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Good morning!
Nice work here! Lots of good stuff to work on!
I couldn’t really hear your verbal directionals here – a bit of noise where I am plus on the video she is barking and you were quiet LOL! So, just a general reminder to keep using all the words 🙂On the run:
On the opening line, you can lead out a little more to be able to push further across 2 towards 3 at :09 – that will allow you to set the 2-3 line sooner so she turns before takeoff and not on landing.You can be a lot more independent in your weave handling 🙂 Pretend the weaves are a straight tunnel: send and leave to your next spot so you can be MUCh further ahead for the 7-8 section. Ideally, you would be at the tunnel exit of 6 before she gets into 6. When she was exiting the weaves at :17, you were parallel to her and pretty close to the weaves, which made the handling at 8 difficult so she had questions.
The teeter independence at :27 looks good! And good rewarding! Then the ‘stay there’ element was confusing to her – so it is perfectly fine to go back to reward, then release, then start from 8 to reset it and carry on from there.
Good independence on the 10-11-12 line!! Made that whole section very pretty!
On her first accidental backside moment at 12-13 at :58: it was hard to tell if you were wanting to rear cross 13 so she sliced to her left, or pull her in for a wrap in between 13 and 12 (to her right). I think the slice to the left is a better line. But what happened to cause her questions was that there was not really any decel or turn of shoulders to ask her to turn – you kept moving forward and that caused her to remain in extension, which put her on the line to the backside. For a RC on 13, you would need to decel a lot and turn your feet to the center of the bar at 13 (and maybe use a ‘soft brake’ arm cue), all before she makes a takeoff decision of 12 (so it would start when she exits the tunnel). If you wanted the wrap, you would need to decel at the same time (tunnel exit) and keep your feet forward to 14.
Based on your teeter independence, you can ask her for more independence on the teeter at 9 and the jump at 10, so you can get ahead enough to blind cross between 12 and 13 (it is only another step or 2 of independence required, I bet you can get it!)
There was another question from her on jump 16 – I thought you were cuing the RC on 16 at 1:12 based on your motion (pressure into the jump bar) and foot position (facing the RC line) I couldn’t see what happened there that caused you to stop but I think she also read rear cross? You fixed it at 1:33, but coming in from the speed of the a-frame would need you to get further ahead on the frame (independence! The theme LOL!) so you can be even more decelerated/rotated as exits the frame, on the wrap wing of 16 so she doesn’t see your feet facing the RC line at all.
You’ve got some good independence happening on the dog walk! You can be even more independent on DW so you can BC between the tunnel exit and jump #20 ,so you control the turn and don’t pick up 2/13 between 20 and 21.That extra step or two will get the BC and eliminate the need for any pesky rear crosses 🙂 I bet she can do it!
On that RC on 20:
Doing it as a RC requires more pressure on the RC diagonal (towards the center of the bar til she is passing you and committing) and decel for the wrap. It is a wicked RC which should motivate you to train more independence on the DW haha!When you were running it, you had a bit of a Goldilocks moment happening:
At 2:09 there was too much pressure on the RC line: you pinged your feet off the line too soon (before she passed you) and that pushed her to the backside of 20. If that is happening regularly, then you are likely turning to the new line to early and pushing her to the backside line.
At 2:19, there was too little pressure on the RC line: you ran the pull to the left line for too ling so she wrapped to her left. Good girl!
At 2:32, you were basically “just right” and her rear cross was better indeed! I think a little more pressure to the center of the bar will help get it great as long as you don’t turn your feet til she is past you and looking at the bar. Patience required on these rear crosses (which is why I train the independence to be able to get the blinds because no patience is required haha!)Great job on this whopper of a course! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>Driving forward in the weaves. Perhaps if an used the verbal go…she would have gone. Throwing a ball would have helped. It always trumps food>>
Will she stay in the poles if you add a little go go go to its? Or you can play with repeating the weave cue. And yes, a ball will add excitement 🙂
>>The teeter..:I forgot about the teeter for the last year. We started with 4 on quick release, but I notice she is no longer driving to the end. If I put a target down she still stops before the end and then goes to the target. I have been holding the teeter end up, treating her when she drives to the end, releasing the teeter and treating her when it hits the ground, then giving her a treat in a bowl just beyond the hoop.
I hope this is teaching her to drive to the end, stay on until it hits, then go>>It sounds like you are playing a game that I call the crazy elevator game – and yes, it should help her drive to the end. If she is a bit rusty on the teeter, it is a great way to refresh that skill. We will keep looking at it during the class too 🙂
T
Hi! I am on a mission to clean up some of my own sloppy markers, so yes – you might want to emphasize the ‘let’s’ part of the phrase and the ‘cookies!’ part of the phrase. But also, dogs are brilliant at differentiating context, so if you emphasize the “let’s” and not the ‘get’, I think she will be fine. For example, it can sound something like ” LET’S gogetsome COOKIES!” if that makes sense! My cue is “Let’s go!” and my dogs do not appear to confuse it with the “go” directional on course 🙂
Let me know if that makes sense 🙂
TracyGood morning!
