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Hi! I think she is getting it!!!! There is a layer of self-control in this game – yes, ignoring cookies in our hand is STUPID hahahaha!!!! But I think she is really getting it with the cookies!!! She is really young so a bit more maturity has really helped this game (I didn’t start this with either of my pups until they were significantly older: I think Contraband was 6 months old and Elektra was 4.5 months old when I started them).
I see the clear back and forth pattern. You can drop the cookie into the next bowl a little sooner, since you are using cookies that are excellently noisy 🙂 That can help establish the groove at the top of each session, then you can delay to let her choose to go to to the next bowl. I mention this because I think she is ready for you to put a little upright post in there, right in front of you – the entire cookie picture is the same except now there is a random skinny post sitting there.
She went back and forth between the toys really nicely!! It was more of a 2-toy game rather than a back and forth at this moment, but that is fine for now: many toy driven dogs struggle with the 2-toy game! Since she is doing so well, you can get her into the groove by starting as you ended here: getting one toy back then smacking the other toy. Then, add delay – get the toy back and have both toys ‘dead’. The instant she looks at or moves towards the 2nd toy, you can make it come alive. This can also be done with the narrow upright in front of you, I think at this point she is ready for it to be included in both elements of the game.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
I think this went very well, considering it is a new concept for her!!! On the single post, she was slightly better turning to her left (right at the beginning) than she was turning to her right. That’s probably why it felt like she was following your hand more there (because she was :)) but the hand following is how we elicit the behavior at first, and your clicks were *spot on*!! She got the idea and her left and right evened out as the video progressed. I really like how she was beginning to bend through her body on those – so definitely revisit the single post to keep solidifying that slow, intentional head turn.
When you added the barrel and wing and the 360s, she did nicely too! She was committing and bending, which is exactly what we want 🙂 So you can add in more to the 360s now: doing then as single wraps, start to very slowly walk up behind her as she begins wrapping and see if she can turn her head and maintain her commitment even with all that countermotion. Keep dropping the toy in like you did (on the head turn to where you wanted her to exit). Ideally you will be passing the barrel/wing as she is turning her head around it (you will both be on the ‘take off’ side at the same time, if it was a backside on the jump). Let me know if that makes sense!
I think your training mechanics were really excellent on this session, so you were getting the behavior really nicely. It probably felt weird LOL!!! But it wears spot on and she was leading with her head: exactly what we want. Great job!!!T
I am so glad you are having fun! I am enjoying having you here, you ask brilliant questions so we can obsess on the training 🙂 Plus, Fizz is really cool so it is super fun to watch him develop 🙂
The cookie reset is a great way to start – even dogs who are experienced with stays struggle with the stay because they want to move when we move our hand and show the target. And it is not worth creating conflict over it (because as you know, that bubbles into all sort of gross things) so the cookie toss is perfect!
He was Mr. Perfect driving into the target in your hand (pretty big obvious target makes it really clear!). The error on the first threadle rep is not a biggie – the jump has value, he had done a bunch of serps, and from the angle he was coming in from the serp seemed more likely. He did really well after that when you adjusted the angle of approach so the threadle was more obvious. Then he was fine with it, and then you were able to slap on the verbals for that and for the serp. Yay!
As for mechanics: your posiiton on the entry to it perfect! Try to stay totally frozen until he arrives at the toy. Your timing of the toy cue was perfect and you were relaxing/following him as he was turning away – staying frozen helps him see that you will not be moving shoulders to feet to help him go back out on the line (or back to the jump on the threadle) so he will learn the default behaviors and do it without any additional cues from you 🙂You can begin the next steps of getting him to turn back out rather than come so directly in to the target. I was thinking about it for him, and there are two approaches you can take (all while standing completely still for now LOL!):
You can use your pet tutor where the toy is, and as he hits the target, click the remote for the cookies to drop out.If the PT goes well, and also using the toy on the ground: you can schedule the next sessions like this:
first, hit the remote or use your toy cue just *before* he touches the target. He is still driving towards it, but you will reinforce the intent rather than the actual touch. This will help us fade out the target while maintaining the behavior.
If that goes well (I’d say 2 short super successful sessions are all you’ll need, can probably do them in the same day). yo ucan go to the next step: delaying reinforcement until he turns his head back out afte rcoming in. So on the serp: he comes over the bar and turns towards the PT or toy: then you click or use your toy cue. On the threadle, he comes in to the ‘other’ side then turns back towards the bar: click or use the toy cue. This step will solidify the in-then-out behavior.And when you get that, you can add in motion!
Let me know if that makes sense! Great job!
