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Hi there! This is going well – this is a really hard assignment with a baby dog!!
On the walk through:
I loved your emphasis on connection!! It is so important with a baby dog! You had all the elements: connection, handling, verbals, pace, etc. Two things to add in on your walk throughs for him:
– you were working on how fast you have to move – when you work on that, add in a bit of going even faster than you think you have to go on the simpler lines 🙂 The actual run required more speed from you – and you did it, but I think that contributed him to missing the 6 jump – you were kind of running for your life there LOL!!!! On technical stuff you won’t have to go faster but on these big lines, definitely more running speed – he gets faster every time I see him 🙂– add in more thinking about timing, in terms of where he is relative to you and when he needs to see the cross start (the BC before the tunnel, for example). On the walk through, you were starting the blind when you were in position, but based on where you were looking at your invisible dog – he was already jumping so you were late 🙂 Ideally the blind starts when he is no more than halfway between 6 and 7, so it is finished before he takes off 🙂 If you add that to the walk through, you will be able to rehearse how early the cross starts rather than rehearse being late (and you might realize that you won’t be able to get to a cross, so you can change plans!)
On the run – first part was really lovely!! He is going REALLY fast, I love: confident, committing, nice jumping form (looks like 12″ bars?)
Yes, he needs more training to commit to 6 without as much connection – you turned and softened your connection a little too soon so he came off the line. Good job continuing! The BC was late here, partially because he missed 6 and partially because you had rehearsed it a little late 🙂 He was an extra good boy for NOT going off course into the tunnel and reading the BC!!! Yay!!!
2nd run – nice job getting 6 so nicely on the 2nd rep!! You very clearly committed him to it, he seemed to have no questions there. That makes it harder to get to the BC (the little bit of extra help at 6 makes it harder to get to the BC) but you can start it a little sooner and trust your motion and verbal to get commitment! He was really good about responding (read the line of motion even if he didn’t make it to the correct side) so it will be easy when it is a littler earlier.Great job here – it is really fun to see his commitment coming together so he can show off his speed as well! Yay!!!
TracyHello!! Thanks for letting me know this was here, I can’t believe it didn’t see it! Sorry!!!
Is that Hamilton in the background? I hear Daveed Diggs! LOL!
1st run – really nice! Great job sending him to the backside – you were connected and showing the backside send until he was most definitely heading to the backside, and then you moved away (:09).
To get a better turn to 7, try to run past the exit wing of 7 with your feet pointing to the takeoff spot of 7. At :10, you are running parallel to the 6 jump bar with your feet facing the tunnel. That causes you to take extra steps to show 7, which makes the wrap late and gets the back jump.2nd run:
At :26, he pulled off the backside. This is a spot where his head gives you permission to ‘release’ the cue (or not :)) What I mean by that is – as you are showing the backside cue (feel free to keep saying back back back to really support it)- keep your shoulders pointing that way and your arm back and your connection to him – and when you see him turn his head and start to stride towarsd the backside, that is when you can turn your shoulders and feet to the next thing. On this rep, you cued the back and then ‘released’ the cue by turning, but he had not looked at the backside yet so he came in to the front. The same thing happened at :52 and 1:28 and 1:33 – he was looking at you after you said back so when you moved away, he took the front side. At 1:37 you used more motion to the entry wing to get it, but that caused him to not be able to set up the jumping for the next line.Now, compare it to :33 and :59 – you were MUCH more connected there to be sure he went. Yay! Good timing on the sending and the leaving 🙂 1:10 was GREAT! He had a little trouble with the jumping effort at 1:11, because you were (correctly) converging in towards 7 and he needed a moment to sort out the juming – the zig zag grids will help that (I will post the links below :)) 1:20 was also very nice on the backside send!
So on the backside cues in general – you cam be more insistent when you cue it: repeating the verbals and looking at him more until you see him turning to go to it. That will also allow you to move to the position you wanted to go to, rather than run to the entry wing to use motion to get him there (which makes it harder to get to the next spot). And, maintain the insistent cue until you see him acknowledge it and start to head to the backside – that then gives you ‘permission’ to move to the next spot 🙂 When he is more experienced, you will be able to trust him more, give a cue then leave: but for now, try to watch to be sure he is heading for the backside before you leave for the next thing.
On the wrap at 7 on that rep at :35 – you were earlier on the turn cues and he was tighter – it can be even a step earlier to get more collection. I thought you were really good with timing at :51! Also really good with the timing at 1:22!!
