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Good morning!
>> . I see what you mean about the layering. It’s not something we do in agility usually. >>
It is not something any of us worried about for literally a couple of decades… but now it is making a big comeback on European courses and has found its way across the Atlantic so we are starting to see the need for it here. Which means it will then be making its way across the Pacific and will arrive on your shores soon 🙂 Course design elements always spread so we will be adding in layering more now. (BTW, we will be doing it in the CAMP class – you had mentioned needing interested in taking it. I am closing out working spot registrations today, so if you wanted a spot and see it is closed, just email me and I will get you in :))
>>When I stepped past the weaves with motion and helped Hero to the tunnel he got it right every time. When I slowed my motion and gave the weave cue early he was able to make the decision to go to the weaves no problem.
Yes, I thought the first part of this session went perfectly!!! You will soon be able to not have to worry about your motion and you’ll get it on verbals – because we won’t always be close enough to get it with motion (darned European course challenges hahahaha)
>>When I added more motion by sending him round two wings first and then asking to go to weaves, I blew his mind lol.>>
Yes, I think it did haha! The first rep with the error added more motion from you so at first I thought that was the challenge? But then you dialed it back on the next rep and nope, he still took the tunnel. So it was an arousal thing! But he will work through it: start the next session just like you did on the 2nd failure rep: around both wings with not a TON of motion from you. The wings added a lot of stimulation so we will let him sort it out there first, and then add back your motion. I am confident that he will have it perfectly next time, that seems to be how he works when he finds something challenging 🙂
Separately, you can go back to the 6 poles and work the straight pole stuff! And more games are coming shortly that bring him to 12 🙂
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
He was a super good boy in a really hard setup! He was at 63% rate of success here, so we want to keep raising it. The physical presence of the dogs and people was not a big issue – when they were present but quiet, he was 100%. And that is a GREAT thing because it was an impressive visual distraction. The errors all correlated to noise – crowd noise on 2 of them and toller noise on the other. Does correlation equal causation? Not sure entirely but my guess is that in this session…. yes. So that is good to know for the future to layer in noise in very small increments to setup success. – too much as once guarantees failure.
Now, for planning: Because his success rate was averaging 70% over the course of the last several sessions, the next sessions need to pump that up to get back to 90% and up. So, since you’ll be on 8 channels, do 3 or 4 sessions over the course of this week that are greatly reduced in distraction level so he can be ultra successful.
I am whipping out the calculator for everyone because the umbrella rate of success will affect his internal state when he sees the weaves. If the overal rate is too low, we see fallout behaviors that go unnoticed til they are VERY noticed LOL! Some dogs sniff or leave, I don’t think Presto would do that. But some dogs bark and get over-stimulated, which leads to errors… and he might fall into that category 🙂 So keep an eye on the success rate for the next few sessions and when we are back up to the 90% range, we can make the poles tighter 🙂 Yay!
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
She was a good girl here – very nice entries on all reps with all angles!!!! And she is finding her bouncing really nicely. Watching this and then scrolling back, I think that she might be thinking really hard because the weaves are different every time (or almost every time) so she is working out what they are doing before she enters.
>> She is thinking as she approaches the poles, so steps through, then seems to gather steam (read confidence) and usually bounces 2 times on her way out. We’ll do this sort of thing again. I am wondering if she will always prefer to be careful on entry, then speed up? Being right seems to be quite important to her (loves those toys, treats, and praise). Quite frankly, it doesn’t really bother me. She is so good at nailing the entries and doing things from all sorts of angles. >>
So I think the being careful on approach has more to do with them being slightly different each time, as well as the different angles. I like that she is working to get it right!!!! But I also want her to run to the entry more, because trotting in changes the weight shift and then she might struggle with it when she is going faster or at full height.
I think there are two simple ways to help her out though. Since we can’t necessarily reward for speed, we can let her percolate it on her own by leaving the poles in the same exact position (in terms of all 4 being straight) for multiple sessions now. If it is always the same, then she won’t have to assess and she can just run 🙂 If we keep changing/adding, she is going to keep slowing down as she approaches them, and then it is going to be harder to convince her to run if she has a lot of rehearsal of trotting.
