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Whoa, 35 feet, that will have you ready for gambles and ASCA and the other spots where you will find the big distances between obstacles or the big gambles.
She did awesome (I am not surprised haha). She is happy to drive ahead and she really likes the speeeeeeeed! Wheeeee!
The distance was *impressive* – I love it! She is a little too young for us to do anything with the jump height, but you can also play this game with a tunnel replacing the jump: wing to tunnel, with the distance increasing (and also just rewarding some wing wraps so she doesn’t always just lock onto tunnels LOL!) Eventually the height of the jump willl go up, but we have some time and also some more jumping foundation before then.
She appeared to also have no trouble doing the wrap when the toy is on the ground past the jump – I am very happy that the pups so far are all finding that to be NO problem, my guess is that you already taught her the foundation for it in various other games, so it was a no-brained for her 🙂
I see what you were saying about her looking at you a little bit when you were throwing the toy, like at :33 – she was also drifting out a little bit on the wing. The looking up was happening when you were looking ahead rather than making a clear connection as she exited the wrap, and you were also getting the toy ready to throw – so she was looking up to find then connection, then watching the toy throw. 2 ideas for you:
Make a clear connection as she exits the wing and deliver the GO cue to her eyes – you did this at :41 and she looked at you less. And don’t throw the toy til she is past you and really locking onto the jump, so she will look back less.
And… mix in reps where the toy is pre-placed and you do NOT connect – just give enough info so she knows which side to be on and give your nice clear Go verbal. I suggest this because while yes, we handlers want to be totally connected at all times, the reality is that we handlers are not capable of that level of perfection while also running full throttle up a line 🙂 I, for one, am really good at NOT being perfect haha. Because of that, we incorporate teaching the pups to commit and respond to verbals when we are NOT connected.
When you do reps that are deliberately disconnected, start with maybe a 15 foot distance so it is easy, then work back up to big distances.The other thing to add is a front cross on the wing, so she has to transition from handler focus (following the cross) into the go go go line focus. That will add a bit of challenge and also reduce some of the drifting around the wing. You had mostly sends/post turns going, so the FC will look different but have the same verbals because it is the same behavior.
Nice work here!
TracyHi!
There is a double goal on this proofing game, from the handling side – that eventually you can just basically stand in the middle and do it all on verbals, and also that eventually you can run hard into the wrap and still get a beautiful turn (with the tunnel distraction out ahead) because of the verbal. So yes, it is both a verbal exercise and a motion exercise, you should do a bit of both. Generally motion helps the pups to get it started.I think she did really well on these! She definitely found the body cues helpful – they were small cues but when they were not as visible like ate :42, she had to think harder (which is fine, of course :)) Right now the around with your motion seems stronger than the tunnel cue when there was less motion to the tunnel, so you can shift the reinforcement to the tunnel more often and also, you can fade the motion out of the wrap cues. You can also change your position up a bit, moving yourself maybe halfway between the tunnel exit and the wing to send to the wrap (or run into it). Eventually you can work your way back to the tunnel exit and try it. The goal of moving away is twofold: to teach her to send independently to the wing, and also (when you are running forward) to teach her that the wrap verbal overrides your acceleration (this is sooooo useful :))
Great job here!
TracyHi! yes, that FC/BC combo is a spin (or Jaakko turn or ketschker :)) I also call it the toilet turn. And also yes, you can use a verbal – the wrap verbal is appropriate there because it cues the pup’s behavior to wrap regardless of which handling I choose, I was quiet there because I was fully in puppy panic mode and don’t always manage to get the verbals out while remaining upright 🙂
T
Ah, you are so kind!!!! The tech issues drive us all nuts LOL!!! But I find that the tech gremlins are more cooperative when we are patient (even when we are not hahaha!!)
you did a really fabulous job in class and Kai is one amazing pup!!!! I am excited to see more!!!!Tracy
Hi! I am so glad to see you and Pirate here 🙂 I feel like I have had a front row seat to him growing up!!!!! And he is one gorgeous, brilliant little dude – so fun!!!!!
Tracy
Good morning!