This went really well, and I figured these games would be good ‘next steps’ for the teeter class and weave class graduates 🙂
The warm up with the Crazy Elevators was a great way to ‘prime the pump.’ Then he was amazing with the independence, WOW!!! He is doing a bit of young dog multi-tasking where he is stopping a few inches short of the very end of the board when it is way up in the air, but I think that is no problem: part of it is because he was learning to deal with you literally running away across the room (that last rep at 1:03 you were almost out of view of the camera LOL!!!). And part of it is that he is in calm training mode. When he is used to the crazy challenges and also in more of the stimulated trial mode, you’re likely to see him hanging his front feet off the end of the board while it is in the air LOL!Definitely keep using his target to help for now, it I easy enough to fade. With the teeter, I say onwards to the sequences for success to build it into sequences. Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! I got the internet to work, hooray!
This is also looking really strong. On the first rep, he went a little wide on the wing wrap (looking at something off screen maybe?) but the weaves were really great. He was a little surprised by your position when he exited the poles (he was still looking forward) so that might be just that he needs more experience with ‘finding’ you after really independent weaves. On the 2nd run, he let you abruptly pull away from the weaves – good boy! You can stick closer to the wing wrap to send him so you can slide away sooner. The 2nd set of poles in that rep was really easy for him.
Rep 3, holy cow, he let you basically run backwards while he was weaving GOOD BOY! You can set it up so you stay closer to jump 2 at :36 then you don’t need to be as dramatic as you leave him in the poles, but it is great training for him to let you do that. On the jump after the weaves (#4) you can also try slicing him to the outside as that might be the faster line for him.
Rep 4 – also super lovely independent weaving! When he exits the poles at :55 you had him on your right side and your shoulders were cuing the line that he stayed on so he was a little wide coming to the jump after the weaves. You can have him on your left exiting the poles there (do a FC while he is weaving) and then either a send to the jump or a spin on the jump.
Great job here! He is doing well with the independent weaving, so you can move into the courses with those if you like. And feel free to try the teeter sequences here too!
Have fun!
TracyMy terrible country internet has stopped playing video tonight so I can’t get this to load. I will try again in the morning!
TWow, these looked great! Easy peasy! You can definitely add in running away on the 90 degree angles, as well as sending him ahead without you moving at all.
One small thought – you can also try them without repeating the verbals the whole time. That will give you a chance to breathe on course and then you’ll have more air to spit out all the other verbals LOL! I have started to limit and quiet my weave verbals so I have more air to yell the other stuff. And that way, he will not pop out if you take a breath in the middle 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi! He was great here! I think this will be a useful game for him so he can relax more in the trial ring.
He seemed very happy to move away from the rewards, and his tricks were happy and fast too. Yay!!! One thing to do for more clarity:
When you are going to run back for more rewards, you don’t need a yes marker or anything, just use the ‘let’s go’ marker for now. That will help solidify things by telling him exactly what is happening. Otherwise the ‘yes’ markers get built in and he might get confused about when exactly he can run back for the reward.
Since this went so well, you can move it on front of a jump or tunnel and add in taking the leash off!
Great job 🙂
TracyHi and welcome to CAMP!! Somehow I missed this, sorry for the delay!
One of our independence goals will be to get him excited for the teeter, all the time! He had a lot of good reps here – and he definitely noticed when you started to move away laterally (that was when he stopped short of the end and looked at you).
So a couple of ideas for that-
Mix in easy reps where you go with him or run ahead with the harder reps where you hang back or go laterally.
And when you move away laterally, do it more gradually, so it is easier for him to process. He will work up to letting you run away on crazy angles and wr can introduce it very gradually (walking and simple angles for now).
Onwards to the next videos. Great job here!
TracyHi!
>>Tying the toy to her leash is a good idea, we will try it. Also having her sit, down etc, taking the leash off, leading out. Wouldn’t that be nice. Should we work this as a separate exercise for now or combine it with our training .>>
For now, keep it separate and when you have it where you want it, we can put it back into sequences.
>>Sequences… did you really mean to have them run from 7-8 and bypass the weaves ?.. That was a little crazy.>>
Oopsie… nope, the 8 was leftover from a different sequence. Oops! I fixed it. But you did a great job with it at 1:07 on the video!
She did well on the 2 independent weave reps at the beginning of the video! She was not as fast as she usually is in the weaves, so perhaps she was wondering if you were going to move LOL! That is something to keep playing with, to see if she can get her normal speed without you also running.
