[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

I agree – super strong session here!!!!

>>-I’m starting him close to the teeter, so he doesn’t have too much speed, which will mean his down will be a tad slower. But I think that’s good right now as he figures out the order of events.

Yes – we don’t want speed until we have understanding, otherwise it all goes to poo. Based on this session, you can start him from a stay again but lead out less so you have to move when you release him, to begin adding more motion. If that goes well, we add the wing wrap before it 🙂 so you are both moving.

And if that goes well (this is over the course of a couple of sessions) then you can add in your motion forward a bit after you drop the board.

One thing I think you can do about catching the board: don’t catch it til he is just about at the very end. Keep your hand out of the picture (not under the board) til just as he is arriving in the yellow, then reach out and grab it (kind of like what you did at 2:00) – that will get him all the way to the end of the board as it is still moving.

>>-He is consistently offering a down without any cues, and in a couple reps he started the weight shift a little earlier, which I rewarded more when I noticed it.>>

Yes! It looked really good!!

>>-Preloading the target definitely helps with keeping his focus forward.

Yes, that definitely made a difference plus he had the great impulse control to hold his position until you released. Yay! My only suggestion is to move the target further away (a foot or two further) so that he can drive straight to it and the teeter won’t possibly hit his bum when it resets 🙂

>>-I need to make sure my treat hand is out of sight as he comes up the board.

Yes, but that won’t be an issue when we are doing full teeters 🙂

>>-I think he did better when I let the teeter drop a little further. Maybe as he feels the board drop more there is just natural weigh shift that helped him get into position quicker? Given that’s what will happen when he’s doing it full speed, not a bad thing.>>

Yes, I agree – letting it drop more will elicit more of a weight shift, and not catching it til he is at the end will cause it to drop more 🙂

>>-I didn’t use any target on the teeter – wondering if I should?

I think he did fine without it here. We can always reinstate it if needed, but he seemed to get the down easily and also he was using the yellow target as the focal point.

>>The actual having the teeter drop with him in a down is not a problem – he seems really stable and comfortable and if he loses his balance at all, is able to make small shifts to stay in place.>>

Yes! That will be something we keep an eye on when we add more speed (like from the wing and eventually from the tunnel). So far, he looks great!

So onwards to adding more speed with you moving, then the wing with both of you moving more 🙂

Nice work!! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning! So much great stuff here – he is doing well and ready for the last steps!

First up: Uphills! Looking fabulous.
On the first video:
It is a red BC! Ha! I love the close up and cinematography as well, would be well-suited for The Food Network. French vanilla snout and stripe sounds delicious
And holy cow he is a wild man for the uphills, in a good way! Fast fast fast!

The Panda bear made me snort. The ears! LOL! Your helper almost lost his hand to Lennan’s gaping maw!
The flying exit made me laugh too – he is having a great time and that is 99% of what we want (ok. the other 1% is criteria but I am not worried about that LOL!)

We are going to convert this game to the crazy elevator game (see below) so your first thing will be to practice the mechanics of running, board catching, Lennan feeding while holding the ice cream cone.

Downhills: he is doing well here too. Yes, praise might be a distraction right now in a moment where he wants pure info. “Just the facts, ma’am!” It was smart to clarify with the markers and you can see his understanding really build through these three sessions. We will add praise back in – see below.

I really liked his weight shift at :44 on the first video! And then he was consistently able to do it even with you moving. Good boy! He did have trouble with the praise in that section – If something happens and he moving on the release, you can give him some type of other reward like a reset reward because it is a communication error not a poor choice error. That will keep him from getting sticky as he did when he was not sure what the praise meant.

The 2nd video started with markers and he did really well here and then again on the 3rd video. Great job with the aim on your cookie tosses 🙂 And it is important to note that he did well with your motion AND with the toy out front. Yay!

So now one more thing to add, which brings us to one more thing after it:
Start to delay the marker and reward now, to build a little more duration and help be sure that he is 10000% most definitely going to stop and hold the stop. You were marking & rewarding within one of your steps after you were sure he was executing correctly and that was great, it really helped him! So now you can add some delay: 2 or 3 steps after he stops & holds, then mark and reward. You can throw back the reward or release forward to it. You can use the ping pong approach to gradually get more duration too, going from 1 step to 3 steps to 2 steps to 4 steps and so on, so he just learns to hold position until he gets the marker/release.

