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Hi again!
Oh good baby here!! Such a good girlie!! Going back to seeing if she will turn equally both directions – she has the rhythm of the game now, so it looks like she was turning equally to her left and right based on which side of you she was on. Yay!!She did really nicely both driving to you and turning SUPER tight on your leg. No flanking out, no butt swinging wide (she was decelerating with tons of balance, so awesome for a baby dog!!), no jumping up. Perfect girlie! For now, because she is so little, bend down more to cue the position and turn and deliver the treat (sorry about your back, don’t do too many reps LOL!). For now, put the treat right below your knee cap and when she arrives and you turn, put it right in front of your knee cap so her head wraps around your leg a tiny bit to encourage the body bending.
She seems to really like food right now (perfect) so getting her right back on the toy was probably the hardest part of the session. I am thrilled to see her food drive, that is NOT something we see with a lot of baby BCs! So you can move the toy play away from the food area by running to a different spot and also lengthening the tug toy so you can swing it around for lots of chasing.
Great job!
TracyGood morning! Scrimmage is such a gorgeous baby dog!!!
She totally cracked me up on this session – on the first rep, she realized it was a ‘get that cookie, come get this cookie’ game and the look on her face after cookie #2 at :08 was so funny (“should I at least be sitting for this??” LOL!!) And it is nice to see a BC that really likes food! Yay!
She did really well grabbing the treat and coming to you on this one – my only suggestion is to reward lower, so her head is straight (she doesn’t have to reach up) and her head is even a little turned into you. I’d say the best placement will be close to your leg like you had it, but just below your knee cap (bending over is fine to do it 🙂 )
In future sessions, we will also keep an eye on which way she turns after getting the cookie, to see if she has a side preference (like always turning to the left, for example) or if she will turn both ways. It was hard to tell on this session because she was just getting the rhythm of cookie-then-momma. Ideally she turns into your line, towards you, and not away. I will see if she is doing that on the next video 🙂
Great job here!!!Tracy
I *might* need more coffee to answer this properly, but let me know:
“”If in throwing the treat, I’m “sending” with right hand and right leg, should I be starting my run away as if this were a post turn (starting with connection still on right, then blinding to pick him up left) or as if there were a FC (crossing immediately to connection on left then blinding to pick him up on right)? “”
Either! Both! LOL! You can start by tossing/sending with your right then doing a FC and running away looking over your left then do a BC to get him on your right side (and yes, I am spinning my chair now to make sure I am doing this correctly haha)
Or, send/toss with your right, post turn, run away looking over your right then do a BC to get him on your left.
>>
Ultimately, he needs to see both, but are you wanting us to focus on one vs. the other right now? >>I think in general , I do it as the FC option because it gets my sorry butt up the line faster 🙂 But either & both are fine 🙂
>>I think I did a mix of these in our session, because to be honest, I hadn’t planned the piece in my head sufficiently when we started.
I didn’t emphasize those mechanics of escaping up the line because they are not as important as the BC mechanics – and with any young pup, I find that no matter how many pups we have raised, the mechanics are always wonky and awkward with the new pup LOL!!!!
Let me know if that makes sense 🙂
TI kinda figured that this would be perfect timing for your teenage puppy holder. It is also a great stealthy self-control game, because he will need to leave her to chase you and I am sure he loves her. Have fun!
Good morning to you and the baby goat!!! Goat games look great here and I am glad you have also been working on them already. Yay!
He was really wonderful with getting his front feet up on the perch thing! Looks like you have also been shaping some hind end awareness because he was offering some back feet moving too, yay!!! His confidence was lovely 🙂 You can use a bigger perch if you want him to get all 4 feet on (or 2 of these stools pushed together) – that would be a next step (getting him to get all 4 feet on something).
I think the hardest part of this session was getting him to NOT get on the thing when you wanted to play tug LOL!!! It is actually an important skill for future sports stars: play with this thing and do a thing here, even though something REALLY EXCITING is right there LOL! For example: Stop on the bottom of your dog walk even though there is a tunnel right there. Or, do the turn that I am cuing even though you see the delicious a-frame out ahead. And so on LOL!!!
So since Disco *does* like toys, we can help get more toy play and less leaving the toy to go do the cookie fiesta on the perch. There are a couple of ways to do it:
– you can scoop up the perch, stick it under your arm (or up on something like a table) and then play tug.
– you can move further away from the perch (not always possible lol) and swing the toy around, even tie it to a leash or another toy so it is crazy exciting to chase.Then, when Disco grabs the toy toy and tugs on it, after a couple of seconds, you can reward that by plopping the perch back down for more clicks & cookies on it, or you can run back over to the perch to re-start the game. That keeps the goat game really fun while also rewarding the tugging that happens between rounds of it.
When I was starting these shaping games with my food-loving dogs, I would have the perch in one room of the house and then run down a hall to tug, then run back to the room for perching LOL! When the pups got the rhyhthm of it, I could tug right next to the thing.
