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Hi there!
>>I kick myself every time I make a not-so-positive comment! Thanks for the reminder.
Was it CAMP last year or MaxPup PIT where you would lose an hour of access to your iPhone every time you used a negative marker? That put a stop to it for a while LOL!
>>I do tend to look at the obstacle instead of the dog. I’m not sure why my brain insists on doing that, but I am aware. These were good exercises to reinforce that connection.>>
Keep practicing, it is a struggle for all of us! I thought your connection was terrific on this video!
>>Nope …. No love for the teeter. Although it wasn’t used in today’s session, but I did practice it independently, and there is improvement.>>
Hooray for improvement! Keep using a clear criteria and amazing rewards to build her love. It might sound odd, but the clearer the criteria, the more they learn to love it. Dogs don’t love ‘grey’ criteria.
>> I feel like she is becoming more and more confident to work away from me. Moving away from the weaves is still tricky. Although she didn’t pop out here, I did a few more runs afterwards and she did pop out when she thought I was too far away. Of course I didn’t get that filmed.>>
Totally agree that she did well here! I do think you can leave the Ready Treat in for a LOT more reps, especially when you are adding more challenge.
The first miss was fine because it was really all about developing the concept of “do the weaves without me and the reward is ahead” She missed on the first rep but nailed the 2nd rep! She was fast and accurate!
After the reward, you can reset with a sit to do the handling, it will make it smoother to start the next session.
3rd rep – very nice weaves! And the handling looked good too! You will be able to add crosses after the weaves so you don’t need to do the RC if you don’t want to.
2nd sequence – nice job here! Nice connection and she got the weaves both times!
I know the jump was set up close to the wall, but ideally you would slice not wrap at 1:07 and 1:24 (it is faster and easier for both of you :))
Super nice sends at 1:09 and 1:27! And you got further ahead on the weaves and she was great on them too!>>I also included a clip with Wilson. His distance is pretty good, but we mess up because I don’t continue to support him when I offer opposing motion. He didn’t do it here because the distance between obstacles is smaller. We have gotten caught in situations where I send him, and try to get away from him with no support.>>
Do you have any examples? Let me see so I can give you some ideas – generally it is a placement of reward issue: the reward is all on you, so he is sticking with you. You can cue the obstacle then leave, tossing the reward to the landing side of the obstacle to build value for commitment. Or you can tuck that handy dandy Ready Treat in near the wing of the jump, and click it when he commits and you are leaving. That will shift the value to the obstacle, which can make opposing motion so much easier.
On his reps on the video – your handling looked really connected! And his weaves were GREAT, good boy! A couple of little things:
On the send at 1:42, don’t say Go then dig dig dig , that will dilute the strength of your GO verbal.On the wrap at 1:58, is that one of the places where opposing motion might be hard? Ideally you would have your right arm lower and more on the takeoff side to get a better collection, but you might have been adding extra swoosh and lean back to the landing side to get commitment.
The lean back and swoosh made the cue to send and collect late at 2:01 so he was a little wide, but good job with the verbal just saying dig dig dig without the go before it!
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>. I thought I wanted a 2o2o since that’s what I want on the other contacts. I’ll have to get consistent and work on those stops. Right now, she’s exiting nicely on the “run” – but once she’s really confident, I don’t know if she’ll be a “flyer” or not. Better to work on a stop and perhaps phase it out than to ignore it now and then have to back-track, correct?
I think getting a 2o2o will be consistent with the other contacts, plus easy to maintain in the ring. I don’t know if she will be a flyer – but what happens when the criteria is unclear is that a lot of dogs slow down, stopping pretty high on the teeter (sometimes in the yellow, sometimes not, then creeping down). So I have always found it easier to teach and maintain the 2o2o for the dog’s entire career. And in the big runs where I wanted to win or something, I would “cheat” a bit and release early – but always went back to reinforcing the 2o2o.
>>I know she looks confident here, but she hasn’t been happy with the seesaw in her class location, so we’re just doing the “bang” game there. What should I be looking for before we move on from that?>>
These young dogs lost out on a lot of experiences due to the pandemic 🙁 So I suggest recreating the entire teeter progression in as many new places as possible. Will your instructor set up a teeter between 2 tables (I think you did that with her in training, right?) And you can also isolate the mountain climber game, which I think you also did. And the bang game is fabulous 🙂
If she is acting concerned, I suggest doing very limited reps for SUPER high value, mind – blowing rewards. It can be just one rep of the bang game for a fistful of steak 🙂 Yum!You can also urn her through a tunnel or two or 6… then do a bang game when she is wild – then deliver a massive reward. Don’t do too many reps in a row, because we don’t want her to over-think it. We would like for her to be a little nuts LOL!