And, by adding that duration, we now have a window to gradually build in praise. I like praise but I also don’t want it to be confusing or frustrating to the dog 🙂 So when he is happy with you going 3 or 4 steps after he stops, you can build in eye contact then mark & reward. Then a smile, then mark & reward. Then eventually you can fill the gap with quiet praise. The goal is to fill the gap between end position and release with boisterous praise, but we don’t want him to confuse it with a release, so build it slowly 🙂

The elevator game videos both looked really strong. The only distraction was the wind 🙂 He does try to anticipate end position every now and then, so for now you can feed him for a little longer after he hops on the board (which will get faded eventually) to hopefully encourage him to not anticipate.

Based on these 2 videos and his uphill videos, I think he is ready for crazy elevator. Yay! Warm him u with a rep or two of normal elevator game, like you did here, but with little or no motion from you after you drop the board. Then go into the crazy elevator from the stay (with you holding the ice cream cone as the reward :)) also with little or no motion from you after the target cue. Yay! His response will let us know how quickly we can add more motion to it.

Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi there!
Really nice session here! One overall thing is that she is doing REALLY well hitting and holding the end position!!!! And your reward/release mechanics are looking a lot cleaner and more consistent, which I am sure contributes to her success. And the big target 🙂 but more on that below. I think she had one rep towards the end where she forget to get her front left foot into the grass – small oopsie, didn’t get repeated, no worries.

The structure of the session looked good with the warm up and then the crazies. My favorite crazy rep was the first one: it was right on the edge and you caught that board right as she arrived at the top. You were earlier to catch it on the others, so she was earlier to weight shift. So if possible, catch the board right as she arrives at the top. Wheeeeee!

For your next session, repeat this session rep for rep but with one exception: somewhere in the middle, after a couple of crazy elevator reps, cue her target position (tee) as she is getting on the board and let her do the full teeter. Because that is a big and important variable change, two things should also happen in that session:
– dial back your speed so you are moving along the board parallel to her but walking not running
– reward anything that is roughly right, doesn’t have to be perfect. I think the only thing I would NOT reward is a dock diving moment, but then if she did that you can have her come to you, settle down with a hand touch, and have a cookie.

After the one full teeter rep, end the session with a couple of crazy elevator reps 🙂
About the billboard target – you can revisit the bang game nd fading process there, but I would leave it fully in place for the elevator games for now, because we are adding the full teeter. We will fade it out of the elevator game at some point next week, probably, depending on how the full teeter goes and how much training time you get (life gets busy at this time of year, no rush or pressure!)

Great job!!!! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hooray for the ring rental time! It is great that it is in the same place as at the trial.

For the ring rental, bring your target and bring your plank. We can’t do a full hour of teeters 🙂 But we can alternate some teeters and some planks and some other stuff.

Start on the plank with a little warm up and targeting (not with a tunnel or jump nearby, and with the target on the plank).

Then do a little regular elevator game with the target, using food rewards and starting off very easy.

Then, his response will dictate what is next:
If he is fine, we ask for a couple of reps of crazy elevator from a stay, then from a wing. In other words, you are repeating the same exact progression in this new place.

And if he is happy with that? Do a full elevator.

The target should be in use the whole time for that session, and you can probably do it all in one session of about 5 minutes if he is successful.

If he is good with that, do one more session without the target, but the exact same progression: normal elevator warm up, crazy elevator, full teeter.

If he starts to question or fail at any point, you go back a step to get success and stay at that level for a few more reps, then give him a break.

This can be done in multiple 5 minute sessions (approx) with nice breaks in between. 🙂

For the trial – my first question is: is it an AKC trial or UKI or a different venue? That will change the plan.

Second question: what toys does he like?

Talk to you soon for more planning!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

Ah yes, now is a good time to shorten the teeter as it will change his striding. I guess the 3600mm puts it closer to the international specs?

Thanks for the video! I didn’t see what caused him to jam his right front on the first rep – but it does look like the teeter reset whacked him in the chin as he tried to get back on it. And then yes, on the 2nd rep he was totally limping: easy to see on the video but also easy to miss in the moment.
Poor guy.

>> Maybe he is still hurting from this? But that doesn’t make sense if his is loading his front end and not using his rear. That would make me think it is in a rear leg or his back.>>

Could be that he has an ouchie in his left hind and is compensating on the front right, or vice versa – that compensation is totally common in dogs. Or his back might be ouchy so it is showing up. Either way, a week off will help for sure 🙂 He has so much heart and drive that he will continue to work, so I like your plan of pulling him and not doing jumpers.

