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Hi!
yes, it is Tricia! Small world. Yes, mushrooms were one of the things he would eat but he would eat lots of things 🙂
Hooray for the new agility equipment, that is so exciting! Perfect timing because Pirate is right at the age where he can play on grown up stuff!!Threadles are going well! He is doing a really good job of ignoring the toy to come in then going to get it. As the angles got more complex, the coming in portion was great but the going back out was harder – it indeed could have been a bit of brain fry LOL!!! Or maybe the value of coming too you is higher than the value of going back out to the dead toy? The pet tutor will likely raise that value for going back out 🙂 It might also raise the distraction value of coming in but either way, that is a good thing! I posted a bit about adding motion to this, so he will be ready to see a bit of motion on this and the serp as well.
Great job!!
TracyGood morning! Glad to hear the tornados are gone and the paw is better 🙂
The turn Aways are looking really strong, both the tandem and lap turns. When you added the prop, I don’t think he realized it was ‘in play’, so you can wait for him to offer it more – after turning him away, stay quiet and don’t reach for a cookie (those were drawing his attention up to you and away from the prop) and just casually walk towards/past the prop and allow him to look for it (motion towards it the cue, so try not to hurry to it or put a reward on it). You did this at :46ish and it was great!
Serps and threadles – Threadles look really good, he is turning really nicely on the wing for the in-then-out! Nice timing on your MM clicks here, that really helped to get the behavior. Same with the serpentines – super nice in-then-out, with the hand target faded. He also seemed just fine with the various angles. Since this is going well – we go to the next step. Everything is the same about your position and his behavior… but you delay the click until when he turns his head for the ‘back out’ element of the chain. So on the threadles, you cue your in in and he comes towards you hand and then turns back out to the correct side of the bar: and *that* is what you click now 🙂 Let me know if that makes sense: we are now going to reinforce the full in-then-out chain.
Rocking horses: yay! These look good! Very nice connection and you were patient, letting him find and wrap the barrel. Nice connection on the exit of the FCs! Warming him up on a couple of easy ones helped to establish the game and then you were able to slid right into the pattern. Nice! So now you can add a little more distance, and see if you can do the FC a little earlier!
Yes, no Zoom class today – it am teaching a seminar. I will miss my weekly puppy fix, though!!!!! Have a great weekend!
TracyHi!
I am sure Jess can yell NOW and all that fun stuff LOL!!! Timing is hard for everyone!
Convergence videos;
Video 1 – the regular serps are looking really good! The convergence to the blind cross also looked really strong
Convergence to the backslides were mostly good – when he was on your right at :33, your feet were pointing the right way into the gap before he took off and it went smoothly. When he was on your left at :57, you turned your feet into the gap after he took off, and it was not as smooth. On those pushes, your lower body should look basically the same as it did on the convergence into the blind crosses – those were great! The difference is your connection – on the blinds, the connection switches sides. On the backside pushes, the connection stays strongly on the original side.Video 2 – the normal serps and the convergence into the blind cross look great here too!
At :16, you were not in the gap convincingly enough. – you had one tiny step then went back to a regular serp line, so he did the regular serp. The next 2 convergence lines were better but I think you can keep your feet pointing into the backside for longer. This is an exercise where you will need to watch his head: his head, where he is looking, will give you permission to move to the by exit line (or not :)) So you will keep your feet pointing into the gap until you see his head turn towards the backside, then you can move away. This will also help at :59 where you were not as clear as needed to get the backside – you went back to normal serping before he had a chance to pick up the line to the backside. You were much more convincing at 1:08 and I *loved* your footwork and connection and line at 1:16 (last rep) – that was PERFECT!!!Tunnels: About the dig verbal – ideally, you can cue any verbal and get the turn, regardless of what handling is doing. That is the ultimate goal 🙂 It takes time, though, so at his age we do support with handling. On a dig, sometimes a spin makes sense, sometimes you won’t need it but you would still need some type of decelerated turn cue for now.
