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Hi!
>>In other news, his neck did need adjusting last Wednesday. When he turned his head to the right, the left side was stuck and didn’t make a corresponding move out so it was harder for him to tutn turn right.>>
Ah that is interesting!! I am glad for the chiro and PT people out there who keeps our dogs loose!
This was a good session! I think this one error (:39) was that the flatness of jump 2 was significantly different than the previous rep that he needed a moment 🙂 I don’t think it was a late cue, because your running and position are part of the cue and those were not late, even if we can obsess on the timing of the arm. But overall, he was doing a great job on his serps! With that in mind, I would open the line of jumps back up and do 2 things:
get close, very very close LOL!! We don’t want him to think that you will be that far away on serps so you can make the serp line easy and get nice and close to it.
Also, so he doesn’t rely on the exact arm cue – just basically run, no real cue needed other than being connected – he should still serp even if you are not very precise with the serp arm movement or timing. Basically, we are going to have him read your line of motion and connection, but with the barest hint of serp arm rather than exaggerating it. Let me know if that makes sense.Great job!
TracyHi! What a perfect use for Amazon boxes!!! Love it!
She did seem to love this – planks are fun and there was running involved 🙂
She did well coming from the wing here on the straight-ish entries without the boxes – she was really lining herself up nicely! And the boxes worked nicely for crazy angles – she hit a box on one rep and then worked EXTRA hard to line up better. Good girl. She totally jumped over the box on the 2nd to last rep – you can tell her she is cute but not reward on that one. She fixed it on the next rep, but if she was unable to fix it, you can use a bit of handling to help her. You were really good about NOT helping on the handling, but if she struggles on an angle it is fine to help her out to show her.I think the left turns around the wing were hard for her – maybe because she had to turn away from the plank? So that turned out to be a useful handling exercises: turn away from something exciting 🙂
Great job here!!
TracyHi!
>> I had been thinking of using the mat for the obstacle discrimination exercise, so I’m glad you think that’s a good idea.
Great minds thinking alike, once again 🙂
>> We’ll soon see what Keiko thinks.
If toys and cookies and you are involved, I am sure she will be happy to play 🙂
>>I really like the idea of the MM on the table. When I saw her leap the whole second yellow section on the ramp, barely touch the table, and leap off into the leaves, I figured we needed a stop sign somewhere.>>
Right! We don’t want her to practice her dock diving form on the plank LOL!!!
T
Hi!
>> I was really worried he would think the more advanced part was the biggest spread jump ever>>
I totally felt that too when I first set it up, but the verbals help a lot 🙂 He did not seem confused, he was awesome!
He did really well on the wing and on the jump here! I think the jump out there *was* a distraction because he did not really get tight on the turns til the very end – it is possible he is a lefty so he was tighter turning to his left at the end? But at the every beginning, he was turning left on the wing and was wide, scoping a bit (the distractions are TEMPTING LOL!!)
So 2 ideas for you to be able to convince him to turn tighter – you can leave earlier on the handling, really trusting his commitment so that he drives back to you harder – which will create more collection to get it done. When he is collecting before takeoff (or on approach to the wing) you can mark that moment 🙂
Separately, you can do it without motion, just with verbals… but mark a slightly different moment to get started. Send him him to the wing or jump on just your verbal – Wait til he has turned more fully and is starting to come back around the wing – mark that moment and then go wild. I think on some of them he was waiting for you to get excited and then deciding to come around the wing, so try to be completely stationary and quiet til he decides 🙂 So the criteria starts as “come back around the wing” and then I bet he starts to get tighter and tighter naturally because he will be driving back for reward.
Let me know what you think! He is doing really well, so we can add challenge and see what he does 🙂 Have fun!
TracyAha! This was a really nice session! This lends credence to my leg theory from above. You were using the dog side leg on your sends here… he was perfect. Woot! So keep reminding your dog-side leg to get involved with the sending. I don’t think he questions on the first rep above were ‘squirrel!’ moments but more like a bit of a question about the cue. You were almost perfect in your connection and Hallmark moments – on most of the reps you were really isolating that moment and it was a huge help to him. At :30 was the only little moment where you broke connection and looked forward, so he did not go to the wing (an experienced dog will not be as sensitive to the little connection breaks, but baby dogs sure are.)
On the single wing – great job adding the running on the turn and burn exits! He likes that! You can mix in a toy here and there along with the treats – it will add a little but of arousal and then he has to stay centered and still focus on the wing task, which is a great skill for a young dog 🙂 And also, since I am obsessing on legs… be careful to use your dog-side leg on the send step here too. When you did… perfect! When you did not, and used upper body and the opposite leg (1:27 for example), he had a question.
