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Ha! He is very smart but we already knew that 🙂 The finger wagging is funny and also you do a little wrist movement/flick right before you say careful so that is also indicating that the food hand is now available (I recognize it because it is something that I also do, reflexively, dammit. LOL!!!)
So for pure verbal – keep the hand totally stationary until after you say the word and he takes a step to it.
I also think that he was not sure what he was supposed to be doing to earn the ‘careful’ moment here, so he was offering a lot of different things – which might result in him getting more stimulated and less ‘careful’ with his mouth. You can set up the environment so there is something really obvious to do (or you can cue something) so he can have the ‘aha!’ moment of ‘this is how I get the “careful” hand to present the food’. Because I think part of what you were looking for here was for him to stand still and back off the cookie hand a bit, you choose something like standing on a balance disc. That is a stationary behavior (stillness is really hard!) and he won’t be near the cookie hands… and a balance disc will require enough concentration to, well, balance 🙂 that he will have to center himself, offer stillness, and is less likely to come in hard to the cookie hand.Let me know if that makes sense! Nice work here!
TracyGood morning!
>> So struggling to see a difference between quiet means doing a good job and just good building of duration? >>
I think it means good job AND helps build duration. Being stationary, quiet, facing her… that is all you continuing to engage in the moment which is all basically a “nice job, keep going” signal. And if she has an error – you would probably not be quiet, facing her, standing still 🙂 You would probably reset her or something. So the quiet position and continued engagement in the behavior is both the “woohooo!” And the keep going to build behavior.
>> I really liked most of this session 🙂
Yes, me too!
>>Her release is great and she did well with remote reinforcement. >>
Yes, and yes 🙂 Yay! I think you were changing things too frequently, though – you went from a stay with the stuff in your hand, to on the bed, to swinging it around… from the human perspective, I stopped thinking about the “don’t move” element of it and starting thinking about “where is the toy going next” element. And I have not had a lot of coffee yet, so that was my lizard brain, which is more like how my dogs would think LOL!!! It made things a little less predictable, and I have found predictable reinforcement to be a great way to train stays.
Since your training goal here is stay duration while you are quiet, think of the different toy presentations as criteria: and do a short session with each one, separately:
– building some duration with you holding the toy, then a catch cue
– next session – put the toy on the bed, cue the sit, build duration with toy on the bed and then you can use your remote reinforcement or you can pick up the toy and release her to get it from your hand
– separate session – building duration with the swinging toy.At some point, you’ll have all the elements introduced separately so you can meld them all together but for now, keep them a little more separate. And by separate, I mean just a couple of minutes apart. A few reps of one set of challenges, take a short break, reset to the next set of challenges, and so on.
One other thought is to be as clean and quick as possible in the transition from the ‘catch’ and ‘careful’ back to the stay – sometimes you were very quick to ask for the next sit and I think she was very strong in those moments. Sometimes you were quiet and didn’t ask for anything, so I think she was not sure what you wanted there – you can totally cue her sit behavior to get the next rep started, as she seems to have a really good response to it (if she had a poor response to the sit cue, I would suggest letting her offer but I think she is doing well with the sit cue :)) This is especially important after the ‘catch’, which is generally a release cue so she will need to be asked to begin the next rep.
>>I think I started tossing for the catch once or twice early…but I caught myself in my head and quietly said Bad Beth without it impacting the training 😂😆
Ha! You were really good about having to multi-task all of the cues, markers, placement, and trying NOT to move the reinforcement too soon LOL!
>>I also should probably have used remote reinforcement word instead of careful…>>
Do you mean when the reward was on the bed? You can choose before the session – will you release her to it and then pick it up off the bed? If so, remote reinforcement. Or, will you pick it up then mark the behavior? If so – careful or catch or however you want to place the reward.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>> Antecedent:
Play tug toget revved up.
Perhaps chase a ball.
