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Hello and welcome! She is the cutest critter and I love her name (so many nickname possibilities :)) And of course now i must figure out how she is related to my dogs 🙂 yay!!!
Hi! He is a funny creature on the set point and ladder – he kind of finds them to be yawners. LOL! Not a lot of challenge, so he doesn’t really power through them. He is just like my Voodoo – totally like “whatevs” on a regular set point or ladder grid. But…. add some challenge and some action, and GAME ON! LOL! Kaladin likes the challenge of the zig zag grid, definitely not a yawn-fest for him. But he appears to think the set point is dullsville. His form is really nice! But he just doesn’t want to power through because it doesn’t seem to be all that stimulating for him, even when you are running. But on the mini ladder grid, especially after wrapping the fox barrel? Oh heck yes, game on! He zipped around the barrel and powered through the ladder, both on the regular wrap and the tandem turn. So cool! Ok, noted, then: we will just give him jumping challenges that are challenging and action-packed. He doesn’t lose his head over it, he just finds the regular grids to be a bit dull LOL! And he certainly didn’t lose his form when there was more speed and challenge, he added power and push. Cool! Noted LOL! And when you went back to the set point at the end, after the running – no loss of balance, same good form. Makes me chuckle! Good boy!
>>You recommended doing the progressive grid with different intervals. First 9 and 12 ft. Would that be a 5ft-9ft-12ft spacing?
Yes.
>>I think he’s going to short stride the 9ft one.
Yes – 9 feet is an awkward distance – he is either going to have to bounce or add a small one stride. Either way, we are asking him to solve the puzzle – balance is the correct answer, even if he bounces or one strides.
>> Then how does the 15ft come in? (assuming that should be an extended stride) – 5ft-9ft-15ft? (hope it’s not 5-12-15 or I’m going to start running out of yard)>>
Well, I was going to say 5-12-15 LOL!!! But it can also be 5-15 if you only have room for 3 jumps, and save the longer grids for when you have indoor access.
Great job here!
TracyHi!
The zigzags are challenging but he is doing well!!! The 4 inches looked good in both directions, bouncing the gapes. The first rep at 6 looked difficult for him to sort out at first, but it could have also been the leads – going left to right on the computer screen was a tiny bit less fluid than going right to left at 4 inches, and going right to left across the screen was definitely more fluid on 4 and 6 inches! Just something to revisit here and there 🙂 I think you can unlock the bars – he doesn’t seem to be touching them, so you can give him the option of knocking the bar because it seems very likely he will not have a problem 🙂
We will be building on this in the next class 🙂 Nice job with it, he has made tremendous progress!T
Hello and welcome! You will be getting a couple of emails in a few minutes and more info appearing in the Course Syllabus section as well. I am excited to get started!!
Tracy
Hello and welcome! I am in the process of loading all the lessons, so you will find it there shortly 🙂 The titles are loaded up but the rest are in progress 🙂
See you soooooon!!!T
Good morning! Hope you had a good Thanksgiving! I agree that the wraps are looking really good! And the mechanics of cuing the slices are what was causing the issues – here are specifics:
Circle wraps are looking really good!! She is both turning her head to get the turn and collecting herself really nicely. On the last couple of reps. you changed the reward placement to follow your exit line, which is fine – but give her a litlle connection at that point so she knows which side of you to be on.
Slices: the one jump slices look great too – she is rounding the entry wing, clearly looking for the jump and not at you – perfect! That will really help the commitment and jumping effort. Great job with the reward placement on those.
2 jumps: this is where it gets juicy!
>> what I might be doing with my feet, chest, motion that causes her to take the wrong side of the jump – other than the fact that she is a little dog.>>
I agree that being so small, it is easier for her to end up on the front side because she doesn’t land out near the plane of the backside like a larger dog might.
But aside from that – the errors stemmed from how you were cuing the backside – you were using the verbal but running away so your motion/chest/feet shoulders/etc were all facing the front side. Instead, you will want to be moving forward, parallel to her path to the backside, until you know for sure she is heading to the backside wing, then you can turn and move away – and use the extreme commitment back to her so your shoulders/chest are pointing to the backside line rather than turned away from it. I also recommend *not* using your dog-side arm to send forward of your body on this, as that turns your upper body to the front side of the bar especially when your arm is high. Either have your dog side arm down & back, or use your ‘get out’ arm to get your upper body turned to the backside line.
