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Hi!
Yes! The snap offs are very similar to some of the wrap work we do for commitment. I personally think that all agility people should do flyball foundation work… but that is NOT a popular opinion with many agility folks LOL!!! And the understanding of agility jump commitment is really helpful for flyball. I love both sports!
On the video – I like how Mouse needs the last word on the stay and barks at you LOL!!! Love him! You absolutely nailed the regular connection to the tunnel. I don’t think he even looked up at you! Great job with the cookie toss starts, being slightly ahead made for a smoother line to the first jump. Beautiful! If you get a chance to play again on this, spread it out to challenge yourself to run even faster and maintain that connection.
The serp exit line connection was also lovely – yes, if you do it too soon the dogs might read it as a threadle and also it needs to be very soft, like you did here. He read it perfectly and gave you that somewhat sideways jumping effort that makes for tight lines on slices and serps. Yay! You can start to fade out the actual hand cue and move to just using your eyes at this point, maintaining the eye contact all the way through the landing spot (I have more serping in the next set of games coming up).
Great job!!!!
TracyGreat question!!! With distance work, generally a BC will stay out on the line when we keep our arms extended out away (this is also true in herding LOL!). So, when he is out on the line for the discrimination like a gamble, I think it is perfectly fine to use your arm as you describe (I am sure you were giving verbals too!). And also – it sounds like it falls into the ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ category 🙂 It is a tool that is working beautifully, so definitely keep it in the tool box 🙂
T
Good morning!
>>However, I have a question about something we did in our novice class yesterday. It was called “setting lines”…I think it used to be called or maybe still is called V set (?) where you shape the dog’s path on the take off side of a jump to manage what they see on landing. So she was having us step in on the dog’s line and then peeling away to whatever the next obstacle was…we practiced 4 different options. It felt weird to be doing this and I don’t recall anything you have taught us resembling this.>>
I think it is great to practice a wide variety of things, get good at them, then see what is effective. There is a time and a place for V-sets but there is also a specific way of handling them to get them to work (usually we need to decelerate or use a brake arm or a spin). Then… we time it to see if it is faster 🙂 Sometimes they are faster, sometimes NOT faster because the v-set adds yardage so it ends up being slower. I generally don’t v-set with small dogs but it totally depends on the context. You can email the map to me and we can discuss (agilityuniversity@gmail.com)
>Benni went very wide because he has never seen me do this before and I’m wondering if this is a useful tool to have or just let it be that we “tried” it and be done with it?
V-sets are ‘natural’ cues, meaning the dogs will get it right if the cue is correct – so you might have been late 🙂 And that would be normal if you were new to doing it and uncomfortable with it. Send me the map and we can try to sort it out 🙂
TGood morning!
Zig zag are going REALLY well, he has decided to do them REALLY fast LOL! The wider distances were easier because you both had more time to get the changes in place – and he seemed to have no trouble with doing them at high speed. I am glad you worked the tighter distances because he really had to think about it more! The timing of the cue had to come sooner as you found out but eventually this behavior won’t be contingent on a such exact timing 🙂 On the last few reps, he was getting his leads sorted out. He realized that he couldn’t just go fast – he had to adjust and so he did. GOOD BOY!!! That is exactly what we want when the wings are in close Iike you had them.
When you add another wing, you can totally start him a little further back so there is an extra heartbeat to read the handling 🙂 You can also back chain his position (by starting him at wing 3 then wing 2 then wing 1) or your position (he is at wing 1 and you start at wing 2, then wing 3, then wing 4). We can be in the ‘whatever works” mode for the handling because the handling is not that important, it is more about his lead legs and he is doing really well on that!!!On your tunnel video. – yes, I agree with how it all feels so wonky in the moment but then looks pretty darned good when we look at the video 🙂 LOL! My guess is that running the baby dogs just feels so weird and uncomfortable and we have to be pretty much perfect. Running the adult dogs is soooooo much easier in many ways. But he is looking really good here!
The left and right tunnel exits are looking awesome! Your cue is very timely (both physical and verbal) and he is using the body really well. Yay! Loved the wrap slo motion moment: he was bending his body, leading with his head – SO COOL!!!
You had a refusal on the wing at :25 – I think it was a connection moment,m where you were not connected enough (for a baby dog), your dog-side arm was blocking the connection a bit – so he was looking up at you and not looking at the wing. Then when you turned, he just kept looking at you. Good fix in that moment to be able to get the reward – that will build up to him saving you in the future when connection is not perfect (perfect connection is nearly impossible to maintain!). You did have the perfect connection on the wrap right at the very end, and he was beautiful on it. Yay!