Let me know if that makes sense! Great job here 🙂
TracyDriving ahead looks awesome! I love how he immediately got focused on the line as you took his collar and tossed the toy. He got very serious about it LOL! Nice!! He smoked da momma, which is *exactly* what we want. Wheee!
He appears to have zero difficulty with the pressure and excitement of your running, he remains straight on task. GOOD BOY!!! Sometimes puppies flank out or jump up or cut behind or back off because they are not comfortable with it… nope, Mr. WM is all sorts of game on! Super!
Ok so now we tweak the game a tiny bit : it starts the same wy with you holding his collar and throwing the toy, but we are now going to try to get you ahead so that he has to pass you rather than be ahead the whole time. You can do this by gentle opposition reflex on the collar, throw the toy… but then instead of just letting him go, you are going to gently push him back and run, so you have a head start on him (very much like the playground cheating we did as little kids, did you ever do that? I totally did hahahaha). The push back is gentle, we don’t want him to lose his balance, but we do want to see what he does if you give yourself a step or two head start. The other option is to enlist a family member as puppy holder – everything is the same, except they hold the pup and you start to run when the toy lands – after 2 steps they let go of the pup. The goal is to get him to feel the joy of accelerating past you 🙂
Let me know if that makes sense! Great job here!!Tracy
Good morning!
Awww good baby doing blind crosses! The element of commitment that starts it (go do a thing, I am running the other way) looked GREAT – I know the “thing” you sent him to do was to go get a treat of fthe mat, but it is actually a really helpful baby dog countermotion game that builds great commitment skills! Yeah, it is unlikely that a Lab is going to NOT eat the cookie hahaha but he then has to leave the cookie smell AND has to think about what he is doing and then turn the ‘correct’ direction towards you (like a FC). Basically after he eats the treat, we are looking for him to turn towards you based on your line and connection – which he did on all but one of the reps. And I think on the rep where he turned what I would consider “away” (:21), I think he was still reading your line – you had cut in behind his line there so he was turning to the line, like a baby dog rear cross. I know that this is a slightly obsessive detail, but it helps us make sure that the pups are comfy turning BOTH directions and not just one direction 🙂 So keep your running line as straight as possible and I am confident he will read the turns to chase you perfectly.
Your blinds looked really good!!!! Great mechanics and connections. He was responding beautifully. The quicker you show him the new connection, the quicker he changes sides. On the first reps at :06 and :15, you started the BC, took one more step, then finished it so he had a moment of delay in changing sides. You got quicker and quicker on the others, so keep focusing on finishing the blind as quickly as possible (in terms of showing him the new connection).
Great job!!!
TracyHi again!
On the training games here: Good work!!! He was very gentle on the prop, just doing a bit of foot hit for the first bit – placing the reward right over the prop seems to help him because there is less motion to and from the prop. As the session progressed, he got more excited and then was adding in the rolling 🙂 For the purposes of what we are using the prop for – not a problem, because he won’t want to roll it. But for training challenge purposes – you can alter the timing of your marker/reward so isolate those softer/slower lifts of his feet -where he raises the foot to touch the prop, right before he touches it – to see if you can help him touch not roll. It is a good training challenge, good for training mechanics for us humans and good for his body awareness 🙂 He is going to have to settle himself to do it…. which is GREAT! You can definitely move into the sending to the prop games now too 🙂The back and forth game looks really good too, I loved this session: you had just the right balance of easy stuff to get it rolling while letting him think it through, with some challenges for him to choose, big verbal party when he did choose correctly (plus cookies of course) then mixing in moments of the easy stuff too. Yessssss 🙂 If you can get this again on the next session (I am very sure you will), you can slide in the thing to go around in the middle of the session (jump upright or cone or whatever you would like to use :))
Great job on these! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Hi there!
>>With that I have gone to a treat and train (not sure how Alex feels about that yet LOL) and it has been hilarious watching Ted figure out that he makes the treat happen by not going to the machine
This is good! We do incorporate a MM in later games, so this is a good game to begin 🙂
>>It was just a little too negatively reinforcing to me to feed him at my palm. He, unfortunately, slurps cookies out of your palm with his teeth. And while we have been working on soft taking treats on his perch when he’s sitting (I’ll shoot a quick video) or when he is in a down (static behaviors), I had to remove it from anything with high energy value for him because it then became a low value exercise for me LOL>>
Totally understandable!!! He is really engaged in these 2 clips and he is greeting your hand moving towards him with an open mouth – and sometimes you pulled it away really fast which probably stimulates a little more drive to it. Ideally, we would countercondition the hand moving towards his mouth so he is less grabby – I think the way to do it will be to separate the concepts:
for training with food where you will want to deliver the food to his mouth, I suggest getting a big kong and stuffing it with cream cheese or something similar that can be ingested with a lick. That way, you can mark and present the kong for a lick reward, then remove kong and wait for next offered behavior.
