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Hi!
>> We will just keep plugging away at a pace suitable for BliZZard…
No worries! We have plenty of time – taking it at a comfy pace and you will not be behind at all 🙂 He is doing really well!!!!
Sends: great job with the ready dance, he was super engaged!! And he is showing really nice value for the prop – great job shaping that! On the sends forward to the prop, add a little more connection to his eyes: look at him as you send forward more and less at the prop, as that will turn your shoulders more to it and less past it – he was not entirely sure if he should go to it because he couldn’t see your connection as well. The sideways sends were good too but I agree that the backwards sends looked great, I think because he could see the connection shift and your eyes/shoudlers clearly the whole time – plus all the value 🙂
Speaking of value: he wants to look at you a lot so I think you can shift the placement of reward on these by mixing in tossing the reward back to the prop. He was coming back and watching your hands get the treat out, so he was building focus on your hands into it. We can get him to focus on the ‘task’ more by having the treat ready (it can be in the clicker hand) so there is less time built in looking at your hands, and then toss it to the prop as soon as he hits it. That will get even more independence on the sending.
Wrap shaping – BliZZ is a chewer LOL! This was going REALLY well and he made a TON of beautiful choices… but I think the chewing was delaying things LOL! (It was so cute, though…) The noise of these particular treats was helpful but he was losing his chain of thought when he was chewing – you did a good job helping by looking at the other bowl and then he was really starting to pick it up! Yay! By the end of this section, he was in the groove of the back-and-forth so you can go to a treat that is less noisy, and therefore requires less chewing (hopefully LOL!) A smaller kibble or a bit of cheese or something soft can help him swallow a little faster without choking on it.
He did well when you added the upright – it didn’t bother him at all and he immediately resumed the back and forth. Very cool!!! He did a great job of finding it when you pushed it further away, you could se him really think it through. When it was a little far towards the end, he had some trouble going to his left but was fine going to his right – could be a slight side preference. So on the left turns (when he is going from your right hand to your left hand) you can keep it a little closer for now. And on the right turns (going from your left hand to your right hand) you can slide it out a little 🙂 When you get to the next session on this, you can add in something bigger to go around, and then add in standing up!
OMG the picture at the end is GREAT!!!! He was watching intently and also check out the great position on the screen of the video! Love it!!!
Great job here!!!
TracyHi!
>>I’ve been struggling with getting him to play with toys as of late. I think my toy sessions are too long- I really struggle with super short sessions which I need to focus on with him. He can play decent in my room and the kids rooms but if I move to the kitchen/great room or outside he loses interest.>>
SHort sessions are hard – we don’t always realize how long things go on! I set a timer on my phone during puppy training for 90 seconds or 2 minutes to help me keep track. And definitely try to switch rooms in the house, it is a great way to generalize behavior without having to go to agility trials 🙂
>>Tonight I did have him switch out frisbees and also eat food and alternate. This was my first time doing this outside and it went well- yeah for a win!>>
Yay! That is great!!!!
On the teeter video:
>> He was able to work though and this training session was less than ideal
Actually, it was a good bit of activity around him! He had to really focus in on what he was doing Your daughter was adorable, the MM does like to die at inopportune moments, and your son felt the other dog would provide a helpful distraction LOL!! I did hear Chapter getting excited, and that is fine. The one tweak is that you can start the session facing him to help him back up onto the teeter – when you were off to the side, he was not as sure. For a 4 on behavior, you can start with all 4 feet on, do a hand touch to get his front feet off, then let him step back to all 4 feet on. After a couple of successes, you can do a hand touch so he comes all the way off and reward for backing up into the 4 on position.
