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Hi!
These are looking really good!!
On the prop sends: he is really getting value for the prop, yay!! I’m glad to see that he could do forwards, sideways and backwards, k9tsbof good hits on all of them. I think the click was helpful, it is easier to help with isolating the exact hit. Add distance more slowly, though – he was asking questions and not quite sure, which is usually a sign of too much distance, too soon. So you can work up to 6 feet or so over the course of several sessions so he can be looking forward each time, with no questions.Wing wraps – the toy back and forth looks great, he was really good about releasing the toy and going to the next one. Try to wait a little longer now, before showing the next toy, so he can offer the back and forth more like what he was doing at the end. On the next session, warm him up for a couple of reps to get him in the groove and then wait for him to offer going to the next toy, before the next toy comes alive 🙂 when he can do that (and I’m sure we will be able to!) you can then start to move the upright a little further away.
Drive to handler- looks fabulous! You can use toys for this too of course! Yes, good job getting that hand lower, it made a difference on his head position for sure! And you also did a good job feeding as close as possible – keep working that super close feeding so he practically touches you – I notice that he and his sister want to be a little bit away from our legs on this lol!!Blind crosses – yes, you can sometimes use a tunnel, but do the blinds earlier 🙂 do the b kool blind while he is in it or just as he exits. You were starting them when he was a couple of strides from you so he had to change sides last minute. And when you are using a restrained recall (which is also perfectly fine and highly recommended when he meets new people), start the blind as soon as the person lets go of him.
Reward mechanics looked good! You can use an even longer toy if you feel like you are bending over, but I think it overall looked lovely 🙂
About the cookie toss, what was going wrong with it? I like to use them mainly as cookie to toy to cookie developer, and as a self-control thing, so let me know what was wonky and we will fix it 🙂 was he ignoring the treats? Or spending too much time searching?I am jealous that you get to go on vacation!!!! Bring your prop, cookies, toys, clicker, jump upright. And maybe a bigger thing like a soft pop up crate or laundry basket if you have one? Don’t make yourself nuts trying to find something, we can use anything you have wherever you are staying 🙂
Great job here, he looks amazeballs 🙂
TracyAwww thank you!!! I appreciate it! Our pups are so fun, presenting us with puzzles to play with in these crazy times 🙂
Hi! She read the blind crosses really nicely! And she REALLY liked the flirt stick! With the blinds, you can start with your original dog-side arm lower – that will allow you to switch to the new side even faster. The original dog side arm was high (shoulder height) which makes it a little harder to get it down and turn your upper body to the new side as quickly as she will need (she is already speedy and will just keep getting faster 🙂 Yay!) She has a great stay here, so you can also try this with more motion: be moving up the line, release, keep moving, do the blind as soon as she starts to move to make it nice and early.
About the class recording: it should be able to play! Try it maybe from this link here and let me know?
>>I’m assuming the lessons are the same activities we’re doing in the regular online class?
Yes, the videos posted here are actually a little longer than the ones used in the online class.
Nice work here!!
TracyHi! This looks great, the connection really helped her! She is still thinking we are a bit nuts (understandable, it is a nutty game LOL!) so you can do 2 things on the next session: be a little closer to the prop and toss the treat back to the prop. That will help her drive away from you faster (her turn back towards you is great, so this suggestion is to get more speed to the prop).
And yes, it is easy to forget how young she is because she does everything so well!!! Great job here!
TracyHi!
>>>> Question: is he happy to go back and forth between food and toys?
It can sometimes be an issue for him. I find that often once the food has been introduced, he has a hard time going back to the toy and would rather just get more food. It’s not every time, but it’s often enough that I notice it as a pattern. Or sometimes he will find a treat in the carpet while we are playing with toys and then he loses interest in the toy and looks at me like, “I’ll take more of whatever that was.”That is pretty normal stuff at his age – I have learned to look at the pup to make sure he swallows the treat before I offer the toy 🙂 And changing locations helps too: cookie in one spot, then move away to a different part of the room for the toy. It takes some experimenting and training at this age but it is smooth sailing once we get it figured out.
>>When you say get the toy back, what exactly do you mean? He has a pretty good “out”, but it’s not 100%. Sometimes he will chomp a couple more times before outing it. I’ve tried doing the thing where you hold the toy still close to their muzzle, but he is very persistent lol. He will just pull back and growl and tug and seems to think it’s fun. Eventually he does let go, but it seems like a game to him. Should I use the “out” cue? I’d say it’s about 80% reliable.>>
Being 80% solid with an out on cue at this age is great! And a couple more chomps before an out is fine for now too. But you can also just trade for a cookie, especially on the higher value toys or if you think he is stimulated and might not be able to release in the moment. I don’t suggest a verbal out cue yet, not until we can predict the behavior closer to 100% of the time with the physical cues or the trading..