Followed by 1 or 2 obstacles into the WPs.>>This is more of a look at the sequence into it, and not as much about the antecedent which is more specific to the cue for the weaves (with the weaves being the focal point of the training)
>>Behavior:
A. WPs and reward at first near start of WPs.
Gradually move reward back to start of seq.>>With the weaves as the focus, I think you can isolate them more for now – working only the weaves, reward near the weaves to start then move the reward further and further away, so he has a frame of reference regarding the poles before you put more stuff before it. Isolating the weaves will make a bigger impact in terms of reinforcing them, specifically.
Then you can add an obstacle before the weaves, and so on.
>>B. gradually add more obstacles after the WPs Before getting the Reinforcement.
Yes – bearing in mind that you are no longer reinforcing the weaves, specifically, at that point. The reinforcement is more of the ‘general’ remote reinforcement for the entire sequence and not the weaves. In that situation, the reinforcement for the weaves is the cue to continue.
>>Place reinforcement after an obstacle, and sometimes, pass by it before releasing Nuptse to the Reward
with “Get it!”>>This is good for teaching him to ignore remote reinforcement until you mark it and go back to it – just make sure that the reward is not on his line, I don’t think it is fair for the dogs to have to run over a reward on their line. I think it makes things muddy: if I say ‘weaves’ there is also an implied possibility of reward on the line after the weaves, and then if that reward is NOT in play all the time, the dogs have to think about it too much and will make mistakes. So, I do leave reinforcement around to ignore but I don’t put it directly in the dog’s running path.
>>REinforcement Procedure:
Usually Get it!>>Is this for weave reinforcement behind him? Be sure your reinforcement is specific as to where the reward will be – I use ‘get it’ to mean out ahead, so it might get confusing if sometimes get it also means turn back behind you for the reward.
>>Returning to the Start of Sequence:
If we are notthere, then using engagement of eye contact and/ or tugging and/or tricks.>>Yes – you can cookie him back to the start with tricks, or you can cue him to get the toy and as he is doing that, go back to where you want to start again so you can get the toy, play, and then it is an easy reset : )
>>This is our winter project along with leash tugging.
Perfect! Time is on your side, so you can really break it all down and build it back up 🙂
Great job planning! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>> What do you mean by remote reinforcement marker inplace of the give cue in you above comment?>>
The give cue in the moment of tugging means that tugging on the leash is the only option for reinforcement, which is fine… but we can also build it up to mean that if he goes to the leash and plays with it, that it can earn him the opportunity to get the cookies outside of the ring. That might be more valuable that leash tugging in the ring for him, and easier to transfer to the trial ring too!
>>How long after next Monday, will you be answering our posts? This has been a terrific class.
Glad you are enjoying it! I looked at the calendar, and we can go til just before Christmas – December 23rd 🙂
Tracy
Hi! It sounds like it was just a weird day, hopefully an anomaly. So, have fun on Saturday and let me know!
TracyHi!
This is going really well! She was very happy to move with the cookies and toy! It is easier with cookies to get the reset part of it, that looked really good! You can use just the marker when you are rewarding the behavior, rather than praise then the marker, to make the most efficient loop. The praise tells her you liked it, but is not necessarily specific to location or what to do next – so the dogs just generally come to us. You can use the marker as both praise and a ‘do this next’ moment, so you will be able to reward the behavior you like both by marking it and placing it usefully, then reset easily (I praise after the reset and before the next cue, because I find it hard to keep my mouth shut LOL!!)
You were using the marker as the praise with the toy as well, it was nicely timed! I think she was not sure if she should come to the toy or continue taking the jumps, because the toy was small and the body language was continuing to present jumps. So if you want to use the shhhhhh with a toy to reward the moment on that jump, you can move away from the other jump and reward. This friz was harder for her to see, so you can use a longer toy or tie this one to something longer to it is easier to chase 🙂Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
Great job here, it is a good choice for a rainy day! The targeting element went well, particularly in the face of all the distractions (toy on the ground, cookies in hand, get it cookie with a toy on the ground) – he was great!!! You did a great job of mixing up the angle of entry to the target, he came into the hand from a wide variety of angles and then ended up on the correct “bend” to face the reward each time. YAY!!
