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Good morning! Lovely session here. Meatballs are life! Meatball explosions are the BEST ever! Ha!
He looked perfectly happy to run up the board and shift his weight, hitting and holding target position. The only thing he didn’t want to do is release from the Meatball Extravaganza, but that is fine LOL!!!!So, next session: everything exactly the same:
Warm up with regular elevators
Do a couple of crazy elevators like you did here
One rep in the middle of the session is the full teeter
Then end on one or two more crazy elevators.The session should be a meatball filled party unless you have food that is even better than meatballs LOL!
And on the full teeter rep, a couple of things:
You should be moving but in a supportive way. Don’t sprint away and leave him in the dust 🙂 Stay near the board and try to plan to arrive at the end position as he does for these early reps.
Use your verbals similarly to what you did on the elevator games – teeter cue for getting on, then give the target cue when he is maybe halfway up.
And… reward anything that is even remotely correct, make a massive fuss over any effort to teeter: if he is perfect? Jackpot! If he is almost perfect? Still big rewards. If he has an oopsie and doesn’t get it right? Still reward because we don’t want him to overthink or get concerned. So basically, he is going to be paid no matter what (nice work if you can get it, right?)I am not worried about perfect criteria on the first full teeter because making it a great experience is far more important. He has a TON of understanding of the end position and stuff so rewarding one that is not perfect is fine 🙂
Nice work here! Keep me posted!!!
TracyGood morning and thank you for the great update!!!
It is those set backs that often push us to higher levels than we could even imagine. The dogs teach us a LOT! And I am glad you are using your FEO really well. The long term benefits will be soooooooo worth it!!! Put a video on Facebook, I wanna seeeeeeeeee!!!And give that girl some extra PB, she deserves it LOL
Hi! Because motion is hard, let’s start with something he might find relatively easy- both sets at 1&7. If I an wrong and this is hard when you are running, try both sets at 2&8. If he does a session and it is easy peasy, the next session should be straight poles 1-2 and the 3-4 poles still at 1&7.
Don’t change the pole tightness within a session, unless you need to open them to make it easier if he has a lot questions – if he is hitting homeruns, change the motion/handling variable 🙂 move faster, add the wings before the poles, do some crazy handling. 🙂
Have fun!!! And keep me posted 🙂UGH!!!!!! I really want to see you on the 21st. Do you need any vet ideas? Have they figured out the issue? Poor Summit!!!!
Hi!
What a good boy, ignoring the people and the Sheltie! That is great! And he was definitely excited to be there, he was faster for sure especially at the beginning of the session.A couple of ideas for you: since he tends to make mistakes when the MM is out there in the beginning of the outdoor sessions, you can start with the lotus ball and bring out the MM later in the session. You can also warm him up to ‘ignore’ the MM in order to earn it, by doing simple tricks near it. That should help! But he did really well with the lotus ball.
On thing from now on, all sessions: keep moving! You tend to default to standing still but we need to get you up to running 🙂 So – rather than tighten the poles or add more poles in the session, leave the poles where they are, a little open and the variable you change will be your motion. This can include both working up to running and also adding the handling challenges (rear crosses, countermotion, moving away laterally, getting way ahead, etc).
The good news is that he will really love it 🙂 Just keep adding the motion challenges in gradually – no need to do this on straight poles or even on 6 poles, because we would have to open them back up to add the running in now anyway.
So remember to layer in the motion gradually, and watch the success rate: if he fails twice, make it simpler: I would say at this point, make it simpler by staying in motion and opening the poles a little. We know he can do the poles when they are closed, so now we will enhance the skill or doing them while you are moving 🙂
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>So what is the criteria for wrapping a wing half way around? >>
Not sure what you mean – do you mean what is the verbal? It is based on the shape the dog makes: a C or U shape or anything like that is the wrap verbal. If the dog does more of an “L” shape, then I use left or right.
>>I assume all mistakes are mine
Yes- but if you mark them with ‘uh oh’ and don’t reward… he will read it as a punisher (negative punishment) and the rate of success goes way down.