>>Is the idea of adding in treats at each step of the forward send game to lower his arousal in the presence of the toy?>>
Yes 🙂
>>EDIT: We gave it a go, but he still got very bitey, including some butt bites while I walked to pick up the toy. Very sharky lol! Here is the video.>>
On the video: The first part of it was really nice: great transition to the collar and the toy drop with the cookies involved. But he didn’t understand the get it with the toy that far away and you not moving, so he got frustrated and bit. So, making that same great transition, start back with the toy right in front of you so he can pick it up without having to move too far away from you or the food. Then a moment of toy play, then cookies, etc. Now, if something happens and you want to get the toy and hie might bite your butt… before you go get it, toss a treat or two so he has something to do to settle himself then go get it, mainly so he doesn’t rehearse the butt bite. Also, I personally stop the game and do a brief time out if the pup tries to chomp me (time out by gently taking the collar and taking a breath or 6 and everything stops – I don’t get made, I just stop the pup until we have both taken a few breaths and it also gives me a moment to plan what is next, so the pup is not frustrated). Now, a time out like that should happen once in a blue moon, almost never – and usually it happens when I have frustrated the pup by accident, so we will do our best to never frustrate them. But I do stop the action in those moments because the frustration biting is something we can give feedback about, if that makes sense?
> I will confess I like to play with him without toys too, but he can get bitey with that, so I’ll stop that too. He doesn’t really seem to know how to play too well without teeth. Even his snuggles sometimes come with teeth lol! He gave me a bloody nose and an almost nose piercing this week while cuddling me – he’s so sneaky about it too!>>
Eventually you will be able to play with him like that, but for now I think it is important to help him learn that your flesh is a tooth-free zone 🙂
>> At first I was thinking I should keep a treat jar down there, but then I pictured the space between ending the toy play and walking to the treat jar, and I can just see him lunging at me and biting me
LOL. So I think I will need the food on my body so there is no lag time between the toy play and the treat scatter. I think I’ll experiment with your list of suggestions and see how it goes.>>Correct! Speed and smoothness of transitions is important with pups, and never turning your back on them 🙂
>> My Ridgeback has never liked toys, so all her training has been with food. I’m way more comfortable with treats than toys, so I have a lot to learn myself.
Training with toys is a whole different set of mechanics and arousal levels, plus it is different for every pup. IT takes some time to sort out but it is well worth it 🙂
Keep me posted!
TracyHi! His wing wrapping is looking really good! At this stage, get closer to the wing again and stand up (closer is needed to re-establish the behavior with the ‘different picture’ of you standing at a high success rate. If it is easy for him, then you can add the distance again very easily. Question: have you thought about what verbal cues you would like to use on course? Because he seems really solid on this, we can start to add verbal directionals for the wraps: I have 2 different verbals (one to wrap-left, the other is to wrap-right). Some folks prefer to use a general wrap cue. Let me know your thoughts on it and we will start to apply it!
Great job!
TracyHi! Very nice work here on the deceleration – your timing is good on the deceleration and starting the turns, he is able to adjust his striding to get to you and not go past you. Yay! My only tweak is to get your cookie hand lower, so he can drive to position with his head slightly pointed downwards (not looking up) – this will encourage him to shift his weight into his hind end in the way we will want for jump turns. You will probably have to bend over a little to do it (or bend your knees) – I feel that pain of getting lower for the smaller dogs!
Starting with the wing wrap is totally fine, but do a few reps of the cookie throw starts too – those add a layer of stealthy self-control that really contributes to the pups understanding how to ignore stuff on the ground or ignore delicious food smells 🙂
Great job, he is looking awesome!
TracyHi!
Yes, he is beating you to the toy very nicely 🙂 I love it when the small dogs outrun us! He doesn’t seem to be bothered by the pressure of your motion either, and that is great. And he was bringing the toy back when you ran the other way as part of the game. He didn’t seem to love the toy you offered him there, so you can let him have the original toy back, or reward with a cookie and then give him the original toy back (lots of rewards for retrieving :)) You can add in your GO cue now because he is driving ahead (whichever verbal you will want to use on course to indicate straight line driving ahead). You were using OK here but we can switch to the verbal.
Great job!Tracy
Hi! Hi!
