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Good job on the bending! He didn’t seem to have any struggles with his body, yay! Start him closer like you did on the last rep, so he has to power in with his hind end from a standstill… much harder to get his butt under him for that 🙂 You can raise the bars a little! More coming soon today to build on this 🙂
Nice work!
TracyHi there!
She was a good girl here, like usual! I like the set point set up here. She is stepping into it really nicely but isn’t yet powering over it with her hind end by pushing off (she is carrying it a bit more than pushing with it). She seems to power over the jump on the Go games, so my thinking here is that the MM is causing her to sit back and collect too soon, even though it is pretty far away. So, try this with the toy! I think that she has the stay and self-control for that, so you can place the toy maybe 15 feet past the jump and see if it gets her to power.
And you can also add some motion – walking. Lead out and walk towards the target, when you are halfway between the jump and target, release her. And if that goes well, you can release sooner and sooner (but stay at a walk). We are looking for her to maintain her form and not go wild LOL! I think she will be fine with it : )Go: nice commitment on her go lines here! You can throw sooner – try to throw so early that is it landing as she is taking off (she moves fast, you’ll have to throw pretty early LOL!). The goal is that she doesn’t look back at you at all. It was hard to see where you were looking as you were moving towards the jump (remember to look at her) but she was doing a great job of looking at the jump til she was jumping and there was nothing else to look at 🙂
Nice work!!
TracyGood morning! Really nice sessions here!!!
On the jump offering: I love your distractions and especially the ring crew LOL!!! It was a little bit of a distraction but he worked through it (he had to check it out a little) and then it was super clever to use them as jump wings :)) You can replace your ring crew in the chairs with a higher level of distraction, using something like an empty food bowl or closed cookie bag to teach him to ignore in favor of taking the jump.
The commitment look great, indeed! I was very happy to see him taking the jump, no matter what. So yes, now you can experiment with leaving early – try to leave SO early that you are convinced you are going to pull him off 🙂 If he fails once, no big deal, try again. If he fails twice – make it easier.On the tunnels – again, he is showing lovely commitment and you had great timing of your verbals! On the GO verbal, keep moving forward (don’t be stationary when you say it for now) so the body cue matches the verbal cue. Great job on your reward placement! On the turns, great job with timing and physical cues and reward placement. You can mix in having him chase you for the reward on the turns. He was indeed beginning to sort out the difference in the turn versus go cues: check out 1:50, for example – that was incredibly tight on the turn cue! Woot! Commitment looked fabulous 🙂 And he looked happy 🙂
>> Because we started about a week and a half late I’m feeling a little behind. Should I wait and not submit any more video until next week or continue catching up with the rest of the class?
You can submit more video if you like this week, I don’t worry that much about time limits to the second 🙂 but we want to make sure he is having fun and we aren’t over-working him. Also, the class will have a couple of extra weeks at the end for video submissions, so you don’t need to feel any pressure or rush to get it all done 🙂 Usually there are 2 extra weeks but since I will be home for the next 6 weeks, I imagine there will be more than 2 weeks for videos here LOL!!
Nice work here!!
TracyHi there!
Yes, a little too far back on the first couple of reps, but no worries, you changed it for the last rep. She definitely found this a bit challenging, and that is good! We want her to think about form 🙂 She was not really stepping into it with power, so I think you should open up the cross bars a little so it is less visually daunting. So was probably thinking WTF?? Haha! So rather than having the cross bars touching, separate them by about 6 inches or 8 inches so the visual is still supporting but it isn’t quite as weird. 2 other things to help – put the target further away, so it is at least 12 feet past the 2nd jump. We want her to land then take a big stride to it. On these reps it was really close so she was landing almost on the target.
And when you lead out to the target, face her direction of travel (so you will be connected by turning your back to her more, similar to your first rep). Don’t face her, as that backs dogs off of jumping big (when I want massive collection on course, for example, I face my dogs). We want extension here, so we turn away (just like we turn and run on Go lines).
She was showing good form here, especially on that last rep, so these little tweaks will really help solidify it and get her jumping with big power.
Nice work!
Tracyhi again!
Yes, she probably thought sitting that close to the bars was WEIRD hahaha! I lure the dog in close at first, but standing in the gap between the cross bars and first jump, facing the dog, and lure them with a cookie to get in close (nothing wrong with a good ol’ lure in this case :))She is showing nice jumping form so far! Let’s give her a target to look at some she isn’t curling towards you. If she might struggle with a toy on the ground, you can use an empty food bowl and then drop a cookie or toy into it when you release her. Or you can use a closed bag of treats then open it when she gets to it 🙂 That will help maintain her head position and good form as we add more elements to this.
nice work!
