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Hi!
I am looking forward to the trial updates!!
One thing we can work on is the transition to trials where he knows where the tennis ball/reward is outside the ring, and that gives him confidence and focus *inside* the ring! I posted a few ideas for Eileen & Ivan (who is also a tennis ball fanatic) and I will go grab them and post them here too. I think we did these a while back but it is worth revisiting as you go back to trials 🙂I am glad you grabbed the grids! He did really well, they are hard but great for conditioning. He did MUCH better than most dogs do on these, especially for a first session and also especially because he is big! I am impressed! He even did a great job when he broke his stay haha!
My only suggestion is to start him closer to the first jump, less than a foot away, so he has to liftoff from his sit immediately rather than take a stride then jump. This serves two purposes:
-adds a plyometric element of strengthening his hind end and core
– adds challenge by shifting his weight back onto his rear for the grid.If he can do it as well starting closer, you can get the jumps even flatter and try it!
And after a couple of sessions, you can get the height up a little too 🙂
No need to do this every day – every 3rd or 4th day is great, so the muscles can rest/recover in between.
Great job here! Hope you are enjoying the trial!!
Tracy
Alrighty, here are 3 videos to give you some training ideas for trials! On the videos with the Manners Minder, you can totally use a tennis ball instead 🙂
Ah, 2020….. I have many 4-letter words to post here about 2020!!!
But – I am glad you are working on getting your foot back on track!!!! And stopping agility forever was a ridiculous idea on their part, seriously. The strengthening and gait stuff and bike work sounds awesome!!!!
For the dogs – 2 ideas:
Have you considered putting up a pool? I have lots of agility and flyball peeps who have put up a pool, the type that can somehow be easily taken down during the winter. I can get more info if you want – I definitely want to put up a pool but I haven’t gotten around to doing anything about it.
The other idea is to get with someone who can personalize a program for the dog’s fitness. I just started a private, month-long program with Dr. Leslie Eide who is excellent with the fitness and also does agility at a high level, so she understands us 🙂 It is about $100 a week and includes personalized, progressive plans that evolve and get feedback, plus a live Zoom consultation every week. So far, it is worth every penny and I am sure it will get even better. I am not sure how many months I will do (the pandemic thing makes income a little trickier than normal) but I will definitely do one more month after this to get Hot Sauce where I want her.For the training…. well there is a TON we can do! Question – how does walking feel? Any restrictions?
The first thing is going to be making a list of skills and ranking them on a scale of o through 3:
0 = haven’t started
1 = started but weak
2 = in progress, semi-reliable
3 = looking good!The skills can be handling moves, obstacle skills, and verbal cues. It will be a big list, but that is fine. We then prioritize and get to work! There is so much that we can do without needing to run run run 🙂
T
Hi there!
>>I am familiar with the concern about dogs, particularly BC’s, who will work until they drop. Obviously, Enzo is more sensible than that. Of course, I’d prefer that I was the one that decided when to stop but, if I’m not aware, it is nice that he is>>
Heck yes – if he chooses to stop long before the potential for any collapse, then that is a GREAT thing. Maybe it was more humid than usual? One thing it might have been – he didn’t seem as confident when you were sending him ahead, and on that last rep he ticked the bar or hit the first wing (something made noise) and since you were not moving, perhaps he thought you were going to stop him for a bar? That is something my Voodoo would do, it looked familiar 🙂
The grids are looking really good – I am not seeing a difference in his jumping form when you are normal speed, running hard, or standing still. I am especially happy to see no real difference when you were way out ahead!! He stayed balanced – that is excellent. He was balanced when you were sending him on ahead, but not as sure of it. He might just need more verbal support with the get it to help him understand that yes, he is allowed to do this grid independently when you are stationary 🙂
Nice job!
TracyGood morning!
>>Oh dear, you are right about how I use “go on”. It has two meanings, the most correct one is “take the straight line in front of you and finish up”. The other one is more like “stay out there on the line you are on and don’t cut in to me”. >>
The good news is, Enzo appears to understand the straight line meaning of go on! The bad news is, Enzo appears to understand the straight line meaning of go on! LOL!!! So, maybe plan to say his name quietly or a ‘jump’ cue? You can be quiet too of course but talking is fine. I somehow developed my ‘jump’ cue because of my inability to stay quiet 🙂
Loved your double whammy here!