You’ll know when to add challenge based on how excited she is to play these games. When it starts to look more like what you have at home, then you know you can add more to them.
>>I’ll be looking forward to the slice/wrap sessions. I think I tend to use wraps because they save my knee more than running for a slice. It’s a bummer to get to an age where you think not only about what works for the dog, but you have to think about what your body will do, too…>>
It is important for our knees to be happy with our handling choices too! The good news here is that we have enough variety of handler moves that we can have it both ways: fastest lines for the dogs and easiest movement for the handler. We will play with all of that!
>>Today is supposed to be hotter than yesterday, so we went out for a brief fun session, but won’t be doing any taping today. Then there is heavy rain predicted for the next 3 days. Temps will go down, which is nice.>>
Lower temps sound great! Fingers crossed for an easy time with the rain and then more normal temps ahead.
T
Hi!
>>He has made SO MUCH progress in the last few months. We really really really struggled with him checking out and sniffing or just trotting during our training sessions.
I agree! He has really blossomed, even in the short time I have known him!
>>His speed is really coming along so I feel like my handling isn’t quite as good as it had previously been because things are happening much faster.>>
This is both relatable and normal. It is part of the fun of young boy dogs LOL!
>> I am so happy with his progress but want to keep getting better. I overall feel very frantic running him right now.
Also relatable! It will get easier when you have more experience on bigger lines with him, and when you trust him more to stay on the lines.
>>The better line for the backside at 2 is the natural entry line (where the #2 is on the course map) rather than turning him on the tunnel exit and then pushing to the other backside
>>I’m glad you brought this up because I had a hard time seeing this line past the backside. I do feel like it’s the best line but couldn’t figure out how to get out of his way from 2 to handle the rest. Would you recommend dog on left for the opening the whole way? I felt like I needed to be on the right near the tunnel to get the blind at 5 in a timely fashion.>>
There are several ways to handle it – I would personally start dog on right, push to the backside and run through a blind to get him on my left. Or running all on left as a threadle would work too.
>>Any recommendations for smaller space activity to visit/revisit on a partially wet yard?
Bummer about the rain!! For the smaller space, you can take a tunnel and the weaves and recreate the weave challenges here on open poles, with a MM out ahead. And I think he would benefit from as many of the transition to trials games you can play in different locations – these youngsters got screwed out of a lot of life experience due to the pandemic!
Tracy
Hi there!
>>Yes I taught this with a foot target and will tape it back on in our next session. I think one or two more sessions with the MM and target will really help out.
Yes, because we are adding so much independence now, the target can come back out for a couple of sessions, and then you can take it out again.
Great job in the training session (and it was HOT already early this morning, right?!?!?!) On the first rep – Nice independent dog walk here and a super tight turn off of it! The cones definitely helped, they were a clever addition to the setup. And you will be able to bring cones into the ring on training runs to help out when you put the RDW into the trial ring!
Great connection in the handling! He had a nice tight wrap to his right on the jump, but in this case a slice to the left is probably faster: less collection and a better line to the next jump. Either way, keep connecting like that – it was really clear for him!
2nd rep – going the other way at :22 on the dog walk (away from the camera), just be a bit more patient to let him come off of it before you turn and go – he took the early turn as a cue to go back across it LOL! Eventually I think you will be able to turn early but for now, be a little later on that turn. You had the exact right amount of patience on the turn off the DW at :43 on the next rep. Nice!!
The last rep looked really lovely – he might be more confident working the DW off your left side? He seemed happier to drive ahead coming towards the camera than moving away from the camera (on your right). You can use a thrown reward to help him drive ahead of you – if you are cuing a tight turn, you can have him turn tight and throw the reward on the line, so he doesn’t look at you as much.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
The happiest part of this is that the teeter looked great and it was not even the focus of the session. Huzzah!! I am excited!
Looking at the turns:
>> Yes, I have him jumping 16” and he feels he needs to fly over the jumps and go really fast and that decelerating is dumb. We have to work on our turns at this height.
Yes, time to start massaging the turns to get a little tighter. The main goal is to get more tight turns without losing the speed on the lines. The 2nd and 3rd set of games here in CAMP focus specifically on that!
