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Hi! I hope your mom is doing well!
These are going well – I think it is SO HARD with the youngsters but I am really liking what you are getting with her!!Some ideas for you:
LOTS of good planning on the walk through. I loved your decision making process at 2:25 – finding the best line (the slices) and moving the 8 jump over for the baby dog on 7-8-9! Exactly the right thing to do to both put her on the fastest path AND make it challenging but also easy enough that she could be successful.Little details to add to your planning for the next walk throughs (I keep a list of things to remember with my young dogs, because I tend to forget and repeat my mistakes):
– Threadles are hard, so plan them very specifically in terms of what exactly the physical and verbal cue is. It was hard to tell on the walk through.
– when you have a cross on a line after the tunnel, add more connection to tunnel exit so you can get timing for the cross, which would start shortly after she exits the tunnel (4-5-6 here). You were working the timing in the walk through based on when you arrived in position, not based on when she was exiting the tunnel.
– speaking of timing – one thing that will help get the timing is to plot your exit line from 3 and 7 so you don’t get too deep to the tunnel and end up late for the BC 5-6, or too deep past the entry wing of 7 and pull her off 8 while trying to not run into it 🙂 By exit line, I mean your exact running path in that moment. So on 3, for example, I would tell myself to not go past the center of the bar on 3 and send to the tunnel from there (Lanna can totally do that) which can get you to step directly up the line 5-6. And on 7, you will want to stay on the running line that keeps you outside the wing of 8 so you can run an almost straight line to 9, which helps straighten out her line too.
– one last detail – add your verbals in the walk through. You were very quiet 🙂 If you rehearse the verbals, they will be much easier to do in the run.
On the runs –
On the first run, the threadle handling looked like first fast walk but verbal was her name. On the 2nd run, You had the in in going and it helped! So that is a spot to be sure you are loudly rehearsing your verbals in the walk through (you did say “words are hard” and I totally agree 🙂 That is why I am the crazy person at a trial running around talking in the walk through LOL!)On the first run, you got in too deep in those 2 spots (4-5 and 6-7 but you still helped show her the next lines – the BC 5-6 was a little late and you had to help a lot to the 9 tunnel, but you showed her! And that is really helpful for teaching her to help find those lines on her own. Yay! On the 2nd run, you adjusted those 2 spots to not go as deep and look at the tunnel exit more (#4) and both lines were much smoother.
I liked your thoughts between the runs “words are hard” almost made me snort water through my nose LOL!
One other thing I noticed was that you were more comfortable on the 2nd run, so your arms were lower and your connections were clearer. So you can help create that in the walk through by trying to run the sequence even faster than you think she will go, and see if you can get all the elements (timing, connection, verbals, lines) at top speed with invisible dog: that should make the run with the real dog feel practically relaxing 🙂
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
About that threadle at the beginning – as we figure out what each dog reads, it is useful to help us execute! On the threadle between the 2 jumps, Tokaji is relying on decel and motion away from the gap. So if you are going to use the decel and motion backing away from the gap, plan for it so you are earlier with it and also a little further ahead, so you don’t get caught behind on the line.
>>Things are very tight at 17. Having a better threadle cue will help me leave earlier and decrease congestion at 17.
Yes – being able to keep moving forward will really help there, something to keep working on with the threadle! The other option is, with the forward moving threadles being a work in progress, to replace the threadle with a double blind, which is all about staying in motion.
Good job running to get past the exit wing of the serp jump! It looks like you got a little in her way on the first one then stopped short which ended up looking like a RC, but the 2nd rep of that was much smoother there.
>>Abort until we are better at our cue don’t take anything until I tell you
In the rare moments that I use a bypass cue (don’t take anything) I have found the easiest way to cue it is to completely disconnect, slap my leg and call the dog’s name. It makes my dogs SO ANGRY that I am doing such a strange thing that they drive right towards me and then I send them to the next obstacle LOL!