However, even if you are late, we don’t want him to back jump (because, sometimes humans are late and we need our pups to help us out LOL!) so two ideas:
a handling idea is that even if you are a little late, make sure you keep moving up the next line. If you stop and wait for him, you are accidentally presenting the back jump because when he turns and tries to see what is next, he sees you there moving forward to the jump. For example, he was pretty tight coming around the wing at 1:00 but you were standing still… and when you started to move again, it presented motion to the back jump so he turned back and took the jump again. At 1:13, you kept moving, even just a little, and he did not consider the back jump. Yay! At 1:23 you were stationary and used kind of a threadle arm dropping back to bring him in – staying in motion will be more helpful to get you to the next spot on course.
a training idea: I have a ‘never back jump’ rule with my dogs, which means that when I am late, they should always come around the wing and never take the jump they just took. (Because, sadly for them, they get to see me be late a lot LOL!!!) I trained it using the wing of a jump – you have already done most of the foundation for this! Since he seems to fully understand wing wrapping, the ‘never back jump’ is taught by embedding the wing wrap into a sequence like this: we replace the 7 jump with just the inside wing that he is wrapping around and run it like you did here.
At first, try to be on time and reward him for wrapping around the wing back to 8.
When that is going well, you can deliberately be late (it comes naturally to be haha) – and SUPER big rewards for him driving around the wing 🙂And then you can build it up to adding the bar back, then the other wing, so it looks like a full jump – but same rules apply to never back jump. If he back jumps (or back wraps the wing) I just chuckle, send the dog back around it, and reward when he gets it right 🙂
On the threadle at the very end – nice job bringing him in the with the threadle arm!! To help him go back out (this is a newer skill for him), use the same arm (left arm, in this case) to push him back out – it will feel like you are doing a big check mark with your threadle arm here 🙂
One thing I didn’t mention was that your whole opening (1-5) had movely flow and connection. SO NICE!!!!! YAY!!!!
Here are the link for the jumping grids to help him with that sideways-ish jumping for slices and backside slices:
Nice work here!!! Let me know what you think!! Have fun!
TracyHere are the verbals I am planning on using with Hot Sauce, Contraband and Elektra:
GO (well, go :))
My wrap verbals are noises: Left wrap is tststs and right wrap is choochoochoo
Threadle slice is ‘close close’ and threadle wrap is ‘wrap wrap wrap’
Tunnel threadle is ‘kisskisskisskiss’
Backside slice is ‘back’
Backside wrap is digdigdigdig
Jump is… jump 🙂
Get out is get out
Loose turns are left and rightI also plan to teach obstacle names, and I use their names as a general attention cue.
This is awesome!!! She is way ahead of things at only 15 weeks old 🙂 So fun!!! Keep me posted 🙂
TracyHowdy!
>>We have done a couple sessions of shaping a retrieve. He has grasped the concept of picking up the toy.
Wow, that was fast. If you hear your doorbell ringing in the next few minutes, answer it – I am sending Elektra over so you can train her LOL!
>>He wants to naturally step back and throw the toy in the air over his head (silly boy).
Freakin’ adorable, I sense a trick there you can train!! Like get him to toss a hat in the air to land on his head!
>>So, now how to figure out how to shape him to come forward and put it in my hand.
In a nutshell: Keep doin’ what you’re doin’, clicking for toy touching hand. This was a really good session!! (but keep sessions shorter, I think he was a little bored by about 2:30. You can also tug on the toy to keep things lively :))
Hand stays closed til he picks up the toy – then you open the hand (which reinforces picking up the toy by presenting the next part of the sequence) then click for toy touching hand. But I do have a couple of ideas for details to help:
– He does want to back up, so you can take that out of the equation by making it harder to back up with the toy – he can be on the couch, or in a corner, or someplace that is comfy but not as easy to back up with the toy.
– make the hand as toy-drop-target a little less of a hand target for his nose by curling your fingers so your palm is more of a ‘bowl’ – that can help take out the nose touch attempts.
– when I was training Voodoo and Nacho to bring the ball for flyball, I took the largest water bowl I could find (a GIANT one, almost a mini swimming pool, the kitten is now using it as a litter box!) and I did a few sessions with that as the target both on the ground and in my hand – giant target for dropping the toy into. Then it was easy to transfer the concept to my hand.
I found a clip of parts of the progression: the clang of the ball to bowl was actually the click, better than a real clicker LOL!!
Let me know what you think!
Also, I like how he gets ‘broken tail syndrome’ when he is deep in thought. LOL!!!
Tracy
Hi! So sorry for the delay here, I didn’t see the video!! EEK!!
