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Hi!
>To be honest I wasn’t sure how well she’d get near me with it. We’ve mostly worked with balls with my back lately. Tug is a little higher value. I’ll give it a go in the backyard. The tug is a bungee type but it’s a short bungee. I’ll see if I can find my longer one.>
To save your back, we can save tugging for the games that absolutely are best with tugging. For other games, we can use balls or giant hollee rollers or big jolly ball other big ball-like-toys that you can throw and she will like but you don’t need to tug on. You can use the big ball toys for the driving ahead games, then a food reward for coming back.
On the video:
Driving to handler looked great! She had no questions on either side. When she is coming in straight to your side, keep your hand a little lower so she doesn’t need to lift her chin. When you added the pivots, your hand was lower so her head stayed lower – super!! And she pivoted really well at your side. You can add more distance so she is running faster and has to decelerate even more 🙂
>Sends to target. Ok this is where we need help. Send to the paw target. As soon as I add a hand, she checks my hand – provably checking for a cookie?>
Getting the pups to NOT look at us or our hands is one of the big pieces of this game, along with shifting from handler focus to sending. She definitely has excellent value for the prop! Super!! And she sent brilliantly to it with your foot movement. When you added an open and empty hand like at 1:38 and 1:44, I think your sends were lovely and she did great!! So definitely keep going with the open hand pointing at the target along with the leg step and connection you had here.
Having cookies in the other hand helped her move away from cookies, so after a bit more training we can put cookies in your send hand to see if she will move past them.
The only thing to add here is the handler focus before the send: face her and engage her with a bit of saying ‘ready, ready’ and maybe even a little bit of getting her excited – then send her. That incorporates the shift from handler focus to the obstacle focus, and a bit of arousal regulation because she will learn to do all of that while she is very excited 🙂
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi!
>I forgot to add all of the videos to one post. Sorry>
No apologies needed! You can put them all in one post, or split them into different posts – you can do whatever feels right for you!
The first video here is the same as the post above (let me know if it was supposed to be a different one), so this reply will be for the drive to handler videos.
The Baby Level (treat in hand) went well! He is super happy to drive to you and pivot with you.
Only one suggestion for this video: Try to have the treat in your dog side hand – you had it in your right hand when he was on your right and on your left. We will use a treat across the body for a couple of other games (like the blind cross game) but for this, the dog side hand will work best.Advanced level: He drove in really well to the empty hand, easy peasy! You can add in the pivot and then get the cookie to him faster (before the petting and praise) to keep him nice and tight to your side.
Great job here!!!
Tracy
Hi!
Great job with this session, he was focusing forward really well and driving to the toy beautifully. He seemed to have no questions about the game when you added your running. Super!
He had a little trouble at the start of each rep – staying a bit out of reach or circling on some of the reps. He might have been avoiding the collar grab a bit because you were pulling him into position – you can get him into the lineup at your side before taking his collar by tugging to your side, then gently holding his collar as you take the toy out, then quickly throwing the toy.
You also used lineup position between your feet which he definitely seems to like! And when you hold him after he lines up, try not to pull the collar – he is interested in the toy so I don’t think you need to ramp him up at all.
You can also use a cookie to line him up before taking his collar – depending on whether you think he will play with the toy after a cookie. You can try it with a boring cookie and a his favorite toy!
Since the forward focus went really well, you can add more distance to the throw so he can really run run run!
Nice work!!
Tracy
Hello and welcome to you and Maui (and sister Carley too :)) I am excited to see more of Maui!!!!
Have fun!
Tracy
Hi! This session went great!
The forward focus looked awesome and she drove brilliantly to the toy.
One thing worth noting is the lovely mechanics of your line up before the toy throw: food to get the toy back, delivery of food to get her lined up, collar grab, then quick toss. Perfect!
You were quick to engage with the toy here – what would she do if you let her win the toy and you ran the other direction? You can reward even a step towards you by engaging with the toy on the line, or presenting a 2nd toy.
>I can get some delivery to hand with MUCH lower value toys.>
Delivery to hand at 6 months is pretty awesome!!! And we can start to shape bringing the toys towards you and not running off with them, with the higher value toys too 🙂
Since this went really well: how is she doing with it outdoors? That will be harder because of the environment, but the understanding of the game is very strong so it might be worth it to see how she does in the great outdoors 🙂
Nice work!
TracyGood morning! All of these games look great 😊
First video:
Good job getting Bandit to grab the toy at the beginning! You can keep the toy swishing around a bit more, especially in the presence of food when you do the tug breaks during the session (and you can pick up the object so he can focus on the tug without thinking about the foot target :))Your timing of marking the interaction with the object was GREAT here! And you got some lovely offering – value is definitely building for the foot target!
You can add in using a ‘get it’ marker for the cookie tosses – that way you are building understanding for the marker as well teaching Bandit where to look for the treats.
The shower was interesting to smell LOL 😂 but Bandit came back to offer again and had multiple clear hits! Love it!
