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Hi there! Maple did really well here! And your editing was fine 🙂
Yes, I agree that she got rewarded more on the hand touch the thingy part 🙂 I like that thingy! You can get even more value for it by placing the treat right on it after she hits it (you can turn your hand so your palm is up for that) but overall, she did great and just keep building value for it until we add it into the game.
On the pillow – you can get more reward to her in two ways: she did investigate it a lot with her nose, so you can totally reward that at first! Then when it has more value, you can wait for a foot touch. Also, I think she was watching your hands because your hands were delivering the treat to her mouth and then tossing it – so change the placement of reward to put the treat on the pillow, so she will watch the pillow more – which in turn should get more interest in interacting with the pillow. Let me know if that makes sense! Great job!
TracyHi! Sorry, I almost missed this! I loved his little high five at the end 🙂
This went really well! The recall work you’ve been doing is really shining through 🙂 Yay! He is powering to you so nicely! Because he has so much power, I want to emphasize your deceleration more so he uses his rear more to stop next to you (right now he is using his shoulders). So toss the treat like you did, run away like you did, call him… as soon as he turns and starts moving – you stand still. Let him drive to you without you moving, and then when he gets to your hand, do the turn and reward. Don’t worry if he is not as fast at first when you are stationary, because he has to sort out all of that momentum LOL!! And of course you can mix in lots of full on running recalls too. You were stopping just as he got to you, so he didn’t really have time to think about shifting into his rear (and young pups need a lot of time to find their rear haha!!!)
He was great about assessing the new thing in the environment, kinda shrugged his shoulders, then got back in the game. Such a perfect response! I love that 🙂 I like that you let him have a moment to look. You can wait longer to call him in that moment, because when he is assessing, he is not likely to respond so it is better to wait til he re-engages. I am glad that he was interested but not worried at all. Such a confident little dude 🙂Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHo! Another very lovely session here too! Great job with your reward placement: low enough that she didn’t have to lift her head up too much (sorry about your back :)) but also right at your knee and a little curled in, to help her bend. Click treat for you! It looks like she was pretty perfect, no flanking or butt swinging out, and happy to curl around your leg on the bend. Super smooth transitions to turn her, reward, then throw the next cookie the direction she was facing. Another click/treat for you! LOL!!!
My only suggestion to add to this session is a more distinct get it cue for the cookie. You were generally using get it, but it was in the middle of praise sentences – so you can be more clear with the distinct get it cue before the cookie throw (this will serve you well in future training).
Since she did so well here, you can add 2 things:
– more distance on your cookie through, so she drives faster to you and therefore has to decelerate more
– more excitement by tugging before the cookie throw, rewarding with a cookie for turning with you, then tugging again. Excitement is often the killer of collection so we add it pretty early LOL!Great job here!
TracyHi! She is so cute and small!! Love her! She did really well here, no need to back up to earlier steps. Her focus ahead to toy and drive to it was perfect! On your transitions from the tug to the toy toss, I liked the 2nd and 3rd transitions where you tugged her into the line up position and then gently took her harness and tossed the toy (versus the first rep where you moved her into position by the harness after taking her toy, that is less fun and less smooth for the pup).
You can sometimes ask for the retrieve, but you can also go play with her when she gets to the toy – that is really engaging! And, it works nicely into the next step: add your motion. Do everything the same but now add walking forward after you release her. And if she finds that to be easy, you can gradually add more and more motion til you are running (might take a couple of sessions, because she is so little :))
Great job!!
TracyHi! Yes, that is fine (running with the treat). You did that a few times especially at the end and he really liked it, plus he really likes when you talk to him and praise during that. The other option is to use a toy so he can drive back and tug, which also raises value for driving to you when you are not running.
T
Good morning!
Yes, it is correct – all recordings posted. If you go to the Course Syllabus section on the main class page and click on the Week 1 games package, you will see it under the “Recording Of December 1 LIVE Class” (just below Blind Cross Foundation Fun). I can see it there, but let me know if you do not see it because it sometimes shows up differently for me.The Course Syllabus page is here:
To save you the trip over there, here is the recording. You should be able to just click on it, but some devices/service might require you to log in to Zoom (this is free to do). Let me know if you have any trouble with the recording.
Ah, that is so cool!!! They are such great puppies 🙂 This is the litter with Laurie’s Kya as the dad?
Good morning! He was very serious about finding his treats in the grass, good boy (that is good because we LOVE when BCs also like food, not just toys!) You can lay a towel on the ground and toss the treat onto it, so it is easier to find and that way he can make a quicker return (although he was just dandy with it here :))
His drive to you is perfect (love da momma) and he is decelerating really well also. I think his front end is stopping sooner than his hind end LOL so you can see a little bit of butt swing as he arrives at you, so your hand/reward placement is ending up about a foot away from you leg. You can encourage him to weight shift sooner by showing the cookie reward when you did (nice and early!) but slowing down sooner (you were in motion until he just about reached you. It might take a bit of experimenting to find the sweet spot for slowing down but for now keep moving until he turns and starts to drive to you – then slow and stop, so you are stopped and showing the cookie hand while he is still 5 or 6 feet from you. That should give a nice early deceleration cue.