And the other suggestion is to throw the reward after the weaves more now, instead of past the next obstacle. That is trickier LOL!! You can throw it ahead as soon as she is completing the weaves, and it can land either near or after the next obstacle, but as long as the throw begins as she exits, I think she will realize it is specifically for the poles. That will also get more wind in her hair 🙂Let me know what you think! Fingers crossed for continued good weather so we can do lots of short 4 pole sessions 🙂
TracyHi! Great session here!!! He was nailing it even without the target!
So in keeping with the general theme, 3 things you can add, in this order:
– more motion, of course 🙂
– realistic position of ‘rushing’ past him like we would do on a course: go deeper to the tunnel and then he will get on the plank a little ahead of you. You then keep moving past him towards the tunnel like you did here.
– if he is happy with you rushing past him, we add a rear cross of the plank 🙂 Go much deeper to the tunnel then let him drive ahead on the jump before the plank – then rear cross the plank.These are all things we want him to do on the teeter, but the plank has no concussion on his body so we can work out all the games here 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
Really strong session here!!! He is driving through the pivot to the end, he is super fast, AND he is happy 🙂 And you are doing a great job of catching that board LOL!!!
A couple of little details on the mechanics to think about as we build towards the finished product:– on the countdown, be sure you hold the board until after you say the paw cue – then drop it. On these, you were dropping it either just before or simultaneously with the paw cue. Saying the cue then dropping it will give him a better preparation moment for the weight shift.
– You can now catch the board later, so it moves down a bit before you catch it 🙂
– looking at the reinforcement mechanics: it was hard to tell if there was something on the target already or if the cookies you were delivering at the top were sticky? He was still licking/chewing when the board was landing LOL! So ideally you don’t have anything pre-loaded on the target, and the cookies from your hand are tasty but easily swallowed (I was using meatballs). That way you can grab the board, pop a treat in his mouth – then wait for him to swallow it, then start the countdown, cue the paw, drop the board: then reward again.
That means at this point, he won’t be eating during the countdown, which means he will begin to focus downwards to the target and shift his weight back. Then you can also reward end position decisions.let me know if that makes sense! I think on the next session, with catching the board a little later, we are getting closer to the finished product of cuing the paw behavior as he gets on the board and not catching it, but let’s do one more session of crazy elevator and see what he thinks.
Great job!!!
TracyGood morning! This was a worthwhile session – he did a good job sorting out how to stay balanced! And I guess he is really liking the teeter if he jumps on the high end before you even finish spooning out the food haha!!!! I think he was doing a really good job of finding the entry and then working his balance across the board. Nice!!
If he jumps over the guide to get on, I do what you did at :33 – I call the dog back, have a laugh and use a little more handling to convince them to go around the outside of the guide. He was pretty good about NOT jumping over it but he did try the shortcut once or twice LOL! But since it is a line up game that is really safe if he makes an error, if he cheats a little and ends up getting the cookies: no problem.
This went really well and now it goes into a rotation of just being revisited every now and then. I think you can now shift your focus to the crazy elevator game this week and I bet he will quickly be doing full teeters 🙂
This is exciting! Great job here, fingers crossed for good weather so you can get lots of teetering in!
TracyGood morning!
I am glad you posted this! First: there is a LOT of good stuff happening here! She is focusing forward beautifully and she has an understanding of the weight shift and target position. The down will be very easy to add on. I like your clicks! And you do not appear unsure, even if you feel that way inside LOL!So then why is her performance still a little sideways? You are spot on in your assessment that the teeter is too slippery. She is trying to weight shift and get into position but her hind end keeps slipping out from under her on the board when she tries it. I can see her working good mechanics and showing understanding – but she does not have enough grip on the board to make it happen.
Let’s brainstorm to help her out:
I like your yoga mat idea, it was the first thing that popped into my brain when you mentioned the slippery seesaw before I watched the video. It will work for the bang game and elevator game, but it will not work for the downhills and the crazy elevator game (because a yoga mat will have too much grip, they have more grip than the contact rubber would).The other option is a painting party 🙂 You can repaint the board using a combination of outdoor paint (not the shiny kind, I can go look up exactly what it is called) and sand. I have done that and it works great – lots of grip but not too grippy. Let me know if you are interested in arts and crafts and I can get the exact type of paint.
And the other option is to purchase rubber skins – there are a few places that are good and a few that are terrible. I can get you the list of good place if you want to go that route. But in the meantime, the yoga mat option is great!!
Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
Most of the reps on this session were super strong! I have one small tweak for the structure of the session: rather than start with the wing to the plank with you adding a lot of motion (her motion and your motion) – give her a couple of high arousal warm up reps by getting her nutty, maybe with some tug – and then doing some targeting right at the end with you moving forward (just like the bang game). That can help set her up for success right away and then you will have an easier time getting to the reps with the wing and running. She is able to do them successfully later in the session, but asking for it right off the bat was a little too much.
And the high arousal warm up will mirror what we do on the crazy elevator game, plus it mirrors how I recommend we move the behavior to the trial ring. So she will recognize it more easily, which then makes it easier to fade out because it will generalize into the full teeter behavior.
She had a TON of great reps in the middle section. It looks like she had one miss, after the ‘break’ in the middle of the video – so that first rep is the hardest one! The high arousal warm up should help get the first rep to be great too.
Nice work!! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning! Good session here, she is transferring the speed of the mountain climbers to this game really nicely!!! And the end position is coming together too. It was hard to tell if you had the target visible for her, especially on the first couple of reps? You can make the target as visible as possible for now even though we are fading it elsewhere – there are so many different variables in the crazy elevator game that the target can be visible for a while 🙂 If it was there, you might need to make it bigger 🙂 Especially for the first rep or two.
The only other thing to remember is to keep your reward markers and releases really clear – I think it was great when you used your ‘catch’ or a release forward for the rewards. When you praised and rewarded but the releases were not as clear, I think she was not sure if she should leave position or not. So keep bugging yourself to use the markers and releases. I plan that before each rep so I don’t forget LOL!For the next session, since she likes to go FAST:
Start her in the stay like you did here, but add your motion just by walking and releasing her when you are moving and almost at the end of the board. Then you can try with some jogging and running! Mainly, that is to add the excitement a little bit at a time so she remembers to stop 🙂 And you can feed her a bit more during the countdown if she is very excited and tries to move to position too soon 🙂If she is solid with you moving… then we add the wing wraps so you are BOTH moving 🙂 I am not worried about her speed at all, she is going to have an insanely fast seesaw (be prepared for the judges to gasp LOL) so for now it is all about reminding her to weight shift at the top and hit/hold position after the board drops.
Great job!!!!
TracyGood morning! This looks great! Speed, accuracy, all the things we want!
>> she had fun with this game, after doing the Bang game on the see-saw, which she doesn’t like so much.>>
HA! Relatable. Weaves are all about running and toys. The bang game is about stopping and cookies. Bleh. My Contraband agrees with Yowza LOL!! But the Bang game is worth it, in the end.
Back to weaves: her striding and forward focus down the line of weaves looks great. So before you make them tighter than they were here, add more of your motion: run run run! Don’t do any reps in the next session where you are standing still 🙂 And in running and if she is fine with that, add in running away laterally and also rear crossing the entry (she was great with you being waaaaay ahead and ‘pushing’ the line of exit). Of course, if she struggles, we dial back the variable of running to fast jogging 🙂 If I remember correctly, she was good with your motion with the poles more open, so this should bring that into the tighter-poles scenario.
And then if that goes well for 2 short sessions… onwards to poles that are even tighter. I think we will have them straight sometime this week, depending on your training schedule 🙂
And one more thing that I am telling everyone at this stage: do weave pole math to count the number of reps in each session and total each day. Even though the poles are not totally closed, the dogs are doing real weaving – that means we need to limit the # of reps. I prefer to limit the total to 5 sets of 12 weaves in each session (that includes misses, not just successes). So that means no more than 10 sets of 6. In this session, there were 19 reps, which is just under 10 sets of 12 weaves, which is a lot on the dogs’ bodies. The way I think of it is that I would get mad at the judge if I was asked to do 10 sets of 12 poles in a trial day, so then I need to self-judge and not do that many sets of weaves in a session LOL! That means I do short sessions and force myself to count reps and stop – but it also means we get really focused on the variables and setting the dogs up for success, which results in things getting done really fast and successfully 🙂
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
She seemed to have no trouble at all with the various angles of entry! Yay, good girl!!!!
She is wanting to trot, though – could be the complexity of the sequences and entries, could be that the temperatures are heating up and she is not acclimated yet, or both. The trotting is causing her to still work out her striding into the entry and then into the 2nd set, so she wasn’t bouncing her. I take it as a sign that she is processing and we should not add difficulty yet in the form of more poles.
