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OMG this was so funny! The other dog was all like, y’all have fun running, I will be here with my toy chilling out. LOL!! Too cute!
The toy race itself is going well! Try to start with her, with your hand on her collar – hold her til the ball lands then run run run (I am sure you can’t beat her LOL!) – that will help her keep her head down and drive straight to it, rather than go out a little wide. You can also have your videographer hold her so you can get a head start and try to win the race 🙂
Great job here!!
TracyHi!
Working through distractions in the environment is more important then the actual plank games – great job getting her back in the game! You can start by tugging to get her focused then go to the treats on the plank – then release to tug. The tugging adds a high level of engagement, so the distractions of neighbors will fade away. Neighbors are AMAZING at showing up when we don’t want them too. And for the shaping things, you can go to crazy high value treats, so she can’t take her eyes off the game. Regular training treats might not cut it in the distracting places, so you can go to something she might not normally get – chicken breast or steak or hot dogs! Yum!
I think she did well on the plank itself, so it was more a matter of figuring out how to help her ignore all the thing around her. Try the tugging and crazy delicious treats and let me know how it goes 🙂Tracy
Hi there!
Actually, I am really happy with what she is doing here so far! She is being thoughtful about using her hind end (most young dogs just fling themselves around :)) This is off to a good start, you did get a bunch of good reps of backing up and backing up relatively straight! The slight angle is pretty normal for now – you can do two things to help with it:
You can leave the cookie hand lower, at or below her nose level, so she can keep her head low as she moves back. She might have been trying to look up at the cookie hand, which will cause her to turn.
Also, you can throw the treats further back on the straight line so she has to go backwards more to get them – which will encourage her to back up more and straighter.
If you have a long carpet runner, you can use that as a backing up ‘runway’ -she will stay straight by staying on the carpet.But also, one of the games we add tomorrow will help with the straight backing up too – stay tuned LOL!
Nice work!
TracyHi! This looks great! Th upright is pretty far from you and he is zipping back and forth. The donut was not trouble for him – still zipping back and forth. Same with the double donut LOL! Next step on the double donut…. feed from your hand. The bowls can state there as a frame of reference for him or to drop treats in in case he gets stuck – but now when he offers going around the double donuts, you give a cookie from your hand then wait for him to offer going back around the other side. If that goes well for a session or two, you can start to fade the bowls out by just moving them further and further away.
Great job here, we will be able to move this forward very quickly!!!
TracyHi! Fun stuff on all of these!
On the backing up… yes he is a little impatient LOL!! Be careful of what he might be building in to the backing up, in terms of chains: smacking you in the gut, barking, backing up LOL! I found out the hard away that these get build in very easily LOL! So, you can get the ball rolling by not letting him offer that – toss a treat away or have him tugging while you are getting ready or on a station… then drop a cookie between your knees so he comes forward to get it – then he almost HAS to back out, so you have something good to reward with the gut punch or barking LOL!! Then as he is getting the reward for backing up, you drop the next one in between your knees so he doesn’t have time to be impatient 🙂Great mountain goat on the park bench! Fun!!!! What a great opportunity for a young dog to get experience on new things!
The toy game looks really good, his toy drive overall is looking really strong! Favorite toys are constantly shifting around so it is indeed a bit of a guessing game – when one loses that top value status, you can make it crazier – I have found that usually tossing it helps, almost like mini toy races. Then when he goes to chase it, you can reward that but bringing out the toy that was top status at the moment 🙂 That can make for even quicker transitions back and forth 🙂
Great job!!
TracyHi! Good sessions here, and it is great to have a ‘greatest hits’ of the different things you are shaping her to get on. Nice variety of textures, sizes, objects, etc. She felt the need to inspect the first couple by sniffing them and that is fine – you can click that and then toss a treat away for her to get, then click when she comes back, and so on – that way she will get even more confidence for new weird things 🙂 The more experience she had with different items, the less she seemed to feel the need to inspect them before interacting – and that is exactly why we play the goat games 🙂
It looks like you had a lot of toy parties spread out there, and that is great. On the big balance disc, you can see see if she will tug on or near it – it builds up to tugging on wobble boards, which is great for teaching the balance needed on future teeters 🙂 How does she feel about noise? You can start to add a bit of noisy stuff to this now 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi! This is looking great! She has the rhythm, and you were able to step away to add more challenge (no change in her behavior when you did that! Yay!). So, you can go to a bigger object to have her wrap around now (like a soft crate or laundry barrel or something) just to begin to generalize it as we move towards wings. Also, you can start and end each session with a bit of tugging to keep her engagement high. If she isn’t so sure about tugging when food is around, you can tug in a different room then run to the wrap area then back to a different area. I think she will like that LOL!!!