You were doing really nice spin exits and reinforcements here, so also plan some FCs. I think he is also ready for you to start leaving earlier.
Great job!!! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
Yay for good weather!!!!!! I love it! He is doing well on these games!Since he has grown and his feet are now in a new zip code, you can help him isolate what you want on the first few reps. I think he was not sure if he should get on it, back onto it, get into 2o2o, so he was tap dancing a lot and offering a whole lotta stuff. To get the bal rolling, Yyou can reward him for all 4 feet on, getting on the from the front – then have him lean forward to a hand target, then lean back. Then step off into 2o2o (a hand touch will help) and then reward for stepping back. And you can gradually ask him to come off more and more, to get more backing up. Each time he has a growth spurt, you can refresh the game this way – and then he will recognize the context and is more likely to go directly into hind end offering 🙂
Rocking horses – he did well in the distracting environment and was turning beautifully!! Good boy! You can help clarify the send to each wing by using your dog-side leg more. Your arm and connection looked really good but the dog side leg was staying back, so he was questioning if he should leave you or not. A good example was at the every end – your right arm was great, you were connected, the wing was right there… but your right leg was saying something else so he was not certain. I don’t think it was lack of reinforcement, I think he needed your leg to also give permission to go to the wing 🙂 So, as your right arm goes forward, have your right leg step forward to the wing as well, I think that will smoooooooth it all out 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi!
She is so cute!!! Loving her tug drive and ability to go back to the toy after food!
She seemed super confident getting right up on the thing for the goat game 🙂 You can ask her to turn around on it or sit on it, it seems big enough to do several different things. And, since she is so willing to offer – play goat games on all sorts of different things. Have you tried this with something unstable?Restrained recalls – wow she is so tiny! I think she is recalling beautifully. The connection looked really clear on your 2nd, 3rd and 4th recalls (looks like you rewarded across your body) – the first rep was good but it was not as clear (I the reward was a little late being shown) and so she was not as sure of where to be. Overall really good and insanely adorable. Also, because she is 50% Papillon, notice how she is starting to squeak when you say ready ready LOL!!!
Toy races look great, she is happy to leave you in the dust. I notice that she backed off when you leaned in to get the toy on the first rep – I like you how delayed that on the 2nd rep to give her a moment to get engaged. That helps for sure! I think on the 3rd rep when it hit the wall, it was weird – so you can definitely add in some near or on the wall stuff as she gets better and better here, to help reduce the weird factor LOL!!! And since she seems to be fine with going back and forth from food to toys to food, you can give her a treat for the collar grab stuff: she is not a huge fan of that at the moment (Paps are generally not huge fans of that) but cookies will win her heart LOL!
Great job here! She is tons of fun!
TracyHi! So good to see you here 🙂
>>. I’m worried that a nose touch to item in my palm *right now* might be confusing. Can I just use my palm for the time being until the paw touch to target is trained to the point of being on cue?>>
Yes – and you can also do a nose touch to an object sticking out of your hand, like a spoon or spatula or something! So it would be 3 distinct behaviors, the more the merrier 🙂
T
Hi! Feel free to use your arms as you would on course 🙂 For all of my serpentines, I personally only use the dog-side arm and chest rotation (not really a dip, more of an upper body facing the bar). So on the proofing game, I use the serp posture the dog would see on course. If you use a cross arm (opposite arm) for your serps – then you can totally use it here as that is what your dogs would see on course.
Same with threadles when we get to them – use whichever arm(s) your dog will be seeing on course 🙂
Now about the reward… you can have it in the serp arm and then move the arm to reward (or toss the reward) or you can have the reward out there, like a manners minder – it will also be a great distraction for the tunnel cues 🙂
Let me know if that makes sense!
TracyHi! I hope you are feeling better!!
On the serp – You can totally use a jump cue and his name. That should work nicely!!
On the wrap game – yes, I do use the verbals to mean turn away but not yet in this game 🙂 You will see more of that very soon
LOL!! I mean, you could use it in this game but I like to proof one concept at a time, at first, before adding in another one. T
Hi Dixie!
>> Both dogs did great on the wrap exercises and had plenty of drive. But when we worked on the serp. exercises they lost their drive…
This is interesting! Yay for the wraps!!!! On the serps: It might be that they didn’t get jazzed up with you standing still and also serpentines have us basically facing them – which is also not very exciting LOL! So yes you can line them up further away and see how it goes. Were they coming in, but just not doing it fast? The other thing you can do is add ‘action’ by throwing the rewards behind you when they come in towards you. That builds in some excitement when you standing still. And if they are foodies, do you have a lotus ball or a manners minder? They might like chasing the lotus ball. You can also tuck a manners minder in to where you would normally reward and see if they like that! I might have video of that somewhere, I will look for it!