When yo usay he was getting worked up in the other class, other than barking or whining, what else was happening? You can break up teeter sessions with doing other things, so he doesn’t get too over-stimulated. I like to do very short teeter sessions because it is a hard obstacle!Motion override went really well! The only thing I noticed was that sometomes you had to cue twice – so you can walk more slowly because generally that is a sign of him not quite processing it the first time. He also might have been watching your hands for a hand signal, but that will go away when you add more motion into it, especially when you work it up to running.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! I wonder if he felt it was weird and was avoiding it a little? It is possible LOL! It was a smart decision to ‘refresh’ the backing up using the Cato board and he was doing much better towards the end. He was definitely thinking about his hind end a lot more there. I wonder if he will make the transition from the Cato board to the teeter more easily if you put the Cato board over the end of the teeter to get the general idea going, then fade the Cato board out and just leave the teeter? The teeter is narrow AND it moves, so that might be a good intermediate step. You can also see if he will back up onto the wobble board. Another way to jump start it is to make it more about front fete for now – start with all 4 on, then do a hand touch to get his front feet off, so he steps his front feet back on – then use the hand touch to get him further and further off, stepping back more and more so eventually he will back his hind end on 🙂
Nice work here! Let me know what yo think!
TracyHi! These are looking really good!!
Doing them on 2 jumps is hard, because there is no momentum to carry through – he did well! You can throw the reward sooner on the Go on the 2 jumps to create the momentum 🙂 He did well with the RC on 2 jumps!!! That is also harder when there is no momentum!
Your transitions on the dig wrap looked really great too! One tiny detail – when you lean in to accelerate, you can soften the connection a little so you don’t accidentally push in towards him. When you leaned in, you showed a little pressure into the line and he moved away, almost anticipating a RC. So you can soften the connection and accelerate towards the wrap wing, so he doesn’t feel any possible RC pressure.
On the 2 backside reps: On the first one at :37, your line was almost identical to the RC line, and you were a little behind… so he did read it as a RC (the verbal is not yet overriding motion). The cue was much better at :53,you had a better line and connection, and you were ahead – he read it with no problem. Yay!!
When you added the tunnel and fuller sequence: You had a good transition into the wrap here too! There was also that tiny bit of pressure pushing into him as you accelerated, so I think you can soften the connection a bit here so he doesn’t see it as potentially the beginning of a RC.
The RC wrap looked really good! And I think he liked your scream in terror as you tried to not get impaled LOL!! Good boy, stay on his line!!! Your go looked really good here – lots of momentum plus an early toy throw. And the backside at the end – lovely, clear cues! He got it with no problem. NICE!!!!!
Great job!!
TracyHi! It took him a moment to realize that the PT was related to the wobble board! But then I think he quite liked it LOL! The PT noise is pretty quiet, you might need to put a verbal on getting it? He wants to look at you and wasn’t necessarily driving to the PT. However, I am sure he will figure it out – give him another session or two, and the PT beep will be perfect. I like your idea of moving it partially to a noisy floor next – a little more noise is great, he didn’t seem to mind the motion at all here!
Tracy
Hi!
>>He nailed this in the backyard earlier in the day with other dogs milling around but I didn’t have video going. So I tried it later and he started giving me a down or a stand freeze instead of a sit.>>
That is interesting. Were the jumps & tunnel out with the other dogs around too? It is possible that the other dogs running around raised his state of arousal so he did better! You can try this game after getting him wilder with tugging or send him through a tunnel and see what he does. I see the freezing you were talking about, but you did a great job of getting him back on track – he had lots of nice reps! It is entirely possible that is was too Lazy-Game-like, so it was smart to change directions. But definitely try it after making him wilder and see what he does 🙂 It is off to a good start!
TracyHi!
Goat games on the donut – these are hard, his body keeps growing so he has to figure out where to put his back feet LOL! His front feet were easy for him to offer, and I swear I snorted with laughter at :40 when he looked at you and put the one front foot on the donut LOL! “Look ma, I am TOUCHING THE THING” so cute!
We can now start to ask him to get his back feet on weird things like this – the donut might be a little tall and a little small for now to wait for all 4 feet on, so if you have several discs you can see if he is happy to put all 4 on those. And you can also put 2 donuts next to each other, or a donut next to a platform or table, just to give him a wider playing field to Get all four feet on – which we will eventually reduce to seeing is he can get all 4 feet on the single donut. Let me know if that makes sense! He looks great!Tracy
Good morning! Hope you had a great weekend!