On the video – motion is the hardest thing for dogs when we are working verbals, so you can solidify these verbals with less speed from you for now. For example on the left and right, you were moving so fast that he was accelerating and turning when he exited. You can trot through them or do that at a fast walk until you establish the line – let him see you clearly move away without fast motion clouding the issue. On the first part of the session, he was exiting then looking for you to make the turn, which is why I suggest using less motion to start. He got a lot better on the 2nd part of the video – so you can structure a session with a brief warm up where you do not have a lot of speed, then you can add the speed back in gradually. I think your timing was nice and early, so it is a matter of teaching him to allow verbals and direction changes to override motion. When you are doing the tight exits line with spins, try not to pressure into the entry of the tunnel as you start the spin; stay on a parallel line. When you pressure in towards the tunnel entry, it looks like a rear cross (which is why he turned the wrong way on one of the spin exits).I agree that he is probably ready for some trialing! The best way to transition him into the ring is in classes or trials where toys are allow – I am not entirely sure of AKC rules but I think toys are allowed in T2B? And they are definitely allowed in UKI. The goal is that he stays happy in trials, just like at home, getting lots of rewards as you begin his career 🙂
Nice work here!
TracyHi!
Course 1 seemed like a good plan but I don’t see the run here? On the fast walk through – use a lot more connection. You ran the plan but it was hard to see it entirely or see where the dog would be, because you were looking ahead rather than at your invisible dog.Course 2 – you mentioned not being sure of where she would be when she exits the tunnel – you can choose handling to get something specific, and also strong connection will let you know where she is so you can either do your original plan or switch gears if she some place you didn’t expect.
On the run – the opening line looked good! On the 6-7-8 line – the threadle needed to be clearer 7-8 – you had closed your shoulders forward and pulled away laterally so she didn’t read it – that is a definite planning spot in the walk through – exactly what the physical cue is and how you will need to deliver it (in terms of connection, motion, etc). Then on the straight tunnel to curved tunnel at 1:45, you forgot the turn cue so she went straight to the next tunnel. It sounds like you gave the turn cue earlier on the next run, but it didn’t override motion (you were running a fast parallel line). She will probably need to see you moving away laterally (along with hearing the verbal) before she enters the straight tunnel rather than accelerating straight. On the last rep, you had a better turn to the curved tunnel. – hard to see wha the motion was but it sounds like a left verbal? That is stuff to remember and plan for the next time you see it in sequence.
The line after the weaves looked really strong! You are getting more and more comfy with cuing and doing a blind (or a slicing rear) then moving through to your next position. Very nice!
Course 3: Bummer abut the end of the run not getting filmed! The first part went really well – the walk through looked pretty clear except that one spot where the camera turned off (it looked like you did not quite get the push back to the jump on the serp in the walk through, it looked too straight based on your motion and connection – and that is what appeared to happen before the video ended. I will keep bugging you on the walk throughs to look back at her more (as the invisible dog). On the walk through, your habit is to look ahead as if she is out ahead, but on most of the handling she is actually behind you. If you can make a habit of looking back for her, then the run will be even easier in terms of timing (because you will more comfortably know where she is) and naturally connecting (because you won’t have a habit of looking ahead). Your running lines look good on the walk through and seem to be matching up nicely to the run. And your pace seems to be matching up too! Nice!!!
Well done here, let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
I think he is doing well with the wrapping, so we can take a detour into eliminating tooth hugs 🙂
Right at the very beginning of the rocking horses, on your very first send, you had him on your right and used very little arm on your send: perfect! That is what I was describing above. Yay! When your arm was too high, you were getting the leaping.
The other thing to add is one more Hallmark Moment of connection before the send to the next barrel. You are skipping some of the connection moments and going right into the sends – and that is causing him to leap up as well.
So the pattern is: send – FC – connect…. – send – FC – connnnecct…… You were tending to do send-FC-send-FC and he was not able to see the connection as well.
The other thing to do is no more than 2 wraps before a reward – when he gets past 2 or 3, you are tending to get a bit more of the chomp chomp attempts and errors.I love how you say “last one” (at 2:28) but then it is not the last one until 3:50 LOL! Set a timer so you don’t go too long – this is an easy game for us but hard for the puppies 🙂
He is doing so well with the toy in hand!!And you don’t even have to break a sweat!! Love the singing LOL!!!!!!
So now that this is going so well, I think you can incorporate it into training set ups. What do you think is the easiest training thing for him – focus/drive ahead to a toy? Or a tunnel? Something really easy – with the dead toy – retrieved to hand with a click and treat. That way we can build in dead toy fun to the training games. And, you can build in getting him to pull on it (kinda tug, gradually pulling it out of your hand after putting it into your hand in order to get the click/treat. So he would retrieve it, put it in your hand, and have to pull it out to get the click/treat (and you would make it easy for him to pull it out at first, then gradually make it harder).
he might have just been a little mentally tired when he started swinging it around at about 2:55 – retrieve to hand is a mental exercise so it looks like he glazed over a little.Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyEek! Sorry to hear about the lake in your yard 🙂
Good job on your homework here!!!
