[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!

>>I hope the video of my Ridgeback was one where we looked like we knew what we were doing LOL! We’ve come a long way

Yes! It was a cool video – you were running courses and doing a great job!

>>Lazlo is from Poeta Whippets in Canada. I feel so lucky to have a Poeta puppy!

Ah! Yay! He is related to both of my puppies – the Whippet in both of them are Poeta lines 🙂 He is probably pretty closely related to Contraband!

>>But yes, please tell me if you think I am doing TOO MANY reps with him, or my sessions are too long. He’s so fun that sometimes I get carried away. I do have a timer, though I forget to use it all the time. >>

I will 🙂 And setting a timer to 2 minutes, religiously, will help you get the internal clock going. I did that for a long time and then I got lazy about it… and turns out my sessions all ended up in the 2 minute range LOL!

>>Or if you think he’s ready to progress to the next step, let me know so I’m not holding him back.

There is a way to know if you need to move ahead or stay where you are or make it easier: the 2×80 rule. If you get 2 sessions in a row at 80% success or above, it is time to move on. I will count failures in my head during the session, or go back and look at the video to figure it out afterwards – but if I get 2 failures in a row in a session, I make it easier in that moment (rather than waiting to see the video). Say that I am doing 10 reps of a behavior, and he is 100% correct. Cool! I will do one more session – and if he is 100% correct or even 90% correct…. time to move to the next step. There is no point in doing 5 sessions at 95% rate of success. Conversely – if the pup is failing 50% of the time, we need to back track and make it easier. It is a math game, really, and that helps either move us forward or prevent us from moving too fast.

>>As for doing the games with a toy…he really likes toys, but I find it hard to shape or train new skills using a toy. He can get really excited about the toy and has a harder time thinking. Sometimes he will just jump up and bite me if he wants the toy, or he’ll sit and bark. I really don’t want to build frustration into his training so I’ve just been using toys to reward things he already knows. I’m open to advice on this.>>

We should definitely incorporate the toys, then, to work through the arousal and excitement they bring and teach him how to modulate himself. I agree that you will want to use them only with skills he is really good at for now – so for example, do a session of the easy sends with the foot target. Have the toy in a pocket or nearby. Reward a couple of reps with treats, then in that session, reward with a toy, then go back to treats. We can gradually incorporate the toy. And I think you will pretty soon be able to shape with a toy as the reward – do something really easy like shaping him to get on something (like a new dog bed) based on a skill he probably already “knows” in a different context.

On the videos:
Decel & turns:
His fast drive back to you was making me laugh! And you got a good luck at the pointy dog brilliance – note how after maybe 2 reps he was grabbing the treat and driving back to you before you even had a chance to call him. Love it!
You did a great job with the cookie hand out and with the timing on your turns and he was perfect with benidng his body through the turns. Because this went so well, we can build on it 🙂
You can add more distance and more motion – so throw the cookie and move forward as he is going to get it (a bit of countermotion added in by doing that) and then as soon as he gets it, decelerate.
When he is comfy with that… do the Advanced level where your cue hand is empty and he gets the cookie after arriving at your hand or after turning with you (I don’t anticipate this being a problem at all, t is just a delay of the reinforcement).

Then, as we were discussing above… do it with a toy 🙂 he will have to decelerate and turn with you in order to get the toy, so it is a good way to teach him how to basically ignore the toy in order to get the toy.

Wing wrapping – good sessions here, he went from following a cookie lure to offering going to the next bowl on his own to the jump upright being in place and a little further away.

I think my only real suggestion for now is to move the bowls a tiny bit further apart – he has a pretty long body so having the bowls a little further away from you (maybe an additional 6 inches on each side of you) will help challenge him more because his butt will pass the jump wing so he will have to turn around to go back to it.

At the end of the session, the wing was maybe about 6 inches away from you or so and it was harder – LOVED the moment when he almost came between you and the wing, and then literally backed out to go around it. Clever!!!! So on the next session, start the wing a little closer until he is easily going back and forth, then start to slide it back out again. We don’t need much distance at this stage at all.