Keep me posted!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

hi there! He did really well with driving up the board here, he seemed happy and focused and fast (even with the added distraction of the environment being busy :))

Yes, his end position was not as good but I think that was a variable issue: we had the environment being stimulating, we had him being asked to run fast, and you were running fast to catch the board and also moving fast after the target cue. Soooooo many variables at once! Consider your motion and his motion as separate variables: if he is going faster, you need to either be stationary or slower. You can’t BOTH be fast at this early stage LOL!
So on the next session, only one adjustment: do everything the same in terms of the speed except when you cue the target, don’t move. Stay there so you can reward him in position. Then after a couple of successes, you can add back moving VERY slowly, and still reward in position after assessing that he is holding position (he was not holding it here on these even when you were rewarding quickly, he was already moving).
I am confident that he will sort it out then we can add back your speed after you drop the board. Separately, you can work on you moving fast on the plank while he recovers.

OK, one more little tweak – make sure before each rep that he has a straight shot up the board from the wing, no angled entries. On the left turns around the wing here, he had to find the entry on an angle, which we don’t want to add as a variable along with speed.

Nice work! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!
I agree, this is totally coming together! I am very happy with the full teeter thrown in the middle of the session, he was great. And he seems to both understand end position and LOVE end position – PERFECT!!

I thought your were consistent with the 3-2-1 feet cue here, was it 1-2-3 feet previously? I think the dogs figure out the rhythm, he seemed fine with it 🙂

One little tweak for now: after he gets the reward for getting to the top of the board, you can stop feeding during the countdown so he can look forward and prepare. Note how at :54 you stopped feeding after the 2 in the countdown and he looked forward to the end position – this is exactly what we want. So continue to deliver the yummies at the top of the board, then as he is finishing them start the countdown so the food is out of the way before the countdown finishes.

I liked this session structure: good warm up, great crazy elevators, one full teeter that was lovely, then right back to the crazies before he could decide if he liked the full teeter or not haha! He seemed like he was looking for the weight shift a little sooner on the last 2 crazies, so something to add is some wild ball play after the release from the end position. That can put him in ‘think less’ mode after the full teeter so he can’t ask “wait, what just happened there?” LOL! You might have been playing ball but try to play it all the way up to the tunnel send before the teeter. And yes, you might need 16 hands for adding the ball.

I personally like using teeter AND feet, but whether you keep both cues will depend on him response. Some dogs slow down when they hear the feet cue (Mom, I want to be right so I will get really accurate when I hear it!) and some dogs need to hear it 10 times to convince them to stop LOL! For now, keep move and time will tell us what he prefers.

Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!
I agree, this is totally coming together! I am very happy with the full teeter thrown in the middle of the session, he was great. And he seems to both understand end position and LOVE end position – PERFECT!!

I thought your were consistent with the 3-2-1 feet cue here, was it 1-2-3 feet previously? I think the dogs figure out the rhythm, he seemed fine with it 🙂

One little tweak for now: after he gets the reward for getting to the top of the board, you can stop feeding during the countdown so he can look forward and prepare. Note how at :54 you stopped feeding after the 2 in the countdown and he looked forward to the end position – this is exactly what we want. So continue to deliver the yummies at the top of the board, then as he is finishing them start the countdown so the food is out of the way before the countdown finishes.

I liked this session structure: good warm up, great crazy elevators, one full teeter that was lovely, then right back to the crazies before he could decide if he liked the full teeter or not haha! He seemed like he was looking for the weight shift a little sooner on the last 2 crazies, so something to add is some wild ball play after the release from the end position. That can put him in ‘think less’ mode after the full teeter so he can’t ask “wait, what just happened there?” LOL! You might have been playing ball but try to play it all the way up to the tunnel send before the teeter. And yes, you might need 16 hands for adding the ball.

I personally like using teeter AND feet, but whether you keep both cues will depend on him response. Some dogs slow down when they hear the feet cue (Mom, I want to be right so I will get really accurate when I hear it!) and some dogs need to hear it 10 times to convince them to stop LOL! For now, keep move and time will tell us what he prefers.

Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning! Great session here! I think he drove more to the end on each rep here, with the last one (full teeter) being the best one. But you know I am going to bug you about being 1000000% sure that the teeter is on a direct straight line from the tunnel from now on! Yes, you should play the game where he has guides and works on the uphills on angled entries. But with all the speed from the tunnel, don’t risk him having a fall so be a million % sure it is straight (check it after each rep). And also, when he has to approach from an angle, he has to slow down and weight shift to do it, which slows down his run up the board. So, the straighter the entry, the faster he will be across the board.

