Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Good morning!
He is doing really nicely on the Find The Jump game! He is also reading your connection so I will keep bugging you about keeping your connection open to him and arm back to his nose 🙂 For example, on the exits of the wing wraps, you were keeping your dog-side arm back to him and making a clear connection to his eyes. Look at how he whipped around the wings! Nice!!!
On the tunnel exit to the jump, he had a harder time seeing your connection because you were tending to close your dog-side shoulder forward. When it was more open, like at :18, he was fast and perfect! When you rolled your shoulder forward/away from him, it changed the direction your shoulders were pointing so it changed his line: :25 is a great example of that where you were looking at him but you rolled your left shoulder forward, so he did not take the jump. You had it further back on the next reps and he was perfect! I also was really happy with how he drove ahead of you (feels weird to wait at the tunnel LOL!!)
If you get a chance to play with this again, feel free to add more distance between the jump and tunnel and also do the mirror image so he finds the jump on your right side. And on whichever side you are working, keep your dog-side arm back when you are ahead of him (magnets on your fingers being drawn to his collar) to keep the connection clear.Smiley face with a toy is looking really good!!! It challenges you to move faster and be super connected, because he is also moving faster and he is more excited – and you nailed it! Note how your dog-side arm at :18-:19-:20, for example, even with him moving really fast. Perfect! And I am super glad that his response to the toy being in the picture was more speed without losing his thoughtfulness. Yay!
Set point – wow, I think he had some sort of personal epiphany this week about jumping, the set point looks totally different and GREAT! Fast and organized and powerful! I had to watch it in slow motion LOL! The last rep was perfect in terms of his starting position, looks like maybe 6-8″ away from the first jump. The others were a tiny bit too close and he was splitting his front feet (first rep) or touching the bar (2nd rep). Everything else was great. And the reward target spot was perfect – he was able to stride beautifully and then pounce on it later LOL!
You will be getting the next steps on this tomorrow – perfect timing for him to have sorted it all out!Great job on these!
TracyHi!
The sends are all looking really good, even as the wing got further and further away. No problem! She did really well fingding the serp jump each time. On the first part, when she was on your left for the serp, the reward placement created more of a post turn line where she continued her right turn, rather than a serp line where she would turn right to come towards the jump then turn left as she approached the jump. On the next session, move the reward target so it is closer to the exit wing, almost in line with it (where the next jump on a serpentine would be) and a couple of feet away to help create the left turn there.
On the other side, when she was on your right, the reward was on more of a serp line so we were seeing the left turn towards the jump as well as the right turn for the serp line. You can leave the reward on that line for that side, but move it a little further away so she drives to it more. Which brings us to:>> What should our next focus be on this exercise? >>
Speed! When she is committing to sending to the wing, add more of your motion. Jogging at first – and if she is consistently finding the serp jump, build up to running! Be sure to maintain the excellent connection you had here and you can call her name if you feel she needs a bit more help as the speed builds up.
You can add more speed to the front crosses as welll – she was terrific with those here, so you can send to the wng, run and front cross – it challenges her more to pay attention to the different verbals and rotation.And after a couple of sessions, when that becomes easy… move to the advanced level where we move the wing back so the serp jump is actually a backside – so she has to be pushed to the backside before the serp cue.
Nice job here!!!
TracyShe is getting the idea of turning away on the left/right verbals, not just turning towards you – the very subtle hand cue is really helping her – and then the lightbulb went on and she was getting it really nicely! She was so funny, being so careful on the right turns – your excited responses were awesom, she really likes it when you get excited during rewarding! On the next couple of sessions, try to oh-so-gradually move your position back towards the middle wing for both the turning towards you (when she is on your outside) and turning away (when she is on the inside) – for now, keep the very subtle hand motion each time you change positions, to help her out. Then fade it out to just the verbal. This will likely take multiple sessions, because it will be a game of inches as you change positions (very gradually moving over) and also fading the hand cue shuld be very gradual, all to keep the rate of success very high 🙂 And of course, throw in lots of ‘easy’ reps where she is on the outside and turning towards you. Easy = fun and we want to keep it fun 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi! This session went very nicely! She is getting the concept now, so we are beginning to see the lead changes more. When she isn’t sure, she trots – so I think the next couple of sessions should have the wings slightly offset so she can run more – that is where we will see her thinking about how to use her lead legs in a way that will help the future jumping more. Basically, we are trying to convince her to run forward, do a quick shift to the side, run, shift to the other side, and so on. She was getting it on the very last rep (yay!) especially on the more difficult side. The offset wings can be just a foot offset and I think that will encourage her to consistently bounce/run through it, which will set us up nicely for eventually adding bars. A good warm up would be starting on 3 wings t the beginning of each session, then doing a couple at 4 wings. After that, when she is no longer asking questions (by trotting :)) then we can start moving the wings in closer 🙂
Nice work!
