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Hi!
>>’m looking at the German (backside blind) at :10 and :25. It seems to me that he is going to have to learn to recognize that formation and trust that I am out of his way on time.>>>
Well, yes… but also he can learn to execute it independently so you can head out for the next destination 🙂 I guess it falls into the category of ‘train it so you can use it when needed and don’t use it unless you need to.”
>>Just like a regular serpentine, I want to see him see the bar before I scoot out of position.
He sees it, though, and waiting there for longer might give him a different set of cues than what you want (decelerations versus extension, where the next turn is exactly and so on, which could delay processing of the cue and take off point decisions).
>>I had plenty of time (and available speed) to leave sooner but I was making sure he took the bar. Otherwise, like a normal serp, he can easily slide past without taking the jump at all (since my motion will be out and away from the jump).>>
Yes, I totally agree that he could have easily *not* taken the jump! But that is a dog training moment where we can use training to get him to take it based on the cue: for example, on a backside serp, the backside verbal means “go to the backside and take the jump”. Otherwise you have to cue and support all the things. For me, as my understanding of the training under the handling has evolved, it is the same as my weave cue: weave means to get in and stay in the 12 poles while I leave, because where I am heading away dictates the next line. If I have to help on the poles at all, then the next line is doable but much harder (been there with some of my dogs… very difficult to support weaves and handle the next line because judges are very smart LOL!!)
All of this is inspired by the Europeans 🙂 I have spent quality time obsessing on what they do differently to produce the results that I want in terms of high speed, super tight turns, not much connection needed, arms can fly around LOL! and so on. And it keeps coming back to the dog training: the understanding that they have put on their dogs is far deeper than the understanding I have put on my dogs (at least the 5 year old dogs and older) so I have to rely on the fabulousness of my physical cues more than they do. My younger dogs have better understanding of the training underneath the handling and I can already see the difference – exciting!
>>Also, as I’m sitting at the computer, I’m wondering about collection cues. By waiting at the landing, I show the deceleration I need to get to #7 (as opposed to the tunnel or backside of #7). ??>>
This actually brings up a conversation I had a few years ago with Kayl McCann from Canada, a talented agility handler (I am sure you have heard of her or perhaps seen her at USDAA in Michigan years back?) She had a GREAT explanation of the German turn that totally stuck with me: basically she said that the best turns come when we are in Jaakko turn position on the takeoff side before the dog arrives at the takeoff point. So the deceleration or tight turn cue is done on the takeoff side of the German, not on the landing side – which involves getting there 🙂 Now, that was 6 or 7 years ago when we were first playing with the OMD concepts and the more European styles and part of the reason (at the time) was to assist the dog in taking the bar. In retrospect, I think it was really about creating the independence and default behavior of taking the jump while the handler moves to the next line. Let me know if that makes sense, I am severely under-caffeinated today 🙂 😁
>>I’ll have this setup in the barn at least through tomorrow – I’ll try to make time to run out and try it again while leaving sooner at #6. I’m just not sure that is part of my handling system. 😊>>
It doesn’t have to be 🙂 You can play with it, take what feels comfortable and is fast/tight, and leave what feels icky 🙂 Enzo will also get a say in the matter: the feedback from the dogs has been SUPER valuable in this process!!! Worst case scenario, it s a jumping/proofing game. Best case scenario: You use the tool on course successfully. I am excited to hear more about how it goes!
T
Hi!! Hooray for going from food to a toy! That is a BIG exciting breakthrough!
She was a happy girl on the prop sends. For the next session, start further away, maybe 6 feet – send and click like you did here, then have her come back off the prop back to you fo the reward. She had great hits here, and because of her length she didn’t have to come back to you to get the reward. So moving further away on the send will allow her to hit and turn and come back (and then it will be easy to add the week 2 stuff, which she looks ready for!)The blinds are looking good!!! I am really excited that she went from food to a toy so easily. You were NOT late on your blinds (I will totally tell you if you were LOL!) and it looked like you did connect – she says it was fine because she came to the correct side each time. If you don’t connect, she is more likely to end up on the wrong side of you. I think it might have felt awkward because she had t find the treat and then you ran: so you can use an empty food bowl with a treat in it to send her to, which will allow you to run earlier and then I think it will feel more timely. You can also add more distance by using that, which will make them feel even easier 🙂
Great job!! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
I agree, this looked good! I also agree, the foot movement on the kitchen session was definitely the flooring, so try to keep him on carpet or grass so he can keep his feet from moving 🙂 Now, he already has a strong stay behavior so we can play with this to help him learn to still have that great stay even when arousal rears up. He seemed perfectly happy to hold the stay and let you throw treats back to him LOL!!!! So – you can build on this by doing it outside and with a toy (Nemo ball!). Start off with short reps to keep him successful. You can also do it in front of exciting things: what does he find exciting that he might want to move towards? And, if you can get him barking and jumping around, you can get him revved up before you play and after each reward, so he learns the joys of stays even when he wants to jump around and bark 🙂
You can also cue the sit or down with a verbal, so it is less about offering a position and more about responding to the cue. He looks definitely ready for that.