As you move to bigger objects, you can also add in dropping the treat rather than bending to place it in the bowl – that will help keep her head nice and low (she was looking at you a tiny bit here). The treats might go bouncing around, but that is fine – she can grab the treat then run back and wrap the thing again 🙂Nice work!!
TracyHi! This is the same link as the plank link, can you repost the backing up link? Looking forward to seeing it, plus we add on to the backing up tomorrow.
>> We had some really good reps (last one, especially), but some were kind of disorganized.>>
Disorganized is fine at his age 🙂 We see the smaller dogs get organized sooner than the bigger dogs, and generally the girls get organized sooner than the boys. So my Elektra (small female) is 9 months old today and she is FAR more organized than 14 month old Contraband (large male)
Tracy
Hi!
>>. I would say we have definitely built value with treats for walking on the plank, which might be why he was so interested when he saw this setup.
I agree, which reminds me of the other thing I was thinking about when watching your video above – intersperse toy play breaks into ALL of your shaping with treats at this stage. What I mean by that is 3 or 4 treats for getting on something, for example, then move off it for some tugging. You might need to move pretty far away to get tugging after food, and use long crazy toys, but it is worth it! You’ll actually get him to be more engaged and he will be less likely to leave to get on things, to get food games started LOL! Plus it teaches the dogs how to self-modulate arousal and balance food & toy play. It is not easy to start but totally worth it in the long run 🙂
He is doing well on the planks! He is really looking like he is thinking about where all of the feet are doing, and I am glad to hear the turning around is going really well today (it was going well on the video too!) This is the type of thing to file into the “Progress Not Perfection” category, because he is really young and still learning gross & fine motor skills, plus every time he masters it , his body grows and changes so he has to master it all over again LOL!!!! So his progress looks great and I am sure when he is full grown, he will be amazingly coordinated. Yay!
Let me know what you think!
TracyThis was his first time seeing them side bv side. I was trying to give him a wider plane for his turning practice.
As you’ll see, he definitely used the full width to make his turns, and to my eye, there was no side preference in this setup. I started with the planks side by side, then separated and had him back on a single plank. These planks are thicker than my travel plank, but they are still lower than the travel plank in its elevated option.
Monday update: We were just out on the phield for free play. For just a minute, I encouraged him to walk on one of the dw planks, and he did a full 360-degree turn to the right without stepping off plank at all, and he came very close to doing it to his left.
Hi! This is a good session for planning! It is pretty normal for the dogs to see things as being different that we didn’t even notice 🙂 I can see his argument: things looked different, he lost the first toy race, and he has been paid a zillion cookies for getting on things lately. So it makes sense that he would go to the planks.
>>I let him off leash on the phield
There comes a time in every puppy’s life, where they need to enter locations, even ones we think are familiar locations, on leash. WM might have entered that stage. For example – Nacho had to be on leash in my own field for several months LOL! Voodoo had to be on leash til he learned to stop car chasing. Hot Sauce had to be on leash for about 2 seconds because she is NOT normal hahahahaha!! So I think the best step now is to have WM enter every environment where he might consider other options, with his leash on . Then you get some play or some tricks for treats (because you might not be able to get toy play in all environments yet) – then when you see him engaging with you, the leash can come off (or not, some dogs are like Nacho LOL!!!) The leash being on allows us to create a richly reinforcing environment that is skewed towards what we want 🙂 The latency of engagement will tell you how long he needs to enter new environment on leash – if he is able to offer engagement instantly, then the leash doesn’t need to be in the picture. If it takes months? Then that is fine too 🙂
And in the new places, start with short sessions with several high value toys tied together, so you can swing them around and get him wild or it. So the next time he goes out to the phield (knowing that it will look totally different), you can have the bestest toys and WM on leash – and just try to get him to party with you, no need for any real training. Do that a couple of times an then you will start to see engagement shifting, then you can start fading the leash and getting more training in. Let me know if that makes sense!
Tracy
Hi Lori!
>> The dogs are so different and at different stages.
So true! It was a really fun group!!
>>I had quite a bit of trouble with my iphone though (mine is the one labeled iphone with no name associated with it) and it kept losing connections, even though I would log out. Both SAT AND SUN had really overcast weather here which might contribute?
I have found that weather does contribute to wonky connections on Zoom. With my devices, I find that turning them off the non again and it helps.
>>Sometimes, I have found breaks for my dogs help to not “overload” them. Thanks Tracy for all your expertise and patience.
I totally agree!! I like to give dogs breaks so that we can all come back feeling refreshed and ready.
