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Yay! Glad to see you here 🙂 Eden is awesome! There are two Vizslas here – Eden and Paco. I love the breed and I am excited to see more of her!
T
Hi!
Yes, I personally found the circle work to get boring pretty quickly, for me and the dog, and it put a little too much emphasis on being near me as highest value, when I like the pups to drive away to do things. We were also seeing some weird habits develop (like too much head checking on driving ahead) which then had to be untrained, so it is easier and more fast-paced to use different approaches 🙂 We can certainly teach the balance of drive to commit with drive to handler without the circle work, so I have embedded some elements into the other games but I don’t do much traditional circle work anymore.The tunnel-wing games are going well – they are actually pretty challenging with youngsters!!
One thing you can do to help ramp up the speed (and terror haha) even more is to send to the tunnel on less of an angle (more of a straight approach) so you are accelerating as he exits the tunnel and not as stationary at the wing. That will make it easier to get commitment to the wing. Connection overall was strong, which is harder to do on this game than it looks 🙂 Yay! The more you can keep your hand back (not use it to point at the line) and the more you look at his eyeballs… the better it goes.
>>Not quite sure what I am doing to get him to duck back in the tunnel exit on the threadle. I called him to get a turn to me just to break it up and then he started threading again.>>
2 things were contributing:
– he was surprised 🙂 based on how the game was being played, the threadle was totally unexpected. When he realized that it was a “thing” in this game, he was much better
– there was no turning cue before he entered the tunnel, so he exited going straight (that was the last cue he saw, so he was correct) then he turned and the object on his line was the tunnel exit – so he hurried back to it (good boy, trying SUPER hard to read lines).So at :51 and then again at 2:07, using your wrap verbal for the exit and letting him see you begin the rotation – all while he is still about 3 feet from the tunnel entry – will cue the tight turn on the exit needed for the threadle line. Then you can give the threadle cue as soon as you make connection with him after the tunnel exit.
It was better when you isolated it then it was fine for the reps after it – partially because he was not surprised by the context and partially because you were more rotated before he entered so he turned better on the exit.
>>Around 2:30 I think I have proof that my connection and shoulder is way more important than the tunnel cue since the cue was really late and he still locked on to the tunnel.>>
Yes, at 11 months, connection and motion will override almost every other cue. For example, at 1:33, you took off saying your tunnel cue but there was not a clear connection. You looked forward, so for a moment it looked like a spin move on the wing and he ran directly to you. I think you were briefly in “running for your life” mode, I understand that feeling LOL! Then you were using your dog-side arm to point to the line, so he was missing the tunnel (pointing ahead of the pup obscures the connection) so keep working to have your hand back. I have begun telling myself that there are magnets in my fingertips and they are drawn back to where the collar is 🙂 As the pups get more experienced, hand movement is less critical but for now, they do better when we are less pointy.
To help get better commitment to the tunnel as you run for your life, oops I mean as you drive up the line 🙂 you can also change angle of wing so the tunnel is on a straight path after the wrap rather than a push back to it – so he rounds the wing and the tunnel is right there, as you run away yelling tunnel tunnel tunnel.
>>In the video did you really do a FC after the wing wrap but send to a toy next to the tunnel? I did it as a post turn here as it felt like a FC sending to the toy was muddying the waters too much for my puppy that missed the tunnel when I Iost connection earlier.>>
I went back and watched it – all of the FCs were either followed by through the tunnel or a reward in my hand – there were several there were FC on the wing then through the tunnel to the toy on the ground? But never FC on the wing then to a toy next to the tunnel without taking the tunnel… let me know if I missed something?
Nice work here!
TracyAh yes, I see what you are saying – wider and then the OMG reaction where he pinned his ears and leapt away.
A couple of ideas for you:
– Change the context – don’t use the circle work, it is a bit poisoned for now. We can accomplish all of the same things without the context of outside or inside circles, where he is not comfortable.– Change your feeding position/placement of reinforcement ever-so-slightly when you do play games where he drives in close – when you are delivering a treat at your side, hand your hand touching the outside of your leg, right next to the knee. In a different context, the placement of reinforcement will help him want to get nice and tight to your leg.
– Different contexts to play with will help. Both of these add a lot more “action” – and action is important for him here, because if he is feeling pumped up and running more, he will be in a different state of arousal (hotter porridge :)) and is less likely to worry about being too close:
—- revisiting the contexts, we can get the reinforcement tight to you without using the old context. Look back at the week 1 Teaching Deceleration and Drive To Handler and also the Week 2 Collection Sandwich – both of those has circle work elements embedded into them. In the moments when he drives to you and you turn, place the reinforcement right next to your leg (hand touching leg) and then you have 3 options for actually delivering the cookie to his mouth: either from your hand as you are touching your leg, or by moving your hand forward so he stays tight but goes past your leg, or by turning with him tight to you and then throwing the reward forward.Throwing the reward forward after being tight to you can relieve some of the pressure of being so close to you (herding dogs in particular do feel the pressure on this). There is also another way to reinforce, see below:– I use these ‘pill bug’ games to develop what is created in circle work, but there is a lot more fun and action 🙂 Here is the first session with Hot Sauce as a baby, including some of my mistakes (late rewards, almost falling over the tunnel, etc haha!) You can see that she gets tighter and tighter to me on each rep, very close to my leg on the last rep.