Toy play is different for every dog and takes some figuring out… does he like balls? You can use balls for these games – dropping them in, in place of the cookies and the toys he might like to chew (he is a the chewing age). You can also present the toys a little higher so his head is up and he might be less inclined to chew.
The softer fuzzy toys are easy to put in his molars and chew. So with the soft fuzzy toys, away from the wing wrapping, you can play with a back and forth to help him engage back and forth on each toy: one gets “live” when the other goes “dead”, which can happen basically as soon as he grabs it, without him having to think about the wing.
You were doing a bit of that with the harder toys later in the video – you can do the back and forth more quickly, so he has less time to get into the “ahhhhh” zone in when he has the toy in his mouth and is chewing it. When you were quick on the back and forth, it went much better with the toy!
The wing was incidental there, it was all about the toy play – so for now, keep the wing out of it while you are working the toy play because we want the wing to be salient enough to trigger a wrap response (not a chew response LOL!!)
And you can totally work the wing wrapping with food! Nom nom! Or with 2 balls, depending on if he likes them and will bring them back efficiently 🙂It is totally normal at his age that we have to figure out toy mechanics and exchanges and what the preferences are for these precision games. The wild and crazy games (like the driving ahead) don’t require the same precision on the training mechanics, and also there is really no self-control required (because he doesn’t have to release the toy or move to the next one). So, for now, keep the back and forth on the toys separate from the wing wrapping (do that with food) and then we can put it back together when we have figured out the toy mechanics fully 🙂
Let me know what you think! He is totally on the right path 🙂Tracy
Good morning!
>>Excellent idea about moving my focus to follow the hand and leg on the backwards send. That should make a big difference. She does look for cues – and then acts on her interpretation. That means I really need to be clear.
Yes, with the pups, the connection is a big support for these crazy things like backwards sends 🙂 We do strip it out of the cue eventually (when they are adult dogs) but they like it a lot as pups 🙂
>>Regarding verbals – We use “go” to mean go forward to something (obstacle). Our term for full-on extension is “go-on” – which ends up sounding like “gwan.” “Hit it” is for contacts, and “get it” is usually a toy, or to chase something (such as a ball) or something to play with. If at some point you think I’m confusing her, please let me know.>
Great! I am obsessing on how to make verbals sound very distinct to the dogs, so it is very easy to process them while they are running. GO puts emphasis on the “O” and gWAN puts emphasis on the “WAN” so it should be fine and worked well here! And neither cue sounds like her name, thankfully 🙂 Eventually we will put wrap cues on these wings but a GO as a “take the thing” cue is perfect for now.
T
Hi!
>> I think I understand what you mean but I’m not entirely sure how to fix it. Do you mean like my timing is off because I’m behind in what I’m doing? I’m not sure how to fix that when I walk 😢 I know I have to pretend she is with me. >>
Yes… and then run the course without her at full speed 🙂 Most folks, in walk throughs, trot through the courses or walk through them (I guess that is why it is called a walk through hahaha) but we want to be able to sprint the course perfectly before we add the dog (yes, I know this is harder at trials, but I have tricks for you that you will get in the next training package teehee)
>>I guess I’m glad at least I’m starting to figure out the right handling choices for her most of the time.
Yes!!! Now I am going to bug you about the perfect path lines and where you really need to connect…. and then being able to do it at speed, without thinking, before you run her. That is a walk through skill for sure!
>> I feel like this goes back to our mental management class we took during lock down. Like the visualization parts? Would that help you think?
Yes, visualization totally helps. After all, how many of us stop to visualize a run before we run it in practice ? Ummmm…. definitely not me, not enough LOL!! So the visualization gets rusty. But also, in the actual walk through, you can be running your invisible dog as fast as you think she will go, or faster – that will help you find the places where you might disconnect or get off the line or even where you are not sure of the course, so you can sort it out before the run.
Let me know if that makes sense 🙂
TracyHi!
>>What do you mean above when you say to play with the exit line connection and reward? (At the 1:00 mark.)
The exit line connection is when we run away from a cross with the outside arm across our body and the reward in that arm (nice and close to the body). So if you are doing a blind cross from your right side to your left side, the toy will be in your right arm as you exit the cross. And the right arm will be low and across your body, near your hip, showing him the reward. This pushes your dog side arm (left arm in this example) back and down, so the dog can really see the connection on the new side. Then as you run away – he chases you through the side change and gets the reward 🙂
And you were doing it on this video really nicely on these reps! You can really see it on the reps where you were moving away from the camera: dog side arm back, clear connection, arm across the body in a subtle way. And note how tightly he drove around the wing and how he totally knew which side to be on. On 2 reps around :21, you were moving sideways to the wing and not forward, so he didn’t commit as well – but the rest were terrific! And your connection on the last 2 reps (wing to jump) looked really good too.