The dogs are good at giving us the thumbs-up when they are ready for more: if they can produce the striding, speed AND accuracy for 2 sessions in a row, really driving to the poles: then they are ready for more 🙂 So I think for the next session, you can see what variables might be causing her to slow down: try it first thing in the morning when it is cold. Or try it as a way for her to get her first meal of the day 🙂 And if she is still thinking, try having more open space (fewer obstacles) so there is less visual ‘pressure’ around the poles.
And it might be none of the above, it might just be she needs to process it and let it wire into her muscle memory. My youngest dog just needed a whole bunch of sessions on 4 poles before she “got it” and now she is very speedy and consistent with striding.
Play around with a couple of more sessions and when you get the same giddy up she had when the poles were a little more open – then we go to 6 poles.Personally, the hardest part is getting the 6 straight and it takes the longest. But then things are VERY easy after that to get to 12 poles 🙂
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning! These look strong!!
He is seeking out the entries from all angles. Your work on the ‘hard’ entries has balanced them now so he is much stronger on those! Yay! We can revisit those isolated entries here and there as needed, as the poles get tighter.The other thing I like is that he recognizes the rhythm and loop of the session – the MM is much higher in value now because it has been paired with the frisbee. And he seems to be in a really great state of arousal. Perfect!
So, that means we are officially in the “that looked good, let’s plan for the next sessions” mode 🙂
Using your Find Em set up, for the next session(s):
– move the MM a little further away, like 6 feet or so, so he runs more after the poles and collects less.
– on the next session, keep everything the same except 1 thing: no more line ups. What I mean by that is after he gets his MM reward, have him come tug on the frizzer, then get him on your side (not between your feet, no sits) and then send him around the wing.
The purpose of this is to layer in a little more arousal. The line up and sit is a bit of a soothing moment and now we can add a little more arousal 🙂 It will take some good mechanics from you to get him on the proper side before the send, so play around with it before you add the weaves. I like to do that by tugging with whatever hand. I am going to send with, tugging to get back into position for the next send, then making eye contact and doing a bit of “ready, ready”, then sending 🙂 He is ready for the higher arousal level!If that goes well for a session or two: next step is to do it all again but now tighten up poles 1-2 🙂
We are likely going to get real striding at that point, so you can then switch to your real weave cue.
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>> Here is a bit of work with the get out game. I used first the trailing arm cue with a bent arm as well and then just the trailing arm and verbal cue.
This looked really good! The best case scenario is if you can get it all on a verbal so you don’t really have to do more than run and yell things 🙂 As you work through this, you’ll see that your get out cue (with and without the outside arm) is rotating your upper body a lot – which is causing your feet to rotate and get pulled in towards the jump rather than keep running straight. So the next step would be to see if you can ‘soften’ the upper body rotation a little but using the same concept but with the emphasis on your feet running straight. That will mean your upper body can’t rotate as much – so give him as little as possible in terms of the rotation, but as much as needed. So if you soften it too much and he fails, add a little back in – think of it as a fading process as the verbals solidify.
>> I’m so pleased that Kip has now learned these cues from all the zig zag work we did.
Yes! That is definitely a helpful benefit of that game! And it helps with the jumping effort on the get out jump because he knows how to do the sideways slices.
>>I like having the bent arm cue for added cue strength when needed!
Yes – and you might find using that outside bent arm is super useful when this cue is followed by a threadle or front cross.
>>We are still working toward tight wraps and powering out of tight turns so we are doing more “wind in your hair 2”>>
Great! That takes some noodling around to find the timing and rhythm of it, and it will change when he is an adult and working on full height bars.
>>I do appreciate the way your lessons come in layers. Also, I did enter the 031 class so now you will get to meet my crazed, adrenaline junkie Pyr-Shep Rik/Rik>>>
Awww, thanks! All this time in front of the computer during this pandemic year has allowed me to try to improve the structure. And I am TOTALLY looking forward to the CAMP class and seeing Rik/Rik get to play!!!
Enjoy the rest of your weekend! Great job here!
TracyHi!
We have plenty of time left – one more set of games is published on Monday, bringing the poles up to 12 poles. Then we have til the end of May to get it all done and submit videos 🙂Tracy
