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Hi! Nice work on these!
The FC lead outs look really good, he is driving directly to position. No real challenge to add there because you are already standing still in position 🙂 The BCs also look really good – you can lead out less, run into it more, and start the BC sooner (when he has landed from 1) and allow your motion and verbal to commit him to the #2 jump. I htink a good challenge for him would be to hold his stay while you start to job up the line and then release while you are in motion.
Also, I think he is doing really well with his jumping on 8 inches. What has seen so far in terms of height? He is at the age where we can definitely start to move the bars up a bit on the ‘easy’ lines (like jumps 1 and 3 for sure on the BC reps on this set up) and then when that is easy, you can move up the height on the turning jumps (jump 2 on all reps and jump 3 when you do the throwback collection cue). Gradually showing him 2 inch height changes should be pretty easy for him! There is no rush (winter plus Covid restrictions) but I think he is ready for more 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! Yay, the PT definitely had his attention and helped! Crate games are SUPER high value plus the dogs learn them as baby puppies – I figure crate value simulates the running dog walk value and gives us a good basis for discrimination training. He did really well, especially when he was on the opposite side of you. Yay! We will build on this soon with motion, but in the meantime for home training: is there an object at home that he can move to on cue that is *not* the crate? A bed, or something, that has a different verbal cue? I think you can do some winter living room training with 2 different ‘obstacles’ to further solidify the processing of verbal cues! He is doing well so you can add a different object! And a fun winter brain game might be to work it up to 3 different things, if he has 3 distinct verbal cues!
Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! He is doing really well on these!
Looking at the lap turn first: he really drives right into these cues. The rotation is compelling! So when you are moving into a lap turn – I agree with your assessment that ideally you are closer to the wing. But, sometimes you won’t be able to get there earlier enough so I think being rotated and calling him before he exits the tunnel is more important than perfect position, so he can drive right to you.One subtle detail: He is a little sticky on the tandem turns, meaning he is eyeballing the wing and not exactly driving to you, choosing to stay out on the line closer to the wing: “yeah yeah human, got it, it is the wing.” LOL! It makes it harder to know exactly when to flip him back. To help him drive into you, you can get him to come all the way to your hands, NOT flip him back to the wing, but instead fling the ball back behind you for him coming to you. In the tandem turn scenario, I think the value of ‘go to the wing’ when you are moving forward is VERY high which is good, so you can use the thrown ball as a reward for coming to your hands. It will help your threadles eventually, because you will be able to see him coming in sooner and faster.
Great job!!
TracyHi! He is definitely figuring this out and moving to the end nicely! It makes sense that he isn’t go to blast to the end with a ton of speed, because there is no place to go, lots of visual distractions and not a lot of room to get a head of steam before getting on the board. But he is moving up the board with independence and doesn’t look worried! And adding the tip at the end was great, he seemed fine with it. Yay! The board has a noise and movement even when there is no real tip, so he is getting a lot of yummies paired with that already.
>>Do I stick with the tiny drop for a few more sessions before trying either a slightly bigger drop or removing the towel from the chair? >>
I would say that the towel should stay because it will get really noisy without it – the set up provides enough noise, so add gradually more and more tip and you can even add a fluffier towel because the board will be hitting the chair harder. Most teeters nowadays are not that noisy, so let’s add more tip and keep the noise a little quieter for now. Keep me posted!
Tracy
Good morning!
>> I started doing super short sessions per your suggestion and that has seemed to help a lot. He’s wanting to work and offering the behavior before I’m ready. >>
Perfect! Make sure you reward the reps he offers LOL! And you can add a crate or a cot or mat for him to stay on while you get ready.
>> Ironically I don’t get the running off when I do dog walks and a frames with him and I think it has to do with the value I’ve built for those obstacles and also maybe the clarity of the criteria. He seems to have less frustration with contacts once there is value. The teeter and contacts are also in the other half of the yard where he does less running around and the yard doesn’t border the street so that may contribute as well.>>
Could be all of those reasons: soooo much value, clear criteria, very obvious-looking obstacles, less stimulating environment. All good!!!!
The start line work is going well! Clear transitions, lots of rewards, lots of connection! The lead out push on the 2nd rep looked great (first rep was a nice reward moment). At 1:16 you did a lead out push position on the release then a blind, you can also lead out with him on your left on the other side of the jumps and move into the blind. Your arm waving was cracking me up! Very nice session and because he was nicely settled, you were able to show him really clear, smooth handling. It all looked lovely!
>>he in my ran away once but came right back when I used my collar to hand cue. Baby steps!!!>>
Yay for coming right back!! Do you remember what happened right before he ran off? If you can track triggers, it is easier to either avoid or work him through them. He is making terrific progress!!