For the go line – this is another moment where solid connection will make the line happen – as he exits the tunnel, he needs to see you making eye contact with your arm back (and running like mad too LOL!) You were running like mad at :37 and :47 but ended up looking forward, so he came off the line. So far all of the pups are doing this same thing 🙂 For now, cheat to get ahead of him at the tunnel exit so you can make the strong connection. You can cheat by sending him away to the tunnel from further away (ok, it isn’t really cheating , it is just adding distance LOL!) so you are further ahead at the exit. I will add more games to help all of our pups find that line too, it has proven difficult!
Minny Pinny: He was great! He totally had to think about it but that is good, we like thinking dogs 🙂 Your feet were in all sorts of positions that could have cued other things and he appeared to get the directional correct on ALL of them. Yessssss 🙂 I agree that he is just about ready for the neutral position: prime the pump with a couple of review reps then add in the neutral position in on an easy line… then work back to being able to stand in the center in neutral position. It is really cool to see how well he is responding here!!
And about the neighbors…. OMG I feel that!! I live in the country so my training area is several hundred yards from the neighbors… but during a session with Contraband the other day, I wanted him to hear the directional and then I wanted him to hear how excited I was about his response – so I must have been pretty loud and wild because I glanced up and they were staring at me from across the giant field LOL! Whatever, they already know I am nuts and they think the dogs are on TV or something (they saw Export on the Purina Incredible Dog Challenge on TV so they think all the dogs are TV stars LOL!!!) Gotta love neighbors who have to hear all of our shenanigans 🙂 Great job here! Enjoy your weekend in the cabin, I bet it wil be gorgeous fall weather!
Tracy
Sorry for the lack of clarity, more coffee needed 🙂 For. the serp arm: elbow locked so your arm is straight back and extended away for the serp arm, so your upper body is turned to the serp jump. Let me know if that makes more sense 🙂
Hope you had a great weekend! Funny that the notification popped in for this just as I was thinking about how your weekend went with the birds 🙂
Great job focusing on the tight sits and also on the zillions of rewards for the stay. As the excitement of the jumping comes up, the stay is going to want to deteriorate but lots of cookies will prevent that 🙂 He looked really good here: holding the stay in a tight sit but clearly keen to do the grid,
Because of the sit rewards, he let you lead out AND had really nice form developing! I think the first bar might have been a little too high for stepping right into it – it looked lower than the 10″ bar but not by much? Because of the plyometric nature of the first bar, keep it at 4 inches or maybe even a jump bump instead of the bar – the hardest part about jump grids is sorting out the perfect set up and distances for each individual.One other idea to try for convincing him to not look up at you, I have been doing something to help get the head down jumping when using the food bowl. Bearing in mind that it is a fine balance between holding the stay AND getting him to look at the reward bowl (and not at the cookies in your hand :)), I have been doing everything the same as you did here (lead out, empty bowl, TONS of stay rewards) and then at the very same time as the release, I have been dropping the cookies into the bowl (without really moving anything else :)) That gets the cookies into the bowl sooner and also the pups can track the cookie falling and it draws their heads down. It doesn’t matter if the cookie doesn’t exactly land in the bowl, the pups are happy to eat it anyway haha! And a side benefit is that it adds a bit of motion distraction challenge: can the pup maintain form while a distraction is moving? Right now the distraction is the cookie but pretty soon the distraction will be you moving 🙂
Let me know if that makes sense! He is looking really good – we are building on this over the weekend and he will be ready 🙂 Yay!
TracyHi! She was awesome on these!!! This is a hard game for BCs because they are wired to stay parallel to motion… but you have already done a lot of foundation on this AND you structured your session beautifully by adding in motion very gradually so she simply nailed it 🙂 Yay!! I am especially happy about it for two reasons: she loves going fast and she was successfully able to go fast here AND get it right. Yay! Also, you might not have noticed: that tunnel out there would have been a massive distraction for many pups (we are actually using it as a serp distraction with the new games coming this week LOL!) and she does love her tunnel… but she never even looked at it. GOOD GIRL! And you did a great job with your connections and verbals (helping with the quiet name call for the serp worked really well).
For the next session: add more speed as you run through the serp and see how it goes! Keep your connection and upper body position the same, it was really good. And you can move to the advanced level where the wing is recessed so it creates a push to the backside before the serp.
Her wraps looked lovely too – nice and tight and she stayed on the correct side (didn’t try to cut behind you for the jump). Great job with the connection there to help create it 🙂Well done!!
TracyGood morning! It looks like she is a righty! When she was on the outside of you, the left and rights both looked really good. She was pretty equal in both directions on those and she was bouncing really nicely!
