[Tracy Sklenar]

Yay! This is all looking really good! He was a little more chill here than the sliding seesaw 🙂 he likes wild times better hahaha! Is he in a handling class? I think this needs to go into sequences, first in the form of the crazy elevator game and then adding in more and more full teeters. He is ready for more grown up stuff 🙂 Keep that value super high and you can keep showing it to him in different scenarios. Are there any other teeters you can visit?

Great job!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Oh yay! 12 poles! And a little bit of squeaking as he weaves too LOL!
I think the home session was really strong – warm up then gradually putting the poles together so he was super successful. Try to mimic that at LU so he is successful there too on those first reps – you can pull the 2 bases apart and then pull them back together to be able to do that. He did really well when you broke it down for him so he could recognize them.

I definitely think doing the 6 poles in sequence is next on tap! He looks great!!!!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning! I am glad to see in you in action: how is your foot feeling??

>>She’s focusing on me a lot. (Maybe just because it is taking me awhile with my crutch and getting into position) >>

It could be a number of things – part of it is you are DA MOMMA 🙂 and also part of it might be that she is emotionally connected to you, things have been different recently because you are not moving as much as normal, and the crutch is a weird/different thing on the agility course 🙂

I think it is a great way to introduce her to weird things she might see, like ring crew or a judge, etc. She was DEFINITELY more focused on you but she worked it through. Good girl 🙂

>>And I am giving her her release word “break”. Should I be saying “Break-jump”? Or something?

I think there are a couple of things that will help here –
the main thing is to set her up a little further from the jump and try to convince her to keep her feet straight to face it (my dogs all wanted to turn to face me so I ended up sitting them facing slightly away LOL!!!)

And your position was good, but you can change where you send to: on these reps, you were indicating the jump and the land spot. Switch that to stepping and pointing to the takeoff spot, 3 or 4 feet in front of the jump. That will open up the line of your shoulders and she will see more of the line to the jump. So you will be even more angled in the lead out: with her on your left side here, your right hip will be next to the jump and left arm pointed more back to her – and then as you release, the cue will be more like tossing a toy to land on the takeoff side of the jump (an invisible toy haha!)
And yes, you can get closer to the send jump if she has questions.

You can say your release and then your jump cue or a right directional here.

She did REALLY well when you were on the other side of the wing, I think she found that position easier!

>> I suppose the more you do this, the better they understand it.

Yes, totally! She thought it was weird at first but then she was figuring it out 🙂 It is the kind of thing we will need with her speed, so keep playing with it til she is very happy. The other thing you can do to get the ball rolling is to place an empty food bowl or a toy out on the line, on the landing side of the jump, and send her to it, tossing the cookie into the food bowl if that is what you use (it will be kind of like way back in the first puppy class when we sent them to the prop :)) That can help give her a lightbulb moment so she stops looking at you 🙂

Great job here!! I bet you can also do the 3 jump accordion grid because you only need to walk to the reward target then stand still 🙂

Have fun!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!
Wow, it got really hot, really fast out there! Eek! Setting it up the shade was a smart move!

He did well here 🙂 The most important thing to remember is that it is a form exercise and not a speed exercise 🙂 The balance, coordination and power we elicit here will transfer beautifully to jumps when he is adult and that in turn transfers to a ton of speed.
When you asked for form: set him up, led out, released and let him do his thing, thinking about his form – he was lovely! Centered in the 5 foot distance, balanced, coordinated. Those reps were strong. He had 2 questions on the first bar – at :15, he hit is with his front feet lifting off, so he was probably a bit too close to jump 1. Moving him back a couple of inches will help that. At :20, he hit the bar with his back feet – that was a form error where he didn’t push off as well, but he fixed it after that.
I think the 5 foot distance was better than the 4 foot distance – the only adjust I would make to the 5 foot distance is to move the MM another 6 or 8 feet further away from where it was there, so he can stretch to it (food tends to collect the dogs more than a toy). On the 4 foot distance, it was a little compressed and served more as an extended cavaletti. So I would keep 5 feet as the distance with the goal of getting it up to 6 feet with him still being balanced and hitting in the center of each gap.

Comparing the stationary reps to the reps where you were moving or letting him run through it – the stationary reps were much better in terms of form. When you were moving or letting him run, he lost his form and was ‘short’ (especially on the running). What I mean by that was he had his head up and his front feet were landing closer to the bar and less in the center of the gap. That generally means he is pulling from the front and not pushing from the rear. Since we don’t want that rehearsal, keep this a very form-centered exercise, no need to push for speed 🙂 And also keep an eye on the # of reps – this was 11 reps, which is the total I would suggest for 2 sessions spread out over a couple of days. I prefer to work the concept on 4 or 5 reps, get the rehearsal… then let the dog’s brain rewire to it and come back in a couple of days. That way you get more of the good form without risk of fatigue and ending a session on form you don’t want rehearsed.

