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Hi! These looked to be SUPER easy for her – she exploded to the jump the instant you released her, no problem on either side of the wing. Yay! Definitely add more challenge now – it can be starting her further away from the jump so it is easier to cut in and a little harder to ‘find it’ – working up to 15 feet away and see if she can still get it. You can also add in motion on the exit, meaning when you see her heading towards the jump, do a FC and leave to see if she will still commit (I am confident that she will :)) You can also do this on 2 jumps – the visual of the 2nd jump in the Advanced level might be more of a tempting distraction? Or not, she might still be perfect 🙂 It gives you the chance to work even more handling moves, like serping the landing side of 2, or front crosses on the takeoff side.
Great job here!
TracyGood morning!
>>This backside exercise was very informative. Keiko has been doing backsides, even from a distance, but usually with an leg or arm ( or both) to help the verbal cue. Not using my arm or leg in this exercise made it much tougher on Keiko and the first couple of tries she hesitated and had to think about what the word meant. >>
Yes, having this skill as more of a shoulder/connection/verbal cue is definitely morechallenging for the dogs as opposed to when we would step to the backside – but totally worth it in the long run, because then we don’t have to try to outrun them 🙂
I am going to make another video with a better explanation of how to use the shoulders – everyone is having the same question about shoulders so I need to clarify because it is a subtle but very important thing. Stay tuned for that later this morning! But basically, it is about a ‘soft’ relaxed dog side shoulder, and the further across the bar you get, the more the opposite shoulders comes forward of your body, almost pointing ot the entry wing.
On the first couple of reps, you had that really nicely and so she got it – yes, she had to think about it but that is fine 🙂 At :21, she almsot went to the front and what was because both of your shoulders were back, which tends to pull the dog to the front side (almost looks like we are rotating into a wrap on the front side, if that makes sense).
At :23 you closed your shoulders forward and she said “ah yes, the backside.”
Then compare it to the connected moment as she exiting the wing at :33 – for a heartbeat, your oustide shoulder was forward as you delivered the back verbal – so she went to the backside. Yay! Now, on that rep she almost didn’t take the jump (hello, tunnel!) – probably because you turned, accelerated, moved the toy and she starting thinking about the toy 🙂
The other reps also looked good on the backside cues: your shoulders were NOT back behind you so she could see the line better. Stay tuned for the video comign with more details 🙂 And great job rewarding the jump commitment on those too!>> Do you see anything about my motion that could be improved?
Your motion was good! You can start adding more speed too!
Nice work!
TracyGood morning!
He is definitely a dog that sees all of your body cues! The shoulder position on the backside slices is hard, I am going to make a video of it because so far everyone totally has the connection element but the shoulders are too far back… so the dogs are curling into the front of the jump. Stay tuned, I will get that posted this morning.
In a nutshell: when you are connecting, you dog side shoulder is relaxed like it was but then outside shoulder comes slightly forward of your body, almost as if it is pointing to the entry wing. Your shoulders were both all the way back so that is why he was curling in on the first reps, until you got closer to the line. In order to help you not have to be closer to his line, we will work the shoulders but clearly I need to improve my crappy explanation LOL!!!! It is a visual so I will do a video today 🙂 When *everyone* has the same question, it is clearly not the fault of the student but rather the fault of the instructor. I will blame it on lack of coffee 🙂On the reps where you were facing the camera (he is on your left) you can see that opposite shoulder peeking forward a little and he was getting the backsides nicely 🙂 It is similar to the get out cue 🙂
Look at the rep at 3:24 (your videographer (Jen?) said “He thought about it) because for a moment, your outside shoulder was forward, so he was going to the backside. Then you dropped your shoulder back, so he came in to the front side. Dogs see EVERYTHING LOL! Then at 3:33 and the next reps, that outside shoulder stayed more forward and also he patterns it. That first rep is the hardest so that is where the forward shoulder will be needed the most.The countermotion looks good – you were really good with some nice early toy drops and that helped set up good choices later on. When you were all the way around the wing before release, the early toy drop is probably most critical, because the presence of the bar really has to override the entire direction your body is facing LOL! He is doing well with it!
