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Hi! The parallel path work looked great! She chose to go really fast and that is fine, you were perfectly chill LOL! I think you can throw one stride sooner (it al happens so fast with her LOL!) as soon as you see her looking at and heading towards the jump, mark/throw while she is still 6 feet away. That can ideally help her not look at you at all. Don’t get too worried if she does look at you a little – there is nothing else to look at over the jump, so just keep trying to get the reward thrown as early as you can. Her commitment and concept transfer looked awesome!! I think for now you don’t need a toy on this – a toy might produce more speed and we don’t need more speed right now 🙂 She has a TON of speed so we can keep things in this lovely thoughtful zone for a while longer.
Strike a pose is going well – my only suggestion is to hold the target hand further away from your body and look at it (and not her) just to make it a little more salient for her to drive to (I am thinking ahead to when we add more of your motion to this :)) Yes, she totally was into the treats for this game! The toy in your hand was a tiny bit of a distraction (which is pat of the reason it is there) but I agree – she is probably more enthusiastic about it as a reward if you throw it. So you can throw it then reward her with a cookie for bringing it back? Or when she gets it, have a second toy to offer to play with her? I totally understand the need for 3 arms if you need the toy to be on a leash too, so the retrieve games separately (like in a hallway) will help build the retrieve and this game can easily be progressed with food 🙂Great job!!
TracyHi! Lots of good stuff on this video!!
On the wing wrapping, he is showing great commitment overall! He gives the best balance of speed going towards the wing when you give him a step as a cue (rather than letting him offer). On most of the steps where you had a little step to the wing, he ran. When you were stationary (no real step) he was trotting more. So definitely ramp up the excitement now – a bit of ready ready (eye contact, verbal silliness :)) then one step – then reward. You did plenty of reinforcement out at the wing, which is perfect! You can even mix in some more excitement when he really drives away by turning and running for him to chase you and the toy (we add more of that this week :)) I like the balance of his speed on the last few reps of the wing wraps – fast going to the wing and coming back!!
The shady tree wraps were so funny! And he really liked the metal thing to wrap LOL Notice on the metal thing that you were starting from a collar restraint (maybe because he was hunting something in the tall grass?) but that added excitement – and he was fast going to the thing! So the collar restraint (and the ready ready silliness) is definitely good to ad, as it is stimulating him to drive away with speed 🙂 He doesn’t look unhappy about it, just stimulated in a good way 🙂
Parallel path/rear cross – he definitely turned better to his right on the rear crosses but then he got the RC to the left on that last rep! Brilliant!! I think he just needed to info a little sooner on that side, plus the concept of a rear cross in this context was completely new, I bet: he was so focused on the task of hitting the prop that he was not at all expecting that you would be on the other side LOL!!! He did great – on your next session, start a little further back, maybe an additional 2 or 3 meters away from where you were started – and after establishing the parallel path, being that far away will allow you more time to show him the cutting in behind for the rear crosses.
Great job! I hope your week is not as crazy this week 🙂
Tracy
Good morning! I am glad you are getting some time away in a safe place, sounds terrific!!!
>>I trained touch collar means look at me so he is probably reverting to that when I put my hand on him. I’m fine with that, and hopefully he will figure out the context clues. The collar touch is a safety item for off leash walks.>>
Ah! That explains it 🙂 And yes, I have complete faith that the dogs totally learn the context cues for when to focus ahead, so there is no need to worry about it here. Dogs are brilliant with context – far better than I am LOL!
On your sandwich video – what a fabulous opportunity to work little games in an exciting environment! To me, that is so important, and his focus on the game with you was outstanding! I mean, here is this puppy out in the wide open spaces and there is access to just about everything – and he was doing a great job on his games.