The other thing you can do is keep your hand touching your leg as you deliver the cookie, right at your knee cap (bend over for now if you need to :)) that will help draw him in closer.
He is already looking like a powerhouse, so the earlier we help him shift into his rear, the easier it will be to get collection with all the speed he will be bringing to the game 🙂 FUN!!!!!!
Let me know if that makes sense! Great job!
TracyGood morning!
What a good boy, waiting for da momma at the beginning!
He is showing really nice value for his target! He is also lining up as a send and turn back, setting up a bit of collection, which is what we want in this game. Nice! Also, he is correctly turning towards you after each hit, which is also desirable. – it builds understanding of how to turn both directions, not just the stronger direction.
He was not always sure of when he was supposed to start the drive to the prop, so was sometimes a little slower to leave you and also watched you rather than looked at the prop. That was because of the transition – you were moving towards it a bit but the actual send cue of the big arm/leg motion was not as salient relative to that. So, one tweak to make it very clear as to when he should start: add the ready dance (plus it is goofy and goofy is ALWAYS good haha)
Start with him in front of you looking at you. Yours hands are both in front of you in what I call “squirrel” position (or t-Rex, depending on your mood haha) – dance back and forth without moving your feet, and say something like ready ready ready to him (he is welcome to dance back and forth with you). After a couple of back and forth wiggles, shift your cue into the big arm/leg indication of the prop (and if you are doing the sideways or backwards steps, your connection can shift from his eyes to the prop as well). That should give a very clear “NOW” moment to him, so he can drive to the prop on the send cue. This will really help as we add in more sideways and backwards sends, plus more motion in the future. Let me know if that makes sense!
Great job!
TracyWhoa! I love that she is a MAS!! I assumed BC, based on your other dogs. Oopsie!! She is SO COOL!
And you were not that slow getting your treats out, it is more that she is already super quick 🙂
T>>Ted pops on his perch. I use my marker word and hold out the kong and Ted’s all like “yo…what’s that? I want the good piece of kibble!” and runs around the room looking for a piece of kibble!!! So we trained licking the kong to get a piece of kibble 🙂 🙂 I know the dog determines the reinforcer….but come on Ted LOL>>
Bwahahahahahaha you have just witnessed the magic of classical conditioning hahahaha. The marker word is conditioned to specific style of reinforcement as well specific type. And the running around the room looking for the kibble is an example of the power of good old Pavlov (or “effing Pavlov” as I also call him haha)
Another example: before UKI allowed us to bring toys in the ring for ‘regular’ runs, my experienced trial dogs would get rewarded with a tug on the leash then cookies outside the ring. So the end of the run was paired with cheese outside the ring (location, style, type of reinforcement). So then when UKI said “you can have your toy with your leash at the end of a real run”, I thought COOL! what a great way to reward because my dogs LOVES toys!
Yeah, well, Pavlov: my super toy-driven dogs could not interact with the toy at the end, they could only eat the cheese. In the grand scheme of things, the cheese is a lower value reinforcement as compared to toys… but in that conditioned moment, it was cheese, it had to be cheese, could be nothing other than cheese. Effing Pavlov LOL!!!!
Hi Kelly, welcome to you and Storm!!! He is lovely 🙂 Where is he from? I also find my boys to be different than my girls:
Boys: I love you I love you I love you let’s do something goofy and oh by the way I love you
Girls: Hey human, get your act together! Let’s get it done!Ha!!
On the video: His focus forward to the toy and drive to it looked pretty perfect – you held him a couple of extra seconds and he held his focus and drive ahead brilliantly! Nice!! I chuckled when he offered a sit as well. Good boy 🙂
His toy play looks fabulous and he looks ready for the next steps:
Throw the toy a bit further and then when you let go, start to walk so you can introduce your motion (in a casual way :)) If that goes well, you can add more and more motion building up to running! You might need to be outdoors for that because he looks like he is gonna be FAST LOL!!!! If he starts to go wide or slow down when you add motion, dial it back so that he remains as fast and confident as he was here.Great job!!! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning! Love the profile photo, you have such an awesome crew of critters!
>> We are working on our toy skills and have been a lot for the past couple months – she has a really great retrieve and she will drop the toy and I mark and reward that often, but have not yet put the drop on a cue so we are using two toys here since she is used to that framework.>>
Sounds good to me, I prefer to NOT put the drop on cue too early as it could actually diminish the toy play. And using two toys is awesome!
>>What we have NOT worked on is any sort of restraint yet, as is pretty obvious here! She doesn’t have a collar on today, and I prefer to restrain my dogs lightly on their chests anyway as I don’t train with collars on in agility, so we are trying that. She seemed to settle in a bit once I’d done it a few times.>>
Definitely keep playing the offered collar game, that is a great one for all dogs. I also slide in some pairing games with the various restraints (chest, collar, harness, and under the belly because harness and belly are useful for flyball) – it is full on classical conditioning where I touch the thing (chest/neck/belly/harness/etc) and immediately start some crazy ass game like cookie chasing or toy tugging or throwing toys. Just a one-finger touch, no restraint at all, will start it then over time it gets built to full on restraint – but paired with magical moments so the reach towards the pup for a restraint evokes a really positive conditioned response. I admit to not shaping collar grabs with my 2 youngest dogs because I have been pandemic-lazy but this constant pairing has given me the same result of them moving into me to offer being touched/grabbed/held.