Nice work!!
TracyHi!
I don’t think there was too much pressure here in that he was avoiding the game, I think it was more that the Nemo ball is played with in a certain way and he was trying to elicit that: it looked like he prefers to have it thrown or kicked for him to chase, so he would toss it at or near you then step back, fingers and paws crossed that you would toss it it again. Then when he went into the down, it didn’t seem to be a shut down sad-making down, it was more of a ‘herding the ball’ type of down (because this toy elicits that response in this situation). So, an idea: after the initial thrown and drive to it, move away from him rather than towards him (he definitely was moving way from you when you moved towards him after he got the ball on these reps). Let him have a trot about, then go get the toy (or have him bring it, whichever is easier), then throw it a few more times so the reward is very much about the play with the ball and not as much about getting the ball. And each start of the game will come to predict the play with the ball the way he likes it 🙂
I like your plan of pingponging the tossing versus placing of the ball – you can toss it and vary the timing of your release to it: sometimes before it lands, sometimes right when it lands, sometimes a second or two after it lands. You can mix up your toy rewards but probably not in a way that he has to ignore Nemo to play with another toy – he might not find a different tug to reinforcing if the ball is in the picture, so you might want to build it separately first and then meld it together.
Nice work! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
I think he quite liked the Nemo ball here!This session looked really good. Will he go back and forth from cookies to Nemo? I ask because on the tight turn element, he can stick a little closer there with a food reward on the turn: the turn and the excitement is keeping him tight for the first part of the turn but then he is a little wider on the exit (I don’t think it was anticipation, I think it was centrifugal force :)) So turning with less speed for now and a food reward will keep him nice and tight on your leg. So he can get a treat for staying on your turn, then you can throw the ball out for the GO GO GO at the end. And yes, you can decelerate sooner 🙂 He needs to see it sooner for now, partially because he is bigger as you mentioned and partially because he doesn’t have Min’s years of experience. But he is doing really well and turning nicely! Be sure to have extended play sessions of Nemo-tossing before you go back to the game. You can also incorporate a food toss instead of a stay (or sending him to a treat in the bowl if he can’t find a tossed treat in the grass) to work on the food-to-toy element as well as the impulse control of ignoring the cookies smells 🙂
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
>>I use “search” to mean I am tossing a reward on the ground and you are free to get it. I’m thinking of using the same word for this game…or would you recommend a specific release to reward cue for tossing back at them?>>
I guess it depends on exactly what search means 🙂 I want the pups to understand very specifically that the reward is coming back to them, so they don’t need to move forward (you can see my bigger pup literally waits there to catch the reward LOL!) So if search means to move forward at all, then there might be a question and we won’t build value as quickly with the stays. My ‘catch’ cue means the reward is coming as close to your mouth as I can get it, from way out ahead.
Interesting video, we learn the most from these where the pups have questions! The parallel path looked great. And he clearly has value on the prop AND he had good hits… so *something* was worrying him. It could have been one of 3 things, from what I could hear: there was something jangling near the clicker (or the click itself), or pressure from the ready game, or the computer noise (it took me a minute to figure out what the sound was LOLOL!!!!)
The body language looked more like a noise sensitivity thing but the only way to find out is to ask him again: do a 30 second session without a clicker, just treats – but still do the ready game. Do it in a different room, to cleanse the palate. Then, separately, do a 30 second session with the clicker but without the ready game – and he might give us more insight into what he didn’t like. I don’t think it was the computer noise because I think most pups are used to our devices making noises like that LOL!!Let me know how those sessions go and we can figure it out. You didn’t break the prop game, he simply has a question. And that is one of the reasons we do this on a prop – because we can sort all of this out away from agility obstacles, so we totally know what he likes when we move over to the obstacles 🙂
T
Hi! Ah, yes, I thought Fizz was a boy and then I thought I heard brava and got myself all confused that the bravA meant he was a she. LOL!! Too much caffeine for me 🙂 We talked about various markers in class today! I suggested people started with just 2 reward markers and a release word (from a stay) but more is always good!!! What other markers do you have? It is fun to obsess on this stuff.
And I agree – Fizz is turning out to be SUPER nice, I love watching him!
TracyThank you for the update! I am doing a happy dance here!!!! Rate of success/rate of reinforcement is working some magic here! And we will also build in some games to help him learn how to management the moments when perhaps his is very stimulated or even a little frustrated 🙂
THi!
I love to obsess on verbals!
I personally have gone to 2 cues for wraps (one for left wrap, one for right wrap) and also a soft left and a soft right. I used to have one for turn towards me… but then I got Voodoo who told me that one cue was NOT enough. I believe that one cue was not enough because of the ‘towards’ element: in order to be correct, he first had to process where the heck I was! Then he had to turn. He was frustrated! I am not such a fast runner so he was not getting info info on just turn towards me or away from me. When I switched him to turn to HIS left or HIS right a couple of years ago: boom, happy dog! I believe that was because he could just do his thing and it didn’t matter where my slow self was LOL! He never ever got in trouble when I was using the “towards me” version, I never told him he was wrong, but clearly he felt frustrated with late or lacking info. It was an interesting process!