On the video here, a couple of ideas for the turns:
On the FCs at the beginning (at :12, for example) and then when you switched sides, your lines were good! The turn was a little wide on some of them because you did a decel while he was on the teeter then accelerated when you released him, so he accelerated too. It should be the other way around. Try to decel into it and if you are already stationary, remain stationary and drop your hands lower toward the takeoff spot: more like what you did at :30 but also on takeoff side not landing side.You had a bit more of a takeoff side hand cue at :46 and it helped!! And :57 was for sure more on takeoff side, there was a definite collection there too!!
One other idea: to reward the collection and encourage more of it: When you see him collect, run so he chases you to get the reward, rather than standing still – that helps get even more collection by rewarding it with running, and also he will collect more if you run away on the tight line with the precious reward 🙂 Stopping is stoooooopid, according to Stark: running for the reward is fun fun fun!
Nice work here! We will be focusing on the collection in coming weeks and this was a really nice start!!!
Tracy
Hello and welcome!! Congrats on your successes in the ring!!! I am really excited but also not surprised: you do a great job with your pups!!
And congrats on your new baby!!! Another Schnauzer? Please send photos, baby Schnauzers are the CUTEST 🙂Tracy
Hi! Nice work here!
Opening looks good – by not hanging out at 2, you got much further up the line. One of the thing =s we will be working on next week is to get the dogs to turn even when they are in high arousal and we are moving fast – that will help him collect when you are on time here by moving really fast. I mention it because you were on time at :22, for example and he was still wide on the turn
Weaves looked good at :13 and :26! That put you in a good spot to handle the 8–9-10 section and also the entire closing line. Very nice! You did a FC 11-12 but I do think a blind will be much easier and set a better line there.
Looking at the ending line up close:
he did put in a collection stride at 10 at :53 on the shoulder turn. You did a spin there at 1:09 and it was tighter! We will be timing that in coming weeks to see if tighter is actually faster.You did a spin at 1:19 there but never really reconnected (you turned your head but your arm was really high) so he didn’t pick up 11
Much better at 1:30!>> send. It was ok when I practiced it as 10-11, but when I started from 8 my timing was shit lol.>>
it was not really a timing issue, more of a position issue. Both of those spins set a bit of a wider line because you put yourself on landing side so he had to go around you – getting one more step up the line to takeoff side will keep it tight like it was at 1:09.
The FC at 11-12 :55 was late and you looked ahead – did he go behind you there? The blind looked great at 1;11 and 1:30!
Great job on the pushes and leaving on the firsat rep through there! You got a little excited at 1;34 and your arm got waaaay high: when that happens, it turns your body forward and he loses which line he is supposed to be on. A general rule of thumb is if he is behind you, your dog side arm must be locked and pointing back to him – don’t let it move forward or parallel to you and definitely don’t let it get high.
It was much lower on the last rep and he read the line nicely to the backside 🙂
And you got most of the verbals out LOL!!! It is hard to get all that sprinting AND all the words in training. It will make running at a trial much easier 🙂Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! He had this much energy after an hour walk? I am impressed!!! Good boy!
Looking at the weaves first – I see a bit of a pattern about where he is having questions: on your right side and when you are moving, he is bouncing a bit too much side-to-side and with his head up, which is causing him to make mistakes. When you are not moving much on your right side, or when he was on your left: he was great. All of the left side weaves were really strong and independent!
On the right side weaving at the beginning – he was head up and side to side, so he moved the weaves and popped out on the first rep. Got them on the 2nd rep. On the 3rd rep – he was head up and fell out (:48)
He got them at :56 when you were not too far and not moving fast – and then popped out at 1:04 when you pushed aheadVery independent and head lower when he is on your left at 1:17! Also good on left at 1:36 and 1:56! Same angles as the previous right side reps, but on your left – no problem. Hmmmmm 🤔 LOL!
He missed on your right at 1:26 while you were moving but got it at 1:45 on your right with you standing still til he got the entry. See the pattern emerging? He got it at 2:06 with more motion. Then later on, he was on your right at 2:35: definitely head up, bouncing a bit too much side to side, moving the weaves.