Get out: This is going well! About the toy – it is a totally valid reinforcement, except it is a little too dead at the beginning 🙂 You are chucking it and then not jumping into the party 🙂 So, throw it but then get in there and play play play 🙂 He was bringing it back nicely! As the session progressed, he was totally into the frisbee and driving to it (yay!) but I think he was also confusing the arm cue for the get out with the frisbee throw – so you can have the frisbee in the non-cue arm and see if that helps him – but he did seem to really like it in the 2nd half of the session!
It was hard to see your face on the get out cues, so I couldn’t tell if he needed more connection on the reps he missed? But then it got back on track and he did really well. Try to keep your arm a little lower and you can also repeat the cue (get out get out get out) to help support it as you add more distance.Threadles – it looks like he is really getting the idea! And yes, keeping that connection is SUPER helpful! He was doing really well! You had great timing on the MM click. You can now delay the click – wait til he comes in and then turn his head to go back out: click the MM for the head turn to go back to the bar. The in-then-out is looking good so we can advance it and see if he does the ‘out’ by himself, before the click 🙂
Rocking horses – he is doing well on these. Overall, I think you can join Team Chill more 🙂 2 reasons – one is that you are really verbally energetic with the ready and the yes – and it is very stimulating, so he is getting bites bitey chomp chomp and delivering some tooth hugs. It happens when he gets something wrong (like if you pull away too soon) but it also happens sometimes because he is stimulated. So… Team Chill 🙂 You can have him work in a lower state for now, less excitement, so he doesn’t feel the need to do tooth hugs by being calmer on your ready and quieter on the ‘yes’ markers. That will also help him commit better! Because he is a Border Whippet (just in a smaller body) we don’t need to get him excited or focused – that switch will be easily flipped later on when he understands how to do things without tooth hugs LOL! (For example, at 10 months old, I have never asked Contraband to do anything fast. I have asked him to do things accurately and to not slam into me haha!)
He also delivers some tooth hugs when your arm gets a little too high – I think it blocks connection so he jumps at it. So a challenge for you: use motion and your legs and your connection, but don’t use your arms 🙂 keep your hands down and back as if holding a wine glass in each. That should help increase commitment and decrease tooth hugs 🙂 That will take us to the next level and we can then add more motion!Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! You posted in the right place!!!
Stark is of the generation that will be learning ALL the words. But, in order to keep your head from exploding, we can prioritize them and add them in gradually. Your verbals for threadle, straight line and get out are all strong! I am guessing you also have some obstacle names with Sizz.
Yes, I agree you’ll want a backside slice versus a backside wrap (your ‘in in’ is a threadle slice and eventually I will bug you about a threadle wrap cue haha). You can totally use ‘slice’ as a backside slice cue!!!Le le le and Ri ri Ri are great! But you will also want ‘regular’ left and right cues – I use left and right for those 90 degree turns, and I use different cues for wraps: I use noises, some folks use check check or dig dig dig, for example.
For prioritizing: I suggest wrap cues, go cues, and left/right soft turns as priorities. After that, backsides and threadles. We start all of these in class, so you will have them all well underway shortly!
THi! Yay, this is looking really good!!! And I like how he is setting himself up for the turns on the sends: preparing to turn. That is going to look great on a jump!! he is actually engaging his hind end to set up the turn and that is unusual in a really really good way for a puppy!!!!! I’m jealous hahaha!!! No worries about the one reward when he didn’t quite touch – the rest were strong. Great job building the value here. It is NOT an easy behavior for him but you made it worthwhile and valuable. Well done!!!! Tons of value obvious here, plus happy dog and lots of play in between. YESSS! You can add in sideways and backwards rotation as well as incorporate it into more of the parallel path stuff (he was doing a great job with that at the end of the video).
Terrific job with the short sessions and high value yummies: Fizz is totally on board with it!