TracyHi there! It was so nice seeing you and Tilly last Sunday – I could see tremendous improvement in her commitment already, and the connection stuff will help seal the deal. Yay!!
I am happy with the session on the video – you were using connection to convince her to drive ahead of you even when you were NOT accelerating. That is hard! She had a question on the exit of the tunnel and looked at you on these, but then she DID drive ahead each time. There was one cheaty moment towards the end where she looked back at you (you dropped the connection as you started throwing the toy), but overall she was making solid commitment decisions. Your connection was looking really strong – very direct to her eyes but you were also staying nicely in motion, and she got on her line and was not sticky. You can use this game to get her more crazy and aroused – tug tug tug, have her do the tunnel a few times back to back… then send her over the first jump to the tunnel to the go line. She did well here in a relatively “chill” state so now we can make her nutty to get her into the trial-state where she might be stickier.
The length of the tunnel and your foot speed got her only a little bit of driving ahead – and that is a good start for what we will build it into! However, I do want her to get the feeling of driving ahead while you are accelerating, so that you can work up to adding rear crosses. To do that, I think you can replace the tunnel with a jump or even just a wing – it gives you something to commit her too but then you will have to accelerate because she won’t be spending time in the tunnel LOL! That can add a bit more speed and confidence to her driving ahead, that we will quickly morph into rear crosses without her being sticky.Let me know if that makes sense! Great job!
TracyHi Anne!! It was great seeing you in the live seminar, I am so impressed with how well you and Mochi are working as a team!!!! It feels like just yesterday that she was a baby puppy 🙂 And I am glad it is helping in your in-person classes too – I totally relate about the exit line connection becoming more second nature! You are definitely coordinated, but we are changing years of muscle memory so it might feel awkward for now 🙂
Your timing videos looks (and sounds :)) great! You were cuing the obstacles with the verbal at the right time, which means you were connected 🙂 She seemed to have zero questions there – she was fast, tight on the turns and looked at her lines the whole time. Perfect! Yay! You can also repeat your verbals (tunnel tunnel tunnel, for example) which helps to guarantee the timing will be right 🙂
On the exit line connection video: it took an extra heartbeat to get the exit line connection on the first rep (so it was a slightly wide turn), but then the rest of the FCs were perfect! And her turns got tighter and tighter, they looked really great!
On the spin reps, you can start the spin sooner so the connection is there sooner when she lands – I liked the rep at 1:00 (last spin rep) the best because it started a little earlier than the others so she was able to drive out of it better. You can probably start it even earlier, rotating as she is passing you so then you are finished in time to see her jumping. 🙂
The serp reps looked really great! Look at how tight she was to the jump as she was serping – VERY nice!!!! Your dog-side arm was a little high when she was on your left for the first couple of reps, but the exit line connection was clear and then the dog-side arm was lower when she was on your right (exit line connection was also very clear).
Great job on these!!!
TracyHi!
Wow, that is a heavy topic in grad school! Is it vet school? As the owner of a couple of sport mixes (and some purebred dogs too) it is always interesting to hear how people think about the ethics of breeding. Massive topic for sure!
Also, procrastinating is fun 🙂
The connection – yes I agree that she is thriving on the VERY direct eye contact as you move up the line. That is normal with less experienced/younger dogs, and most dogs allow us to fade that into needing the eye contact only in certain specific situations. Some dogs thrive on it and we can never really fade it (my big black dog is one of those) but it becomes second nature for us humans, so either way it is all good.