How is his crazy elevator game going at LU? It is time to plan bringing the crazy elevator and full teeter to LU, but only if he is VERY happy with the regular elevator and crazy elevator there. And also, only if there is a straight line entry LOL!

Great job here!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning! Nice work on these – he is doing a great job of driving ahead AND turning on the rear crosses. Yay!
A couple of ideas for you to smooth them out and also to make it so that you don’t get as far behind. My goal on all rear crosses is to immediately get ahead again – my preference as a handler is to always be ahead but my reality as a handler is that rear crosses are an effective tool to get ahead again – counterintuitive, right? Strange but true LOL!

Also, I did not see his questions here as side preference, they were more about timing and line.

Two main thoughts then specific ideas:
– this setup works better when you do a FC on the wing rather than the post turn. The post turn sets him on the backside line (parallel path to the backside) so that is why he was wide there and came in more at the last minute. But we don’t want to lose the backside parallel path concept, so doing the send to the wing as a front cross will take that issue out. So, rather than send him to the far side of the wing with the side you are going to run up the line on, start him on the other side and send him to the inside of the wing and do a FC. His line was much nicer on the reps where you did that!
– you can get on the RC line a lot sooner, running more towards the center of the bar right away. You are on the ‘go straight line’ for a couple of extra steps and then cutting in. That makes the info late for Kipling and puts you way on the other side of where you want to be, so you end up further behind. Getting right on the RC pressure line will actually get you much closer and even ahead after a lot of RCs 🙂

Specifics:
Rep 1 – you did this as a FC, it set a nice line to the jump (no backside questions). You can be earlier getting on the RC diagonal here, he saw the RC pressure late- he was looking to his right for a while and then over the bump saw it and turned left. You can be getting on the pressure diagonal (feet to center of the bar until he is past you) just as he exits the wing wrap, no need to take a bunch of steps forward on the ‘go straight’ line.

Rep 2 – this was a post turn on the wing, so he was driving on the parallel path backside line- so the info on the RC was late but he did get the right turn.

Rep 3 – this was also a post turn so he was on the backside line but you pushed in a lot earlier so he got a nicer right turn on the RC! But by being so far from the RC pressure line, you got the RC but also ended up further behind.

Rep 4 – also a post turn and the RC was late so he was late reading it.

Rep 5 – this was a FC on the wing and I think you were working that RC diagonal a LOT sooner – YAY! Just make sure your feet are pointing to the center of the bar and not the outside wing, so you don’t accidentally cue a backside. But the timing of starting the pressure was spot on!

Rep 6: This was a FC on the wing but a late cue at :28. He was cued to turn right as he was talking off, so it looked like a side preference but it was not, it was timing of info 🙂

Rep 7: another good FC on the wing, but the RC pressure line was late here too.

So keep going with the FCs on the wing, those set much better lines! And get on the RC pressure lines earlier, they serve a dual purpose of committing him to the jump AND telling him which way to turn before he has to make a jumping decision.

Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

Side preference is normal at this a stage of training but it will disappear in a few months because you are nicely balanced in your training.

>> I like the idea to wait until he just about reaches me and then I can take off running instead of just playing with the toy. Maybe drop the toy on the line and then I run away?>>

If you mean he picks up a dead toy? I vote nay on that for two reasons: dead toys are not as stimulating so there is not as much speed, and also young dogs are not great at scooping up dead toys without pile driving their shoulders into the ground. I use giant holee rollers if I need to use a dead toy.

But to get the most speed, do the reward flyball-style: use a super long toy or tie 2 toys together. When you start to run as part of the reward, drag the toy and keep running til he catches the toy and you. That is very engaging and producing a TON of speed.

>>And for increasing arousal: I can tug more, have him jump up on me, do weaves between legs–other suggestions for increasing arousal/drive? >>

