[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi! Nice work on these!
1st rep – yes, you left really early on the first wrap (:13) and he did great! Be prepared for the 2nd one sooner: as he exits the first wrap, you will need to start to slow down & rotate – you started the rotation just as he lifted off (:15) so he jumped wide and that also contributed to the reconnection on the blind being a little late. Good backside send!!

2nd rep – great timing on the first wrap (:31) and 2nd wrap (:33)!! Nice turns on both!! I think as soon as you cue the wrap, you can then turn your had and start the blind – that way it guarantees that you will be reconnected before he lands. His commitment is strong enough to handle that early head turn.

3rd rep – great turns again on the wraps (:44 and :46) but then you reconnected so much sooner after the blind (you reconnected as he was landing, so he saw it as soon as he turned) and it set up smooth lines to the next backside. The bar down at :50 was due to the timing of the ball throw.

4th & 5th reps – at :57 & 1:15 you did a post turn blind (turning away, as opposed to a spin where we turn towards the dogs) – it is a good skill to use! You can start it earlier so it is ideally finished before takeoff. Your motion supports the commitment as you move towards it, so you can start turning your head for thr blind before he even passes you. That earlier timing will allow you to tighten that turn and then also be earlier on cueing the next wrap. On the way to the backside at 1:03: you made a really nice connection with him as he rounded the wing at 1:01, but then turned forward to the jump at 1:02 so he read it as a blind cross because of the shoulder rotation and switched sides. Keeping your arm back here and maintaining the connection will help keep him on your left side. You made the adjustment nicely at 1:19 and held the connection longer as you moved up the line – and he found it really nicely!

So keep pushing the early limits of the timing – you’ve built his commitment really well so you have more freedom to do things really early – which will help create tight turns and get you to better positions on course 🙂

Great job! Stay cool 🙂
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi! This looks great!!! She is doing very grown-up stuff 🙂 Yes, the verbals were a little soft but the soft verbals were the turn verbals… and there is no need to shout them hahaha!! She did so well that we can obsess on the finer details – fun!

1st rep – backside slice: see if you can cue it from no further over than center of the bar then keep your chest open to leave. That can help with staying further ahead and setting exit lines.

2nd rep – threadle – wrap or slice? I think you wanted wrap, so you can get her to turn her head more before you cue the jump – a larger hand cue will do it and it is definitely on my agenda for CAMP – getting the dogs to turn their heads!!

3rd rep – very nice wrap! Nice timing and connection and she was nice and tight!

4th rep – it did totally look like a backside send at :22, because as she landed from 1 you did the big arm change – so that created pressure out to the backside .
On rep 5 at :28, you loved forward for a moment longer, and more towards the wrap wing, and she got it 🙂 Stay a little more connected on the exit there so she can drive to the correct line/side immediately.

6th rep at :35 – she read the handling (post turn wrap) really well based on the physical cue – as she was taking off, you were facing the fence so that is the direction she thought you were going. So, to do a stronger cue on the post turn, you would need to be more fully finished before takeoff for it which would likely mean shaping the takeoff a little by being closer to the center of the bar so you can also turn and go sooner. Or, to create the line… a ketchsker would work nicely too 🙂
You had good connection as she came around the wing, so you can being your right wrap cue sooner – verbal was a little late but the physical cue had too much support forward before you rotated – you started the rotation just before she lifted off, so the jumping decision had already been made. It will be fun to see how much she understands about commitment: as she comes around the wing of the 2nd jump, you can decelerate and then when she is made halfway to 3… turn and go and see what happens 🙂

7th rep – :43 – good job getting the RCs, those are hard cues with youngsters!!! You can stay closer to the wings of the jump before the RC jumps, so she feels the RC pressure sooner and so you can be ahead again when you cut in behind her. You had good patience with setting the line for the 2nd RC – you were blocking the backside wing on jump 3, so be sure to show her more of the wing so she can do directly to it (rather than around you) – but stay patient like you did 🙂