Separately, with food in your hand – work the licking (gloves if needed) and since he will still use teeth on an open palm, you can vary the placement of reward: when he licks your hand, you reward by dropping or tossing the treat. That can develop more licking while protecting your flesh, and should also use response cost to promote a relaxed mouth rather than an open mouth with food in the picture (response cost because after the lick he will have to move away to get the treat).
Let me know what you think!
T
Hi!
Yes, you’ll need some real estate for the blinds, or a really long hallway Haha!!!I am confident his retrieve with the toy will be great! He is naturally good at it plus you’re putting value on it! We all break the retrieve for a little while in late puppyhood when the pup learns about the joys of victory laps but then it comes right back LOL!! And I put those on cue (“go for a run”) so the pup has a really fun outlet to break up focused sessions. 🙂
TVery nice wrap session here!! The hardest part was jumpstarting it with sorting out when to drop the treats in at first. He is new to this eating thing 🙂 so you got the game really rolling when he saw you plop the treats and not just heard them (while he was eating, he didn’t really “hear” them because he was too busy on the chewing thing haha!). You did that “hey look, I am dropping the treat” right at the end of the first section – clearly that got it jumpstarted, he found the rhythm, and you progressed nicely through the stealth, then adding the the cone was very easy. Super!!!!!
Next food session: start out just like this, and if you can progress to the cone again – add in you kneeling and then standing. I didn’t actually kneel, I switched to sitting on an inflatable donut thing 🙂 The goal is to change your elevation gradually, with an eye on getting you standing. If it takes a couple of sessions – groovy!
It is so nice (and rare!) to have balanc of food drive and toy drive at his age. When you use the toys for this game, you might want to separate it into just leaving one toy and going to the other, with the toys closer. He was fully engrossed in toy #1 LOL!! He did figure it out but isolated that skill before adding the cone will make it easier – then the cone coming back in will be super easy for him.
Great job here too! You had a whole bunch of lovely sessions!
TracyHi there!
Very cool session to see the value of the prop coming along – he was giving you very clear hits with his feet! Yay!
Don’t forget your ready dance before sending him LOL! Use that ready steady spaghetti moment to get him focused on you, and to then show him that very clear one step (with one arm) to the prop (it was hard to see your face, so on the forward sends, be sure to be looking at him). And resist temptation to take more than one step LOL! so stay close to the prop for now.
He does still want to look at you while hitting the prop, so you can also mix in tossing the cookies (or even the toy) into the ring as he is on the way to it and when he whacks it.
He was quite brilliant about sending on the sideways and backwards sends (I mean, I know plenty of masters dogs that can do that!!) Very cool! It bodes well for the countermotion stuff he will be learning as he grows up – happy dance!
Great job!
TracyHi! He picked up this drive to handler so easily (again, you’ve done all your recall foundation which really helped 🙂 ) I know we talked about which hand to use in class last night for rewarding: based on how he moves and how he drives right to you – I think you can use the dog side hand to get the reward to him, rather than the hand across the body (if he was *not* driving into you, then I would suggest the hand across the body). The dog-side hand can go right next to you knee, and then keep him at your knee as you pivot to see if you can get him to turn his head/curl his body around your leg. He was turning nicely with the arm across the body so this is to get even more bendy turns 🙂 Let me know if that makes sense 🙂 He is rocking it!
TracyHi!
He did really well with the addition of the collar grab! That moment of holding him builds drive & speed (because of opposition reflex and also because we can lean in and ramp the pups up :)) while also focusing the session to the toy so he explodes to it (and leaves you in the dust, sorry not sorry haha!!) Plus it layers in the collar grab being the predictor of super fun things (I want pups to love when we reach for them!). I am glad to see he really didn’t mind it at all. And since you mentioned below that he is pretty equal with toy and food value, this is a good game for a toy (no food needed) – the toy brings a nice amount of excitement and also allows us to use a zillion treats elsewhere haha! He is driving ahead beautifully, and bringing it back better than most dogs his age! It is ok to allow him a lap of honor before asking for him to bring it back – and you can reward bringing it back in one of 3 ways: a cookie, a different toy, or tugging with the toy he brings. It was hard to get him tugging with the toy he was bringing, mainly because I think the toy was a little short and you were leaning over – if you attach it to another toy so it ends up being several feet long. you can swing it around for him to chase without you needing to bend over (good for preventing back pain!)
He seemed perfectly happy with you running too – you have already laid that foundation – so feel free to take it outdoors and add more distance! How far can you throw it and race him to it?
Great job!
TracyHi! This is going well! I see below you used it with the sends, yay! He is sorting it out nicely. At this stage, you can leave it on the ground (rather than re-introduce it after each rep) – only lift it during tug breaks. And he offers a lot of natural eye contact, so on this one (and on the sends :)) definitely add in a couple of sessions where you mix in rewarding the prop hit with a cookie tossed into it. He is doing really well! More below 🙂
T