She did well on the teeter sequences too – a question: is her teeter criteria that she can run it as soon as it hits? I think she did pretty well with that, but I would like to see her driving to the end of it more – she was better at :22 when you were also driving ahead but when you were hanging back at :32, she stopped shorter and lifted her head. We can help her keep to driving forward when you hang back. How did you originally train it? If it was a target, we can put it out for the reps where you hang back. If it was the hoop, we can have the reward alreayd placed out there so she has a focal point to drive to. And I think the teeter reps at the end of the video were the same as the teeter reps at the beginning (either that or she is incredibly consistent LOL!) Let me know if I missed something on those.
On the weave sequences: really nice! She was especially good when you were driving ahead at :50 and 1:03 (and super fast!) She was a little wide on the exit of the weaves at :57 but she was perfect on the same exit at 1:25 – on that rep, you called her earlier and turned your shoulders earlier.
Definitely keep working on the driving ahead, throwing rewards as early as you can so she gets really confident letting you hang back – the speed will ten start to match her speed when you are driving ahead.
The other thing on these sequences was that you handling looked great: connection and turn cues were terrific! And that resulted in great lines and really lovely turns. YAY!!!
Great job here!!! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! All of these worked really well 🙂 Yay!
Looking at the weaves- he was successful on these with you moving parallel to him on the 1st two videos here. On the third one, you added more lateral motion away from him: he was successful but a little slower. So on the weaves, since he is doing really well with your motion – we can work on his understanding of doing the weaves without you (driving ahead to and through them while you hang back or move away very laterally). This focus will help transfer to more driving ahead on course too (which translates to more speed too :))
2 ways to approach this with the weaves:
– you can use 6 poles or open up the 12 poles – the goal of that is so the weaves are easier because we are ‘upping’ the challenge of staying in when you are not helping with your motion or parallel position.
– you can have a focal point out ahead after the poles, so he can both look forward (and not think about where you are while he is weaving) and also get rewarded out there. A remote feeder like a manners minder is great, or you can leave a toy or treat on the ground if he can ignore it 🙂Then, send him through the poles with you hanging back to help develop the independence. You can move forward at a walk if that helps, and eventually build to standing still while he drives through the poles. This might take several sessions.
He did well on the teeter! This obstacle is more independent already and that is great. You had a lot of lateral motion on each side and he seemed to drive really nicely to the end on the teeter. Super! You can totally use the teeter in the sequences for success! He looks ready for that with this obstacle. One note about rewards – since your ultimate goal is to build speed, we will also look at rewards. On the Teeter Right Side 1 video, he wasn’t really engaging with the toy and it might have been because it was moving towards him. So you can try to engage him with the toy by moving it away from him so he can chase it more. The more we know about what gets him engaged, the more we can get speed and independence on the lines 🙂
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! Looks like all the videos have posted properly 🙂 Yay!
On this first one – he did well when you were moving alongside parallel to him on the 2nd rep and struggled on the first rep when you hung back more. I see more videos below on the weaves, so I will watch those and then we can formuate more of a plan to get more speed and independence 🙂
Hooray for good weather! She did a super job here.
It looks like she was happy to move away from the cookies and do ‘stuff’ 🙂 The focus was great, the stay was great, the touches were great – she was not as quite on the ‘shake’. That might be that she was a little uncomfortable with the exercise (because it is hard!) and when you leaned over her for the shake cue, it might have been a tiny bit of extra pressure. That is good to know, as she gets out and about in new places: ask for easy stuff where you are moving away from her or standing up. And the speed of her responses can be indicative of her comfort level in different places 🙂
She also did really well with waiting for the leash to go back on, that is a critical skill at the end of runs!One question about the marker for the reward: is it ‘get your cookies’ or just ‘cookies’? Either one is fine, as long as you don’t use “get your” or ‘get it’ elsewhere on course 🙂 it might get confusing if she hears a lot of ‘get’ 🙂 I use ‘get’ for things like ‘get out’ so that is why I use ‘let’s go’ for this particular skill 🙂
Great job here!
TracyHi!
>>Patt is a sweet boy and moderately fast. He loves agility and is willing to play by my rules: he has a solid start line, good 2o2o contacts and very good weave skills. Patt also has very good focus and attention. He is not as physically gifted as some dogs and needs practice to manage his body over slice jumps and awkward approaches/striding.
Really, not a bad summary…>>
Ha! We can certainly build on that, including his Agility Grand Championship and all of his other massive accomplishments!
>> Here is an example of a threadle we are having trouble with:
Does he go straight to the off course, or ‘just’ wide? Can he do it when he is not stimulated with motion mid-course?
>>(this is the only way I know to put in a picture — make it into a video. There must be another way?)>>
Let me ask the tech guru – the IMG button on the replies should allow it but it is asking for a URL. I will find out!
T