8th rep (:53) – it is hard to show a transition on just 2 jumps, but you can accelerate more as you release her, so you can show her the decel into the rotation – she did collect but she wasn’t 100% sure of exactly how much to collect on 2. A change in motion can help clarify that. And then have a patience moment at jump 2 as she wraps, so you can set up the RC while not setting too wide of a line… you left the wrap wing and ended up taking a wider line to set the RC, so she was wide going to and then out of jump 3. Patience is my least favorite word EVER haha but staying closer to the wing of 2 will tighten those lines up 🙂

rep 9 – 1:03 – wraps are looking good! You had a little more transition going especially to the 2nd one (and you were closer to the lines) so she turned well! After the 2nd wrap (1:09), try to move your running line over more so as she is thinking about the backside, she can see the wing. She is a little wide there because you were running on the line she needed to be on 🙂 If you get the 2nd wrap then run more towards the center of the bar on the backside jump, she will see the wing better – this will mean more upper body connection/arm back/verbal to get the backside, but I bet she can do it (I *know* you can do it :)) and the lines will be really nice!

rep 10 – 1:13 – this rep had all of the really lovely finesse pieces for all the turns… so now you get to trust and leave sooner on all of them. Wheeeee!
On the wrap on 2 at 1:15 – leave before she takes off, so you are done with the blind when she lands. You hung out a bit and started the blind when she landed at 1:16, so she had to slow down to let you clear the line 🙂 On he wrap FC at 3 (1:17), you can decel, turn and leave sooner – you’re going to laugh, but yo can connect a little *less* there LOL! Connect yes, but don’t wait as much.
On the backside FC – you started the cue really nicely at 1:18, nice and early! You can keep your upper body more open to her, no need to turn and face forward to support it – that way you are still rotated as she passes you to the backside, making it easier to show the FC earlier and setting up a tighter turn there too.

Rep 11 (1:27) – nice collection on 2! She couldn’t quite see enough connection here as she landed from the wrap – note how your arm ais a bit parallel to you and your head is turned but your eyes are looking down and not back to her… so she drifts at 1:28 trying to sort out which side to be on. So as you exit the wrap, keep the dog-side arm back and make a strong eye contact with her, so she can see which side to be on. And to set up a RC on 3, you can actually stay closer to 2 to set the line – that will help clarify the physical cue of RC versus wrap.

Speaking of that: rep 12 at 1:34 – same thoughts on the wrap at 2 – more connection so she doesn’t drift coming around it. And then the physical cue did look very similar to the RC cue on rep 11… and you said right LOL! So yes, say left – but also to show the wrap more clearly, setting the line from 2 will help and run forward a bit longer, decelerating forward and then rotating (towards the wrap wing).

Last rep:
Same thought about showing more connection exiting 2 🙂
I think you are trying to get your left arm up too early on this wrap, earlier than she needs – it was up as she came around the wing at 1:44. That inhibits running forward – at 1:37 (previous rep) – you were in a good spot near the wrap wing but the too-early new arm caused your body to rotate as if asking for a RC. On this rep, you adjusted your running line to step out towards the fence more – which worked but it will make it harder for you to leave to get to your next spot on courses. I think you can face the wrap wing longer to commit her to that side and use the new arm coming up just after you start to decel and it will work really nicely.

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!

>>Question – do you have a different verbal for backside wrap versus backside slice? That can help! See more below.
>No. I don’t have two different verbals. I’ve been concentrating on too many others. I could certainly add these or modify her collection to the backside.

Two options to consider on this, then:
* A compound verbal: back + wrap verbal. Done early enough, the dogs do really with it. It is a slightly longer sentence: go there and wrap to your left
* A different verbal. I use Back for backside slice and Dig for backside wrap with my youngsters. It is a short sentence that I can deliver fast: back wrap.

Ideally, there are 2 distinct cues… but in reality, you can prioritize the importance of 2 distinct cues based on the other things on your list to train 🙂 I freely admit that I have only so much brain space for all of the verbals. I can do more verbals with Hot Sauce because she is easier to run than Voodoo, which means there is more brain space available to spit out the correct words 🙂 Voodoo does fine with the back + wrap verbal. Would he be better a separate verbal? Possibly, but it is a low priority because of other factors (like the amount of connection he requires from me on course is so intense that I am lucky I remember my own name, sometimes :))

>> But if the wrap is on a slicy line, she might slice it a little more than setting herself up to turn.

