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Hi! I am glad you are already playing a ton of these games with him – the process is all about variety of exposure, then revisiting it all frequently til he is full grown. Each time he grows, his feet are in a different place, so we kind of have to let him sort things out again.
He did great here! The next step on the suitcase would be to get a bigger one and teach the trick of packing himself: open it with his nose, get in, close it. It is FREAKING ADORABLE and also a really fun chain of tricks haha!!And yes, you saw that I added more goat tricks – that will be easy with variety and movement if he is confident, so you can start adding in the noise element. And did you look at “Plankrobatics”? That is a dog walk/teeter foundation where he is going to learn to really think about where his feet are and how to balance 🙂 It is how my dogs learn to go fast across the dog walk without falling off 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi again! The send to the toy is looking really good, and it helped get her comfy in the basement! Yay! You can probably let her go a little sooner – when you held a little too long, she would look back at your face or hands. So, let her go about a second after the toy lands like you did at 1:15 nd at 1:38 on the last rep 🙂
I love how she was driving ahead with speed and focus – perfect!!!!
When you are resetting between reps, you can start from wherever you were when you were tugging with her. She didn’t seem to love being moved around by the collar too much yet, so taking the collar and resetting in that spot will help her offer the collar to you, which will allow you to move her by it later on.
Head over to the course syllabus page – there is more to this game that I posted today (Toy Races) – she is totally ready for it! Great job!
TracyHi!
I agree, she needed a moment to explore the basement before being able to focus on the bag send. You can bring her down there and just play with some toys so she gets comfy being there to train and not play with the other dogs 🙂 And when sending to the prop, the toys and treats will help her focus so you can reward the sends too! (And so she doesn’t think the bag is a toy LOL!! It is really just a foot target) When you do the sending, use the arm next to her line you were, that looked good! You can also step forward with your leg (like you would be sending to a jump on course) That will help her get a lot of support so we can add more and more distance. She did really well sending to the bag – it got a little too far away towards the end, so maybe stick to distances of 2 or 3 feet for a couple of sessions, and reward with a tossed cookie on the bag when she goes to it.Great job!
TracyHi!
The spoon lick to kibble is going well! His mouth looked MUCH softer here! Yay!!The toy play is also looking good! I have some toy play ideas posted in this week’s games package , you should see it in the Course Syllabus section for some ideas on continuing to strengthen tugging 🙂
>>I think Hamilton is a cue to work for him
I was wondering if he was thinking it was a cue LOL!!!
I love it when dogs chain things that we don’t even realize we chained LOL!! Oops and yay, all at once haha!! Good boy.
The drive to handler looked great! It was very smooth when he was driving to your right side, and you were able to get lovely turns and even add speed to them. On the left side, try not to step forward as he is approaching before turning, that was causing him to go straighter than needed. He looked really nicely bendy on these!
Wrapping – you can bend to drop the cookies so they don’t go flying around 🙂 We will be eliminating the bowls and cookies soon enough 🙂
I think the upright might be a little too far away, he had a few too many times moving between you and the upright or thinking about it 🙂 So for now, bring it in a few inches so it just past the end of your toes 🙂 There is more to this game being added today too!Prop – NICE with the MM added, I really liked this session!! I think you sends were nice and clear. Don’t let him self-send LOL! Dogs are so clever about figuring out the puzzle with the MM and then want to do it without us haha!! So, after each MM click, you can have him come to you for engagement or a cookie or spoon lick, then do the next send. We don’t want him to do a lot of fast reps on this skill, we want him to wait to be cued to send (I know, we are asking him to be patience, and puppies do NOT lick patience 😂)
When you were sending backwards, he was not sure if it was a hand touch or a send. You were getting a little of both. So, two things to try – be a little closer to it so the prop I more obvious. And cue it with a closed fist and pointing finger so it doesn’t look like a hand touch hand cue (open hand). You started doing that at 3:37 and I think it really helped him!Great job! Head over to the Course Syllabus and you can see the new stuff (email about it coming soon to :))
TracyGood morning! This must have come in right after I watched the other videos, sorry to not see it til now!
Great job with Ribsy here! Using the food you have progressed nicely to having the upright a good distance away! You did a great job if presenting the cookie when she made the choice to go around the upright, which was great early timing to affirm that choice. Because she is doing well, you can start to change your position to work up to sitting in a chair then eventually standing up, still dropping the cookies downwards like you did here.
