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Hi! I love this!!! Really great work here.
I think your first rep of hte bang game was not quite clear on the mechanics but then you smoothed out the reinforcement and release on the 2nd and 3rd reps. Then you lined him up better on the 4th rep so he was basically leaping on and sliding into position at :29 (yessss!) and I am gonna guess that he rather enjoyed the release for the tunneling and the frizzer LOL!!! I know it feels so counterintuitive, but getting the dogs OFF the board often works better than rewarding in position 🙂 Yay!
And then he was fully GAME ON, BISHES when you did the downhills – the frisbee is a game changer now that the pieces are coming together. Super!
So keep working the bang game with you starting him super close to the end, so he gets the love of sliding into position and not taking any steps down the board there. And then mix in some downhills to the ground, with the same high blast rewards. It will get harder to maintain the end position criteria, so it was great to see you taking a breath and assessing here before releasing.
Great job!!
TracyHi there! This is going well – he got stronger and faster and happier with each rep! Yay!!!
I think you had the treats already on the target for this session, and that is fine. When he is more comfy with the setup and also depending on the bang/rebound/elevator games, we will be moving to NOT having the treats there so he chooses position.
>>I rewatched your video after I did my training session and I saw that you didn’t always start them at the top and that you also met them at the end of the teeter and sometimes had no food but just threw the frizzer. Im’a try that next time. >>
Correct! I did some back chaining to introduce the new concept of “hey, this one now has the end position on it” and the thrown rewards are both incredibly stimulating (FUUUUUN!) and it gets the less confident dogs the heck off the teeter so they think about it less – or maybe thing about it differently: “the faster I get across this board and into end position, the faster I get the heck OFF this thing and get to go have a party with the toy”. You can see the difference in Contraband, in particular. He is WILD for it now and used to really be deeply emotional about it LOL!! But be forewarned, you might lose control of your end position a bit, so take things slowly so Stark doesn’t fail a lot 🙂
>>I also liked how you had them jump up on the teeter sometimes. I think Stark gets a little demotivated when i have to pick him up. maybe that’s just me though.>>
He did seem like he was a little off balance when you placed him at the top? And that might be uncomfortable. Hot Sauce and Contraband are a little too heavy to be picked up and placed there a lot – plus neither enjoys it. So leaping onto the top is their choice, and it is an indicator of how ready they are to start the next rep. Plus it is EXCELLENT for their balance – Contraband is a BIG dog and he is balancing really well at the top of that little board… anything for a frizzer, right?
>>I definetly think he likes going this way more than uphill.
A common thread I’ve seen is that the clarity and value of the end position is really helpful! And the uphill doesn’t have that ‘job’ associated with it, at least not yet. So many dogs like the downhills better at this stage. The uphills are on a break this week as we work downhills and shift focus to end position games 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi!
>.Let’s go with check and dig for the wraps. Now, what is the usual meaning of those?
There is no specific usual meaning, so you can define them as you like. For example, you can have ‘check’ mean wrap-to-the-left and ‘dig’ mean wrap-to-the-right. Or vice versa 🙂
>> She randomly had the opportunity to do something like this at 10 feet but definitely wasn’t bouncing them.
When she is older, more experienced and on grass… she might be able to bounce 10 feet! Young dogs don’t quite have the power to do it yet and also they can’t do it on mats, because they can’t dig in enough.
>>Overall, more verbals, less pointing, more movement, better connection. I’ll give it a shot!
Perfect! In order of priority for now, in handling: Connection is #1! Then movement, then verbals… then pointing 🙂 Pointing is the least important cue 🙂
Have fun!
TracyGood morning!
Good boy! He is doing well here – lots of value for the poles and he seemed to have no trouble doing them in a new location and with a person moving around and talking. Yay!The position of the poles at the beginning (from the beginning to :28) is the angle I would stay at for a couple more sessions, so you can add in more speed and more handling challenges (angles and sending, etc). He was beginning to get the idea and the striding but you were not moving a lot. At :30 when you tightened them significantly… it was 2 variables changing and it was too hard so you got misses/striding changes and more looking at you. So go back to the angles from the first part, add in the harder entries – and when you do change something, change one base but make the other easy so the new variable is emphasized but the other variable is made simpler. So when the first base gets straighter, the 2nd base gets opened back up, then we work through the progression of rotating the 2nd base again (it will happen quickly because by then he will recognize it).
