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Good morning! It is a beautiful day in New York for course walking!!!! Also, love your shirt.
Great job on this video!!!
>>However, I don’t trust Demi’s commitment skills to let me move away like that.
Since we are in full on training mode, try to walk all of the courses with 100% trust – and we will let the young dogs tell us what they know. 2 reasons for that:
first, either we will be happily surprised with the understanding or we will easily be able to train more understanding 🙂 A win-win!
second, it allows you to know where she might need more help and support on courses at trials – in other words, which skills are really strong and which are still a ‘work in progress’. Now, for Demi, you might not have trials coming up soon, but it is still fine to think and plan! And for Wilson – it gives you the chance to inventory his strengths and also find any weaknesses – to either work on or to acknowledge that he needs extra support in those spots at trials when you see them on course.On the walk through – great job walking the dogs’ perfect path – seemed accurate! And if you find that part is easy, you can shift it to your ‘preparation’ part before the walk through so you don’t have to walk the full course, you can just walk some of the lines (saves time on bigger courses).
Handling walk through: I see connection and hear verbals! Love it!!!
That 3 and 7 jump might need a little more support, based on your slower walks. You had a little more support as you added speed to the walk through – the flat angle of that jump often requires us to drive on a more parallel line so we don’t pull the dog off.
One cool thing is that I could “see” your invisible dog on the last walk through – very nice use of connection in your planning!!
You mentioned being worried about the FC – you can isolate that section and walk it a few times nice and fast to help get more comfy with it – what exactly was making you itchy (commitment?) and how can you help help make sure you get it?
The first run was really good! 1-2-3-4 looked great. I think the little blooper on the 5 jump was nothing more than finding your rhythm with her: you were ‘ahead’ in the timing and she had a lot of yardage to cover, so you ended up slowing down more than you planned which pulled her off – part of that is baby dog inexperience and part of that is your lack of experience with her because she is a baby dog 🙂 When you compare the timing of your ‘left’ handling at 4:15 and the actual run at 5:43, you were handlin what you rehearsed, but it was too early for when she would be actually exiting the tunnel.
She had nice commitment on the FC!!! You can add in more exit line connection on the exit of the FC. On the rehearsal at 4:41, you connected on the start of the cross but then looked forward too soon on the exit of the cross (she would not be there yet, plus you would want to stay connected all the way through the tunnel cue rather than look ahead). When you did the FC at 5:57, you were working the connection but you had your dog-side arm up and blocking it a little – so she was a little wide.
So for the next Demi sequence – two things to add to your plan are:
considering the yardage she has to run in and out of tunnels, so you will actually have more time to handle 🙂
adding more exit line connection rehearsal to the exit of FC and BCs.I gotta say, this is PRETTY FREAKIN’ AWESOME for what is probably the first time you have done this with her! I need to pull up videos of my early tries with Voodoo and Nacho so you can see kust how much I sucked at it hahahahaha
Wilson’s turn:
I like that you did NOT re-walk it for him – it is a good mental challenge for you and it is actually realistic to what will likely happen down the road at trials, when they are both in Masters.And running him at a low height adds a lot of challenge too 🙂
It turns out that your timing on the left turn at #5 was rehearsed at Wilson’s rhythm it looked great! And the FC timing at 7 was rehearsed at Demi’s rhythm – you were late with Wilson. The rest looked really good (I couldn’t see a lot about why he dropped #1 (he was probably just rushing because he had to watch his sister work!) and the bar at 7 was due to the timing of the FC.So now the challenge for you becomes walking the course and acknowledging what you might get in terms of speed differences: On a wicked hot day outside, Demi might be slower than Wilson. But on a cool morning, indoors? She might be as fast or faster. You can definitely build that in to your walk through, making sure you lock into the connection especially on tunnel exits and be ready to stay connected/be patient OR go into super hustle mode based on what happens out there 🙂
Great job on these!!! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>>! I silently chuckle during this game because he truly looks surprised to see me on the other side haha!
Yes! He is SO FOCUSED ON HITTING THE TARGET: “momma I AM DOING THE THING oh wait how did you get over there??” – just an adorable puppy response. LOL!
Wing wraps – looking great! He ‘has’ this game now. So in the familiar location of your training room, pull the ing back in closer and we will change the picture/add challenge in two other ways:
with you in this position, get some toy play added in before, just to start adding in toy play 🙂
Without toy play, cookie only – start to stand up
When you are standing, start to reward from your hands
The wing should be pretty close to you because the other changes will be challenging at first so we want to keep the go-around part of it easy 🙂And, you can take this wing game on the road – different places, even if it is just in your home or yard 🙂 When you go to new places, start off with the wing close and you on the ground like you did here, so the only added challenge is the new location.