– More chase rewards as described above will help. – – Reinforcing all of those engagement tricks on a 1:1 ratio helps (most people do 75 tricks in a row without reinforcement, and that does not help).
– Being incredibly consistent in your reinforcement markers and placement of reinforcement so he doesn’t have to figure it out, he can just run run run
– if you cue a tight turn, sandwich it with running. And a tight turn cue also implies driving out of it really fast to chase you or your line, which is why I really discourage those multiwraps.
– patience to let him grow up, muscle up, and learn the skills. He won’t be able to go full speed until he understands what to do and how to do it. My Contraband is about Robbie’s age in a lot of the demo videos. He is definitely NOT fast on these. He is now about 19 months old and 10 times faster already (I am in big trouble, need to stop eating as much LOL!) and he is still young and not going that fast, compared to what he has ‘under the hood’. He just recently got some muscle and his chest just dropped about 5 minutes ago. LOL! So I am letting his speed percolate and making sure he understands how to earn reinforcement. He is just about as fast as my 8 year old dog (who is insanely fast but did not get fast til he was 2) but he has much better understanding and is able to retain his thoughtfulness at high speed.
The other way to get speed is to get your rate of success consistently close to 95% and turn off all pressure. Failure and pressure turns dogs into slower methodical workers. Success and relaxation is where the speed demons come from 🙂

>>thought I was getting a crackerjack wild guy this time based on how he looked in litter–but hes a sweet mellow boy…sigh).

I think perhaps you can change your perspective 🙂 He is a puppy, he is male, he is learning about a million new things. Comparison to your other dogs is a bad thing for him, and comparison to other dogs you know who are his age or litter siblings or relatives is a terrible thing. Facebook is a terrible thing for those of us with young dogs because the magic of video editing can make a baby dog look amazing when the reality is far different. So he probably is a crackerjack – just give him time and teach him what he needs to know to show you that, without the pressure of worrying how fast he will turn out to be.

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!
The good news AND bad news is that it is hot enough now that you will regularly encounter the distractions you had here 🙂 Ok, maybe not the neighbor’s wedding but either way – it is a good ‘next level’ arousal training.
It provides you the opportunity to help him get into the right state of arousal – tricks? Toys? Cookies? – even though I agree it can be super annoying when trying to train a skill!

I think you did a good job on this session – he was faster here with his striding, even if you were not running faster. It was smart dog training to recognize that one variable (environment) had changed a lot, so you didn’t change any other variables. That is why he was successful here! Yay!
My only suggestion: sometimes we humans get trigger happy with the MM remote and click a missed entry (I have certainly done that :)) If you then try to repeat the same entry on the very next rep, you are guaranteeing a 100% chance of error (because he is going to repeat what just got reinforced). I learned this the hard way – I mean, they should read our minds, right? Ha!
So if you have an oopsie click, the best thing to do it immediately change to the other side of the poles or a few straight entries to recover the correct entry – then go back to the oopsie click spot. That cleanses the palate of the bad click and then you don’t get the repeated error.

Otherwise – keep an eye on the variables as you did here! Yes, we have a big fancy plan going but if the environment produces other plans, then shift gears just like you did here. Embracing that is the mark of a great trainer – well done to you!!!!!! And it will get you further in all of the dog sports than straight poles will 🙂 I know we will get him on straight poles soon enough – the environment is harder to work through so focusing on on that is great. Plus with the time off following the neuter (tomorrow?) then you have 10 days to do mental work with these distractions before heading back to the poles 🙂
Nice work! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

On the first video:
>> I did a wing inside to work on wrapping and I think it’s getting better for me insert smart dog dumb human here. I think I forgot ques so backside vs wrap I think I’ve refreshed on. Still slightly difficult is to get the wrap and body side into weaves corresponding…>>

I think you were making it harder on your start position by sending from your left and then doing a reverse to get him back on your left – that caused you to either be late on your connection so he ended up on the wrong side, or you were on his line so he couldn’t get into the entry. Keep it simpler with handling, like you did on the very last rep: send and then stay on the side of the poles you sent from. That will accomplish the goal of getting more speed into the entries.

About the verbals – when using just a wing, I recommend only your wrap verbal (no backside verbal) – it doesn’t matter where the jump cups are because the dog is not really using those. I only use the backside verbal if there is a bar – the bar is what the dogs use to differentiate front side versus backside.

The other thing about the wing wraps and handling in general: if the dog is incorrect, assume it was handler error (your error :)) and don’t mark the dog as being wrong – reward him and try again. Otherwise, he gets a ton of ‘uh oh’ markers when he is actually correct, and that can be deflating.

On the 2nd video:

>> speed creates dysfunction with weaves

Not dysfunction, necessarily, more like speed tells us what the dog understands or doesn’t understand.

>>-distance and the start line might be unfair I think he’s coming to me to go on how do I que the weaves, would an arm help? I don’t want to stop/slow him down too much? The last rep was slower and better

I agree, we don’t want to slow him down, I loved his speed! I think that is happening here is that the straight weaves are body dependent: meaning, you need to be nearby and helping and not moving fast, or he misses. Even the best reps at the end also had him looking up at you.