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

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning! Great job raising the excitement level here, he was definitely wilder and that was good!!!

I think we can approach the next steps in 2 ways, with the main goal being to raise the rate of success – he was at about 60% overall but that was because of the misses when he started on your right side. Those were all arousal based – it is much harder to make that collection when he is really stimulated, but adding the stimulation is going to be super helpful in the long run.

So when he is starting on your left, where is he currently at 100% – keep the arousal high and add in more angles. I think the poles can stay at 1.5″ for those, no problem. And with the high arousal and poles at 1.5″ starting on your right, where he has more trouble:

>I wonder if actually keeping the same level of excitement and staying at 1.5″, but sending from a more 1 or 2 o’clock angle>.

Yes – start at 12 and work very gradually over to 1 and 2, moving over by an inch or two each time so he gets to rehearse the collection with a lot of success.

Separately, we can talk to him about the harder entries in high arousal, at the 3 and 4 o’clock side of the clock:
in a separate session (because it is a pain to change the width of the poles LOL!) so high arousal sessions with the poles much more open (2 or 3 inches, wherever he has success) with you running and him very excited 🙂

You can also talk to him about that entry collection by whipping out a base of 2 poles, putting them straight, getting him completely nuts: then working the hard angles on just the 2 poles that are straight. That can really isolate the collection and also make it easier because it is the only thing out there 🙂 A session or two like that can help him get the weight shift and then you can go back to the full set of channels with all the speed and arousal.

Let me know if that makes sense! Nice work here!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning! This looks great, I really like how she is looking forward and finding that base of poles.
I think she is ready for the next steps:
definitely have the treats ready so she doesn’t look back at you as much, and also make the handling easy by staying on whichever side you started her on (you did some rear crosses here and so it will be easier if you just move on a straight parallel line next to the poles).

On the next session, give her a little warm up by doing on rep of poles 3-4 on each side (just like you did here) to basically remind her where they are and how to get the rewards.
Then do one rep on each side of poles 1-2 (rewarding in the gap). If all that goes well – send her into poles 1-2 and keep moving down the line to cue poles 3-4. She might look at you between poles 1-2 (MOM WHERE IS THE COOKIE? hahaha) but keep moving and then when she finds poles 3-4: party! yay!

I always found it easier with my line of motion to send to poles 1-2 on a slight angle so I was not too far behind for poles 3-4. Being relatively close (and not behind) helps support the line and helps the dogs look forward better.

Let me know if that makes sense! You can see it in action on the 6 and 4 videos (and the boxcar videos). And keep me posted 🙂

Great job!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning! I think he did really really well here! Different environment, straight poles – super high rate of success with you moving and different angles of entry. And when it was hard or when he had the miss? He didn’t get frustrated, he just grabbed a toy and tried harder. Good boy!
I would say *most* of his striding was really good – I saw pretty consistent swimming in the middle of the poles. He had more striding trouble with the entries, sometimes swimming but also sometimes bouncing and sometimes crossing over with the opposite foot. But he kept working it and he kept looking at the poles, working the puzzle. So I still score it as a win! Yay!
In thinking about what he needs next: 2 things come to mind. Let me preface it by saying he is doing the exact same thing that Voodoo did at that age on straight poles: “Where do all these feet go?” Ha! So we can take a similar path to help him understand the striding.
– I think he needs to get more of the rhythm, and that doesn’t happen on only 6 poles: as soon as he gets into the striding, there are no more poles. So I think he needs to go to 12 poles for now. Introduce it with the boxcars (6 then 6) then pull the 2 sets together for 12. We are going to let him sort it out with a couple of short sessions.
– and if he needs it, we help with the 12 pole striding by opening the entire set up by about a half inch or the width of your pinky finger. The channels will be wide enough to run a thin leash down the center. That will allow him to feel the striding and rhythm, Then we close them again, starting from the center and moving outwards, saving the entry for last because that is where he is thinking about the poles the most.

He might not need the 2nd step, he might sort it with more practice on 12 poles. Either way, it is like learning to play scale on the piano: he is in the ‘imma do it a bit careful as I figure out how to go fast’ mode. So we let him figure it out and then you will see it comes together really nicely!

