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Hi!
Adding distance: you read my mind hahaha and you were further across the bump here and also worked the other side. Nice!
I like starting from the stay on this one too, starting from a cookie toss makes you rush and it is not as smooth. You also started with her next to you on a couple of the reps towards the end and that worked great too!
She did a really nice job finding the backside on these. At 1:34 you started behind her and released before you were really past her so she ended up on the front side of the jump. The motion up the line is what sets the backside as she is learning the verbal, so for now try to be several steps ahead before releasing her. Eventually, she will know the verbal really well so it won’t matter as much, but for now she needs the motion.>>I suppose I should not do the FC. Hmm…but if you are heading to the left a FC would be okay. Or is it okay because the other backside will be a wrap.
You can totally do the FCs here on the landing side, or the serps – those both count as ‘slices’ for me because you stay on the landing side. The backside wrap is the full 360 degree circle, where you move past the barrels to the takeoff side. Let me know if that makes sense.
Great job here too! Onwards to video 3!
Tracy
Good morning! Good job on all 3 of these videos! Some thoughts on this first one:
Nice job with your parallel path motion here – you were really good about showing her the full “wing” (not blocking it) with your parallel path and she was perfect about going to it. Great job rewarding her for coming back over the bump. And great job with the backside verbal getting adding from the stay, and adding the serpentine line. Stays look good, and lots of good rewards too! And lovely connection too – great session!
On the next session – you can move your parallel path a bit further over to the center of the bump and also mix in some front side reps where you call her name and turn to the front so she pays attention to the difference.Great job here!
Tracy
Hello and welcome! I am jealous of your beautiful summer weather!
Hero is so fun! Really nice first session here! And I see what you mean about him being cat-like, jumping off then on. I encourage ALL of that confidence at this stage because it is GREAT for balance as the board starts moving. Because he is cat-like, you just have to be quick with the cookies and getting him off the board. You can also give multiple treats for staying on the end as you begin to add in moving past – he will get the treat at the end and learn to wait for you to come back and give him another treat as you reach for his collar and help him off.
For the next session, you can start him in his stay further back from the board, partially to give you a chance to get ready and where you want to be, and partially because the added distance will allow him to add more speed driving up the board. It looks like he will have no issues with that so you can add that as well as the other challenges (be ready with your treats; I think he will be moving pretty fast along the board!)>>Is it OK to make a reward plate with sides? I screwed it to the underneath of the seesaw, but he knocks the treat off and then jumps off to find it. >>
Absolutely! I had the same issue with my smaller dog – the treat would bounce off so she would just go find it. Sides would work really nicely!
>>He’s ruled by his stomach and no treat will get left behind.>>
Totally relatable!! LOL!
>>Tomorrow I will do a game from the Downhill Track. Is it OK to do two sessions on one day spread apart and working on different tracks? >>
Yes, that is fine! The goal of keeping the tracks a bit separate right now is to avoid over-training and also to allow us to be able to isolate any issues, if the dog has a question.
>>I can edit my vids a bit more so you don’t have to watch everything next time. Just thought you would be able to give me a lesson on mechanics lol.>>
Full session vids are great – this was a nice short session with a high rate of success. Yay! I think the hardest part of the mechanics was getting the treat to not fall off. On the first rep of the next session, you can also reward along the board and not just at the end like you did here early on, just as a reminder moment before adding driving across the board. And when he is understanding to stay at the end of the board and not jump off, you can add in the driving past and crosses.
>>Ruse will do the games as well in the background. The seesaw has been lowered since you saw her in NZ from 700 mm in the middle to 500 mm.
Wow, that is great! So this is a full height seesaw? That is nice!!!!
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
Min was hilarious! And I have found that the dogs are fine with our bad throws, as long as we use a “bad throw coming” cue (I use ‘catch’) which means the treat or toy will be heading to their general location and they are allowed to move to get it.
His end position work is looking really good – he didn’t seem to have any questions here in terms of what to do in the face of the different challenges. You can have the cookies ready to toss in more quickly (I usually hold them in the same hand as I am holding the collar with, but you can also toss with the other hand) so on the harder challenges you can toss in immediately.
