[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!
Excellent session here, filling in the answers to her questions. She was awesome on the stationary reps – drove right in and turned back out. Perfect! Also terrific on the moving reps: your mechanics were spot on (you were clearly focusing on the training mechanics here) and she nailed it. A really awesome session!!!!!! I suggest another session on one jump: start with walking and then go to jogging.
If that session goes well with you jogging, the next session after that will be a couple of reminder reps on 1 jump with you jogging – then add in a jump before the serp jump – send her to it, then jog through the serp jump. Keep the toy on the ground and also keep your fabulous mechanics. Let me know if that makes sense. Great job here, truly a top notch session!!!

T

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi! Nice job balancing serps and backsides with the threadles here! They are really hard and he is doing well 🙂

Some ideas for you on the various skills:

On the serps – he is having trouble driving in, not quite sure what to do with his body – he is shaping his own line by moving towards the center of the bar then turning (rather than just driving into the turn) and is also not coming in with confidence yet. So, you can do a session or two of having him come in over a low bar (very low :)) and rewarding him for touching your hand (fun and easy) and also you can throw a reward behind you when he comes towards you – straight back (using your other hand). That can get him loving to drive in towards you even more. There is a lot of pressure on serpentines so we can reduce the pressure. And when he is driving in, we add back the 2nd turn (by having the toy on the ground). Based on what he is doing, I suggest keeping the bar really low for longer – no need to raise it until he is driving in hard AND collecting 🙂

Also, you don’t have to lean quite as much on the serps (threadles, too, more on that below) – that might be adding to the pressure and contributing to him pushing away, so try to be a little more upright.

On the backsides – be sure to not do the banana line of curling your chest forward and your feet forward as he is on the way to the backside – that is what was causing him to cut to the front at the last minute, like at 1:11. Keep your upper body open & facing him while your feet do the ‘split step’ away from him, that will help 🙂

On the backsides where you had that strong connection, he pushed quite nicely! On a couple of the you were using more of a leg-step to the backside wing and not as much connection, so he didn’t read those as well – like a :43. Ideally, you should be able to run a parallel line and not have to give a big step on these set ups – a little step is fine as long as you don’t become a banana haha!!!

OK onwards to the threadles 🙂 He is doing well! On the one jump threadles, you don’t need to lean over as much – being more upright will transfer to course running because you won’t be leaning over like that on course 🙂 You mentioned your feet – on the one jump game, your feet face the toy – you started doing that nicely after the first couple of reps. And then remember to keep your upper body frozen on the exit (no need to cue the jump), the in in means come in and take the jump – you were doing that nicely starting at about :17 🙂

He is also not yet powering into these, so I suggest a lower bar and easier angles for now. Also, on one jump – add motion. Start to move through the threadle while he is in a stay (walking) then cue the in in (I use it as a release). The 2 things to work through on one jump are:
* You standing still while he goes to all sorts of positions around the clock, eventually to where he runs all the way around the jump to threadle
*Him on easy angles while you adding walking then jogging then running.

Then we put these 2 together 🙂

On the 2 jump games:
One thing I noticed was that your arm cues looked similar on the threadle and on the backside. We want to make them different enough that they can support the verbal cues. So on the threadle, if you are doing open door – swing the arm back and hold it back. On the backside, the arm is in a more natural position, down and out of the way. You had a swinging door going on the threadle and the backside LOL!! That was causing your arm to move back and forth on both cues, possibly causing some questions from him.
One other thing to be careful of is when you are doing the open door, that you don’t turn your feet at all or move sideways (like at :47). It was better at :51 in terms of feet running forward, but you will want to be sure that you are running forward the whole time on threadles and not turning your feet.