The left side weaves at the end looked good 🙂
So since we can see the pattern here, we can train it! His rate of success on your left side is very high! His rate of success on your right is much lower (less than 50%). I think the key will be getting his head down like it is when he is weaving on your left side – and the easiest way to do that is to take out your training poles (2x2s? Channels?) and open them up a bit, having him weave independently towards a reward target of some sort (like a Manners Minder). You can add all of the motion and independence while getting his head down… then we close the poles, fade the MM, and have the same high quality weaves on your right side as you do on your left side.
Looking at the handling: plenty of things to be super happy with! Strong connection! Turns are looking good at full height! He really sets up lovely turns!
A couple of observations:
More motion needed on the first rep to the wing especially with your right leg to send. You stopped very short before he landed so he was not sure what to do. Look at how you used your right leg to send at :46 – it was great! And he had no questions there.Try not to say “go” for all the things 🙂 because it will dilute your actual go cue when you want straight lines. Over is fine if needed or a wrap cue (You had that on some of the reps).
I think the slice instead of wrap at 1:19 and 140 and 201 was because your DW was there?(bars there might have been fatigue) If not, that is a good place for a slice 🙂
At 2:22 I think you were trying to wrap but ended up on his line and pushing him to the backside (he was correct there) – try not to use any negative marker like “hey” as it is a real downer for him in the moment – you did praise and give a cookie after it, but he was still marked negatively for reading you correctly. When there is a blooper, try to just toss a cookie or a toy without saying anything, so there are no accidental downer moments when he was correct 🙂 Or even if he is incorrect – tell him he is a good boy and carry on 🙂 But most of the time, he is correct LOL! So it is better to just reward.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! I am glad she was back to normal weaving here. Whew!
Some ideas for you:
On the backside at 2 she did really well finding it and her exit turn was great! You can also play with having her slice the other direction on it (so she enters on the wing closer to the center of the course and exits the backside on the wing away from the course. You would start on your right and do a serp tp blind – that would actually allow you to get to the BC 4-5 even sooner because you would not have to step to 3 at all. Plus, that will have her turning towards her right the whole time which sets a prettier line.
The BC was pretty timely at :09 in getting started – try to get it finished/reconnected as instantly as possible for now: She is in the early stages of learning tight blinds, so she needs to see the full cue before she turns tightly. Eventually, she will make the collection as soon as she sees the cue beginning. Plus having her come in on the smoother line will help keep the bar up there as well.On the 2nd rep at :37 you were definitely quicker to finish the blind, so she turned so much better over 4! Yay! She was able to land and explode up the line to the tunnel. NICE!
YAY for the weaves! You set the line nicely and you were smart to not challenge her tooooooo much on those. Ideally you would leave more to be further up the line, but I think you were wise to not push it too much. On the 2nd rep there, you actually over-helped her by moving too far from the tunnel while she was weaving, but I think it was fine to support her line a little extra for now 🙂
The line after that went well until the little oopsie at 11-12 on the first run. She doesn’t need much help to get nice turns, and I think she did well here!
When you got the tunnel threadle on the 2nd run, you pulled yourself too far away from the tunnel – she still had a nice tight line but then you were out of position. That caused you to have to explode to get back to position, which sent her wide out of the tunnel. So, stay close to the line for the tunnel (don’t pull away) or better yet… get in there for the blind (you totally can!)
The threadle at the end is an advanced skill – she is *thisclose* to having it! If you work that line again, try it without moving as fast: just move at a light jog and see if she can read it. If not, you can try it at a walk. As she gets more experienced, you can try it with more and more motion.Great job here!!! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>> She loves her toys but going through the pressure filled area of On The Run during a trial is a lot for her (tends to get snarky) so I like to feed her all the way through there instead.>>
Yes, that can be tight quarters! I think you will find one of the games coming next week to be helpful for her.
She did well in this video! When you ask for behavior on the start line, try standing up more – when you were leaning over her, she was looking away and then went into a down (common response to when we lean over the dogs :))
She seems to be more of an “all business” type of dog on the start line: she gets into the zone and is ready to go – so doing tricks is hard! She was great when you did the lead out, just asking for the stay behavior/ And that is fine, as long as her all business approach also means she is in the right state of arousal. She certainly was here!
And she definitely thought it was a little weird to use the leash at home, but since she likes tugging on it – it is definitely something to incorporate into trial routines! You can have a cue for it that is different from the cookie cue, so you can have her run to the leash when she lands from the last jump and then there is pretty immediate reinforcement 🙂Great job here!
TracyHi!