The angle of the board with the disc didn’t seem like a problem at all for him, so add more angle and either a bigger inflatable if you have one or stack 2 discs? That will give more angle and movement during this game, which also help prep for the bang game.
Looking at the challenges of sending ahead or you driving past or adding crosses – no issues r questions on any of them, and you got he rear cross too, well done! So you can add more wildness – more speed, having the ball in your hand, running towards Min, etc. I think you are not likely to find anything that will be too hard at home, so you can take the simpler challenges to different places – have it off to the side at class, or do this in front of a tunnel, etc. Add toy play between reps to see if he can still hold it together when he is more stimulated (I think this will also not be a problem for him, but it is good to ask him at this stage 🙂 )
Great job!!!
Tracywhere else can you take this?
Good morning! He is doing well with his plankrobatics here! He needed the first rep to ‘read’ the set up (and that is fine) but then he looked very comfy going back and forth. The turning around looked nicely balanced too. You can duct tape a spoon to the underside of the board (a serving spoon maybe?) to use as the reward target rather than placing the treat at the end of the board – it will help bring him even closer to the end of the board and will also help transfer to the uphill and downhill games. (For those games, briefly revisit them with less tip and see how it goes – you can probably add tip pretty quickly based on what he has already done). And you can also put a pillow or dog bed under the board so there is less clanging – and a pillow or dog bed will provide some “whip” movement when the board lands too – also a good prep for the full teeter.
I think you can probably tweak this set up for downhilling by using the chair that was closer to the camera and jam it under the teeter so the top part doesn’t move, and then he can go downhill to the other chair. As long as the chair closer to the teeter doesn’t swivel around it should be fine
🙂
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
I thought the sideways angle was just my lack of coffee haha!!He did well with the mountain climbers in the new location! Definitely a bit wary… but the 2nd rep is the one that tells me more about how the dog feels and he was faster and happier on that second rep! YAY! Being silly and doing the tunnel in between reps definitely keep him pumped up. You can be a lot quicker to get the reward ready between the tunnel and the teeter reps so you don’t lose his excitement LOL! And you can use a toy reward for the tunnel then do the cookies for the teeter. I like how on the last rep, he was twitching in a little in his stay – I take that as a sign that he wants to drive up the board and that he is liking it! Dogs that DON’T want to do something do not twitch with excitement in the stay haha!!! And I think sandwiching it in between the tunnel makes it a smaller part of a bigger picture, so he thinks about it less – as opposed to a ‘teeter only’ session where he might start to think about it tooooooo much.
Overall, this was a great session. For the next session there: change nothing. I suggest at least one more happy session like this before you change or add anything. We have the luxury of time on our side to be very systematic here.Great job!
TracyHello and welcome! It is great to see you here! I look forward to this adventure with Emmie 🙂 Is she still leary of the motion? The games help that, and I suggest structuring sessions into single rep, super high value “one hit wonder” sessions. Literally…. one rep for a massive reward. That will help speed her love for the motion 🙂 Keep me posted!
Tracy
Omg!!! I almost had a heart attack reading this!!!!! KROME!!!! I am glad to hear he did NOT ruin the TV. Onwards to training!
TracyHi and welcome!
>> But I am wondering about whether I should be integrating the end position into the mountain and downhill games? I am hesitant to use the traditional way of treating at the end of the teeter because I don’t want to reintroduce the nose touch behavior we’ve been trying to eliminate.>>
I think adding end position too soon for these games might make it harder – for the mountain climbers, you can have the reward there already as you add the challenges, but I think having him in a down with the board that high might make it harder to get him safely off the board. For the downhill games, he can step off to whatever is propping the board, so that is less of an issue. Based on the videos here, I am not worried about the nose targeting because when I picture him doing the full teeter – he is going to have to lower his head and look downwards before (and in order to) get into the down position. So, I think it will be fine because the prop that elicits the down is helping with his foot placement and that lowered head will add to the weight shift. My guess is that he is going to want to look down then lie down on the uphill and downhill games, which is going to end up turning into kind of ‘sliding’ into the down at the top of the board, if that makes sense.