Stayed tuned for that video, I think I was not nearly clear enough because everyone is having the same question so far! Oopsie!!!
Nice work 🙂
TracyGood morning!
The jump grid is going well – he is thinking and reading and that is exactly what we want 🙂 I think the best info comes in reps 3, 4 and 5, because that is where the beigger challenges are. Rep 1 is really a warm up LOL! Rep 2 is a bit of an awkward distance, somewhere between a bounce and 1 stride – so he chose a longer bounce, good boy! I think rep 3 was a nice balanced one stride and then he balanced back to the bounce on 4 (it was consistent with rep 2) and then rep 5 looked more balanced and powerful than rep 1. Yay!! Next time you play with these, repeat the distances and see how he does. Then if it is still good – the time after that will be his compression distance between 1 and 2… but then jump 3 begins at the extra 3 feet past the compression distance , then rep 2 is another 3 feet, and so on: so you will be building up to 9, 12 and 15 foot distances (9 might still be a bounce but 12 and 15 are likely to be one-strides.
Hooray for going to new places and playing familiar games! It was extra smart to do the GO first, his favorite 🙂 The Go looked good, the RC looked good! The wrap needs more room for you to be able to show the transition into the rotation, so that you can accelerat then decel – you were close enough to already be decelerated so he didn’t really see it on the first rep, You were more pronoucned on the 2nd wrap so he collected nicely! On the right turn (soft turn) this also needs an earlier decel and line change, so you more room between the ocne and jump will make it easier.
On the backside at :41 where he didn’t go to the jump, you were blocking his view of the wing then pushed in, so it pushed him off the line. You were much clearer on the others, so keep focusing on that line to where the wing meets the bar – no need to try to get past that line til he tail has past you 🙂 And keeping the motion somewhat “chill” for now is helping him commit as you move past, especially on the right turns.He loved the tunnel to jump games! Go was easy peasy of course! Your first wrap wrap was a little late but then you showed a clearer transition – really nice tight turns! Yay!!!
On the cone-jump-tunnel games, 2 ideas for the set up: more distance, so you have to move more 🙂 Motion plays a role in the turns so adding more will be helpful. A
Also, don’t have the teeter quite as close because we don’t want him to ignore it when there is general motion towards it. He probably doesn’t have a ton of value on the teeter yet, so keping it out of the picture for now won’t desensitize him to it.
I think he did really well on the variety of cues here! A couple of things to be careful of:
At :208, you said “go right” (I think that is what you said) so just say riiiight riiight and not go 🙂 You gave a nice calm left left cue at 2:23 and it was very smooth!On the front side wraps: he is turning really nicely, so now you can add in leaving as soon as you rotate (you were being chill t here and waiting a bit to make shre he committed -I think now you can rotate and start to leave with more urgency. It will challenge his commitment but I believe he will be fine with it 🙂
On the flip side – you need to be super chill and just walk through the backside wraps especially on the first rep of it (like at 2:36). The other thing I would suggest is as you keep moving forward, drop the reward in behind you sooner: you can drop it in to rewrd the moment he turns his head away to the bar after he gets to the wing. You were tending to wait for a jump decision, which is harder to get – getting the reward in early will help create the default, so then eventually you can shift the timing to a jumping decision.>>Lennan thinks that plucking the toy out of the sand is icky so there were no thrown toys. >>
One thing that I do with my dogs is tuck in a Manners Minder on the wing (landing side) – so I can carry the toy and reward from hand between reps – but for this skill, as soon as the dog turns his head, I click the MM and keep moving. It is also a good challnge because they have to go past the MM in order to get the MM 🙂 That way you don’t have to worry about sandy toys or which hand the toy is in 🙂
He was also really good on the semi-circle at 3:03 where you were nicely chill in your motion and then the big reward was the tunnel 🙂
I am really pleased with how he is using his body to turn – he is turning his head and bending through the center of his body. That is going to end up being REALLY nice on those full height bars!
Good boy learning the tire at the end! That looked good, looks like he has no commitment questions on the tire.