Your handling was lovely – very clear connection on the blinds and a nice early deceleration cue/cookie hand to bring him into your side. In the early stages of the video, I think he partially didn’t realize you were doing agility games, and partially couldn’t produce the exact response in the face of the distraction (water, for example). No worries at all – I couldn’t hear what you were saying to him early on, but it looked like you were pretty chill, let him sort it out, and rewarded anything that was good-ish (<------- scientific term LOL!). I love that you used the water as a reward too - between using water as a reward and letting him sort out the environment, it was a masterful session in that by the end, he was able to reproduce the behavior that he could do "at home" by driving in tight to you, turning, then driving ahead. So the overall shape of the session is far more useful than the specifics of the game, as being able to produce behavior beautifully in a new distracting place is basically the holy grail of dog sport training 🙂 Yay! On the serp game: omg how cute was he when he offered the through the legs trick for the toy! It also shows us how salient/valuable the toy/leg position is relative to the value of the target hand. Two things that can help him when he is coming in with speed from the cookie toss: -let him see you strike the pose - let him see you put the target hand out. The motion will draw his eyes to it a bit more. - as he starts to return and you put the target hand out, turn your head to look at the target - pups often follow our gaze to the target as well, as the little bit of motion of the head turn helps too! Your physical position was fine, your feet were generally pointed towards the reward. And yes, you will want to work up to being completely stationary so you can use your verbals to cue the toy - but I think it is great for the dogs to also see us get really excited about something and move to the reward. The eventual position of the toy will be on the ground, and he did well with that - he is not yet predicting where the reinforcement will be based on the position, so more practice of the in-then-out of touching the target then turning to the reward will help that (and it will eliminate the times where he drove away to the toy). The toy in the hand is mainly just a replacement for the 'wrong side of the jump' distraction that dogs will be faced with in threadles, so it is good to work through for that concept (plus many pups don't yet know how *not* grab a toy on the ground until cued - but Fizz already understands this so that is why he did well with that 🙂 For the concept transfer to a jump... if you have access to anything that simulates a jump bar, like a low log, you can transfer the concept to a log or anything similar 🙂 Great job! Let me know what you think! TracyHi! I hope you had a great time on a well-deserved vacation!!!
>>With being out of town, I am so far behind in class, I don’t know where to begin. Feeling overwhelmed, Gah!>>
Totally feel ya! It is a right of passage of puppy ownership… feeling that there is so much to do and then finding the time to do NONE of it LOL! Ha! My best piece of advice is write the titles of each game on a small piece of paper, a different piece for each game. Put them all into a hat and pull one out each morning and pull one out each evening 🙂 That way you don’t have to plan, you only have to pluck one out 🙂 Everything will get done eventually! If you have time to do more than one thing, pluck 2 games out of the hat.
You got training done while on vacation, and that is damn impressive!!! Now go be a plucker and pull some game titles out of a hat 🙂
T
Hi! These are looking really good! She looks like she both easily found the tunnel entry AND figured out how to bend her body to get into it. Perfect! Great job adding in the distance further and further down the line to the tunnel exit – she still thought it was easy 🙂
On the last 2 reps, you were really only using verbal cues and not using any really body cues (you moved, but after she was already entering the tunnel) – those were the most perfect ones 🙂 On the other reps, especially when she was on your left, you were moving and helping a little. At this point, you can fade out the movement and just use verbals. Later this week, we are going to add in the threadle/discrimination verbal for the tunnel – with the ultimate goal being that you won’t need to really ‘handle’ tunnel discriminations, you will be able to use your verbal cues and she will nail it as you proceed to the next part of the course. She is indeed very zippy and will only get faster from here, so it is going to be super fun to get her to drive away on the verbals 🙂 YAY!
You can use the ball as a distraction for the easier tunnel sends 🙂 It is kind of like the Zen Of Balls: you must ignore it in order to get it 🙂 LOL! It adds a nice layer of distraction and arousal which is super useful for when she goes into higher excitement situations.Great job here!
TracyHi! Nice work on these!!