>> I switched to all the pulls to get through the course a little tighter on the later reps but I don’t care for them because he does read those as converging on his lines (it’s also why I very rarely do rear crosses with him and if I do they tend to be on the flat).
We will work more on RCs this summer, it is a good skill to have 🙂
>> I just don’t know if I can get there for the BC either!
You totally can!
Hi there!
This was a really informative session! Yes, he is totally confident on the tunnel sends and that is great – it allows us to figure out what turn cues he needs. Here are some thoughts:You got earlier and earlier on the timing, which is good – the first couple of reps were a little late on the turn cues (he was already in the tunnel or inches from being in) but then by then end you were more of what I would consider on time – he was several feet from the tunnel and you gave the physical and verbal cues.
Based on what we see here, I think that the ‘left’ verbal is for when he goes to the backside of the further away jump (like on the 3rd rep) and the lateral send is the physical cue to match that. It was producing a nice left turn each time, and he worked it at a distance. You can see it happening even when you didn’t want that line, like on the 4th rep at :37 – he turned left and looked at you, but your motion supported the line to the jump way out there… good boy. You even mentioned that is was technically a left there and I agree 🙂
At 1:26 you changed the delivery of the cue (more chattered) and added rotation (FC) before the tunnel entry: big difference! Great turn there, versus 1:44 when you did a lateral send and left verbal (he was wide again).
So based on the various tunnel exits: I think the left and the lateral send get you that 90-degree-ish turn, and the tighter exit should be a wrap verbal and a rotation (spin) for now. You probably won’t always need a rotation, the verbals might be enough later on – but the rotation certainly doesn’t hurt in this particular setup.
One more idea: the GO on the entry and lala when he exited on the last rep were a bit confusing so he had questions – the GO was too much giddy up 🙂 but I think that just motion and the verbal to give a soft turn is all he needs there.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyOh no, that’s a difficult diagnosis! Poor Summit! I’m glad you found out what the issue was. Did you get a 2nd opinion on surgical options? I know dogs that have had similar issues corrected. I can get more info for you if you are interested.
Keep me posted!
TracyGood morning!
>>These long straight lines with turns and avoiding tunnels are a weakness I didn’t know we had 🤣.
I don’t think the lines were actually straight, that was part of the question 🙂 More below 🙂 I don’t think he was avoiding the tunnel either – the setup was causing some questions, also more on that below LOL!
On the video:
Overall, I think your connection and line driving was great, and he was SUPER speedy and doing exactly what you asked him to do. Good boy!On the opening:
You both did really well here at the beginning of the video and at 2:15!! The better line for the backside at 2 is the natural entry line (where the #2 is on the course map) rather than turning him on the tunnel exit and then pushing to the other backside. That might be why it felt late? So let him go straight out of the tunnel and slice the backside the other direction: it will be a faster line and easier for both of you, with fewer zig zags.
Tunnel #4:
>>I also added his left verbal coming out the tunnel.>>
Yes! I did a little happy dance when you said “FEVER LEFT” 🙂 He seemed to pick up the turn nicely! Also, he was committing nicely and you were getting your verbals and cross in sooner… but I will keep bugging you to be even sooner LOL!! You can start the blind and call him at :06 and 2:18 when he is no closer than 3 feet from the entry. Going the other way at 2 will help because you can get up the line sooner.8-9-10-11
This section relies on the independent weaves otherwise the handler is toast 🙂 Skipping the weaves was fine – but you made it harder on yourself by not setting it up so you were where you would be if he was weaving independently – I think you were also setting him up at the entry of the poles rather than where he would exit, perhaps doing a mash up of courses 2 and 3? That is what made it so hard (the start position). At :18, :29 and :39 you were right next to him when he got into the 8 tunnel so while you had excellent hustle and he picked up the line beautifully and with a ton of speed… you were too far behind to get the blind.The line up position caused some errors at :29, :48, :56 because you knew you wanted to leave to get up the line but you had to stay there to handle the difficult tunnel entry. You can line him up facing it from the weave exit and that will make your life much easier.
At 1:40 you can see that the 10 jump is ever so slightly offset so he needs a bit of a push to it (he would have to lead change to pick it up) running closer to the line like you did at 1:56 helps (the placed toy did not help him find the line, it was your handling, but it was definitely a good reward!) Since you were down there to support the line, a FC would get the turn in that moment.