Let me know if the exit line connection makes sense, you are doing it really nicely!I will post a bit of threadle training video in a separate thread – lots of oflks have asked 🙂 And, on the sequences where you might consider a threadle, you can also run the sequence with 2 crosses: front cross – blind cross or blind cross – blind cross. Those will be challenging too 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi!
This is an excellent list:
>>I have a list of skills that I’m building and adding to:
1) Weaves counter motion
2) Get Out
3) Convergence on the line
4) Bars on the way to tunnels (had an opportunity to work that today)
5) Threadles
6) Backsides vs. Frontside>>Seems like it is juicy to work through without being overwhelming. For threadles, I would think tunnel threadles/contact discriminations will be more useful in the short term than jump threadles – how is she doing with those?
And on the sequences here that require threadles… you can play with them using double crosses instead (FC-BC or BC-BC). That will challenge her to watching you “upstairs” and not just motion on the double blinds in particular, and it will challenge you to see her head turning as the ‘permission’ to do the 2nd cross.
Sequence 1 went really well – it was more of a jumping exercise for her than handling, because you really hit the gas pedal – so she had to handle the jumping lines with a lot of high energy and motion from you. She had the one oopsie on jump 1 then, no problems. Nice! The 4-5 serp is a hard jumping line because she has to do the lead changes with pressure/convergence from you (and lots of speed!) and she did it nicely 🙂 It falls into #3 on your skills list 🙂
>> But preparing for trials has had me working less on the back sides.
Smart – after all, the first part of her trial career is going to be mainly front sides, so we don’t need a ton of value on backsides at the moment!
>> For some reason, she finds patters and if I do some back sides, then she won’t do the front side. Even with balancing both. (Lever used to do that, too). So is it genetic or is it me?
Both? LOL! Also… Border Collie or herding breeds in general? I see this in the herding breeds a lot – I also see it in threadle training, where they just want to threadle no matter what we are cuing. It is the harder skill (just like the backside is the harder skill) so there must be some inherent reinforcement value for the harder thing that we have built and that their brains are firing on. Voodoo is only half BC and I get the behavior because he is 100% herding breeds. I do not see this in the BC/terrier mixes at all. It is interesting!
Anyway – my answer to it is to do shorter sessions and balance the skills on an almost 1:1 ratio, so the dogs pattern less. The only time Voodoo patterns now is if I am videotaping a demo and he does the same thing several times in a row. LOL! It doesn’t really happen on course, it really only seems to happen in training sessions.
On Pose’s video: You can move more on the parallel path (shoulders open to her) to the backside, so it isn’t verbal only and then you can show her the slight shoudler turn to the front side – start the verbal then do the handling/motion, so the verbal starts to predict the handling that will follow it. That will help on the early reps as she was moving past you and wasn’t quite sure of what to do.
The other thing that I have found helps the dog go back and forth between front side and back side on a line (like the last couple of reps) is a bit of an attention cue before the front side cue:
a backside push cue is a very forward cue, similar to a GO or GET OUT. It is higher energy and the dogs get to accelerate, which is stimulating 🙂 When there is a choice between front and back (even if it isn’t a threadle, maybe in a situation where she has done a backside or two in a row) – I add a name call before the front side cue to basically say to the dog: “hey there, this is your early alert that different info is coming” So as she comes around the previous jump, you can go directly to the push cue when you want the push to the backside. When you want the front side, you can add a name call (or anything that you might use as an early attention cue):
“Pose Pose jump” (or directional or anything that would indicate the front of the jump)
And it is a watch-her-head moment – hold the front cue until you see her head basically saying “What?” then give a front cue (or sometimes just reward the acknowledgement of your alert cue. I guess in some ways it is like an opt-in on the run LOL!Threadle skills –
yes, good to review them! She was a good girl, that 180 jump is tempting! And she was happy to go back to it when you balanced the reps here (yay!). Don’t be surprised if, when she is really loving the jump threadles, she starts to self-threadle during training sessions (it doesn’t really happen on course, mainly in training). As you work the threadles, keep your feet moving forward towards the next jump rather than rotating in towards her. That way you can keep moving forward through those threadles to get to the next spot on course. You were rotating your feet and it helped her hear but eventually we will want to fade that.Sequence 3:
