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Hi! She is such a smartie!!!!
Very nice patience on your part to walk past and let her offer! Nice job marking the moment she chose the jump and tossing the reward. Yay!! She got the idea very quickly 🙂 It is hard to be calm about it and not help the pups, but you were awesome and allowed her to make decisions. Then she figured it out and you easily added speed. Yay!
As you add speed and distance, you can shift the moment when you toss the treat: when she comes around the wing and looks a the jump and is heading towards it, throw the reward. That will keep her from looking back! You don’t have to wait til she is through the uprights, you can toss it as soon as you think she is heading for the jump.
You can easily add more distance here and more speed too – she is soaking it up like a little sponge! And yes, add the FC on the wing. It was fine to do it with just a post turn, but the FC will add challenge to go from handler focus to line focus, plus it will set you up nicely for the RC games 🙂Yay for adding the tunnel! I think she will love the smiley face games!
Great job!
Tracy>>Hmmm, it seems like we could really benefit from better tunnel exit connection.
Ha! Yes, indeed 🙂 She likes to look for you when she exits the tunnel, so it is important to connect to set the line 🙂
>>I have a nagging tendency to want to see where I’m going, but hopefully we can nip that in the bud, lol.
I find that I have better peripheral vision when I look down to the dog (rather than up), for some reason it expands my field of vision so I can see the next obstacle better. We can also work on finding lines ahead of you in terms of knowing where the next obstacle is without having to see it and without having to disconnect.
>>Seriously though, I think this crazy connection stuff is going to be HUGE for us.
Yay! I think some of the things you describe as struggles are connection-based so you will likely see an immediate change!
T
Hi!
>>With the jump coming down, The last rep when he cleared it, I had moved him closer and I thought the issue was I was setting him too far back for where he likes to leave from.
I was thinking that was a possibility! It was more the jump at :55 that made me think he might be sore and maybe that is why the first jump was hard for him.
>>However, I will get him with my Chiro. I struggle with him telling me if he is sore. He is so tough compared to a Schnauzer…the Schnauzer would be limping and crying at the smallest pain and Desmo is the complete opposite. He doesn’t like to tell me if he is sore.>>
Yes, so true!!! My Voodoo will run til he rips his feet off then insist he is fine. My BorderWhippet youngster hit an 8″ bar with his toe and there was MUCH DRAMA with screaming and limping and requests for amputation and SO MUCH DRAMA for about 30 seconds (he is perfectly fine LOL!)
>>Knowing where to be is something I am still getting a feel for so that I can give him good information.
I have 2 rules of thumb for that:
1 – the tighter the turn you want, the closer to the jump you want to be (lateral distance produces wider turns)
2 – we generally want to put ourselves right on the line we want the dog to run on crosses (then get the heck off of it before the dog gets there LOL!!)>>He did herding yesterday so he is on a off day today, I will get some good stretching in Tuesday might rain so I probably will not post until Wednesday but that will give him some time and I will try to get in ASAP with Chiro.
That makes sense, we have plenty of time here and next week is the ‘off’ week.
>>When we are back out, I was thinking I would work the line where I wasn’t keeping my hand back and the drive ahead portion again…. any other ones I should try again before I start week 2?>
That is a good plan! You can move the #1 jump further from the tunnel on the drive ahead reps so it is easier to NOT be ahead LOL! Then onwards to week 2 🙂
T
Hi there! Welcome back! Baby girl is growing up 🙂 TONS of nice work here – you are going to laugh, though, there are places where I think you were connecting too much LOL!
Going through the video:
On the first regular connection sequences:
seq 1 was really nice – you can move faster through the line here while maintaining the connection. – n
seq 2 – this is the beginning of where I think you can watch her a tiny bit less, and turn and go on the pinwheel more. By turn and go, it is more about staying in fast motion while still keeping your arms low and good connection. You were watching a lot, so you were not really moving, so she was heading checking a bit.
seq 3 – same thought here as on sequence 2 – she is head checking at :32 because you were ultra connected but not really moving, so she was looking up at you 🙂 Move faster 🙂 but keep the clear connection.On the next sequence, at :48, you can give her a GO on landing of 1 then start the tunnel verbal even sooner so she doesn’t look at you there too (and run more LOL!!!) your connection is really strong but if there is not enough acceleration, you will find her looking at you (especially because she is young).