And, with the wing nice and close to you… this is a good one for toys! You can use 2 relatively low value toys and play – more to teach him how to handle toys in the picture than about the wraps (you can see the demo with my tiny pointy dog on the video)

Driving to the toy – this is a perfect game for the toy! He did a great job and was an extra good boy to bring it back to you! I do see what you mean about him not being as grippy on the toy, especially at the end. Keep using a nice big soft toy. Also, make the transitions very clear so he knows when he has permission to get it: play, hold him, throw the toy, let it land, wait for a heartbeat or two or three (builds up a lot of anticipation!) and then let go and tell him to get it. It looks like there were a few things happening at once or very quickly together: the toy release, the throw, letting him go, the get it cue – so he wasn’t entirely sure if he should get it. Add in teething and he turned off at the end. No worries! It will be fine on the next session – let me know how he does!

Great job here!!!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

I am glad he is having fun!! And clever to use your knee as a bit of a helper haha!!! The pups learn the wing wrapping really quickly this way so I bet he is now doing a great job. Watch his head – is he snaking his head around the upright? That is what we are looking forward 🙂

T

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi there!
Your tech is great and the kids were perfect tripods!!!

Poet rocked these games. Loved her very distinct foot smacks! And when you didn’t get the treat in as fast as she liked, she smacked again and bobbed her head LOL!!! Good girl , love her attitude.
She is building really nice value to our prop here – you can make one tweak to this, which is to click the foot smack just as you did, but toss the reward away to the side (rather than deliver one to her then toss one away). That will get her beginning to move to the prop, which will serve us really well in the next games.

Game 1:
Love the long tug toy 🙂 She grips it best at the beginning when you keep it low (she lets go when it goes up in the air), so resist temption to pull it up as you play (she is so small, it is easy to pull it up!) To save your back, you can make it even longer 🙂 so you can be more upright while playing! When the game gets rolling, she had a better grip on it (more arousal). She didn’t want to give it back LOL! so a game I play to get it back involves sitting on the floor, playing some tug… then relaxing my hands and letting the toy go “quiet” – when the pup releases it, I give it right back to the pup for more tugging. That helps the pups start to recognize the release cue, while keeping it fun to give back the toy 🙂

Her driving ahead looks *fabulous*!!!! Fast and focused forward perfectly. Yay!!!! She is ready for more – so you can throw the toy further and add more motion – start to really run run run and see what she does! If more running is too much pressure, you can back it off a little – but I bet she is fine with it 🙂
Great job here!!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi Nancy! It is so fun to see her, she is fabulous 🙂 This session went really well, lots of very crisp sends to the target. Great job with the clicks and reward placement, and I loved the singing during the toy play breaks too LOL! These were the sideways sends, so I am guessing you did the forward sends already too. A couple of ideas for you as you keep playing with this:
Add a bit of the ready ready dance with her in front of you, mainly so she know exactly when to go to the target – at this stage, the behavior is more cued with your send than offered, and sometimes after a reward, she wasn’t sure if she should offer it or wait for a cue so the behavior was a little more tentative. If you can do the send-reward-ready-send-reward-ready, I believe you will get very fast, crisp behavior – you can see it when you took a moment to connect at 2:04 and 2:22: those were two of the best reps of the session, even with added distance away from the target. This will also help make the cue very clear when you add in the backwards sends.
I also like that the ready ready dance adds in a transition from handler focus to line focus back to handler focus, to help keeps things balanced.

Since she likes toys, you can totally do this with a toy as well (instead of the food rewards) – you might need to start back closer to the target to start this because leaving the toy might be more difficult (or not LOL!)

Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!

Hope you had a great time at camp!!!! You look tan and relaxed 🙂

seq 1:
With the big distance between 2-3, you can drive in closer to 2 so she sees more motion as you are exiting and also you don’t need to call her as much.
I think you can leave sooner on the circle wrap at 3: as she passed you at :08, you stayed there long enough to put your left arm up and say “right here” – you can move forward as soon as she passes you. If she doesn’t understand the commitment ,we will teach it to her.
You sent and left on jump 4 really nicely! Her commitment and turn looked good there at :12.