Driving ahead: His forward focus to the toy looks lovely – it was easy to see on the last rep facing the camera. Good boy!
He did a great job driving to the toy and he even brought it back on the first rep. Super! It will be easier for him to bring it back when he is bigger and can carry it more easily.You can take this game to difference locations where you can add longer throws, so he drives ahead even more. And you can also start adding your motion by walking forward after you let go of his collar to drive to the toy.
Drive to handler: His face was so cute on this one – it was almost like he was surprised at how easy it was LOL!! Super nice! Nice job bending to get your hand low, that is not easy to do with a tiny pup! Since this went well, you can add in more distance by throwing the start cookie further, so he can move faster back to you and decelerate to your side. And you can add in the pivots so he is turning with you too.
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi!
> We have been working a lot of sits and downs. He has gotten rewarded for chilling on his mat a bit so maybe the hat is a small mat 😂.>
Well, that explains why when he was starting to get a little brain-tired, he offered his chilling behavior 🙂 What a good pup!
>Should I try these again and show you or move on to try the 1st two games? >
The hand touch game and be put on the shelf for now, we don’t need it for a couple of weeks. I think one more prop session with your hat will be good for building value, before you got to the first prop game. And you can post the video if you like.
But you can totally start all the other games! They are not related to the pre-games and should be fun 🙂
>Since his toy play seems higher than food I am not wow how the 2nd game will go.>
We can build up food drive by getting him to eat a treat, then offer a toy to play with. So the treat is part of the bigger reward of getting to play tug too 🙂
keep me posted!
Tracy
Hi!
Wow, he has a very nice wait for a baby pup!!
He did great with these games too – he was very happy to drive to your side. Your hand was low which helped him know where to be. The lower your hand, and the earlier he saw it, the better he could decelerate to your side. Super!!
>Again I need to be consistent with my use of ‘yes’>
You can use ‘yes’ when he arrives at your hand then praise 🙂
>and I think I need to keep my hand closer to my leg on the turns.>
On most of the reps, your hand was close to the leg and low, so he was lovely! On a couple of reps (like at :41) your hand was a little high, so he jumped up a bit when he got to you. So for now, keep the hand as low as you can – he will grow nice and tall pretty soon so it won’t be an issue at all.
This game is another good opportunity to reward him for walking back with you rather than moving him by the collar. It will also help you build off leash engagement for when he is in new places or doing the grown up games later on 🙂
Since this went so well, you can take a look at the blind cross foundation fun game! And you can also see if he will play with a toy a bit between cookie reps, so we can help him go back and forth from food to toys.
Great job!
Tracy
Good morning!
He was VERY happy to focus forward on the food here! He had no questions when you added movement, or when you delayed the release so you got a bit of duration on it. Super!!!
>I tried using a toy without much luck. >
Was he not interested in going to the toy when it was stationary on the ground? You can try throwing it long and low, and releasing him to it before it lands so he is focusing on it in motion.
>Rusty just lost his two front teeth yesterday – might have something to do with it. >
Totally yes! Poor baby is teething! We can revisit the toy for this soon.
>Also, I need to consistently use ‘yes’ as my marker word.>
You were saying ‘get it’ here as your marker, which I think was perfect. It was shaping ‘get it’ to mean ‘drive forward to the reward out ahead’ which will be super useful in training! Then you praised him when he got to it – all lovely!
One thing I see here is a bit of him avoiding the collar grab when you reached for him. That is pretty normal is pups, so we can build the love for collar grabs a couple of ways:
You can use cookie rewards to keep him moving with you to your starting spot, then let him follow a cookie into a lineup position next to you.
Then, after he is next to you, hold his collar and throw the treat. That way he will associate the collar hold with something FUN happening.
And resist temptation to move him or line him up by his collar – most pups don’t love that and start to avoid the collar holds.
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
> it’s a bit harder to nonchalantly steal the toy away. We’re working on a “ready” cue to drop the toy for a throw or re-bite offer and getting a bit better already.>
Stealing the toy away, even nonchalantly, might increase his grip on it 🙂 So the ‘ready’ cue that predicts a throw (or a cookie) will help avoid any potential conflict when we try to get the toy back.
>We have done some collar grab work during normal food training and he’s been fine but in arousal and tug he’s less a fan of that so we’ll keep working on it and in the interim I adjusted to move of a cross chest or under chest gentle hold.>
It is pretty normal to see that when they are more aroused. I use the focus forward game to build in the love of the collar hold: it starts off simple and quick, with cookie trade for the toy, then the cookie delivery also lines the pup up near me, then a very quick hand slide to touch the collar, then a very quick toy toss then release the collar. Will you need 3 hands to do it? Maybe 😂 but it helps the pups condition a ‘good things coming’ when the collar hold happens, and then we build in more duration to it.
The beginning of the forward focus video here, you had his collar before the toy was out of his mouth, so he grabbed at you a bit: that can also mean the collar grab predicts the toy being taken out of his mouth, which can create avoidance of the collar grab.