Beginning stages: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLV-J0kSS9IAdding blinds crosses to build inside circles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hwIBvE8Ozk
You can reward at your side with a cookie as described above, or you can use the cross-body style of reinforcement that I am using here. That is a European-style of reinforcement that opens up connection and gets the dogs to drive in REALLY tight (no, the pups don’t cut in front of us :)) so that is something to consider with Kal – he will be seeing different contexts so will likely not be thinking about how to avoid your legs. I work that “don’t worry about my feet” skill with my Papillons too and this really helps.
Let me know what you think!
TracyGlad you had fun! Spot is a superstar in the making 🙂 Hope your knee is better and you can get back to running asap!
T
Goooooood morning! On the video: Excellent! I think the lala and roro will be great – when you are moving and being louder, they will sound even more different and that will be useful to him on course.
I love the way he slithers around the barrels 🙂 That is going to set up some really gorgeous turns over bars!!
He wasn’t always sure if he should leave the sit when you were doing the lala or roro, so you can add in a gentle collar hold: hold him (you’ll have to bend over so his feet don’t come off the ground :)), start your lala or roro, then let go. The lala or roro *can* be a release but really never need to be, so we can start it without a stay 🙂
Great job here!Good morning and welcome!! Great to see you here!!
On the video, he did a great job. Nice choice of verbals! Easiest session ever LOL!! He did a great job with the directionals being added – and when you moved back, I noticed that he was leading with his head through the turn. YESSSS! Good boy! And I see no difference between you being close and low, or further and low, or standing – it all looked good. The toy reps also looked great – yes, you will end up with fewer reps with the toy but the quality of the reps were terrific: fast and tight and accurate. Nice!
Question – how does he feel about you holding his collar? The next session would be, ideally: you gently hold his collar, you start saying the the verbal, then you let go and he wraps. This will help us be ready for some of the other games. Now, if he is happy to have his collar held, go for it! Usually my order of festivities is: collar hold, cookie (while holding the collar) then verbal then let go – this is to keep the collar holding high in value. If he is NOT happy to have his collar held, no worries, we will build it: touch collar with a finger or gentle stick your finger under it – cookie delivery and let go quickly (or touch collar then present the toy). Let me know what he thinks of it 🙂(Also super happy to see him being able to do cookies AND toys when associated with the wraps :))
Great job!
TAh! That might be why she was turning so much better one direction – all dogs have a stronger side and a weaker side, but I have never noticed Keiko showing *that* much difference 🙂
(Some of the games from the commitment class will be presented here in a more puppy-friendly way, I love the games so much and couldn’t help myself now that we started filming the commitment class LOL!!!)
T
Welcome! You didn’t leave, you just graduated to the next level. Wheeeee! I am looking forward to seeing Brother Stark fly through these challenges!!!!
T
Welcome back! Dottie is so cute – I think it is entirely possible that Corgis are the absolute cutest puppies of all. The breed is definitely on my list for the future: smart, driven, and absolutely adorable!! Can’t wait to see her in action 🙂
T
Hello and welcome! I am so excited to see what you and Keiko do in this class!!! Big things ahead 🙂
T
Hi!
Yes, we will be running Crazy Commitment 3 🙂 That is more of an adult dog handling class, masters-level stuff that builds off of the spring and summer handling classes. My 8, 7, and 6 year old dogs will be handling those demos – my big pup will be a year old by then and *might* do a simple demo or two (or not LOL!) and my 6 month old pup will not be demo-ing for that class at all. It is too advanced for them 🙂 (lordy, now that I have written that… I have a LOT of dogs LOL!!!!!)We will do something better-suited for the pups to carry us through the winter – I have a MaxPup “Putting It Together” class which will be fun for the Contraband, Keiko, and other teenagers group 🙂
T
Hi! Great job! My only suggestion is to make the sounds a little more different – maybe extend one and leave the other shorter? Lalalalala versus riiiiii riiiiii riiiiiii, just to make it even easier to process when you are moving.
Was it just my imagination or was she perfectly smooth on the left wraps on the wing & barrel… but gazing off a bit on the right wraps? I couldn’t tell if there was a distraction she saw on the right wraps, or she is just stronger turning left. It is good to know which the stronger side is, for when we add distractions 🙂T