I bet you can get a blind cross in between 5 and the last tunnel!

The other thing to consider on this particular sequence is doing the slice line on 3 instead of the wrap. Backside wraps are almost always slower with big dogs, so you can have her come to the backside the same way you did with the wrap, but cue a slice (towards the green tunnel side of the barn here :)) and then she will take 4 the same direction you did. It will be both faster and easier!

Seq 2 started off really well! You got her to the backside at 4 really nice but then ended up in the other end of the tunnel. Bringing her to the backside of 4 around the outside of the coure there is a nice line 3-4-5 but puts her on her left lead to the 6 tunnel – so you can get it with her on that line, but it is more of a ‘get out’ to switch her leads than a ‘go tunnel’ which means stay straight (we actually address this specifically in the week 3 package that I posted today :))

The other option that you did on the 2nd rep is a much better line up for the 4-5-6 line – pushing her to the backside of 4 towards the middle of the course. You can be on a bit more of a perfect path there 3-4, on her line more so she has a slightly tighter turn from 3-4. You were maybe 1 step too far over across her path so she was one step wide.
You did a FC after 4 to get 5 and 6 – it pulls her to the right over 5 and you did a bit of a RC on the flat to 6. It works, but it creates a wider line 5-6 and puts you behind for 7. The other option is to replace the FC 4-5 with a spin so you run down the center of the course with her on your right. She will be on the correct lead to go straight the tunnel so you should be able to get it from that line.

Seq 3:
I think you can trust her more on 3 at 1:04 and 1:27 – send her to it from further awayand then run forward, right past the wing on the perfect path, and do the blind to get her on your right side. You were in a good spot on the send to 3 but then you pulled away from that line to keep her on your left to the tunnel – it worked but it is wide and puts you behind for 5 (which was a little wide at 1:10 and 1:31)
You had the right handling choice at 7 (backside serp to a blind, also known as a german turn) – really good send to the backside at 1:14! You over-helped with the right here at 1:15 and kept her on your left for too long. You did the blind to your right at 1:16 when you were halfway to 8 so she didn’t see it in time – try to do it as soon as you are past the exit wing of 7 and before she even takes off 🙂 You will really have to trust her 🙂

Now compare it to the last rep at 7: you were already earlier on the blind (yay!) and you ran a really good line right past the wing (double yay!) and she read it SO nicely!!! So definitely keep pushing your luck and see how early you can leave her on those backsides – I bet she surprises you with how much she understands! And if she has questions, we will train more commitment.

As you work through the Package 2 courses, take a moment to read/watch the Package 3 overview – I think the section about watching her head to see if you have ‘permission’ to leave will help you trust her more on these 🙂

Great job here!! Let me know what you think 🙂
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi! Welcome back, I am so excited about your new pup!! And I love the name Yowza!

And the photo worked 🙂 What a cutie!

I am looking forward to seeing Yowza in action!! Have fun!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hello and welcome to you and Lazlo! Great name for a gorgeous pup 🙂 RRs are very cool! I get to work with one, once a year, in New Zealand – AMAZING dog!!! YouTube popped up a video of your girl, I feel like I have met her – super cool!

And welcome to the world of pointy dogs 🙂 Whippets/whippet mixes are amazing – they different than any other dog I have every trained and I am loving it. They are brilliant! One thing I have noticed is that they learn really fast (which is common in a lot of breeds/mixes) but they *retain* better than any other breed/mix – not only do they remember what you’ve trained, but sometimes it is like they have been reading a few chapters ahead and they come to the next session with the rest of the behavior learned in advanced LOL! I am excited to see him work! Where is he from?

On the videos:
Pre-Game 1: lordy, he is gorgeous. He looks Ridgeback colored LOL!
Great job shaping the foot touch to the target! A couple of ideas for you:
He is a speedy critter already… so have your treats in your hands before you start – maybe 4 or 6 treats so that you can click and get the treat in immediately. Reaching into your pocket is building in him looking at you (which dilutes the foot smack a bit), so faster treat delivery will keep him looking at the target. And when you need to reload, you can move away, grab another little handful, then start again.