On the video, here is what was happening:
on the first rep, you were using the verbal but the body language was saying something else: at :59 in the slo mo, she was landing from 1 and you were totally turned and in ‘regular’ connection so you got the front of 2. Same at 1:12 and 1:29. So the physical cue really did say front side not backside.At 1:06 she got it – you were still pretty turned but not moving as fast and maybe a bit more arm support, but she might also have been able to process the verbal better with less motion.
She also got it at 1:16 – I believe mainly because the 2 jumps were closer so she landed on the backside plane of 2. The same thing happened at at 1:20 and 1:27, it was more like a serpentine for her and less like a backside push.When you switched back to the other side, the jumps were a little further apart so she was not landing on the backside plane. At 1:35 you stood between the uprights to help her, which worked but we don’t want you to have to stay there. At 1:43, you had more of the parallel path I was mentioning above, yay!!! But you can be even clearer (and more patient with it, no need to blast away as early). You used the out out out cue there – you can still use your backside verbal but you can be using your ‘out’ body language of parallel path and upper body rotated towards her.
On the wraps: You were a tiny bit late rotating at 1:50 and then she back jumped – possibly just a young dog error as you moved away with speed – you can reward lots for NOT backjumping to keep that skill very fresh in her mind 🙂
She fixed the error on the next rep and you had less motion – and all the other circle reps looked great 🙂 The throwbacks to the backside circle on the last reps looked really good!! I think on all of these circle wraps, you can ad more motion now – she is rocking those.So let me know if the ideas for the slices make sense – the key is your line of motion first and foremost, and also how you connect as you deliver the cue to her.
TracyWow, thank you for all of your work in the past year!!! You’ve been busy – Demi looks fabulous!!! I think we are all going to have to sit tight this winter and not do much in terms of agility 🙁 But you have done an amazing job with Miss Demi!!!! And that is great news about Wilson… does that mean he can eventually go to 16″ Preferred for his retirement years? That is so great!!
Hope you had a lovely Thanksgiving 🙂
TracyHi! I am quite competitive too, and I like to know the why and how behind the winning lines… and the losing lines 🙂 Video obsessing has been super useful for that!! I think we are obsessing down to the 1/10th of a second with Juno – but to be competitive with a large dog, that is exactly what is needed 🙂 Have a great Thanksgiving!!!
TracyHowdy!
Good stuff here, he was flying! So fun!!!
First video – He is doing well with the Go lines! What where the distances on between the jumps? He was really good on his go lines but the distances were hard with all the motion – spread ’em out so he can do a 1-stride stride. You can do 2 jumps, 15 feet apart, to begin with. Also, he was totally watching the toy and your running – so you can use the MM way out ahead on the line and trigger it nice and early so he doesn’t look back. You can also mix in having a toy placed out there. Do you have 2 tunnels? You can do tunnel-jump-jump-tunnel 🙂 Wheeee!
Looking at the rear crosses – I know I am usually a pain in the ass about rewarding sooner, but I think in this case I would like to be a pain in the ass about rewarding *later* LOL! He was not turning his head until you tossed the toy. So, delay your reward throw until you see him turn his head the new direction on the RC – then throw it. For example – :53 and 1:02 was more of the timing of the reward throw where you got him to turn to the new line and then threw it. Your RC cues were generally really good, so we can wait now for the head turn. Now at :46, you were just late on the RC pressure, so it is fine to just reward that (not his fault LOL!) and same at :56, here you were early and pushed him off the jump.
Adding in your ro ro ro (row your boat hahaha) wrap cue nice balance for the go and the rear cross work! – Add in some more decel as he is landing from the previous jump so he can collect more rather than rely on pure verbal.
When you added the line back to the tunnel – neither tunnel entry was really on a go line (one was a get out, one was a threadle entry) so I think he guessed and came to the closer one (which is my preferred guess over flicking away).