Little things to think about, because we can always analyze and consider:
On the entry of 3 (the tunnel) you said around – perfect timing for a verbal. He didn’t really power out as I know he can. I wonder if the around was too soon and a GO cue would be better, to name the behavior on the tunnel exit (straight line) and then when he exits, switch to around?) The GO right before he enters should produce a straight line exit – which is perfect in this situation. And then before he exits, you can start the around to tell him what to look for when he exiting the tunnel (because around applies to the next jump). Yes, it is a nit picky detail to figure out just how fast we can get him to go – but I think it is fun to mess around with these little details 🙂 Thoughts?On the 4 backside and also when you get back through the second time: VERY awesome job of disconnecting! At :06 and even more at :22 you saw him head to the backside and then you disconnected (verbal and motion supported the line) and you then we able to get to a great spot and reconnect for the send to 5
Nice blind to the tunnel at :11, in terms of timing, connection AND line! The BC at :26 was not quite as early so not quite as perfect but still really nice!
The dig at 10 (:16) probably needed a stronger handling cue – more decel and maybe a break arm – he was pretty wide there. A spin is a possibility.
Ending looked lovely!!!
Tracy
Good morning!!
This #3 course is super challenging and technical but I think this was your best walk-run combo of the week!!!! Wow!
A big contributor might be your time management: your handling plans were hashed out pretty early in the walk so you could get into the nitty gritty really quickly. It looks like you had your full plan in motion by just under 5 minutes in: that is terrific time management on a massive course like this with all of the technical craziness.And, your plan was really good!! Some thoughts for you:
1-5 looked like the absolute best way to do things for the fastest lines.On the 6 jump (after the tunnel) – you chose the wrap which *might* be the fastest line. But since backside wraps are often much slower than backside slices (and harder for the dog), that is a spot where you can look at the slice (sending him to the entry wing closer to the straight tunnel, exiting same side as you had him exit) – based on how you set it, it looks like the distance on the slice might be longer – but the question would then be: if it is only a little longer (from the exit of 5 to takeoff of 7) can it be faster? If it is a LOT longer, it will probably not be faster. Food for thought! On the wrap at 6, you were walking with your left arm (outside arm) supporting him over the bar – that is probably just old habit, you don’t need that- you can just cue and leave.
The weave entry/exit is definitely challenging. You can consider a side change before the poles or after it (depending on if he knows to stay in when you run past and blind cross the exit).
The rest of your choices look really good, nice aggressive handling choices 🙂 I really like the BC 12-13, but you will need to leave the teeter as early as possible to get there on time. The only other potential trouble spot if 16-17, which has that push through to 17 – you were walking it parallel to the bar of 16 and using your arm to push to 17 – that is a spot where you will likely need to turn towards the gap and step into it to convince him to get the correct side of 17. That same convergence will help get the 19-20 line at the end too.
Your run went REALLY well!!!! Little details to consider:
1-5 was lovely, looked great! You did *not* over-support the 6 jump on the run, you cued and left – worked really nicely! You switched plans and did a FC before the poles – I know it wasn’t your plan and you were caught in the moment… but I liked it 🙂 Yes, a little late and he was a little wide, but you made it work. One thing to remember in that situation is that one of his strengths is staying on the line you are moving towards as you do a blind cross, even when you are not in a perfect position – so you can totally get a BC in there and make it work even better 🙂After the teeter, you were with him on the teeter for a little too long, setting up a foot race to the blind 12-13 on the line after the teeter but you GOT IT because he understands what to do there. It was a risky aggressive handling moment and it rocked! YEAH!!! And it set you up to continue your plan of the BC on takeoff of 14 – which you also got. Double yeah!!! You will continue to get more and more comfy with these handling choices and execute them even sooner – he seems to both understand AND power through them 🙂
You had an oopsie on the convergence into 17 – you ran it like you walked, and he ended up on the front side. So on the list of things to remember – convergence on the exit of slice lines when we have to push the dogs into a gap. That was a big thing for everyone this week, so it is in the Week 5 package that is coming tomorrow 🙂 Stay tuned!