On your wraps – the connection in and out is looking good! And the week 2 games of shifting connection will help figure out if she needs a slightly different style of cue. On these reps, you can be earlier on the FCs and spins. As she exits the tunnel, try to decelerating then sliding into the rotation so she collects sooner and you and can leave sooner too. That will help tighten up the FCs and will also give her a clearer line to the tunnel on the spins. Ideally, you are rotating before she passes you and before she takes off. At 1:39, for example, you are just beginning to turn and she is already in the air so she has to wait after she lands. We can challenge her commitment by starting it all sooner – the deceleration part of the transition is the magic there, so be sure to add that element in.
Serpentines:
serp one jump at 1:49 – nice!! Lovely connection and line!
The reps with more speed at 2:36 and 2:42 were also super nice. At this point, you can soften the exit line connection on the serp and lower the hand to be on your belly. You had it high and shaking a bit, and it will look a bit like a threadle arm like that 🙂 Plus, we can fade that exit line connection down to just eye contact as she is landing and it will work nicely 🙂On the FC at 2:50 – these can also come sooner 🙂 She has a ton of forward drive to lines, which is great! So it will be fun to play with how early you can cue and leave on these crosses. As long as you maintain this nice connection, I bet she will let you leave pretty early! So as she exits the tunnel on the FC and on the spin too, you should be decelerating and getting ready to rotate into the turn so she is seeing it before she passes you. AS long as you are connected and not abrupt (no slamming on the brakes!), I think she can do it. On the FC, as you exit, try not to step back – step directly forward to the tunnel with that clear exit line connection and you will get a really sweet line to the tunnel too.
Really nice work! These are all smaller details to fine tune things. Let me know what you think!
TracyOMG the video is hysterical LOL!! He is an excellent student lol
>>but for some reason that upper body rotation was difficult…maybe I drove in too close to that wing?
Yes, you can probably head directly to the blind and start it sooner.
>>His JWW time was 17.43.
Wowza!!!!
>>He actually weaves faster at trials! He did another “I don’t like weaving in dirt” in class last week…skipping poles due to divots in the dirt. Sigh.
Do you have any dirt trials coming up? If not, no worries about him not liking dirt divots for now.
>> So I hope we have some time to catch up along the way. I’m trying hard to be good and not over work him so we do not jump 2 days in a row.
yes – there is a ‘break’ week next week and then time after the last games are posted on Nov 7.
>>A sheltie “person” gave Benni high compliments after his T2B run. Proud mom here!
That’s awesome!!!! I hope they still like him when he starts beating them LOL!!!!
T
Hi! Yes, things are for sure harder!!
You might be seeing a preference coming out on the zig zag, but also this is a new location AND it looks like he has decided it should all be done FASTER. So, you can give a stronger cue on that release to get him to hop to his right. You can also ever-so-slightly offset the wings (more on that coming soon) so the zigzags are less reliant on handling. Watching this session, I think it was more of a GO FASTER thing and not necessarily a side preference, He was releasing with tons of drive towards you, so you can already be turned and cuing the first gap before the release to see if you can get him to do it. If not, stay on 3 wings for now to get the behavior – the next steps of the game are done on 3 wings so it is fine to work the skills on those.On your RC video:
>>t I wonder if I need to move the first wing back further and wait a bit more at the wing because maybe I’m too “on top” of him and not letting him get ahead enough?>>
Yes to both! On the go reps, stay really close to the wing til he has just about finished the wrap (even though you don’t need to) because staying close will accomplish 2 things – get even more driving ahead, and get the driving ahead from the instant you accelerate… which will set up the RCs very nicely 🙂
You were setting the lines on the RCs nicely om a lot of the reps, but you were a bit decelerated from leaving too early so he was not as accelerated. The other thing to think about is to turn your feet forward to the jump on both the go and the RCs – on a couple of the RCs you were a bit sideways so he was not sure if he should go forward or not (like at 1:07 when he pushed off the jump and 1:45 when he didn’t read the turn). Turning your feet to the jump will get that acceleration forward, and the line you run will tell him if it is straight or now. When you did that, he was really getting the idea of the rear crosses, especially on the 3rd part of the video! Yay!
The proofing actually went pretty well! It is a hard game! 2 ideas for you:
he generally made a mistake when he was not ready for the release. You were thinking about what you wanted to do, he was checking Facebook – the BAM connect/release/motion so he was kinda guessing LOL!! When you connected, let him process it for a heartbeat, then release: he was pretty awesome. So take a moment to look at him and tell him to get off facebook (teenagers! LOL!) then release. The other thing that was hard was when you *were* connected but released AND moved fast at the same time – he generally went fast but didn’t process the cue correctly. So when using motion, start moving before the release and then release while maintaining the motion (no sudden bursts of speed yet LOL!)Great job on these! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
All the Go reps looked really good! Currently his favorite thing, I think 🙂
I thought right was on time, he might have been thinking of the last place he saw reinforcement?
the next 2 RC reps to the right looked good!