>> but then as I moved away a bit, they got a little sloppy and more like drive-bys without duration.

I think that had to do more with him watching your treat hands 🙂 So he will be more accurate on the target with quick cookie tosses when he doesn’t have time to watch you get the treats out. Plus, there is a good element of self-control layered in when the pup has to ignore a handful of treats 🙂

>>Do we care at this stage? I’m not sure if we are going for duration/accuracy, or just any front foot hit.

We don’t care about duration, just that he hits it. Go for a very clear front foot hit (your clicks were spot on for that). He does not need to have duration (meaning, he does not need to hit the target and stay on it) so you can click and toss the treat to the side (rather than deliver it to him) – which will get him off the target and reset the next rep, so he can move to it and smack it again 🙂

I think you can go into the Sends game, he looks ready! And you can do this game with a toy as well.

Nose touch to the target looks fabulous – great touch and great timing with your ‘yes’ marker. I have the same suggestion for this as with the foot target: have the treats in your hand so you move it in really really fast, placing it near the target – that will help us convince him to look at his target and not at the momma as much 🙂
I will be introducing what we are using this for on Saturday 🙂

Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hello and welcome!!! Great to see you here! This class was born out of lack of in-person classes, so I am happy you have joined us 🙂
Have fun!!!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi! Great job here!!

Toy races, yes I would agree that he rather enjoys this LOL!! A couple of ideas to build on it:
After you throw the toy:
As you are holding his collar – start to say GO GO GO then let go. It will add some juicy emphasis to whatever you want your go cue to be 🙂
And, as you are holding his collar – ask for a sit or a down, then let go and see what he does – it is a big of a verbal discrimination game! Disclaimer: start it with a boring toy and maybe just drop the toy rather than throw it – we want him to be successful 🙂

Drive to handler – look at him working so nicely for treats! Yay! He did move faster when you had the toy out there at first but he definitely was in cheese mode, so interesting! We don’t need speed at all on this game so it is good that he is not blasting like a crazy man – we want the dogs to be thoughtful on this one.

When you added running away, try to slow down sooner on the forward facing ones and turn sooner on the turns -he was overrunning a bit and you had a tooth hug when he ran into your hand LOL You can start slowing down to stop or turn basically as soon as he has started coming to you after the cookie grab.
Your earliest deceleration was at on the rep that started at 2:37 (last rep of the game) and he really downshifted nicely into collection! He slipped a little when you turned, so you can try to turn a little sooner to see if he can slide right into the turn.

For an added challenge: What I suggest with him is to take the forward facing decel (where you are stationary and he drives to your side) and play that game… with a toy placed out ahead of you about 10 feet away or so 🙂 If the toy is too hard, you can use something less stimulating like an empty food bowl). Let me know how it goes, and if it is fine we can add more layers 🙂

Wing wraps – he is doing a really good job of committing! I think you got to be so far away that he was not sure if he was allowed to go or not – a valid question 🙂 Because it is an offered game, you don’t need to be as far away, you can get to about an arm’s length and that is as far as you need to be for now (until we add a physical cue) But no worries, we will be adding in a cue soon enough 🙂
He moves to the wing at a different speed than he returns, so we can work on balancing the speed more: starting closer, let him offer and for a few reps, toss the toy out past the wing. That can shift the value to the wing so he runs to it more. And we can swing the placement back and forth from the wing to you, to spread out the running speed more evenly.

>>discovered he apparently still doesn’t like the right turn as much when starting with greater distance.

That is fine! We will be using more cues when we revisit the bigger distances, no worries for now.

>>Should I practice my wing wrapping cues with this game, or not?

You totally can – start closer, hold his collar, start the wrap cue, then let go and see what he does. And let me know, of course LOL!

Great job here! Let me know what you think!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi Colleen!
She is so lovely! And that is an AWESOME toy LOL!! Looks like an entire raccoon or something haha!