This is looking really good! You are a little too far from the jump 🙂 To help teach her the in-then-out, you can be almost an arm’s length away (if you are short like me :)) or half an arm’s length away if you are tall. Being that close will help teach her to come into the serpentine line already turning before takeoff, rather than coming in straight then turning. The different angles made her think but she still got it right – good girlie! Because she did so well, I am glad you moved to the reward on the ground, she really had no trouble with that (I am guessing you have done some self-control games in the past with that :))
So, since she is doing well with the reward on the ground, 2 ideas for the next session: you can make position 3 slightly harder, by having her on a bit more on an angle out by the wing – she might find it easier to go directly to the reward but she will get paid nicely for coming in 🙂And you can also start to fade out the hand touch aspect of it by giving her the ‘get it’ cue for the reward on the ground when she is definitely coming in over the bar but right before she touches your hand. When we have the hand touch faded, we can start to add motion 🙂
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
He did a great job driving in over the bump from all 3 positions on your left! Yay! Including position 3.5 LOL! And he was setting up his turning really nicely.On the right – a lot harder for some reason. You can pay him for coming back around to touch it, and then make it easier. My guess about why he had the error was that on the change of sides, you released and put the target hand in almost simultaneously, and he needed one more heartbeat to assess how to use his body to get in there (it is a hard line/turn). When he was in the rhythm of it, the timing of the release and hand going in didn’t matter – so on each new side or the start of a new session, put the hand target in place for a couple of seconds so he can look at it, then release and see how he does 🙂 On the first rep of the first side at the beginning, you didn’t have the target in for a long time but you were in position for a while getting set up, you made eye contact, all before the release – I think that helped.
If you get another high success session doing this same exact set up, you can add the food bowl on the ground and we can start moving into the advanced level.
Great job!
TracyHi! Empty food bowl session is looking great, the bowl is high value but not so much so that he couldn’t focus on the target. Nice! Cookie in the bowl was harder – you can reward the stay when you put the cookie in the bowl, he made a good choice there! And the reward *at* the target was a good training moment, it really helped him think about the target in the face of the cookie distraction. In the next session, you can start with the food bowl being empty, then gradually add in some pre-placed cookies by putting one in there as he is getting a set up cookie (and yes, you have to be quick to get back into position, but letting him see you move to position is actually helpful because it makes the target hand really stick out, visually). You can do some reps with the cookie pre-placed in the bowl, and some reps with the bowl empty, so it is less predictable – the reinforcement is only predicted if he touches the target hand 🙂
I was about to type in that he is ready to do this on a jump, but I see it next in the queue! Yay!T
Hi there!
Lap turns are going really well! Your mechanics are almost perfect -the only thing to add is to remember your step back with the leg, not just hand – your hand was perfect and you stepped forward, but the leg should move with the hand too to really draw him back and set up the turn away. The lack of leg is why you might have felt tangled up at 1:06 🙂 Then it was REALLY nice at 1:20, great leg!With the prop – nice rewarding for coming to the MCH past the prop! You had your leg going too, which is good – you can start the leg one step sooner – it can move when your hand starts to move back (your timing on the hand was really good). He did a great job of going past the prop on these! Nice presentation of the MCH 🙂
You can work these now with the reward coming after the prop, either with the cookie held in your hand but not delivered, and/or an empty cookie hand – mix it up!
>>Question on the tandem turn. In the video with Contraband, it doesn’t look like he gets a treat for coming in. Is that because he’s more in to food or are the lap turn mechanics where you did treat for coming in different?>>
He is totally NOT into food LOL!! I do reward for coming in on the tandem turn and for turning away – I probably edited it out for time purposes (I usually have about 15 minutes of video between the 2 pups and the talking to whittle down LOL!). Oopsie, sorry! Yes, the magic cookie hand can deliver the goods on the tandem turn too 🙂
Great job here!
TracyAwww, your hamper is the cutest thing!!! I love her work here, so is ridiculously fun!