>> How long do I keep the bag taped to the bucket??>>
Forever! LOL!!!! I would just leave it like that for now, because it is obvious to him, it has value, and we move off the prop after the concepts are solidified. We don’t need the prop to be harder (but getting it flatter to the ground) because we are going to transfer the concepts to jumps and wings. Bear in mind that on the turning cues (like the sends) he is likely to give you a good clear hit. But on the parallel path stuff and rear crosses and get out, he is going to be more likely to trot over it – and that is fine. We are reinforcing interaction. The body mechanics he uses to make a turn versus stay on a line will dictate how he hits it, if that makes sense.
Lovely work here!!!
THi! It is the handling that is causing the wider turns, not the jump height 🙂
On the first video, on the FC before the weaves was a little late (in terms of deceling into it) and a little past the line so he was a little wide. The BC on the jump after the tunnel looked great but. Then the send to the 2nd jump after the tunnel was a little late 🙂 At :18 you send and left on the jump near the fan and it was really nice!!! Timely and he was fast & tight.On the 2nd video – do you mean the very first tunnel? That would be a left but before he enters – you gave the verbal before he enters but you were running forward, so motion drove him long.
Or did you mean the 2nd jump after the tunnel at :09? You can send and leave sooner there to tighten it up. You were sending with a lot of forward motion and not really leaving until after he was jumping.So I think you can now play with being even earlier on the cues. – his jumping looked really good!!!
And yes, I think the convergence stuff wil be fine at 12”. And the threadle training is perfectly fine to keep low for now, because he is still learning the skill.
Nice work! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
Yes, it is hard to commit to running fast and not worry about clean. I remind myself the screwing up in practice by pushing will make it easier to get it right where it counts, at a trial 🙂
Sequence 1:
His wrap turns were nice but he had a little trouble reading the difference between when you wanted the front and when you did not 🙂 At the very beginning, you did indeed have too much “push” so I can see why he went to the backside. When you redid it at the beginning and at 1:09, you were much more subtle, as well as closer to the wrap wing, and he wrapped 2 really nicely.
On the backside on jump 6 at :40 – you had connection when he exited the tunnel, then right at :41 you turned your head to look forward to the jump. He read that as a blind cross and powered to the front of the jump. At 1:18 you had great connection and he easily got the backside. So maintaining connection until he turns his head to find the backside is super important. The rest of the sequence looked lovely after that!One thing you can play with is wrapping him to the left on 2 – it is a better extension line and possibly a shorter distance, so it might end up being faster!
Seq 2: This one has a convergence moment at 3-4 to set the line. As he is heading to the backside at 3, you can push in towards 4 more to get a sweeter line. At 1:35, you got a nice backside send but then stepped away (back towards the tunnel a little) so he curled in and you had to push back out to get 4.
The rest looked lovely, fast and connected!!!Seq 3: This one opens with a convergence line – you can angle him on a more severe slice on 1 so he is facing the backside line to 2, then it is easier to get him to take the line directly to the backside of 2.
On the exit of 6 – on the first rep, I thought you could have converged more towards the jump after it. You set the RC on the jump really nicely!! On the 2nd rep, you converged beautifully but did not set the jump as nicely – so combine the two (great convergence and great RC setting) and it will be perfect. You can also try the slice to the left on that jump – it is a longer distance but it is all extension, so it might be faster!
The rest looked really strong! Nice pushes to the backside and convergence where needed, and lovely connection throughout!! Yay!!!!Let me know what you think! Great job!
TracyHi! You can look at the slice that ends up on the same exit line as the wrap – these are often the ones that are the fastest 🙂
T
Hi again!
These links are working nicely – the direct YouTube links work fine, I am not sure why the others were taking us to a reply page in the Forum.Video 1 – Nice job adding countermotion on the prop on the backwards sends! You can start a little closer now, so it is easier for him to go to it – which will allow you to move away sooner for more countermotion.
On the parallel path and rear crosses: the parallel path elements look great, he clearly has a ton of value on the prop. Nice!! For the rear cross – start further back from the prop (or move it further away) so you can show him the rear cross info sooner. As soon as he starts moving forward, you can start pressuring along the rear cross diagonal to cut in behind him: that will give him more time to get the RC info and set up the turn.
For the stays – he is doing a great job holding the stay!!! You can totally cue a sit at your side or near you, to try t avoid him barking and backing up into the sit – he seemed to be chaining it together (bark, back up, sit LOL!) so you can start with him next to you and cue the sit. That will also allow you to move away while he is sitting, like a lead out, and throw the reward back to him.