Since I know you have done lovely work with markers, little details to get him to turn without moving your upper body because when we put this on a jump for a serp or threadle, you will not want to ‘close’ your target-hand shoulder forward to indicate the next thing (that can mess up the next line on course):
– is ‘yes’ your cookie-in-hand marker? You used it consistently so if it is, great! If not, use your cookie-in-hand marker – and then let him go to it without really moving much. On the cookie placements, you generally kept your shoulders in position, which is great, just dropping the cookie arm a little lower so it was easy for him to go to.
– with the toys – you can use a strike/bite marker when it is in your hand, or the marker for the toy on the ground. There was a lot of praise mixed in when you used the toy, so I wasn’t sure which marker it was – you can reverse that and mark first, then praise when he gets to the toy – and don’t move your upper body at all to help him go to it (it will feel weird LOL!!!) The goal is that he can do the in-and-out without your upper body movement, because that is the open upper body serp or threadle shoulder position he will see on course where we will want him to turn himself away. Let me know if that makes sense or if I need more coffee 🙂Nice work here! Fingers crossed for nice weather ahead!
TracyHi!
For the leash stuff – only ask for the tugging if you are really quite sure that he will tug. You’ll know that by using it in play first, not as a leash, and then with it on his next. But you can use the leash as a way to get to the remote reinforcement cookies: leash on, marker for cookies, run out for cookies 🙂
TracyYou can reduce meals if he gets lots of treats that day, and up exercise 🙂 It is a harder balance for food-driven dogs but definitely fine to do 🙂
Hi!
Lap turns looked great! I think she looked a little less comfy turning to her right (your left hand) but it might have been that you were less comfy using the left arm and leg so you were a little later starting on that side.Tandem turns on the flat also looked good! On. The very first rep, you had a lot of outside arm showing but then on the others the cue became more of a low, two-handed cue with less outside arm. You stylize it to whatever feels good and works for her – you might want to split the difference and do the two-handed cue but with a little more outside arm visible, so she can really drive in to you. It was not an issue at all here, but the outside arm will be more visible when you are up and running the big courses 🙂
>>Hen I added the hat target I notice that she’s still watching me and not really focusing forward. >>
Yes, she was looking up at you especially when she was on your right in the tandem turns. When you started with the lap turns and also with the tandems when she ended up on your left – she was doing really well with looking ahead. I think the best set up for that was when you did a tandem turn so she was several feet from the hat as you moved forward, ending up on your left – she looked forward really well there. So you can do the lap or tandem turn so she ends up further past the hat and has to drive forward to get it.
I watched to see if you she was watching your cookie hand and that is a possibility – you tend to reward more with your right hand, but not always from the right. There might a slight bias towards wanting to look at your right hand because of that. Also, the behavior of moving to the hat is very simple at this point which means we often get looking up because there is nothing else to look at 🙂 So you can either throw sooner with your find it marker to mark the moment she looks ahead (before she looks back, she doesn’t have to have a perfect prop hit in this case) or have a food bowl out past it and send her to the bowl and then drop the cookie in (makes it a little more complex which leads to less looking at us :))
Great job here! Fingers crossed for the mud to dry quickly!!!
TracyHi!
Definitely keep up the frizgility looping as well as the remote reinforcement. And you can be planning planning planning: what behaviors are on your list, in terms of priority, and we can plan!But not the RDW – based on the sessions I just had with 3 dogs, I clearly do NOT know how to train the RDW lol!!
T
Hi! It should be in here:
Hi!
>> It seemed like Vicki was moving when she was saying hand, so not sure what you meant by that comment.>>
In the 2nd half of the session, she was moving a little but then stopping, so Reilly was driving into a stationary hand. The ‘hand’ marker implies that the dog will continue to move after arriving at the hand, following the hand. It is a subtle difference but can be helpful in different situations.
>>Would it be better to break this into separate sessions, one just the left right turns, one just the wraps and then one where we are trying to link together a couple of Jumps?>>
Yes – mainly so you can plan what to do next. You can do a minute of the lefts – then send him off to run around with the toy or something or chill on a mat so you can plan the wraps. Then a minute or so of the wraps, then he can have a break and can plan how you want to link them together. Speaking from experience, when I just go out there and do the things… I get sloppy 🙂 And that can confuse the dogs.