Excellent session here. This is one of my favorite games to build “pushy” dogs, so you will really like the long term results here 🙂 Great job with your energy and your connection to her – perfect! Her drive ahead look terrific so far! I have a couple of tiny tweaks for you:
One little tweak on the game: your first 2 reps were quite perfect, you let her go to the toy before she looked back at you. On the 3rd rep, the toy was pretty far and you held her for too long – she looked back at you just as you said ‘get it’. So when that toy is far, let go really quickly, even as it is landing, so she is moving before she looks back at you.
Some tugging ideas:
Because you want her to be crazier for the tug toy, you can tie it to something to make it even longer. Many dogs don’t love it when we bend over them – but they love it when they get to chase a toy on the ground! So if you make that toy 4 or 5 feet long, you can whip it around for her to engage with while you are more upright (also, saves your back fro all the bending :)) And over time, you will be able to shorten up the toy but I think she would be higher on a longer toy.

The other thing I notice is that, especially early in the video, she lets go of the toy when you tap her side or move a hand towards her side (she kept tugging later in the video). She might not yet be comfy with the physical engagement like that, some pups like us to NOT do that (my 7 year old dog found it SUPER offensive as a youngster LOL!). So, while building the tug drive to Dobe-level 🙂 keep your hands near the toy. And I am sure we can add the hands near her flanks later on, but I think it will be best after you get her to be wilder on the tuggie 🙂

You did a great job of moving forward without much pressure, by waiting until she was already driving to the toy. Yay! At this point, you can start moving forward sooner – not fast yet, just sooner. And if she is happy with that, then add in moving forward sooner AND faster 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hey there! Great job on your videos!!!

Driving ahead:
This is going SUPER well, he is being so lovely about looking ahead and driving to the toy. You can connect to him a little more – you were looking forward in the early reps but looking at him more towards the end – you can look at him as soon as you throw the toy.
A couple of ideas for the transitions from the toy play into the game:
You can shape him to give the toy back by playing tug then relaxing your hands (next to his mouth) and when he relaxes his grip and releases the toy, you can give it back to him (as a reward for releasing) or you can give him a treat (as a reward for releasing :)) or you can gently take his collar and start the game. You were pulling the toy forward and pulling the collar back on the transitions, so it was actually making him grip the toy a little more.
And then when you do get the toy back and you are ready for the next rep – if you are already holding his collar, you can rotate your position to face whichever way he is already facing rather than moving him by the collar (which can cause a pup to avoid the collar hold moments). Or, you can reward him for lining up next to you in whichever direction you want to throw the toy. I use cookies for this – is he happy to go back and forth between cookies and toys?
Because his drive ahead looks great, you can take this game someplace where there is more room to run run so he can really feel the wind in his hair 🙂 You can also try this with food – it is awesome when dogs drive to food as well as they drive to toys!

Drive to handler:
This also looks great!! Feel free to bend over when you cue him to your hand, so his head stays lower and straighter (so he doesn’t have to reach up). The joys of small dogs LOL!
When you added more room and moved more, you can slow down sooner on the reps where you were decelerating and facing forward – you were stopping as he got to you, so he was running into your hand to stop rather than decelerating with you. You can decelerate as soon as he gets the cookie off the ground. When you started added the turns, like at 1:03, you were decelerating earlier and it was SO lovely 🙂 He is nice and tight to you (great placement of reward) and turned beautifully.
You can definitely go to other places and play this, adding in distractions various distractions (people, other visually interesting things) – I do this on leash in new places a lot because it is a great game for baby dogs to learn to focus on da momma in new places. But don’t do so many circular turns that you fall over LOL!!!