Lennan was a rock star here! Good boy! He did well on the wrap and the tunnel send (and yes, that was perfectly fine to send him to the tunnel like that, or from past the wing, either is fine). He turned really nicely around that wing every single time and it appears that he was not looking at the tunnel when he was wrapping. Yes!! Both sides looked strong. And he was also rock solid when you did the advanced version – the tunnel is stimulating but he was still perfect on processing the wrap cue. Happy dance! So you can now make it a little harder in two ways:
Move the wing closer to the tunnel so it is an arm’s length or less away from it. Eek!Also, on the advanced level with the short sequence, you can add motion – as he exits the tunnel, let him see you moving towards the wing and into the wrap handling (giving the verbal) – that motion actually will make it harder (in theory LOL).
The only thing I think we can tweak a little was unrelated to the wrap or verbals: he was drifting a little wide coming out of the tunnel. No worries, we can work that! You can cue a couple of tight turns and then run away so he chases you for the toy, kind of like the turn and burn on a wing but you will be doing it on a tunnel. And, we have a game coming this week that works on some more tunnel turns – I think he was drifting to get more info without having to slow down, so we will reward him for driving right to you.
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
Questions are good, keep ‘em coming!he did a great job on the smiley face game (you both did!) The cookie session looked good – I think you should try this without using your arm to support the lines. You are tending to keep your arm parallel to your body and I think that blocks connection a little so he slows himself down (now, I think it is perfectly fine for a whippet to go slowly at first and think hard 🙂 The speed will be there when we need it :)) But practicing without arms will help establish connection for the future courses you run – try running with your hands in your back pockets (not at your sides) and see how it goes (it will feel weird LOL!). His commitment looked great on this first session and you did a lovely job spreading out the reinforcement and remembering all of the dang verbals LOL! And his focus is awesome in that environment!
The toy sure does add an element of speed and excitement. We don’t need a ton of speed from him right now (we want understanding and we want body awareness) but I think using it on this game after the food session was great – it basically just ramped it up a notch and he was ready for that. You can give him feedback about the accidental chomps – if one of my dogs bites my flesh while going for the toy, I just yelp and stop the game for a second or two, then go back to it 🙂 It sounds like it was not a frustration chomp but more of him not paying attention to where his teeth were relative to your flesh 🙂Wind In Your Hair – when he was on your right after the wrap, you were less “helpy” for finding the jump than when he was on your left after the wrap – on your right, you just kinda walked past it and on your left your were pointing it out more. This is a good game to be less helpy with – when you added speed, you were just jogging by the jump with connection and that is ideal 🙂 No need to point to it and show the line – as long as you are connected and moving past it, he will find it. He did REALLY well!! I think he had one little error (towards the end, when he was on your left) but then he fixed it immediately. So you can keep working that moving past the jump and letting him find it like that.
The other thing he is ready for now is more driving ahead: start super close to the wing, almost touching it, and don’t move towards the jump until he is just about finished with the wrap – then move up the line 🙂 That will help him begin to drive ahead of you (rather than finding the jump on a parallel line or slightly behind you). It will be a useful skill! When you added some speed, we could already see how much speed he has (FUN!) so now we will teach him to leave you in the dust. That also bridges nicely into the advanced game. Using the ready treat worked well and I think your timing of tossing is great too!
Great job here!!!
TracyOh wow, you made tremendous progress on this in such a short time! She went from being nervous to starting without you to run to the tunnel. So great to watch!!!! You made great training choices: no pressure to start with, tons of rewards, and using the bowl instead of the MM. Very nice intro to the tunnel and I love how quickly she overcame her concern. Stick with a. Couple of fun tunnel sessions like this, then I bet we can start using it in the other games like the Smiley Faces 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi! I think the most important thing with verbals is that they are clearly defined so they are use consistently. It sounds like you have that going, and that is great! And it is much easier to keep them the same as your other dogs’ verbal cues… so much easier to remember. And when you teach one direction in isolation, just be sure to add games/turns the other direction to make sure she stays physically balanced. These don’t have to be verbals, it can be simple puppy stretches or clawing wraps or turns out of a tunnel.
