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Hi!
I agree, he did great with both of the challenges here!>>however I have clock dysfunction. I printed your notes but I guess I should have printed a clock to go with it. >>
What I did to make it easier for me was to use those number cones during training, so I could see them and not have to try to remember them 🙂 The PT is at 6, the straight line entry to it on the other side is 12 – and then you can put 9 and 3 out there. Then the ‘normal’ left side sends are all on the 11-10-9-8-7 side of the clock, and the ‘normal’ right side sends are all on the 1-2-3-4-5 side of the clock. It might look like I was actually remembering all that in the early videos, but the reality is the numbers were keeping me in the clock haha! I say ‘normal’ sends because when you are at 11-10-9, you can also do the threadle side sends when he is on your right (and on your left on the 1-2-3 side). But those are less important than the normal sends.
On the first video, great job adding motion (he had no problem) and working on the angles around the clock. So to answer the question:
>>When do you decide to add 2 more poles?>>
If you have had 2 or more high success sessions on the 2 straight poles that have also included motion… add poles 3 and 4 🙂 Remember that poles 1 and 2 open up to 1 and 7 when you do this, so the introduction of poles 3 and 4 is easier. I think he might be ready!!
The tunnel discrimination game was easy for him, the PT is definitely more valuable than the tunnel right now (this would be a good one to play near a teeter….) You can also add challenge to the tunnel set up: have him in your left on the 11-10-9 side so he enters the poles facing that tempting tunnel and has to turn to the PT. And, you can also switch the PT to the other side so he doe the 1-2-3 entries on your right (going in the opposite direction here) and has to find the entry next to the tunnel.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHelloooooo!
This is looking really strong, he is actively finding the entries and using good mechanics to zip into them. Yay! Super session! Next up… add your motion. But as you add motion, clarify your transition mechanics for him: make a clearer transition from the toy to the send. Get the toy, take a moment to get him lined up like you did at 1:09 (he will give you sass, but that is fine, he can have a potty mouth in that moment :)) I mention this because he had a couple of misses in this session and the errors were not weave errors, but transition errors (1:22 for example). That extra moment of line up before the send will get rid of those oopsies and make it easier for you to fold in the motion.If you get a session of motion that looks fabulous like this, from all sorts of different angles… onwards to straight poles at 12 and 6! Wheeeee!
Great job 🙂
TracyGood morning! Hooray for sunshine!
>>I would imagine our motion is a great cue/assist to the dog>>
yes – it is a major cue/assist… and also a big distraction at times.
>plus it’s more fun to do it as a team!>>
1000% agree! So much fun!
Left side sends look good, she is doing well from the harder angles. When you get to the bottom of the clock, send more and run less
Right side sends were great too, she is absolutely nailing the discrimination element of going all the way past poles 3 and 4 to find the proper entry of poles 1 and 2. WOW!!! Love it! That sending is what I mean for the left side – send and you can stand still til she gets it, but you don’t need to take any steps towards it.
This went brilliantly so….. onwards to angling poles 3 and 4! If that goes well (first at 2 and 8, then 1 and 7) I bet you will be able to move to straightening poles 1 and 2 within a session or two.
Great job!
TracyHi!
>>Hes not quick to bring the toy back and he doesn’t release the toy quickly so we’ll also work on that.>>
See above for some ideas – you might see in some of the videos with my biggest pup that I have more than one toy and treats. Yesterday I had 4 frisbees and a stick of cheese during his weave session, it was the happiest day of my pups life hahaha 🙂
This is going well! Those extreme rear crosses and also the lateral distance work are looking GREAT, those will be sooooo useful on course. extreem RCs were good
I think you were stating to move sooner on some of the other challenges, that is good! Keep that up and add in moving even sooner. And also work the little countermotion details in – when you do the countermotion, after you click, you don’t have to turn and face the end of the poles, you can keep moving the other way after the click of the MM. That will really help solidify the independence without the support of your motion.Great job!
TracyGood morning! These are looking good, he seems really unphased by the distraction of the tunnel or weaving away from the MM! Yay!
On the tunnel distraction video –
Toy throws went well! And he found the entries just fine… so now you can make it harder. You were sending him on the 12 to 6 o’clock line, mainly, with the tunnel entry at about 3 o’clock. You can add challenge by moving him around to the 11, 10, 9, 8 clock angles of entry so basically he is entering staring directly at the tunnel (tempting!) but will still need to make the turn into the weaves and exit to where you were throwing the toy.