>>Will open the poles and see what happens what is a good starting point for how open?>>
On those high speed entries, I suggest starting at 2&8 to establish success. And if it is too easy, you can tight to 1&7. If it is too hard, you can open them up to 3&9.
T
Hi! Ewwww, 90 degrees! Stay cool!
I have some ideas (and questions for planning purposes) for the tunnel threadles!
Starting with the last video:
>>>Part of the arm position thought process is in regards to not confusing her with NADAC style motion. I am putting a recent video of that work….>>I think the NADAC style for distance with upper body, foot position and verbals is very consistent with what we are doing here. The get out arm and turn away arm is different than a threadle, in that they are out ahead of the body, up really high and moving in a bit of a swoosh to cue the turn. A threadle arm is back towards the dog, rotating your upper body towards her with your palm facing her nose (but at about your chest level). Looks different enough that you can use it and it will not confuse her (I have 7 different opposite arm positions/cues for my dogs and they are fine with them :))
Now on the tunnel threadle videos: I think the main thing will be to pick what you want the cue to look like in terms of your line of motion, feet, arm, etc and then stick with it. You were showing her several different things (rotation towards her like a lap turn, pulling away very laterally, moving towards the correct tunnel entry, sometimes with the arm, sometimes not). So if you pick what you want, she will learn it faster because it is very consistent in how to earn reinforcement.
There are a ton of ways to do it but I vote again the foot rotation (like the lap turn) because it will require you to both be ahead of her early enough to get the rotation and also the rotation will slow you down. I think the reps where you turned your feet towards the correct end the tunnel looked really great – and my favorites were when you moved very directly to it rather than pulling away very laterally – pulling away that laterally was effective for her to read your motion but it can leave you really out of position on a big course. I liked your line at 1:18 on the 2nd video, that was really strong!
So you can choose your physical cue and start it with the nice calm slow motion you had at the start of the 2nd video. Threadles are trained cues and not really ‘natural’ cues, so slowing the motion way down to get started will help her see it and process the verbal. When you were moving too fast, she stayed on her line to the straight-ahead tunnel entry.
The other thing you can do is turn the incorrect tunnel entry a little further away so it is less visible on the straight line – that will make getting the threadles even easier, especially when you add motion.Question: what is your threadle verbal? It sounded like In? But that might be too similar to her name (and dogs generally don’t turn all that tight when we call their names on course :))
Also with the threadle verbal, as you move slowly, you can repeat it so she can process it. And if you decide to go with the arm across the body, you can wave the arm to help her see it.
And one other thought about verbals:
>> With the barrel, I only use one command to get around it.
You might need to reconsider this if barrels are used in situations that have more than one exit. But if they are not used like that, no problem! She definitely did better when you had the different verbals on the wings! And you can use the same verbals on the barrels as you do on the wings, dogs have no problem with that 🙂
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi there! This looks great!
The first 4 reps were really fabulous: lots of motion plus the crosses, no problem! I think that the games you’ve been playing here directly contributed to his success on the full teeter when you were way out ahead 🙂 Yay!He did think the rear crosses were a bit odd LOL!!! So you can put the target out for those rear crosses reps – either put the target on the plank, or put the cookie bucket out ahead, or both 🙂 As soon as he realizes that the rear crosses are a legitimate thing, he will stop looking at you and keep driving forward.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
Heavy bread LOL! Now I am hungry! This session looked really great.
One little tweak that he is ready for on the crazy elevator game: don’t catch the board til he is ust about arriving at the end – if you catch early, he weight shifts early.The full teeter looked GREAT!!! You were caught in the moment and got way ahead… try not to leave him in the dust as much, support him by staying closer for now until he has more full teeters under his belt, so he doesn’t get tempted to bail off or stop early.
And the last crazy elevator looked great too, he was NOT worried about the full teeter and was still very happy.One more suggestion – you can remove the mat from under the down side of the teeter, so he doesn’t use it as a target – it is not reducing the slam a lot so you’ll still want to limit reps, but we want to be sure that the visual is correct as we transition this teeter into the trial ring.
Great job! More sessions like this will help get him used to the full teeter 🙂Tracy
Hi!
>The trial is a USDAA Trial.