TracyHi! Yes, I think she was doing much better in discriminating back versus front! I personally have no problem using the outside arm as part of the cue because it helps so many dogs – just be prepared that people will give you sh*t about it LOL!! I guess the outside arm breaks some ‘rules’ that people have created for themselves 🙂 I think it helps because it turns out chest AND also is really different-looking than the front side cue.
On your next session, you can see how she does if you keep your feet facing the bar more. On some of the reps, you were working the upper body part of the cue and that was causing your feet to turn to the backside path – which is why you were probably feeling pretty natural on the FC exit to reward. So see if you can still give a strong upper body cue with feet moving straight to the bar. I had to lay a leash on the ground in order to get myself to do this, so my feet could travel up the leash to the bar and not turn. The goal is that you will eventually be able to run forward to the exit wing and cue the entry wing, and keep running straight through – German turns, for example. But start with a line to where the entry wing meets the bar, so it is easier to establish.
About the bar – eventually we can talk to her about bars on backsides, but I would avoid it for now by locking the bar into the cups so that even her tail can’t take it down LOL!! That way she can get a ton of reward for getting to the backside and committing to the bar without any possibility of reinforcement for that being paired with the bar coming down. The zig zag grids will help with the bars there and so will clear understanding of backside independence. At some point later on you can challenge her jumping skills there, but I bet by then it will be a complete non-issue (it is not really an issue now, so it will be easy for her!)Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! I am glad you posted, yay for cooler weather! Feel free to post runs from Dikkens too. How is Gidget doing?
On the video:
Wheeeee! Great job with Charlee, this was a lovely run! Overall your connection was lovely and your handling was smooth, so my ideas are just to smooth out some timing and some lines. I loved Charlee’s wagging tail on the start line! Also, Charlee has GREAT commitment from what I can see here, so you can probably challenge her (him?) to commit with evn more independence.Excellent push to jump 2! Charlee looked strong in terms of commitment so you can play with pushing to the backside while you are on the exit wing, which will give you a change to get even further up the line to 3. The other option to play with on this opening, is to do the backside slice on 2 coming in from the other wing, so Charlee exits facing the correct side of 3 (which then makes it much easier for you to get the FC to the tunnel after it).
A tiny bit more connection to Charlee’s eyes before he exits the tunnel will get a smoother ine to 5 (at :10), You can also start giving your Go or Jump cue right before he goes in, so he know to exit straight.
Nice job on the line from 5 to 8! Charlee’s commitment looked really good here so I bet you can give your verbals (jump and go tunnel) even sooner, you might even be able to start saying Go Tunnel to name the whole line and let Charlee drive away to it 🙂
Perfect execution of the weave exit, you were in just the right spot at the right time to show the line to the next jump 🙂 YAY!
On the 12 jump at :28 – 2 ideas for you:
Turning to the right like you did, you can decelerate a little sooner so you can rotate sooner, which will get an even tighter turn. The goal is that you are rotated before Charlee passes you, so you can decelerate when he is out of the tunnel and then as he catches up, you start rotated. The other option here is to turn the other way on 12 (to his left) so that when he lands, he has a straight line to the 13 tunnel and you don’t have to step in to push him back out. That is probably the faster line.
Wow, I *loved* your blind cross at the end from the last tunnel to the last jump! You started it right before Charlee entered the tunnel so he could see it before he exited, and your made a perfect connection to his eyes with your arm back – note how Charlee never had to question the line, he could just accelerate to the last jump: PEREFCTION! Love it!Great job here! Let me know what you think! Hopefully the weather will cooperate and you can post more – plenty of time to catch up!
Tracy
Yes – eventually they will be in a straight line, like a serpentine but with the wings very tight together.
T
Hi!
This feedback will be a bit boring, both videos looked great so the general feedback is “woohoo! Onwards to next steps” hahaha! Here are more specifics:Wrapping: He did really well with the toy and the wraps! I could see from his facial expression that he was definitely more stimulated. But his retrieve was good and his outs were good! You can reward the out by sometimes giving the toy right back to him. He seemed to ‘catch’ himself on the chomp moment – interesting how he chomped then immediately backed off – GOOD BOY!!!!!
You can transfer the toy to the barrel and a wing now, so then you can add it to turn and burn and the other games. I think that adding toy play in will help balance the food drive, because toys will become part of the expectations and reward systems. We kinda took them out because he was learning to de-shark. He is maturing nicely!!!Great job on your click timing with the serps – you were nailing it!! He wsa offering up the in-then-out behavior we want and you clicked when he turned back out. Perfect! Also I am in awe of your treat throws to get him lined up on the perfect angle of entry – impressive!!! So now… onwards to adding motion 🙂 He is ready! Sloooow motion at first 🙂
And on the threadles, the click timing is the same: when he turns himself back out to the bar.Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyYay, it worked! And yes, YouTube does weird things sometimes LOL!!!
