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Hi! These look great! You can add a little more curve to the tunnel each time now 🙂
>>To my eye, he doesn’t even notice my motion in these reps.
I agree, he was cuing off the motion but not distracted by the motion. Yay! And the rear crosses went well – he committed to the tunnel and you got the reward in nice and early so he also got the correct turn on the exit.
The tunnel threadles looked strong too! So – a question: have you chose a word for your tunnel threadles? “Tunnel” means ‘take the entry on your line’ and the tunnel threadle verbal will mean ‘come in towards me to the other side’. I highly recommend that you don’t use the same word as your jump threadles will be – we accidentally stumbled on a series of sequences where the handlers needed different verbals or they couldn’t get it right. We will be adding the verbal to this very soon, and he looks ready for it 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi!
He is definitely off to a good start here! He was really showing some nice ability to turn and bend – that is going to make for a lot of lovely turns in the future! Following the cookies is fine for now; that lure is how we get it started 🙂For this game, I also suggest taking it off a full jump and juts working on a single upright or barrel before the wing. There are too many visuals associated with having the full jump there, even with just a bump, at this early stage of sorting out the mechanics.
The mechanics of the hand and cookies and clicker are the hardest part! I think the rep at that start at :37 was when the mechanics were getting nice and clear. A nice slow hand to draw him in and turn away helps and you had the cookie in the other hand and dropped it in. Yay! That was the smoothest and seemed to help him. If the ‘grab’ hand moves away or tries to turn him too soon like at :56 and 1:04, he was not as sure and was tending to follow the cookie that was tossed. So take your time getting him focused on the hand, drawing him to it, then turning away.
You can delay the click a little – it sounds like they were coming when you turned the hand which is just before he turned his head – so now you can delay the click until after he his head has fully turned and you see him look the new direction.Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! We can totally help smooth this out! A couple of mechanics ideas to tweak this set up to help him out –
>> He really seemed sure that he should be pointed toward the middle of the bar and not to the outside of the wing.>>
For this game, start it on one wing and a bar/bump: having both wings can be a little too distracting as to whether it is front side or backside. Even with limited experience, the visual of a full jump is pretty distracting. The single wing makes the wing more salient and it doesn’t look as much like the front side/parallel path that he learned recently. If he still is looking a lot at the bar, take the bar out and just do it on a wing (but I think he will be fine with 1 wing).
>> Do you think it would help if we started farther away and just walked toward the jump in parallel path mode with a lot of connection?
Not much further away is needed, but definitely more of a parallel path on the single wing. More importantly, though, is that he sees the wing: your path should be to the side of the wing with the cups, where the wing meets the bar. On these reps, you were over-helping by walking to the outer edge of the wing and then curving your shoulders around – that blocks the wing and causes the pups to look at us more. It was a little more exaggerated when he was on your left than when he was on your right, but either way your line should be further over to reveal the entire wing.
So ideally he is in a stay or on a cookie toss so you can be a few steps ahead of him, moving on that line, with connection, before he moves up the line. If you start with him too far away and the jump is obvious, then he might mistake it for a parallel path to the front side.
One other thing that might have been causing him to be sticky:
When he was on your right side at :09-ish, you were moving your hand in and out of the pocket a little bit. That is the international sign for cookies-or-toys-are-coming so that immediately drew his focus up to you – so keep your hands comfy at your sides and not in pockets 🙂 Your hands were in pockets on a couple of the other reps too (but not moving as much) so be careful to have your hands pretty relaxed and not in pockets.Let me know if that makes sense! Keep me posted on how it goes 🙂
TracyGood morning!!
Yay for so many things here!
Yay for outside! It looks like he was still a good focused boy 🙂 And he went right back to the toy at the end after all the cookies: definite happy dance moment!!!!!
>>Letting go of the toy. I did this with Squeaky too and he was just like ‘why did you stop’, Will Smith a little too, so even if they don’t run around is it rewarding? >>
Well, he certainly did look at you like you were dullsville when you dropped it LOL!!! It is entirely possible that running around with it is *not* reinforcing! So you can make it a retrieve game: drop the toy, encourage the retrieve, and the game resumes when he moves the toy towards you. If tugging is more reinforcing than running around with it, then the retrieve will come more easily.
He also did well on the the prop sends! Connection is key, as you discovered:
:52 was disconnected, you pointed forward without connection so he did not know where to be.
1:02 was connected perfectly, lovely! The next two sends (1:25 and 1:36) were a little less connected so not as smooth – a little too much pointing forward & looking forward at the prop, so try to look more at him and the pointing arm can be softer (meaning, lower and moving more with your leg as you step to the prop, so he can see your eyes more).One thing that will help get the connection even clearer is to use your ready dance to start this, not a cookie drop or any kind of loop or reset cookie before the send. You can be a bit sideways to the prop, and having him in front of you: make eye contact, get him engaged with a bit of ‘ready ready ready’ – then with connection turn and step/send to the prop. That accomplishes getting him to be more ready for the send, you’ll be showing more connection, plus it teaches him to go from handler focus to line focus.
Nice work here!!! He is learning this so quickly!