and OMG she hits that tug like she is doing Mondio or something!!! I notice that as the session progressed, her toy grab got closer and closer to your hand – that peaked in the middle then she progressively came back down the toy. When you got it nice and low like at :32 it seemed to help direct her focus to the end of it (but not always, because I am sure there is something inherently reinforcing about leaping to grab it) like the rep right after that :36. So, you can try two things that might help de-Mondio her drive to the toy:
– tie something big and visible and delightful to the end of it, like a holee roller (if she likes those). Those hollee roller things are so useful 🙂
– slap the toy down so the thing on the end whacks the ground then drag it – that can direct her focus to the end of the toy so all feet stay on the ground and so she doesn’t torque herself flying through the air 🙂 You can slap the toy down even earlier, when she is maybe halfway around, so she is targeting the end as it moves. This has nothing to do with her commitment and everything to do with directing her chomp 🙂
(These are both things that I do in Flyball to direct the tugging as I am running, partially to keep the dog safe and partially to protect my hands LOL!) The dogs that do not have directed tugging in flyball are often provided a mattress to target to help them stop – zoinks!!About the commitment – lovely!! She was MORE than happy to zip around the hamper and let you leave hours early. I love it! Speedy and bendy. Good girlie! My only suggestion is to have her set up and opt in at your side, facing forward – so you can cue the send (looking ahead to upcoming games :)) She was mainly offering here which is terrific, but we are going to need you to be able to have a moment to send her 🙂 She was offering it with you already a bit rotated which is also really good!!
One more little detail – try not to say “go” here, just make a silly noise or use an interim cue. We will be putting directionals on it soon and saving go for extension lines.Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
This is going really nicely, note how well she is driving in and lining herself up for the second turn as you bring her in and send her away to the bowl. She is showing nice self-control on the loaded cookie bowl on the ground!! You can have the bowl on the ground a little closer for when you are plopping the treats into it (making it easier for you :))
The toy on the ground was harder, she wasn’t coming in as well – you can warm her up for it by having the toy in the other hand, so it is enticing but not *as* enticing and she will still target then go to it 🙂
My only suggestion for your position is to extend the target hand out further from your body, lock your elbow with your arm extended parallel to your shoulders – that will look like more of a serpentine arm. Your elbow was bent so it was a little too close to your ribs. If it is hard to keep the target hand low, you can dip your shoulder a little (you won’t have to do that forever, because we won’t always want her touching your hand :))
She is totally ready to try the next step – concept transfer to a jump from the Week 4 package! Have fun! Great job!
TracyHi there! The flatwork for the lap turn and the tandem turn are both looking really terrific! My only suggestion is that you can slow down your hand & leg movement on the lap turn: she seems like the type that wants to go fast fast fast LOL! So when you turn fast, she is bringing her front feet up in the air during the turn. Ideally, she keeps her feet on the ground and shifts her weight into her rear, and so you can get that by having her follow your hand around very slowly and also keeping your hand low. That is my mantra when I do this: slow and low! The tandem looks just about perfect 🙂
So about the prop – she was coming in and turn away really nicely. I think there was a rep where she came in and went straight to the prop, but that happened because you were early moving your arm and leg and ended up stepping sideways towards the prop (good girlie :))
On the other reps where you did get the nice turn away, a couple of tweaks in mechanics and you will be able to convince her to touch the prop. What was happening was that after the turn away, you were remaining stationary and sending to the prop with a big point at it… and there was a big cookie over her head in the pointing hand LOL!! So she wasn’t sure where to look: at the cookie she was just following, or at the prop (she chose cookie LOL!!)
So, try this and let me know how it goes:
Start a little further past the prop, so when you cue her to come towards you, you are a solid 6 feet or more past it. She will come in to your magic cookie hand (like you were doing), you will turn her away (like you were doing, that part was really nice!) and then when she has finished turning away: let her eat the cookie 🙂 Then stand up and move forward towards the prop, like you did on the parallel path game – then reward again when she hits it. Move towards it rather than point at it and she is more likely to look for it. When she gets that, you can do the process with an empty magic cookie hand as well!
Let me know if that makes sense 🙂 Great job here!
TracyHi!
>>We’ve been stalled out for a little while because Teak didn’t under stand the paw target with the prop. I decided to make it an easier prop — a big rubber backed bath mat instead of a slippery metal lid.
That was smart – a bigger target 🙂 More salient in the environment 🙂 Yay! And super easy to get on it. The targeting behavior is not that easy, especially with very young pupsters 🙂
>> And we did a session with 7 year old Uncle Rhae so she could watch him and race him to the mat and see if that made the light go on.>>
Did it help? Sometimes modeling can work!
>>She didn’t understand the go to mat behavior and then she didn’t understand why she should leave it, so I mixed it up with “go to the prop” and then “come back so we can play position changes for cookies” and then send back to mat. When she didn’t know what was coming next I think I got a little more understanding and less stickiness to the mat.>>>
Yes, it was fun to see her processing the different cues! 2 small suggestions – for now, try not to say “go mat”. maybe just say “mat” – mainly because that Go word is going to take a life of its own when you use it to cue extension down a line, so I like to protect it like gold 🙂
And, rather than hand her the treat, plop it on the mat so she can pick it up as she gets to it. That will maintain the value while also helping you be able to add a little more distance away (mainly to get your hand further away so she isn’t thinking she needs to be close to the magic cookie hand in this situation LOL!) And then you can also apply that to the back and forth of the parallel path, cookie plopped onto the mat for a while.