On your first video here: first run was AWESOME! You were REALLY working the connection so she committed (not a problem) but also jumped it really nicely AND was turning. YES! You were very helpful on that last jump so we will play with what she needs, exactly, so you can fly up a line as needed. Nice job on the turns here!
I admit to chuckling at the look on your face when you saw her butt was up on the lead out for run 2 LOL!!
The first part looked great again, very happy with that! This is the rep where you were running more – connected, I thought, but running harder – and she couldn’t process HOW to commit and smacked the bar. You fixed it really nicely on the next short rep.
Last run – I loved your spin at 1:12. The other reps were really good but this one was FABULOUS because you were connected long enough to commit her but then you rotated earlier and she saw the new connection before she landed. Such nice timing and a fabulous turn!
Lovely connection on the last jump – you were ahead but not but that much, connected nicely and not helping toooooooo much. She might have a “bubble” on these lines for now, meaning that you need to be within a certain distance so she can multi-task process the handling cue (watching you) and the jumping effort (watching the jump). Right now the bubble might be 4-5 feet of you being ahead of her (or lateral, we can play around and see). When you get past 6 or 7 feet ahead, she can’t figure out how to use the jumping skills appropriately. We will be able to figure it out and expand her bubble so you can get ahead more. For now, let’s set her up for success by having you be connected like you were on this last rep, and staying within the 5 foot bubble (you can go deeper into lines so you don’t end up too far ahead).2nd video – this is looking really good! On your front crosses, you can slow down and turn sooner – mainly so you can get that exit line connection into place before she takes off. The FCs (jumps 3-4 then 8-9 at the end of the sequence) have a great camera angle, so you can see what she is seeing and why she goes wide (or turns tight):
On the first FC at 3-4, when she lands at :09, :32, :53 she was a little wide, partially because you were a little late starting the turn (you can probably start it when she is halfway between the tunnel exit and the 3 jump), but also because you were looking at her but your dog-side arm blocked her view of the connection a little so she drifted out a bit. Try to exaggerate showing her the opposite arm across the body, which will push your dog-side arm out of the way and help her see it. And, by connecting across your body rather than with the dog-side arm, you will find that you can run forward to 4 better, which will also set a better line to 4. Connecting with the dog-side arm was causing your to try to find her which was pulling your line backwards a bit, so she was reading the motion and that sent her a little wider.
At 1:15, the last FC there – you were earlier AND more connected, and it was already so much tighter. YAY!! Nice!On the FC to the tunnel 8-9 at :17, :41, 1:01, you can also exaggerate the exit line connection with the arm across the body for now. Your rep at 1:23 had more of your dog-side arm back and a very clear view of your connection and that was a really nice turn!
And now you are going to laugh…. it is entirely possible that her turns will be better if you use blind crosses here instead of fronts. Blinds are easier to get the new connection finished and you can run up the next line faster – fronts have so much rotation that it is much harder to get ourselves turned quickly. You might have heard that blinds are for extension lines only, but actually they are VERY effective on tight turns if we use proper connection. So on your next break from schoolwork 🙂 try this with blinds and exaggerating your exit line connection and we can see how she does!
Great job 🙂 Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
Yes! The snap offs are very similar to some of the wrap work we do for commitment. I personally think that all agility people should do flyball foundation work… but that is NOT a popular opinion with many agility folks LOL!!! And the understanding of agility jump commitment is really helpful for flyball. I love both sports!
On the video – I like how Mouse needs the last word on the stay and barks at you LOL!!! Love him! You absolutely nailed the regular connection to the tunnel. I don’t think he even looked up at you! Great job with the cookie toss starts, being slightly ahead made for a smoother line to the first jump. Beautiful! If you get a chance to play again on this, spread it out to challenge yourself to run even faster and maintain that connection.
The serp exit line connection was also lovely – yes, if you do it too soon the dogs might read it as a threadle and also it needs to be very soft, like you did here. He read it perfectly and gave you that somewhat sideways jumping effort that makes for tight lines on slices and serps. Yay! You can start to fade out the actual hand cue and move to just using your eyes at this point, maintaining the eye contact all the way through the landing spot (I have more serping in the next set of games coming up).