The Blinds are going really well. It took a minute to figure out how to get him to leave you for the cookie, letting him see you put the treat in the bowl TOTALLY helped. Yay! And he was awesome about going from the cookies back to the toy. Happy dance! Because he clearly liked the cookie, you can call him too as you start moving away – when he eats the cookie, call him as you run so he turns back to you sooner (he was making sure every crumb was accounted for :))
The blinds crosses themselves look good, he is reading them nicely! You can make a more obvious connection change – have your ‘new’ dog side arm further back to get more eye contact going, then he will be able to see the change of sides sooner – when you had your new dog side arm out to the side, he was a little later making the side change because the arm blocked the connection a bit. At 1:33, for example, so he didn’t really turn til you made the side change and opened up your dog-side arm further back so he could see the new connection.
He also did well when you turned then drove forward again to the toy throw (:46) – nice tight turn, then he accelerated ahead so nicely!! You can add the Go Go Go verbal to that because he seemed to understand it so well.
One thing you can do with these is have Jeremy hold him as you run away, so it is a restrained recall into the blinds. That will help with any ‘daddy distractions’. And if that is easy, Jeremy can also have a treat in his hands to teach Disco to ignore cookies!
Great job!!
TracyHi! Great to see you here! And I am glad you have a winter training place to continue his progress. He looks terrific here.
The Lazy Game looks good! I suggest lower bars, so he doesn’t land heavy on his front during the reward tosses with food (it is a nice part of a warm up routine too, just in case it gets cold there this winter LOL!) The toy brought a lot of giddy up to the game so he was faster and a little wider – I think the wider was just that you were not turning your shoulders as early, because it is the lazy game LOL! But I really love how, when he got more excited because of the toy, he committed BETTER rather than looking at you or getting frantic. That is great to see him being able to go fast while retaining his thoughtfulness. YESSS!
Mountain Climber- Speaking of going fast but staying thoughtful – we see that here too! Yay! You had great placement of reward at the end of the board (right at the edge and with his head low), and he seemed very confident with the height! Great drive to the end but he also was being thoughtful about his feet and not flying off – perfect. That is exactly what we are looking for on this game. Do one more session like this, then if that goes as well as this one did: add a tiny bit of tip by moving the barrel a tiny bit more out so it moves just a couple of centimeters.
Wing & tunnel sends – He does like the Go on the tunnel! He was responding nicely to the left and right verbals. Your timing on those were really good, but you can show the physical cue for those at the same time you start the verbal by letting him see you turn. As you were saying the left/right cues, you were moving forward so he was getting more of a “go” physical cue. He was turning left/ right but a little wide – the earlier physical cue will tighten it right up. The sends to the wing looked good – you can add more distance between the wings and the tunnel, and stay closer to the tunnel so you can send from further away (we need to prepare for those AAC gambles LOL!). I will be posting more games using this set up later today, so you can incorporate those too.
Great job!!!
TracyGood morning!
On the motion override game:
Ah! He totally has so much value for “through” in a very similar context that he was struggling to differentiate the difference in cues! If “through” has a verbal or hand signal, you can show him the difference in this game too! Sit versus through when you move slowly (a fun verbal discrimination game). You added a little more motion so it looked different enough that he figured out the sit pretty quickly 🙂
And yes, time your sit cue at random numbers of steps – you tended to do 4-5 steps then cue the sit. And he was feeling the rhythm – note how he decelerated and almost sat at 1:18 ish: he was counting steps LOL! He didn’t do that on other reps because you were cuing the sit at step 4.5 approximately. So keep mixing it up, pingponging between 2 steps and 10 steps.
He also seems to read your hand with the cookie dropping down as a cue to come get reinforcement, so keep hands still while you praise then reward – the hand movement is likely what contributing to him moving when you praised the sit.