After watching your videos and Barb w/ Enzo, I think there is a training thing we can do to help with those hard backside slices – teach the dogs to turn their heads as part of it. Not just their bodies… turn their heads! I am doing this with Contraband (it is important to get whippety dogs to turn their heads :)) and I will post videos.

>>Do you have a video of this? Are you saying that I would look to the landing spot as I pull away (after commitment?) .
Here is a rather lengthy explanation with demos that show them in exaggeration 🙂 We tweak the volume dial of the connection based on what the dogs need:

At first, yes, you can shift back to the landing spot as you leave progressively earlier and earlier – but eventually I bet we can take that out (or sooner rather than later, she will tell us).

>>Also, what does “frontier” mean? Or was that a typo. I can’t figure out what that means so it must be a typo.

Sorry! Frontier means “the next training thing to focus on” 🙂 in terms of ‘expanding horizons’ with the youngsters. So what I meant was the future can bring us ways to cue and connect less, to be able to get up the next line more easily (for us) without sacrificing precision and teamwork/success rate

>>Interesting. Lever responds to that cue so nicely, but she obviously reads it different. Again, do you have a video example of this? I’d love to make sure I had it visually correct before trying it.

Yes! Somewhere – I will find it because it is not in my regular videos, hmmm…. if I can’t find it, I will do a video.

>>Not sure which I should use….I currently have so many verbals (also have a SHITLOAD of location specific event markers for her, which HELP her a lot!!). I feel like things need to settle for a bit before I can handle more.

Go for the compound verbal then, so you don’t end up with too many for now: backside + collection. Those are 2 verbals that are already in use and should be at your fingertips, so to speak, when running.

Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!

>>Every other agility dog of mine has responded to namenamename as a turn cue, so I was pretty flabbergasted to see it fail so miserably here. >>

Riot says that he is a 2020 dog where he wants ALL the words LOL!!! I feel the same way – several of my other dogs would turn so nicely on namenamename…. and then I got Voodoo. HA! Now there are a lot of words happening 🙂

>>Check is a wrap, but by rep 4 I was desperate to get some kind, ANY kind of turn, in motion. A total bandaid in the moment and I knew it, but I did it anyway! I also made a note after that to keep working on his left and right, which is something else I can do in my little yard.>>

Completely relatable. Sometimes we are all like, “please just turn!” haha!

>>I really like the turn and go the other way idea and rewarding when he arrives. He greatly enjoys running in big loops and circles with a toy or without a toy. Always has, from the time he was a baby puppy. Drive bys are quite common, where he will swoop by and keep going.

Get him to chase you for it, don’t stand still – then then if he chases you pretty quickly, you can release for a go-round with the toy 🙂

>> If I had to guess, I would say he finds his own motion very stimulating, and I think reinforcing, as well as stress reducing. >>

All of the above, yes 🙂 Kind of self-stimulating and a release valve… but that is fine! We use motion as a reward – chase da momma, go for a run! And I think it is perfectly fine to let the dogs run around as a release valve – makes for very happy-making brain chemicals 🙂 My dog Export was just like that as a youngster – I remember he once spent about 10 minutes running giant loops around a barn as part of an extensive victory lap LOL!!!! He is 14.5 years old and still runs runs runs runs. It is all good 🙂

>>So if you have thoughts on that, or games or things we can work on, please let me know.>>

Don’t obsess on it – and don’t try to put more control on it. Just reward with chase then let him have moments where he can just run. And keep sessions short and sweet so he doesn’t have too much steam to release 🙂

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
Nice work on the sequences! He has a really strong skill set and you are really connected, so we can really obsess on how to get more and more speed on each element. Fun!
First a couple of thoughts on the sequences then ideas to get to the goal of more speed:

On sequence 1: this was all really smooth throughout all 4 reps – excellent connection, your backside send was really strong and you were able to leave early to create a really nice turn on all the reps! On the backside slice at jump 6 – I bet you can send to the backside and just run forward. As long as you maintain connection like you did, it seems like he does not need any help (like shoulder moving or decelerating) coming in to take that # 6 jump. That adds more speed! You used less and less ‘help’ on 6 on each sequence, and he appeared to have no questions about the line on 6.