Great job!!!!
TracyGreat question!!! With distance work, generally a BC will stay out on the line when we keep our arms extended out away (this is also true in herding LOL!). So, when he is out on the line for the discrimination like a gamble, I think it is perfectly fine to use your arm as you describe (I am sure you were giving verbals too!). And also – it sounds like it falls into the ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ category 🙂 It is a tool that is working beautifully, so definitely keep it in the tool box 🙂
T
Good morning!
>>However, I have a question about something we did in our novice class yesterday. It was called “setting lines”…I think it used to be called or maybe still is called V set (?) where you shape the dog’s path on the take off side of a jump to manage what they see on landing. So she was having us step in on the dog’s line and then peeling away to whatever the next obstacle was…we practiced 4 different options. It felt weird to be doing this and I don’t recall anything you have taught us resembling this.>>
I think it is great to practice a wide variety of things, get good at them, then see what is effective. There is a time and a place for V-sets but there is also a specific way of handling them to get them to work (usually we need to decelerate or use a brake arm or a spin). Then… we time it to see if it is faster 🙂 Sometimes they are faster, sometimes NOT faster because the v-set adds yardage so it ends up being slower. I generally don’t v-set with small dogs but it totally depends on the context. You can email the map to me and we can discuss (agilityuniversity@gmail.com)
>Benni went very wide because he has never seen me do this before and I’m wondering if this is a useful tool to have or just let it be that we “tried” it and be done with it?
V-sets are ‘natural’ cues, meaning the dogs will get it right if the cue is correct – so you might have been late 🙂 And that would be normal if you were new to doing it and uncomfortable with it. Send me the map and we can try to sort it out 🙂
TGood morning!
Zig zag are going REALLY well, he has decided to do them REALLY fast LOL! The wider distances were easier because you both had more time to get the changes in place – and he seemed to have no trouble with doing them at high speed. I am glad you worked the tighter distances because he really had to think about it more! The timing of the cue had to come sooner as you found out but eventually this behavior won’t be contingent on a such exact timing 🙂 On the last few reps, he was getting his leads sorted out. He realized that he couldn’t just go fast – he had to adjust and so he did. GOOD BOY!!! That is exactly what we want when the wings are in close Iike you had them.
When you add another wing, you can totally start him a little further back so there is an extra heartbeat to read the handling 🙂 You can also back chain his position (by starting him at wing 3 then wing 2 then wing 1) or your position (he is at wing 1 and you start at wing 2, then wing 3, then wing 4). We can be in the ‘whatever works” mode for the handling because the handling is not that important, it is more about his lead legs and he is doing really well on that!!!On your tunnel video. – yes, I agree with how it all feels so wonky in the moment but then looks pretty darned good when we look at the video 🙂 LOL! My guess is that running the baby dogs just feels so weird and uncomfortable and we have to be pretty much perfect. Running the adult dogs is soooooo much easier in many ways. But he is looking really good here!
The left and right tunnel exits are looking awesome! Your cue is very timely (both physical and verbal) and he is using the body really well. Yay! Loved the wrap slo motion moment: he was bending his body, leading with his head – SO COOL!!!
You had a refusal on the wing at :25 – I think it was a connection moment,m where you were not connected enough (for a baby dog), your dog-side arm was blocking the connection a bit – so he was looking up at you and not looking at the wing. Then when you turned, he just kept looking at you. Good fix in that moment to be able to get the reward – that will build up to him saving you in the future when connection is not perfect (perfect connection is nearly impossible to maintain!). You did have the perfect connection on the wrap right at the very end, and he was beautiful on it. Yay!
For the go line – this is another moment where solid connection will make the line happen – as he exits the tunnel, he needs to see you making eye contact with your arm back (and running like mad too LOL!) You were running like mad at :37 and :47 but ended up looking forward, so he came off the line. So far all of the pups are doing this same thing 🙂 For now, cheat to get ahead of him at the tunnel exit so you can make the strong connection. You can cheat by sending him away to the tunnel from further away (ok, it isn’t really cheating , it is just adding distance LOL!) so you are further ahead at the exit. I will add more games to help all of our pups find that line too, it has proven difficult!