You can add in more motion – try it at a jog or slow run and see how it goes!And the wing game did go really well! He was at 100% success so you can totally add challenge, otherwise it gets boring 🙂 This game builds on stuff he was already really good at from previous games so I am not surprised he could work through the levels so quickly and allow you to add motion AND he nailed the race tracks – you were a little tentative on the first race track and he was looking at you, but then you ran the rest with more speed so he was really driving! You can add in your left/right more on the race tracks and then add in your verbal wrap cues at the end – he was perfectly reading the physical cue on all of it. Yay! I will be posting more Wingin’ It games from the weekend seminars today, he is totally ready for them 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi!
He cracked me up when you were late on the cheese! A bit of cheese rage LOL!!
He was going into the down a lot quicker when you were sitting in front of him! Nice! He was not quite as quick when you were off to the side, I think because he didn’t have something to look at other than you – so he was turning his head to see you, which affected the speed of the down. To help that, you can put a Manners Minder out ahead – he downs on his target then you can either reward in position or release forward to the MM. The focal point can totally help! Going back to the beginning when you were sitting in front of the teeter – he was pushing it down, getting on, then moving into the down. That will also affect the speed when he is on a full height teeter, because he is leaning forward on his front (push down) the rocking back. So, we can look at ways to convince him to rock back into the down immediately and not want to the board then go into the down. I think backing up to his target then into the down will help get the fold back down here – start it on the flat then we can have him back up onto the board. Does his backing up have a verbal cue? You can cue it then click/treat just getting back feet on at first, then back feet and the down, then all four feet on then the down (you can use your target cue for the down). Let me know if that makes sense!It was very fun to have the big speed circle set up! He did really well! The Lazy game was easy for him, looked good on the jumps and tunnels plus it is a great warm up. When you added running – wheee! So fun to see him open up! He needed a little extra connection when he is on your right side, he seemed a little stickier/looked at you more on your right, and more fluid on your left. That could be a side preference or reinforcement history or both – but it will smooth out as he gets to run more sequences like this. And yes, you can totally add the Go verbal 🙂 You were really hustling!!!
The first wrap was utter perfection at 1:45 – everything was spot on. Your 2nd wrap at 1:55 was a little later, so not as perfect but still really good. At 1:55 he was over the bar as you were rotating, and at 1:45 you were already rotated and leaving as he was over the bar.Blinds were looking good too! Yes, the first one was a little late by maybe a stride but you had great connection so he still read it really well. As you noted, the 2nd was way late LOL! It was on time for the next jump – and you were a good handler to reward him for reading it. The last one was good, he is reading them well and your connection is really helping.
Great job on these! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! Great job yesterday in the live class! You were super creative with the indoor space and I think you were able to get great work in! Yay!!!
Onwards to videos!
For the teeter training – I suggest a less-is-more approach, looking at it from the classical conditioning side of things and not from the operant side of things. For any teeter game, give him a grand total of 2 reps per day: breakfast, and dinner! LOL! One rep = entire meal. It will leave him drooling for more because the pairing will be exceptionally strong, and he will only get one rep so he won’t have time to think about it. By doing lots of reps and changing the picture a lot, he is not making the pairing of “OMG THIS IS THE BEST THING EVER” 🙂 So for example – with the mountain climber game, you can put a tunnel bag on the feet/base of the teeter and cram in the holder so it doesn’t move at all (there was some whip of the board that I don’t think he likes yet) – then do one rep, using his entire bowl of food, where you recall him up the board. Then… done! Resist temptation to do more until dinner time. Same with the bang game – one rep, a one hit wonder: boom, dinner! I suggest 2 solid weeks of that, super consistent picture and set up, no changes of position or motion or anything and then you will see him pleading with you to go do the teeter games – at that point, we can add in more variations like sending him ahead, etc. Because he is not super thrilled with it, we don’t want him to think about it or work through it, we just want to make him insane for it because it is paired with amazing things. You can also do the one hit wonders for a favorite toy that he gets at no other time except, say, the bang game. When Export was learning the teeter, he would get his ‘Cuz’ ball only on the teeter. One teeter bang = Cuz ball. And I remember one session where he banged the teeter once and got an entire tin of Vienna Sausages (that was impactful, his eyes popped out of his head). Hot Sauce would get the frisbee for the teeter games = one rep, frisbee. They are now all insane for the frisbee. I will be doing the same with Contraband, who is more like Stark: “this thing is WEIRD, mom!”. (Elektra is more of a wackjob so the teeter is not as much of an issue at this point).