On the sequence/walk through –
The process is looking good, I have some ideas of things you can add to the consideration so you can hit a home run on the first run 🙂
On thing is to account for the time it takes her to get to and through a tunnel when you are sending… you will have more time then you planned here when you use the big tunnel sends. At 7:06, for example, you sent to the tunnel and then you went to 4 for the RC and your invisible dog was suddenly there… which would not be happening in real life 🙂 She is fast but not THAT fast LOL!!!! Not planning for that will throw your timing off balance.Also, I think it will be helpful if you plan to cut corners more on the tunnel sends rather than go deep to tunnels then run up parallel to the next line – you can send her and while staying connected and yelling tunnel, you can start to move directly to the next position. On the walk through, you were not really planning your strategies on that at speed, so it caused a bit of a kerfluffle on the first run (and could have also made the 2nd run easier).
One more idea on the walk throughs: rehearse more connections and verbals, this was all body language of the handling cues but not really connection and verbals – and that is what will lead you to sort out the timing (seeing where she would be and what you would say to her and when). If you don’t rehearse connection and verbals repeatedly during the walk through, then you are executing them for the very first time during the run – which is a lot of multi-tasking and will draw your focus away from the timing of the physical cues. If you rehearse and rehearse the connections and verbals along with the physical cues, then the run will flow as if you have done it a dozen times before (because you have… in the walk through!)
On the run – You got the RC on 5 but not taking into account the timing on the #3 tunnel on caused you to wait near 4 a lot on the RC and the be late on the BC 8-9 because you went too deep back to the 7 tunnel. So in the walk through, driving in deeper to 3 will help you get 4-5 and also help st you up to send to 7 and move directly across the line to 8-9 rather than back down to 7. Also, working the timing on the tunnel sends in the walk through will let you know that you did indeed have plenty of time to do the BC 4-5 (which worked nicely on the 2nd rep!)
The BC 8-9 is a great choice – so plan to send to the 7 tunnel and go directly to it, don’t round the corner of the tunnel line – step away sharply and directly to the new line. You were late on the 1st one and she was mad LOL The 2nd run worked better because you had an idea of the timing and pace – but you will ideally want that to happen on the first run at a trial, so that is something to add to the walk throughs.
Seq 2 – no walk through to bug you about here LOL! The forced front to the throw back on 4 worked nicely on both reps to get 4, but you need to be further across the bar there – you were in the way on the line to 5 so she had to go around you to get it.
About the tunnel threadle cue at 8:10 and 8:21: this is something to definitely plan in the walk through: what, exactly, is the physical cue, connection and verbal you are going to use? The first rep and the 2nd rep looked and sounded totally different – on the first rep, you ran hard and had both arms up and shoulders pulling away. On the 2nd rep, you deceled as she approached 6, had a different connection, the turned and ran a different exit line. Plus, the verbals were different. So I don’t think of the off course tunnel as a handling error on the first run… I think of it as a planning error 🙂 And that is why I bug everyone so much about the walk throughs 🙂
Also, if you use a tunnel verbal on your tunnel threadles… be absolutely certain her head is giving you position to say it. What I mean by that is: ‘tunnel’ is a forward cue that asks her to drive to the tunnel she is looking at… so if she is looking at the wrong end, you are not going to want to say tunnel until you can convince her to look at the correct end. On the first run, she was looking at the wrong end when you said tunnel, so away she went 🙂 So always look at her head – before saying a forward cue like ‘tunnel’ – if she is looking at the correct end, then you have permission to say the cue 🙂 And that is something to plan for in the walk through – that connection is important 🙂Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! I think he did well on the 12″ jumps! A couple of things to consider:
>>So I’m finding some nuances of verbals confusing….the tunnel was already curving left but the exit kind of pointed at a different jump than the one he was going to take….so I said “left”…have no idea if that is necessary for this scenario or not. The red jump if he really carried out of the tunnel was more in line of view.>>
One way to think of it is that the verbal should name his behavior, as exactly as possible. So in that tunnel exit scenario, you can use a left for the exit up to the blind cross, because it is basically a 90-degree-ish left turn. But I think you were also using it when he went to red jump on the next pass through the tunnel? I would not use it there for the tunnel exit – partially because he would have to pick up a right turn to get to that jump, and it is definitely not a 90-degree-ish left turn.