He did really well on the circle wrap at :43! You were blocking the wing a little so he was wide – try to move to where the wing meets the bar so he can see it. You might end up waiting there for a heartbeat so he can get past you, but that is fine 🙂
On your other backside circle wrap at 1:15 – It looks like you had better position so he did not go wide on the approach. Yay! You don’t need to swing our dog side arm forward on this to help commit him as that might accidentally look like a backside serp or backside RC cue. Your arm can stay back or moving with your leg as you move forward to pass him. He was nicely committed and is using his body on those circles really well! It is hard turn and he is using his head to find the line (literally, looking at the line and turning his head 🙂He did well on the left turn RCs after all the go reps and the tunnel was a lovely part of the reward!!!
Zig zags – the warm up on 2 jumps looks good, he was already offering quick shifting changes so it was correct to move out to 3 wings. He was totally wanting to watch you, so you can toss the toy after the last wing to keep his head straight on the line (and not watching the momma 🙂
The proofing games always crack me up, because the dogs are always convinced they are correct even when they are not LOL! The visual of the tunnel here was stimulating but he sorted it out after the first couple of reps then he did really well! Adding motion is hard, so be sure to move slowly for now as you add it. At 1:03 he took the tunnel instead of the jump then it looks like he rewarded himself with a coughed up cookie LOL!! I think on that rep – he looked at the serp then changed his mind, so I wonder if he was not comfortable jumping in with you right there? So, on the next session, put yourself a bit in the way (standing still with a low bar) and get lots of reward in for him jumping the bar even if you are still a little bit in the way. He is fast, so we might sometimes get in the way 🙂
Great job on these! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! She did a great job here!!! The serp versus tunnel looked perfect – her facial expression was so funny: “no big deal, mom, I got this” HAHA!
The threadle was a little harder, which is pretty normal. Question: what is your threadle verbal (for jumps)? Her name for the serp is perfect, but a different word for the threadle will be helpful. That way you can stand there and cue it, and she will do the in-and-out by herself. You were helping with body motion, but that will require you to be almost perfect in timing. She is super fast, so being perfect is harder than using the threadle verbal LOL!!! I think you will easily be able to stand in the threadle position, use the verbal, and then let her send herself back out to the jump (and the tunnel here :)) Try it standing still and then we will add the motion back.
Nice work on all of these sessions!
TracyHi!
She likes all the games so far, I think, she is just a lot of fun in general 🙂
On the rear crosses: You were generally a little late on the RC cues. She is a righty on this game, so she was able to read the RCs to the right even if they were a little late but not the RCs to the left. Also, the RCs to the left were after the right turns, and all the rewards for the right turns, so she might have been stuck in right turn mode. It is interesting to see, because I believe she was a lefty on some of the other games? She likes to keep us on our toes LOL!!
So to get the RC cues in sooner: stay at the wing wrap for longer. Stay super close to it so that you can touch it, and don’t leave til she is just about exiting. Then move forward, but move forward with your feet facing the middle of the bar – and when she drives past you, keep moving up that line and cut in behind her. You were tending to leave the wing too soon, which caused you to run up the go line for a bunch of steps before showing the RC pressure. So she was not always able to make the adjustment for the turn before she took off for the jump.
When you look at the rep at 1:15, you can see you were closer to her at the wing and showed the RC diagonal sooner, so that was her best RC! Yay!
Also, start with the left turn next time and see how she does with that before trying the right. But I think the earlier cue will be the key.The Go reps in the middle looked good!
Great job getting her to the backside!! Excellent connection so she appeared to have no questions about which side to be on.
About the verbals – on the first couple of reps, you were staying on the landing side so I think push is the better verbal as it is more of a slice than a 360. At 1:45, 1:50 and 1:56, you did the real circle 360 wrap by moving forward- that is where the circle verbal is perfect.She had trouble turning left to come in and take the bar on the backsides! She was just not a lefty that day LOL! So you can help her out by dropping the toy to the landing side as soon as she heads to the backside wing to help create the default choice to take the jump as you move away. You don’t need to wait for a jumping decision, you can reward the decision to go the backside by dropping the toy on the landing side as you keep moving. You helped her out by showing the toy at 1:56 (last rep) but you can also toss it back there so it is even more independent.