And when the dogs are crazy for working the teeter because it has been paired with fabulous things… the rest of the progression and games are super easy and quick to work through. You will know it is time to move forward in the progression when it becomes practically impossible to keep him off the teeter 🙂 and he goes blasting up it on the first rep.
He is super confident on the plank on the ground! Speedy and happy! When you add the angles, I think food will be a better reward for now… with the toy being thrown, he was not always thinking about his hind end LOL! You can also elevate the plank now – do you have blocks or something you can put it on, to raise it up a few inches?
Lazy gaming the tunnel is great, totally helps him drive to it! He was pretty perfect on the jumps. With the tunnels, it seemed a lot easier when he was on your right and you were ahead, definitely harder when he was on your left even when you were ahead. My guess is that being on your left to the tunnel required a right turn, which is not as natural to him. And if I remember correctly, it is also a little harder when you are running the sequences. So, you can try it on a shorter straighter tunnel so he has less of a right turn, then gradually extend the tunnel as he gets more comfy with the right turn.
Great job on these! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! How old is she now? Something all of the pups should do is a sit on small platform, just big enough to fit their butt on it 🙂 And then transfer it to a sit on a wobble disc – also only big enough to fit her butt on it. I will also be adding some body awareness games this week for the Christmas break 🙂 She is probably having a bit of a growth spurt, so you can work on the tight sits and work on backing up to something really wide – on the video with Contraband, the board I am using is really wide so it is easy for an awkward teenager to find 🙂 Let me know how she does!
TracyFound the MM video for stays with baby Contraband!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUiCW057lxUHi! I hope you end of semester isn’t too crazy and you have some free time coming up! All of your clips here look great!
Really nice work with the Manners Minder!!! He was getting MUCH more settled. (Side note – if you are getting sniffing after a tossed treat, you can use a tug toy sometimes too, even with the MM present. You can also allow. The sniffing for now – he might be using that moment to clear his head, because begin stationary is HARD. I am 1000% confident that when we need him to NOT sniff, then he will not sniff 🙂
You can add in turning and moving away as he is ‘anchored’ to the MM. You can click it as soon as you turn, and on the first step away, to help him understand to remain anchored. I have video of this specifically with the MM – I will go find them after I post this 🙂He is also doing well on the backing up! You can add in the verbal, and a context-specific cue that can help clarify. For example, since he is backing up to the target, you can sit in a chair – and that is the *only* think you shape sitting in a chair. It can allow you to elicit the behavior and name it, then we fade out sitting in a chair (or not, sometimes it is nice to relax LOL!)
Also, you can just start it by having him begin the backing up with all 4 feet on the target – the lure his front feet off or have him come off to follow a hand touch, then c/t the front feet getting back on. Then bring him all the way off and c/t backing onto it, from up close. That can help him know what you want in that context, so he can offer it. The backing up he did offer looked balanced and had a really nice head position!Yay, his parallel path prop work looks lovely too! You are on a roll! He was actually looking pretty patient here, making eye contact with you and waiting until you started the game. YAY! That is an important element because it will help with start lines, stopped contacts, tables, etc. And the prop behavior itself was great – he was actively targeting it really well. Yay! You might not have room for more speed, but you can see if you can add more lateral distance? And definitely take it to new locations and see how it goes 🙂
And yes, the transfer to the wing looked great too. He wrapped it even before you were ready: Mom, I wrap the THING! LOL! Good boy. He was a little sticky leaving your left hand, it could be because his turns to his right are not as strong as his turns to his left, or because that left hand has a TON of value. But… he did it! We build on this really soon – you can try dropping/tossing the treat ever-so-slightly behind you so grabs it then turns back and can keep moving. Also, have you tried it with a toy? Either a toy in both hands or a toy in one hand and cookies in the other. That can be a fun challenge!
Great job on these, everything looks fabulous 🙂
Tracy