The ‘other’ object wrapping went really well – he only gave you one or two whippet judgey looks LOL! And he was adorable when he offered a nose touch to it. LOL!! Do you have something free-standing like a pop-up laundry basket or something? Nothing too huge, but something to shape that is a little wider than your jump stanchion and that you can stand up with (I am planning ahead for the games coming on Saturday :))
And hooray for another strong tunnel session! You and Lazlo are on a roll with great sessions!Great job here!!!
TracyGoooood morning!
>>I did a little bit of the collection game this morning and Stark is having a hard time transitioning from food to toy. He doesn’t want to go get the toy when I throw it b/c he just got food from my hand for collection part.>>
This is actually an exciting development, because if I am recalling correctly – that food drive was *built*, the food app did NOT come installed automatically hahaha! So that is pretty cool.Also very normal.
>>Maybe I will just play the games separately?? Also work on needing by my side then send to toy??
Yes, play them separately so there is a ton of value of each game (there probably already is, but it can’t hurt to do them separately).
Yes, feed at your side then send to the toy. A couple of ideas to help re-balance food with toy:
use the lowest value food that you have, have only one boring-ass cookie in your hand – and the most amazeballs toy that you have.
Send him to the toy while it is still moving, before it hits the ground.
Work this food-toy balance when he is not hungry (I do most of my food training *after* the puppies have eaten, so they are interested but not obsessed :)) A slightly smaller meal leaves room for treats. I know, it sounds backwards – feed then train. But if the pup is hungry, he is less likely to be able to ignore food in order to play with toys. I feel that pain – when I am hangry, I mean hungry, I can focus on almost nothing other than food LOL!I think we will continue to see the pendulum swinging back and forth until these pups are over a year old: some days the food-toy drive will be balanced, some days it will be all about the food, some days all about the toys. No problem, it all works out.
Oh, one other thing that I thought of – they are full on teething right now. Elektra wasn’t really grabbing a toy the other nice – then stopped tugging to spit out a molar. LOL! So use super soft toys (you probably already are) and you can also skip some of the toy stuff for now, because his mouth might be ouchy. He has naturally terrific toy drive, so I am not worried about losing it.
Let me know what you think, and feel free to post up a video where he was having a question, in case there is anything we can add to help him out.
T
Hi!
Ditching the clicker is fine once the ball is rolling and clearly it is rolling LOL! Throwing the ball so he sees it moving is perfectly fine and yes he was TOO cute tunneling with the ball LOL! Good boy 🙂 I liked that he was turning to look at the tunnel on the verbal just before you released him to it, that really helps to develop focus forward without obsessing on it or pressuring the pup. Also, if you are considering a running contact or channel weaves – this is a great place to introduce a remote feeder like a manners minder, because of the concept of “do the thing then the cookies will appear” 🙂
Because he is offering the tunnel a lot, feel free to reward lots for coming to you and staying with you before the send (will he go back to Nemo ball after a low value cookie?) The tug toy also looked good – not as exciting as the ball but you were able to time the throws so he saw it moving and drove to it. Yay!
I think he is ready for the threadle-foundation version of this where he is between you and the tunnel, near the entry (these were all ‘normal’ tunnel sends LOL!)
One little mechanics detail to consider – now that he is starting to really want to explode away to the tunnel, you will get the most powering out of the restraint if you gently pull back (or push on his chest) so he has his weight shifted into his rear) – try not to lift his front feet off the ground, as that causes a weight shift to his front end and less power in the rear, if that makes sense 🙂Great job!
TracyHi again!
It cracks me up that two folks in this class have had trumpeting in their videos – you and Melissa w/ Pirate. Musicians are the best!This video is doing something weird – for 2 minutes and 30 seconds, it is frozen on your getting ready to throw a cookie. Then it comes alive for the last 10 seconds of you doing one really nice rep of the game 🙂 I don’t think it is my bad country internet, as all the other videos are working this morning. Can you check it and see if it works for you? I will check it again in a few minutes.
TGood morning!
He is looking really good here, it looks like he had no trouble finding the line at all and is not really looking at you – looking forward to the line. NICE! The ball might be a little too exciting for indoors – not in a bad way, we want the excitement, but we don’t want the slipping. So maybe save the toy for outdoors only (I am in the exact same boat, anything exciting with a toy has to be on grass right now to avoid slipping). On these 2 sessions, you worked positions that were parallel to him and also behind him (he drove ahead nicely!!). So one more position to add – after the cookie throw indoors, before he gets to the cookie, turn and move up the line so when he turns to look for you, you are waaaaayyyyyy ahead – can he still find the line to the bump? This is a good foundation for, say, when you send to a tunnel and get way ahead of him, will he still find the jump after a tunnel with you that far ahead? Many young dogs struggle with that, so we are laying the foundation for it now while things are still calm 🙂Great job!