So food for thought – practice the mechanics of open door threadling, without him, so your arm cue is back and open but your feet can keep running forward.And practice how to make it look different from the back side cue. Right now I am walking around my office doing that: my open door threadle arm is high and back and causes my upper body to rotate a lot. My backside send arm is lower and back by my hip. The other way to play around with how your open door threadle arm should be is do a big threadle arm with your opposite arm! That will toss your open door arm back…. now take out the opposite arm and do the same with your open door arm – and there ya go LOL! Let me know if that makes sense 🙂

Nice job here! He is off to a great start with very complex skills!!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

Many lovely things here! The zig zag grid looked awesome – no tweaks needed, just tighten it up a bit on the next session. Watch for front foot “pitter patter” if he adds strides at all – if he does, open it back up a tiny bit to where he can bounce it again or shorten the distance (it doesn’t have to be 6 feet on this one).

Threadles- Looking really good!!! And you were wise to set him up to make them easy, with the motion and the 2nd jump. I think you can add more balance reps (looks like he went around jump 2 at the very end?). Also, you can make the open door more obvious (a little more swing back motion) but more importantly, don’t “close the door” by swinging the arm or rolling your shoulders forward to cue the next jump – the open door and verbal cue that jump, so maintain the cue and then just relax the upper body.

Serps – On all of your serps, I will bug you to “face” the jump more with your upper body (your feet were perfect). It will really help the serps, not just on this first video but especially on the 2nd one with the tunnel out there. Ideally, you rotate your shoulders so your upper body is facing the jump. The Brits call it “t*ts to target” which cracks me up but also helps me remember: turn your t*ts to the target – and the target is the jump bar. What was happening was you were turning your dog side shoulder to be perpendicular to the jump bar. On the first rep he ran by, and on the next 2 reps you were using motion (moving away from the jump then back towards the next one) to get him to come in.
Your running line on the first rep was spot on! Now as he exits the tunnel, you would be calling him in with your left arm back (similarly to the open door arm) and your chest fully facing the jump bar: both t*ts to target 🙂 And it will also line up your shoulders to the wings of the serp jump: right shoulder to the exit wing, left shoulder to the wing closer to the tunnel.

The left arm back will really help get your upper body rotated to face the jump.

And it will really help when you add the tunnel out ahead as the distraction on the 2nd clip. On all 3 reps, you turned your shoulders forward (your right shoulder was perpendicular to the center of the bar) – which indicated the tunnel. You did get him to come in by changing motion, but your instinct to keep running was correct – keep moving up the line like you did on the first rep and face the bar with your chest.

Threadle:
In In from the tunnel to the jump – very nice timing! You can open the door a little more with the arm but otherwise he was beautiful! The only other suggestion is to use either his jump cue or name or soft turn cue on the rest of the line, rather than the Go verbal – the jump cue or name will cue the turns for the serpy ending.

Really lovely work! Let me know if the serp suggestions make sense about chest rotation 🙂

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

Before I watch the video, this caught my attention:

>>. Thinking about it, I must look exactly the same to her as I do when she weaves … chest open, near arm back and low, feet pointing forward. Is that right?>>

Hmmmm… the weaves should have no physical cue associated while she is weaving. Yes, a handling cue directs her to the entry but then you should be able to do *whatever*: tap dance, strut, cartwheel, sprint, slow down, run away… so if you are helping with a physical cue on the weaves, you should strip it out by going back to the method you are using to train them and teach her to go through the poles no matter what you are doing. That will eliminate any confusion if that is part of it, plus it will help you have more independent weaves. Think of the weaves like a tunnel: direct her to the entry, but then while she is doing it, you can do whatever. You wouldn’t want to have to use a body cue to support a tunnel 🙂

Onwards to the video:
Thank you for posting the entire progression, it really helps me try to figure it out!
I don’t think it is a weave confusion issue at all 🙂 But definitely be sure you aren’t building body language into weaves!

So on the serps: it looks like there are 2 small details that are causing holes – so it works on 1 jump but not on 2 jumps, as you experienced. The 2 details are:
* not enough motion
* she isn’t seeing the toy on the ground as part of it

Here is what I mean:
Motion: you were leading out, assuming the position, standing still… and basically on the successful reps where she *did* come in, you were standing still until she was taking the jump. On the reps where she did not come in, you were trying to move earlier or move faster.