The turning away revealed the rightness, so you can tweak the set up to make the left turn more obvious on the turn away moments 🙂 We can get it rolling by sending her to the left turns from the easy position when she is on the outside of you, turning towards you. Then, starting from an easy position where she is facing straight to the first bar (and really can’t see the line to the right turn bar), you can show the left turn to her first with her starting on your right side (so she is turning towards you) and then switch sides so she is starting in the exact same spot (facing straight to the first left turn jump) but is now on your left so she is turning away. Let me know if that makes sense in terms of the line up.Also, feel free to help her with handling – a hand cue, a leg step, or both 🙂
A lot of the pup are showing us a stronger/weaker side on the turning away here (including mine) so we can totally get it started with as much help as they need. Yowza likes to go fast so even though you were rewarding her when she did make the left turns after a spin the right, she still felt that just starting to the right was faster LOL!! Smart girl 🙂 So if a physical cue helps her decide she can turn away to the left AND do it fast… perfect! We can easily fade the hand or leg that you use to get it started.
Great job!
TracyGood morning!!
He is doing really well with the zig zags!!! He is already driving through them, giving the little bounces back and forth and that is exactly what we want. He is really excited about the game, so feel free to throw back a ton of rewards so you can get further away – he was definitely wanting to release before you were ready LOL!!! You can do a 3:1 ratio of reward to release: 3 thrown back reward reps for each release to the zig zag (that is about what I do with my dogs, I just edit some of them out of the videos LOL!!). He is working the leads SO nicely that you can emphasize the patience of waiting for the release rather than him saying “I see it, let’s gooooo!” 🙂
With the grid, 3 things to add when you get a chance (not all at once, at them in separate sessions):
– On 3 wings like you had here – go to bigger distances. That willl create more speed for him, which means he will have to sort out his lead changes with more speed! That is important for big fast dogs like Paco. I think you can do 15 foot distances between wings and see what he does.– also on 3 wings – go to 5 foot distances! This is difficult because he will have to be very quick with his lead changes, and it simulates what he will need to do on jumping lines. You will need to be quick on the handling at first til he realizes what you want 🙂
– and using the normal distances you had here… add a 4th wing and then eventually a 5th wing so he practices repeated lead changes.
Great job on these!!!!!
TracyHi! His finding of the jump is looking great! I am glad you decided to balance a bit, he had no trouble with that. I think you can also add a go verbal for the find the jump – at first we were just shaping it but now he is ready for the verbal to be attached. It will help when you get waaaaay ahead (like when he missed the jump on your right) because getting you way ahead is a good thing 🙂 Great job ramping up the connection after the miss! It really helped him. And at the very end, you were connected but not as helpful – and he still found it (which is exactly what we want). He is definitely ready for a GO or jump cue on that. AS with the set point: perfect timing for this to be looking fabulous, because we build on the concept on Saturday. Yay! Great job!
TracyHi!
It is VERY cool that you are working with Dr. Julia on specific tracking exercises and strengthening!!! It is really interesting to hear that you have been advised to hold off on unstable surfaces until he is balanced the way you want him to be: I think perhaps in previous generations of young dogs we started some of the teeter and unstable surface work too early and the pups compensated with poor form all over the place. Oops! So waiting to do it with Kaladin is going to bring amazing results!!! So cool.The set point looked the best it has been so far! I agree with your assessment that he was sorting out how to use the hind end more efficiently – the position of his back feet was much better here! YAY!!!! Perfect timing for it to come together, because we build on it on Saturday 🙂 So give him a day or two of rest from it and then add the Saturday game to it. And yes, he totally gave you a side eye when you released from next to him LOL!!! But then he sorted it out and the form was maintained. Happy dance!!
Great job! I think the timing of all of these elements are working nicely in his favor as we come up on his birthday next week!!!
T
Good morning! He is doing well and if he is deciding the come in before your arm moved: perfect!!!! The positional cue/line of motion is a big element of the cue, so I am glad he is reading it so nicely 🙂 He is sorting this out really well, so I want to see if we can add 2 things to it: keeping your path closer to the line/jump and also using even less of the arm swing back to help him. For the running path, try to stay less than an arm’s length away as you slide past the serp jump – that adds a bit of challenge because it is harder to jump in towards the pressure and there is less room, but it will help set him up for really nice tight serpy lines 🙂 And leaving your upper body ‘open’ and arm back can start right after the send: for example, send with your right then leave it back as you move through the serp line, elbow locked and shoulders open/not moving. This is to help make it easier for you to run (looking towards the future :)) and also because we will be working on the difference between serps and threadles soon, and the arm movement will play a role. You can move the MM to a more helpy position to get it started – maybe one step past where you ideally want him to land, so it harder to run past the jump (the handling will add the challenge so the MM position can be easier :))
Your wraps looked great! Nice job cuing and maintaining connection, and he had no questions. Yay!T
Good morning!