He is doing really well on the tunnel threadles, so we can up the ante 🙂 As for the verbal: you can keep playing with what makes sense to you when you are moving and also what sounds very different. For example, one of the great things about ‘come’ is the extended delivery (“coooommmme”) which is very different than any other cue. So you might consider using a repeated but slightly stretched out cue (heere heeere) rather than hereherehere which could start to sound like tunneltunneltunnel in rhythm, pitch and tone (yes, I do obsess on all that haha!!!)
For example, I will be using “kiss” so I think I will be stretching it to be kiiss kiiissss so it is very different from closecloseclose.OK back to the threadles 🙂 He is having no trouble with the turn away element. The only hard part was the self-tunneling during transitions, so using a cookie to bring him to you and reset like you did at the end is a great decision 🙂 And for the reward: you can incorporate that toy (it is a cool toy!) by running when he gets into the tunnel and dragging it for him to chase – that will make it more exciting because he is not a massive fan of ‘dead’ toys yet.
Let’s now add more independence: I think he was relying on your motion/foot turn a bit to cue the 2nd have of the threadle, where he turns and goes into the tunnel. So, to add challenge and get more independence on the going to the tunnel, try not to use motion to help and let him ‘find it’ entirely on his own by moving parallel to the tunnel, feet forward, threadle cue in play – but very slowly until he turns himself away: and then you can turn and have a big party, running to the end of the tunnel and rewarding. You’ll be turning your feet after he turns and starts heading to the tunnel. Sticking really close to the tunnel will help and also moving slowly so he isn’t too excited by you moving fast. I think he is more than ready for this step – let me know if it makes sense! It puts all of the commitment responsibility on him 🙂
Nice work! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi again!
Great job being on Team Chill! I thought you were pretty chill even when he went directly to Nemo. Yes, even that little bit of motion was a bit too much with the nemo ball out there. But your mechanics were really good, nice job with your position, arm, connection, release. He just had to sort it out a big with the higher value reinforcement out ahead (which is also a more stimulating distraction). He was trying to go faster and had to remember how to serp at higher speed.
The threadle looked great, as did the last serp! You can add more motion with a less exciting reward (like a cookie in a food bowl) and alternate using the ball as a distraction to help him learn to execute the skills even when he is really excited – but without a lot of motion from you yet. And then I am sure within a couple of sessions, you’ll be able to put the motion and excitement together.Nice work here!
TracyHi!
Either my computer is losing its mind, or this video is a frozen moment of you watching him chase the toy LOL! Can you check it and see if it is loaded wrong?T
Hi! Good job here too! He is a little stronger going to his left at the moment but he did sort it out to the right as well! I think the value is still developing for the wing, so he wasn’t driving to it as much yet (with environmental distractions) – so you can do another session or two of concept transfer/value building for the wing, then he will be perfect with it. His value for chasing you looked GREAT – it is fun to see some serious explosiveness through those turns, wow! That will also help build value for the wing by pairing it with super fun running (and Nemo haha). No worries about touching the wing- that happened when you were still close to it, plus I think he doesn’t enjoy smashing into things – it went away as soon as you moved away sooner.
Great job!
THi!
This is going really nicely! Is that the same big blue barrel that he was having trouble with? No trouble now! I think the hardest part was sorting out the timing of the transition into the next barrel. On the last 2 reps, I think you had the best ones – lots of running forward, a little decel, then a later rotation. He is super responsive so you don’t need to slam on the brakes. The commitment cues are the fast and slow forward motion, so you don’t need to use a rotated send as part of the commitment – it is more of the ‘this is how much I want you to turn’ cue 🙂 And be sure to maintain a lot of connection as you decel, this will help commitment even more. His commitment looked really strong when you did the later decel and rotation. He was a little sticky when you were a little too soon with the decel/rotation on the first couple of reps.
And nice turn and burn at the end!!!!T
When I watch videos and the a dog kind of ‘loses’ a skill that had been going just fine, I always check the time stamp (I am a little odd LOL!) and it is almost always between 90 seconds and 2 minutes. It is really fascinating!!! I develop an internal timer and my sessions are almost all just under 2 minutes long because I am so used to having a timer running LOL!
Hi!