I think the rear crosses are going well!! I am happy with how he did – he hit the prop with focus forward to it each time! I think the rear crosses that were most successful (turning to his right) were a combination of slightly earlier cues and also it is possible that he is a righty and not a lefty 🙂 It is very normal and common to see a side preference at this age, so no worries at all. He was very ‘on task’ to hit the prop, so even at the end when you were earlier on the turn-left cue, he was focused in on hitting it and not as much focused on your motion behind him. As you keep playing this, he will drive forward more so then you will be able to do the rear cross to the left sooner, which means he will be able to process turning left a bit better. We have some games later this week that will help too – but for now, keep playing just like this and rewarding in the correct direction even if he doesn’t turn that way as the first order of business 🙂Adding the ready treat to the tunnel was 100% the right thing – he still offered behavior but you had a very nice obvious target/reinforcement. I think this session went great!! So keep using the ready treat for another few sessions, keeping it pretty close to the tunnel exit like it was here – then you can start moving it a bit more out of the picture. If you get one more session that looks like this (happy pup with high rate of success), you can start to add the verbals and angles in the advanced game and then we will have him on the ‘inside’ (between you and the tunnel) to begin the threadle foundations too.
At some point after that, we will lengthen the tunnel a bit (no rush!) and I think after a couple more sessions, you will find that the value of the tunnel is high and you can mix in toys and treats from your hand for going back and forth.The concept transfer for the parallel path was terrific! He was all like, “this is the easiest thing ever.” LOL! Great job with the click coming for his choice to commit to the line (before getting to the upright) and quick thrown reward – that helped him keep his head nice and straight which is exactly what we want. Adding distance was easy peasy – I loved how he was finding his line towards the end!!!!
At this stage, the next step is to add a toy to this – at first, just the toy present and visible in your hand but everything else is the same (cookies as rewards). Then you can add tugging before (cookies as rewards, still) then you can start to use the toy as a reward sometimes, click then throw a toy then tug 🙂 After that – there is not more more to do with this game (it will get back-burnered for a bit, maybe pull it out every couple of weeks) – he is too young for us to do much more than this with the jumping. But, the concept is what we want and being able to ‘find’ the line even with a toy and arousal in the picture is awesome!!!Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyWelcome back, I hope you had a great time at your cabin!!!!
Video 1 – sending – looks great! He was giving very intentional paw smacks in all 3 locations. I think he did a little better when you had a bit longer of a moment of ‘ready’ before the sends. He got so mad at you at 1:30 when you clicked but didn’t treat LOL! (I think you didn’t treat and he was totally being judgey, it made me laugh so hard) but he got right back into it 🙂
When you added countermotion, some of the clicks were early or for “almost” hits – no worries when you see that, just be sure you wait a little longer on the next rep 🙂 One thing that was GREAT to see him do was that he was setting himself up to turn after your sends and especially when there was countermotion – Yay!!! That led to some hits that were NOT as good but you can emphasize the prop by shifting the reinforcement placement – click then toss the treat back to the pillow to help maintain the value. Your motion away was distracting AND valuable (because the cookies were moving too!) so tossing reward back to the prop as you leave will help maintain commitment value when you see him not-quite-hitting the prop.Video 2: Wing wrapping:
I have the exact same laundry basket thingie at the first location! LOL! He did well here too – something distracting at the first location slowed the responses down but then you were cracking me up in the home session (laundry basekd, couch cushion, LOL!!!) he was unperturbed LOL!! When you put the cookie bowl INTO the basket at :56ish, he also looked at you like you had lost your mind – this pup cracks me up with his expressions LOL!!
Since he is doing so well – using the laundry basket thing from the first location, you can have your two targets out but we are going to fade them by sometimes rewarding him from your hands (if he gets too interested in your hands, you can also mix in dropping cookies onto the targets). The games coming up involve rewards from hands on this, so you can get a head start by rewarding from your hands on your next session.Serp/threadle 1 – very nice! Is that a post it note stuck to your hand? LOL This looked great – nice strong hits to the target. Try to stand a little bit more stationary until he reaches the reward – your position and verbal and hand movement will cue him to go to it while your shoulders don’t move, to develop the in-then-out chain. You were moving a heartbeat too soon, as you were delivering the reward.