You were early and you did trust him more… and his turns were SO NICE!!!! He knows his job, you’ve clearly done your foundation work!!!

On sequence 2: he wrapped the bar at 3 really nicely on these reps, and you did a lovely job of cue, trust and go go go 🙂 With that in mind… it would be fun to see if the slice lines are faster for him! Slices are almost always faster – so you can see if having him slice 3 to get 4 (the slice 4-5) is the fastest route. You can play with slicing 3 so he turns to his left (away from the tunnel) and then turning left again over 4 (and you can also see if turning to his right over 4 is fast, as it sets up a good line for 5!) It is possible that running into a blind cross on the takeoff side of 4 (he enters on the same side he wrapped on an exits on the other side) might be the fastest line. A bit harder to handle? Oh yes LOL! But worth it!

On the 5-6 line, he needed a turn cue to get the front of 6 because he was running in extension (yay!) and understands how to stay on backside lines (also yay!). You did a FC on the last rep there and it worked! You can also do a soft brake/shoulder turn, where you decelerate a little bit and show him a little bit of the opposite arm to get him to turn before takeoff, while you keep running up the line. This would start as he finishes coming around 4 and is looking at 5, so he can collect a bit before takeoff.

Some general ideas:
A few things I notice – he drives nicely off the start line! So you can lead out and give him a little ‘ready…ready…….’ then release and run. That should get even more of an explosion off the start line!
And, since he loves loves loves to chase you – you can try to race him up the line 4-5-6 to get a blind cross on the *takeoff* side of 6 (rather than push to the backside). It will make you scramble to get there, but I think Ivan will like that – he will go faster but he won’t lose his mind 🙂
Speaking of chasing you… he has a definite preference when you are ahead. When he catches up, he doesn’t seem to drive past you on a regular line. He will send but not drive ahead. So, we can use his reinforcement to help with that. He appears to be a foodie, so we can move the reward off your body to get him driving ahead more. 2 ideas for that:
* the treat hugger is great for throwing treats that he can grab out of the toy without you needing to open it! I have found that they work better than and are better liked than a lotus ball. We throw it when he picks up a line, rather than reward next to you
* have you tried a Manners Minder or Treat n Train with him? Foodie dogs often love it – and we randomly can click it and send him to it when he drives away (I just place it somewhere off to the side).

Another thought on getting more speed: training sessions on lower bars to let him feel the joy of the wind in his hair. Full hard is hard – he isn’t that tall compared to the jumps! So, jumping the sequences at, say, 10 inches will make it easy to go fast while you build lots of reinforcement for driving lines, then we gradually inch the bars back up. I train my dogs all the time at much lower heights – partially to make it super fun for them, and partially because it makes the handling so much more challenging for me LOL!

Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

Wheee! The big yard is fun fun fun fun! First off… It is GREAT to have a dog that loves lines and then we add the finesse of turns. Yay!
His 1-2-3 commitment and his tunnel exits and commitment to the last jump all looked great!
So now we can focus on that “soft” turn over 3. A couple of ideas for you!

First, a question: does he had a verbal for a soft turn (like “left”) – on the first couple of reps you used his name and that was too energetic and not informational enough. Then you went to check check – is that a 90 degree turn cue or a wrap? If it is 90 degree – perfect, use it. If it is wrap, we can save it for wraps and add a 90 degree turn cue. If it is a general collection cue… we will clarify exactly what it means.

In terms of reinforcement – you can add in more specific reinforcement for turns. When you stand still, and he doesn’t come (even if your cue is late), run the other way and then reward him for chasing you. If my cue is late, I am happy with 1 off course, but I do want the dogs to come back to me eventually 🙂 On the first rep, the cue was late and I think we can clarify how he sees that type of soft turn cue… but he wasn’t going to come back – so I don’t want him to then get a tunnel cue. We can keep it fast and fun while also saying “follow the momma!” by having you turn and go the other way, rewarding when he gets to you. When you did get the turn going on reps 3 and 4, you can reward right away from your hand rather than continuing, so that we shift value a little more to the turns (just a little more).