>>I picked up on some wrong verbals when viewing this submitted film.
Ha! I do that too – oops, I used the wrong verbals! It happens 🙂
Your videos are looking really good! Baby dog is doing grown up stuff!!!
Video 1a – I think maybe Kai thought this lazy game was a fabulous cookie bonanza? LOL!! I love how he picked up speed on the lazy part! And no trouble finding the jumps. Then when you added your speed, he really drove the line! The one-steps sends were great! He wants to look at you a little, so keep throwing the rewards rather than handing them to him and that will help him continue to look straight. Your connection looked fabulous. When you added the verbal timing, you were actually a little early, which is a very very good thing!! You were saying it just before he took off, which is fine because he will eventually be jumping a pretty tall bar – so the timing will need to be pretty early. You might not be able to wait til he lands to deliver the next cue, so early is good for him. His sends to the jump after the tunnel also looked great!1b This is also looking good. His commitment is looking strong so on the transitions into the wraps, I think you can add in decelerating sooner – when he lands, slow down and keep moving forward – so just before he passes you, you rotate and do the FC before he takes off. You were slowing down when he was closer to the jump and rotating when he was jumping so it was a little wide on the turn. He is reading the deceleration really well so you can challenge and test his commitment by turning sooner – if he has questions, you can toss the reward to the landing spot of the wrap jump to help build the commitment even more. Your connection looks good so I think you will be able to be a little sooner on the decel and rotation. And also add on your wrap verbals (so many words LOL!)
Great job here! Looking forward to more!
TracyHa! Yes, I know I said there would be things other than Blinds LOL! There were some FCs too 🙂 It is all posted over on the Course Syllabus page now 🙂
I think this went really well and you have really strong send cues… which makes it MUCH easier to get back down the line to the BC to the tunnel. And also yes – keep your arms in tight so you can do the blind and get the opposite arm involved, because she totally thought that was clear! Compare it to the reps where you arms were further out away (like the last rep) and she was slower/asking more questions than the times your arms were in closer and your connection was very clear.
Great job with the rewards for the one step sends as you turned and left! Yay! You can hang back by the tunnel like you did at :40 to have a super easy time getting the BC. When you do move into the blind, remember to give your jump cue as you start it, so she can be 100% sure you want the jump. That way you can disconnect to start the blind sooner, rather than wait for her to commit to the jump then start it. You had verbals going on the sends but then you got quiet on the blinds.
Great job! I think you will find these useful!!
TracyHi! She doesn’t have to revisit the mountain climber game, but I do think we can get her to do more of a weight shift at the end of the board. Overall, she seems confident particularly when you are also moving – she doesn’t yet love it when you are sending her ahead without you, but that is normal 🙂 She is a bit forward, on her shoulders, so when the board drops, she gets a little off balance. She is taking the landing of the board more on her shoulders than by balancing on her rear and core, if that makes sense? But, we work that in different games (not mountain climber) so we can isolate it differently. Has she played the bang game?
T
Hi!
I agree, plank work is going really well! Your motion didn’t bother her and she was working to line up her hind end. She was tending to line up her hind end just after getting onto the board – so on the next session, you can throw the reward further to see if she can line it up just before getting on and get on a little straighter ( this will work you up to angled entries on a full height dog walk eventually so she knows how to do it in case she ever needs to)
She did a good job turning around on the board – it is not easy! You can add a little challenge to this on the next session by raising the plank a little, if you have cinderblocks or something, so it is just a couple of inches off the ground. That way she really has to think about keeping all 4 feet on the plank!Nice work!
TracyHi! This is going well!
One thing to think about is throwing the reward more, the further away from you she is. She was sending really really well, but all of the rewards were tending to come after she finished the tunnel – so as the session on the wings and tunnel went along, she lost some of her zip out to the wings. So mixing up the placement of reward will help keep the speed balanced, especially in moments when you aren’t running like mad 🙂 I tend to reward tunnels a little and sends to wings and jumps A LOT, by throwing the rewards out to the landing side. Your connection and send mechanics looked really good!!
The sends on the jump pinwheel looked really good! She saved you a little at 1:52, you didn’t step to the middle jump on the send but rather turned away too early, just using an arm and a verbal. However, that is why we train arms and verbals, so the rest of the cue doesn’t have to be perfect. Yay!! The rest of your sends looked good. I think the bar drops were just a combination of tired and connection breaks – at 2:13, you looked forward and gave the cue as she was taking off, and she pulled the bar there. I think I will be posting some proofing games for that because we all make that little mistake, and we can teach the dogs to keep their feet up 🙂
Nice work!!
Tracy