Your body position looks good! Excellent pose 🙂 At :52, he came in towards the toy rather than the target – you can help more by turning your head to look at the target sooner. It looks like you were looking at him (well, he is cute!) and then when you looked at the target (after removing the toy) he went right to the target. You won’t always have to look at the target but it certainly helps at this stage. And omg I almost spit water out of my nose when the target got stuck to his nose at 1:01! And gold star for ignoring the human distraction in the room after that LOL!Tunnels – this also went really well! He found the tunnel entry from all sorts of distances back from the entry and lined himself up really well to make the turn into it. The reps where he was on the outside of you looked great and I didn’t see any real difference when you did the inside reps.
>> but he is not really liking me holding him. I started using the collar, but switched to holding him at the chest.>>
This is good to know and hash out at this stage! The restraint might be a lot of pressure right now, and we want it to be all fun and no pressure – so you can modify it to where he gets a cookie for lining up next to you, then you can crouch then cue the tunnel with your hands near him but not (yet) touching him. You can gradually add in a light touch the immediate send, and a finger on the collar then immediate send – that way you can build to restraining more by teaching him that the small bit of pressure or touch mean that party is starting 🙂 So, if he isn’t loving the restraining part, feel free to play this without restraining 🙂 He is happy and we want to keep it that way 🙂
You can start to add more angles and distance away from the entry on the inside reps too!Great job here!!!
TracyHello and welcome!!! It is great to see you here again 🙂 Mackee is SO CUTE!!!!! It is so fun to watch her!!! She is so cute that I actually had to watch it several times because I kept getting distracted LOL!! I love her! She did a great job on the hat prop – very nice intentional paw smacks 🙂 Yay!
On the sending – she did really well hitting the prop. At only 3 months old, it is very advanced work! Time to add a bit more challenge on the sending: we can now move you a step or two further away because when you were sending, your hand was close to the prop (she could hit the prop AND look at your hand LOL!) So during the next session, do a warm up where you click and treat for a couple of paw smacks, then start the sending a step or two away from the hat: add challenge by having her have to go past your hand (just by a little bit) to hit the prop. If that goes well, you can add in the sideways and backwards sends (starting close and then starting a bit further away too). Keep the success rate super high like you did here on this video.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi there! Lots of good skills work here!!
1st video: (jump to tunnel) looks great! Feel free to throw in some pointing ahead, because she (like most young dogs) comes off lines when we point ahead. And yes, we all point ahead haha! So might as well teach the youngsters to stay on the lines 🙂
Video 2 – yes, she chases a bit after the wing wrap but then totally got herself back on the line for a jump then the tunnel – I am SUPER happy that she did that!
Video 3 – you had a tiny bit of connection on the wing wrap exit (plus a slightly different angle) plus a verbal – and she got it (all 3 of which were on my list of suggestions about how to convince her to take the jump after the wing :)) You can also move the wing closer to you and send her around the other way, so she is facing the jump when she exits it (not pushing back to it after a FC) – then you can use even less connection. But definitely keep your GO verbals in place – that really helped her!!
When you come in from an angle on the wing wrap (like on the first video) you can use a ‘jump’ verbal or general commitment verbal to see if she will find it without connection – you can dial back your running speed at first, so she is less tempting to chase you.Video 4 is the same as video 3, let me know if there is a different one that was supposed to go there.
Backside jump default – yes, you caught yourself being a little late on the first rep. The 2nd rep was much earlier (same with 3rd rep) and on the 3rd rep you were not moving as fast so she wasn’t as interested in chasing the line. The last rep at 1:01 (when you changed sides) was a bad news – good news situation… bad news was that you were a little late throwing it (you are probably used to waiting for her to take the jump before rewarding). The good news is that she was definitely coming in to take the jump (woohoo!!!) so the toy throw reinforced that decision. SUPER!!!! I am not sure if she was coming in to take the jump because it is a stronger side for her, or if she is figuring out that the default is a good thing, or both! But either way, it looked really good there.