THi!
He is off to a get start here on the set point at 12 – not totally comfortable with it yet, but definitely percolating on how to get over it effectively and efficiently. On the oxer, he was a bit ‘springy’ meaning a little upwards rather than extending over, especially on the 2nd rep. The triple was a bigger picture for him, so he was more forward in the front end and carried his rear more – just not used to such a long jump! He is sorting it out, though, so you can show him this again in a couple of days and also add in a 12″ jump on simple lines on course to see what he does (I think he will be fine with it). I would do 2 or 3 sessions on this before going to a striding grid – just to be sure he has a consistent form on the set point before adding challenge.His backside default commitment looked great! Using the cross arm to drop the toy might have looked a little like handling, so you can test his commitment in the next session by having a lotus ball in the dog-side arm and plop it in as you run through without a cross arm. I think he will be fine with it! But you can also challenge him by adding more speed and more countermotion by getting even further ahead on the exit wing 🙂 He was almost perfect getting to the backside – only one oopsie on each side, when you were looking forward and not very connected. That is good to know – he is relying on your connection a lot along with the verbal (not on a pure verbal yet). That is normal, though, and he will get more and more on a pure verbal as he gets more experienced. His commitment going to the backside with some connection in the cue was excellent!!!
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
The BEST sessions happen when we forget to turn the camera on LOL!!!! At least you have a nice photo, right?
He did a terrific job on the wraps – lost his train of thought for a moment but you were like ‘hey, dude…’ and he got right back into it with the treats. You can be as exuberant with the treats as you are with the toys – you were very chill with the treats LOL! I think he likes the silly voices! You were so funny!
In the next treat session: try to get standing up (I don’t think this will be a problem for him) and if that goes well, shift the cookie delivery to your hands (also, I don’t think it will be a problem). If he can do the wraps and get the cookies from your hand, then you can fade out the bowls. This sets us up for what we add on Saturday 🙂
With the toys – I think he would like to more if you were moving the toys more, so try it standing with toys, then explode and move when he does the wrap. His offering looks good with the toy, so you can be calm til he gets around the basket then go wild with the toy for him to chase it a bit.It is perfectly fine for him to do this with food for now, because we want him to be thoughtful and it will be VERY easy to get speed when we need it 🙂
Rear crosses/parallel path – when you win a big event, I want to see you on the podium with a box of wine as your victory prize LOL!!! He is doing really well with his prop hits, looking directly forward until after the click. Super! You can add in toys to this and you can also move to the next step of parallel path to between the uprights (I used a flyball jump slat on the ground for Elektra so she got the concept without jumping).
Countermotion looked GREAT!! He is making big progress in the concept of hitting the prop while you move away!
When you added the ready ready dance breaks before the sends here, he seemed to understand the transition better. When you were calmer, he was offering sits to get the treats, being polite? So being silly was good! And you can also do some tugging then send then use treats as the reward (or driving back to the toy).
Re-watch this section of the video so you can hear the conversation that Kevin and Sizzle are having: SO FUNNY!!!!He did well reading the rear crosses! At 3:28 and 3:32, you had really nice lines on the RCs. There were a couple of pull/flick moments but I think that had more to do with starting a little too close to the wine box 🙂 So you will probably need to start a solid 12 to 15 feet back so you can get right up on his tail sooner – when you did those, he was perfect! When you were a little later, he found the RC but it was a little later than on the reps where you were early.
He did a great job on his sits! Nice snappy response at the end when you said it and he sat instantly (he is no fool, he knows the treat will be tossed out that way :)) How is he doing with letting you walk away without you facing him? Keep adding more distance and duration while also ping ponging some rewards for “easy” short reps.
Great job here, he looks awesome!!!
TracyHi there!
>> but let me know how I did!
One thing to note is that you and he ALWAYS do a great job!!! Any difficulties fall into the category of trying to figure out the needs of a young dog and matching your mechanics (timing, criteria, rate of reinforcement, etc) to that. You and Lazlo are rocking it!!!! He isn’t even 6 months old, right? I am impressed 🙂
The rear cross session went well – it think he is just so locked into the targeting behavior that he doesn’t always process the rear cross cue – he almost looks surprised to look up and find you on the other side LOL!