She did well on the video- she had to slow herself down a little to think it through, but she was very successful! I could see how hard she was thinking especially on the last few reps 🙂 she was a little wide in the around on the first few reps but then you helped with body language to tighten it up- that helped a lot so then she was able to remain tight without the body language. Nice! The wraps are hard in the presence of the tunnel, so you can move the wing away a foot or two to encourage speed at this stage, and also add in the advanced level where there is more running 🙂
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
She did really well here!! Yes, she liked the running a lot and she really likes when you cheer her 🙂
Her commitment is looking great 🙂 yay! You mentioned seeing that you were not always connected as you were moving forward to the jump – yes, stay connected longer as that will tighten her turn around the wing. Dogs tend to drift a bit out of tight turns when we are a little disconnected, because they are trying to pick up the line and can’t quite see it til you are closer to the next obstacle. Being more connected will show the line sooner so she will be tighter.
I didn’t see a difference in her speed based on which reward or if it was placed or thrown, she seemed happy on all of them and FAST!!!
The next step is to get her happy driving ahead of you, both on the sending with you stationary and with you moving. You can do that by adding a little bit more distance between the wing and the jump, and starting super close to the wing, practically touching it. And stay next to the wing until she is just about finished with the wrap, then you can run (or send) forward. She will be able to get further and further ahead. Our goal is that she can be several strides ahead of you 🙂
Nice work!
TracyGood morning! This looks good! Yes, he needs you to be facing the tunnel more – to fade out turning to it, you can start him on more of an angle where you are already turned to it, so he can see it out past the wing.
The advanced game is looking good too! 2 ways to advance the game:
Put the wing closer to the tunnel, maybe an arms length away. That will make getting to the tunnel easier but will make the wraps harder – and that seems to be what he is ready for 🙂
And, for the advanced game, add motion as he exits the tunnel by running forward and handling the wrap. In this case the motion should make it harder 🙂
Great job!!
TracyThis looks terrific!! She is a little speedster!
She showed great commitment- looks like she went directly to the adding speed part LOL! Perfect 🙂
Two little details for you:
– as you run forward, be sure to run a very straight line past the jump and try not to step in towards the jump. On the first couple of reps you stepped in towards the jump/takeoff spot and that can look a little like a rear cross cue. You stayed on a straight path when she was on your right heading to the jump in the 2nd half of the video and that looked really good. Feel free to move the wing around so you have an easy path after the wrap; I generally move it to line it up with the wing I am running to on the jump– because she did so well finding the jump with you running and there is good distance between the wing and jump, we can emphasize getting her to drive ahead. You can get this by starting super close to the wing, close enough to touch it – and stay there til she is just about done with the wrap then go go go 🙂 that should help promote driving ahead of you more and more (we have to be strategic to set up the littles to do it, so sticking close to the wing should help).
Your connection looked really strong!!! Great job on this session 🙂
TracyHi! He definitely enjoyed the running element!!!! Two little details- stay closer to the wing til he is almost finished with the wrap, so he can get the feeling of driving ahead of you to the jump (you were ahead on most of these, which is great but he is ready to leave you in the dust :)) and I think you can do the advanced level where the toy is out past the last jump – that will help solidify the driving ahead while adding challenge to the wrap (wrapping away from the toy on the ground is HARD!)
Now that you were running, gauche and go do sound a bit too similar in the heat of the moment. El sounds different enough, I think! Feel free to play with it more.
TGreat! Keep me posted on the next set point session.
She did an awesome job with the Wind In your Hair game 🙂 yay! To make sure your verbals sound very distinct, maybe have one be elongated and the other choppy? Chehhhck chehhhxk versus chchch for example, so she hears the difference in them since they both start with ch
She seemed to have no trouble with finding the jump! Nice timing of the rewards, too! So, start to add more distance now. And when you do, start with both of you close to the wing, almost touching it, and don’t move forward til she has just about finished the wrap – that will allow you to be right there to make a strong connection and, more importantly, it will help her learn to drive ahead of you (with the wind in her hair LOL!)
Great job!!!
TracyHi! As I was reading your post, my first thought was to add height, so I bald you did 🙂 A couple of 5 inch bars will be fine 🙂
What was the distance at the end of the clip? It looked a little too close for her, so here is a couple of ideas to get more of the bouncing-
Go to a 5 foot distance (or, 6 feet if that last distance was 5 feet). Keep that first bar real low (4inches). Instead of a single bar for the second jump, let’s try an oxer: 2 jumps with the bars 6 inches apart. First bar at 4 and second bar at 6 (both locked in). You’ll be out by the reward, facing forward (not facing her) , release… then let’s see what she does. You can also try the 2nd jump of the oxer at 8 inches. Let me know if that makes sense!
Tracy