On the backing up video: stay lower for now when you are cuing it (you don’t need to stand up at all :)) and feed him lower so he is dropping his chin below his topline to eat. That is going to free up his hind end movement even more. When you were rewarding, his chin was high – so that was making his steps backwards shorter (less reach in the hind end, more push from the front). You can see it when you were standing, so you can stay nice and low for this game 🙂
He did really well with the position changes – you can do those in the middle of the board so it adds challenge with the movement 🙂On the target plank video:
We want him to watch you less and look at the end of the board more, so feed lower on this one too (or toss the treat back to him between his front feet. Also, don’t click 🙂 I think the click might be building in watching us on these games, so I tend to not click in favor or either tossing the reward back, rewarding out ahead, or having the reward ‘pre-placed’ 🙂 on some of the games.
Watching this video – when he was doing a bit of a nose touch, he was going to the end of the plank, looking down, then dropping back into the down. When I visualize it across a full sized teeter… I think it is going to work in your favor to have him looking ahead and down rather than up or at you – so as long as he gets into the down quickly, I think he is fine to look downwards here and it will help the down. On the full teeter, he will probably get to the top, look down and drop into the down by the time the board is parallel to the ground – standing a bit longer can help him control the tip and whip of the board, so if he is arriving in the down as the board is arriving at the ground – perfect! Let me know if that makes sense – it is a clear picture in my caffeinated brain but not so sure it is clear in writing hahaha!
On this game – you can take it into the bang game introductory phase, where he is leaping on and into position from the side. And adjunct game for dogs doing the down position: using a cot or bed or something – have him jump on from the side and very close, and lie down – that can help prime the pump for the crazy bang game stuff coming up 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
I agree that she does better in the sit than from the cookie toss – I think the sit gives you both a moment to think about what is happening so your cues look good and she can process it really well. Plus, you can build in lots of stay rewards in front of the jump so she gets a ton of start line stay practice. Eventually you can be doing this from a wing or tunnel but for now, I like the sit the best for her 🙂She did really well when she was turning to her left (left then right to the MM) to come in over the bump in the first part of the video and on the harder angle at the very end… but it was harder for her (on the slice angle) to come in towards her right (right then left to the MM). That is good to know! So when she is going left-then-right (on your right arm) you can add those harder angles and more motion.
On the harder side, though – when she is on your left arm and moving right-then-left: keep things slower in your movement and also you can angle he jump so the bar is facing her a little – that will make it easier to come in over it. It is totally normal that the pups show us a hard side and an easy side, so you can make the easy side harder, while making the hard side easier by going slowly and angling the jump.Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
This is looking good too.
The first rep was pretty much what I was suggesting above about the motion – you moved and then showed arm and then released – it was great! She went past the jump rather than going over the bump, but that was more of a young dog thing than a handling error. You can change the position of the MM so it is on a more obvious line past the bump to encourage her to go away to it.
The rest looked good especially the last rep – yes, ideally you want for her to turn her head away before clicking the MM. I *think* she will look at the bar? But changing the angle of the MM will help that too so you can keep moving and you won’t need to step to the bar at all. And also yes, have the MM remote in your hand so you don’t have to reach for it – that will make it easier when you get up to running 🙂
Great job!
TracyGood morning! My internet works again, yay!!
This session ended up going really well! I think the game works best when you start from a stay – when you were using the cookie throws at the beginning, she was trying to offer behavior so fast that she didn’t see the threadle, she only saw the motion. I am glad you recognized that and went to the stay! That was so much smoother. Yes, she is looking at the MM a little bit in the beginning but then she remembered to ignore it in order to earn it haha!!! Good girl. And I agree, it went better when you added the verbal with the stay.
I think one more thing will make it even easier to add more motion: rather than release & move & show the arm cue all at once, see if you can show the arm cue, then slowly start to move… then release. That way she sees it all before she moves and that can allow you to add even more motion. And keep rewarding all the stays as you add more motion – the rewards looked great and her stay behavior is looking really good!
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