One thing about words – you were mentioning it in the video and I had jotted a note about it too – for now, I think ‘go’ is fine or a noise. You can use ‘free’ if it is his release word and he was in a stay but if he is not in a stay, you don’t need it – go or the interim cue/noise will be useful there. The one thing I don’t recommend yet is the actual ‘weave’ cue – we don’t put that on until he is actually having to collect into the poles (which will happen when the 4 poles get tighter and also when the channels get more complicated within a couple of weeks).On the second video, weaving away from the MM – the hardest part was bringing the toy back, the weave challenge looked easy 🙂 You can develop a routine using 2 toys or a toy & a cookie: throw one toy, reward him with the 2nd toy or a cookie for bringing first toy back and letting it go. And since he likes to weave, you can also send him to the poles immediately when he drops the toy (you mentioned he doesn’t drop it quickly) – if he realizes that dropping the toy means back into the game quickly…. he is gonna spit that thing out really fast 🙂
Great job here!
TracyHi!
>>I will do more work to try to increase value of MM separately from this exercise…I need to do that anyway for contact training etc.>>
Yes, plus that value will percolate as the MM gets sandwiched into the other things. And for RDW training, it is going to be easier if he is *less* interested in the MM at first and not wild for it 🙂
>>He is a good tugger yes.
Perfect 🙂
>>He does independent back up great, have done a ton of perch work and platform stuff.
Also perfect! This is such an important skill for awareness, conditioning, warm ups, etc.
>>I do have concerns about his structure and stability however. Hoping it’s just his age…
Teenage boys are not known to be super good with their body awareness 🙂 When you mention stability – that can also be built. I am glad you are taking things slowly, because physical maturity is SO helpful for this stuff.
>>He is just learning to sit square and pop up. Not easy for him.
It seems like such a simple thing, right? NOT simple at ALL!
>>Haven’t done cavelletti with him. What height and spacing do you recommend?
I believe the general rule of thumb is the distance between the cavs should be the same as his shoulder height. And the cavalettis should be super low, 2 inches maybe? Definitely not higher than his wrists. And lure lure lure lure to get him to not rush through it and present good form (this fitness stuff is one of the only things I teach with luring so I can control the speed and form of the dog) When he gets the idea of trotting, you can fade the lure. And of course you can change the distances to get the trotting (and with older dogs, we extend the distance to get more reach in the trotting)
>>When you say big giant hollee roller about what diameter are you thinking?>>
The one I have is about the size of my head LOL! I think it is the XL? But you can also put it up on something for him to snag as he is moving.
Keep me posted!
TracyHi!
>>We have done a bit of driving straight out of the tunnel to a toy. >>
That might also be why she was freezing there – expectation of placement of reinforcement, then she was all like “WHERE IS MY THING?!?!?!” hahaha! Love her!
>>I also noticed that I need to be careful with my feet. If I didn’t step in with the appropriate foot she didn’t seem to understand.>>
Yes! Baby dogs are incredibly literal so you have to exaggerate your steps. But it will get easier (and it reminds me how much my experienced dogs cover me when I am wrong LOL!)
>>I used food specifically because of her arousal with a toy. Which is so funny since initially she wasn’t interested in toys. Now they are manna from the gods. I’ll play around with that some this weekend. We’ll be at her first trial so it will be a great opportunity to work on focus during arousal.>>
Working for the optimal internal states is SUCH a pendulum with young dogs, things can shift quickly and also unexpectedly. And conventional wisdom tells us that food is that way to work through the arousal stuff but I have found that toy play is actually much much better for it and also it helps us learn about the needs of each individual pup 🙂
T
Awesome! Welcome, great to see you here! If anything doesn’t make sense, let me know 🙂 Have fun!
TracyHi! Since this game is all about developing form, it was good to see all the things you played with to see what works best.
Bearing in mind that 10 month old boys are not known to be fully aware of all of the legs LOL!! I think he is doing well here! A couple of ideas:
I like that you shortened it to 5 feet – you might want to start the next session at 4.5 feet and see how it goes. He looks like he will end up being a 6 foot distance dog as soon as he sorts the whole hind end thing (definitely not sorted out yet, but that is NOT a worry, he is really young and this will help :))I see that toys brought more excitement into it, as did your motion. But they also brought less thoughtfulness into the mechanics of how to get through the grid with balance, so a couple of ideas on how we can get the best of both worlds:
The MM is definitely NOT the most interesting thing to him… but you can make more of a reinforcement sandwich: does he like tug toys? You can tug tug tug to increase excitement – lead out to the MM, release, reward with the MM… then as soon as he has swallowed the cookie, throw the toy or play tug. That will get him more excited for this setup in general and will also raise the value of the MM – without him diving into the ground for the toy.
I also suggest moving the MM further away – make it a solid 12 feet past the landing spot of the 2nd jump (so will probably total out at 15 feet) – he was shortening a little because the MM was so close, plus your position out there will make it more exciting to drive to. I think his stay looks really good so you should be able to use that to your advantage here.