You can also use a treat lure to line him up before touching him or holding his collar (rather than moving him by the collar or body) – most dogs don’t love to be moved like that so. They avoid it a bit, but the cookie lure into position allows you to hold the collar or body, and also get the game started quickly to make the association that collar grab = fun games.
Plus all this adds in a tiny bit of food into toy play, which helps create a nice balance for both! The forward focus and drive to the toy all looked great, so we can stealthily add in other elements too 🙂
>Started with his long drag toy but when it came time for him to bring it back it’s a bit too big and cumbersome and we were getting some “rolled it” moments.>
I see what you mean! Smaller toys will definitely be easier until he is bigger. He was also shredding the toy a bit but that might be a good thing (see below).
On the 2nd video, the small toys were definitely easier to snatch and carry back. Good boy! The two toy switches help him release and also reward the retrieve: a double whammy of fun!
He might have a left turn preference – even starting on your left side, he was turning away to his left on a bunch of reps. I love to watch for side preferences because it helps inform the training in the future!
>By the end of the small toy session he was pretty aroused and we were getting some more bitey behavior so we transitioned to a bit of chill out and chew on nylabone instead of mom’s hands and sleeves just to practice that arousal modulation skill a bit.>
He was a little chompy at the beginning when you took hold of him before he had really disengaged from the toy – so the hold was paired more with the toy being removed/tug stopping. You can flip that by letting him grab the toy, then getting a clean release (this is where I like the cookies), then gentle hold followed by the quick throw – that pairs the hold more with the immediate presentation with the toy, and not with the removal of the toy.
You can build in little decompression moments into the training, so he self-regulate a bit before getting chompy. It is entirely possible that the moments of shredding the big toy in the first video were decompressions – that shredding is something I have seen over and over as an in-the-moment decompression. Any repeated, rhythmic mouth movements are generally decompressions.
It is an expensive habit (those toys are expensive 😂) so you can buy cheap toys to let him shred or direct the decompression into a sniffy mat or lick mat or chewing on a bully stick or even repeatedly chomping on a squeaky toy – the trick is to let him do it before he feels the need to take it himself or before he gets mouthy. The small toys worked great for the game here but they don’t provide the same decompression that the big toy did, so you can mix that toy in a bit or you can mix in food in a snuffle mat, etc, after every couple of reps.
Then at the end of every session, a nice long sniff walk or snuffle mat or licking food from a Kong are lovely decompressions too!
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Hi!
Great tugging with Roulette here – be careful with your back as you tug with her. Have you tried a bungee toy with her, where she can bounce around on the end of the toy but there is no bag on your back?Her forward focus on the toy looks great too 🙂 She had no questions when you added movement too.
She was not running off with the toy (yay!) so you can encourage her to bring it to you more by running away from her and calling her as soon as her mouth is on the toy 🙂
Since this went so well, you can keep increasing the distance on the toy throw so she drives ahead more and more 🙂
Great job!
Tracy
Hi!
He is even cuter on video than in photos!Very nice sessions here – the foot targeting is going great. He is very happy to smack it 🙂 You can switch from your ‘yes’ marker to a ‘get it’ type marker which indicates that you are throwing the reward.
You can start the new game posted today with the prop!
The hand target also looked great! You can change your position for the next session (working towards eventually standing up) – you will still want to keep your hand low, so you can be in a chair or sitting on something so he can still easily reach your hand.
And be sure to break up the cookie moments and run down the hall to see if he will tug in a different location 🙂
Great job here!
Tracy
So glad to see you back! It will be great fun to help both of your survive puppy adolescence 🙂
Tracy
Hi! He is so cute!!
The tugging at the start of the foot target video looked great! He loves to tug! You had a nice transition into the shaping element of smacking the hat 🙂
He tried to offer a down but you were good about tossing the treats off to the side to keep him moving.
He stopped offering at about 1:40 – I don’t think he was shut down, I think he lost his chain of thought 🙂 He was very engaged, but offering a down which you might be rewarding a lot in separate sessions.
>I am sure I am doing a lot wrong since Dublin seems to shut down on me.>
You are not doing anything wrong! He is really young so we are sorting out what works best for him.
So one thing you can do to keep him offering the behavior is break off the shaping to play tug a lot more often: after 3 or 4 treats, you can scoop up the hat then then play tug – then put the hat back down and reward 2 or 3 or 4 more times – then break it off to play tug. That will keep him moving and offering the hit 🙂
The nose target session started with great tugging too! You can tie a long toy to the toy you used here, so it is easier to swing low without bending over. Trading for a treat was a perfect way to get the toy back for now. The transition to the hand target was also great! He instantly offered and you were great about tossing the treats to keep him moving.
He turned in a circle then moving into a down after 7 rewards – so I think he was just tired and needed a tug break. For the next session, try breaking the toy out after 2 or 3 treats and see how it goes!
Great job here!
Tracy