Because there was so many jumps on this session…. give him a few days off of jumping so you don’t accidentally over do it – he is a baller so he will keep doing it as much as you want but at only 8 months, we want to have maybe only one repetitive jumping session per week. He will try to convince you otherwise haha
Tunnel threadle video – fun! I will bug you about running more on the simpler lines – you can dial back the motion on the threadle moments but run run run on the rest of it. On the threadle moments: he is coming right in for it when you turn your feet to face him on the tunnel threadle. Yay! But now we want to strip that out to let you keep moving – he is relying on the feet to come in and also the arm cue to go back out. We can go to next steps where your feet are facing forward the whole time (turning towards the tunnel threadle side) and you do not use your arm to send him back out – you just keep moving towards the tunnel entry you want and then he will turn himself back out. You can see he doesn’t recognize that your feet will still be moving forward because he stayed on the straight line when you did that. And also, we want to take out the arm cue to go back out because when your timing was not perfect (you were early at 2:19 for example) he took the end of the tunnel you didn’t want or when your feet were turned away and your arm went behind you at 2:40, he had no idea what it was some came in for tooth hugs LOL. So basically that arm cue (plus your verbal) means to push da momma out of the way and go to the ‘other’ end of the tunnel as fast as you can, without needing any additional cues. That way you don’t even need to worry about rotating or timing the arm cues to go back out 🙂
At 3:00 you were starting the ideal cue of moving – just keep moving though, when you stop so far away he is not sure of what you want. 3:09 was MUCH better, that is exactly what we are going for – he had a really good line there and lots of speed. You had variations on that til the end, but still a little too much sending him back out with the threadle arm (I know how hard it is to not fling the arm back out LOL!! The rep at 3:09 was my favorite. Yes, you’ll need to stay in super chill mode as he is arriving at the wing before the threadle, but as soon as he understands, we can add back all the motion. Fun!One other little detail – when he exits the tunnel and you are facing forward with a high pointy arm… he questions and zig zags. So, make connection to him with your eyes and your arm low and back on the exit of every tunnel to get rid of the zig zag.
Excellent work spitting out all of the verbals, too! Yay! I think you only had one moment where you spit the wrong word out (you apologized to him lol)
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>What kind of proofing are you talking about in the proofing games?
The proofing class is a handling proofing class – designed to proof the different verbals and handling skills with distractions (backside verbals, wraps, threadles, go, etc) – I think all you need is a tunnel, one jump and a wing.
>>And also, is the mental prep course lecture or what is that about?
It is lecture/discussion with live discussion times too! So everyone will have their own ‘thread’ but can also discuss in person in the live lectures (twice a week).
Have a great Thanksgiving!
TracyHi!
>>It all makes sense, but a little frustrating that I just can’t seem to get it right by making the same mistakes.
Actually, you are making very few mistakes! You are just getting some of the newer ideas into your muscle memory and also trying to sort out exactly what Juno needs. Agility is such a highly personalized sport, and that makes it harder for us handlers 🙂 Your connection especially on that exit line has changed dramatically and he is looking amazing on lines and turns!!! I just keep bugging you about the tiny details LOL especially since you were obsessing on the same spot 🙂
>> So..I guess this is it for class. In addition to the lifetime access to the material, do we also have access to the forum, more importantly your comments?
Yes, you have lifetime access to all the things!
Have a great holiday weekend!!
TracyGood morning! Both dogs are looking good here 🙂 I have some ideas for Wilder!!
>>Wilder and I still struggle with BC wraps. We have made tremendous success this year on other skills (backsides, and turning cues…). Any advice to tweak what I am doing with him?
Do you mean the circle wraps on the backsides? Just making sure we are talking about the same thing LOL! I think it will come down to teaching him to love wrapping wings from any and all angles to the point where you almost can’t get him to *not* wrap a wing – that will help the BC wraps where you will need to leave pretty early, plus it will help him not to backjump the other spots where he found it easier to backjump. Here are more specifics for ya!
On the videos:
Video 1
Build the skill is looking good – great job with the placement of reward (and timing of tossing it) on the circle wraps, this will go a long way to getting him to commit. Gradually add more speed to these, because motion is what makes it harder. When you added motion on the slices, he wanted to follow your motion rather than get the reward at :27 so you made a good adjustment to make it more obvious for him (you can throw it sooner too)
The front side wraps are also looking good – lots of countermotion! He did turn to the RC line on one rep at :55, I think that was just him potentially mis-reading the wrap info from your feet and line of travel, the rest looked good!As he gets better and better with commitment on the wraps (front side, backside, BC) you can change the placement & timing of reinforcement so it comes outside the edge of the wing to encourage him to finish coming all the way around it.