TracyHi! The stay tour is going well! When you go back to deliver the rewards, be sure to get the treats in fast and low so she doesn’t lift her front feet. And also remember to release to the toy so she doesn’t release when you move. I avoid both of those by throwing the reward back to the dog when I am way out ahead – I throw it back and release as I throw, so she can move to get it 🙂 That really helps build the value of the dog staying as you get further away (rather than you being close when you deliver the rewards) and it also helps with distractions. For whatever reason, she was distracted in front of the jump – so if you lead out and randomly throw back rewards (I surprise the dog by saying get it and throwing it to them), she is going to watch you more and think about the distractions less. Start with you relatively close then you can gradually add more and more distance!
About the set up – early on, I am not too picky about the dog being exactly in the perfect spot 🙂 I just want to make it all super fun to sit and stay in front of the first jump. Since you are already working on the between-the-legs set up, you can do it as a trick in front of the obstacles and she will get more and more comfy doing it. And you can also do the side line ups as silly tricks, so then you can get more and more precise about exactly where she is.
nice work on the stays!
TracyHey there! I think we all have a bit of free time lately, perhaps? LOL!
On the GO video: he was taking the jump but looking at you while doing so (multi-tasking LOL!) so I want to convince him to NOT look at you. From the handler perspective, you and look at him more (more connection) and don’t look ahead, plus you can be on slightly less of a slice so the bar is more directly in front of him to look at and drive to.
Normally I would also suggest throw sooner, right when he looks ahead rather than when he gets to the jump… but he wasn’t really looking ahead enough to allow you to do that LOL! So, we can help give him the idea with a couple of lure reps (I think I did this when Voodoo was a baby dog, 100 years ago :)). Set up the same way, hold his collar, look at him, throw the toy past the jump – then say go and let go of him. It replicates the toy races so should remind him to look ahead. Do 2 or 3 reps like that then, if he is looking ahead, do one with a super early throw and see if he drives ahead without looking at you. We can fade the lure really easily when he realizes that he does not need to look at da momma (boys and their mommas…. LOL!)The set point is looking good!!! Distance of the MM and a bit of motion are giving us some good form. You can add a bit of jogging to this at this point as well. We will revisit this once a week or so, and I use it to get bars up to full height (eventually).
Nice work!
TracyHi there!
Bending on the wings looks good! It was easy for her to acclimate on the wings, so adding the bars was a good decision. The bars were harder for her, she couldn’t decide if she should trot like a cavalettis or jump them LOL! No problem, the next exercises will help her sort that out, stay tuned for more coming today.
She looked nicely balanced on the set point, but I have a couple of tweaks for you – move the reward further away, so she can stretch out her stride to drive to it. A food reward tends to slow the dogs down, so we don’t want it too close. We want a big extension stride to it after landing, so at this stage you can move it to maybe 15 feet past the 2nd jump. And, swap to a toy now and see if she can maintain her form 🙂 Good rewards for the stay!!!
One other suggestion is to get her more room to step in between the cross bars and the first jump, it was a little too short here. You can do that with a wingless jump set up further away from the first jump, and 5 foot bars if you have them. She had to jump these bars here, so using the wingless jump to set up the cross bars should ideally create at least 6 feet from the cross bar to the first jump (this looked more like 4?)
If she is still nicely balanced (she should look almost bored haha!) then you can add motion – walking forward while you release, with the reward still out ahead as a visual target. She is probably ready for that, but if motion changes her form or she gets frantic, go back to standing still out by the target.
The GO at the end – you can now start further back so she can more room to smoke you – I mean, more room to drive ahead 🙂 Ha! Two suggestions -first, while you are holding her, look at her and don’t look ahead. You were looking ahead so she was looking at you a bit. It will feel weird to look at her, but it will help turn your chest to the line so you will be able to support the line better.
And, throw the toy sooner – starting further back will make this easier, because you can throw as she is driving ahead, looking at the jump, and before she gets there. If you wait til she is taking the jump, she will end up looking at you. So, throw nice and early 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi!
The Go is looking fine, but you can say GO rather than OK.I like to hold the dog, start saying GO GO GO GO then let go and run. That makes the pups really go LOL! And you can switch to a toy that doesn’t bounce so he doesn’t try to flip himself over backwards to catch it (SCARY is right!!!). You can start further and further back in future sessions.Bend work is looking good – he is working out how to bend himself, and that is great because he is a big dude and needs to understand his body. I like that he is thoughtful about it and not a deranged lunatic haha!! It will translate nicely into running courses in the future.
And the set point – he looks a little bored LOL!!! But again, that is not a bad thing 🙂 We want thoughtful behavior for now 🙂 You can add 2 more layers – if possible, give him more room between the cross bars. You can do this with a wingless jump if you have one, putting the 2 wings a little further away from the first jump so the cross bars extend further out. You can also add a bit of motion, in the form of leading out, walking, release while you are walking. So lead out, walking – when you pass the 2nd jump, release, keep walking. If that is fine (and I think it will be), you can release earlier on subsequence reps. The reward is out ahead in the same spot the whole time. And if the walking goes well, you can up it to jogging! We still want him to look kind of bored and very smooth in his mechanics.