The blind cross to handler focus and turn looks great! He is super responsive and doing really well on all of the baby dog handling 🙂2nd video here: I love your tunnel set up – he seemed perfectly happy to run through the tunnel 🙂 With more experience, he will be more independent 🙂 And building value for the parallel path on the jump also looks great, he seemed to have no trouble at all. He wants to look at you on that, so try to throw the reward sooner: when he makes the decision to go towards the jump (while he is looking at it), you can throw the reward. You don’t need to click, you can just praise and throw it get the reward in before he looks at you (no need to wait until he is at or between the uprights.
Great job with the strike a pose game! He has a strong hand touch and you had great mechanics. Just try to have the cookie out in the other hand before he gets back to you, I think it was getting stuck in the bag LOL! He is ready for the next steps: you can take this game and have him come between the uprights, doing the exact same thing. You can also move. to the next level, where the rewards go on the ground: I think an empty food bowl will be easiest because he can come to you, target, then you can plop the treat into the food bowl.
Great job!!! Let me know what you think.
TracyHi! The videos are working, happy dance!
The get it to the treat is looking really good! The next steps would be to get you standing up, then moving. Does he like toys? That would be ideal on this game too, so you can get even more driving ahead.The drive to handler is also looking good! He is decelerating into collection really nicely and sticking nice and tight as you turn. Try to reward from the hand he is driving too, rather than feeding from the other hand.
He is doing a great job hitting the prop here! The sending looks great and he had no trouble with the backward sends – those are hard so I am super glad to see him getting it so nicely!
The shaping around the ‘thing’ looks good too. He is ready for the next steps which would include having you stand. I will take a look at the other videos, I am guessing you have advanced all the skills in those 🙂
Great job on these!!
TracyHi!
First up, your question about the classes –
It is 6 weeks of live classes over the 9 weeks, so we have 2 more live classes (next week and the week after that). I do have some games for tomorrow (no live classes) but then we have more games coming in the live classes and more time to complete them all. I figure the next class will be in mid September, and it will be where we put together lots of concepts into bigger pieces, add proofing, and more verbals. I will get it posted next week – I just need a fancy name haha!!!The threadle and serp looked good – perfect job of keeping your shoulders as stationary as possible while tossing the treat. – she seemed to like that much better 🙂 Yay!! Thanks for trying it! We will be building in motion to these very gradually, she will be ready for that 🙂 Great job!
TracyHi Estelle! It sounds hot down there, looks like you have a nice shady spot to train!
First video – on the rocking horses, we can work on getting him to have more speed and independence on these. As you do the front cross, try to do use connection between the barrels (direct eye contact) and reward him for each rep. You can reward with food (even if it is not the most favorite thing) or you can reward with the football.
He came in with a lot of speed at the very beginning (yay!) but almost ended up on the wrong side (not enough connection to his eyes) and then you said an “ah” or something – he got deflated and then we lost the speed. So, if he is not 100% correct, don’t mark it – instead, keep going and add more connection, and then reward on the next rep.
As he was wrapping, he was not quite ready for you to turn that early and he wasn’t finishing the wraps on some of the reps. You can hold still facing forward longer, so he completes the wrap and then you can turn, reward and send to the next one. As he is learning this skill, I suggest no more than 2 wraps in a row between rewards. You can also have his ball in your hand to get things started – he REALLY loves that ball!! Yay! Having it on the ground was hard, so we might want to get more speed first then add the challenge of the ball on the ground.On the 2nd video, you had the ball in your hand at first and it was really hard for him to leave it – that is something you can revisit in shaping, where he goes around the barrels while you hold the toy: excellent distraction work that will transfer to trials, teaching him to focus on the obstacles even with the other distractions around. He was much faster with the ball in your hand here, and that is good! I liked the speed! Ball on the ground was much harder, so I recommend a few more sessions of ball-in-pocket for now, to keep the speed up. Then as you get the ball back to the ground, you can mix in food rewards (I think he does like food?) . If he doesn’t like food rewards, you can have the ball further away as a distraction to get the speed up, then over the course of several sessions, bring it back closer.
One last suggestion – reward more frequently and finish before he wants to be done 🙂 If you reward after every 1 or 2 wraps, then only do 1 minute of a session, he will be super focused and super excited to work 🙂 Doing several reps without rewards or sessions that are too long might be causing him to lose interest towards the end and get distracted. I like to keep sessions to 90 seconds or less for young dogs, especially in the heat 🙂
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