The last video also looks really good – and she got it perfectly in both directions so it is not a strong side- weak side issue. Happy dance! She was quite tight coming in to the bar too, but also was not so tight that she was hitting the wing like a lot of dogs do on those. The only hard part for her was when she needed to bypass the tunnel to get to the backside at the end – that was hard but she nailed it on the last rep. Yay! Great job training the backside default! At this stage, you can start raising the bar to add some challenge.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! Off courses are good, it means that he is driving lines!!
Some thoughts for you:Course 1:
The opening line looked good (except 3 is a backside, that complicates things LOL!)
For more speed, start further back from 1,as far back as you have room to get him blasting into it. And the “go go go” on rep 2 seemed to get more speed – he likes that!!Will he execute the a-frame the same way if you are more laterally away from it? That can get you to a the next line sooner, so you can do the BC 6-7 closer to 7 (tunnel) and not as much between the uprights of 6 (there were a couple of spots on these courses where you would get between the uprights of the jump which was a couple of steps past the perfect path, causing a wider line for him). The timing was good but line was too parallel to 6 and not towards 7 enough, so he had to slow down and adjust at :08 and :46, Staying outside the outer edge of the wing to start the cross will set a nice line – and I confident that he has the commitment skills to do it.
It was hard to see what happened in the weaves – I am not sure if he missed the entry or popped out? If he will let you be more laterally away from the weaves when he exits, you can send to 9 from further away and get across 10 more easily – you got it but it was a little late at :57. I do think it is a great choice of handling!!
**LOVED the blind cross at 11 at :58 – you saw his head turn to look at the jump and you did the blind. PERFECT. It set up a nice 12-13-14 line!! ** That was a display of trust and great timing!!
On the blind cross 15-16: You can finish the re-connection sooner on the BC 15-16 at 1:05 – you started on time there but didn’t finish all that quickly so it ended up being late. Try to get your eyes back to him on the new side as quickly as possible after starting the bind. Also, try not to get between the uprights there to indicate 15 – stay on the perfect path which is from the outer edge of the wing to the exit wing of 16. Rounding the line there caused him to go wide.
He had a little head check on the exit of the tunnel at the end – a little more connection to his eyes as he exits will smooth that out.
Course 2: On the wrap at 2, it is basically a backside wrap at a slightly weirder angle 🙂 So, you don’t need to rotate to face the bar of 2 as much, you can decel and rotate your feet towards 3 more, think of it as passing him across your feet. Facing the jump bar caused him to jump the center of the bar and he had to really make the turn on landing on the 1st rep and at 2:47 on the 3rd rep. On the 2dn rep at 2:12, you rotated sooner so he turned a lot better there.
3-4-5-6 looked really good, nice send to 7 to set up the blind at 1:33. He almost didn’t send at 2:21 because you decelerated a lot and disconnected a bit, so he was curling into you but did a nice job of responding to the send cue. You were connected and moving at 2:56 and the send was great again.
Being 2 or 3 feet more laterally away from the a-frame will make it even easier to send and get up the line for the next blind (I am loving all these blinds, yay!). Reconnect more quickly 7-8 (1:34) so you can cue 9 and start that BC sooner too – mainly to finish it sooner to get the tight turn. Remember to use a wrap or collection cue, not a forward cue like ‘jump’. A 1:35 the blind was late so he was almost in the off course tunnel. At 2:24 and 3:01 you did a FC there – the rotation of the FC definitely tightened up the turn!
(Also note that 10 is a backside here, which might actually be easier than how you ran it LOL!)You can use more verbals on the threadle 11-12 – so he knows it is coming at 1:40. You did not use rotation there, just a little decel on the threadle, yay for no rotation! As you keep working those, you can fade out the decel and keep running.
