[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi Tracy,

>>on the Send&Go pinwheels, with Voodoo on the last reps with a lot of distance you used your arm to help the dog, so when the distance is greater can use the arm to send?>>>

Awww baby Voodoo!! The arm was NOT the main part (or even a deliberate part) of the cue, it was just flappy form with me trying to take a big step to the middle jump. So yes, an arm can be used on the send because you will find that the physics of the motion is going to want to get your arm to move (centrifugal force). It will feel really weird to not move your arm at all and that might make you too stiff or awkward, instead of moving freely. So big step, big connection… and if your arm flies around, no big deal as long as you can maintain the connection and the step (my flappy arm was high but didn’t change connection). The main thing is to NOT use your arm to point forward to the jump when the dog is parallel to you or behind you – that breaks connection and turns your shoulders away from the line you want.
With Hot Sauce, I am MUCH better about being able to stay connected and keep the arm better behaved LOL!!!

T

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
It is perfectly fine to keep that last jump super low (all the jumps super low) because of her age – we can teach all this as concepts then the bars can start to come up when she is “of age” which will be sometime after a year old. There is no rush because there are no trials and she is still a pup 🙂

First rep – yep, self-release – speedy but then she lifted her head when she was coming up the line, perhaps thinking “oopsie!” LOL!!
2nd rep – ok, she did the same leaping between 3 and 4, so it was not an oopsie thing like I thought on rep 1.
Rep 3 – same leaping. I think the leaping between 2 and 3 was not because she has a jumping question, but more because of the reinforcement. Sometimes the reinforcement elicits a leap and a pounce, and I think that is what she was doing here (I see that same pounce in lots of dogs :))

But on rep 4, she did NOT do the leap/pounce, she had nice striding – so, what did you do differently on that last rep? I can’t see it on the video, but I am wondering if you changed the type of or position of the reward? Whatever you did…. keep doing it LOL!!! Or maybe she just sorted it out? Let me know! And we can do other things to get her to target the line on grids without leaping, such as a different type of target (less stimulating). Her form on the first 3 jumps looks good and she doesn’t look off balance at all, so I think it was more about the reinforcement. Let me know what you think 🙂 Nice job!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi! Her commitment on the pinwheels looked GREAT! The middle jump was miles away and she had no questions. Yes, your arm was a little pointy 🙂 but it is something she is likely to see happen on course and I was very happy to see her commit anyway. You can toss the reward out past that middle jump more – you were marking the commitment but throwing for the last jump, so feel free to mix it up. You an also add challenge by running after more when she commits to the middle jump: can she still commit to jump 3 when you are hauling butt away? That would be a good time to reward jump 3. And if it continues to be really easy for her (yay!) then you can add a tunnel in and start in a tunnel before and after the pinwheel 🙂
Nice job!
T

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi! Her commitment on the pinwheels looked GREAT! The middle jump was miles away and she had no questions. Yes, your arm was a little pointy 🙂 but it is something she is likely to see happen on course and I was very happy to see her commit anyway. You can toss the reward out past that middle jump more – you were marking the commitment but throwing for the last jump, so feel free to mix it up. You an also add challenge by running after more when she commits to the middle jump: can she still commit to jump 3 when you are hauling butt away? That would be a good time to reward jump 3. And if it continues to be really easy for her (yay!) then you can add a tunnel in and start in a tunnel before and after the pinwheel 🙂
Nice job!
T

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
He is still processing this grid, and that is a good thing! We want them to think about the jumping. It is easiest to see by watching his hind end: On the first rep, he was off balance over the oxer. Better on the 2nd rep! Off balance on the 3rd rep (new distance). A little better on the 4th rep – but I think he can use more experience to work up to this distance here,
Adding the stride at 21″ is possible for his size as long as it is balanced and comfortable – first rep was not comfortable looking, the last stride was short and relatively close to the jump. He was just reading it, and that is fine. 2nd rep was better but not fully comfy yet – he hasn’t decided if that stride works for him or not, yet.

So here is a suggestion for the next session on this:
Start at the first position, so 2 or 3 reps. Then move the oxer out by one foot. Do a rep or two, call it a day.

Then the next session can start where you left off for a couple of reps, then you move it out by a foot – do a rep or 2, call it a day.