Good, there are fewer rules 🙂
>>Toys: I have a flirt pole with rabbit fur on the end. He cannot resist it, but….he hates to give it up without multiple discussions!It might be worthwhile, though – all he needs to do is one good elevator game for it then he can have it and you don’t need to get it back, the FEO is over at that point. I need to find out if in USDAA you are still allowed to touch the obstacles – I know you used to be able to, but they change rules a lot so I will double check for you.
>> Once he is in the mood for toys, then bungee balls with fur attached are good. sometimes, just a ball or a frisbee.>>
You can also try it with a ball or frisbee and bring more than one 🙂 That is totally allowed. The 2nd one helps get the first one back LOL!
So for the USDAA – elevator game all the way! Start with a rep or two of the normal elevator for the toy. If that goes well, do one crazy elevator game (you can use a jump or tunnel to send him to to give yourself a head start). Reward him even if it is not perfect. You won’t have cookies to reward the top of the board but you can still catch the board and use your hand to help him stop.
And totally practice all of this during the ring rental 🙂
>>I am hoping to use the dogwalk, too, as well as, just play with toys to get used to the arena agai>>
Perfect!!!
T
Hi!
>>One question, I’ve been sort of varying the warmup game before the 2 Warm up Regular Elevators. Sometimes we do Bang Game and sometimes we do some Mountain Climbers. Is that OK or should I make the whole session totally predictable at this point? Does that question make sense?>>
I think the warm up is fine to be either bang or elevator (but not mountain climbers) to remind him of weight shift and end position. I lean towards elevator game as the warm up, because it reminds us both of how the elevator game goes, in terms of rhythm and mechanics – so it warms me up as well as warms him up. And since the elevator game requires nothing to hold the board up, I can make a really fast transition from the warm up into the crazy elevator game.
>>And I go back and forth on keeping the target cue in addition to the teeter cue. As you said… we’ll figure it out… whatever works for him>>
Right! He will let us know. A friend and I have dogs the exact same age: my dog needed to hear target 57 times to convince him to stop. Her dog tried to weight shift the instant she heard it, so she ended up not using it. My Hot Sauce also tries to weight shift the instant she hears it, so I don’t say it until she is in the yellow at the very top of the board 🙂
T
Hi! I vaguely remember 2:1 paint to sand but I could be wrong – the Home Depot folks might know better. And you will see the consistency get thick, kind of like grits lol!
Good morning! This was a good compilation of his recent successes!!! Yay!
One thing you can add is more toy play between reps, rather than going back for another rep. Or toss some cookies for him to chase – make it more about the party of being near the teeter, and less about getting the reps in on the teeter.
He looked good on the regular elevator game reps, that is where I would totally recommend toy play in between reps. You used the toy after the rep of the crazy elevator game – that was great!
In the class setting, will he play with a toy? He did well on that first rep…. so now I will bug you: why did you ask for it again? Try to be more in the habit of taking the success and getting outta there on that first rep.
And during your turn in class, I am very happy that he did his teeter!!!! YAY! So keep focusing on the tiny # of reps and super high success.Tell me more about his toy play in the class setting. One of the ways we get dogs happy in pressure-environments is with play, so we can plan some toy stuff and that will spill over nicely into his teeter work.
>>Mt verbal hit it for end position… im struggling with can I use hut it for end position for DW? I’m giving up.on running for now.. trying to think my.hit means the board id dropping or end position on ground>>
When I had the same position on the end of the teeter and the end of the dog walk, I used the same target cue for both because it was the same behavior: drive across the board into 2o2o. And I also had obstacle names, and the timing of the obstacle plus target cue would help the dog know which obstacle was coming
teeter-target (right as he was getting on)
walk it………. target (when he was on the center ramp)So yes, it can be used for both but there are two caveats:
– the position must be the same – he does a bow-like position on the teeter, is that the same position on the dog walk?
– he must love love love love the dog walk, or you risk poisoning the hit it cue which can adversely affect the teeter.If it is the same position and he loves the dog walk… go for it! Train it from the ground up as if he was a baby puppy and with a high rate of success, and it will turn out nicely!
Tracy
