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Hi! Your sends look really good here – they should feel a little lazy and like you are walking LOL! She is showing such beautiful commitment on the wing after the tunnel that you can totally add more distance by moving them further away. Your connection and sending looks great!! When you added in the FCs, she had zero problem with them – good girl! You can add more connection to her eyes after the FCs as you send to the tunnel: keep your dog-side shoulder back more while she is behind you, so she can read the line to the tunnel more clearly. When you were ahead and closed your shoulder forward a little, she ha a little more trouble reading the one back to the tunnel.You can definitely spread these out to add more challenge and distance on the sends (wings further away and you still stay relatively close to the tunnel).
I love the ramp! Perfect!!! She of course was perfectly happy on it. And it has peacock feather design on it? So cool! And that is not chaos, your dogs are all so good 🙂
Great job here!
Tracyhi there! Great job on these! Is that him making monkey noises when he runs?!? LOL!
The One step sends are looking really good. The first couple of runs were spot on! Those all had great connection, obvious step with the leg, and a low arm. Now, when he had questions on your left turns and the send to the tunnel… note how you were “pointier”, meaning your were pointing more and looking at the obstacles more rather than at him, so he couldn’t quite read the line of your shoulders. When he was successful, you were more connected and exaggerate the leg motion, but kept the arm lower. I will bug you more about that tomorrow LOL!
Lazy Game: are you singing a cheese version of a Christmas song? LOL! This went just as it was suppoesed to: super easy! He seemed shocked that it was so easy but it looks like he was happily driving ahead. You did the full course version of it LOL! you can also add in some lazy games on tunnels, so that he takes the tunnel that you are moving towards.
Teeter game: This is going well! Remind me – did you say he was nervous about the sound? Or the movement? I will go find it – He seemed pretty confident on these!! Yes, back it up so it isn’t moving for a couple more sessions and we can add some crosses and more speed and so on – mainly just too keep building the love for it. For the 1-2-3 elevator game – he is a little head up on this, so I recommend doing the bang game before this one to get him looking downwards to the target. I will take you all through the progression, but for the end position it is basically bang game then elevator game then sexy elevator game 🙂Great job here!!!!
TracyHi! Great job on the lazy game! Perfect for smooshy ground. She did really well – a couple of looks at you like you were nuts 🙂 But she seemed to have no trouble finding the lines as you moved each jump further away and also as you stayed closer to jumps 1 and 3, That will serve you well as we begin to add in sending so you can get away up the lines (you will see more of that coming out of this weekend’s live seminars). You can also do some tunnel lazy game, where you meander towards the tunnel and reward her for taking it.
I could hear it starting to rain LOL!! Great job, this is a really nice warm up for what is coming next 🙂
TracyHi! Before I got the teeter device, I used a heavy/solid wing jump and really shoved it in tight to prop the teeter. I have also used an agility table, a small step ladder, a metal chair, and a saw horse from Home Depot 🙂 As long as it is really solid, I can get it wedged in pretty tightly to hold the teeter.
TracyHi! Welcome!!!
Understandable that you would not want her to be nutty about it!!!Ideally, you would have her in a stay or throw a cookie away for her to chase, so you could be at the end of the board and facing her before she gets on it, to deliver the cookie.
Now, it is possible that she will still want to jump over or through you 🙂 So we can introduce the concept on a plank that goes up to a table – so it is lower, less speed, and she can stop on the table and not flatten you. Let me know if that makes sense!
TracyHelloooooooo! Dang snow! But… thank you for working in your warm & toasty basement! I think we managed to give Pirate a good work out 🙂 Fingers crossed for NO SNOW and warm weather this week 🙂 You rocked it today!!
T
Hi! Glad to see you here! I can’t believe that all these puppies are growing up so fast! She looks great here. I would venture to say that she loved the lazy game LOL!!! She was VERY happy to do all the work and go fast, and eat all the cookies 🙂 Nice!!! You were appropriately lazy – she is getting very independent on her lines. You can spread these jumps out even more: she is a big striding girl so you can add challenge and get even more distance & independence.
She did awesome on the plank game too! To avoid any confusion with the 2o2o you are working on, you can use a ‘get it’ cue or something similar when you throw a treat, because that will be a permission to leave the plank. She was pretty darned perfect on this, so you can add in angles of entry by throwing the treat off to the side. I think that is where she will most have to think about lining up her hind end to get on the board and maintain balance.
For the teeter: I have used a really strong wing jump (if you have one, your wings might be too light) – but the 24” table can totally work too! I think I have also used metal folding chairs too – anything that you can shove in there to get it really tight and so the board will not move at all.