Sending:
OMG a Santa hat – best prop ever! Love it!!!
He had excellent front (not rear :)) foot hits! Yay! I think you moved away from the prop too quickly – distance was diluting the behavior a little. When you were further away, he wasn’t as sure and also you were sometimes clicking feet *near* the hat and not *on* the hat (which contributing to getting more feet near-not-on the hat towards the end). One thing that might help with the feet as you add distance is to have the hat elevated a little, maybe tape it to a book or perch or even a disc (if he doesn’t mind a little movement) to make it more salient and make it more obvious that it is *on* not near that you are wanting.
The other that I think will help the sends is a really engaged ready ready dance then a send. On the first part you were sending without a ready ready, so he wasn’t 100% sure of when to go. You did a really perfect ready ready dance then send at :45ish and he was GREAT – very fast, crisp behavior, definite front foot hit. Yay! You were using ready on the others but it was as you were sending, so he wasn’t quite ready yet. You can do the dance so he is making eye contact with you then do the big send (a little closer for now, with the hat maybe elevated too)

When he is nailing it at the distance you had here (which will probably happen in one or two more sessions), you can move to the advanced level (sideways and backwards)!

Wing wraps
Good job establishing the back and forth! And then he was QUITE brilliant about going around the stanchion – note how he is ‘leading’ with his head – approaching the wing with the full intention of turning tight around it and his head is snaking around the stanchion. That is exactly what we want! I am doing a little happy dance over here. Onwards! You don’t need to move the stanchion further away at this point, so the next steps on this would be to:
– go to different places (even if it is just different rooms in the house :))
– start to stand up.
– try this with 2 toys if you like!
When you are working on the ‘next steps’ – do a warm up of re-establishing the back & forth as you did here and have the stanchion in close to you. And when you are working on standing up, you can start sitting/kneeling and then gradually change your position as he is going around the wing. The stanchion says nice and close for now 🙂

Terrific job here! I am looking forward to more 🙂 Let me know if you have any questions,
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hello and welcome to you and Mahomes!!! Love the name and I love his color!!!

It is very fun that you do agility AND flyball – same here (I think you asked that great question about the word “ready” yesterday :))
Have fun and keep me posted!!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Yay to the new thread! And we can work on getting more toys involved, as well as using food like a toy! Can’t wait for the videos 🙂 Have fun!

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!

>>I’m not sure it was the smartest thing to do – but we are doing both CAMPs.

We will both be very busy lol

>>I have a question for you about navigating the site. Is there a way to go direction from the forum to the game packages?

I am having the tech folk add a link to this forum page which should take you there – it should be just below the
“Already a Student? Click here to access your courses!” on the upper right of this page. I don’t know of any other way to do it with fewer clicks, and it is annoying to have to do 53 clicks to get there. I hope to see it tomorrow, I will let you know 🙂

>> But maybe the answer for me is to set up multiple tabs in my browser.

Yes, that is a good bandaid but we will get it streamlined here.

>>Is there something you want to see within all that I’ve described, or is it okay to skip that part?>>

Thank you for the toy play update! If she is leaving you in the dust, we do not need to emphasize leaving you in the dust LOL!
Good point about her head having to be up in order to carry the toy, I am sure you are well on your way to getting it nicely! I have a similar game starting with Contraband with discs – head up grab/bring back (because a certain teenager will not only not retrieve his discs, but he also will not come in the house if there is a disc anywhere on the scene LOL!) so some emphasis on the disc retrieve here, which is also a head-up behavior so he doesn’t slam himself into a twisting pretzel mass. It is a variation on a disc dog game, I can try to get it on video (usually it is played at 6am in my pajamas lol)

I also play “don’t slam yourself” games with a big hollee roller – teaching the dogs how to pick up and lift a ‘dead’ toy on the ground without driving their heads/shoulders into the ground, then I move it to a moving/rolling hollee roller.

And yes – if she is doing a great job and the game might dilute it – skip the game or do the parts that don’t dilute the carry/retrieve – or do the food variations.

Let me know if that makes sense 🙂
T

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hello and welcome!! Poet is so cool!!!!!!!

>> I wasn’t ready for another puppy and worry about not doing things “right.” I always mess up/miss out on some essential foundation work and hope that this class will get us started well this time!

I think you will find these games get you started on the right paw… but also, don’t be afraid to mess it all up LOL!!! We learn the most from the screw ups 🙂 And as long as the dog is happy and getting food and toys, then it is all good 🙂

T

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