On the 2nd rep at 2:28, you did use a verbal as he was approaching 11 and he totally responded! Try this without any decel – just verbals and a threadle arm – and see what he does! At 3:06, you did it when he landed from 11 – he responded but he wasn’t as tight as the previous rep when it was before takeoff.The line on the 14-15 section is ugly, bad course design, sorry!!! Totally my fault. You can decel and cue sooner on the first rep there to help him turn tighter. On the second rep at 2:35 and 3rd rep 3:12, you did decelerate sooner and his turn was really lovely! When you handled 14-15 with a rotation towards him to pull him in, he was able to ignore the weaves the best there to get to the tunnel. Yay! It is an appropriate spot to rotate like that.
Ending line is looking good too! When you send to the backside at :18 – when he is heading to the backside you don’t help with a jump cue or arm, just run run run 🙂 I think the habit of helping him is pretty strong, so you will need to keep reminding yourself to trust him and run 🙂
Course 3:
The wrap at 2 at 3:36 is similar to the wrap at 2 on course 2, in that you can rotate your feet towards 3 before he passes you (almost turning yourself sideways to the wing so your feet are pointing to 3). That will cue a tighter collection and also get you up the line sooner. It will also help you not step back out of it like at 4:17, but instead move forward at all times through itOn this line, a slice at 2 is almost definitely going to be faster for him – the slice keeps him in extension and then sets up a create line 3-4. I always try to find slices and then find reasons why they *won’t* be faster… and we will almost never find that reason LOL!
Nice BC 3-4 at 3:39 and 4:20!
Nice send to the backside of 7 – then trust his skills at 3:45 and leave for 8 (doing the blind) – don’t stay there and help – you rotated and pulled him in to help him over the bar, and he doesn’t need that 🙂 . The extra help delayed the next info and he almost ended up on the wrong side of you. You moved through it without rotation at 4:27 and it was much better! He commits beautifully to these. This is a spot where, when you see him heading towards the backside, you can disconnect and run run run to the next line, reconnect when you are past the exit wing of 7.
Middle section looked good but he wasn’t powering, he might have been fatigued? But it is a good reminder that we should look for places to break things down and surprise him with more ball throws.
On the cross 9-10, try not to get in between the uprights (it sets up a wider turn) – execute it staying outside of the uprights of 9 so that you stay on the perfect path, to keep the turn nice and tight.The verbals for the right turn for jump 13 before the weaves were really good! It looks like he needs more of a “set” on the RC for the 13 jump before weaves – almost like a rear cross on the flat or tandem turn, where you get his attention then turn him away on the flat before takeoff.
On the 15-16 line – if you can get ahead and a littler more laterally away from the weaves, you can aim to be on the far wing of 15 (closer to 16) so before he approaches 15, you are already showing the threadle info. You were powering into it, so he was convinced it was a front cross after 16 – which he did at 4:07 and almost did at 4:49. As he exits the weaves to approach 15, remember to give him his threadle cue and arm so he realizes he needs to turn pretty tightly on 15.
Good job running through 17 at 4:53 and not helping 🙂 That is what he can see on jump 7 here too!
One last thought – remember to decel and rotate into 18 at 4:55, to set up a nice tight turn and get up the ending line ahead of him – you drove into it and said ‘go’ so he was a little wide.
Very nice ending line!!!
Really nice work! Let me know if it all makes sense 🙂
TracyHi!
These look really good!!
Parallel path – when you didn’t click on rep 2: game changing moment for our young friend Lazlo LOL!! Did you see him lift his head and be all like “what the…” LOL!!! And then there was another miss off your left – he processed it without getting frustrated and then was perfect. GOOD BOY!!! The lack of reinforcement actually built his interest in solving the puzzle an you were really good about just carrying on, reset, as if nothing happened.Opposing motion also looking really good- you are adding engagement and arousal and he is letting you leave nice and early. Some of the hits were not quite as perfect as some of the others, but I think you noted that and on the next reps made sure to wait a little longer.