Thoughts about the soft turn cue (3-4 is what I consider a ‘soft’ turn because it is about 90 degree and not a wrap):

He seems to have a better understanding of the big decel & send that you did on reps 3 and 4 – YAY! Nice! Reward that specifically.
He seemed to not understand the turn cue as well when you were moving into it (reps 1 and 2), so let’s work specifically on that (because the handling choice is a good one, he just needs to learn it :))

First, when you are moving into the soft turn cue like reps 1 and 2, take out the off course jump ahead – it was too tempting, too much of a distraction 🙂 Then, as he lands from 2: keep moving towards 3 like your did but decelerate more, and bring up your outside arm (left, in this case) to use as a gentle stop sign. So when he has landed, he is seeing deceleration – show him your stop sign then step away to the 90 degree line towards the tunnel: and reward the turn 🙂 Use your soft turn verbal too.

Alternate this with GO GO GO and reward straight.

When he is pretty good at going back and forth between those 2 cues, jump 4 can come back into the scene, but a little further away. And 2 concepts to show him when the jump is out there:
– the soft turn cue that you worked on with out
– also, a reverse spin so that he starts to read that turns can happen even when there is a lot of motion 🙂
And, mix in reps where he *does* go straight to that jump 4, so he sees the difference.

When you are working at home in a smaller area, you can totally start this on 2 jumps, showing the difference between soft turn on 2 and go go go on 2 – and you can put a 3rd jump out there eventually or even a jump wing, which is also a good visual.

The rest of his commitment looks lovely, so we can focus on adding the soft turn understanding 🙂

Let me know what you think! Nice work here!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning Nancy!

Those backside wraps are hard! I think they are actually one of the hardest turns in agility. On reps 1-2-3 where she had questions, a couple of ideas for you to help as you play with these:

Position: move your running line over to be heading to where the jump bar meets the backside wing (right at the jump cups) so she can see the whole backside wing. You will get there ahead of her a bit (which is perfectly fine), so stay there when you get there. You can turn a little bit sideways and use your arm and leg to step her around the wing, but don’t block the wing. I think you were blocking the wing here and pushing into her line, so she pinged away from you.

Connection: as you were sending her to the backside, you were looking forward and pointing forward, so that drew her attention up to you. Try to keep your eyes on her eyes so that she sees your shoulders pointing to the line (no need to point forward at all on these).

Timing: The key word here is patience (I hate that word hahahaha!!) When you get to position where the wing meets the bar, you can be a little sideways but you need to stay there until she is past you. You were trying to move forward too early and it pushed her off (and she shared her opinion hahahaa!) For now, stay there until she is passing the wing and has turned her head to the bar, then move forward (while maintaining connection).

On rep 4, you had the best position and most patience out of the 4 reps, so she got it, yay! Be careful of turning your shoulders to face the takeoff side of the bar too much, because that might end up looking like a slice cue.

The rest of the sequence looked awesome! Terrific running and connection 🙂 You were a little late on the RC cue on the 2nd rep for the last jump but then you nailed it on rep 4.

I found a video that shows a similar wrap on 3: (at :23, 1:08, 1:21), it is cued up to start at :23

Let me know if the visual makes sense – you can see that I am behind the wing, and since I get there ahead of the dog, I slow down and wait with connection (patience is SO HARD) and then when he is past me and looking at the wing, I take off again. Let me know if that makes sense!

Talk to you soon!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Gorgeous!!! She really appreciates the lower hands in terms of being able to see your upper body & connection. And you had a perfect running line 6-7, so she was super tight! She didn’t even have time to share her opinion there LOL!!! She barks a little on this, which is fine – But I think when she barks a LOT then we can clarify the info. I don’t mind barking, but it does gives us good information when the dog shares opinions 🙂 Great job on this run!!

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi Janet!

>>You mentioned a “Zig Zag” drill in Barb’s post. I’ve never seen this drill. I kind of get it in context with the post, but can you explain in a little more detail what this exercise is teaching the dog, and what one should work towards with this exercise?>>

I like to give the dogs jump education. The zig zag drill is a jump grid, designed to help the dog understand how to execute the somewhat ‘sideways’ jumping that is required for slices, serpentines, and, in particular, threadle slices, backside slices and backside serps. Slicing is really hard for the dogs and that is where we see a lot of bars down. Many big dogs jump into the wing too – Barb’s youngster hit it with his shoulder, one of my big dogs used to do that too, and I have seen big dogs jump into it head-first. Eek!! Small dogs tend to NOT jump into the wing as much, I imagine it hurts more! But the smalls also need the jump education.