TracyHi! Good job on the sequences and also on adding lots of fun variations!!! She is reading them all really well. Here are some thoughts:
About the FFC at the beginning – you were doing a good job of trying to turn earlier and I really liked the timing at :14 and :25!!! You were really challenging her commitment and understanding by turning just as she was arriving at the commitment line… and she was perfect AND fast. That is terrific!!!
She had a question going to the backside to 3 at :18 and later on at :59: she was not quite as sure about driving away from you there, so you can keep your arm back and shoulders open to her a bit more. That should help her see more of the connection to help propel her out there.
One thing I noticed in that moment and in other places: she really likes it and goes fast when you repeat the verbals energetically especially on sends. If you are quiet, she slows down and asks questions. So since it was too muddy to run here, you can keep saying the verbal and I bet she will drive nice and fast!
When you added the tighter turn with the throwbacks at :40 and :48, she did really well reading the lines! One thing I notice on these and on some of the others later is that she slows down when you are stationary and facing her (or even moving backwards a little) so you can add reinforcement into that position: show the position and just as she arrives at your hand, fling the reward straight back behind you (but you don’t have to turn, you can keep facing her). That should help her power into the rotations.
Another place you can use that reward being flung straight back behind you to get more driving into you is on the backside forced fronts after the tunnel exits – she was totally reading it, but not sure if she should drive in fast or not. The stationary and rotated position is a strong turn cue, so flinging the reward back will help her drive into it while maintaining the quality of the turn.
Very nice lead out push at 1:23! You can challenge her more in 2 ways: you can be closer to her line (more in the middle of the bar or even on the wing closer to 3) and closer to 3 if you are going to the front side (positionally, you will want to stay closer to 2 if you are going to ask for a tighter turn and send to the backside of 3).
The last sequence with the forced fronts after the tunnel was creative and fun!!! It is a good spot to add in some of those flung rewards to get her to run hard into the FFCs when you are in position like that. Connection and timing and position all looked great!!
Great job here! Let me know what you think. Fingers crossed for more good weather but less squishy ground 🙂
Tracy
Here is Miss Elektra! She also has a side that was stronger than the other.
Here is first bippet video on the elevated target. He is stronger going one direction than the other (this is not unusual for him).I changed the placement of reward a tiny bit to give him a better angle on it, then he sorted it out. Not sure that my choices of things to elevate the target on are all that great but he is stuck with them til I can find other things LOL!
Hi!
>>But I guess he’s understanding the concept well enough and getting enough back feet hits that I should shift my focus to that to help him understand THAT’s what I want!
Yes, you can delay the click: if he *only* gets front feet, don’t click, just reward and praise. If he gets back feet: click and party!
Either way, he gets reinforcement unless he totally misses.
On the video:
>>Using the MM totally blew up his brain and all he wanted was the tunnel for that. >>
Yep – the MM changes things completely LOL!!!! And it is funny, right? You could have an entire side of beef in your hand and tiny pieces of cardboard in the MM and the dogs still want the MM. Something about it being used as part of the choice/reinforcement process must stimulate a certain part of the brain and/or release a burst of dopamine…
He does get bonus points for using the cot as a trampoline! LOL!! And it is a good challenge because it simulates the need to STOP on a contact rather than run run run (say, when there is a tunnel out past the end of the teeter :))
This was one of those sessions that was more about getting the pup to process a cue through the haze of stimulation and he did well! That is part of why I like to play this game at this stage of training: it makes things SO much easier when the dogs are aroused and on course.
I don’t mind that the end that you might have missed letting him go when he looked at the cot – the next step is to start saying the cue before looks in any particular place, and let go before he looks any particular place. By saying the cue then holding them til they look in the right place, we are pairing the word with the destination. But then we need to fade that, otherwise the dogs will just be guessing LOL!! So start saying the verbal as you let go of him, and see what he does! You can start it without the MM but then add the MM back in because it definitely changes things 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi – pretty normal progression! If you see that the food reinforcement you have is not all that enticing to him, you can switch out to a better paycheck 🙂 And he really liked it when the toy got involved, so you can totally get him wild with the toy before asking him to jump on the teeter.
For whatever reason, he was a in slightly lower state of arousal for this session than he was for the last session – so when you brought him up with the tugging, he got going nicely. I think that is probably a good thing to add in general: getting him as wild as possible for a toy and then you can also use a toy as the reward: when he jumps on and gets into position, release and throw a toy. You can mix in high value food, but I think he would love the toy too! And it will keep him super pumped up for the teeter.
And I personally love pizza crust, I would work for it LOL!!!!Nice work getting him pumped up! Let me know how he does with a toy as the reward.
Tracy
Hi!
We have 2 more weeks of lessons:
next week (Friday Jan 29) is a ‘break’ week with some conditioning games
the last week (Feb 5) is one more round of handling and contacts games.Then, in late February, I will be adding a Teeter & Weaves class.
And in March/April, there will be some live online handling seminars.Then the next “big” MaxPup will be in mid- to -late-April when we get more into sequencing and transitioning to running bigger courses 🙂
Stay tuned!