Video 2
Backside slice – these look good! One little suggestion: start moving before the release, I think it will make it even easier to set the line. The timing and position of dropping the reward was causing some of the bar ticking, so you can drop it sooner and further from the bar (rather than later and closer to you). That will continue to help solidify the commitment, he is doing well! The further the reward is from you, the less he will bypass the bar to chase your line of motion.Video 3 – I think these were the blind wraps you were mentioning? The disconnection and countermotion are enough of a distraction that you will not want to add as much motion yet – when you were moving at a steady pace, he did well! When you changed speeds as you disconnected – that is when there were some errors (backjump at :16 and :26, bar at :56) So keep disconnecting nice and early, but don’t change your pace much – stay nice and steady. You will be able to keep adding more and more motion as he gets more comfy with the disconnection.
He did really well when you stayed connected (that is where you also had more motion) but you can dial the motion back a bit and disconnect sooner – an example being on the last 2 backside slices: you were moving with really good speed but you were also pretty connected 🙂 You can challenge him more by looking forward and not at him starting just before he gets to the backside entry wing – but move slowly through it.Video 4 sequences
General suggestion on sequences 1 and 2 is to line him up on a more severe slice over 1 facing 2, so he doesn’t have to turn on 1, he can just go straight.Seq 1: This looked really good, my only suggestion is to keep moving through 5 to 6 as a serpentine (on the line to the tunnel) rather than deceling to pull him in then send back out at :10.
Seq 2: Good timing of the blind at 5 and lovely exit line connection! Nice !!!!!
Seq 3: Nice push to 4 on the first rep!! The FC started with really good timing! But it set him wide and you had to call him back – the FC exit takes a while to finish (the rotation) so that is why he read the wider line on the exit.
On the 2nd rep at :57, your dog side arm got high and forward on the push cue, which broke connection and turned your shoulders to the front of the jump so he went to the front.
3rd rep – you had a low arm and a lot of connection to 4 so he was perfect finding the backside! I like the BC you did here better than the FC, it is faster to finish it (no rotation) and he read it great! You can start it sooner, it started just before takeoff at 1:07 (you were a little sooner starting the FC, before he got to the entry wing on that rep, which was really great timing) which will get the line to 5 even tighter. So combine the BC of this rep with the timing of the FC rep 🙂 Because the distance to 5 was pretty big, I think your FC then RC the tunnel worked best there! He was moving too quickly to be able to get far enough ahead for a BC to get him back on your left side for the tunnel.Seq 4 –
For the backside at 3 after the tunnel on the opening: the first rep needed a stronger connection on the tunnel exit and clearer upper body cue. It looked like ‘regular’ connection so he came to the inside of 3.On the second rep, you had more connection and more motion to it, both of which really helped him – keep moving as he gets into the tunnel so you don’t get behind on the send when he exits – he was really driving 🙂
He had a back jump when you did the RC at 5 – you were a little late on switch and then I think he saw you between the uprights so backjumped… but I think more wing wrap training like we did with Lit’L Bit will teach him to finish the wrap no matter what (rather than backjump) so you don’t have to be perfect 🙂The outside arm on the 3rd rep helped get the 3 backside, you can give that cue sooner so he moves away to it sooner too. You kept moving through the RC at 5 so he didn’t backjump bacause he saw you outside the wing there (not between the uprights). Plus, the cue was much earlier so he turned better – nice!!
Last video:
Go lines – first rep – nice! Just keep the verbals going to support the disconnect. But, after watching this, I have ideas for you about those verbals and disconnects.
2nd rep – you were nicely disconnected but also really quiet, he did well on the line – nice reconnection or the wrap. After the wrap, you did a sudden acceleration and disconnect and got loud… and he dropped the bar after the wrap.rep 3- On the wrap cue, you did a decel & rotate all at once at :28 so he came off the line – as you mentioned in the video, it was too much 🙂
rep 4 – Nice job with the transition on the wrap! But then same bar down after it at :40 plus next bar at :42. You were accelerated, disconnected, and using strong verbals here. More on that below 🙂
rep 5: you were a little more connected and also more quiet on the line back to the tunnel so bars stayed up, nice jumping effort!
Seq 3 – you can turn on the push cue and extreme connection for 3 sooner (before he takes off for 2) so he is already landing facing that line to 3. He did nicely finding the entry to the backside but you don’t need to wait til landing to start it. On that first rep at 1:09 – he was showing us needs more work on the default taking of the bar with countermotion – you were connected but he was pinging away from the motion. So you can set it up in sequences where you are moving (maybe not as fast to start) and as he rounds the entry wing, you drop the toy in on the landing side of the bar (not anywhere near you :)) and keep moving forward to the next jump (that next jump is a big distraction!). He had no problem o the other reps, but that first rep is always the most “telling” – and your handling was good, so it is a dog training thing not a handling thing 🙂
He did take it at 1:21 on the next rep but you were helping a little more, which delayed the blind exit, which made the next push a little late. Then at 1:23, as your lower body leaves, keep upper body open on the push – he was so close to having it! I liked hw you were leaving, he just needed one more moment of extreme connection 🙂You helped a little more at 1:42 but I think you can use the distance you were trying for on the previous rep, just leaving your upper body open for a little longer.