Nice work on the tunnel-wing sequences! He did really well and you got your timing earlier and earlier. The main thing is getting the connections in place when you are not right next to the wing. That is what all of the pups are demanding from us LOL!! See more below, but in a nutshell: when he is behind you or even parallel to you, keep your arm towards his nose and try not to use it to indicate the obstacle out ahead. That will keep your shoulders pointing to the line you want and you’ll get better commitment.
On the first video:
Good job on the left and the toy throw for the go on the first couple of sequences! I think you can give him the go verbal sooner, he seems to have lovely commitment to the tunnel so you can try it when he is 6 feet away and see if he is fine with that (I bet he will be :))
When you added the wrap on the wing at :36 – he drove out REALLY nicely! That was partially due to priming the pump with the rewards for the go on the tunnel exit in the previous reps and also partially because of the acceleration he saw as he was heading to the tunnel. You can give the go cue sooner here too.
On the wrap exit – nice job with the verbal there! You can make a stronger connection to his eyes on the exit, so he turns tighter (the stronger connection will show him a clearer view of the new side) Also, don’t say tunnel til he is on the line facing it. Tunnel is a very forward cue, and he went a bit wide when you said tunnel when he was not yet facing the correct line.
He was tighter at :47 and :57 because you had both a stronger connection and a later tunnel cue – yay!Moving to the right turn exits on the tunnel at 1:06, you can give him the verbal earlier on that one too – try the 6 foot distance and see if he still commits. You can also show him the handling moving away at that time to help produce the turn.
At 1:08, this is a good camera angle to see how arm position changes connection. You were looking at him and your arm was low…. but it was forward of your body (kinda pointing to the wing ahead of him) and it caused him to not be able to see the connection – so he didn’t go out around either wing. He was turning right but the arm being forward was pulling your shoulders forward off the line you wanted. You got closer to the wings in terms of position right after that and he got it (position always helps!) but you can use the position you were in to commit him with your arm back to him and eyes more on his eyes.
On the next rep at 1:23, your right verbal was great in terms of timing! yay! He exited the tunnel turning right. Double yay! And positionally driving closer to the race track wings really supported the lines.
Your next rep was really nice in terms of ALL the words (there are a lot of words, right? LOL!) and the timing and also, the connections looked really nice especially on the exits of the wraps – very clear eye contact.
At 1:47 and 2:00, your left verbal before the tunnel was on time – he was a little wide on the exit, probably because he had gotten a lot of reward for going straight on that exit already so he was defaulting back to where the rewards were placed.
1:51 and 2:04 were similar moments to above, with your arm being too far forward so he didn’t read the line you wanted. You were clearer at 2:19 and he committed to the wing! yay!Now that the right turn on the tunnel exit is getting better (that last one had a much better turn), the GO is getting harder (which you saw in the 2nd video, see below), so connection becomes even more important.
2nd video:
On the first rep, he turned left on the tunnel exit but not that tight, so I think it is a matter of experience and maybe an earlier cue. On the race track – you had your verbal in place at :13 but then pointed forward, which turned your shoulders to the line he took (which took him to the inside of the wing).
On the 2nd run – nice left turn on the tunnel exit!!! Your verbal was earlier which helped and he is also getting the hang of it. Yay!! You used better position on the wing and a later shoulder turn to support the race track wing at :21 (yay!) Keep working to have the arm back there and it will be even easier – because the more you can support it from a distance, the easier it will be to get the go after the tunnel (you had to hustle, which you did very nicely :)) And great job getting ALL the words going!!!! yeah!!! A little more connection on the tunnel exit will help him not look up at you on the way to the wing wrap – you were sprinting to get there so it is harder to get the connection.
At :25 your ‘right’ verbal on the tunnel entry was very on time! But you were accelerating into it, so the physical cue overrode the verbal (that will change eventually) and he was a little wide. For now, add a bit of deceleration and let him see you stepping away to the right to help support the verbal.On the next rep, you were using the left verbal and physical cues very effectively and he was beautiful in his turns and commitments! yeah!!! On the exit of the straight tunnel to the wrap, he wasn’t sure about driving ahead into the wing – so came into you at :40. It might have looked like he was grabbing for the toy, but it was actually a ‘needs more connection’ moment. His ‘tell’ when he needs more connection is turning into you and towards the toy. Every pup does *something* when connection isn’t strong enough or they don’t understand – Pirate grabs for the toy (as does his blue brother, Contraband. My little one, Elektra, bites my feet. LOL! And the behavior disappears when we ramp up the level of connection with more eye contact.