>>>>Jessica thought that a RC would help me get to the offset 180 BC better. She thought I was kind of getting in his way in round 1 with the BC as he came out of the tunnel. Good to try different things and see how it goes.>>
Yes, I agree that you were a little late on the BC after that tunnel – if you are going to do the RC, though, you need to hang further back while he is in the tunnel and then accelerate through it (with a little decel at the end to keep it tight). You were ahead so you were decelerated…so he was slowing down too. The late BC was faster 🙂 But, you can get the BC earlier: when you cued the tunnel, you rounded the line and followed the path of the tunnel and then moved up the line to the BC – that delayed you lot. You can send to the tunnel, even exiting on a spin, and trust him to do the tunnel on his own – just get yourself directly between the 2 jumps and then you will have an easy and timely BC. Once he is committing to the tunnel, there is no need to support it more and there is no real need to run parallel to the jump after it – just get into the gap 🙂
Same thing on the last video that had the RC before the poles: you were ahead and decelerated, so he was slow (I don’t think he was slower because it was late in the lesson – he was slower because there was a lot of decel). So, when doing a RC, strategize to go into the previous line more so you can decel a little to set the line, but then accelerate at the beginning of the RC to drive him ahead in extension. Let me know if that makes sense!!
The 12″ jump after the poles seemed fine, it was hard to see clearly from the angle but it looked like you disconnected on the first rep and then he was fine on the others 🙂
Tracy
Good morning!
>>On the last one when I did the 360 wrap at 2 – I had actually done it the other way with both a german and a throwback and he always knocked the bar. I think it was either the spacing or he was too hot>>
That is interesting! Those slices are hard indeed, in terms of the jumping effort required. There are 2 reasons that he might drop the bar:
– either taking the backside jump is not enough of a default after the backside cue and he is relying on handling – which causes bars because we are in the way a lot, trying to cue the jump. It is a cycle! So, working on getting him to take the jump automatically on a backside cue can really help – like on a german, when you see him heading to the backside, you can just leave for the last jump and see what he does! I have found that when the jump is the default, the jumping effort gets a lot better.– he might have trouble organizing himself on the slices, so the zig zag grids totally help. Here are videos of what I mean:
Let me know what you think!
TracyHi there!!
She is doing so well – she is such a serious worker 🙂 Makes me smile to watch her every time!!
The hardest part with baby puppies is figuring out the transitions and how to elicit/cue the behaviors (I am in that zone now with Elektra) – so it takes some experimenting because every pup is different. With that in mind, your sessions are going well so we can focus on the transitions to take them all to the next level.A couple of ideas for you:
yes, she is not realizing that the mat is most super awesome excellent 🙂 So, to answer your question about offering versus the send cue:
if you are near the mat, you can assume the ‘international position for offer-me-something’ which is basically cookies in hand, hands in a neutral position (usually in front of us), kinda looking at the mat (not staring at her) – I am sure you have some sort of this going already in all of your shaping games LOL!! That is actually a cue to offer (along with proximity to the mat) and since the mat is *right there*, I am pretty sure she will offer the mat. And that is a great way to start a session, because it re-juices the value of the mat and primes the pump. At her age, I am a big fan of priming the pump before going to the harder stuff 🙂Now – as you gradually add distance away, the international-position-for-offer-me-something is NOT what we want to use, so 2 ideas for you on that:
– on the video, you asked if she was ready, and she responded with ‘heck yeah I will go to the mat now’ LOL!! Clever girl!!!! So, since you use ‘ready’ a lot (so do I), you can make it more of an attention cue and an “I’m about to cue something” cue, rather than a “go do the thing” cue 🙂 I do that by saying ready, using a little bit of game-on body language, and rewarding the pup for looking at me. Food or toy reward is good there 🙂 And then, since the ready is as much for me as is it for the pup – when she is looking at you, you know she is ready to see the cue (and you are ready to give it) which should make a smooth transition into the send – which then builds the value and understanding of the send cue. I use the ready word as a way to connect with the dogs throughout their careers, and I didn’t even realize it til very recently 🙂
– On the send cue – she did best when you used your arm AND leg, like at :09 and 1:10 (just don’t be tooooo far from it, maybe 3 or 4 feet is perfect for now). When you didn’t sue the leg and only used your arm: she wasn’t as sure (like at the very end, 1:28ish). So, remember your leg 🙂
And if she is hanging out on the mat because the mat is MAGIC 🙂 you can always call her back, reward, ready, send again.