Next rep at 1:54 – better commitment to both backsides. Nice! On the line back to the tunnel – you were disconnected and quiet, that might be the magic formula!
OK so let’s talk about that. Bearing in mind that every dog is different:
When I disconnect and run a line, with my Voodoo dog for example: I MUST be loud and high energy on my verbals or he questions the line. Now, Wilder might be the opposite: when you disconnect and run a line, when you were loud and high energy, he consistently dropped rails. But when you were silent or very mellow/quiet on your verbals, almost casual: he was a rockstar. Hmmmmmmmm….. so when you need to disconnect and run a line you will need to be quieter/lower energy to let him focus on his jumping. That is great to know, because all you need to do is run! YaY!!!! Let me know if that makes sense 🙂On the straight GO lines for Lit’L Bit – she was not anticipating the dig on the last jump on the line on the 2nd rep, so was looking for the toy that she had gotten on the first rep LOL!
Also youthful inexperience caused her to curl in on the line back to the tunnel when you got behind. More experience will fix that – you can break it down so she learns the line and gets more comfy driving ahead, and you can also support with more connection like you added for now – the dog training plus the handling will meld together when she is more experienced (it is not a problem for Wilder who is super experienced).
We can see that same thing coming towards the camera, she gets to a certain threshold ahead of you then is not sure if she should keep going straight and curls in (youthful inexperience :))
She was a good girl on the 3 backside!! It looks like she read your arm dropping back as the cue to come in so keep working those without any arm movement so you can disconnect early 🙂 She is looking fast and happy! So cool!
Great job on these. Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! Lots of good stuff here!
Some general ideas for you to build on this:
You should now put a bar or bump on the jump so he has a frame of reference for front versus back, plus the bar is a nice distraction because it has value!When you are rewarding for the backside, plop the toy in closer to the entry wing and plop it in sooner, before he gets all the way around and before he makes a decision to come in the gap (or not :)) There are two reasons for that: we can get him turning his head to look at the bar sooner with the timing (rather than looking at you) and we can also change his commitment point by having the toy in closer to the entry wing: that will help him want to jump closer to the center of the bar. The rewards were coming close to you, so he was watching you and committing near you – which is why it was hard to get past the exit wing and also why he was so close to the exit wing (hitting it at 1:59) when he did come in to take the jump. Placing the reward off of you will help him have a better jumping effort there when we do ask him to jump a bar.
I loved that you ran little courses and mixed it up so he doesn’t go on autopilot LOL!!! Be sure to plan each drill with verbals and connections so you can be earlier – I think on some you were thinking on your feet so info was delayed, like on the tunnel exits or at 1:40 where you looked like you were stepping to the tunnel but then said the wrap verbal. Give yourself little walk throughs so you can plan the timing and verbals LOL!
You were doing a really nice job of getting your crosses/handling in on the backsides on time, before he was getting to the entry wing! Nice!!!!
He is developing some real independence on the backside pushes, very fun to see!!! And that is why we can get the bar in, so you can mix it up with front sies and make sure he is not going on autopilot 🙂
When he was gong on autopilot a bit, you made good adjustments to connection – you intensified the connection around the wing, which really helped him find the lines there!!!
Countermotion – as with the slices, you can drop the toy in sooner – no need to wait for a decision about coming into the gap or not at this point, you can drop it as soon as you walk past the wing. And, drop it behind you rather than across you – that eliminates the need for him to see a cross arm like an old school serp arm (I think he was waiting to see that serpy arm) but we will want you to be able to just run run run through it 🙂 So – drop almost immediately for a couple of sessions, then gradually delay it to give him more of a chance to make a decision.
And wow – super nice distance to the backsides at the end! You were all the way across on the exit wing, that looked GREAT!!>>in your starfish video I saw you working on backside wraps. Did I miss those training videos?
Those are sprinkled in the rocking horses and the wind in your hair games.
>>Also did miss backsides where the dog flips away from you?
They are in the turn aways games 🙂
Great job here!
Tracy
