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hi! Nice work on these skills sets!
Video 1 – lots of really nice stuff! You can be a little closer to the jumps on the regular serpentine (about an arm’s length or less). Your convergence when he was on your right was lovely – note how at :19 you were already showing convergence before the release, so he was perfect! Compare that to :43 (when he ended up behind you) and :55 when he got it but he had some verbal feedback lol – on those reps, you were still moving on the parallel path regular serp line after he landed, the convergence info was late. You were super connected on the last rep which helped get it, but you should be moving in sooner, more like you did at :19.
Videos 2 – all of the backside series looked GREAT! Try to think of the convergence to the 2nd backside a little differently in terms of when to show it to him: as he is rounding the backside entry wing of jump 1, you should already be pointing your feet into the gap for the next backside. You were perfect with that on rep 2, when you did the blind to the front of 2. On the other reps where you pushed to the backside, you did a step to the backside after he landed – so he landed then turned, creating a little zig zag. If you can start stepping into the gap (or facing it/moving towards it) before he takes off for jump 1, you will see him adjust the line before takeoff and have a much tighter turn into the backside – without you having to take a big step to get it.
Video 3: He did well on the threadles! Having to ignore the MM is hard indeed, but he did it 🙂 I think he was not coming in fast when you were looking right at him. When you shifted the connection down to your hand when you said the verbal (last 2 reps), he was nice and fast coming in! So maybe direct eye contact on the threadles is tooooo much for now and you can look at your hand. Good job adding motion – I would definitely keep adding more and more motion, working up to a run! You can also add a wing or a low jump before it (with not much motion, go slooooowly :)) and see if he can figure it out in sequence 🙂
Nice work here!!!
Tracy
Hi! This looks really good, with whichever arm you use 🙂 I train both, so feel free to sometimes use the outside arm, sometimes the dog side arm – the situation will dictate which one you are more comfortable using on course. At this stage, I suggest starting with the easy angles and adding in a little bit of motion (sloooooow walking :)) You will be walking… then went you get to the entry wing, give the threadle cue and keep walking v-e-r-y-s-l-o-w-l-y 🙂 If that goes well, you can get faster and faster, gradually 🙂 Keep reminding yourself to NOT stop, also keep moving even if it is really slow 🙂 After 2 successful sessions of that… add the 2nd wing back.
And yes, you can totally mix in serp training within these sessions – you will change your position and your verbal so she knows the difference.
Nice job! Let me know now if the ideas make sense 🙂
TracyHi! I was wondering when someone was going to ask this LOL!!!
>> Overall, are you meaning that you should train each arm for each use and then use the preferable one for the situation? The opposite arm would be used when you need more extreme connection for a difficult threadle and the open side arm would be used with more casual connection or an easier threadle for the dog to perform. Please give me your thoughts of this subject.>>
I’ll preface my answer by saying that there is no wrong answer here, because threadles are trained skills and the handling is icing on the cake 🙂
yes – I train both. The main part of the training is the verbal cue, but I show the dog that the threadle can be either arm (and I also show the dog that I might do double blinds in a threadle too). The threadle verbal names the dog’s behavior (come in – go out) and not my behavior (handling choice).
How you choose is personal depending on the dog. I generally use the dog-side arm Threadle when I am ahead of the dog (in a good position) and the threadle is ‘normal’ and not terribly complicated. When I am behind (out of position) or it is a really hard threadle, I use the outside arm. The outside arm is easier for the dog to see, which helps! But it is harder to run with the outside arm up, so the dog side arm is great because it allows us to run better.
So yes, the difficulty of the threadle influences my choice about which arm to use, and my position relative to the dog & the threadle also influences the decision: It is an ‘easy’ threadle but I am behind, I will use my opposite arm.
Let me know if that makes sense!
