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Hi! Super nice session here 🙂 He is a weaving machine now! And Kevin’s narration cracked me up when you messed up a little LOL!
Stark did a great job weaving with the rear crosses, with lateral distance, etc. Really nice! The only difficulty had nothing to do with the actual weaves: it was getting him to take the backside you wanted. When he went straight, he was reading your parallel motion (there was not come hither cue at the end of the poles) so he was correct. On the first rep where you added rotation, you were a little late doing it and then you were running backwards… and backwards motion reads as forward motion so he took the jump LOL! On the reps where he was successful, like at 1:59 – you were rotated and stationary right before he finished weaving: perfect!
So it is really pretty cool that you can work handling timing and position while he is weaving, it means he really ‘gets’ the weaves. COOL!!!!!!! Now try driving ahead, serping across the exit from ahead, those extreme rear crosses… the crazy things we did when the poles were much easier 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi there!
This was a great session, makes me happy I peeked into the class after the drive LOL!!!! I couldn’t help myself 🙂
It ALL looked really strong and he seemed to really enjoy the rep where you had to do the blind after the tunnel and your pants off to get to the end LOL!!So…. onwards to adding in a full teeter. Do a warm up of regular elevator, one on each side. Then a couple of crazy elevators from the tunnel. If he is happy and successful? Do one tunnel-to-teeter rep where you do not catch the board. Be sure to give a nice early target cue and also move with him – but don’t race past or leave him at the end. Be chill. LOL!
And jackpot the behavior even if it is not perfect. If he looks cool with it, do one more crazy elevator game then be done with the session. If he looks surprised – just end the session.
I am excited! Can’t wait for the video!
TracyHi!
>> For your CAMP course, do you have to have all the obstacles?
Nope! In some of the sets of courses, there will be BIG courses that have contacts but we can replace those with a tunnel or a teeter as needed. In other sets of big courses, it will be jumps, tunnels and weaves. Plus, all the training courses will also have smaller setups that will not have contacts at all. There will be some skills sets that might have a contact, but there are always ways to finagle around it if you don’t have access to it. So in a nutshell – there is a ton of stuff even if you don’t have contacts 🙂
>> She has a lot of skills but she really lacks trial experience because we haven’t had the opportunities.>>
Yes, it has been a crazy year! But she is looking really mature and happy so I think her transition into the trial ring will be smooth 🙂
TracyHi! I got to my destination a little earlier so I am looking at some videos – I am sure glad I looked at this one, it was a GREAT session! Holy bananas! She looked perfectly happy to me and when you wanted her to go to the first tunnel, she tried to offer the teeter. GOOD GIRL!
So…. let’s add in a full teeter. Do everything the same as you did here: normal elevator warm up. A crazy elevator from the tunnel. Then… the full teeter, with the target cues earlier and with some motion from you but not a lot, supporting her at the end but not catching the board. And then, even if it is not perfect: release and JACKPOT 🙂 Then end the session LOL! I don’t want her to starting thinking about it, I just want her to immediately go into a big yeehaw! I might be overly cautious, but I want her teeter experience to be the BEST THING EVER 🙂 And you can use the best rewards ever too 🙂
And of course, if anything goes weird in the warm up reps, don’t do the full teeter in that session.
I am excited!!!! Can’t wait to see what she does!
TracyHi! Really good session here! And I love both the lion’s mane AND the texture work you did to create the mouth and eyes. And now I want some ice cream LOL!
I think the first oopsie when he ran past the teeter was just the teeter was off the line a little so he needed a clearer indication (which you gave him on the next rep). And then he was trying to add speed and slipped – but he worked through it nicely!
The rest looked great 🙂 So – next session: crazy elevator from the tunnel (warm up with a regular elevator) and then if he is fine with the speed from the tunnel after a couple of crazy elevators…. let him do the full teeter, giving the target cue early and reducing your motion (and jackpot even if it is not perfect :))
And what ice cream creation will he get for the full teeter????? I can’t wait!!!
Great job 🙂
TracyHi!
For the home sessions, you can try toy-only sessions and see how it goes!
For the new teeter session – definitely use food and start with the elevator then crazy elevator and then decide if you want to do the full one. And start with a big target and then if she is fine, go to the uncovered one 🙂
I tend to be very cautious in new places to set the dogs up for success 🙂T
Hi there! A couple of idea for you that will help build on what is working and also smooth out what is harder.
On the lateral lead outs, you don’t need to wait for her to look at the jump. You can totally use your dog side arm and leg to send her to the jump, though – release and then give a big swoosh/step towards the takeoff spot to indicate the jump. Your arms/legs were generally stationary so she was confused as to whether she should come in to you or go find the jump. So it is total perfect to sue the arm & leg send: think of it as bowling LOL! And as long as you stay connected to her, i think she will be able to read it easily.
And to help build more commitment: rather than reward from your hand, throw the reward to the landing side of the jump. That way she looks at you less and at the jump more.
And to balance that, you can throw a ton of rewards back to her for holding her stay: when you lead out and get to position, give her a ‘catch’ cue and throw a reward back to her. If she might take off with a toy and not come back 🙂 then you can totally use food for this.
And you can also set a timer for the session: 8 minutes is a really long time and we tend to lose their brains after 2 or 3 minutes. So even if the first couple of minutes were not great, you can give her a break, regroup, see if there is something to tweak in what you are showing her, then bring her out again later on.On the starfish: you were doing a GREAT job of spitting out all of the verbals! (There are a LOT of words on this one, right? LOL!) When you were connected, she was really strong on her commitment. My 2 favorite spots were at 1:25 and especially 2:25: long extended moments of connection with your arm low, so she was able to find the wings really well.
