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Hi! Work on both the lap turn and the tandem turn so she has all the skills. And personally, I use the tandem turn a LOT more than lap turns (can’t remember the last time I used a lap turn in a trial, even overseas) because I can run like mad to get ahead in those moments. But I still teach the skill so I can whip it out if needed because you know I’ll need it if I don’t teach it hahaha!!!
THi! This is an *excellent* question! In a perfect world, we would only need the wrap cues, the 90-degree-ish left and right, and Go. Ha! For those in-between moments, it will come down to the individual dog and what they need. If the dog can give you the correct amount of turn with just a name call… perfect! That dog either is smaller in size or stride, or more responsive, or you are more visually in the picture with handling.
But if the dog needs more than just a name call, I might use a left or right to get collection even if it is not entirely 90 degrees. My big black BC mix who is in a lot of the demo videos needs more of the left and right even when it is not 90 degrees because he is harder to steer. My merle dog, same size as the black dog, is easier to steer for a variety of reasons so I can get the “in between” turns with just a name call.
With my smaller dogs – I save left and right for when they really need to collect.
Let me know if that makes sense. Which categories do you think your dogs fit into?
TracyHi! Sorry for the delay… we are in the middle of an ice storm and the power has been out since this morning 🙁 I was watching your video when it went out! And the cell reception is crappy so I can’t get it to play on my phone.
Fingers crossed that it comes back asap. Sorry again!
TracyHello! Hope you’re keeping warm 🙂
Sly is looking good here. On the one jump reps, he was perfect. On the very first rep with the tunnel, he jumped long-ish – definitely not the same collection as on the previous reps. But that was really the only time he did that – every rep after that had clear collection before takeoff. He did as a question or two (‘mom why are you just standing there?’ ) but that is to be expected on this game. When you add back handling for real, he won’t ask the question and he will also set up his turns nice and tightly like he did here.
He did well on the sending too – there was not a lot of motion into it so he definitely thought it was odd, but that will also go away when you add more speed and sequencing into it. He is ready for that 🙂 this went really well!
Question – I see you signed up for the MaxPup Agility Foundations but that is the MaxPup 2 class and you’ve already done it (sorry that I didn’t make it clearer on the description). I’m guessing you don’t want to repeat it? We can refund the registration. Let me know.
And thanks for asking about Hottie! The pins were removed so hopefully she can get back to regular life!!!
Stay warm 🙂
TracyHi!
You made me laugh out loud when you asked yourself why you were saying Go hahahahaha
I am glad you added the toy: she was definitely more excited but she was still able to be correct (faster, but still correct).
At this point, this is going really well so we can progress forward:
spread the barrels out a little bit more, and go back to the forward facing sends of the baby level… but add in the motion now – send, FC as she is arriving at the barrel, and start to move towards the next barrel. This will challenge your connection as you finish the FCs, then the timing of the sends to the next one. It will challenge her commitment because motion is hard! But she is ready – and it is a good game for indoors during the winter because she will get a workout and you will stay warm.
Also, did you see the race tracks? That is where she goes around the outside of the barrels (with you on the inside) like a post turn – she is ready for those too.
Great job here!!!!Tracy
Hi!
>> It’s hard because you have treats in both hands and then you send them with a hand with the treats too. It’s hard because you have treats in both hands and then you send them with a hand with the treats too.>>
Yes, it is hard – and it is a self-control game for the pups! It is more of a real-life self-control game, so I do like to have cookies or toys in both hands. In order to get the cookie, the pup must leave the cookie and go do the thing 🙂
Sideways and backwards are looking great. She is recognizing the set up and starting without you LOL! So you can have her start in front of you, do a little ready dance so she stays with you til you send her… then send. She looks great so you can start to make her wait for you.
As with the baby level: add toys to this and see how she does 🙂
Great job on the doubles too, she had no trouble with the doubles 🙂Onwards to the next one!
TracyHi!
Nice job on the baby level here – very methodical, clear handling from you, no worries about the legs not being perfect on the first couple of sends: she understood what you wanted because you have taught her the foundation on the other stuff. You can see that she totally caught on and was ready to go again right after the cookie. (That is why we teach soooo much foundation, because it is impossible to be perfect in which foot or hand goes in which spot haha!)
And she turned really well in BOTH directions. Super! You can revisit the game with a toy, to challenge her: can she still be as perfect when she is more excited 🙂 I see you have added the next steps, so I will go look at those. Great job here!Tracy
Good morning!