Great job here!!!
Tracy
Hi!
>>although he hasn’t quite resigned himself to the fact that standing by it and staring at it doesn’t trigger the treat.Just wait til he starts smacking it LOL!
>>I actually think he had better drive to it than food in a dish. Is that because it’s more fun when your treat rolls out at your feet?
That is quite possible – I think the click-like element of it plus the way it reinforces behavior triggers happy-making chemical releases in the brain so food driven dogs LOOOOOVE it LOL!
This was a good session! His first rep was kind of a wake up rep – totally different than the last rep on the same distances where he landed more centered in th gap. And I agree that he looked comfy with the 11 foot one stride. The 8 foot was a weirdo distance, according to him LOL!!
I would change nothing for the 2nd session of this… see what latent learning brings to the table. Let him percolate on it! He will either get more balance on the 8 foot distance to bounce it, or put in a one-stride. If he still feels the 8 foot distance is weird, then the 3rd session later in the weekcan be 5 – 7 – 11 and see what he does.
>>The first rep of 5ft bounces he wasn’t powering through as much, but I know he can since he is having to compress back down to control the 5ft bounces when I did the mini sequence. I was wondering if I should do 5.5ft or 6ft in that context since I think we need to work more on extension than collection at this point.>>
I think focusing on the 7 or 8 foot distances will work to get that. The other option is a slightly different grid for more bouncing: 5 feet, 6 feet, 7 feet (or 5, 5.5, 6) where we gradaully extend the bounce. I didn’t add it to the puppy class because they needed to learn about striding. but you can totally put the progressive grid into the rotation.
Let me know what you think and how the next session goes!
TracyGood morning! So glad you had a weekend of gorgeous weather!!
He is figuring out the parallel path backside thing! You might be over-rotating on the connection and that is pulling him to the front side. Your feet are good but the rotation/connection is pulling both of your shoulders back behind you, whereas ideally the connection on the parallel path is less shoulders back and more shoulders forward, otherwise it looks like a cue to come in.
For example, look at :43 & 1:07 versus :53. At :43, both shoulders were back, hands behind you – so he came in. When he was successful at :53, your outside shoulder came forward at the last moment and he went out to the backside.On the second session – I don’t think he was quite ready for you to be center of the bar yet, so moving to where where the wing meets the bar was more helpful for him. And looking at shoulders: at 3:15, your opposite shoulder was out ahead of you more (same at 3:36) and he got it. So I think you can make a slight adjust to how you connect to him on these parallel path backsides: yes, give him a really strong connection but it is more about shoulders. The dog-side shoulder does not have to be far back, and your rotation is just enough to allow the opposite shoulder to get out ahead of your body (rather than behind it). It is almost like your opposite shoulder is moving forward to ‘point’ towards the entry wing. Let me know if that makes sense or if I need more coffee 🙂
He did really well in the countermotion section! Countermotion is one of the hardest things we have to teach the pups but he is dong well. You warmed it up smartly, with a bit of challenge but really more of a refresher. Then he totally “had it” so you were able to add more challenge. He totally did have to think about it when you released when you were past the wing on that first session, but then on the 2nd session he was much smoother on it when you past the wing. So cool!!!
Great job here!!
TracyHi! It is funny that you described this as an inky feeling session – I think it went well! It is a hard set of skills, that is for sure! But she was doing well! The commitment questions she had, when she ended up on the front of the jump, had to do with your outside shoulder as you were cuing the push: if your outside (opposite) shoulder was back, she curled into the front. But when you closed your shoulder(s) forward to the wing, she was perfect each time – it is like your shoulders were pointing to the backside wing while you stayed connected. Let me know if that makes sense! Basically, if your hands we by your butt (behind you) she didn’t;t get the backside. But when your hands were a little more relaxed and forward of your body – she got it 🙂 Yay! I think you were being super careful to not be pointy – so you can let your hands help a little as long as you don’t fling them out ahead of you.
Her commitment to the bar as you ran forward was REALLY great – you were pushing you limits and disconnecting and running. She did a great job and your toy drops were spot on.