Are Sly and Jadzia related?? E is SUCH a great person and her little Jadzia is a very fun agility dog!!!!! E is doing a great job with her.
THi! The look on his face when he couldn’t find the treat on one of the throws was SO funny! Your treat throws weren’t too bad but you can always use an empty food bowl as a toss target to help. The blinds looked great! My only suggestion is to get the reward visible one step sooner: you were doing blind THEN reward visible, which makes the reconnection (with the new dog side arm back and the bit of eye contact) not visible as quickly as if you could do the blind AND reward visible at the same time. The reward being visible that quick is not so much because he needs tp see the reward (he doesn’t) but it is more about getting that new dog side arm back so he can see the new connection.
He is doing so well on ALL the things!! I love it!!!
TracyHi! He definitely loves his wing wraps!!!He is doing something that I have learned to look for and that I really like: he is leading with his head. What I mean by that, is that he is turning his head to slither around the wing, and the rest of the body is following. That is going to be a factor in really nice turns in the future! Yay! So that is something to mark: be quiet until he gets to the wing and as soon as you see him turn his head, big praise and present the reward. Yay!
You can at this point at the wrap words to this: start back a 2 or 3 feet from the wing (no distance needed for this): hold his collar, start saying the wrap word, then let go (I do the new cue of the wrap word before the old cue of the permission to go – and the permission to go at this stage is the freedom near the wing :)). Keeping the distance nice and close for now will keep the speed way up – when we move you back to 10 feet away, we will be adding in sends to help cue the drive to the wing.Great job!!
TracyHi!
Natural trumpet? VERY cool!!! I had t watch a few times, some for the dog training, some for the trumpeting 🙂 Is natural trumpet all embouchure and no valves?
I think you were just fine with the food for here. Yes, you can add praise to the food drops but you don’t need to be wild in this particular game (food can be used more like a toy in other games, but in this game we do get to just sit on our butts and let the dogs do the work :)) He did well picking up the back and forth again, so if he loses he rhythm with the food quickly then you can mix the toys in sooner: 3 or 4 cookie rewards then go to toys as rewards. He did seem to like having the 2 toys in play!! He is ready to go to a bigger “thing” to go around, and for you to begin standing up (not both at the same time to start, but both separately then you can put them together 🙂
Nice work!!!
TracyHi!
These videos are marked private too. Let me know when you list them as as unlisted, can’t wait to see them! She is so cute!
TracyHi!
The first video is marked unavailable, it might be listed as private. Can you relist to unlisted?
On the send video, she is doing really well!!! She has a nice balance of focusing on you and happily driving to the prop. Now, as you mentioned, she didn’t always touch the prop. She always went to it (Yay!) but the foot smacks were not always on it. It looked to be due to distance more than excitement. I think you were just a little too far away for perfect accuracy of the foot touches – she was just about perfect from about 2 or 3 feet away, (forward and sideways) but when you got past that, she went to the prop but didn’t touch as nicely. It was mainly because you were giving her the treat a bit further away and the next send was from where she got the cookie. So, continue giving her the reward like you did (moving away, tons of fun!) and then use your ready ready moment to get back to the 2 -3 foot range for the next send. After a couple of sessions. you can move yourself back out again, bit by bit. You were right to wait til she touched it to reward, that helps keep it clear for her.
Nice work here!
TracyHi Mary!
I think she liked the speed lines here! ha! Wheeeee! On the first couple of reps, she was on the line nicely when you disconnected and ran, but she had to work her jumping – she was a little off balance with her hind end up high on the jump before the tunnel on reps 1 and 2
And on rep 3 going the other way, she was beginning to control the hind end (both directions) and then pretty much had it sorted out by rep 4. Nice!On the backside: good commitment!!! See if you can strip out a bit of the big send step – it delays you from getting to the takeoff side when she is on the takeoff side, so being able to push with less step towards the backside will get you there sooner.
On the threadle reps- she did well on the threadles, they are pretty wicked ones!! She isn’t quite ready for you to be fully forward yet but they are strong so far for such a young dog. Remember to give her a strong collection cue on the exit of the threadle jump so she drives in hard for the next jump – she turned nicely but stayed on the line she was on, so a stronger turn cue will get her even tighter and looking at the takeoff side of the next jump.
Pinwheel video – pinwheels are pretty hard! She is doing better on these – on the early reps, you were rounding the line more than needed, sp she was rounding her line to match it. What I mean by the that is you were turning and facing a parallel line to the wide turn (especially to her left) so she rounded the line too. The best rep to me was the one at :46 where you sent and did a split step away, no rounded line, and she was so tight and you were way up the line . Compare it to the 2 reps after it, where you didn’t split step away as well so you were running parallel for longer – so her turns were not quite as good. Let me know if that makes sense.
Great job here!
Tracy