On the reps where he did not take the jump, you were looking ahead as he landed and deceling so he came off the line because there was no push out info (this is a good place to add a ‘get out’ cue)
Saying GO sent him past it at 2;30 (which is technically correct, because go is straight and not a lead change away). 2:43 and 2:52 was really nice driving the line from you both!>>I also thought about serping the 13 to a landing side blind but still wasn’t in a place I liked.
I didn’t see this on the video – did I miss it or did you edit it out?
>>I feel like there’s too much I’m trying to control here. I’m worried about him extending to the final jump, controlling the turn, and preventing the off course which unfortunately is taking too much mental energy for me to handle well.>>
That is good insight? Don’t worry about off courses – only worry about the lines you want to create and then off course options will go away. Since we are training, it is all about asking questions to find out what he knows. Send and leave! If he gets it, yay! If he doesn’t get it? Also yay, because we can train it 🙂 If you control all the things, you will find that you have trouble getting to where you need to be on course. I really do think the only real error here was the line up before the tunnel after the weaves.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
He is doing well on the weaves – and we got some REALLY useful info about how he reads things too! These were definitely harder challenges!
On the first rep (abrupt exit) – he was fast but lifted his head a tiny bit.
Second rep: opposite motion (also happened at :30) – definite challenge! And he turned away on exit, which is interesting and can be useful when the course requires it. More below 🙂
The other handling skills also went well – a little head lifting but he was fine with them – I think he does a bit better on the harder skills when you repeat your weave verbal. The dramatic RC at :38 is a handling skill I am seeing a LOT of on courses lately (AKC Premier and UKI) so I am sure you will be able to use it on course at some point soon. It is very fashionable LOL!The highest level challenge for him was the rotation towards him with the hand/toy in his face and he had to pass you. He did well about weaving past your hand, and past the toy in hand: until you said “good boy”. That is something I am also seeing in our dogs: we have trained a “yes” or a “good boy” inadvertently to be a ‘come get your reward” to the dogs make little mistakes like coming off a line or popping out of the poles (ok, maybe the dogs are correct if the verbal is actually a come-get-your-prize moment LOL!). Then he had questions and needed you to keep saying weave, which is fine of course, because it really supported him.
So one of my summer goals it to get all of us more aware of having accidentally installed that, and changing that: quiet praise and either continue or reinforce but use a different marker to mean “reward is coming”. I personally am trying to shut myself up with the big loud YES and just replace that with a reward marker – the dogs find that MUCH more helpful although I find it very hard to shut myself up haha!
So for example, when he passes the challenge on the poles, you would throw it and say “get it” or something which means “reward is being thrown out there”. Let me know if that makes sense – looking at it has eliminated a lot of those little errors.Now back to him turning away on the exit: when you rotated and did a FC as he was weaving and started running alongside the poles and right next to the them: he read it as a flip away on the exit every.single.time. He also did that when you were stationary after the FC. This is GREAT info because we need that turn away skill – judges will often put a tunnel there for us to ‘flip’ the dog to without us wanting to change sides. If we have discovered the physical cue that gets it done? Super! And to prevent it when you *don’t* want it? Do you FCs more laterally or if there is ever a moment where you would be close to the poles for a FC like that – delay it a bit to make sure he exits correctly.
Teeter session: He is getting more and more comfy with his new 2o2o!
>> The “straightness” is not strong enough to do without some kind of target. Of course, I don’t care that much about that but as long as I can I might as well work on it.>>
I agree – he needs some kind of target. And straightness would be nice, but a slight curl towards you at the end is fine as long as he is speedy across the board and hits & holds the position.
The MM as target is a good starting point to prompt the position and get the independence going. In order to fade it, we are going to need a secondary type of target so the MM can move further away. I am not sure if you have use any other target – I use a super fancy lid from whatever random plastic thing I can find (I have also used old masks LOL) that just sits on the grass a couple of inches past the teeter. Then the MM gets moved further away, first 6 feet or so away then increasingly further up the line. It is easy to fade the little target at the end of the board, after he is more experienced with the 2o2o without the big visual of the MM.
The other great thing about those little targets to prompt the behavior is that you can bring it into the ring on a training run to transfer the position into the trial ring. I know for sure that UKI and USDAA both allow us to plop a little target on the ground – and I know for sure we cannot bring the MM into the ring (dang it LOL!). I don’t know what AKC training rules allow but I can find out! We can transfer the behavior into the trial ring without the target, but it is much easier if he gets one or two training runs with the target there to help him out.Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