Tracy
Good morning!
He is a great little tugger 🙂 Yay! A couple of ideas for you, before you add standing up 🙂
You can let him win more. What I mean by that is when he gives a nice pull back on the toy, shifting his weight back, let him win the toy and run around with it a bit (in a small enclosed area :)). Start off making it easy to win, then gradually make it harder so he has to pull harder. You might need to switch to doing it on a rug or grass so that he can dig in and not slip.
Speaking of grass: try to generalize tugging by taking it to as many places as possible. Different rooms in the house, outside, different places: bring your craziest tug toys and play for a few seconds in different places.
He seemed to do really well when you offered the cookie! So now incorporate tugging into shaping exercises: tug a bit, then shape a simple behavior for treats and after 3 or 4 treats, go back to tugging. That is great for getting him back and forth between food and toys, and also for teaching him to offer thoughtful behavior even when the tugging is stimulating!
And the other thing, which you started here, is to shape the retrieve. He was really good going to it, so stay quiet til he gets it and brings it back. When you got excited, he got distracted and dropped the toy 🙂
Great job here!
TracyThanks, I will pass it along to tech. Question: when was your last update on the iPad and Macbook (or do you know what they are currently running on).
Thanks!
TracyHi! This is going well – it is a really hard game 🙂 You can separate the may and crate bit more and see if he can do it (with maybe 2 feet in between them – it adds a little challenge but it also will set you up for the next step, which is to not wait til he looks at the correct thing: start the cue then let him go 🙂 You will need a little bit more distance away from both, so you can keep saying the cue as he starts to move and he has more distance to process it. Waiting for him to look at it before you let him go is great for pairing the verbal with the object and teaching the concept. So if he can do one more high success session with a little more room between the two items, you can move further back from them and see if you can move to starting the verbal and then letting him go (keep saying the verbal) before he chooses where to look. Let me know if that makes sense! Nice work here!
TracyOops, I remember reading it but must have only replied in my head… sorry!!!
>>I had been focusing on 2o2o but yesterday I left the criteria lax in an effort to just have fun.
That is fine! He definitely was enjoying it 🙂
>>I am a little concerned of 2o2o and wondering if I should do 4 on? Last I weighed him he was 17 or 18 pounds. Can’t remember.>>
His weight is fine – I figure by the time he is fully adult, he will be around the same weight as Export (18-19lbs) and Karen Holik’s Sizzle (a Sheltie who won all the things many times over). I bring up these 2 dogs because Karen’s Sizzle had a truly amazing 2o2o and it was Sizzle’s teeter performance that inspired my training of Export’s 2o2o performance. Those two dogs had the fastest/best teeters around for their careers, and the teeter performance criteria held up for over a decade. So his weight is no problem, and I can confidently say that with first hand knowledge.
Elektra will be doing a 4on because she is maybe 14 lbs, a little too light for 2o2o.
Now – if you do 4on or 2o2o, that will be up to you. When Hot Sauce was training (same height as Stark but heavier because she has a lot of terrier in her), I fully investigated why so many people were moving to a 4on performance with the bigger dogs, as is the trend lately- and there is no good answer for it. From what I found
* people thought it was ‘safer’ (but that is not the case when a 2o2o is properly trained)* people thought the dog would get flung off the board in a 2o2o (not true if it is properly trained, in fact a 2o2o provides MORE control of the board)
* people thought it was easier to train (this is possible – but the downside is that the criteria slips because there is no really exact “do this” thing and so the dog stops short of the end of the board – which is slower – or leaps as the board hits
* it is faster to do 4on – this is NOT true in terms of getting to the end of the board and getting the board to the ground faster if both are properly trained. Simple physics: the more weight you can get closer to the end of the board, the faster the board drops. What might be faster is ripping the dog off the board when “criteria” is hit, such as in a national finals or something. But then with a 4on, it because very difficult to maintain driving to the end of the board because the dog start to stop short. With a 2o2o, drive to the end of the board is easy to maintain because criteria is very clear.
With that in mind, though, with the smaller dogs we have to do a 4on: so I add another layer of criteria so they drive to the end of the board more reliably. That is what seems to work the best for speed and accuracy although it will not be as fast as the 2o2o if they were physically large enough to do it.
But to get the great 2o2o, there are more layers of training than most people do 🙂
So it is a ‘pick your poison’ situation – to get a great teeter performance, there are many layers – so pick which one appeals to you and go with it.
As an aside: I was originally going to train a 4on with Hot Sauce so I could see what everyone was all excited about with that end position. Hot Sauce, on the other hand, thought it was stupid and decided to only offer a 2o2o – my guess is she had better control of the board that way and also she had a MUCH clearer idea of where to be.So you get to decide LOL!!!
>>I noticed that the other Pizza’s were doing 4 on.
I haven’t watched the others – not sure if Beetle is on a teeter yet and also I am not sure of how big they are. And, not sure they have obsessed on how each behavior is different or what layers of criteria to add. It is easy peasy to train a 4on… but then even the agility ‘greats’ are constantly re-training it after competition starts.
Let me know what you think!
Tracy