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! I totally feel your pain about the shorter days – boohoo!!! I like summer!!!!!
He did really well here – nice form, hind end tracking nicely behind the front end. I think he might be a tiny bit too far from jump #1 so it is hard to organize for the liftoff and he is landing a little short (close to the bar) especially on jump 1 It is a game of inches, so maybe try to have him sit 3 or 4 inches closer to the first jump? That can help him land more evenly in each space.
We are building on this soon – he is looking lovely!
T
Hi!
>>This was definitely fun once I sorted out what I was doing.
Ha! It definitely is harder for us handlers than it is for the pups LOL!!
>> The tip in the video to hold the toy in the hand closest to the dog as you start and then just keep swinging it around to cross across your body for the exit line connection helped alot…until I did 2 in a row and realized I hadn’t switched hands on the toy!>>
I should have told everyone my secret: 2 toys, one in each hand LOL!
>>So I had always thought that blind crosses tended to cue extension so using them on a wrap was a bit counter-intuitive. Or is it if you start them soon enough and keep rotating around that it helps keep you in motion as you get out of dodge?>>
Blind crosses are amazing tools for tight turns (double blinds in threadles are SO FUN). The key to blind versus front is which gets your feet turned to the next line sooner – and in many cases it is indeed the blind. The key is timing (early, as you mentioned, but it is the same timing as we would need on a FC so it is not that hard), connection (the arm across the body is key) and verbals. I plan on doing more with the pups, and just added the Blazing Blinds class because blinds are misunderstood and feeling neglected haha!!
You can already see the tight blinds percolating on the first part of your video: the goal is to be finished before he gets to the wing and reward across your body. I personally try to keep my hands in tight to my body so they don’t swing out wide – it makes me quicker through the blinds.
In particular, look at the rep that started with the wrap to the tunnel at 1:12: at 1:17 you nailed the blind and he collected AND accelerated through the turn. YES! And it was tight 🙂 The reps that were wider were just you sorting out timing and where to put your arms 🙂 Overall I think this is going to be a really lovely tool!On your first race track, try to keep moving on the left cue in the center – you decelerated and turned forward a bit, so he almost didn’t take the next wing. You kept moving beautifully on the next rep to the right and he really drove the line – yeeeeehaw!
Great job incorporating the blinds on the 3rd run! Fun! He is reading them perfectly (nice connection from you!) so you will be able to get them earlier and earlier to get them even tighter. You can start messing with the timing by moving towards them and cuing the wing after he exits the tunnel – and when you see him looking at it and maybe halfway to the wing, you can start the blind. Motion plus the verbal should support it.
On your next race track to the left – you kept moving and you were connected and he was very smooth! Nice!!
And yes, he loved that frizzer LOL!!
Great job on these!
TracyHi!
The Go looks good on all the go reps! Fast and fun!
On the rear crosses, you are a little late 🙂 Watch your feets: as he exits the the barrel, you are stepping backwards away from it laterally, then rotating to face fully forward, taking 2 or 3 steps straight… then getting onto the RC line. So on most of the reps, he isn’t really seeing the RC info until after he has gotten to the bar – note how he is on the center of the bar and trying to figure out where to look. You were earlier on the rep at :50 and 1:04 and 1:08 and he was turning better. 1:35 was my favorite RC rep here – you were the earliest at getting onto the RC diagonal, so note how he is turned before takeoff and on the exit side of the bar. Yay!
So as he is exiting the barrel, stay close to it and try not to step back – and as you rotate, point your feet to the center of the bar so your hips don’t square up to the straight ‘go’ line at all… then as he is done with the wrap, accelerate to the center of the bar, very close to his floofy butt 🙂 As he accelerates ahead, you can cut in behind and you should see him approaching the jump already turned the new direction. And mix in tons of go go go lines so he maintains the driving ahead. Let me know if that makes sense! I think it will be an easy adjustment 🙂T
Hi! He did really well with you all the way out on the 5th wing! It involves a lot of body awareness from him and a quick handling dance from you – he was giving you some really lovely slicing approaches, quick feet!! He lost his rhythm a little on the shift to his right in the middle so the exaggerated handling at 1:30 really emphasized it and helped him, so he got it. Yay!! And yes, he might have just been fatigued by the end – he wasn’t quite as snappy on the intervals he did get right, so it was fine that he missed some. For the next session – yes stretch them out but go to 3 wings at 6 feet apart. That will set him up perfectly for the next level of this when it gets added.
Great job!
TracyHi!