As you saw on the video clips (both mine and Barb’s) – we start off by showing the dog the general idea of ‘reading’ highly angled bars, even though his line is basically straight (it is a difficult visual for the dog). When that goes well, we progressively angle the jumps so the bars are “flatter” – and that is when you see the dog giving us more of a back-and-forth pattern (thus the name zig zag :)). We still want the dog to bounce these and not “patter” the front feet or add strides, so we can increase or decrease the distance to fit the needs of the individual dog (my 20″ dog gets a different distance than my 16″ dog).

The goal is that the dogs can bounce 5 jumps set up flat with wings touching/overlapping and the jump bars can go up to a medium height. This can take a couple of sessions, or weeks, or months! It is not intended to be done every day.

I *might* with some highly-angulated dogs, do the 3 jump grid with taller bars but that depends on the dog. In general, a lot of the grids can do more harm than good if we work them at full height.

This grid is also a good strengthening grid, so I whip it out as part of my conditioning program too.

The overall goal is that the understanding the grid creates transfers over into understanding how to approach and jump slice lines on serps, backsides, and threadle slices.

Let me know if that makes sense!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hey, good morning!!!! Great job getting these in, between bouts of rain haha!!!

Overall: these looked amazing. For real! 100% perfect connection. Great turns. You have clearly worked your skills to the point that they look great. My thoughts are below for each rep – I really only had a question about one element and that is more in the ‘nit picking’ department. These allowed us to see what the best timing is for getting those turns. Here are specifics:

1st rep – backside slice – very good! see if you can do it while you keep moving, so you can outrun her more across the backside bar. Less of a step to the backside should help you stay in motion, hwile maintaining your strong connection and verbal.

2nd rep – backside wrap – nice! Really excellent timing, rotation, connection. Click/treat for you!

3rd rep & 4th rep – both front side wraps – I think you are really cracking the code of her collection cues – very nice wraps here and I am impressed with how early you can cue them. Being able to get commitment while you cue early and leave is sooooo helpful with her speed! It keeps you way ahead. Nice connection and verbals here too.

5th rep – :21 – a rear cross – I am assuming you wanted the rear cross here, because it looked great 🙂 I couldn’t hear the verbal and it does look like you rewarded it. Very nice clear distinction between the FC wraps and the rear cross cue there.

6th rep – push to wrap: I loved this rep! Connection: perfect. You were so clear and early with the cues for both that you got great turns on both the backside and the front side wrap. Yesssss!

7th rep – at :29 the first cue on this one was not as clear as the others. Before she took off for 1, you had an arm up and were giving a verbal and started pulling away as she landed – based on that plus position, it almost looked like a threadle cue? but she took the front. Her turn was good and the 2nd wrap was good – but it is possible that it looks too much like a threadle cue and might impact threadling.

Rep 8 – same question as the 7th rep here at :38 (threadle versus wrap cues) – obsessing on it a little bit, the main difference is that your lower body rotation is later – at :38 you are rotating as she is taking off and she is taking off pretty far from the jump. On the other front-side wraps, you are rotating sooner and she is collecting better.
Really nice backside slice commitment AND jumping effort at :41 here! And gorgeous connection from you.

Rep 9 – same question at :49 on the first wrap. I went back and compared the wrap handling here to the ones earlier like at :13 and :18 and you were rotated earlier on those, and I think the turns were better.

Rep 10: this wrap kind of split the difference with you going back to turning earlier. The turn was better here! And the RC at :55: niiiiiice!! That is developing into an incredibly strong cue for you and Tokaji!!!

Rep 11: both backside sends were lovely – and your timing on getting out of the send to the next cue (spin at :59, serp at 1:04) – terrific! After the spin, be prepared to turn sooner on the wrap to the next jump, you were a little late and it was really getting underway as she was taking off at 1:01. You’ll probably need to slow down as you exit the spin so you can start the wrap rotation earlier so she sees it before she passes you on the way to the jump.
On the backside serp at 1:04, you can try stepping one step less to the entry wing to see if you can get even further ahead of her exiting the slice, that will be useful for german turns and such.