For example, note how strong your connection was at :49 going back to the tunnel – he got right in it, no toy grabbing 🙂
You got him to the wing nicely at 1:03 by being a bit further ahead, so he could read the line with better. And at 1:23 he is beginning to figure out how to stay on his line there even when you were not ass far ahead (his right turns looked really good on that rep too!)
And the last rep with the FCs on the wings – VERY nice! Nice verbals and connection and clear handling, so he read them really well!So going back to the tunnel exit to the straight-ahead jump: he is getting really strong with independent tunnel commitment – so you can send him away to the tunnel entry more (with verbal and connection so you don’t have to run to it as much) and then you will be ahead on the tunnel exit. Then, keep your dog-side arm back, pointing to his nose, and make eye contact (as you continue to run, yes I know that I am a pain in the butt hahahaha). Keep that connection and arm back until he is passing you and looking ahead to. the wing. When we try to point forward or connect peripherally with the pups, the connection is too soft so they aren’t as sure as when we give them very very clear connection.
Great job! Let me know if the connection ideas make sense 🙂
TracyGood morning! It was great seeing you and Fizz in the live class, he is so fun and did so well!
He also did well on the wing wrapping here, bending and being confident and having fun! Mission accomplished for your “fun near wings” plan – even when he didn’t get to the side you wanted on the wing after the go. And not how nicely he is using his body to get into the tunnel, and how independently he is doing it: baby dog is growing up! Fun!!
The turns on the tunnel exit and the wraps on the side wings all look really good – one thing I notice is that when you leave the wrap wing as he is just arriving to it, he doesn’t touch it and still commits really independently – yay! We will keep building that skill in coming weeks.Yes, this game was designed to challenge us handlers with being able to get to the correct side of the wing after the tunnel GO moment. It is not easy because now the pups are bigger and FASTER LOL!! Eventually the verbal cues will get it done and he will understand how to stay on the line but for now, an increased connection will get it done (which is also what I had planned for the game 🙂 )
On the video, the camera angle is perfect for us to be able to see what he sees as he exited the tunnel to the go wing: you were indicating the wing line with your dog-side arm forward, so note how we really see a lot of your back and not a lot of your eyes. That will turn your shoulders/chest to the inside line of the wing (rather than supporting the outside line), which causes the pups to come to the inside (between you and the wing). I firmly believe the read where our shoulders are pointing, so you can change the line of your shoulders by keeping your arm back to his nose the whole time (rather than using it to indicate forward) and make a direct eye contact with him as you move forward to the wing. He won’t really be reading the eye contact – we are just using a relatively easy human behavior to get our shoulders turned to where we want him to go 🙂 And, even with direct eye contact, he will keep driving forward as long as you keep moving up the line like you did here. On the reps where I got it right in the demo video, I am making a huge effort to keep my arm back and eyes on the pup because when I indicated ahead (when the pups were behind or beside me), I got the same response from my pups as you did with Fizz.
This direct eye contact is hard at first (for us humans) and ideally you have it in place before he even exits the tunnel – so feel free to cheat to get ahead of him LOL!! You can try sending to the tunnel from further away so you are a couple of steps ahead to get the connection going.
Let me know if if that makes sense, and how it goes 🙂
TracyHoly cow, he was really feeling the wind in his hair!!!! We are beginning to see his real whippet speed and he was leaving you in the dust (and you are a fast runner, which means he was hustling! YEAH!! I couldn’t quite hear if you were using the wrap verbals on the wing, so remember to use those if you were not using them. The GO sounded great and your reward placement was solid, the RT was in a perfect spot. Have you tried this carrying a toy? You can warm him up with a toy in your hand, then do the game running to the RT. I suggest it because the presence of the toy is stimulating, which adds challenge for him to look away from you and not try to grab for the toy. You can start with the toy in a pocket (he will know it is there LOL!) then in your hand but not being used to play… then incorporate it into. the game! I think he is doing so well with t his game that we can start to add the arousal that a toy will bring, partially because eventually it would be nice to run courses with a toy in your hand (for ease of reinforcement) and partially because we can teach him to modulate his internal arousal in these fast moving games (which will be helpful for trialing eventually).
Great job! We build on this game on Saturday, he is totally ready for the next steps that are coming 🙂
Tracy