On the 2nd run – you were driving even harder 1-5, love it! It looked even better than the first run. He dropped the bar at 6 on this run – it looks like you stepped backwards a little more on this rep than on the previous jump where you left forward to 7, so he didn’t realize how tight the turn was until he was in the air. Interestingly, as you were going for the FC before the poles on the first run, you stepped out of 6 perfectly. But with the RC before the poles coming up in this run, you stepped back and that pulled the rail. That’s another reason to always handle aggressively 🙂 – it gets you driving to the next thing sooner!
About the weaves: the RC to the weaves did get you a nicer entry line on this run. Question: can you outrun him while he is in the weaves and BC the exit? It would be kind of a serp/blind on this particular course, if he will stay in the poles and let you get there. The other option would be a RC on the flat, which is more like a tandem turn in this situation. I still think you can get the BC before the entry 🙂
You were a little further from the teeter here and got to the BC on step sooner. Yay! And that contributed to an earlier forced blind on 14 so he powered more through that line too. And you were much clearer on the push to 17, so he nailed it. Ending line looked really strong too!!
Very well done on this! And I am guessing that George was your videographer, big thanks to him for filming all the walk throughs and runs! (BTW, I video my walk throughs at trials too, when possible to make sure I am matching up to my runs – yes, I am that crazy LOL!)
Great job with the trial transition games – his face was adorable: “but mom, my BALL!!!” hahaha!
I really liked his speed here, going away from the ball (going towards the ball is a no brainer, he will be fast :)) he did a great job running fast up the line *away* from it, and that is the hardest part.
One challenge that I think is important for any AKC competitor is having him come past where the entry gate is and where the ball is… and continue on up the course (I see this ALL the time on AKC courses and many dogs have trouble with it). What I mean by that is – on this course – the ball is exactly where you left it. You start on the same jump, and then do a sequence like jump – weaves – teeter – jump then up the line that you ran here. Ivan would exit the teeter and then have to ignore the ball rather than head towards it when he goes past it – then he can get rewarded for ignoring it of course 🙂
Let me know if that makes sense, I haven’t had a lot of coffee yet today 🙂Great job!
TracyHi!
>>So she tends to sit and offer attention rather than behaviors until we are in a training loop. Then she anticipates the loop! So in the “prime the pump” stage, she will sit and mand. Then once she is warmed up, the “ready” cue makes her anticipate what is coming next and offer something. So I am struggling because with my other dogs, “ready” is a “prime the pump” type thing but I am struggling to adapt to her style where sometimes she needs priming and a cue and sometimes she doesn’t.>>
Interesting details of the baby dog!! 2 suggestions:
– you can de-loop her (meaning, get rid of the anticipatory process) by doing 2 or 3 reps of the behavior, then break off the game and tug. I like loops in that we can get a nice high rate of reinforcement going and often some nice clean mechanics too… but there are other elements that are NOT as useful and the anticipation is one of them LOL!!! So you can try mini loops of 2 or 3 reps then ave a dance break. And, you can insert a ‘ready’ engagement as you describe with your other pups (which sounds similar to what I do too) into the loop: play – send – reward – call back – play – send-reward -etc. So there is engagement built in, rather than circling back into the behavior. Let me know if that makes sense, I might need more coffee 🙂– if your ‘ready’ word seems to cue her to go do a thing, you can approach it differently. Either say ‘ready’ then cue an engagement behavior you like (with some of my dogs, I cue a bark. With some, it is a trick or eye contact) so she starts to offer an engagement behavior rather than a training behavior like a mat hit. Also, depending on what you want her to do with the ready behavior, you can reinforce the behavior by then inserting the prop to start the training. For example, using the mat hit (targeting), and let’s say I want my pup to stand in front of me and make eye contact when I say “ready”:
Start by holding your target mat. Say ready – when she stands in front and looks at you, reinforce the behavior by placing the mat down – the opportunity to target will reinforcement the ready behavior you want, without any possibility of her going to the mat when you say ready, if that makes sense 🙂
Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>Lennan really does seem to have value for that hand target. I’m not even sure why he loves it so much. He learned it right away when I first taught him to touch it. He’s never been that enthusiastic about targetting to my hand without the target. Apparently he loves the target though.>>
Alrighty then, I am glad he loves it LOL!! My goal was to make the hand target more obvious for the pups with the target, and if that has helped build the love for the behavior with Lennan, then I am happy! Yay!