Rep 1 – the opening looked great (Pose was NOT sad about the big line to the tunnel LOL!) and nice blind on 4 to show 5! For a heartbeat on 6 at :11 it looked like you were going to do a blind, then you tried to get the connection back – but your running line was strong and she knew which end of the tunnel to get 🙂Rep 2: I REALLY liked the timing of your turn cue for 5 at :21 here! She was landing from 4 at a zillion miles per hour and you were already delivering the info – so she set up a lovely wrap 🙂
On the 6 serp – your running line was even better here and so she picked up the correct tunnel entry. This convergence connection is really hard and is asking her to shift off of you: so try using the exit line connection here, left arm across your body (toy can be visible) to convince her to make the lead changes away to stay on your right side – it is a pretty direct connection to her eyes, but as soon as she realizes what it is, I am sure she will be happy to do it. She is reading the lower body perfectly so we just have to exaggerate the upper body for a few reps so she can see that there is something important happening up there 🙂
On the next full rep you had a pretty good serp cue going at :59 but then when you got your left arm in play at 1:04, she nailed it 🙂 Yay! Freeze the video as she is over the bar at 1:04 and you will see really lovely handling: lower body is spot on the line and upper body showing her the turn away required to get to your right side. She needs to see more of this as she gets more comfy with the vonergence lines, then I think it will be fine to handle it the way you did at :59 and :23.
Nice job getting the excitement on the first bar then, after she got it right and kept it up, acknowledging it 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi there! Great job on these!
rep 1/course 1: after the tunnel send for 3, you can keep moving 3-4 – she doesn’t need a physical send/push on that 4 jump because it should be right on her line so she will take it. And staying in motion will allow you to get on the perfect path for the push to the backside at 5 – that will allow you to push away sooner and get up the next line sooner too to decel to set the RC on 7. Then stay connected, even if she goes wide, don’t let it break your concentration or connection (it is good practice to keep going, in case that happens at a trial). You noted that she was wide and then the wheels came off a bit 🙂
You deceled to set the RC on 7 better on the next rep and then stayed connected up the next line, nice! Before the verbal – Call her before the first jump for the threadle 8-9 so she knows something is coming.3rd rep – MUCH better staying in motion up the line from the tunnel, it put you closer to the perfect path and you were able to get away from 5 even sooner! Yes, the BC 6-7 was a little late because tight turn blinds really rely on the new connection and a strong verbal turn cue, but even the late blind set you up for a nice turn at 7 and to get back up the line nicely to get the threadle.
4th rep – I think you left out 6 on this one! You dida wrap on 5 then went to 7 – it was good to work the wrap on 5, that is not easy – nice early turn cue go it.
I liked the progression of verbals on the threadle on this one at :50:
you did a turn verbal on the way to the jump before the threadle then you switched to your threadle verbal – it was smoother than going directly to the threadle verbal on the other reps because she knew it was coming.Next rep – you stood still in the serp line at jump 4 to set up the RC for 5 at 1:04 and 1:15 – that caused you to run towards the inside wing, so she took the RC on the center of the bar rather than turning away on the far side of the bar. I think staying in motion will set a nicer turn because you can run more along the rear cross pressure line, so you can run deeper into the tunnel to set up the RC… or since you have a lot of time on the tunnel send, do a blind cross between 4-5.
On the last rep, you did a FC on the takeoff side of 4 because you had a ton of time and a great tunnel send. Nice! You did end up standing still at 5… she had a great turn and you got back down the line, but it is definitely something to experiment with: it is better to go in closer to the tunnel so you are in motion the whole time, making it easier to stay in motion to back down the line (and probably leave 5 sooner)? Or is it better to get way ahead and meet her at 5, can you still get out of there nice and early and stay ahead of her.
Small nitpick on the line back to the tunnel at 1:08 and 1:17 and 1:29 (6-7) – you moved away from the ‘perfect path’ line too early and you were looking away, so she had a zig zag there (and ticked the bar at 1:17, looked at you at 1:29). On this sequence, you have the time to stay closer to the 6 jump to set the turn back to the 7 tunnel and still get the next line. If, on a more complex sequence, you don’t have time- you can move away early but really open up your upper body back to her, serpy-style, so that she sees the turn back to the tunnel before she sets a takeoff decision for 6.Great job! You can also add in that 6 backside on course 2 (and 5 as front side on course 1) and the last 2 jumps on course 3 – all of those moments will give you opportunities to play with the disconnect & run skills 🙂
Let me know what you think!
Tracy