>>Yea. Maybe I should do the “switch” for the wrap away from me. Hmmm….I think I like that. I had a switch with my first dog, but that was just on a rear or any time we changed direction. I think I like that. You could use it if you are on the landing side of jump too I would think. Depends where you are going I guess. How do I train that? Just with the rear on the jump and the verbal Cue?>>
For a regular rear cross, I suggest the directional that names the line (left or right). For the tighter ones, you can train the turn-away game and name the behavior as a switch cue:
https://agility-u.com/lesson/prop-game-3-turn-aways-rear-cross-on-the-flat-foundation-2/>> I’m sure I know what you mean by a tunnel threadle verbal. Is that going to come in the class later more?>>
You have started it with the tunnel game already, that is where you can add the verbal. And there is more about it here:
https://agility-u.com/lesson/tunnel-threadle-verbal-cue-and-double-whammy-3/Have fun!
TracyGood morning!
>Once the puppy is doing the serp or threadle they do not have to touch the hand? coming toward it is good enough? >>
Correct – we don’t want them to actually touch us during the full in-then-out behavior.
>>I am not sure when to allow the full hand target touching to fade and not lose coming toward hand as part of the criteria.>>
When the pup can do it from a wide variety of angles, and when I am going to add motion: I fade the actual touch of the hand because it becomes difficult to touch the hand while I am moving. By the time I add motion, the in-then-out behavior should be well-understood and named, so it should be easy to fade it.
Tracy
Good morning! These are looking really good!
Circle wrap proofing: the first couple of reps on 1 jump alone looked great! She had a question when you added the wing: at :29 she had questions about the post turn on the wing (wrap or tunnel, she was looking back and forth a bit based on the physical cue) then at :31 even with the verbal, you pushed into her line before she had time to really get past you so she turned into the tunnel. She would have had to go through your legs to get to the backside, so the tunnel was a better choice 🙂 Compare it to the next rep at :38 where you were clearer on the wing that you wanted the wrap and also stayed in the backside positional cue for an extra moment til she was past you – and she was perfect on that one. Yay! So I don’t think the tunnel is a distraction for her – she just needed a moment to get to the backside.
The slice send to the backside was good and the other wraps were also good! She is going to the backside nicely and committing to the bar as you leave – that is exactly what we want her to do. Very nice! You can start raising the jump height a bit too, I think she is ready for that challenge.
One question: are you using the same verbal for both the slice and the circle wrap? It sounded like push for both – I highly recommend different ones because they are very different jumping efforts and you can tell her about them a lot sooner with different verbals. In this game, she is reading the difference based on your position which is fine for when you can be right there 🙂 but things get harder when you are not ahead of her or able to show positional cues. Food for thought!Through the box – these are also going well! The FCs at the beginning were a little hard , but I think that was mainly because you were not finished with the FC as she exited the wing at :55 and your right foot was exactly on the line to the backside (she was a good girl to read that!) ou backed up at 2:00 and got it, but it will be easier to rotate on the wing sooner so you can be moving up the line to show it to her.
The Backside through the box looked really strong and independent! Nice!!!
And the backsides to the inside wing also looked really good, you showed really good info and she followed it beautifully.
On the lap turn versus throw back – I think you can get lower with your lap turn hand (bring it down to her nose level) and keep your feet stationary until she is just about a tthe hand – then move the arm and leg together to step back and turn her away. When you were moving back and turning her too soon, it looked like a throw back so she was not sure which way to go – she leaned more towards the throwback even on the one that she got right, so sanding still and drawing her all the way in then turning on the flat will help her differentiate. The throw back cue looked good so it becomes especially important to make the lap turn look different.And great news that the Go reps went well! That is an important balance.
Great job on these! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! This is a really good list, you have covered just about all of your bases!
>>My big issue is the “wrap away from me I guess”. Maybe I just need to add a verbal and Dig,dig,dig just stays the same>>
There are 2 options to consider:
You can add a verbal that means ‘turn away’ – a lot of folks use “switch” for that.
Or, you can keep ‘dig dig’ to mean wrap left and add a different verbal for ‘wrap right’ – and then it is not about towards or away, it is more about which direction to turn – which also covers towards and away.