And the toy play being incorporated into it will build excitement and that will build speed – that way you don’t have to use your motion. If we install your motion too early, he will focus on your running and not on his mechanics, so for now, keep standing still.
One last idea for using a toy: we don’t want him diving on the toy on the ground, but you might consider getting a really huge holee roller toy – the dogs tend to scoop those as they move through, so there is no slamming into the ground but all the benefits of using a toy (I use one attached to a bungee a lot with my BorderWhippet)
When you added the bar, was that also when you shortened the distance to 4 feet? I think he is old enough to see that low bar, but I we can also see how he does on bumps at the shorter distance.
And, separately, he is a good age for us to start talking to him about his hind end. Three things come to mind: how is he doing with backing up independently? Have you started cavaletti trotting? And I also like to do ‘pop ups” where the dog is in a nice square sit in front of me, facing me, and I have them pop up to get a treat or toy from my hind – popping directly up, not striding towards me at all. That gives a little wake up to the hind end pushing off 🙂
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning and welcome!
She was a super good girl on this session! I love how it was very broken down to one ‘jump’ and the bowl and the stay, to basically just teach her the concept – we have a lot of time to get jumps involved and so this conceptual work was very fun to see.Her stay behavior is going nicely – I think at the beginning you had a few too many rewards in position then the big praise was mistaken as a release – you can totally release more often as that also helps build a strong stay behavior through the clarity of the release (either release forward to ‘work’ or throw back a reward and release to get it).
Does she like to tug? You can also play tug before and after the stay, and use the toy as a reward thrown back to her (rather than going back to hand deliver the cookie) – you can play tug, set her up, lead out to the bowl, and then either toss the toy back to her or release her and drop a cookie into the bowl.The form concept is going well – you spent time here working out the reinforcement strategy of when to get the cookie into the bowl and that is VERY useful! I think release-then drop the cookie worked best for her. You can remain standing as you release and then drop the cookie down into the bowl, you did that several times very effectively – dropping then releasing caused some errors on the stay. If you see her looking at the bowl, great! That is a great moment to release her. But if not – no worries, release anyway, the cookie placement will draw her focus to the bowl and the forward focus will develop naturally without any questions about holding the stay.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
I am going to go make a quick gratitude offering to the tech gods for being so helpful here LOL!!! I love when the tech works!
Vahni did well here! She is so fun 🙂 I think we can smooth out the mechanics to get started: hold her collar or ask her to stay at your side, so you can connect and start when you are ready 🙂 on some of the reps where she didn’t do the wraps on the first video, I think she was just starting without you and guessing. Plus, she is clever – after 2 wing wraps she seemed to be thinking: OK, it will be the tunnel this time. SMART! So that means you will need to be extra careful about accidentally falling into patterns or rhythms 🙂
This was an interesting and fun session and I think gives us some insight into Vahni! The first couple of reps were really good! Then a little frustration, a little arousal, a little tunnel LOL! You stayed on Team Chill and worked her through without any demeanor change. That was great. And I think we will focus on teaching her to be as accurate as she was here, even as we build in more arousal. I love how your wrap and your tunnel cues sounded VERY different, that is helpful for her. I think the cleaner your transitions were into getting her on your side, connecting, delivering the cue – the better she did as the session went along.
One thing I see here (and we saw it a little on Tuesday night) was that she sometimes does not drive back to you after the tunnel to go to the wing. Now it could be that she needs to see more connection, or you need to let her see more of the wing (you might have been blocking it). Also, it might be an arousal thing – I see you were using food but I think you can mix in toy play to help her drive back and set up. I know it sounds crazy that more tugging will help balance her arousal – but when the arousal comes up, bringing play into the picture is often the very thing that balances it. So – tell me more about how she does with toy play and we will build it in!
On the 2nd video to the tunnel – she just needed a little more physical support on the cue to the tunnel, then she got it, And yay for going right back to the wraps. NICE!!! No freezing on the end of the tunnel here. Lovely session!
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning! Sooooo much great stuff here, she is doing really well! Yay!
Working through the videos:
>>We do use a left and right command for the wing wrap. However, we have separate commands for the barrel work and they are not left and right focused, so you will hear the same command for each direction. We then have a second command for the threadle or turn away direction on the barrel. I justify this because we will do NADAC and it seems more intuitive that way.>>
So the wing cues and the barrel cues are different? That makes sense to me – they are different obstacles and are using differently on course. And plus, the handling challenges in NADAC (particularly the distance challenges) do require a pretty large toolbox of verbals, so I am in favor of this!
