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Good morning and welcome! Let’s get this teeter trained!!!!! You can do the end position challenges at home, so they will be ready to go when you get the teeter going too. Do you have a small wobble board or tippy board? We can tweak things to get things going while you are waiting for full teeter access!
Tracy
And, Contraband first session on bottom of plank. He has been learning some flyball lately and REALLY wants to only turn left, so I was trying to set him up to balance into the right turns too.
holy cow it has been a while since I posted video! We have been doing our homework. Here is the first session on the end of the dog walk, adding a bit of countermotion (using a similar body position to the flyball countermotion hahaha)
https://youtu.be/wSVuH4Pp-MIGood morning! It was great chatting last night on zoom!!!! I am on board to help conquer the pivot, it will be fun!!
Tracy
Good morning!
He is doing well here!On the uphill mountain climbers: He definitely got more and more confident about moving through the tip! Yay! I think the in inch tip was hard – is there a way to split the tip so it is not in 1 inch increments? If the device only moves in one inch increments, you can pad the top of the device where the board lands with a towel or too, so it is more like half an inch – that will help him drive to the end even more. I think one of the things he was thinking about was the noise of the board – the towel will help too, but it is possible that the base was rattling too? So you can put a tunnel bag on the base to help reduce the rattle so he drives across it even more. Eventually, I think think he will be at all concerned about it but for now, reducing it will help (especially when he turns around to come down and get off the board.
>Or maybe I’ll invest in one of the devices you use. I like how the tray stays flat, instead of moves with the seesaw.>
It is a cool device because it raises the target plate to the edge of the board! I use the small dog version with all of mine (I talked them into making a small dog version because the big dog version had too much reach down for the dogs, imo)
Your end position on the plank is going well – he was hitting his target position with you being with him and with you sending ahead. Yay! You can add in more of your motion moving past now, like you did at 1:19, I don’t think he will have any trouble with it. And he will like the action of your motion 🙂 And since he is doing so well, you can add in more excitement, getting him pumped up and wild before asking for target position. The added excitement plus you moving past (and adding crosses) will be a good level of challenge for him (but my guess is that he will do just fine 🙂 You can change the challenge on every rep or every two reps, to keep things spicy during the session and cover all of the challenges 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>> I have to shorten it by 20cm on each end. The new regs have just come in, but won’t be manditory until 2024. Most clubs have already lowered the seesaw, some have shortened as well. So it’s going to be a bit messy for a couple of years. I am hoping that if I build a strong end behaviour, the length won’t matter>>
Yikes, that makes it less predictable for the dogs but I guess teeters in general can be unpredictable. I have a game coming for how to make things different for the dogs, in that respoect (in the last set of games).
He did really well walking on the plank here! Because he seems so confident, I don’t mind that it was rattling a bit. If he ever shows any concern, you can put a towel or dog bed under each end to reduce the rattle. But as long as he is happy, let it wiggle and rattle. He was SO FUNNY leaping back on when you went to turn off the camera!
The only thing I would add to this is seeing if he can turn in a circle in the center of the plank, in each direction – it will help make sure that he understands how to balance. Use a cookie lure to control his speed – it should be a slow circle 🙂And if he will hold a stay on one end, you can go to the other end and recall him across – I don’t think it will be hard for him at all.
>>I didn’t do any tipping, as we have not played the bang game, or done any target touching. I felt like I should teach these things first? >>
To add tip to the downhills, we don’t need target behavior yet (because you will get the reward in before he makes a decision about targeting) but we do want him to be happy with things that move. How does he do with wobble boards or anything that moves? If he is happy to play on wobble boards and will shift his weight on them… then you can go ahead and add some tip to the downhill game. The reward will come right at the end of the board (where yo uwould reward for the 4on) as long as the cookie gets there before he does 🙂
And if he is happy with the wobble board movement, ou can separately introduce the tiny bit of movement in the beginning of the bang game (no target behavior needed for the first stage of that game because we also get the reward in really fast before he makes a choice).
>>To get him to touching a target, I was just going to use a plastic lid that I can transfer to the end. Should I be shaping him to touch it with his nose?>>
You can shape a nose touch to it, or use a longer/wider target like a strip of something to get him doing a foot AND nose target. I like LOTS of layers 🙂 My 4on dogs are taught a foot target and to scratch at the target – and the nose touch ends up getting built in because they lower their heads as they scratch the target. I personally only use a true nose touch for a 2on, 2off behavior but it does get built in for the 4on as well. For the 4on, the longer ‘strip’ of a target gives the dogs a place to put their feet and their noses. I use duct tape across the end of the board to get it started 🙂
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning! Great to see you in the Zoom last night 🙂 I saw the photo of a tiny bit of grass peeking out of your snow, so I am excited that you will be able to get back outside soon-ish!!
These games are going well.