Nice work here! Let me know if the ideas make sense 🙂 Onwards to 12 poles!!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!
She is totally getting it! This is very fast progress for such a new behavior. One thing to help solidify it is to release her off the board when she offers a nose bob to the target, o she is looking at the target rather than looking at you.

Now as you add more motion, a couple of things to clarify so you can be very systematic and reward only the behavior you want:
– keeping the target relatively close, like it was at :42, will be really helpful for getting the foot placement. When it was too far away like at :48, she ended up all 4 feet off the board and plus you were adding movement.

>>When I added in some motion, I noticed that sometimes she stretched forward, but then when I walked back, she went into the bow position, but this time with her hind feet on the board, and front on the ground – is that OK? – in your last note you pointed out that she backed up into this position on the board, but is it OK with 2 feet off?>>

At this point, we are raising criteria so you will not want to reward her if all 4 feet (or even 3 feet) come off and then she steps back on. So adding motion very gradually will help keep a very high rate of success. Also, she does not have to bow – for now, just getting into the 2o2o is great. The bow might be something she is offering from when she did the down, so we can don’t need to wait for it. if she does it, you can reward a little higher so she stands.

And the other thing that will help is to clarify the reward markers and placement: she was moving forward as you said ‘yes good girl’ and reaching up/forward for the cookie in your hand, which was pulling her off the board. So you can mark a toss back of the cookie to the target (so it is bowled low to the target and she will keep looking down for it) or release her forward – but try not to go back and hand her the treat because it is causing her to leave position (and we don’t want to reward her for stepping forward).

Those little details will help take her to the next level with it! The other game you should add in is backing up into the 2o2o position, which will help clarify exactly where we want all of those feet 🙂

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

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning! I am glad he is feeling better! Sounds like he is getting great care 🙂 Did he at least get a “Get Well Soon” ice cream concoction?

Niamh is a great helper dog! I thought your mechanics looked great here – very precise and distinct. I couldn’t really hear if you were doing a countdown but it looks like you did and Niamh didn’t look surprised by anything that happened. So if you do another session with her, you can add in walking forward after you give your target cue then drop the board. Smart move working the mechanics – it will make it all really smooth and confident for when you add in Lennan!!!!

Great job here 🙂
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!
The structure of the sessions on the plank and the teeter all look good, and the teeter itself looks super! So now it is all about target fading.
Looking at the plank – when you went back to it at the end of the video, there was no target? It looked like she was stopping in a 4 on position.
I think the good news is that she now knows (or is beginning to better understand) that it is all about stopping at the end of the board. The target is helping her get her feet into the exact right spot but without it, she is not as clear as to where the feet go, exactly.
So 2 ways to proceed:
make the target fading more gradual and give it more time. So taking the big billboard target, the next bunch of sessions can be with the target getting progressively smaller and smaller til is eventually about the size of the fingernail on your pinky 🙂 I use post it notes for that, just ripping it smaller and smaller. My guess is that for her, it will take a lot of sessions and grass/dirt covering it too, so the fading process is so gradual she barely notices 🙂 (This very gradual fading process is very normal, and it is how I faded it with my older dogs Export and Voodoo. I think I was just lucky with the young dogs that I could fade it so fast :))
The other way to proceed is to let her front foot position on the ground be what gets the release, and the reward comes near you. That placement of reinforcement will pull her forward, getting her front feet onto the ground more reliably. Now, it is a tricky timing because you want to release as soon as her front feet hit the ground and you are sure she is stopped (no more rewards back at her or the target). So you can dial back your motion so you can see it, or have someone else click it (if you trust them a lot haha! I would totally trust Kyla to be my clicker person). These quick releases both mark the front feet very clearly and move her position forward. Because we are asking for a little bit more forward, I suggest doing this on the plank only for now – you don’t need as much speed to get it started, she is doing beautifully with weight shifting with all that speed.
The quick releases is a little bit playing with fire, so I don’t want to do it on the teeter yet because the teeter just looks so amazing with the target there. So full teeter reps and crazy elevators can still have the targets visible – the teeter performance is great!!

Let me know what you think! The target fading will get easy as soon as we figure out what works for her.

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

That is FANTASTIC!!!!! That Clip And Go is different enough that many dogs struggle, but I am so glad he nailed it!

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi! This was a great session! You are right, she does need to feel out the game – and that is what she did on that 2nd rep. She was feeling out how to interact with the tip of the board and that helped her produce a really lovely 3rd rep! Great job having the instinct to ask for one more 🙂 And also great job jackpotting the landing and then releasing and having her chase you. Really great, top to bottom! We just need to do more of this – maybe another session like this, then add the wing wrap into the crazy elevator game, then add the tunnel in too. At some point, after she goes from the tunnel to the crazy elevator with tons of confidence, we will ask for the full teeter. Wheeee!