>>Since he did the for the first time at a new location, I didn’t want to add in a 3rd set. I will add this in next time.>>
For the 3rd set, treat the bases like channels but having them all wiiiiide open at 2&8 so he just runs runs runs and doesn’t have to stride. That will allow you to add all the crazy handling challenges 🙂 For the tighter bases like you had here (2×2 track), we won’t add the 3rd set for a while longer, until after he is striding the 2 bases fast from anywhere 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
He is doing well here!
On the first video – Did he leap on with the ball at the end? LOL!!! Too funny! Good boy!
On the downhills – have him start from a standstill on the table, then get him pumped, then have him run down the board. Leaping onto the table from the ground requires a weight shift, so he is going to enter the board more slowly and not drive across it at the same speed as he did on the reps where he started on the table.Glad to hear you were releasing him to the ball in between, that really builds value!
The 2nd video is the same as the first one, I think you meant to have a different one there?
On the 3rd video – the downs on the flat and on the bosu look good! If he is going to be in a 2o2o, you can also teach him a bow. And a GREAT weight shift game (and excellent hamstring warm up) is low tugging on a long toy.
But the main thing is the end position – you will see the new stuff I posted on Monday starts to really emphasize end position which, in turn, emphasizes weight shift. So the more you can play with end position, the better he will get with the weight shift for it. Keeping his head low will help too – and the bang game and rebound game will help him shift back as well because the movement of the board will require it for success.
>>I’m thinking that I’m going to take a break from the Uphills and Downhills for a bit>>
Yes, the uphills get a bit of a hiatus this week. But I would keep the downhills in the rotation for a bit because it will maintain the value of driving across the board while staying forward (we don’t want toooo much weight shift, just a little :)) and it will be a good balance for all the end position work. So revisiting the downhills and adding more tip will also set you up nicely for merging the downhill and the end position 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
She is doing great, there is so much to be proud of! Yay! And I feel your pain about the wind… but it is better than snow LOL!Let’s talk about marker words:
>>One thing I noticed is if I say yes (which is essentially my marker word instead of a click) to reward the entry when going to pole 3 she will continue going forward but glance back knowing a treat is coming whereas if I use super or awesome, which are more of a general praise terms, she tends not to do that glance and looks more forward even if ai toss late. I didn’t even realize I was doing different things with that I until these two sessions. >>
If ‘yes’ is a verbal click, you will want the reward to move as quickly after the yes as possible – so if you ‘yes’ an entry, you should throw immediately. If ‘super’ or ‘awesome’ are more like ‘keep going signals’ or event markers in terms of the reward always being out ahead, then you should use those in the weaves more than the ‘yes’ – especially if ‘yes’ is a marker that does not clearly indicate where the reinforcement will be placed or when. On the video, you were doing super & yes together, and some ‘get it’ (she looked forward nicely on the get it!!)
>>Since Yes is my true marker word would you continue to use that even if she does glance in my direction?>>
I think the first step is to clarify what the yes means exactly, in terms of when/where reinforcement will be, then decide 🙂 But also type/placement of reinforcement can make it less critical: the lotus ball was better than the cheese pieces, because it was much easier to track (the cheese was harder to track and find).
To get ‘yes’ to mean ‘that is correct, drive straight to the reward’ without any glancing – I would definitely use the PT out ahead so you can yes then click it. If you yes and then throw, she is going to want to look at you to track the throw.
