I think this also had to do with line of motion – by giving the big step to 2, it sets her on a straight line and moves you away from 3, positionally – then you turned and did a big step back to 3 which changed the line and pushed her past it. You can see at :58 and 1:09 that you were moving in towards 2 then back out towards 3, so it was drawing slightly different lines. You can play with standing still next to the wing at 3, then just dropping back on the FC and moving with connection past 3. Connection + motion + verbal should support the line there, so she should not need the extra support steps – I think those were was was changing the lines more than needed. Let me know if that makes sense.
Lead Out Push –
She read this really well, it was an easy lne for her to see.>>We did the draw the line piece. This felt really strange to me. There was little action, and Keiko seemed to sort of shrug – that’s all she asked? >>
Ha! That is true, it is pretty easy. It is most widely used when we need the dog to be tighter on jump 2: either for dogs that need us to demand a tighter turn, or if the #3 jump was on a tighter line. Keiko turns when asked and does not need to be sledgehammered, which is why this style of lead out seemed a little boring LOL! Also, this style of lead out became popular when people didn’t want to do the lead out FCs but they also didn’t want to do BCs.
>>What should I do on this- should I be running past the next jump, #3? What types of situations would use this straight forward line approach? >>
Yes, you can be running past the next jump to set that line but a more typical situation would be to use it to push her to the backside of 3 (on the entry that is closer to 2) – that would require a tighter turn on 2, and that is one of the places where this might be a good situation to use this style of lead out.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyI forgot to put in the RDW comments, oopsie! This was a good sesson to start bringing it outdoors. I didn’t count the rate of success, but he had enough misses that I think it was lower-than-desired but not toooooo low. In the new locations, when he is a bit excited 🙂 You can take the verbal off so that he doesn’t have misses associated with the verbal. Sending quietly will work here. And in a new environment you can reward interaction with the mat – a good boy single reward for front feet, a MASSIVE FIESTA for rear feet. No rewards for leaping LOL!
He is a bit upwards in his striding due to the excitement on some of the reps, I imagine his sister will be too – Hot Sauce was THE WORST about leaping upwards when she was excited so I delayed the clicks so it was through the mat then one more stride – then the click. That got striding/trotting/running and was got rid of the bouncing/leaping.
One other thought to keep the success rate really high:
try to change/add only one thing in each session. Each session can be short, but try to not have a lot of different things such as adding motion or wings or angles etc. That can all get in there later on, but in the early stage the new environment is a big change, so we don’t want to throw a lot of things at him because he will miss too often. He is on the right track! Can’t wait to get started officially next week!
Tracy