TracyYay, it worked! Very nice session here! I agree, she was not *quite* ready for the toy on the ground but I do admire her happy moment when she bounded towards it LOL! She is so fun 🙂
The session with the MM went really well. Your position can be one step more towards the wing (to your left) and then it will be perfect (at 1:00 you were blocking her line to the correct side so she ended up on the other side, but the rest were really strong). As you play with this, you can start clicking the MM even sooner – you can anticipate the instant she is going to hit your hand and click it, so she goes right back out. Then you can click it just before she hits your hand: the goal is that she comes towards your hand to the correct side of the jump then turns herself back out 🙂 When you see her doing that, we will fade out the hand target and add motion. Nice work here, I think she is picking this up really nicely!!!!Tracy
Hi! I love that you even had your barrels with you to whip out for this game LOL! You are doing really well so I bet a lot of your feedback is “nice job!” – but being able to work in that environment is HUGE!! And I am glad you came to class, he rocked it! Hopefully you both slept well afterwards 🙂
Piggie to hand looks great!!! And so adorably funny LOL!! You were actually cuter than he was with your songs lol! Keep working on this, change up to different toys – and it reminds me of another game we can play to build more dead toy drive: you can shape him to progressively pull harder and harder to get it out of your hand in order to get the reward. Basically, he grabs the toy and if he pulls it out of your hand, he wins (can win a treat or a better toy). At first you make it easy for him to do that, then make it harder and harder til he is legit tugging like a fiend and you are doing nothing except holding the other end of the toy 🙂 It takes several sessions, but it really helps. I totally have video of this… somewhere. I can’t remember which dog is in the video (Nacho or HSM) so it will take me a while to find it 🙂 I will post it when I find it! Let me know if it makes sense 🙂
T
Hi! This is a really interesting video! I think there are 3 things to consider on the big barrel (2 are related :)) and then we can sort it out!
First thing is a value issue -the reward placement is from your hand, so value is on your hand – so you can take the big barrel and shape it like we did with the PNU and the smaller things, with rewards tossed out to the other side as he is going around it. A couple of sessions with all of the value placed out on the other side of the big barrel will really help!Second thing, and this is related, I think – he easily goes around the squished up tunnel and not the big barrel. In fact, his commitment to these games on the squished up tunnel is terrific! The main difference is that he can see you around the tunnel and not with the barrel – so perhaps he doesn’t like it when he can’t see you? That is related to value: you are valuable 🙂 Yay! So yes to the shaping for value like I suggested above, but you can also use something where he can see you more, like a big cone or small pop up crate or something 🙂
Third – I don’t think he likes when you give him little pushes when he gets a little frozen, he always seems to back off after those. He might go to the barrel sometimes after it, but he might also be associating the big barrel with the pushes so he doesn’t really love it. So, you can urge him on with a little ready steady game or try moving into it more, but try not to touch him as part of the game here. You can also put the target bowls in as part of the shaping game, that can help just start the game on the big barrel!I am betting he will be just fine on turn and burn as well as rocking horses on other objects as you bring the big barrel up to full value. Feel free to try it on some of the other objects and see how it goes!
Let me know if the ideas makes sense 🙂
TracyHi! Thank you, Min, for helping with distraction 🙂 This is also looking good! I think this will feel a little more comfy when you are outdoors and there are no walls to stop you, you might have been slowing down because there was a wall there LOL!
My only suggestion is to catch his eye a little sooner with your opposite arm/magic cookie hand so you can have him ready for the turn cue sooner. At a walk, he was fine with the timing, so I am thinking ahead to when he will see you running through these – if you show him the magic cookie hand on these tandems sooner, he will be able to prepare (by slowing down :)) for the turn cue sooner too. You can play with that by add more speed to your motion!Nice job!
TracyHi!
>>Question on your comment for the get out. You said:
Remember to start him behind you (stay or cookie toss) so you can move up the line and give the cookie while he is still behind you.