By moving the oxer out with a low bar by just a foot each time, you can get him more practice on each distance while more gradually increasing the challenge. And he won’t notice as much when the challenge changes, so he will be abl to have a nice long stride each time.

Lazy pinwheel – you did a great job staying in motion as he was on you right side! He really drove around it. You were not as smooth staying in motion when he was on your left, it might not be as comfortable so keep reminding yourself to stay in motion. Also, remember to keep these sessions in the 4-rep range. It gets super easy for the amount of jumps to add up especially when we don’t have to run LOL!!

On the send and go pinwheels…. he had the concept really quickly, nice job committing and rewarding! The rewards where nicely spread out over the different jumps and he seemed to have no problems committing.

>> I wasn’t sure if we were supposed to say “jump” or directional cue for this game.

For his size, I would just say “jump” because left and right will end up being more of a 90 degree turn.

However – definitely tooooooooo many reps here. I counted 54 jumps on this video alone. It is hard for us to feel that because we aren’t really running on these exercises but even with a low bar, 54 jumps it too much for one session. Yes, I am obsessive about # of jumps LOL! but the PTs that worked with the team that I was on or coached all asked me to count the number of jumps the dogs did, because it played a role in keeping them sound.
Plus, from the training side of things, I think we don’t get the same mental sharpness when we do too many jumps.

>> but I do notice his line was getting wider as the jumps went further out. Should I expect him to keep a tighter line or is that normal?>>

I think it was likely fatigue – it was happening at the end of Video 3 and on video 4, where the distances make it more challening but he was up at around 100 jumps at that point so there probably wasn’t much gas left in the tank. That is why I am being such a pain about limiting number of reps – we will get better behavior if we spread it all out 🙂 So as hard as it is – increase challenge over the course of several days/weeks, not all in one session. Count the # of jumps he does in each session and try to limit to 25 or less per session – and maybe 2 sessions a day, every couple of days.

Let me know what you think! He is doing really well, so we can keep adding challenge without overworking the jumping efforts.

T

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!
Yes, he definitely loves his toy 🙂 But he worked beautifully for food on that first rep, it looked really good! I think it was a really nice combination of engagement right before you started it and just enough movement to support the line but also still within the boundaries of the lazy game LOL!
2nd rep -he touched the bar on the 2nd jump – so you can leave the middle jump bar lower for now, as he gets better and better at bending his body on these medium collections and especially as you spread them out.
On the 3rd rep – the engagement (ready ready!) and connection helped get him into the correct tunnel entry (when he went into the other end, you had turned to look forward a bit too much). The rest of the rep was good – you had less motion, so he did it but also didn’t move as fast. On the last rep, you were a lot more stationary so he trotted. I suggest using the toy to make it all more exciting, and also the amount of motion you had in the 1st and 2nd reps (medium speed walk). He is doing well! And you can definitely mix in sessions of the pinwheel where you do run run run 🙂
Nice job!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!
First rep – all good until there was a chicken in her landing spot, soooooo….. good choice to NOT land on the chicken, Demi LOL!!
Good job rewarding the following reps that were chicken-less 🙂 She has a little bit of trouble on the 3rd jump (the last one before the tunnel), so you can move add distance unevenly: the jump after the tunnel can start to move further away, the pinwheel jump can creep further out… but the jump after the pinwheel jump (before the last tunnel) and stay in a little closer until she is more confident driving to it all the time.

Massive bummer about the rain and snow. Argh!!! Hopefully it melts super fast so you can play with the handling of the pinwheels and the big grid. Stay warm!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

On the grid:
>>From #3 to #4, Enzo added a stride. Then I backed him up one position but he didn’t take away the stride.>>

Yes, something was settling him back into collection there. It was hard to know exactly what was causing it – be sure that you and the reward are together 15 feet or more past that last jump (on a couple of the reps, you were stationary and what looked to be halfway between the last jump and the reward, which can encourage collection.
Also – to open him up (I believe he can do this all as one stride) a couple of ideas:
Starting at your #2 position, do the grid on a 12 inch bar. Let the wind whistle through his ears and ruffle his mane 🙂 If he one strides it (and I think he will) – move the oxer away 1 foot. If he one strides it… move it back to position 1. Easy! If he one strides it… move the oxer to position 3. If he one strides it… move it to position 2. Still a one stride? Move it to position 4. Still a one-stride? Move to position 1 🙂

If he at any point adds a stride – go back to 2 positions before where he added the extra stride, to a wind-whistling position. So if he adds a stride at position 4, the next rep should be position 2, then position 3, etc.