Keep me posted 🙂
Hi! I love the new prop and also love those carpets! So fun!
Now on the rocking horses, he was having a little trouble letting you leave early. So on the forward sends and sideways sends here, you can add in leaving early: send exactly like you did here, but just before he gets to the prop you can slowly (oh so slowly) release the send cue by relaxing your arm (the first part of leaving). Then you can click/treat as he continues to hit the prop. That will build into you being able to walk the other direction as he sends past to the prop. Then we transfer it to the barrels 🙂 Do that first on the forward and sideways sends, starting pretty close to the prop, but don’t add it to the backwards sends until he is really comfy with it on the forward and sideways sends. Those backwards sends are really hard, so no need to add countermotion to them yet.
Great job here!!!!
TracyHi!
>>Our first session was brilliant, but someone forgot to hit “record” on the video, so we don’t get to review it.>>
OMG I hate when that happens! We get all excited about a great session, go to turn off the camera… and it was not on. UGH! But as long as it was brilliant, we don’t need to review it (just bask in it LOL!)
On this video: this is also brilliant 🙂 He is doing well! I think in the slowing down moments, it was more about the timing of you stepping into the FC? For example at :18, :39 and :55, you started stepping back into the FC just as he was approaching the basket and so he hesitated. I didn’t read that as a Cookie Monster moment 🙂 but more of a “wait, are we turning now?”moment. When you were more patient on starting the FC (like at 1:03, and also you were perfectly patient on all the reps when you moved the baskets further apart and when the toy was in play) he was not sticky there at all, he was very smooth. So it is possible that you were just a tiny bit too early for his current understanding of the ‘turn and burn’ momma-gonna-leave-early FCs 🙂
Yes, it is sometimes easy to feel the connection breaks like on that first rep of the more distance! But also sometimes harder to feel them because we can still peripherally see the dog even though we have broken connection and they are not sure where to be: that is what happened at 1:26 when he almost ended up on your right. You had connection for a moment then before he passed you, you pointed forward. He was far enough behind you that he read it as a blind cross cue, so he was changing sides. In those moments, try not to give a verbal marker that he might be wrong (because he might be right LOL!), just either let him go and reward, or call his name to the new side and reward. I used to think my dogs were trying to grab the toy or cookie in those moments until I saw the disconnect in the video. We can’t see your eyes here, but we can see the shoulder and hand movement and that is why he read the blind cue (it is a really natural cue for the dogs 🙂 why can’t running contacts be as natural? ha!)
The rest of the reps were super smooth on the session! He is getting better and better at committing, so you will be able to start rotating earlier and earlier. Nice work!!!
TracyHi!
Great job here! The tighter quarters are fine for this, definitely better than freezing LOL!
He did REALLY well here. The click/treat warm up was fine but his value for the spoon was strong! Try to have both treats ready before you throw the first one, so you can be ready and in position the instant he turns back to you. He is wise to the game now, and was getting his cookie and turning back to you in a heartbeat so you were still getting ready LOL!!!
One detail about the spoon – for now, lower your hand so he can keep his nose either straight or slightly lowered to hit it, and not have to look up. Dipping your shoulder downwards should get it done. He was having to reach up a little to get it and we want him driving in with his head a little lowered.You asked about position – at this point, you can place yourself at the wing (about an arm’s length away), with your belly button facing the center of the wing. Your spoon arm will still be between the uprights and your feet will be pointed towards the reward hand. That will add more challenge for the serps and set you up perfectly for the game we add on this Tuesday 🙂
Great job here – I love how he is driving right in then bending so nicely the next direction!!
TracyHi! You got some decent snow! We have about 3 minutes of snow and it was gone within an hour 🙂
This is going well! The snow adds a new distraction and he was fine with it. He did well on the straight line and the angles. On the left side tight turn angle when he almost got it – I think he was offended when you chuckled at him LOL!! I mean, it was really funny though haha! He wanted more info, he was being very serious LOL!!! So when you asked him to line up again he said “just the facts, ma’am” so it was fine to help him out and cue the tunnel again. It seemed like his only question on this session.
The threadle angles looked really good in both directions! If you are seeing that his questions tend to come more on left turns that are tight, you can add in easier version of the tight left turns – starting closer or making it more obvious, so he still turns tightly but it is a shade easier. You can teach concepts on the stronger side first, and do more of those than the harder side. Generally, we balance out any side preference with conditioning further down the road, and in training we do the intro of concepts on the easier side til they are underway, then move to the harder side, then back to the easier side so you end up doing more easy side concepts. When the concepts are well-understood, he won’t have to multi-task as much so he will have an easier time executing on the side that is not as strong. Let me know if that makes sense! Great job!
Tracy