>>I loled at the thought of Lazlo having a personal epiphany hahahaha!>>
His attitude made me laugh too! I don’t know a ton about pointy dogs, but it appears they have these personal epiphanies between sessions. My Contraband had an epiphany about collection today – impressive! I don’t know who taught him how to do what he was doing – my plan was to use the session to teach him – but he just knew. Pointy dogs! LOL!!
On the send’n’serps… I watched the video straight through to see if there was a pattern. I think he was having a case of the “Go Fasts” (also a pointy dog thing) where he was not really thinking about the jump, but rather thinking about going fast to the RT (because you were also going fast LOL!) Your handling looked good, so 2 ideas for you to help him as you add speed, because we want you to be able to go fast:
– angle the serp jump ever-so-slightly so that as he comes around the wing, he can see the jump bar more. The exit wing of the jump will move away from you and the entry wing will move a little towards you. It will still be serpy but the bar will be more obvious, and you can just run like you did. If he still questions, make the bar more obvious by turning it to face the wing a little more. If it is easy – angle it back to the flat angle you have here. Let me know if that makes sense.– let’s take the RT out of the picture – you will hold a reward and throw it when he decides to take the jump. It is fine if he looks at you a little, we can always get the RT back into the picture when he is finding the jump while you are running.
On your rear cross session –
he was doing fine with the driving ahead without the RT, particularly on the 2nd rep. You can do more of those, and with a toy so he can find it more easily.
For the rear crosses – I think you were leaving the wing too quickly, then stopping/decelerating from the go side of the line because you were ahead on the RC. So on both the Go and the RC – stay so close to the wing that you can touch it, and stay there til he is finished with the wrap. Then accelerate. For the Go, accelerate straight forward and for the RC, accelerate with a little bit of pressure in on the line. And even if the RC isn’t perfect, throw the reward out ahead on the line you want. I think staying close to the wing for longer will help smooth it out.The Find The Jump game looked so fun! He especially liked the Go Fast section and did a great job driving ahead 🙂 Yay! You can now move that jump further away, building even more distance on driving ahead or finding the jump with you in different position. I think that he really likes this game!!
>>I’m also confused about when to use R/L or the wrap verbals. Like in the Send and Serp game, I think you use R/L, but I would have guessed to use the wrap verbals since they are wrapping the wing. I don’t know where I got this idea, but I had in my head that R/L was for softer turns like no sharper than 90 degrees. Did I totally make that up? LOL!
The left/right is to cue a moderate collection where the dog lands parallel to the jump bar but does not come back around the edge of the wing. A wrap verbal is to cue the dog to collect a LOT and come back around the edge of the wing, through the gap. I think it is easier to understand if you replace the wing with a full jump in a serpentine pattern. I will put the image up on the course syllabus page in the link for this game, so you can see it (at the bottom of the description). Let me know if you see it and if it makes sense – I will post it right after I send this.
>>And then does R/L take the place of an obstacle cue? So if I say “right right” does that mean to turn right and take that jump, or does it mean to take the jump and THEN turn right?
It is up to you to decide that – for my dogs, I train them to take the jump, turning right, on a right cue.
>>I’m also wondering if I need to work on going out and around wings like in the Diamond Game, but not in a sequence yet.
You can start with the race tracks that we did around the outside of the rocking horses in the first class. When he gets the hang of those, the Diamond will be much easier 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>I’m so used to the summer camp videos coming out on Tuesdays! We are still on week 1…
No worries! I changed up the release days because of the live classes – it messes with my brain too LOL! Plenty of time to get it all done 🙂
>>Benni got 1st place in novice JWW today and his second leg so far. We also did T2B for training.>>
His T2B looked terrific!!!!1 The first frame looked really good – 2nd frame was good too but a little higher, I think he was chasing you because you were a little disconnected looking ahead. He is driving his lines and doing his weaves just like he does in class!!!
On the JWW runs – his high five at the start absolutely made me snort in laughter LOL!!! He was all like “ok fine get on with it” LOL!!! He might not like being lifted/put into the sit, maybe cue the sit in a more hands off way? But some dogs just cannot look at us on the start line, and it is fine: I have 3 dogs like that and they all do fine in the ring.
What was his time on that run? 4 seconds? I blinked and it was over LOL! Great job!!! I love that you are going for the blinds rather than handling cautiously. On the first blind, use exit line connection – get your left hand across your belly – then he will see the new side even sooner.
The second blind looked good and the rest looked good too! I am so happy for you! Benni is doing so well!!!!!T