And keep the bars lows for now until he is one-striding at position 5 LOL! Then we can play with getting him more comfy on the bigger bars – a 20″ oxer can be cause dogs to be careful! If he continues to be careful and add a stride, we can use a single jump.

Also, what type of reward are you using? He does not appear to be careless, so you can consider a more exciting reward out ahead to encourage him to loosen his tie a bit 🙂

The pinwheels are looking really good – he has really lovely commitment understanding and was a super good boy when you asked for the 180 instead of the pinwheel (surprise! LOL!) I see a difference in his speed based on your speed. When you are a little ahead as he exited the tunnel to head into the pinwheel, he ran at a nice speed. But when you sent and ran away, calling him – totally picked up a new gear 🙂 With that in mind, because he is familiar with pinwheel concepts: I want to always work him at that gear, so agility becomes a game played at that speed. To do that, run deeper into the tunnel (send less) so that you are scrambling and maybe a bit panicked as he exits – then drive hard so he can pass you into the pinwheel – then send and run run run like you are being chased by a bear 🙂 When you sent but didn’t really run away, he only drove hard after you tossed the toy.
I am not worried about the tightness of turns on the pinwheel jump – he did a great job and I am sure he will sort it out even if he is a little wider at first. So, think of it as drive-in, drive-out. I personally can’t maintain that energy for very many reps so I do one or two then take a break – because if I do too many in a row, I end up relaxing the driving and then so does the dog.

Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!

>>Today I did the progressive grid. I think maybe I set him too close to the first jump?? He took a stride in between 1 and 2 a couple times.

I think your set up spot on the 3rd & 4th reps was really good – rep 2 might have been a tiny bit too close, but it was fine. Rep 1 was too far away but a little bit. I think the spacing on the ladder element of the grid was probably too wide for now -it should be 6 feet but it looked bigger from the camera angle, so try it at 5 feet and see how he does.

>>The footing is a little loose so that may also be part of it – might not be getting as good of a push off as he did before.

Could be? But I would try the shorter distance first to see if that helps.

>>then did 15, 18 and 21 for the 4th jump. This is all but 1 rep. It was very similar to the second rep. I had a manners minder on the ground about 20′ past the last jump, but he didn’t actually go to it. Just ran to me not looking at it as I stood next to it.

For the MM as a target, you can try getting down low to it. You can also use a toy or ball, that might be more interesting 🙂 I think he was striding pretty nicely on the various distances, but something more exciting will help him really power through it.

>>I think the good thing about just showing up and doing things right away is he has some energy, the not so good thing is he’s really excited to be there and his brain isn’t settled yet (he and Wager get out of the car and bark and celebrate getting to play, then Wager runs the outside of the course). I’m not discouraging Wager most of the time because I never get to train with other people/dogs so it’s my only dog distraction. I’ll ask him to stop running if Spot can’t stay with me, but most of the time it’s not an issue.>>

Yes! We get a fresh look at what the pupster is doing 🙂 Excited is fine, because he will be excited at trials 🙂 When showing him something new like this grid, I think reducing distraction will start – he was definitely distracted by Wager (looking right at him on one of the reps) so let him read this grid a few times before Wager gets to run around (sorry, Wager! LOL!) Spot was physically with you but couldn’t quite split his focus in terms of reading the grid with Wager running around. You can add the distraction back to things he has more experience on, and I am sure he will be ready to see the distraction on this grid soon too.

Nice work here! Let me know what you think!

Tracy

Anyway, here’s our progressive grid first attempt.

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi! I think the easiest way is at the top of the forum page, click on the gold link that says “Welcome To Agility University” right under “Grizzly Grin And Bear It” – that will take you to your courses. I generally have 2 tabs open if I need to go back and forth quickly.

T

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi Anne!
This game is so hard for the handler LOL!! Standing still… so hard LOL! I feel your pain 🙂 She did really well – it looks like she easily drove to the jump after the tunnel on each rep. She had a little trouble on the middle pinwheel jump on your right but did not have that same trouble with the middle jump on your left. Interesting! And you gave a nice subtle cue on the left. So – when she is doing it on the right, bring that middle jump in a little closer, and throw reinforcement out past it on a lot of the reps. You can have it a little further away when it is on your left. Nice job here – she is really zipping around this little course!!!