She was VERY excited to do this for her toys!!! Yay! This might have been one of her first sessions with the toys and upright, so on the next session start like you did here with getting the rhythm of the back and forth – then delay wiggling the other toy and see if she finds the rhythm to it like she did with the food. The toys bring more arousal, which is good, so this layers in a way to help her be thoughtful in her decisions even when she is super excited 🙂
Great job here, you and Ribsy look terrific together 🙂
TracyHi again! This was an interesting session! She appeared to be just fine with the prop on the first couple, then she decided she didn’t like it when you switched sides – I didn’t see anything that changed other than I think she prefers to NOT leave you 🙂 And when the cookies were coming from you, she didn’t want to leave for the prop. You recognized that and switched to feeding her on the prop itself, and that helped! Very very smart dog training moment to recognize that it would be better to plop the treat on the prop. She was still not as fast going to it as she was coming back to you (loves da momma!!!!!!!). So another idea is to toss the reward past the prop when she hits it – she hits it, you click and throw it to the other side of the prop – she runs to grab it, then on the way back, she hit it again (hopefully LOL!) and then you can click and toss it again away from you, so she is running back and forth over it to get the treats.
I think she was also trying to figure out how to set up her turns – hit the prop and turn towards you. Smart!!! It will e interesting to see how she decides to fo it 🙂 And yes, you can totally keep this prop and work it, and try some of the goat games to shape her to get on all sorts of different crazy things.
Great job!! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi there! This is looking great!!! On the drive to handler sections: on your first couple of reps, you were a little too early and quick on your turns. But then when you came back to it at :16, you waited for her to get to your hand and then you started the turning – perfect! You could see she was much more on your leg for the turn (when you were too early and fast, she wasn’t as sure of where to be). After a couple of sessions, I think she will know the game well enough to let you turn earlier and faster. Great job getting your hand low for her to come to!
And also great job balancing that game with reps of driving to the toy and treats mixed in there. That was brilliant! She was showing what appeared to be equal value for the toys and for the food – that is unusual with puppies but it is GREAT! Her focus forward and drive to whatever you tossed out there was great. That last toy was crazier – what was it? Also, loved your singing to her, I am glad I am not the only one who sings to the puppy during training LOL!!
Next time on the drive ahead, I think she is ready for more of your motion moving forward as you release her to the toy or treat. You can also throw it further, so she can drive ahead even more. Great job on these!!
TracyHi! He is doing well with this! Good boy, touching the spoon wherever it was!! nice! I think he was having trouble with the saliency when it was on low your leg – too much to see/smell so he had a moment of trouble picking put the spoon. You can split that by having it elevated by an inch or two above your leg, then gradually get it lower and lower. For what the future holds for this particular game – do a session with you standing and the spoon extended a little away from your side, at approximately his nose level. This should be SUPER easy after the spoon being in all those different places, but it will prime the pump for where we are going next. It is a low priority after that – we don’t need it til week 3 and it is looking really good.
Nice work!
TracyHi! I think it was perfectly fine to bring the toys to life on this session (and absolutely adorable to watch him too :)) It was more a session of ‘can you leave the fur toy to go to the over’ and the cone wrapping was incidental (which is also fine, because that part was easy 🙂 Separately, you can work the two high value toys without the cone: just have one go dead and wait and see what he does… the throw a GIANT party with the other one if he even looks away from it. I am confident he will be able to do it within a session or two, this was looking really good!!! With food, where I think he will offering going to the other side, you can try moving the cone a little further away to add some more challenge too.
Great job!
TracyHi! Totally happy with how these are coming too! And I think he *really* likes the prop sends, they must appear to be very much like ‘real work’ for him LOL!