THi there! Baby Allie looks great!
Prop – Really good session, concentrating on mechanics! The “get it” (without the yes) is really helping to get her eyes off of you and the value is looking really good. With that in mind – onwards to the next game! You can start the sending games now, she looks ready 🙂
Food bowls: Another really good session, she was beginning to get the flow – this can go longer, so she really gets into the rhythm and then you can delay the timing of your hand movement to drop the cookies til after she offers. I know I almost never tell anyone to do longer sessions but I bet with her, you can go for a solid 2 or 3 minutes to really get her offering. Start the way you did here, fast hands and fast cookies 🙂 Then after a few reps, you can let her make the first step or two back to the bowl on the other side, then you can plop the food into the bowl. And as soon as she is beginning to go back and forth – get the upright involved so she goes back and forth to the bowls with the upright there.
Backing up: This is also going well!
If you are going to stand, you need to lean over so your cookie hand is below her shoulders – that will drop her head and get better hind end use and weight shift. I lean over and put my elbows on my thighs (or sit in a chair LOL)
She was starting to offer it a little!!! You can lure her forward like you did but then leave your hand stationary til she offers stepping back – I think you did that on some of them and she was super! On others it looked like maybe your hand was moving her back, so keep your hand stationary to let her offer, I am pretty sure she will.Drive ahead: very nice! You had a nice quick release to the toy while she is still looking forward! My only suggestion is that while you are holding her, don’t pull back or lift up (although she might be the one lifting up) – the extra opposition reflex is causing her to kind of bend in towards you. So, since it looks like she is VERY keen to go, you can just hold her then let go, that will help keep her straight 🙂 It is possible that you were not pulling back at all and she was just really wanting to go, so just try to keep your hand low LOL!
Onwards to toy races!!! You can add even more distance so you are both moving up the line at high speed like you started at the end and then try to win 🙂Great job on all of these! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
Since you mentioned those rear crosses as being your favorite, I made a visual for you:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UlTCzJIOeBSxoenPl_G1_r6DcA1_xFtCuiuSkfPhFnw/edit?usp=sharingYou will need to be further across her rear cross line (fully on the new side) before she gets to her prop. You were close here, but you need to be all the way across it.
I also did a visual for Mike/Karena and Ronan if you want to see their visual too 🙂 It is in their thread. Rear crosses are hard!
Strike a pose is going really well, just a couple of little mechanics suggestions:
Your target arm can be more extended away from you, elbow locked out so your upper arm is not touching you so it is the way out with daylight between your upper arm and your torso, more like 113. And then – leave it there :), don’t move it – you moved it towards you as she got closer to you
Good job catching your feeding position wit hthe treats – when you drew her across with the treat like you did at :40, it was perfect position for future serps and threadles.She also did well with the toy – it was CLEARLY more exciting but she still hit her target (even with the occasional thought about the toy first LOL!)
Strike was right word with toy, what cookie word were you using? It was hard to hear but a cookie marker would be useful there.
Since this is going well, you can start to get the toy or treats to the ground. YOu can start with an empty food bowl to then drop the treats in from above. Or, place the toy on the ground if you think she will have success ignoring it until after she hits the target 🙂 That will begin to let us get even fancier with serps and threadles.
On your handling combo games:
These look really good! These were all FCs but you can totally do post turns, spins, etc. Do you have a taller cone or bucket, so she can bend her head/neck more?
She was GREAT about not trying to just go to the toy 🙂
I think her left turns were very strong here. he 1st 2 reps were to the right –
1st rep was good. On the 2nd rep at :13 you were backing up a little and also she was happier on your left in this game, so she was trying to get to your left side- good job geting the connection!
Turning to her left was MUCH tighter – next time start with the right arm to left arm FCs that you eneded with here, then go back to left arm to right arm and see if she has better turns to her right. Maybe she just needed to see the concept of the game.Great job! When you have more room, add in the fancier stuff.
Tracy