One thing you can do to help him is put an empty food bowl out on the side you will be turning him towards. Then do the rear cross and plop the cookie in the food bowl on the new side – this might help him realize that he can multitask this behavior of targeting: go to hit it AND prepare to turn 🙂 Young male dogs, in my experience, do not always multitask well until they are more like 9 or 10 months old (my almost-10 month old boy pup is beginning to multitask) and Lazlo is maybe 6 months old? He is actually a bit ahead of his time, developmentally – doing really well! My Contraband would not have been able to do this at 6 months old The small puppy in the demos is almost 5 months old… and a girl. A whole different ballgame LOL!!!! The good news is that the boy puppies grow up to be just as amazing as the girl puppies, so I respect the differences, enjoy them, and I don’t worry about it at all LOL! The boy puppies might not be as good at multitasking behaviors early on as the girls, but they are easier in other ways 🙂The parallel path with the toy in hand looks great! The hardest part for all of us is figuring out how to balance arousal with each individual – so with Lazlo, I think gradually sliding the toy into play and incorporating food will help us figure out what works best for him! Next session – add a little toy play! He was great with the behavior here, so you can get him tugging a little, do a few reps for treats, then the party cue can be a thrown toy! Then trade for a treat party and end the session.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
Yes, I am a little obsessed with how the dogs turn their heads to set up a great turn. I learned about it from Lisa Frick (I figure she is a good source of info LOL!) and I am LOVING what the dogs are giving us so far!!! You’ll see more about it in upcoming games 🙂
And when you are watching agility: the dogs that turn well are leading with their heads. The ones that don’t turn well are not turning their heads until after landing. Fascinating stuff!On the video – yes, standing up was a good call, he was fine with it and we don’t want your legs to be angry LOL! Sometimes the pups lose their train of thought for a moment and that is what happened when you stood up – but then he got right back in the groove and was fine with you standing and with your feeding from your hand. AND he was ignoring the cookies on top of the bag too? Super!!!! He was just fine with the pool noodle too – and yes it is cool to see him snake his head around!
Great session on both objects! We will be progressing them later this week 🙂Tracy
Hooray for Costco! Brilliant! And it also narrows his focus to the bar.
And I love the trumpet in the background 🙂 Gorgeous 🙂
He did a super job with his commitment here, easy peasy concept transfer. You can basically click/throw the instant he turns his head to the bump – on most of the reps, it was as soon as he got onto the blue mats. And, note how he was really not looking at you by the end of the session – looking ahead! Yay! When you take it outside, start with food but I think you can quickly move to a toy (Nemo ball!) which will make it more stimulating AND add challenge because he is going to have to look at the jump in order to get you to throw it.
Nice work!!!
TracyHi there!
Good job getting to a new location, and I like the pod under the hat there to make it more obvious.
He totally got his rear crosses, superstar! And he had some good paw touches on the parallel path work too. I think the hardest part was transitioning back to focus after eating the treat in the new environment (lots of distractions). So, for the rear crosses – keep on keeping on, he is doing well and we don’t need to change anything 🙂
For the parallel path work: yes, it is hard to click/treat before he looks back at you, so don’t worry about it 🙂 Keep your eyes locked onto the prop to see the hit and do your best to throw quickly (he will probably still look at you when you mark the hit). I am no worried about it, because when you move to the concept transfer, you will be able to mark and throw much earlier, as he is moving to the jump and long before he looks back at you (because we don’t need to see him touch the jump bar LOL!). I see you already did a bit of that (below) so it is fine to watch for the foot touch to the prop here and look for commitment differently on the bump 🙂
For transitioning back to task in an exciting environment – he was fastest to ignore the distractions when you threw a bit of a party after he got the treat: so you can be quiet as he is offering – then click/treat and party party! And you can treat from your hand again as he returns to task, then reset then get quiet when he is offering. He did an amazing job for a such a young dude, so I know he will continue to grow the skill as he gets out to more trial environments 🙂
TracyWheeee! Great job! You are going to need a cape!
Yes, using your arms as little as possible helps on these because of the quickness of the connections that are needed (arms slow everything down). You can now obsess on watching her head turning as your cue to do the next blind: blind #1 is as she is finishing the weaves. Blind #2 is when you see her head almost approaching the backside wing. Blind #3 is when she is on the backside and turns her head to look at the bar. You were a tiny bit late on blind #3 here.
Also – you can add in your verbal! I use a threadle cue to get to the backside (because it names the dog’s behavior, which is the exact same as a threadle) . And then you can use your wrap cue on the exit! I have found using my verbals have helped the dog when I am a little late 🙂Great job!
Hi!