Also – great job with your mechanics and also I love the mountain of tunnel bags under the teeter! All of that really helped her 🙂
Nice progress here! She is doing great!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi! Good session here! His home teeters might not be as amazing as his school or trial teeters because he is more pumped up there… and that is fine. I’d rather he rock it out in trials than in your backyard LOL!!

The motion you added to the normal elevator games looked good! he was very excited ago do his end position, even with the big drop. The full teeters also looked good – I see what you mean about the turn after the tunnel when he was on your right though. I think it is possible that the urgent teeter teeter verbals were causing him to think you were calling him? So maybe try a GO GO GO and then when he is looking at the teeter, say teeter 🙂 You can also do a shorter, less curved tunnel and be slightly less ahead so he can find your just before he exits to straighten the line. Or a short straight tunnel and you send to the entry like it is a backside. And yes to getting him on the LU teeter and any other teeter you an find 🙂

Great job! I am excited about how well he is doing and that we are only making little adjustments now! I mean, I am sure there will be a bump in the road here or there, but this is GREAT so far!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
He did really well here! He didn’t seem put off by doing the full teeter, he seemed happy to do it and happy to go back for the next rep (that is the real giveaway: how does the dog feel AFTER the first full teeter rep? LOL!)

I think he will continue to get faster with the down as he gets more experienced and also when there is more speed coming from the tunnel (perfect timing for the new course setup at TCOTC!) and more reinforcement for the down itself. It is a hard one to get him to do the full down while the board is in the air, he will probably get into the groove of landing in the down as the board lands 🙂

>>But, he is so focused on the preloaded target, I don’t know that he needs that extra reward unless there is another reason for it >

the reason for that is two-fold: to keep the drive to the end super valuable, and to keep paying the down while the board is in the air : ) So I recommend keep doing ti when cookies are available for use 🙂

The next sessions can have more of your motion moving past the board after you let it go after the countdown. Question: are you going to have a separate obstacle name cue, or will the end position cue be both the obstacle name and end position cue? Either way is fine, but if you are going to have an obstacle name cue, you can go ahead and add it 🙂

The trial sounds like a blast! Your training plan sounds great. Keep me posted!!!!

Nice work here 🙂
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
This session looked really good – he stopped a little short on the first full teeter but I think the is because he still needs more reinforcement for it in sequence with you way ahead. That is fine, because for now you can stay closer in trial settings and keep reinforcing in training settings. The rest of the reps looked great!!!

>>Do you have any more suggestions for our Trial tuns. They begin Friday: jumpers to snooker to standard and then Gamblers. On Sat, we have Miscillaneous first followed by 2 events and then Pairs for both sides of the course.>>

Lot of ideas! Bearing in mind that he has had a really long break from trialing, right? That means we ned to plan for and expect he will get mentally fatigued more than he would normally. So the day and the weekend needs to be shaped like a bell curve: start easy, do the hard stuff while he is fresh, then end with easy stuff. If we keep making it harder and make it really hard towards the end, he will be more likely to make mistakes due to mental fatigue.
First thing to consider: what is your reinforcement plan? What do you think he will like best during the training runs?
So looking at the schedule:
I would assess after every run and decide if you will keep the plan or change the plan to help him be more successful. I suggest considering the event as a warm up to getting a zillion future Qs, titles, wins… but don’t worry about any of that for this weekend 🙂

Jumpers: make it easy and fun! He might be wild, he might be perfect, there is no way to know but it should be a blast!
Snooker – keep this the smoothest, funnest possible course. You might have the teeter as the #7 but if you do: my advise is to skip it. Stick to fun fun fun jumps and tunnels 🙂

Standard and Gamblers should both be training runs. For the teeter, specifically: in Standard, I would start with the normal elevator game, and reward. Do that once or twice and if he is NOT happy – do one more, maybe, then be done. If he is indeed happy with it: do a crazy elevator game for reward.
And that is all I would do in Standard
In Gamblers – I would start the same way, nice easy fun teeter reps and if he is happy, do a crazy elevator and if he is still happy – do one full teeter. Reward all them them, even if they are not fully perfect 🙂

before making Saturday plans, think about how he did on Friday and watch the videos.
Misc is definitely a training class, so some elevator games and a full teeter or two is great. What are the next 2 events? Will your pairs partner be mad if you decide to train instead of Q? the problem with doing a full teeter in Pairs is that there is more pressure to Q 🙂
Let me know what you think!
Tracy

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