The other thing I see here is that when you are moving, she is looking straighter, going faster, and you are more likely to use your ‘super’ or ‘yeah!’ verbal. That is really high value for her, she is flying! There is a difference in speed when you are not moving plus that was when she tended to look back more so I think you can go back to the PT out there for when you are not moving to raise value and get her driving straight. And she won’t be sad if you use it when you are moving too haha!! And with the PT out there, you can introduce more of the variations in handling – different crazy angles, rear crosses, etc – and that will spread value equally all around 🙂
Let me know if that makes sense! Great job here!
TracyGood morning!
>>I would like to move outside but the temperature dropped back down today and I just didn’t have it in me.>>
I feel this 1000% LOL!!!! I prefer heat over cold, to say the least 🙂
She is doing really well with her bang game here! SHe is a girlie who likes a job to do, and the end position is a clear job!
Adding tip went really well and she was doing a beuatiful job driving into end position. Good girl! She did her best reps (in terms of being explosive and getting into position right on the end of the board) when you got her a little wild and started her close to the end. I love it! Any time you can grab a teeter in a new place – play this game 🙂 You can have less tip in new places but defintely work this because she seems to really like the concept of ‘go do this end position job’.>> When I was editing, I realized this was probably more reps than I should have done with this game. >>
Maybe, it never hurts to take a less-is-more approach, but also I didn’t see her get worried or turn off at any point. She seemed to be all like ” GIMME MORE END POSITION”, getting stronger as the session went on, and was also offering it before you were ready LOL! If she has a mat or something, you can have her wait for you – I love that she is being pushy for work on the teeter but you can convince her to wait and that will increase her excitement for it even more.
>>She also definitely has a stronger side getting on the teeter. She seems to struggle more getting on when the teeter is on her right.>>
Yes, I noticed that too – you can add in the excitement more on that side too, and I think it will balance out. It was a little noticeable but not glaring or worrisome.
>> I’m guessing I should probably work this outside and with a toy as well…
Yes 😉 But also, your reinforcement can come out of position as well – she hits a great target position – release and throw the reward (like what you did at :37). You will have to be a master of criteria to be sure she is totally hitting and holding the position, but she will like the release and reward chase. Start it with food and then see if she can do it with a toy (which might be more stimulating). I also do mix in placement of reinforcement in position so I don’t lose the precision of the behavior, but the release off the board to get the reward really helps pump up the love for the game 🙂
Great job!!!! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi there! Welcome back, looks like you had a great weekend in Tulsa! Congrats!!!!!
This session went well, he seemed way happy to be play 2x2s for the toy 🙂He came in with a full head of steam on the first rep and had to catch himself to bend – that seemed like the hardest part of the left side sends when you also had quick movement and lots of excitement (he was on the easier sends like 11 and 10.) See below for an idea with helping him get those bends more smoothly.
And seemed fine on the right sides with excitement – something about having to bend around that first pole was really easy for him and he did well! Good boy!I don’t think he was losing interest or too hot on the last part of the video, I think he had question based on the rep at 1:01 – he hit the entry correctly but you said ‘oops sorry’, no reward, so then he tried the other entry and was a little confused. I am not sure why he didn’t get the reward at 1:01, perhaps because he jumped at your hand on the send? If so (or if not, either way :)) – you can line up and reset more cleanly for each rep. Reward for him coming back to your side, line up, take a breath, send. Things were happening all at once on the sends so I think he was not entirely sure if he should be reaching for the toy or going to the poles.
That will also help the left side sends where the bending is harder for him: you can have him reset next to you, get him excited… and then send. That way you can get him pumped up and send without motion to get the bending going, and also you can layer in ‘fake’ motion (I pump my arms really fast – dorky but effective haha) to help the dogs bend even when things are really exciting with movement 🙂
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! Sounds like you had a great time in Tulsa, congrats on your successes!!