About that blind cross: talk yourself into disconnecting so you can look over the other shoulder 🙂 You were wanting to reconnect back to her on the arm next to the jump: so when you disconnect, look over the shoulder that is further from the jump. I think you just have to talk yourself into it because disconnection feels sooooo weird – you really have to trust her. But she is doing so well that she can be trusted 🙂
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! I added some sequences to one up with the live seminar from today (great to see you there!) And yes, you can totally substitute a jump for the tunnel, you will have to run faster though LOL!! Stay warm!
T
Hi!
>>I hadn’t considered a blind there, but I think it could have worked and Annie would have preferred it. She knows I’m not going to continue running into the fence, so there would have been some uncertainty for her there. I’m probably lucky she took the tunnel. She will refuse a tunnel if she has to. 😉
She really likes blinds, so try to find places to stick them in even if you are the only one who is doing it (you might be the only one who gets the sequence right!!)
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The decel is the hardest part because we aren’t usually moving all that fast .. and in the past deceleration was a perfect setup for a refusal.>>That raises a good point: in order to decelerate, you must first accelerate 🙂 She did SOOOO well with your acceleration on these lines that I think you should do more of that style of driving her like Jenny Damm – then the deceleration will be easier and she will turn really nicely like she did here!
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That blind was an anomaly. I almost always get barked at. I’m psyched about the blinds class though because I think Annie actually really likes blinds and I think she might even like them for tight turns. She just wants the handling to be better.>>Well, it was a good anomaly, a really beautifully done blind! We will sort out why she barks at you on them so that you can use them more – the blinds exploit your running speed which is a big advantage over slow people like me LOL! And she does really well with them!
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>>The connections are starting to feel a little more natural. This is a big change to how Annie and I used to run together, so the learning curve has been a challenge for me (not for her). It’s only been in the past week or so that I really realized that the connections were going to be in use at all times.I was thinking about this today… I think you will have to actively think about the connections at all times for now… it will get second nature in the future and there will be spots where you won’t really have to connect. But for now: all connection, all the time LOL
>>I thought they were going to be interspersed at key moments on the course. Had I known that where I was headed on course was going to be in my peripheral vision most of the time and that I really wouldn’t be pointing at things as much, I doubt I would have tried to make the change.>>
it will end up being more about key moments on course, but first we establish the commitment with a strong baseline of connection: then fade it where it isn’t really needed (check out the disconnection sequences :))
>> I really don’t see people running like this at the local trials we enter, so it still seems kind of weird.
It is a distinctly European style, that is for sure, and it shifts away from what we had all been doing of using our arms too much and pointing at or looking at the line. I have found that once we get used to it, the dogs really like it 🙂
>>One thing I have noticed in the past couple trials though … Annie is typically the slowest border collie in her group at trials and that has not been the case this fall!>>
Well that is really cool to hear! So her confidence and speed are increasing, along with her commitment! I love it!!!!!!
T
Good work here on the poles!! I don’t think the 22″ poles will mess him up, if anything they make it harder!
Try to keep moving through the entry and be ahead of him like you were at :15 and :25. On the other reps you were hanging back a bit like you would do at trials, but at :15 and :26 you were ahead and in motion: do more of that 🙂 You can even get ahead of him before he enters, and keep moving on all reps. I think he did really well!!!!T
Hi! It was so fun seeing him work live, you two looked great!
The turn aways look really good! Yes, your timing was much better (later) so he read them all better. When you came in with more speed like from the race track, you were able to rotate then cue it which I think made it smoother/easier than when you were backing up into it. So, sending him to the wing and running forward then rotating into is a clearer picture for him. My only other suggestion is a slight tweak in the arm position – you were bending your elbow so your magic cookie hand ended up near your bicep. It you straighten your arm/lock your elbow and extend your hand to him (it will look basically the same as if you are actually offering him a cookie) – that will magnetically pull him into you better than the curled arm.