Uphills: Very smart to refresh it by starting a couple of steps back. He is doing really well. One thing I notice is that he doesn’t love the whip/noise of the board as it bounces on the chair at the top, so you can drape some towels or a dog bed over the top of the metal chair on the up side to quiet the noises for now (I do that with Hot Sauce who doesn’t like the clattering on this game either) – he is hesitating ever so slightly to let it hit before running through it, probably because the top of the board bounces and clatters a bit on the metal. That will go away as the get gets outside and as we add more drop, but for now the towel will quiet it and then he will drive even more to the end.
I feel the pain of the cookies falling off 🙂 You can duct tape a plastic measuring cup to the underside of the teeter to hold those pesky meatballs! He is hitting it hard enough that the cookies are falling off – that is a good thing (driving hard) and since the teeter is not hitting the ground, a measuring cup might do the trick. I use the full cup measuring cup for that LOL!
He didn’t seem to worry about any of the challenges of your movement – easy peasy! So if you can get him driving all the way to the end without thinking about the noise on the next session, add a tiny bit more tip 🙂
My dogs heard you say “have an extra just in case” and they are all jealous LOL!!Downhills – the plastic lid target works well here! You can also put the PT there as long as it won’t fall – we don’t want it to break, of course.
And he clearly had the confidence to leap on the middle to start!
It took him a minute to assess the setup and then he was fine moving downhill, and he added more and more of his own speed on each rep. I liked the quietness of the blanket or towel here, I think it helped him not try to find a way to control the whip higher up on the board.
You can also totally do this for his dinner, placing the bowl where the target it and then let him run down to eat his dinner as a one rep or two rep session.
He didn’t seem to worry about most of the challenges except he did thing the rear cross was nuts haha!
He will add even more speed when you add more speed as soon as the snow melts and you can get outside, but I am happy with how much speed he was already adding here! In a session or two, you can add tip here too 🙂
Great job on these!!
TracyHi! Good to see you in the Zoom last night!
You mentioned this session didn’t feel great – but I agree, looking at the video – NICE!! Yes, you had too much speed on the first rep, and he didn’t fully understand the set up so he bailed (which is a better choice than going splat :))
But then he rocked it! Independently drove up the board, got his cookie, let you lift him off. You were quickly able to add back speed. So, on the next session, do the intro/reminder rep first, going with him to kind of say, “dude, remember this set up?” and then you can add more challenges.
If he continues to excel with this set up without the board moving, you can add a tiny bit of tip – and start off with that same reminder rep where you go with him, slowly, to let him feel the tip so he isn’t experiencing it with speed the first time.About speed – you won’t see a ton of speed across the board on this game yet, he can’t really sprint across it because he has to stop pretty quickly. So it will feel a little slow until the board really starts moving – but he was plenty fast here and looked pretty confident!
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning! Great seeing you on the Zoom last night!
Thanks for the video, I have some ideas for you!
Looking at the separate elements: the main thing is going to be separate the games for now (uphill, downhill, end position) and we will marry them back together when each one is independently solid. Systematize the mechanics of each game rather than blending them all together – that should eliminate some of the things you mentioned, like stopping short or sitting instead of targeting.
The uphills look great! Be sure to place the reward in the holder before you let her go up the board on those so she continues to drive to the end, every single time. And work on adding the challenges like you moving past and sending ahead (you can see the list in the field guide). That will actually also help to get rid of the stopping short that you describe. And when she can do all the things with the board not moving, you can add in a tiny bit of movement and see how it goes (but only after you work through the challenges).
For the downhills – keep these separate from the uphills for now, because when she turns around and runs down, the targeting is getting muddy and we aren’t getting as much speed. So the downhills will still be table-to-table and she will not run down to target position yet – right now it looks like her understanding of target position at the end is a bit body dependent, meaning she is doing it when you stop near the end but when you run past, she comes off the end and/or confuses it with a 2o2o. That tells us we have some details to iron out on the end position before adding it to the teeter itself.
>>her bang is going very well, then I lowered the teeter to have her run down, she is stopping pretty high to push the ramp down. How do I correct that?>>
For now… don’t do it 🙂 It is too soon for that amount of angle. SO, keep the downhills to have very limited motion and a table (or something :)) under each end so she runs runs runs to the end and doesn’t stop in the middle to push the ramp down. Stopping high is an indicator that the challenge is too difficult, so go back to the board barely moving and not hitting the ground.
So for the end position – how is she doing on a small travel plank? It looks like you are doing a 4on – do you also want her to do a nose touch? The more criteria you can put on it, the stronger the behavior will be. Let’s get the end position super solid on the plank before it goes onto the teeter – so using a slightly angled plank, work the progression of getting the hopping into end position with you working through the progressions – next to her, moving past slowly, moving past fast, crosses, sending, etc – all just using the end of the board. On thing that will help her stay in 4on and not sit or step into 2o2o is if you reward really fast, either by handing it to her on the target immediately, or if you have moved past the target – tossing it back to her so she doesn’t have to wait for you to come back and deliver it 🙂 I use my ‘catch’ cue for that, to mean “stay there, the cookie is coming to you”.