>>I noticed that she did respond to my pressure/touch by backing up and even going behind me, so not sure if the collar would help with that (we are working on offering the collar for grabs as a separate skill, also).>>
That might just be lack of experience wuth restraint being added in
On the video, she was a tugging beast! So fun!
She definitely appeared to be all like “what the WHAT” on the restraint element, so I suggest we separate the restraint and the driving ahead so both can be built joyously then out back together.
For the driving ahead – she has such lovely toy drive that she is not going to have a problem smoking you on this game 🙂 We can work on getting her to go straight and not curve a little out or go behind you.
The going behind you was the weight shift from the restraint where she leaned away from it and going behind you was the fastest route (clever LOL!) plus the drive to the toy (holy bananas she is FAST) – you can drop the toy more in front of her and closer so she can drive to it straigher. The further it was. the more she was plotting to go around you before you even let her go LOL!>>I noticed that she did respond to my pressure/touch by backing up and even going behind me, so not sure if the collar would help with that (we are working on offering the collar for grabs as a separate skill, also).>>
Looking at the restraint separately, I don’t think the collar would have produced different behaviors, she is just new to this restraint element. By the end, though, she was figuring it out completely because she sorted out the idea of the game: restraint then go to the toy. Easy! You can do 2 things to help that out even more:
She seems to have a really good nose touch, it looks like you asked her for one in the early part of the video – you can for now replace the restraint with the nose touch: nose touch, toy goes down, then drive to the toy. It will get her close to you to start it without going behind you. And then, with the gentle restraint to her chest that you worked up at at 1:52, take out your running for a bit – when you have your hand there and you throw the toy, just lift your hand to let her get it rather than running – when you run, there is a tiny bit of incidental opposition reflex/push back because you are weight shifting forward and your hand pushes back to allow you to do so.
She will not be sad that you are not running LOL! And that way she can get the quick pairing of hand-on-chest = toy. Then I bet by the 2nd session, she will be game on for adding a little more pressure on the restraint – she was already feeling more comfy here in under 2 minutes!Great job! Let me know what you think. And you are correct – you are unlikely to be able to out run her to the toy and that makes me a do a happy dance! I love her speed and athleticism, plus she is also brilliant. Fun time ahead!!
Tracy
Hi Joni! Welcome! Ruby is just lovely 🙂 And sassy! What a cute smart little girl!!!!
On your first video:
Good tugging to start! And yes, then she was like “why are you throwing boots at me mom?” LOL!! But also yes – good recovery and she got right to offering on the boot.You can have your cookies ready in your hand to be able to get them in low, right on the boot, within a second of each click. That will help you get the rhythm going as well. The mechanics of being ready are probably the hardest part (you will feel like you need another arm or two):
I dig out my cookies during the tugging so as the prop goes down, the cookies are ready. You were rewarding at her mouth, but I think for this skill you can shift for the next session and reward by putting the cookie down on the boot (to get her looking at the boot more and up at you less.I also like her back and forth to the toy – nice balance with food and toy drive!
One thing I see she is doing is circling to her left – either around you or around the boot. She might be doing it because that is what she does when she is thinking (pretty common behavior in Border Collies LOL!) or you might have already been shaping a circling behavior (like circling a cone). Either way, we can use this prop set up to teach her to offer without circling because we will only want the circling on cue and also not only to the left LOL!! So you can break it down to get some rapid-fire rewards in – hold the boot in your hand and do some quick treats for her nose touching it, then lower it to the floor, very quick treats for interaction even if it is not with a foot at first.
You can also change the training set up for a bit to where you are sitting in a chair, up against a wall, and the boot is up on something a little elevated – so circling around you won’t get rewards and she will quickly figure out how to step up onto the boot and not go around it. Let me know if that makes sense, I might need more coffee haha!Pre-game video 2 – I really like how you set this session up: the prop is very obvious , you were nice and low, lots of fast clicks and treats!! And then you started to vary your position from sitting to kneeling to standing while maintaining the high rate of success. Click/treat for you!! Brilliant! She was a rockstar and you can see how quickly the behavior was coming, plus she was not circling. Yessssss!!! My only suggestion is to have a couple of treats already in your hand. You were clicking then going into your pocket to get the treat out then rewarding. One thing I notice about Ruby already is that she is *quick* so having a couple of cookies in your hand will help you be as quick as she is – click then instant cookie toss, so you can really isolate the behavior and reward without her waiting or offering more behavior LOL! Plus it is a GREAT way to introduce a bit of distraction, because she will learn to ignore the cookies in your hand in order to earn those cookies 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think! I am looking forward to seeing more from you and Ruby 🙂
Tracy