What I am happiest about on both of these videos is that there was no frustration or chomp chomp 🙂 Yay! So – maybe do one rep of each game with a toy! Make the rep a little easier than the food reps (toy = arousal which might cause a temporary deterioration in the response, and we want him to be successful). Then – tug or throw the reward, celebrate and end on a ‘party’ cookie toss 🙂
>>We brought him with us to a friend’s house yesterday and he did some great toy play in their house and yard. And we worked on the blind crosses and the start line stay game. No video, but he was nailing it!>>
Happy dance! Success in a new place – VERY awesome!!!!
>>For the Week 2 game, that incorporates the blind cross and the turn and then the race to the thrown toy, do you think we should try that even though our toy skills have some issues?
You can start the game with all treats, get it to where you both are comfy – then do one rep in a different session with the toy involved. Make it an easier rep, and then when he drive to the toy – play and then end on a party cookie toss. Then, based on how it goes, we can make a plan for more toy stuff 🙂
Great job here!
TracyHi!
>>And another thing, as I just shared that story I realized that it has been YEARS since I heard someone come out of the ring blaming their dog. We have a pretty strong culture in Michigan of apologizing to the dog as we leave the ring (when things go bad).
Wow, that is beyond amazing and I am a little jealous…. the dog blame culture is strong in many parts of the country and I find it heartbreaking.
>>Interesting that Nicola Giraudi and I invented the same thing. (snicker)
I am going to just assume that he stole your move. 🙂
>> He designed the UKI courses back in late May. They were very nice, as I recall.
Yes, a great course designer and all around super nice human being. I have worked with him several times over the years and he is a favorite, due to his interest in evolving his teaching and also pinpointing the needs of the individual dog and handler. I think you will enjoy his seminar when he is able to come back and teach.
T
Yay! There is always room for more coffee in my world.
>>Continue with the 10,14,14 pattern looking for (what?) Since he needs to get around the jump, he can’t go directly out of the sit, so looking for smoothness? Minimal strides into it?
Yes – we are looking for smoothness, like a dolphin gliding through the waves – and minimal foot tapping before takeoff. You will actually hear the power to it, even on grass. Working on the front end will sound busier because you can hear the foot taps like a bit of shuffle and you might hear him grunt when he lands. When he is on the rear, the hind end hits will be louder but his breathing will be silent and the space between hind end hits will be silent too.
T
Hi!
>>Question: Would you prefer I put all the videos pertaining to one exercise together if they are ready to post at the same time, or do you prefer to just have one video in each post?I think either way is fine, it depends on how you want to read the replies 🙂 Having one video per post makes it easy to discuss the video directly under it as a reply.
>>Here is our work from both sides of the tunnel and from various points along the sides. I was talking to her quietly and as I felt her push or pull get stronger, I raised my voice. I think the only “tunnel” you hear is the last, louder one for each send.
This looked good! She is effectively learning backside tunnel entries from these angles and she seemed to have no questions 🙂 Doing the verbals as you describe above worked really nicely, it built the excitement! Feel free to continue saying tunnel until she is in the tunnel: when we add in you moving away and countermotion, I do recommend that people keep giving the verbal to support the youngsters so they don’t lose confidence at the last moment when the momma is miles away 🙂
The other thing you can do from these dog-on-outside sends is now delay the click of the MM – wait til she is all the way in an then you can wait til she is almost all the way through! You can move the MM a little further away from the exit – that, plus waiting to click it, will add a bit more challenge and also build even more speed and commitment.
>> I decided not to do the last part where the dog is on the inside between handler and tunnel because I felt she had had enough for a warm morning. We’ll give the other part a try later – or another day.>>
That makes sense! You can do a quick warm up rep or two on this game, then switch to the dog-on-the-inside game. I am sure she will do a great job with it too 🙂
Great job. Have fun, stay cool!!
Tracy