You can also start to vary your position a little (sideways and backwards)
>> This was something that took all this time to figure out, but she is so little, we are learning how to learn too!
Exactly!!! She is sooooo young but doing really well 🙂 I loved seeing her think it through!!!
>>I think I could clean up my reward placement, but first she had too little value for the mat and then too much so it was hard to adapt in the moment.>>
Totally understandable – you are seeing the value swinging back and forth like a pendulum (not enough value then too much value) so it is a constant moment-by-moment assessment, like a tennis match! You can shift your placement of reinforcement within the session: for example, if she gets 2 or 3 reps of cookies plopped onto the mat and then she says, “well I will just stay on the mat, it is more efficient” (smart!) then you can release her off the mat for a tuggie or a tossed cookie… do that for a rep or two, then back to cookies on the mat. I think the one thing I would suggest avoiding is delivering the cookies from your hand to her cute little mouth, so we can start to vary your position more 🙂
Great job here!!!
TracyHi there!
I hope you had a great vacation!!!!
Oh no! Bad dreams about the prop!!!! OK let’s brain storm 🙂 Yes, we need to build more value but I think the question is HOW we can make it easier to get the behavior. We can’t build value without getting the behavior. 3 things pop to mind after hearing your description and watching the video, let me know what you think:
– first, make the behavior harder. I know it sounds counterintuitive, but it is one of the things that I learned at chicken camp from Bob Bailey about a million years ago: if the behavior is too easy, you might actually struggle to get it. And if the behavior is a little harder, it might be easier to get. And that has proven to be the case over the years any time I’ve tried it – make it a little harder and then BAM! We have the behavior. So – what do you think of getting him to step up to a prop? That is harder than just hitting it on the ground but not THAT hard. Plus it is easier for you to see, in terms of marking it.
– building on the stepping up onto the prop – to get him to do that, we have to raise the prop, which also helps by making it a lot more salient. Salient is also something I rely on when trying to build value. So, you can tape or somehow attach the prop to something that makes it about 2 or 3 inches off the ground, like a small balance disc so he can step up onto it – salient and harder and easier to see.
– last thing – I’d say 2 sessions of placement of reinforcement ONE the prop, with him holding position while you feed (kind of like getting him to get on a perch). That plus the other ideas might help build that value – it is possible that trying to place the reinforcement off the prop is causing him to touch it less in an effort to efficiently drive to the reinforcement, which dilutes the clarity of behavior? If you do 2 sessions with the placement all on the prop, you will know in session 3 if the value is being built because he will drive to it and get up on it right away 🙂He did well on the tunnels! Using the pet tutor is perfectly fine but you can also use the toy of course (he has great understanding of how to work with the toy on the ground). You can start to work a little further and further from the entry each time and yes, definitely add in the threadle element and see what he does. My only tweak is to not move your hand when you let him go – simply let go of the collar and see what he does. You were moving your arm forward with the collar and that can sometimes shift the pup’s weight forward when we want him to shift to his rear. Also, fading the arm cue here will help with increasing commitment because he will get the cue on the verbal and the hint of the physical cue, meaning you can leave for the next line even sooner (which it appears you will need to do, because Fizz looks like he is gonna have plenty of speed and POWER!!!!!)
Great job here! Let me know what you think of prop ideas!
TracyWheeee! Turn and Burn looks great here!!!! It is a fun one 🙂 One little suggestion (to help you be able to move away even sooner) – as soon as he is locking onto the barrel and moving towards it, stay connected like you did (it was a thing of beauty!) but support less with your send arm. You can just let the send arm relax down into a natural running position rather than staying up to point towards the barrel. When he was on your left, your left arm was up for longer than needed, meaning it was causing your chest/shoulders to rotate more than needed. This delays you from running up the next line (because you have to unravel that rotation before you leave) and also it can create accidental rear crosses when we put this on a jump (because you can’t fully turn your feet when your shoulders are rotated like that, so the dogs see RC pressure). When he was on your right side to start, it looks like you relaxed your right arm immediately and ran. His commitment was perfect 🙂 The goal is that his commitment is so well trained that you can turn and leave super early, without needing extra upper body rotation to help him commit. I believe you are totally there, in terms of his understanding of commitment so far!!! We will keep ramping it up, of course, but I think he will be fine to let you use let arm support.
Great job!
Tracy