Great job here!!
TracyGood question! Nope, no issues later for 2 reasons:
First, the turning around and going back down is something I assist with so they don’t do it on their own.
Second, we put in a ton of value for the end position and then driving forward – so the pups quickly forget that they ever ran back down the other way. For the very small pups like my tiny Papillon who is 5 lbs – I taught her that waiting at the end was worth her while (cookies!) even though the teeter took forever to tip and she could have easily turned around and run down the other end LOL!Hi! Great to see you and Sly here again Yay!
First up, profile pic:
Our website software pulls profile images from a popular profile image service called Gravatar. You can create an account at Gravatar.com using the same email address that you use on agility-u.com. Then follow these instructions to upload your profile photo over on Gravatar: https://en.gravatar.com/support/activating-your-account/Great job on the lazy game! Yes, he was like WHY ARE YOU NOT RUNNING hahahahaha but then he caught on because, cookies 🙂 This game is kind of an anti-perfect game, because you won’t always be able to run perfectly near the line, or you might decelerate too soon, or you might need to send him away into a gamble. He did a great job here!!! I am adding more to this when the live seminars are done 🙂 Great job!
TracyOMG this is the cutest video! She is tiny but she was ready to RACE! Ha! I think it was easier when you were holding her harness and throwing the toy – the reps where you started from the cookie were not as ‘race-like’. Good job winning on that one rep (because she didn’t know where the toy was LOL!) but that lit her fire to go even faster! Now that she is out running you, you can add in a bit of encouraging her to grab the toy then bring it to you. You can do that by racing her to it and when she grabs it, you can turn and run the other way get her to chase you with it.
As she continues to grow, she will continue to widen her margins of victory here. Looking great!!!!
TracyHi!
>> how best to salvage handling bloopers to keep Ribsy going.?>>
If there is a blooper, I always just reward the puppy 🙂 There is a 99.99% chance that the error was my error, so I just reward as if the puppy got it totally right (because she did LOL!!) That keeps the pups going when we are sorting out handling especially at this early age. I think you did a great job here, especially since the mechanics of rewarding like that are weird and different 🙂 You were perfect on most of them. There was one where you rewarded with the dog side hand and one where you dropped the toy: but Ribsy looked like she was still having a blast! Wheeeee! My only suggestion is to do the blind cross sooner, start it as soon as she leaves the cookie and takes one step towards you. She is reading them really nicely!!!! And it was VERY smart to use a cone and long line to help with the mechanics!!
>> Thank you and you should expect 4 more video’s on this one thanks in advance.>>
Perfect! It was fun to watch, I am looking forward to more 🙂
TracyHi!
>>
When he was backing up at an angle, do you think this was to avoid the mat? Or just puppy body?>>I think it was option C: He was trying to look up at you, which was causing him to go a bit sideways and not think about his hind end. Note how after he was getting his treat from under you, his first order of business was to try to lift his head. I *think* he was watching your cookie hand and preparing to receive it in his mouth LOL! So, two things to help:
– no cookies from your hand 🙂 Toss them low and back, aiming for between his front feet so he looks down to get them.
– I don’t know if the mat was salient enough – so you can raise it up a little, either put it on another mat so it is doubly think or maybe put it on a piece of wood? That is something we will definitely be adding to backing up (a salient “destination”) . How tall is the Cato Board? If it is really low, you can even use that!
Nice job, let me know if that makes sense!
TracyHi! I agree, he is a total righty in this game 🙂 When you asked him to turn left he was all like, “um,No thanks.” Ha! With either side, you can have a lower hand so his head is in a natural position looking forward to lead him through the turn – when your hand was a little high, he was looking up and that changes his balance. That could also account for why there is no visible side preference on the flat but there was one on the planks (easier to balance on the flat :)) You can also ‘warm up’ the left turns on the flat then ask for one on the planks – then back to the flat. That builds the value and understanding of the left turns in an easier setting. Side preferences at this age are good to see, because then we have a good plan to balance things out.
On the teeter banging – I think he was a tiny bit sensitive to the noise on this one. He was in a rush to get off it when it banged and then was not as enthused about getting back on it. So you can go with that: when he bangs it especially loudly, you can toss a treat for him to then be able to get off the board immediately That helps create a nice little triple whammy of positive reinforcement (treat), positive conditioned emotional response (pairing treats with the noise & movement) and also a bit of negative reinforcement (being able to move away from the loudness). You can also put a blanket under it to dampen it: it is pretty normal for pups to go through cycles of not liking the noise, so we can head that off by dampening and tossing treats away from the board.
Nice work here!
Tracy