He is doing well with the wrapping!! The bowls being a bit further back were not a problem for him at all (yay!) and they helped create more of a bend/wrap (double yay!) I think the upright got a little too far for a while early in the video, I liked that you pulled it back in at :56 – he had a lot more success when it was a little closer. You can keep it there (relatively close) and see how it goes with you standing! I think he is a righty, he was more fluid going to his right and not as comfy going to his left – that is good to keep in mind as we move the upright out away from you over the next few sessions – you can move it further when he is turning to his right and then bring it in when he has to go to his left, to build value equally and get success on both sides. We normally see a side preference at this stage of this game – Contraband is a strong lefty and Elektra is a lefty but not as much so. I thin he got a little mentally tired towards the end? Nothing really got harder but he was not as successful, so you can keep the sessions shorter – it is easy for us humans but the pups are actually doing a lot of work 🙂
Prop send looks great, he looks like he really loves it!!! And being able to send from 5 or 6 feet away is awesome!!! On those forward sends – you can add in a front cross: send him on your left, for example, then as he hits it, turn away and reward from your right (by throwing the cookie straight out ahead of you) or rewarding with a toy.
On the backwards sends – these are harder! He was thought it was a hand touch for a moment there! It was hard to see where you were looking, so we can use connection to help send him behind you to show him the beginnings of countermotion: start with the ready dance with him from front of you and you looking at his eyes. Then when you do the arm and leg step back to sen him, also shift your connection and look from his eyes back to the prop (he will see you turn your head) and that often helps with commitment. You might have been doing this, I couldn’t see your head on the video 🙂Lovely work!!! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi there! She is doing really well!!!!
Pillow game – looks like she is building value! And it also looks like she is trying to figure out how to touch it AND look at you LOL!! So you can help her look down at it by dropping the reward on it sooner, as she is on her way to it even before she hits it. That can encourage her to look down more and at you less for this 🙂
Toy drive ahead – yay! This is good! Nice job tossing and releasing while she was looking at the toy. Bearing in mind that she is a pointer, it might take a few session to override the instinct of pointing and then you will see more and more speed develop (kind of like how Border Collies need to learn to NOT flank). I mean, Pointers do not naturally run fast directly at what they are hunting, right? So she is looking directly at it and moving straight to it – she will continue to get faster and faster (this is an EASY game for terriers because they naturally drive straight and fast at things LOL!)
Drive to handler: Also looking lovely!!! She had a good stay going on these, so be sure to reward these a lot (we like stays) and if she does a couple of good ones… don’t ask for more (she is so young, after all) and switch to throwing a cookie back to get her away from you to start. That way there is no arguing about stays – only a couple of happy stays and the rest of the reps are done by sending her away to a cookie so you can get the head start.
Her drive to you looked fabulous and the turn looked GREAT! Very bendy, ad you had great hand position to really support her turns. Yay! And the double at the end looked great too.Great job here!!! Let me know what you think!
Tracyhi Joni! This was great! She does indeed have a strong nose touch – and after about the :30 second mark on the video, you lowered your hand so she could come in straight and not reach up for it: PERFECT!!! You won’t need the touch verbal for this one (it turns into a different ‘move’ in week 3 LOL!) and you were perfectly quiet – that allowed her to really focus on the nose target and she was nailing it. The credit card thingie is a perfect target for her here. And I agree – the cut up Swiss cheese was a GREAT choice because it was really obvious and also delicious 😁 Swiss is sticky so it is hard to throw, I recommend Cheddar LOL!!! You can also break off and play tug after every 3 or 4 cookies – that will keep her arousal higher so she is less likely to want to sniff for any missed treats.
This behavior looks strong for what we will use it for, so you can put it away til Week 3 and work on the other stuff from last week and the new stuff that is coming tomorrow.
Great job!!
TracyHi there! No worries about the video length, my video lengths are suggestions so no one puts up a 30 minute video LOL!!! this was about 3 minutes of basically a full session and it was perfect 🙂 No facepalms needed!
>it mostly just shows the driving forward game, but I wanted you to see it because I’m working a lot with Peeka’s desire to play with me, and I was pretty psyched about her playing this morning! >>
I think the driving forward element of this game looked GREAT which also speaks volumes for the increase in toy drive: she will only drive forward if she LIKES what she is driving to, and she sure did here! Yay! My only suggestion on that element of the game is to let her go sooner – when the toy hits the ground, if she is looking at it (and she will be) – let go immediately.
>>Disclaimer: I only did this session because she was being insane and driving me nuts, so she was primed for good playing.>>
HA! I feel that LOL!