>>“Back,back,back” is my back side. Go to the back, take the jump.>>
I recommend having 2 distinct backside verbals: one for slice and one for the circle wrap. I use back for the slice and dig for the full 360 degree circle wrap. I will come in handy later on so she knows really early if she needs to do a lot of collection for those difficult circle wraps.
With the baby dogs, I am also doing a jump threadle and a different tunnel threadle verbal.
Food for thought! Let me know what you think!
TracyHowdy!
>>I really can’t wait for more daylight. Granted I need more sleep but not having it pitch black as much would help too.>>
Yes and yes to all of this. We are in the midst of an ice storm here, not fun at all – dark, grey, icy and the dogs are soooooo bored LOL!
>>Should I be saying target or just letting him offer it?>>
Yes, you can get the distraction going then say target. You can also get the distraction going and start him on the side, so he leaps on and into position from the side (kind of like the bang game).
He was wildly NOT distracted here LOL! You’ve put a foundation of “if you want it, look at your task” on him so he thought this was easy peasy. What a good boy, it is almost as if the distraction was the cue to get to work. Love it!
I snorted at the double sheltie party on the board LOL! Min was *hysterical* LOL!!!!
You can also switch out cookie distractions into something better… swinging toy? And if he can do that… start to go to distractions that potentially stimulate other behaviors. For example. with Contraband, the frisbee stimulates him to want to run run run so in order to earn it, he has to sit and stay. So for this behavior, we are asking Kal to look down and step briskly into a 2o2o. The Nemo ball stimulates him to want to freeze til you kick it… so that might be a great high level challenge (Nemo From Heaven haha) – Nemo goes overhead and when he gets into the 2o2o (Kaladin, not Nemo), you release and throw the ball 🙂
Let me know if that makes sense!
>>However he recently moved out of sports foundation and in to beginning agility when a spot opened up so he got to play the bang game on a new (and clattery) teeter tonight. His ears twitched the first time but he rocked it even with me sending from more lateral distance. He also got to hang around and do tricks and get treats when other dogs banged it.>>
This is awesome! I love that he is getting that exposure. He is a level-headed dude so I don’t anticipate that we will see any anxiety behavior, but it is good to be able to get him into these different environments.
Great job!
TracyHi! This is a really good start – she was a little uncertain at first of why we would want her to tug AND stay on the thing LOL! So getting her to tug and stay on is a great start – the more you do this, the better she will feel about shifting her weight back. You can also work the weight shift back on the ground next to the board, then build the 2 skills together.
The step is a really good platform for this but I think the angle of it was a little too high for now – you can use it flat like you had it for the cookies from heaven game, and have her in her 2o2o position. That can provide enough of an angle. The tippy board was a great option – now that she doesn’t think you are tooooo crazy for asking her to tug on it, you can do the 2o2o on this one too and see if she will keep her front feet on the carpet and back feet on the board.Nice work here!
Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! She was great here! Completely on task, except for one small glance over her shoulder – probably when your husband entered the room. What a good girl! So…. add some challenge 🙂 Start with her with all four feet on her platform – be a little extra crazy and wiggle the cookies right above her nose, tempting her… then cue her to move into her 2o2o position. That way she will be a little more distracted and tempted, which will challenge her to focus downwards on her ‘job’ when the distractions are a little wilder 🙂 The moving into position is the hardest part, so this can start to work that skill before she needs to do it on contacts 🙂
Have fun!
TracyGood morning!
This is going well!>> I have found that she likes toys best when they are thrown or I’m running with them. Otherwise, treats are tops. Tugging in a relatively stationary space works, but is not high on her reinforcement list. >>
This is good to hash out now, as it will make it easier when you get into new places. Things might change in different environments but this is a good foundation. It doesn’t really matter which we use (toys or treats) as long as we can get her into the right state of focus for the environment she is in.
She did really nicely with the game! I think she was looking at your closed right hand on a couple of reps (“where’s the food, mom??!” LOL!) and also she didn’t totally realize that she could go with you to get the treats – she looked so surprised and stayed where she was. Ha! But this is a great foundation for entering the ring and going to the start line. Fingers crossed for an easy and fat end ot the winter so you can start getting it all back outside. The more she can see the concept of working with the treats somewhere else, the easier it will be to transition to the trial ring. You can also track which tricks put her into a higher state, and which are calmer – so that way you can adjust according to the environment. When you are working indoors at home, you can add in other distractions like your husband, other dogs, etc. to see how she does!
Great job 🙂
Tracy