You can also incorporate toy play, if she is able to go back and forth from toys to food readily. You can use a cookie for the mat hit, then call her back for the toy. And she can get a cookie or toy for the attention on the ready cue 🙂
Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>>For the Serp work, you say No motion. So, do I take the stance (closer to the wings rather than in the middle) and give her her release and Get It, and no arm motion, no motion of any sort until after she is at the treat? Just want to be sure I’ve got this.>>
Yes – it is going to feel really weird, but yes – stay frozen until she gets to the reward. The goal is to create the “automatic” turn away on the serpentine cue, rather than any reliance on needing help with a physical cue. It will make more sense when we add motion.
>>Yes, Around is the wrap word – it also works for going around barrels in NADAC.
Perfect!!!!
>>The girl on my shirt is actually my very first Aussie – she was also my first clicker trained dog and my first agility dog. She was a special, once-in-a-lifetime girl. And she hooked me on Aussies. Keiko is our sixth>>
That is so cool! I love the shirt 🙂 Aussies are really terrific dogs, they can really do it all. Keiko is super fun!!!
T
Hi!
>> have worked on slicing grids and strengthening exercsies. Do I need to be doing something else in training to cue Mookie better or sooner to slice a jump with more control ???
Any help with the fast dog would be wonderful.>>Which slice grids are you doing – the zig zag grids? Those are really good for helping out. And strengthening exercises will really help!!!
Also check out the default exercises for the serpentines and the backside slices: those will allow you to get out of the way sooner, which gives Mookie more time to look at the bar and set up the jumping for it. Let me know how all of those are going, and if they all look good, we can move to other ideas 🙂
TracyHi!
This went beautifully, she showed an immediate concept transfer. This will set us up nicely for when we start to get a little nuttier with it this weekend LOL! Since she is offering to go around it on the barest twitch of your leg, you can feed her cookies to stick with you before you send her so you can be ready 🙂 You can also add challenge by starting a little further away too!
Is that her on your shirt? Or your other pup?
Great job!!
TracyHi!
>>As you suggested, we did some serpentine “prep” work without a hand target. Is this what you had in mind? Keiko seems to get the idea, no matter what angle I set her on. >>
Yes, this is good serp prep! And she was an absolute rockstar by always taking the jump and never skipping directly to the yummies, especially on the harder angles. Happy dance!!!
>>Also, I’m pleased that when the treat is next to her, she still comes to the jump and takes it before going to the reward.
YES! that is an important element of the game, because I have seen so many adult dogs *not* take the jump in favor of driving ahead to a tasty tunnel or something 🙂
This is going really well, so we can build on it in 2 ways:
first, you can move your position over to the wing more. You were more on the center of the bar here, so you can add challenge by first lining up so your belly is facing the exit wing, and half of your body is visible between the uprights.
If that goes well, we add MORE challenge by having you line up so that your body is mostly past the exit wing and the only thing she can see between the uprights will be your serp hand. Whoa! Harder 🙂
second, see if she will go to the reward on your get it verbal without you turning your shoulders – this helps prepare for when we add motion to this, to get her to go back out on the line while you are moving forward. So for this game, you will be entirely frozen in position, don’t move a muscle until after she eats her cookie: it will help her understand with more independence because she won’t need any physical cues to complete the serpentine in-and-out.
Great job!Tracy
These are all really good!
For your turn cue, that is the rear cross/turn away cue. Do you have a turn-towards cue for the soft turns? It doesn’t have to be left or right, it can be a turn towards me word like “come”. Also, have you thought about a wrap cue, as something separate from the general turn cue? I just re-read your list, is “around” your wrap cue? Just getting it all straight in my mind 🙂T
Hi there!
He is totally getting the wraps from your side now! Note how he is leading with his head, turning his head nice and tight around the stanchion. And he didn’t seem to hae any difficulty when you went to the big container thing LOL!!! Excellent! On your next session, using the big container, warm up like this for a couple of reps but you stay facing forward (don’t turn with him, because we are going to have you move away soon). And it that goes well, you can go directly into Turn and Burn! He looks ready for it!
Your lap turns are looking really good too! I only have one minor detail that I think will help him drive in faster: your magic cookie hand had you palm turned up but it was more of a closed fist. See if you can put the cookie in your fingertips as you show it to him (index finger and middle finger touching your thumb) so your hand is kind of open. That seems to drive the pups to us faster than when the hand is fully closed. You can do it that way with both an actual cookie and an invisible cookie LOL! It is the same hand position that I use on course for the cue (but without a cookie :))
>>I tried doing the turns with the prop and it felt so weird and he wasn’t getting it. I think my prop placement was off, so I’ll try those again.>>
Drop in some video! It might have been where the prop was, or how you stepped back. We will get it sorted out. Nice work here!