Uphills:
Good boy on that first rep!!! Total drive to the end and weight shift and offering the end position (I think that is his end position :)) And I am very happy to see that he did it several more times… not sure how much time was in between reps. but you can totally do just one – then let him watch one of the other dogs do something – then do another rep. So it is like a series of mini one hit wonders for high value, with the stimulation of having to watch his brother have a party 🙂 They were all good reps and some of them were what I would consider GREAT reps. Really happy!Weight shift:
I am laughing because you and I both said “GOOD BOY!” on this video at the same time LOL!!! He looked pretty darned confident running up that bouncy board, shifting the weight a little, eating the cheese. And double gold star for offering the end behavior after he got the cheese. I mean, if he was worried or hating it, he would not be trying to get back on or staying up there in the hopes of getting more magical squeeze cheese.So – I am really liking his confidence. He seems like a dog that wears his heart on his sleeve, so he was super good on both of these videos. Now we can move forward: because these games are looking good, I want to shift gears with him and look at his end position games – the bang game for sure, and the when he is rocking that: the elevator game and rebound game. The elevator and rebound games are critical weight shift games but we can’t do them til he is loving his bang game. So on your next session… grab a video of where he is on the bang games and we will make a plan to add in the others.
Great job!!!!!! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
A couple of ideas for you on the 2x2s –
I think you had the setup was reversed – on the video, poles 1 and 2 were open and 3 and 4 were closed – flip it so that poles 1 and 2 are more closed and poles 3 and 4 are the wide open ones. That will help him recognize the entries on 1 and 2 hat he has already worked and then gradually add the newer “stay in” concept on poles 3 and 4.>> One issue I had with the poles far apart was that when we did an entry at 3 o’clock he would weave the first set as a single 2×2 heading towards 9 o’clock. Since that’s not technically wrong I wasn’t sure what to do with that.>>
With dogs that have some previous weave experience, we sometimes see that (like he did at :42) – but because you had already established the reward line and poles 3 and 4 were out there… it is not correct for him to offer that, so treat it like a miss – call back, reset, try again. And make the angle easier if he misses again.
Getting the poles tighter had probably more misses than we want, plus he was not driving in and striding through when they were very tight. So for now, do a session where poles 1 and 2 are at 1&7, and poles 3 and 4 are at 3&9. That can get the striding on poles 1 and 2, then we can gradually add the angles of poles 3 and 4 til they match the 1&7 angles – we should really see the striding there. That might take 2 or 3 short sessions – then when he is successful with both sets at 1&7, you can go to the next step: poles 1 and 2 are straight and, briefly, poles 3 and 4 get wide open again (3&9).
Speaking of striding: how tall is he? About 19″? He can’t decide if he wants to bounce or swim here, so either he will sort out the striding on the 2x2s or we will use the channel approach to help him out – we will know within a couple of sessions 🙂 My 20.5″ dog and my 21″ tall dog both swim the poles, which is appropriate for their size and structure… and both had to learn the proper striding on channels not 2x2s 🙂 More on striding coming on Monday.
Looking at your channels – he did well for an intro session on something that looks sooooooo weird LOL!!! To help him out with the channel concept, the next step is to angle them all to 2&8 and that should help eliminate the weaving poles 1-3-5. Plus, your earlier clicks helped! Feel free to keep clicking early. You can also move MM a little further out and then keep working through the challenges but not the rear crosses yet – that was too hard for him as he was sorting the channel out – but also revealing that he is cueing off body language for get in and stay in! We will keep that in mind and I think the channels will be super useful for the whole “get in and stay in no matter what crazy thing da momma is doing” 🙂 So for now, give him another session or two of more sending and running parallel will help teach him the channels concept, then we can get nutty with the handling challenges 🙂
And since he is a frizzer lover, you will be able to build in frizzer throws too 🙂
Great job!!! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
Your noises as she ate the first reward made me laugh so hard!
She gives this uphill game with cheese on the target a definite 11/10 on the rating scale, highly recommend LOL! Add a little more tip 🙂Same with the downhills, behold the power of cheeses! You could have been asking her to jump through a flaming hoop and she would have been happy to do it. So… add a little more tip 🙂
One thing I like on both of these games is that she is running forward up the board and shifting her late at the very end. That bodes well for a super fast teeter!!
How is your end position coming along (with the bang game) – she is close to the downhill board going to the ground, so if you focus on the bang game end position (and elevator game) then we can merge the two together pretty quickly!!