When we are happy with all the things involving end position on just the end of the plank… then we will add that to the end of the teeter (games package 2, on March 15 :)) but not moving across the entire board any time soon. Keeping the games separate will make all the pieces work nicely together 🙂
You are off to a great start! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! I feel the pain of lots of soggy grass! Fingers crossed for good weather ahead 🙂 Keep rewarding for the end and he will get more and more confident running through that tip. See you on the Zoom!
Tracy
Hi!
This is also going really well! The backing up onto the box looked really good, no problem! So did backing up onto the plank (that is harder to ‘find’ because it is so much narrower) – he was really ‘looking’ for it with his little feet. Good boy!!!!! You can try some tugging in position (first on the box) to see if he will also weight shift on the board too.Do you have a fitbone or a balance disc? With it a little under-inflated, see if he will back up onto it to add a bit of moving surface underneath him. Separately, you can work on backing up onto the bottom of the teeter, but there should be no tip of the teeter yet – totally stationary, just to begin to transfer the concept.
Great job!!! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! You must have posted this just as I was sending the thoughts on the previous video this morning 🙂
He did well moving into target position here! Staying next to him and sending him looked good! He was consistently correct even when you added more excitement. He had the little oopsies – I think that might have been when he was kind of weight shifting into the stop as you sent ahead? It is something to revisit, but only once or twice and not a whole bunch in a row (so he doesn’t start thinking about things too much). Also, he is understanding the position pretty nicely so you can mix up the challenges more frequently. Do two maybe 3 reps of one challenge then change it up to the next one, otherwise it gets boring 🙂 and also it gets him too thoughtful and that might be why he was more sensitive to whatever tiny movement happened at the end. So on the next session – definitely stand up for the standing still and sending ahead, but add in moving past (as slowly as needed) and the other ‘action’ challenges – he is ready plus I think he will like the action 🙂 That is also a good time to add in tugging in between cookie reps.
Great job here!!
TracyHi! Sorry to miss you tonight, we will mix up the days/times of these in case you want to join on at a time when you aren’t teaching.
>>If he happens to offer a down, that’s fine, but I’ll be rewarding more his speed with going up and down, not waiting for any downs.>>
Yes – we won’t be doing that many reps of it and the games will progress pretty quickly 🙂
This session went well! All of the reps had you sending him ahead so while he was doing well finding position, I see what you mean about him being crooked (mainly because he was looking at you). The foot target makes it hard for you to be right at the end, so you can adjust your position to be closer to the end by being a little bit at the foot target. And adding in moving past the target will also help him be a bit straighter because he will be looking more ahead at you. But, since he will still want to look at you (nothing else to look at LOL!) you can add in something to look at 🙂 I think adding in a Manners Minder can help give him a focal point, which will help him be straighter for now. Some of the rewards can come from the MM (when he hits criteria, you can release him forward to it) and some from your hands – and then release him forward to the MM. The more we can convince him to look forward, the straighter he will be 🙂
On other thing that I think can help keep him straight is if you look for and mark that little bit of hooking of the wrists to the edge of the foot target – you can see him do it at about :26 and also 1:42. That helped straighten his body position and it is a clear criteria that both drives him to the end of the board and encourages the down!
Nice work here! Let me know what you think! You can totally add in more of the challenges here; I think he is ready!
TracyOops, I guess I only answered in my head! Sorry! My tunnel threadle verbal is “kiss kiss kiss” 🙂 As in, I will kiss you, dog, if you get the correct end of the tunnel. LOL!!!! And yes, it is different than my jump threadle verbal.
Tracy
Hi!
>>On the first one I tried to push on her line. You’re right. That doesn’t work. That’s how I was taught. >>
It is not that they don’t work, it is more that if we train a bit more independently, you won’t need to push on her line and you can get further ahead. She is small AND fast and that means even less hang time than Jedi and Sport… which also means you need to move faster 🙂 So, we train for more independence. We do push the line when the dogs come in from harder angles but on these simpler angles we try to get the dog to go independently on the verbal without needing to step to the line.
>>Maybe I should just stay on level one for awhile. It says to stay there and make sure that is really good>>
I think you were fine to add a little challenge, but you were forgetting to show the line then release like you did in the first video. It won’t be a problem when you are close ot the barrels, but when you are adding distance, it becomes more important. So, be sure to connect, move, THEN release – that will help her read the line with the added distance. When you did that, she was great! When you tried to do it all at the same time (release, move and cue), she ended up on the front side of the jump. For example at 1:58 she took the front – she was in her stay and you were lateral, towards the center of the bump – that is fine but you will need to move and connect for 2 or 3 steps before you release her so she can see the line. When you release then move & connect, it looks like a front side cue and she zips past you.
The cookie tosses worked nicely on this one, because it gave you the opportunity to be moving up the line with connection earlier – those were really nice!! So you can use those as you add more distance, and also her stay is looking really good so you can use that too as long as you move, connect, then release.
The only other thing to add into the mix is asking her to take the front side sometimes 🙂
Great job on these! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