TracyHi!
The wraps are looking good! You were starting to leave earlier and earlier, and that is great! You can start him a little further back from the stanchion so you can start to do the FC and leave as he is arriving at it, and then before he gets to it – pushing the limits of commitment 🙂 Using food on this is fine – he can drive to your hand for the food, mixed in with the food rewrd thrown back to him near the exit. He was having trouble seeing the naked cookie when it was dropped there, so you can consider a food holder like a lotus ball or treat hugger. The other option for food back there is to tuck your pet tutor in behind the wing, which adds another layer of distraction because he has to go past it to wrap the wing 🙂 And sometimes you can click the PT and other times you can cue him to come to your hand. He is doing so well, though, that for now I think the bulk of the reinforcement can come from your hand.He did an awesome job on both sides of you for the tunnel!! He was happy with the toy reward and having it on the PT was a clever way to build the PT into the game 🙂 To re-install the food, you can create a bit of a loop: tunnel – PT for treat – toy from you – tunnel – PT for treat – toy from you. The pairing of the treat to the toy after the tunnel will build that value so the treat will be fun for him too after a few sessions 🙂
>>I put the target on a tub. I am starting to hate the target and might need a break from it. I’m pretty sure I left this mostly unedited. Fizz is meh. >>
We totally don’t want you to hate the target!! So yes, if it is driving you nuts, take a break from it 🙂 I think you are on the right track in the first part of this – the target is more obvious and there is more to the behavior. Try to do more reps of the same thing before changing the picture – you did a couple of reps and then changed your position. You can do a quickie session of 10 reps of: he puts his feet on, gets 2 or 3 cookies in position, then a ‘bravo’ release but don’t throw the cookie too far away – drop it a foot away so it is easy for him to step off then step back on. You’ll know when he is ready to see a different picture: he will drive back after getting a cookie and get right back on it. The ‘meh’ moments were after position changes, so he wasn’t quite ready for those yet 🙂
>>And he wasn’t super into the food. I might need to try chicken or hotdogs or something.
Try big cold chicken chunks that are easy to use without getting crumbly – anything he loves to eat 🙂 Higher value food might be a big part of the answer.
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi there!
Whoa, when you added the ‘burn’, look at his speed! Wow! Good job with this game – yes. he loved that toy 🙂 I think he hits the barrel more when you wait til he is all the way around, and he seemed to have no trouble letting you leave when he was halfway around… so at this point always try to leave when he halfway around or sooner 🙂 You can save the verbal party until he has fully finished coming around as you run away, but you can start sliding away as soon as he is halfway around or sooner. His commitment looks lovely!Strike A Pose on the jump:
>>He never cheated, even when the food was already in the bowl>>Gold star! Good boy!!!!
This is looking really strong!! He did really well on all the angles even with the cookie in the bowl. Yay! And don’t worry about the target being a little high – we are going to fade out the actual touch anyway 🙂
Speaking of fading the touch:
On the 2nd rep, did he touch the target a bit sideways then head to the bowl? That is also acceptable because it is what the finished serp looks like. Same at 1:00. And since you are able to do this with a cookie in the bowl on the ground – you can go to the Advanced Level whree we fade the target and just let him whip through the behavior. Everything is the same except… he needs to come *towards* the target hand but does not need to touch it. You can fade the touch by giving him his ‘get it’ cue just before he gets to the target hand. Then you can fade out the target in your hand. The behavior should look like what he did a 1:00 🙂Tandem Turns – you are doing a great job! They look pretty smooth, they don’t look awkward at all! If they feel a little awkward, you can play with pulling him a little past you with the magic cookie had, start turning him away and *then* start turning your feet – I think you were turning your feet at the same time as you were turning him, so you sometimes ended up a little tangled up 🙂 When he is more experienced with it, this will be even easier 🙂
And yes, using 2 hands is easier for us humans and I think it is the only cue we use 2 hands for, which makes it more obvious for the pups. Your cue at :40 was really good (you also took your time turning your feet on that one, which also helped).Great job here!!!
Tracy