Great job here with your teeter fiend!!!
Tracy
Good morning! Holy cow, that story about the coyote is crazy! I prefer the coyotes stay far, far awa!
Super fun to see this session. She did really well with the food reward, but the introduction of the squirrel toy was *life changing* LOL!
She did really well on the various angles – not perfect but pretty darned close to perfect. I think you can do a session where you introduce a new concept (like crazy angles of entry, or harder angles of poles) using food – and then if she is fine with that, you can go to the squirrel to introduce excitement into the game 🙂 She did clip the poles on the 2nd to last rep but rather than open the poles, I would leave them at that angle and just throw a little later. You were priming the throw as she was in the poles so as you arm was moving, she was starting to cue off of that and run faster. So you can delay the toy throw til she is past the 2nd base – and to keep her looking straight, put a little target out there like a big cone or wing. I think at she will continue to look forward anticipating the toy throw, so it will be an easy transition for her.One small detail – on the sends where you are running, try not to run towards the poles at all (unless it is an entry from the 12 o’clock area). Send and stay laterally away like you did at :09 or move away laterally away – the poles have a gravitational pull that sucks us towards them, so try to keep a big distance away unless you are doing a rear cross, so she gets used to doing them very independently without you needing to go close to them.
Great job here! Based on how she is feeling, you can do a couple of sessions with the poles at this angles adding more spots around the clock and some rear crosses. She is doing a great job!
TracyGood morning!
>>These were filmed two different days (even though I wore the same thing lol)>>
Ha! I do that – throw on the old muddy clothes to go train before taking a shower and putting on clean soon-to-be muddy clothes. It probably looks like either I wear the same thing every day or I train for 24 hours straight LOL!
On your wobble board video – yes, the MM is really helping him plus it is a good self-control game.
Question – were you using a target cue (verbal) or just a physical cue? I heard a target cue sometimes but not on all of the reps – so rather than let him offer, you can call him back to you, reward, reset… then give a very distinct cue. That will help clarify the cue (which will be helpful for the other games) and also that reset will allow you to add speed and excitement into it. You can add the wing before it too, so he wraps the wing and then you move forward with the target cue.You did an AWESOME job of not letting your feet be next to his target position. Click/treat for you! On the next session, as your motion past the board – walking at first for now, then ramp it up to joggin and eventually running. We will use all of that in the end position games on the teeter 🙂
Yay for the mountain climbers in a new place with new distractions (thanks, hubby!) It was a smart training move to have the distractions be the only new variable and NOT add tip. He was great – seemed basically the same as in the previous location – thoughtful but fast and happy. And no problems with the crosses or running past the end of the board. So since the teeter will probably live in that spot for a little while, you can add in a little more tip and also work the end position games there.
Great job!!
Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
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Have fun!
TracyHi!
I agree, working both tracks has actually sped up the learning and the dogs are doing a great job of transferring the knowledge! He is doing a great job here!Well done on adding more poles and angles, it seemed like he really had very few questions and it was a smooth transition into the next steps. Nice!!!!
Both videos were really strong as you moved through the progression.
Only one tweak, for both videos: after he gets the reward at the MM, call him back, reward, and hold the reset before the send for one heartbeat longer so you can line him up and do a clean send as you add motion – it was all happening so quickly that he sometimes was watching you or not driving straight into the poles or didn’t have a chance to focus on the line. On the first video, you were sending him right back into the poles and so he had some spins and questions on the line.In the 2nd video, you seemed to have cleaner transitions and a lot of the reps and it looked really good on those reps (plus you were able to add harder entries, plan the handling, etc so it was all smoother). When you were sending as soon as he got back to you had a higher rate of error – so that extra heartbeat or line up, take a breath, then send made a big difference!
You had some really good moments of moving immediately here! Yay! Keep adding those in to help him be super independent in finding the entry even as you are moving 🙂
Great job!!!! I think if he is highly successful with the poles set the way they were in the 2nd video for one more session, then you can tighten them up even more for the session after that. Yay!
Tracy