>>eah, the dude definitely does not let me get away with an “oops” if I click wrong – he feels he earned the treat! 😉
Ha! I always reward after my crappy clicks, I just try to save myself with good placement (helps me escape the judging looks from the dogs, because my whippety dogs are EXTRA judged LOL!!). It is kind of a “yeah, I totally meant to do that” approach LOL!
On your parallel path video – I am not worried about where he is looking on the prop at this point, so you can focus on the foot touch. It is fine to smack it or trot over it as long as he touches it – my trick is to stare at the prop and not watch the dog. I can’t really see feet when I am watching the pup, but I can see feet very easily when I stare at the prop. And this has helped my running dog walk training immensely (and hopefully you will do some RDW with him :))
We can go to the concept transfer and that is where we can focus more on where he is looking and where you can click earlier – mainly because on a jump-like thing, we don’t want him to touch it LOL!! So going towards the pillow prop is looking great and that is why you can move to the concept transfer. And for running contact work in the future, you can focus more on the foot touch on the pillow. Let me know if that makes sense 🙂Your sandwich is looking really good, he is making the transitions beautifully! You can do the blind cross element a little sooner – basically start it as soon as he turns towards you after the cookie. That will buy you time to do the blind and then decelerations into the turn. As you do the turn and also the GO after it – stay a little more connected to his eyes the whole time – that will help him stay on the correct side and also drive ahead (I know, it is weird to look at the dog to get them to drive ahead, but it points your upper body to the line you want). So on the GO moment – say you finish the turn – look at him, throw the reward and start to drive ahead. You were looking ahead at the cookie so he would sometimes look up at you on the turn exit.
On the turns where he had a little trouble staying on the correct side (location 3 lol!) I think it was a bit of a connection thing – try to have your cookie hand a little further back so he could totally see your eyes, and maintain that connection through the turn. On those reps (like at 1:15 for example) you were turning fast so he lost the eye contact. On the other reps, you were exaggerating the eye contact and he was perfect. Nice!!Wrapping the magic laundry basket – yes, exactly right on the rewarding from hand! But a bit of Toller abuse to do it on the entire tub of dog food LOL!!!!!!! Too funny 🙂 He seemed to have no problem with the rewards from hand, which is great!! We will be building on it shortly, so if you have time, maybe do another session on the pop up laundry basket in another place or two, just to lock in the value.
Serpy threadling looks good, and yes, he was telling you it was too high, good catch 🙂 He is small enough that for now, you will want to bend a little so he does not have to come in to hit the target – his head should be straight or even go down a little to hit it (I feel your pain, I do this on my knees with the smaller puppy!). Everything else is looking great!! So on your next session, lower your hand – but we will be fading the touch element in the next steps so it is a temporary thing, just to keep him from hopping up 🙂
Great update on the tunnel!!! I am glad he was having a good time getting treating for coming in – so many treats, so little time LOL! Good boy! And having him to that while the MM is out there is a double whammy of working on balance and value – also a good foundation skill for the running dog walk!!
Great job on these! Let me know what you think 🙂
TracyHi there!
About the toy retrieve – a couple of ideas for ya! First, be super careful that you never take the toy away when she brings it (or sorta brings it) in order to start the next rep. We humans think that it is part of the game, but many dogs find it a bit punishing and start to NOT bring the toy back. So, I do a lot of trading as the reward for a retrieve, a lot of giving the toy right back, and tons of ‘go for a run’ moments 🙂 So when the pup brings the toy kinda towards you – your options for reinforcement are to either send her back for a run with it, or offer a cookie or another (better?) toy. Then I let the pup run around with the other toy and trade again 🙂 And if I traded for a cookie, I deliver the cookie and then give the toy back immediately. It creates a truly winning situation for the pup for bringing the toy back! True, it is not exactly efficient for training a skill LOL! So I tend to train the retrieves separately or use the toy from my hand/on a short line during training (or start the skill with treats).
She really seemed to enjoy tunneling for the jolly ball on a rope here! LOL!! I think that it will also strengthen your collar grab because collar grab will predict the fun! One tweak to that though – don’t move her by her collar, she didn’t seem to love that. Instead, start at the angle you want her to be on, take her collar, throw the toy, and then send her – that will eliminate moving her around and also make a super quick association between collar grab and the big party starting 🙂
The tunneling looked great! She seemed to have no problem finding it on any of the angles/positions. No worries about the clicker or the marker timing here – your handling was clear enough and she was totally on board with driving to the toy! Yay! You can add in a bit of you holding the toy to throw it (rather than having it out as a target) and see how she does! The ready ready also looked good, she is definitely getting more comfortable with you gently holding her while you ramp her up. Fun!
Great job! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