The backside game is going well! He is doing really well when you are parallel and heading to where the wing meets the bar. When using connection to send him to it and with you moving further across the bar, the trick is to let you outside shoulder come forward of your body (it might indeed look like your outside arm is moving forward to point to the entry wing). When he missed at :19, both of your shoulders were back so even though you had great connection and verbal, he thought you wanted the front of the bar.
About the reward – yes, you can totally plop that reward in to help him default to the bar and not go past it 🙂 I think your position of rewarding was good but it can be sooner – as soon as he head is saying “yes, I am going to the backside” you can drop the reward in on the landing spot (anywhere on the slice line) as you keep moving. You were wanting to want one extra step, so he was waiting on affirmation to come in (totally normal and basically mirrored my session with Contraband :)) That toy drop is basically a lure to come in over the bar, it comes that early! But it is also a reward for the decision to go to the backside, so I am happy to let it help create the default behavior of coming over the bar regardless of where your motion is going 🙂
The 2nd part of the game is going well, he is really good about committing as you are moving past the wing! The only questions he had were when you were pretty far past the wing – but you adjusted to where you were still passing the wing but not quite as much… and he did great! yay!!! His commitment will continue to expand as you practice this.I think he is ready for 5 feet in th grid 🙂 No rush, he is only 9 months as you mentioned, but he looked really strong on the 4.5 feet 🙂
Have fun with the Starfish! Great job here!
TracyHi!
Are you in shorts? Yay for the MN Heat Wave!He looks really good here – committing to the jump and turning (I see so many adult dogs not able to get nice turns on this type of opening) He had no problem when you were on the ‘backside’ of 2. When you had more distance, it was harder of course so you can exaggerate the step towards him to show more of the takeoff spot to send to – it looks like you were stepping more towards the jump. Think about stepping to his extension takeoff spot rather than a really tight takeoff spot.
Because he is doing so well, you can start adding in motion out of the send (like doing the forced front cross when you are on the backside of the wing) and start it as he is committing but before he jumps – that should be a nice challenge! And I think you can do this on 2 jumps now as well.
Great job!!
TracyHi! These look really good, it is rare that a pup can do grids to a tunnel and not lose their mind completely haha!
Set point to the tunnel
This is going well! He is looking at you a little over the first jump but I think that is going to disappear when he is more experienced running sequences. It looks love he was powering really nicely through the set point: good form and no changes with your motion or when you were moving. He didn’t power quite as much when you were walking versus running, so clearly he is building in respect of motion into his striding (and respect of the toy on the ground when he freezes in front of it, probably waiting for it to be kicked LOL!) And I agree about the difference in 12 and 14 inches, I didn’t see a difference in his form. Good boy!On the ladder grid, he was also watching you a little but I really believe that will go away when he sees more sequences. His jumping effort is light and balanced, which is good because the next few months will be spent on speed things, so having this balanced foundation will serve him well.
Great job!!!
TracyHi there! I hope the MN Heat Wave lasts!! On the offset zig zag – he was having trouble reading it at first but when you changed position, he had a bit of a light bulb moment. With the jumps at that angle, you can lead out a bit and run along one side of the grid, kind of like handling a serp line. The line you were walking on your lead outs is the line you would run – but release him when you are maybe at the far wing of 1. That will help draw the line with handling also you can show him the ‘real world’ context of the serp line he would see this jumping in. When he is seeing the line, the jumping is looking good!! I think the serp line handling will help him see the line even more easily.
T
Good morning/afternoon! It is a beautiful day to be outside!
I think the zig zags are going well! He is definitely sorting out his leads and also what to do with his hind end – the camera angle was great to see what he was doing. I thought his first couple of zig zags looked uncomfortable, like he was saying “who’s crazy idea was THIS?!?” Ha! Like at :10 when he levitated sideways and on the next 2 reps a little as well. He then spent a couple of reps sorting out his striding and by the last 3 reps – he was sooooo much smoother and more efficient. Good boy! All we can do is keep rewarding and breaking it down like you did – he doesn’t need more help sorting it out, he just needed to see it a few times and figure out how to do it. This is the type of thing you can’t revisit once a week or so to keep the skills sharp.
Great job here!
Tracy