Minny Pinny: He was great! He totally had to think about it but that is good, we like thinking dogs 🙂 Your feet were in all sorts of positions that could have cued other things and he appeared to get the directional correct on ALL of them. Yessssss 🙂 I agree that he is just about ready for the neutral position: prime the pump with a couple of review reps then add in the neutral position in on an easy line… then work back to being able to stand in the center in neutral position. It is really cool to see how well he is responding here!!
And about the neighbors…. OMG I feel that!! I live in the country so my training area is several hundred yards from the neighbors… but during a session with Contraband the other day, I wanted him to hear the directional and then I wanted him to hear how excited I was about his response – so I must have been pretty loud and wild because I glanced up and they were staring at me from across the giant field LOL! Whatever, they already know I am nuts and they think the dogs are on TV or something (they saw Export on the Purina Incredible Dog Challenge on TV so they think all the dogs are TV stars LOL!!!) Gotta love neighbors who have to hear all of our shenanigans 🙂 Great job here! Enjoy your weekend in the cabin, I bet it wil be gorgeous fall weather!
Tracy
Sorry for the lack of clarity, more coffee needed 🙂 For. the serp arm: elbow locked so your arm is straight back and extended away for the serp arm, so your upper body is turned to the serp jump. Let me know if that makes more sense 🙂
Hope you had a great weekend! Funny that the notification popped in for this just as I was thinking about how your weekend went with the birds 🙂
Great job focusing on the tight sits and also on the zillions of rewards for the stay. As the excitement of the jumping comes up, the stay is going to want to deteriorate but lots of cookies will prevent that 🙂 He looked really good here: holding the stay in a tight sit but clearly keen to do the grid,
Because of the sit rewards, he let you lead out AND had really nice form developing! I think the first bar might have been a little too high for stepping right into it – it looked lower than the 10″ bar but not by much? Because of the plyometric nature of the first bar, keep it at 4 inches or maybe even a jump bump instead of the bar – the hardest part about jump grids is sorting out the perfect set up and distances for each individual.One other idea to try for convincing him to not look up at you, I have been doing something to help get the head down jumping when using the food bowl. Bearing in mind that it is a fine balance between holding the stay AND getting him to look at the reward bowl (and not at the cookies in your hand :)), I have been doing everything the same as you did here (lead out, empty bowl, TONS of stay rewards) and then at the very same time as the release, I have been dropping the cookies into the bowl (without really moving anything else :)) That gets the cookies into the bowl sooner and also the pups can track the cookie falling and it draws their heads down. It doesn’t matter if the cookie doesn’t exactly land in the bowl, the pups are happy to eat it anyway haha! And a side benefit is that it adds a bit of motion distraction challenge: can the pup maintain form while a distraction is moving? Right now the distraction is the cookie but pretty soon the distraction will be you moving 🙂
Let me know if that makes sense! He is looking really good – we are building on this over the weekend and he will be ready 🙂 Yay!
TracyHi! She was awesome on these!!! This is a hard game for BCs because they are wired to stay parallel to motion… but you have already done a lot of foundation on this AND you structured your session beautifully by adding in motion very gradually so she simply nailed it 🙂 Yay!! I am especially happy about it for two reasons: she loves going fast and she was successfully able to go fast here AND get it right. Yay! Also, you might not have noticed: that tunnel out there would have been a massive distraction for many pups (we are actually using it as a serp distraction with the new games coming this week LOL!) and she does love her tunnel… but she never even looked at it. GOOD GIRL! And you did a great job with your connections and verbals (helping with the quiet name call for the serp worked really well).
For the next session: add more speed as you run through the serp and see how it goes! Keep your connection and upper body position the same, it was really good. And you can move to the advanced level where the wing is recessed so it creates a push to the backside before the serp.
Her wraps looked lovely too – nice and tight and she stayed on the correct side (didn’t try to cut behind you for the jump). Great job with the connection there to help create it 🙂Well done!!
Tracy