Looking at the pre-games:
The wing wraps are going well! She is leading with her head and bending nicely! She looks confident and it looks like there is a lot of value there. You can also introduce toy play into this, either before & after the cookie rewards… or to replace the cookie rewards 🙂The barrels are also progressing very nicely! She is showing strong commitment and bending really nicely. Good girl!
Onwards to the proofing game! You can also use the barrels in the proofing game near the tunnel, not just the wing wraps, to work on all of your verbals and all the skills! I figure this is especially important with NADAC in the future for her – there are a lot of tunnel discrimination elements.Set point jumping foundation:
>>Issue 1: The Treat-n-Train decided the batteries were done, so had to improvise today.>>
I feel that pain – my TnT likes to work up until the moment of the first rep… then it decides it is not going to work. LOL!
>>Issue 2: Because awkward for me, it was a longer video. I edited to shrink it, not a strong point. Tried to cut most of our “catches” and down time.>>
The length was fine! No worries about needing to shrink it more. And great jump reinforcing the stays!!
She is off to a good start here! I agree that the jumps were too far apart at the beginning, I liked your instinct to pull the jumps closer together. Because it is a form game, the distance you moved to was great for producing the form. She is only 5 months old, so it will take her a while to get up to the ‘normal’ adult distance – it will probably end up being 6 feet but she is too small/young/puppyish to start there. The distance you used at the end was great, and then over coming months between now and 14 or 15 months old will be used to gradually inch the distance out between the jumps while maintaining form.
Also because she is still so young, do you have bumps or pool noodles? I like to teach form without the bars at her age, because the pups have a lot of sorting out to do with all of those legs LOL! And those legs are in a slightly different place every morning when they wake up 🙂 So using a pool noodle or bump or something gives the pups the opportunity to do all of that sorting out on irrelevant things. And then when the pups are more grown and more coordinated, we start to introduce the good form she has rehearsed to a bar.
One last suggestion – Great job building her stay, that is LOVELY for such a young dog! Try to look at her before you give your verbal release (or before you throw the reward back), I think she was moving a bit on your arm motion/head turn before the release early in the session. We want to protect that fabulous stay 🙂
Wind in hair – Yay! I agree, this went really well 🙂 She is being really good with her commitment, both on the wing wrap and also on the jump out ahead. Super!!! You were ahead of her on these, so an additional challenge you can add is stay really close to the wing as she wraps it, stay there til she is done with the wrap – then run forward to the jump (using your Go cue, that was perfect) – that will help her learn to drive ahead of you. She was finding the line beautifully so I think she is ready for that. And after that – yes, add some more distance.
Two things to tweak in your setup – rather than a jump bar, use a pool noodle or bump. She has a lot of multitasking to do here and was touching the bar a bit and also trying to sort out her striding. So like with the set point – let’s teach her everything she needs to know about the handling cue and the line… and then in a few months, the bar can go back in. And that helps protect the future jumping effort, because she won’t be rehearsing touching the bar.
The other suggestion is for the next session – no need for a target out ahead 🙂 Use the toy as the thrown reward, and the timing of the throw would be when she locks onto the line to the jump (but before she gets there). That turns the jump into the target, and she will look for the jump out ahead without needing a target there. I think she is totally ready for this too.
Smiley Face – wheeeeee how fun! This looked great – one thing that I particularly liked was how she is really focused on her commitments but also clearly paying attention to your cues – what a lovely balance!!!
You can add challenge to this by decelerating sooner on the way to the wing, then rotating sooner. This will challenge her commitment skills while also working on your timing of the wrap cues 🙂
And using the toy was fabulous! Be sure to engage with her after the throw so she doesn’t get into a party-of-one habit 🙂Race track – also fun! She seemed to like it…. sooooo much speed! Love it! When you are closer to the wings like you were here, you can play with using less arm cue and more connection to her eyes as you run the lines. You can also add some distance – and that is where you can try more arm to support her (planning ahead for some big distance skills :))
You can definitely move on to the Advanced Level here 🙂
Great job on all of these! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
He was a good boy here – really driving to that target with those front feets! Movement of the board under him did not seem to phase him one bit. And I love the jackpot moment at around :50 where he slid a bit more into position – I think you were generally making a HUGE fuss over those (he did it a few more times) . He was also doing a GREAT job of working on holding position when things starting moving faster, like at 1:39 when the board was really surfing around under him and he held on!
And those nose touch moments when he is driving to the target with his nose are actually really effective! He has built in leading with his nose and feet to the target, and that head-down is what is also helping him slide into position (Quarter Horses also have their heads down when they are sliding). Plus your placement of reward was encouraging it, so I think it is looking really good!! I would not change a thing, other than to do it in different places. Also, when you have more room and less rain… add the wing before it 🙂 Start with walking of course but then see how much motion you can gradually add! He is nailing it!Great job!
Tracy