Give cookie while he is behind me? I thought he goes ahead and out to the prop?>>It is more of a parallel path behavior when we add motion, rather than sending him out ahead (that was just to get things rolling). So if you toss a cookie back, you can start moving and he will be moving up the parallel line a little behind you – you can then show either the get out or the come to momma cue (always easier when you are a little ahead). Let me know if that makes sense.
>>And when do I name this one?
When you have the behavior with the physical cue – and it appears you do 🙂 so go ahead and add the name. 🙂
T
Hi there!
>>What should I do when Lennan successfully moves in the direction I want when working with the prop but misses actually touching it? >>
We find *something* to reward 🙂 Because the prop is going to be faded and doesn’t need to be used in competition, we can reward approximations rather than perfection (as opposed to, say, weave poles which need to be done a certain way so we need to reward more specifically). the goal with the prop is to get the concept across with a high rate of success, then transfer to a jump. In the session: If there was a clear error, you can reward stays, sits, tricks, etc – to keep the rate of success high overall. But, also, a lot of the parallel path behavior on the prop (like parallel path, get outs, etc) is meant to emulate extension on a jump, so the pup’s approach and interaction with the prop looks different than hitting it directly. With that in mind, and also bearing in mind that we are training concepts that will be transferred to a jump or tunnel – you can reinforce correct response to the cue (such as the lead change away on the get out cue) or general interaction with the prop even if it is not a perfect paw smack. So, for example, on the rear cross – if he goes over the prop and turns – reinforce! If he turns on the flat without any effort to interact with the prop – don’t reinforce. (More on rear crosses below).
2 other things to consider:
– If you get one failure, you can ask the same question but if you get two failures… make it easier (or assess if you should be reinforcing the behavior he is offering).
– don’t use a marker if he is wrong (avoid saying the same thing, like ‘nice try’) because those can end up being punishment markers (associated with negative punishment). Instead, all him back and either re-send immediately or cue/reinforce something else.>> He wants to go faster now which I think makes it more difficult for him to actually hit the thing. Is my prop too small?
Yes, for the faster moving behaviors, I think it is so you are getting REALLY nice general interaction but not very specific paw hits. So, you can reward the general interactions (visualize them as him going over the bar) and/or you can put the prop on a bigger mat and reward anything that happens on the mat (any behavior on or near the prop). We will be off the prop soon enough and onto jumps, so perfect paw hits don’t matter right now 🙂 You can also wad the fixes – when he strides over the prop than says “oops, let me smack it!” that is clever and can be rewarded 🙂 It will not have any negative fallout when we transfer to jumps 🙂
I think his get outs look really good, you can reinforce the choice to move away and then toss the reward out towards the prop (think of it as a jump). He did well on the balance reps too!!! He was a little wide, drifting towards the prop on the balance reps, but that is normal because that prop has so much value 🙂
Rear crosses are also looking good – try to start cutting in behind him sooner. I think that you will need to start further back, so you have time to show the rear cross before he makes a decision. You were a little late on some of them, so either he didn’t get the turn til after the prop, or he was on his left lead hitting the prop and then turned after that. Good boy! Try to aim for changing sides while he is still 6 feet or so from the prop, so he can adjust his leads and then finish approaching the prop. His understanding of the RC is looking strong!
I am happy with how the turns on the flat are going – at this point, start him a little further away so you can set up your turn with more time – when he was close, you didn’t have a lot of time to set it up LOL! He was driving into the toy hand really nicely! Towards the end he wasn’t as strong as the beginning of the session, it was hard to tell why but it is possible that you were drawing hm back and turning him away in one motion, rather than 2 distinct motions like you did in the beginning of the session. He was going faster so you were going faster which made things harder to keep distinct. So, even when he is going fast, this handling move should be done slowly 🙂Nice work here!! Let me know if the ideas about the prop make sense 🙂
Tracy
Hi there! It is not uncommon for pups to avoid collar grabs or being restrained, so two approaches that might help –
you can do hand moving towards Kai’s collar or harness, and then something fun happens, either a game starts or a big reward gets delivered. That can split the desensitization of it into tiny chunks and conditioned him that good things happen when your hand moves towards his collar.