Keep me posted! Great job here!
TracyHi! The set up is good here but the value of the MM has increased. And in this set up, it will be soon be fine to come in and go directly to the MM. So, you can help him out on the initial spoon hits by shaking it or waving it as he comes towards you. That way the little spoon becomes more salient relative to the giant MM 🙂 He did well on the various angles, getting a nice bend in the body!!!
Don’t get mad at yourself about spoon height, it is still a tiny bit high but he is growing into it LOL! Plus we move forward with it (literally haha) this coming week so as long as he is coming towards it to hit it for now: perfect!
Positionally, I think you can still be closer to the wing. He should only have room for his front feet to land straight, his back feet should turn before he gets to the ‘bar’ – he can still pretty much fit all of himself facing you across the bar so try being so close that you can casually reach out touch the wing, with a bent elbow. It adds more emphasis on the “turn before takeoff” and I think he is ready for that now 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi! It is the generation of dogs before these pups who taught os the importance of getting them to move away from us. Yay! He is doing a great job here on each of the cues you presented (out, sends, come to momma). So now you can add motion: instead of standing still on the out send, you can be walking up a parallel line to it. From his perspective on this set up – the destination on the parallel line is YOU so the prop is moved off to the set. In order to hit it, he has to move away from you when cued. That way your feet keep facing straight so you don’t need a rotation to get him to out. And sometimes you cue the out, sometimes you don’t and he gets rewarded for coming to you. Let me know if that makes sense. Walking is a good place to start, so he see motion but can still process the cue.
Have fun!
TracyGood morning! He is doing really well with his turns and burns! Yay! Keep doing that angled L-shaped exit like you were doing on the reps coming towards the camera (he was turning to his right). When you were going away from the camera (he was turning to his left) you had some reps where you moved back more towards where you started, which is fine but you can add more challenge with the L turns because there is more countermotion.
You were also starting to leave earlier and earlier, which is terrific!! His commitment looked strong. Woot! So…. keep mixing in an early departure here and there, working up to leaving just before his nose gets to the barrel set up. And to keep him committing, as you start to leave really early for the FC, toss the reward back to him at the exit of the wrap, so the value of commitment stays super Hugh.
Great job!
TracyHi! He was such a good boy here!! The food bowl is a great replacer for the MM, he was VERY keen to go to it! Plus it is great that he is still portable so you can carry him. He did a great job here on the sends, he figured it out immediately. Because he was so brilliant, you can do the next session by adding a bit more distance, both in front of the tunnel on a straight line and also sending from angles on the sides of the tunnels. You had some angles starting already and he was great! And when you are sure he will take the tunnel (like he did here :)) you can totally slap on the tunnel verbal.
I think one more short session like this and then you can switch him to the inside so you can start on the threadle side (where he is between you and the tunnel entry, and you send him in so he turns away to find it).Great job! He is figuring this out really quickly, smart AND cute, the total package 🙂
TracyHi! Hope you are enjoying your weekend!
Both of these sessions looked really great!!
Serps: I would say this was really strong. Your line and connection was great, his reading of the handling was great! I would say he only had one question: on the last rep, on the yellow jump, he has a subtle mis-read of the jumping effort. He put himself very close to the outer wing rather than make the turn earlier to be more centered. So far, 5 or 6 of the pups are doing something funky on that 2nd jump – either having a jumping question or pushing themselves to the backside. So, stay tuned for more serp preparation things coming in the next set of games, that will help him sort out the jumping fully. For now, if you revisit the serps, angle the last jump ever so slightly open for now so he has an easy jumping line.The blinds and lead outs also look good! On the blinds – timing is looking good, connection looks good. Yay!! I think your running line can be more direct to the jump after the blind. It is hard to tell for sure on this angle but it looks like you were converging in towards the BC jump and then out to the next one, so he had a little zig zag on his line. You can skim the outer edge of the BC jump and head directly to the exit of the jump after it and see if that smooths it out. His commitment looks good so I think he we will be fine with it.
His stays looks just about perfect, I think the one where he broke was because you had stopped, then moved forward so he was thinking it was the release. Oops! So you can give him a little reminder if that happens, like a stay verbal or a good boy and then move again, if you don’t want him to release.
Great job!!
TracyHi!
>>Also, I didn’t trim this video very much so you could observe and critique the reward versus jackpot.>>
That was helpful!!
>>Funny thing, however. When I studied the video at slow speed, it seemed to me that he was turning his head pretty well most of the time but not adding a “good enough” collection stride on the less excellent efforts. >>
I could see a difference in the head turns that correlated to the quality of the turns. And the head turn was affecting the striding, which also correlated. And he was thinking about it, which was GREAT to see!