Rep 12:
Whoa this one was great fun to watch! Excellent push at 1:06, look at how early you turn and how that helps set up the collection she did over the bar!
That rear cross-to-blind cross at 1:08-1:09 was a Thing.Of.Beauty. For real!!! Great timing and you got the BC done and reconnected before she had any questions. What an *excellent* tool to get a nice turn without rushing and then still being able to stay way ahead of her. LOVED it!!!!

Great job on all of these! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

>>“…if that doesn’t produce the weight shit…” I don’t think it will. >>

OMG!!! Clearly I have been listening to the news too much hahahahahahaha

*shiFt hahaha

Video coming soon, editing and loading!

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi there! Welcome!! I think you will find a little something for both dogs 🙂

>>On the next set of reps, I was I supposed to handle the same way on both sides, or set up on the same side and show the different ways of handling it depending on the exit side. I did the latter.

It is up to you: you can choose the handling based on how you analyze things and what you want to try. I am open to all possibilities!

Demi did really well here!
Rep 1- started with great connection but then you rolled forward so she ended up on the front side bar. A very subtle connection break but yes, don’t block the wing 🙂

Backside reps – great connection! And I don’t think the repeated cues are nagging at all! They are informational and really support her. If you were nagging, Demi would slow down or pin her ears, or do the low waggy body thing – she doesn’t let you nag her LOL! She seemed happy with this! And yes…. show her more wing especially on the slices.

Front side of 2 at 1:20: your body said “right” and your reward said “right” but your mouth said “go” so just be careful of which verbal you use.

Next rep at 1:37 was a rear cross: you can start showing her the RC pressure line sooner to help her make the turn sooner. You ran the straight line til she was just about taking off, turning to her right, then you suddenly cut in – she adjusted to make the turn but couldn’t keep the bar up. If you lead out less, you can start pressuring in (kind of towards the center of the bar) when she is no later than halfway between the jumps, and that should set the RC sooner.

2nd Rc Rep – nuch earlier on the RC pressure, and she had a much sweeter turn, yay! You can lead out less – you were far enough ahead that you had to wait for her to pass you. So maybe lead out to the wing of jump 1 and that is it 🙂

The last 2 reps on the RC were NICE! You lead out less, you had more acceleration and a much clear pressure line – note how she was further over on the other side of the jump which means she saw the turn cue earlier. Nice! My only suggestion: plan your words 🙂 On the last rep, you gave a big GO cue… but she was turning left 🙂 The various directionals probably aren’t totally 2nd nature yet (I feel your pain there!) so make sure you plan the words before you run her.

Great job here! Let me know what you think!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi! How did Riot get to be 2.5 already! Time is flying 🙂 And yes, the pandemic has been HARD for those of us with youngsters… so much they need to learn about the world that we cannot do much about right now. Having Pixey there to sing her song is fine LOL!

And it is fun to have a new and different training challenge!

On the video:
For a young dog that doesn’t have a lot of experience with backsides, he did GREAT on the first 2 reps!! You know how to handle/cue them, which really helped him – and you clearly have done your foundation work because he understood the wrap versus slice and jumped nicely on both! He will continue to get better and better with experience. My only suggestion on these first 2 reps is to change his sit position – rather than facing square to jump 1 (which caused him to zig-zag on landing of 1), set him up on a slice so he is facing directly to the backside and that will create a straight line from 1 to 2.

3rd rep and 4th rep – wraps – he turned nicely here on both but there was not a lot of a speed like a big course would produce. So, thinking ahead to big speed lines – you can decelerate and turn sooner – when he lands from 1, let him see you shift into deceleration and then start the rotation just before he passes you, to set up and earlier turn cue. Great job with your connection and verbals!

5th rep – on the post turn wraps, you can show the same fast-slow-rotate transitions to get a tighter turn, with the same timing as the wraps: so you will show acceleration til he lands from 1, then decel (still moving forward) then rotate away. And on the way to the backside, he was bouncing rather than driving, which is young dog speak for “not enough connection’ :)) You can accelerate more and also have your arm a bit further back to help him see the connection more clearly.