You can also do quick touches, meaning you put a finger on the collar then immediately release to a game or deliver a toy or treats.
And with both, you can gradually work up to restraining by the collar but take your time, so he is totally comfortable and enjoys it.
For driving ahead, you can try using a leash to restrain him? Leash is hooked to a harness, you hold the end of the leash, throw the reward, then race to it – he might enjoy that more than a collar grab 🙂How is your finger feeling?
Your video link brings me to your post on the the thread where you posted that cool article – can you repost the video? Thanks!!!
TracyHi! I totally feel that pain, soooooo many words!!! Pick just a few and we slap them onto existing behaviors 🙂 For super fast pointy dogs, I vote for the following:
GO (plus that is really fun)
Get out (to push him away on lines so you can run to the next one)
And wrap-towards-meSo, only 3 to start. Play with those…. then we will add more! A left & right verbal would be next on the list, then a backside and threadle verbal. But those can all wait, he is only 6 months old, we have time 🙂
T
Hi! Good question about the dog-side arm versus the outside arm:
If the verbal is well-trained and the dog really understands it – for most dogs, it will be easier to just point with the dog-side arm and the handler continues to just run forward 🙂 The outside arm rotates the chest/shoulders to the line, so the handler has a physical cue to support the verbal, which is super useful for getting the behavior with young dogs, and also getting the behavior with dogs that either aren’t great with verbals (some dogs just don’t process verbals that well) or with dogs that are really hard to push away (I have a dog like that so I always use the outside arm with him). For the dog-side arm to be effective, the verbal understanding needs to be very well-trained and well-understood, because the physical cue does not support it as well as the outside arm does.
So, it will end up being a personal decision based on how the dog picks it up (is it easy, or do they need extra help?) plus how much you want to train your verbals 🙂 I figure you are already really good a training this stuff, so you can easily get Keiko going on a dog-side arm (she seems like she processes verbals really nicely!)On the video: Great hint about the fireplace glass LOL!! And the sun spot on the floor helped provide a good running line. Keiko did really well with both the balance of sticking with you and also going to the prop. Good clicks for when she changed her lead to go to the prop! Towards the end, when you were using your outside arm, she seemed faster shooting away to the prop! Now, it might have been because the outside arm was a powerful cue…. but it also might have been that she had already gotten a zillion clicks & treats for going to it on the dog side arm LOL!! She did really well on that arm at the beginning too, so if the dog-side arm is more comfortable then I think you will easily be able to use it. Let me know if that makes sense!
Great job!
TracyAh, here is the serp versus threadle work – it is hard! She really wants you to move your upper body to cue the ‘go out’ element of the behavior, and we really don’t want you to have to do that LOL!! So an idea to get her to propel back out after the threadle or serp – you can throw something with your other hand. So if the left hand is your cue hand, your right hand can toss the reward (lotus ball or tennis ball or cookie, whatever you think she will like the best :)) so you can get a quick reward in and she won’t hesitate or want you to help. When we get you running through these, we will want her to go the in-then-out turns on her own, so hashing out how to convince her to do it without you turning your shoulders forward will be super useful 🙂 The come-in element of both the threadle and serp are looking really great!!!
Nice work! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! This is going well – the harder angles are indeed harder, there was steam coming our of her ears! And on the super hard angles, affirming it early (just as she gets around the entry wing) will help her – she wasn’t sure, so be quick to tell her she is correct 🙂 When you were in the center of the bar and wanted the serp at the beginning, she was not as sure (she might have been asking if you wanted the threadle or not :)) so you can balance more of those back in during the session. And to help affirm that you want her to come over the bar and NOT threadle on those, you can call her name and shake your hand a little so she doesn’t think about the threadle.
Nice work!
Tracy