>>At any rate, since I left in a lot, you’ll be able to see how I judged them at the time. I mostly agreed with myself (how nice*) during video review. Except for 3:50 where I gave some eye contact help, I mostly tried to be “the same” for every rep.>>
I agreed with all of your choices on the first part when he turned to his right. I agree with your choices for all except 1:30 when he turned to his left (I thought that was a good one but not a jackpot one). I think that the left side is his weaker side (do I remember that correctly? I really need to keep a spreadsheet for all the dogs, including my own LOL!)
So since he had a much easier time here turning to his right and a harder time to his left, a couple of ideas:
– add challenge to the right side reps by adding more motion (bar can stay high).
– bookend the session with right turns, so we can hopefully maximize the two things that get remembered best: primacy and recency. Full disclosure: I might be extrapolating a human learning thing with that, but learning is learning and it certainly can’t hurt to try 🙂
– simplify the challenges on the left turns by having the bar a little lower so he can be correct might often and more easily. And put the left reps in the middle of the session and don’t do too many 🙂 He was really thinking about it and produced some truly excellent head turns, but was also slowing himself down to do it (and maybe fatigued on the last rep).2 other ideas:
– you can cue it with decel like you did here, but add a turn and burn exit to help give him even more reason to want to turn his head to turn tight: turn and burn is a tight FC on a 90 degree line that takes you parallel to the jump bar (but not over it) – let me know if that makes sense, I am sure I have video so I will go look for it too. I have found the turn and burn to be really helpful in giving the dogs a reason to turn tight without having to show them the obstacles. And you can still differentiate between good, great and crappy 🙂 Good gets a cookie when he arrives and some praise. GREAT gets tugging or a throw toy or something exciting. Crappy gets a ‘you’re cute!’ but not parties 🙂
– you can also work on flexibility through the neck and body in conditioning exercises – what is in his repertoire of bending exercises for conditioning? You can see if he can get extra bendy to his left 🙂 I have a couple that I can video for you if you want.You mentioned adding a little more connection to help him out – that is great! Connection will allow you to see the head turns better and reward them. You can also click the jackpot ones.
>>My biggest initial problem with training the running DW was that it took me a very, very long time to develop my “eye”. Being able to see front feet versus rear feet on a zooming BC is a big deal. So I had the uncomfortable experience of watching myself do a poor job of deciding whether a given rep was good or bad. Hard enough to learn that skill when you are getting correct feedback. Almost impossible when the feedback is bad.>>
OMG yes this is SO TRUE. In fact, it is such a difficult trainer skill that I have added this skill to the puppy class curriculum. We break it down to an easy puppy level – not because I care about teaching a running contact (it is just a fun puppy mat game) but because we need to teach ourselves how to see what their feet are doing. Live and learn, I wish we had started that with previous generations of puppy 🙂
Great job on this one! Let me know what you think!
TracyYay! Being a foodie is very helpful for building value, because you can totally do a lot of quick reps for treats without tiring her out 🙂
keep me posted!
TracyHi there! I found the serp game, sorry to have missed it!!
Your lap turns look good! You can place yourself a little closer to the wing, maybe just past an arm’s length: that should help drive her in very directly and set up even tighter turns.
The tandem turn also looked good!!She is show super balance between line focus and handler focus, even when you added speed from the tunnel: no change in her ability to focus on you versus the wing. SUPER!!!! Love this! And your mechanics are really solid, with my only suggestion being to be closer to the wing on the lap turn (you can see there is a little zig zag in her line as she comes to you on the lap turn).
When you play with this again, add in more running from the higher level sequences, where she does the wraps or race tracks, and sometimes you throw in a lap or tandem turn. And if you have the space, spread it out a little! Adding speed and the balance of being sent around the wings will make it more challenging, but based on your training here: I don’t anticipate her having any trouble. Yay!
Great job!!!
TracyHi! She did well here at the beginning! Note the hind end use to put herself into the 2o2o, and then when you pulled the target, she hopped right back on. You had good timing of marking the hind end on and getting the target in, then pulling it when she came off. I think the barking was just arousal – she was still thinking and offering, so the barking was probably her opinion on the game (“why do you pull the target when I come off, just keep feeding me, human!” LOL!!) The higher arousal did make it harder for her to offer the behavior, but that is fine: we want her to think it through in arousal. One thing you can do is clarify the release for her – get a couple of cookies in, then release her (before she moves off the board on her own). I think she might have a good understanding going of getting into position but is not necessarily sure of how long to stay there or when to release (which might be why she is cursing, I mean barking haha!)
Great job!
Tracy