>> It’s funny because many people told me I was going to have be really animated and energetic in my training when they found out I was getting a whippet – I think these kind of whippets bring their own party though haha! Not that I can’t be fun, but exactly what you said, I have to be more strategic about when I turn that on.>>
Exactly, be strategic!!! These racing/working lines of whippet bring their own party indeed LOL!!!!!
>>So for the Rocking Horse game, sometimes he doesn’t look directly at my eyes, so it’s hard to get that really connected eye contact with him. Is that okay?
Yes! That brings up a good point – when I talk about connection (which I do a LOT haha), I mean human connection to dog eyes. The dog does not and should not look back at us. If we are properly connected, the pup will not look back at you at all – he will look at his ‘work’ and that is correct 🙂
>>We worked on the Get Out game, I’m using “away” for my verbal, since I worry “get out” sounds too much like my “get it.”
Smart! Makes total sense.
>> This was hard for me and I had to practice it without him a couple times before I felt ready. My feet want to point at the prop lol!
ha! That is why I had to put lines on the ground for myself 🙂
>>Can you explain exactly when I will use this cue? Like in the example video of you running your black dog – what if that jump weren’t so far off the line you are on? Would you use your dog side arm to cue the jump? He is turning around on the prop sometimes when he hits it – kind of like the rear crosses lol – is this okay? or should I do something to keep him moving ahead and not circling back?
I recommend using this any time the dog has to move away from the parallel line you are running to pick up an obstacle or line – and then either remain parallel to you or come back towards you – all while you need to be running like mad up the course and it would be inefficient (at best) or make it impossible to get to the next spot (at worst) on course.
If the jump is not that far away and the next part of the course doesn’t urgently require me to be there, then I can move towards it (turning feet towards it, running to it, like a serp) but I would still keep my dog side arm relatively out of the picture (pointing with the dog side arm tends to do more harm than good).
If he is turning around the prop like a RC, there is possibly too much pressure so he legit thinks it is a rear cross, so be sure your feet are straight and also you can probably soften your upper body send. And, make sure you toss the reward out ahead past it so he drives forward to get it and doesn’t turn back.Here are 2 clips of me using the cue – I will try to find some more.
https://youtu.be/E-PmkS6SXig?t=20 (starting at :20)>>A few posts back you asked me if he had a stay or could stay on a station. He does not. It’s a case of “there are so many things to teach a puppy and I haven’t gotten to it”
I feel that! He is old enough to begin working the stay. I usually don’t make a big deal of it til the pups are about 6 months old, then I start teaching it.
>>Our food-toy switching is really going south lol. If he even thinks there is a chance of getting a treat, he will not engage with the toy at all. I’ve tried keeping the toys in a container on a shelf at one end of the room and playing with the toy on the other end. Also, putting the treats in another room and playing with the toy and then going in the other room to get a treat, and then going back to playing in the other room. If there are treats at stake, he only wants the food. The ONE exception seems to be the flirt pole. He seems to be fine with eating a treat and going back to flirt pole. I’m not sure what to do, as switching from food back to toy seems to be getting harder and harder for him.>>
That is pretty normal. So you can use the flirt pole a lot! And you can tie several toys together so they are really long and wild and dragging on the ground, like a flirt pole. And separately from training (where he is probably conditioned to expect food), and with no food around, do some toy play and also do some training games with just a toy or two. That will help bring back the value of the toy play.
>>We did work on the Rocking Horse Game with a toy in my hand, and there was a little bit of struggle. I’ve never cued the wrap with a toy in my dog-side hand so that was new for him. But overall, I think he did well. No chomping!>>
The rocking horses with a toy in hand is HARD!!! Gold star for no chomping!!!!
On your away video – I see what you are saying about the turning back – it looks like it was just because you were standing still and he wants to turn to his right 🙂 when you switched sides, he could turn to his right and stay on the parallel line. So the answer to fix it is… just add motion and that was the next step anyway LOL!! He did really well here! So, onwards to step 2 where you are moving up the line and giving your away cue, like you did here. My only suggestion is to keep your arm a little lower, more at the height of your hip and less at shoulder height.
Rocking horses look good! He had a little trouble ‘finding’ the second wing, for 2 reasons I believe – he doesn’t turn left as well as he turns right, at the moment. And, as he is coming around the wing from the right turn, your dog-side arm was a little forward blocking connection. So, keep that arm waaaaaay back and make eye contact and let him get almost to your hip… then cue the next wing. He won’t necessarily look back at you, and that is fine 🙂 Your eye contact is just being used to tell him where you want him to be.
He was great about ignoring the toy! So you can try to see if he will do some wraps for the toy – you can throw it after the wrap and see how he does!Great job!!!!
Tracy