So think of it as a ping pong game with the variables: when the variable of speed/distance from the jump increases in difficulty, other variables must decrease in difficulty. In this situation, I think opening the poles so he can find them independently without needing help from you is what we want. He fails on straight poles without help – so the choice here is to always help (which is impossible because then he will slow down and have to wait for you to be there on the bigger courses, incurring refusals) or we open the poles so he finds them independently and that allows you to keep moving to your next position on course. I vote for independent poles! I open up the poles any time my dog fails twice at speed or if I ever find that the dog is relying on my body language.

He was great with this stay, he loved the toy, the speed from the jump looked awesome! So the poles can get easier for a while as he learns to find them at speed without you. The way to know if the challenge/variables are too difficult will be his success rate. If he has an error twice in one session: you need to make it easier in some way. The way to decide how to make it easier depends on what you want to train: in this session, we want to get independence with speed, so the variable that would need to change is the difficulty of the poles.

Going to try the wing again does it matter which way the jump cups go I get confused how far around is enough and all the other things make my head spin a bit… I also want to try going with him jump jump weave on a non muddy day…>>

>> Going to try the wing again does it matter which way the jump cups go I get confused how far around is enough and all the other things make my head spin a bit… >>

The jump cups don’t matter to me, think of them as all wraps – the presence of the bar matters (unless I am doing a full circle wrap, but I don’t recommend those here)

>>I also want to try going with him jump jump weave on a non muddy day…>>

That will create a TON of speed, which is good! But also remember that the added speed is a massive variable change – which means the poles need to be very open for him to have repeated success independently of you. You will know when he is ready for the poles to get tighter again when he is able to have 2 sessions of 90% success or better in a row, with the variable of high speed.

Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi there!
This is also going well! I really like how he is using his body on these. He did have trouble going to his left into the first gap when you changed to that side: at :37 the left shift into the first gap was towards you. When you switched sides at :42, it was away from you and that is where lots of dogs have trouble. That is normal and the get out games will help him get comfortable shifting away from you. I also notice that your handling was different there (facing him) versus earlier in the session (like at :23) where you were facing more forward and he did well with that cue. You did rotate at :43 but it was a little later than you did at :23, plus it is possible that he is more of a righty than a lefty 🙂 But great job breaking it down to help him out! It will balance out quite nicely 🙂

When he is very comfy on both sides, you can move the wings in closer so they are about 6 feet apart 🙂

>> He gets bored with the stationary exercises but I don’t want to miss some foundation steps.>>

One of the important foundation steps is “drive hard even when I am stationary” so I do lots of big tugging like you did and thrown rewards. I also suggest lots of standing still til he just about arrives at you… then take off and run 🙂 And if you are planning a session where you know you will need to be standing still – get him really engaged with tricks and tugging before you start so he comes into it in a higher arousal. He is probably not bored, he is probably in a lower arousal state and that is fun to tweak to get him wilder 🙂 so that you don’t have to rely on your running to get him going really fast.

Great job here!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi there!
He is doing a great job of finding that jump!! Good boy. The variations of position and the change is distance? No problem. Yay! And when you were ahead and running, he was great – soooooo many young dogs lose their minds when the handler runs ahead like that.

>>I think I am throwing toy too late most of the time (he is getting faster! )

Yes and yes 🙂 I am happy with his speed! But you were tending to throw either just before he took the jump or just as he was jumping, which is late. And also throw it as far as you can so he can chase it in extension after the jump (and you should keep running too, til he gets to it)

>> plus could use more connection>>

We can get both the connection and the earlier throw (which will produce even more speed) going here at the same time: As you run, no matter where you are – look for him at the exit of the tunnel. Look to see where he is looking. Looking at you? Keep running and yelling go, and the instant he looks at the jump, throw the reward (he will still be 15 feet from the jump at this point). If you are looking at where he is looking and when he exits the tunnel, he is already looking ahead? Great! Throw the reward (and keep running :)) That will build in the rehearsal of the connection and get even more explosiveness up the line.

You can leave the jump at that distance away and add more lateral distance now!

One last thing – resist the temptation to throw in a double wrap or multiwrap here – it rehearses slowing down and he isn’t really bending, plus it is causing him to question if he should drive out of the turn or wait for another wrap cue (like at :59). I want him to drive out of his turns like his feet have rocket boosters, so that is why I recommend against making him think about it or wait to see if there is another wrap cue coming.

Nice work here!!!
Tracy

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