6th rep – the wraps at :44 and :47 were a little late, so he was a little wide – they were partially late because the rotation was happening as he took off (ideally it is done by then) and partially because the fast-slow transition wasn’t clear- you might have to exaggerate the acceleration in the smaller spaces, just to be able to make the deceleration there more obvious, which will help you be able to turn sooner too.
He accelerated better up the line to the backside there, mainly because you took off too. Yay! You were blocking the wing a little so it took him a moment to find it, so drive up the line a little further over so he can see the wing.

I think the main thing is adding more acceleration so you can either drive up the big lines, or show him the transition to deceleration so you can commit him and rotate nice and early.

Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!

First video
Good boy on the first rep to find the backside wrap and maintain commitment as you left!
On the 2nd rep, you are helping too much with your foot stepping past the wing, and not helping enough with connection (looking too far forward) so he wasn’t sure where to be. On the 3rd rep connection was much better so he took the backside, YAY!!
On the backside slice pushes, move over to at least show him the whole wing, so you can get away across the line ahead of him. And use a ton of connection (and not as much foot :))
Good boy on the 4th rep with the forced FC/threadley position! Great connection and a clear hand cue!!

2nd video – he is doing well, especially on that 2nd rep where you rotated – look at the lovely collection! He had good commitment on both! The forward send didn’t have quite as much collection, but that is normal – we usually use those for softer turns.

3rd video:
You don’t look bad at all! You just look like you are protecting your knee, and that is good! On the first rep where he didn’t commit, it was mainly because there was no transition – you were deceled the whole time and then turned really fast. On the 2nd rep, you created a transition of fast then slow to get the commitment so you could rotate. And it wasn’t that you ran hard, it was a little more movement but also the extra energy of your verbals really helped!! That is good to remember, we can use that. His turn looked really good too!

4th video – this one went really well! A lot of our commitment cues are built off of motion – and since you can’t run right now, you were using high energy verbals and connection to create the stimulation that motion brings – so he both committed nicely and turned nicely. That is GREAT because it will help us add to his toolbox in the coming months! Very cool!!!

Great job here! But more importantly: how does your knee feel??

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi there!

Run 1:
Really nice first run! I have a couple of tweaks for you to tighten some lines
– when you say “go back” she barks 🙂 an then curls in a tiny bit (and does go back out to the backside) It might be because Go means straight and Back means back, so you can try just saying “back” and see if she has less of a question there.
The other thing to play with, as you are accelerating up the line 5-6-7: you don’t need to support with your dog-side arm up as much – I think it is slowing down your running and blocking her view of the connection. So when you have to haul *ss up a fast line, you can use your arms to run (pump them like an olympic sprinter :)) but still give the good connection and verbals that you had going.

And one last little detail: as you pass the exit of 6 (backside serp) to get to 7, stay really close to the wing of 6, almost be able to touch it – that will set a really tight line. Run exactly on her line (she won’t need it yet haha) and then as she comes tight around the wing, you can move over to show her 7.

2nd run – you said “back” to 4 and she barked but didn’t curl in! You also had a nice low arm and clear connection.
Good job getting that BC 5-6! Wow! You really left her at 4 to be able to accomplish it!!
Your running line at the exit of 6 seemed to be very close to the wing – look how tight she was. Yeah!!!!

3rd run – I don’t mind the off hand for backside pushes for some dogs – as long as you keep moving. You decelerated as she was coming over 3 and rotated, so she got so mad LOL!! She definitely expresses her opinions hahaha!

4th run: Oooh I really liked this line of exit 6-7! You were VERY close to the wing and set such a nice exit line!!!!
You did the Go Back 3-4 and got the bark and curl, so I definitely think she prefers just “back”. And you can play with using your arms to just run, rather than support on the lines that she is good at.

Really nice job here. And because I am obsessive, I timed the 3 full runs. The last one was about 2/10ths faster than run 1 – and that was because of the better turn 6-7. And the 2nd run, which was nice, was about a half second slower – mainly because wraps are almost always slower than slices. Great job on these, and it looks like your first choice handling was also the fastest choice!!

Tracy

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