Same as with the lateral lead outs: more throwing the toy past the wing will help build more commitment to the wings. Her tunnel commitment has improved a LOT and she was getting a lot of rewards for it, so now you can shift the value to the wings.
And some of her questions had nothing to do with your handling – those poles get in the way!!!When you do the tandem turns when she has to come into you then turn away on the wing, you can pretend there is a cookie in your hand (or you can actually have a cookie in your hand LOL!) and draw her in then turn her away with big hand motions. Those hand cues will be pretty slow so she can read them clearly as they are pretty hard.
I really liked the rewards for the leg weaves to settle her back down after a bit of frustration – that was really helpful and raised the overall rate of success 🙂
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
I am happy with her thoughtfulness and accuracy on the teeter here. She was nailing it on all levels of the games. And at the end when you were really running: nailed it. Yay! good girl. If you think back to training the other contacts, that was hard for her so I am glad she is taking a more thoughtful route on this one.Because she is thinking about it and NOT splatting herself, you can layer in more arousal: I think toys are the way to go. The teeter is mainly associated with food, which will create more of a zen response. So in the home environment, start to add toy play before running her up the board (you can still use food to reward in position).
if she is fine with that: reward with the toy! I liked when you released her off the board for the reward, that will get her driving more and thinking less too 🙂Now in non-home environments, the environment might create the arousal, so you might find yourself needing to use food to keep her thoughtful 🙂
The other thing to consider is fading out the elevator games and just doing teeters 🙂 Yay! She is far enough along in the progression that you can do the real thing 🙂
Nice work! Let me know what you think!
TracyRemembered one other thing – when he pops out and you fix starting at pole 6, I think ultimately that might be confusing (because it will be incorrect if he enters at pole 6 in other scenarios). So if he pops, start him back at 1. If he pops consistently, we can open up the 2nd part of the channels more 🙂 We don’t want to make him mad or tempt him to deliver tooth hugs 🙂
T
Hi there!
Two ideas to help make quicker progress. I don’t want to open them back up any more, so we can help her out with this:Think of the 2 bases as the same as the box cars (where we do 6 poles then 6 poles). You might not have looked at that video yet so here is the general idea 🙂 :
Start her by doing poles 3-4 on each side, to prime the pump (acting like they are poles 1-2, so you’ll be starting her between the 2 bases). Then start her with poles 1-2, then 3-4. That way poles 3-4 already have value. Do this procedure each time you move them a little closer (until they are basically close enough to be a straight set of 4).The other idea is that because she is doing well with motion with the slightly open poles, lets take out your motion for now as the poles get straighter and closer. You can move a little bit, or not at all – whatever she finds easier 🙂 When she is happy to do all 4 we can add back the motion bit by bit too 🙂
let me know if that makes sense! We are so close to convincing her to do straight poles 🙂
TracyHi!
he was a good boy here and gave us some really useful info! He is working his colorful tail off to get it right and be rhythmic and fast 🙂
Three things stand out:
First, I think the best reinforcement combo was the tugging before the weave and then the MM as the reward, then tugging, weave, MM. That little loop was where he had the most excitement and best reps! And he was watching the toy in your hand less.Second – he seems to get his rhythm, then lose it towards the end (poles 8-10, approx). So you can help him out: leave poles 1-7 where they are and open up poles 8-9-10-11 wider so he can retain his balance and be highly successful. Then we can gradually tweak those poles back in.
Third – he definitely gets hot easily! At the end, it seemed like the coolest temperatures so he did really well. When he was hot, he didn’t have the “oomph” (physically or mentally). So try to plan the sessions for the coolest weather for now (early morning, dusk, etc) and if he gets hot – note the tongue length and stop the session 🙂 You might only get 2 or 3 reps in if it is hot, but that is better than him losing his oomph 🙂
Let me know what you think! He is definitely on the right track 🙂
TracyHi there!
Really nice session here! I know you mentioned that the park was more crowded than before, but he was very focused! Good choice of reward target there (instead of the MM) so he was able to get it right immediately. He was highly successful here, the hardest parts coming when he wanted to look at you on the exit rather than find the exit – especially when he was on your left. Those left side exits require him to look away from you (so hard!) so one thing that helps is to overcompensate with the reward: instead of placing it out straight ahead like normal, you can throw on the opposite side of the poles from where you are. That can really encourage him to want to look away and get that last set of poles because if you are near the 7 o’clock side of this poles, the reward will land more at the 4 o’clock side. I do it with my big dog on the last couple of videos a lot because he didn’t to look away from me either (these mommas boys haha)I think he is ready for more motion here and more handling challenges! And, separately, adding more poles (6 and 4 then 6 and 6).
Great job!!
TracyHi! Super nice session here! He was able to hit and hold position while you moved past… without the target!! YAY! The only errors were when you didn’t take the moment to get him ready before the send, so he was not quite focused yet. Otherwise, a really great session!
Using this setup, you can add arousal: get him setup next to you, get him more pumped up (tugging then gentle restraint then ready ready ready….) then see if he can do his end position while you move past. Separately, you can also add running to your motion! Wheeee!
And when the crazy winds die down, you can totally add this to the bang game (ideally without the target) and then to the elevator games.Great job here!!!
TracyHi! I fell like there was a question about reinforcement here that I was coming to chat about but I can’t find it now? Hmmmm. Anyhoo – the reinforcement procedures might be the hardest to figure out with all of our dogs. With weaving – it is a behavior that might not be naturally self-reinforcing because it is not a running behavior (it is a collection behavior) so the dead toys might be less exciting? Sequences have a lot of running and motion. A RDW is pretty exciting on its own 🙂 You can try more friz rollers with the weaves, or tying a jolly ball or something to a rope so you can drag it can keep him moving to chase it – that can add the running component that the weaves don’t bring, and ramp up the value of the reinforcement too.
let me know what you think!
Tracy