>>In our online zoom class, we worked the whole time for food, and we just worked for food at a recent seminar (where she wanted to play with my shoe on the side at the end but wasn’t really into her toys as things to work for).>>
OK then, that is great for now! And this week we can work on getting the toy play and food play going in a back-and-forth between the two sense. We don’t have a live class this week but I will be posted games and we can isolate that. 3 thoughts to mull over tonight before I post the games in tomorrow’s package:
1 – what NON toy items does she like? Will she play with a slipper? Cardboard from a roll of paper towels? Feather duster? What makes her cuckoo? We can use any of these as toys when there is also food involved. My Border Staffy, at Peeka’s age, LOVED little hand brooms so I went back and forth between cookies and sweeping the floor with a hand broom for her to tug on. The Papillons liked cat toys a whole lot. We can do some fun stuff with non-traditional toys 🙂
2 – food is high value, so any toy play for now should be done away from any pool of scent of treats. You can offer a boring kibble in one room of the house… then run run run down the hall to a different room to play tug. It is both stimulating and removes the distraction of the food possibility.
3 – you can totally use the Outback Steakhouse motto of “no rules, just right” for her toy play for now. When the play becomes really where you want it in terms of active engagement whenever you ask for it… then we slice in some rules 🙂 But for now – let her be sassy naughty pants on the toy, do everything ‘wrong’ in your training in terms of letting her pull it out of your hands, letting her run around with it, etc – I have a video to show you all on all the “wrong” things to do to build toy drive LOL! It is easy to install tug rules on top of that 🙂>When she is into playing, her inclination when she wins the toy is to go lie down with it and chew.>>
You can attach the toy that she wins to a really long line or a long toy, so she can feel the joys of victory… then if she tries to lie down and chew it, you start wiggling it around – this serves a dual purpose of re-engaging her AND giving her a response cost for trying to chew it (the toy will move away) which will lead her to stop wanting to chew it. Victory laps with the toy are fine for now, though 🙂
>> So we’ve been playing the two toy game, and she’s definitely gotten better about being able to trade toys.
yes! I can see that in the video, yay!!! She was so funny – I don’t think she remembered she still had a toy in her mouth when you were trying to engage her with the other one 🙂 Be sure to keep the toys super active and enticing, I don’t think she is ready to bring you the toy when asked all the time, so for now, don’t ask, just entice 🙂
>>Another thing we’ve been doing (and I’m not sure this is a good idea because I’m worried about getting her too into feet?) is, since she does often like to chew on/chase feet, I’ve been trying to incorporate that a little into play (but my rule, which she doesn’t get yet, is that the feet are only interesting if you have a toy in your mouth). My goal is for her to want to play WITH me with a toy she has and then I’ll offer her the toy I have (which today was a much more valuable toy apparently).>>
My Export used to play with feet on cue, I have a great photo of it somewhere – but there are rules – the human must be wearing shoes and it is only on cue 🙂 So maybe start with a shoe or a slipper attached to a leash? Of course it is a slippery slope to use shoes, but I have never had a problem starting with shoes then fading them out and adding rules later on 🙂
The only other thing to mention on the video is if she has something startle her (like her sister barking :)) – perfect opportunity! It get the toy really exciting when that happens, so the startle moment equals toy party dance time! Throw the toy around, let her chase it, etc – and keep throwing it around and partying with her until she is back on it (you can move her away from the distraction if needed by having her chase you :))
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyAwww so fun to see this! It has been so amazing to see her progression from puppy in MaxPup to full-fledged kick-ass agility BEAST! I love it!!!! Onwards to a better 2021!!!
Goooood morning! What a great video to see first thing!! She picked up the rhythm very quickly and has no trouble applying it to the upright. I didn’t see any side preference, she looked balanced going left and right (that’s unusual in a good way!)
Since this went so nicely, do maybe one more short session to solidify it then we move on: with the upright close to you, start changing your position by sitting in a low chair or on something (I sit on one of those balance donut things). You can also kneel if it is comfy, but my knees say hell no to that 🙂 then after 2 sessions, if she is successful like she was here – move to standing 🙂 the upright is close to you during these because we only want to change one element at a time.
Separately, with you still sitting, you can push the upright further away to add a little more challenge there.
The back and forth between food and toys is a pretty normal thing that it will be harder to get one over the other. For dogs that are in food mode,leaving the pool of scent seems to help. Plus, teething! Soft, very flat, furry toys that she can win without having to pull too hard will help too.
Great job 🙂 let me know what you think!
Tracy