The stays looked great on the video! The ball was a really strong exciting distraction and yet he seemed fine with moving into the sit and holding it (sooooo many BCs get sticky with a ball like that!). And I LOVED your running away then throwing back the toy! That is something I use on course: running into the lead out then releasing! It is something the Europeans handlers use to get the most speed from both dog and handler plus it is super fun. He was definitely engaged, but also SUPER successful. Well done on that!!!
>> The turns were more challenging using the toy.>>
Yes, for sure! I think the conditioned response to the toy is a bit of a grab at it when he is driving into your hand with the toy in it (he had his mouth open a few times LOL!). so you want need to just have him stand in front of you and follow the toy as a lure in your hand for a spin or turn away – to give him the idea that he can follow the toy hand the same way he can follow the cookie hand. Then it will be much easier for him to be able to execute the turns. Your timing can be maybe one step sooner because he comes in with more speed to the toy, but I don’t think the timing is what made it hard – I think it was more about conditioned response to toy from hand. The other thing than can help is to have a turn away verbal to add on (even if it is an interim cue for now) – because he definitely appreciates the different verbals as useful info! And if you can tell him whether it is a toy strike or a turn away as he is moving in, I think he will set himself up differently. Let me know if that makes sense.
Parallel path: happiest red dog EVER!!! I think he likes that game, especially with the toys LOL!!! He did a great job 🙂 3 suggestions:
– you can get rid of the clicker, I don’t think he needs the marker on this (you can go to a verbal yes marker)
– you can add a verbal GO cue because he is taking it in beautiful extension, so we might as well name it 🙂
– you can add more of your running – especially if he is going to hear the GO cue 🙂Strike a pose – this was an interesting session! I think his questions when the toy was held out obviously to the side had to do with conditioned response to the toy in that position. As soon as the toy was in a different position (near your belly or on the ground) he had a much easier time of targeting. So my guess is that the conditioned response of that position being the ‘international sign for get the toy’ position was overriding the saliency of the target hand. So, 2 thoughts:
to work the strike a pose on the jump, have the toy either on your belly or on the ground, like you did towards the end of the session on the video.
separately, work through the conditioned response to the toy being held out away like you had in the beginning of the session – start him nice and close to the target hand, both in terms of the angle and the distance away, so the target is *right there* and then have the toy out – move the target hand and down, shake it a little to help get his attention on it, and release him to it. If he goes to the toy first, you can lift the toy, but hold position and keep waving the target hand to see if he can say “ah!! My target!!” and then reward.Let me know if that makes sense! You two are looking great!
TracyHi!
That is funny, because I think of your Pose every.single.time that I type the name of this game LOL!!!! And the locked in bar is perfect!One thing I love about Differ is that she is 1000% in everything she does, including standing on the Cato board and also that small cheating moment at the beginning LOL!! Good girl, though, she was great on the rest!! Position 1 was easy for her and the other positions were more challenging: she had a lightbulb moment at :39 where she almost went to the toy hand then realized that the gateway to the toy was to do the serp. YES! Big moment!!! Note how after that she was setting up the proper serp turns (in then out) on the original side and also immediately transferred it to the other side. That is *exactly* what we want to see: drive in over the bar and also be turning. Brilliant!!!
2 little details on the mechanics: keep your feet facing the reward (try not to turn your toes towards her) and keep your upper body frozen til she arrives at the reward (you were turning your shoulders forward to follow her path to the reward a bit, particularly when you switched sides). This will help us add motion in very soon. And one thing to play with is not having your target hand as low – it is good to get started but, looking ahead to adding motion, you will want to have it at a natural position for when you are running – so you can see if she can still read this as well with your serp hand getting gradually higher and higher, until it is in the same position as you would use your Pose and Lever.Great job here! She is so fun to watch!!!