Nice work!
Have fun!!
TracyHi there!
I feel the pain of the camera falling over! He did well on the bending – he had more enthusiasm on the reps where you were moving but overall he did really well. On the stand-still reps, you can stand still then run like a crazy person when he gets all the way around 🙂 We will be building on this very quickly, so this is a good start.
On the set point – One tweak for you to get amore of an idea of his form – change your position so you are out next to the manners minder (or use a toy). He is questioning if he should extend past you with you being stationary (he is correct, we would want him to collect in that context :)) So put the MM a bit further from the jump (another 6 feet further or so so he has a full extension stride after landing) and lead out to it. I think that is where we will see what his form is all about to make a plan from there. The split front feet are probably more about the bar being low and you being stationary near the jump, so he is cantering more than jumping. Changing your position should help that!
Nice work here!
T
Hi there!
I use set point to introduce the bar and then introduce height with the dog’s focus where I want it to be. I don’t know if it fixes things that might be an issue but I do use it to introduce concepts (and I can find issues on it, if there is an issue). That being said… I see no issues with Enzo, he looks really lovely. So, objectives: adding motion would be the first one for him. He does everything the same, it is you that we change 🙂 as you lead out towards the toy, release while you are moving forward to it. At first, release when you are a step away. If that goes well, release as you are passing the jump. If that goes well, release before you get to the jump. Keep moving on all of them – first at a walk, then at a jog, then build to a run. You can also add in distractions that cause dogs to drop bars: flinging arms. sudden decels, verbals over the bar, a tunnel out ahead – all introduced here in a high success format. The objective is to basically say to him: maintain your form even with all of these variables.
If the form changes for the worse, we make it easier by dialing back whatever the root distraction was or by lowering the bar. It helps with foundation for running courses and I don’t think it will be all that difficult for Enzo, he appears to have great structure, great body understanding and lovely form 🙂
THello and welcome, great to see you here! Re-visiting puppy foundations can help get adult dogs happier in the ring too 🙂 I believe I met Mighty Mouse, because his name is pretty amazing!! We can fold in some things to help build his confidence in other situations if you like!
Offering the jump:
He did really well, seemed to really power away from you!!! You can add angles to this game for him: start at a variety of angles around the clock and walk past, big rewards for getting to the jump even from the weird angles. And when you do the turns, you can mix in having him chase you for the ball (which he really seemed to love :)) as well as some times throwing it where you he was landing as you were doing.Because he is more advanced and did so well, you can add a little distraction. Pick something that he finds to be an interesting distraction – like a (closed) food bag on the ground, as far as needed so he can be successful 🙂 That will lay the foundation to be able to help him find the joy in the jump even when faced with something he doesn’t like as much (which we can totally add in, gently, at some point too!)
Nice job on the rocking horses! You were really getting the timing going of just enough patience to do the send and trying to be earlier and adding distance. His commitment looked great! Yes, I think you can for sure try leaving earlier on the next session. At 1:03 and 1:13 you were rotating earlier and he had no trouble from what I could see! So you can play with rotating as he is passing you!
Another option on the simpler version (without as much rotation) is to move closer to the tunnel, so he has to “find” the wing wraps with the tunnel distraction there – and sometimes cue him to run through the tunnel. Fun and more difficult!Very nice work here, you are off to a great start!!
TracyGood morning!
Good work here, I bet it was nice to get to the barn!
Set point – good job on the first session! And she moves really fast so it is hard to see in real time. I think she did a really nice job of sorting out her footwork in here! A couple of ideas for you fo rthe next session:Feel free to use a big cookie lure to get her to sit very close to the cross poles and sit straight ) If she is sideways she has to bend into it which is difficult. I put myself on the other side of the cross bars and lure into the sit when starting this, then step over the jump. Not very graceful but works haha!
Since she seems to love the MM, you can delay the click til she gets there. I think clicking early got her a little too excited on the first rep LOL!! The rest looked good with the delayed beep.
What was the distance between the cross bars and the first jump? I think we can give her a little more room maybe sliding them down so she has another 6 inches or a foot. And moving the MM a few feet further away will allow her to land and take an extension stride to it on future reps.
Bending! Nice! She definitely likes it LOL!! She sorted it out by trotting then went to a run, which is great. You can add in using a toy, and also get the bars in for part 2. We will be building it into the next steps later the week. Fun!
>>As an FYI, Work is going to try to stay open through this (animals will continue to get hurt and sick). I’m picking up an extra 1/2 shift Wed night (Influenza A) and as we have a doctor going on maternity leave and are already short staffed, I may have to disappear for a time at some point.
Thanks for letting me know!! And thank you for being there for the animals, these are crazy times. We will keep the classroom open as long as needed so you can keep playing even if your schedule gets busy.
Tracy