T

[Tracy Sklenar]

Very nice here Peggy and Demi!!!! Great job moving but not really moving (SO HARD, right??!?) and also great connection. I LOVED how she zipped around the pinwheel without needing to look at you. Also, click/treat to you for rewarding in a different place on each rep – it is a great way to spread the value out everywhere on course. Yes, move the jumps a little further apart. If it is too hard and she isn’t zipping around, reward more and bring them in closer a little – we want to keep it looking like it did here!
And wow, that was great tugging with the chickens everywhere LOL!!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Perfect, I love to help dogs feel the wind in their hair LOL!!! The lazy pinwheel and the jump grid are more about precision, so the giddy up plan can be applied to the regular pinwheel. Feel free to put a tunnel in front of it to start it, then send to the middle jump, then run away (with connection, of course :)) so he chases you over jump 3 for the reward. Wheeee!
And you gave me an idea to add to the week 2 package to help build more speed and let the pups loosen their ties – thank you, I will put it together!
Enzo sounds like my Voodoo (big dog) and Hot Sauce (medium terrierish dog). Thoughtful early in their career, lots of knowledge. Not speedy lol Then we add in a dash of giddy up and a ton of speed develops without losing the trained skills. Fun!!!!
T

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi Nelci!

Sorry for the delay, I just saw the question!

>>, I am confused about how to follow the video rules “please submit a maximum of 4 reps total for each game and each training session”. If I do one circle to the L and one to the R to begin with, that is already 2 reps. Then I can only move the jumps once for another two reps (L and R), for a total of 4 reps. Or can I do a bit more for this game as in your video? I would not train more than 4-5 mins with Griz anyways. Forgive me but I am very literal (as you already know

It is amazing how quickly the number of jumps adds up on these short little drills, so the 4 rep limit on the submissions helps us not accidentally drill the dogs. So you can do more than 4 reps, but I want to see the first one, the last one, and a couple in the middle – which also discourages folks from running it over and over til it is perfect haha!! And if you only get 4 or 5 reps in, that is also fine – save his body & brain, we have lots to play with 🙂

The lazy game is looking good! You can give your verbals sooner, as he is over th eprevious jump or for the line to the tunnel, you can say it as he is landing from the pinwheel jump (“Jump tunnel tunnel tunnel!”)

He read the closer distances really nicely – speedy and also turning. As the distances got bigger, he slowed down a bit and was collecting a bit too much, especially on the jump after the tunnel and heading to the pinwheel jump. So I would leave the distances in closer for this game (they don’t need to be moved out in one session) each time you revisit it over a few weeks, only make one adjustment in the distance – that will help keep him powering through it and not over-thinking it.
Nice work here! Let me know if that makes sense!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi there! You are off to a lovely start!
You can totally use your verbals in the lazy game 🙂 I think the dogs would sell us on eBay if we were not moving AND we were silent hahaha!!

He did well here for a first time on this crazy thing! Yay! Try to praise a little less – he would look at you when you did, which drew his attention away from the line. Instead, reinforce more frequently – randomly toss it out there every 2 or 3 obstacles. And if he misses one, definitely reward when he gets it the next time around – like when he missed the jump after the tunnel then got it on the next time through – yay!
For now, keep the distances in relatively close- he will let you know when to spread them out yby going really fast, not touching the bars, and not looking at you like you’ve lost your mind hahaha!!!!

>>Was able to do both exercises in one session without losing his interest too much.

Excellent! Less is indeed more!

He is doing well on the pinwheels! Be careful of your verbals – it isn’t really a go because we don’t want extension on the middle jump, we can a moderate collection – so maybe just over or a jump cue.
He was at his best when you went one step past the first jump to the pinwheel jump, then sent. When you were parallel to it, he went (good boy!) but not as fast – when you hung back (:44) and didn’t really step, he didn’t go. You fixed it nicely on the next rep with a good step and being omre more step past jump 1. So keep doing the one-more-step 🙂 It is setting you up nicely! Great job with your verbal markers when he commits to the middle jump! When you makr it, I bet he would love it is you then ranso he could chase you for the reward – his favorite thing (except maybe for gopher digging haha). You can also mix throwing a reward out past the middle jump as you move away.

Nice job here!!

Tracy

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