Tracy
Hi there! Is that Offenbach in the background? Fun!! And I forget who the 2nd composer is, I was singing the Comet jingle lol
Tandems are looking good!! You are being careful to get the mechanics right, which might be why it felt a little awkward? One mechanics suggestion that might help: keep your feet facing forward until after you have turned him away – you will be moving forward and turning him away with your upstairs, and when he is turned away – then step the new direction. You were using your outside leg to step into him while turning him away just before turning him away, so it might have felt weird and it was causing him to push away rather than drive into your hand (like at 1:23 and 2:06).
So ideally your hands would start turning him away while you keep walking straight. You can play with this by NOT turning your feet at all, continue to walk straight forward: and use your upper body to turn him in a complete 360 – that can give you the feeling of the arms doing all the work – then we add back the feet after the turn away cue. Let me know if that makes sense?
Kaladin is perfectly happy to let you experiment with mechanics, because there were SO MANY COOKIES lol!!! Great job with all the rewards while playing with this 🙂Tracy
Hello and official welcome to you and Bindi! It has been great to ‘see’ you in the live classes (your screen photo is great :)). First let me say that I am so sorry to hear about your father 🙁 these are terrible times and I am sorry that it hit home for you. I am glad the class is bringing joy and keeping Bindi busy 🙂 It has been great fun to figure out how to teach the concepts to puppies and how to have a great time doing it! You and your classmates are helping to keep me motivated, here as I start month 5 at home (with 2 puppies and a kitten haha) Thank you for the feedback, and keep it coming – let me know if there is anything you want to see or hear more of, or clarifications, etc. And keep me posted on how Bindi is doing – she is adorable!!!!!!
Tracy
Sounds great! I figured she was just being a good girl and waiting for permission 🙂 Keep me posted!!
T
Hi there!
Thank you for the good tunes in the background 🙂 You have great taste in music 🙂He did a really nice job wrapping the jump after the backside!! You can move even more past the backside exit wing to add challenge, and since he did so well with the wing wrapping, you can do the FC and move away before he finishes the wrap to challenge him to finish it and not back jump 🙂 He was doing really well at the end of the video too, you were moving away earlier and earlier!!!
On the threadle section – he was beginning to respond when you stopped your motion, and he was really getting the idea by the end! Yay!!!! I think we should train him to read the threadle cue to let you keep running though – he is way too fast for you to want to use decelerations or rotation to get him in on a threadle. And you are not the only one in that boat LOL!!! So, I am going to put together the entire threadle progress and post it for everyone as a custom skill set – that way he will learn the verbal and you can just run run run 🙂 It is easy and super fun to train – stay tuned! I will get it all together tomorrow and have it up before or on Monday, depending on how much it rains here LOL! 🙂
Your backside sending looked really good here, he was committing nicely! And he was also doing a great job taking the jump on the backside. Connection looked lovely too!!
Tracy
Keep me posted about this one, I am interested to see how she does after a day or two off – very often, the dogs’ brains sort it out away from the equipment, which is the coolest thing to see!!
I have spent quality time obsessing on walk through timing, so it is fun to try to pick up the little details 🙂
Hi! Looking good!!! I love that you used the flip cue to go into round 2, it was a great opportunity to practice it. Connection looked good and you executed your plan really nicely even with coming into the 2nd go-round with a lot more motion.
One thing that I see here is that the verbals might be telling him different things than what you want – for example on 4-5-6 on the first round, you used his name then come and a leg tap. But on the redo of that first round, you said go on as he was doing the 4 tunnel. You also said go on 6-7 on round 1 then did the FC… and I think the additional go on cues are causing him to question. The go on at 6 where he dropped the bar was likely why he was unprepared for the turn (because you did say go on, which is probably not intended to be a tight-is turn cue :)) The FC there was not faulty in terms of timing, per se, but it was more about the send to 7 with the go on so he had to try to adjust in the air (unsuccessfully). At :45, you also used a go on to 7 and I thought the FC timing was strong – he was still a little wide on landing (and ticked the bar at 1:01). When you restarted after the bar fix, you cued 5-6 saying go on… and he looked straight ahead at :29.
At the very end, you used go on to cue the extension line. So….. try to clarify what go on means so you don’t use it for straight lines *and* turns 🙂 Maybe replace the go on with a jump cue (or name call or just connection) on the gentle turn lines.
I think you can also give a name call or right cue on the 9 jump before the ending line, to get a tiny bit more collection.
Nice work! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