So, on all of these, stay in motion the whole time – be walking with your upper body in serp position and release when you get to the far wing (serp position) while you are still moving. You will be in motion the whole time – slowly, but still motion. And the motion will be steady: not slow then fast, or fast then slow. If you changes speed (like at :51) she will get confused as the sudden explosion of motion is a big distraction. Start with walking and then go to jogging then eventually to running, over the course of several session. Also, keep your position clear and don’t change position to help her: you were trying to change your position when you had 2 jumps out there, but that made things a little muddy (that was when she threadled the first jump on the 2nd rep and also at 2:55 where you did a post turn to get her to take the jump).

Toy: when we started these, we have the toy on the ground – that was partially to get the reward in for the bend back to the next jump, but also partially to install the self-control of “take the serp jump even when there is a distraction out ahead AND while the momma is moving”. The rewards here are in your hand, so on one jump, it is fine – but then when a distraction is out there (2nd jump) and when you are trying to move… the behavior gets lost.

So do 2 sessions (at least 2) on one jump where you are walking the whole time and there is a toy on the ground the whole time. That will fill the two holes and should make things MUCH easier when you go back to 2 jumps!

As for the weaving of the jumps, where she did take jump one then ended up on the backside of jump 2: that was a motion issue: you were stopped – released – then as she committed to jump 1, you exploded forward towards jump 2 (sometimes turning your shoulder forward) – all of which pushed her away to the backside. The steady motion of moving up the line and not pushing in towards it will cue her to take 2 and should get rid of the accidental backsides 🙂

Let me know if that makes sense! Serps will be easy peasy when you work those two elements in.

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO !!! 2020 can go back into the pandora’s box that is came from. UGH!!!! I hope it isn’t too painful!!! And we can totally give you distance things to do. Plus, he is “of age” for certain obstacle training, all of which are started without much movement. Weaves, contacts, etc. Keep me posted!!!!

[Tracy Sklenar]

Perfect! I progress the one jump exercise into motion and with all the angles around the clock before I add the next jump to it. Keep me posted!

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi again!

I completely agree about practice and plan the videos during the walk through…. all of my new verbals require a lot of brain energy when I am walking a course. Also, even with comfy verbals, I need to plan them when I run my young dogs. Young dogs tend to make us all panic a little bit LOL!!!!!

1st sequence – very nice! You did get your run verbals in (they can be a little earlier out of the tunnel). My only suggestion it to turn your chest towards the bar more on 5 so it is more of a serpentine, to create a smoother line to the tunnel. You turned forward a bit and that created a zig zag.

2nd sequence – good job on the transition into the wrap! I think over the course of the next few months, the timing will shift especially as the bars go up. On the first rep of it, You were fully rotated before she took off, but she was a little wide, which means she made the takeoff decision pretty early – in a good way 🙂 On the second rep at :26, you were earlier with the decel and she read it better! Nicer turn there. So you can try getting closer to big dog timing: when she has landed from the previous jump start decelerating so she sees it sooner – then you can rotate a little sooner too. She has a large dog mindset and I love that!
The missed tunnel at the end of the first run (:18) of a young dog broken connection moment. Even though the tunnel entry was *right there*, you turned away and looked forward so she didn’t take the tunnel. Remember to look right at her eyes as you say tunnel, and keep the connection until she goes in. You did that at :28 on the 2nd rep and she was great about driving to the tunnel. Eventually, when she has more experience, you won’t have to be as perfect 🙂

2nd sequence, going to the other side 4:
She saved your butt on the 1st rep LOL! Your blind cross 3-4 started as she took off at :35 so she was a good girl to fight to come back to the new side. You even said “whoa” or something there LOL!!! You were late because you went in a little too deep to the tunnel #2 then she smoked you. You held on and got the turn but then disconnected on the way back to the tunnel at :40… but this time, she took it! Yay!!! Good girl! I like that she is picking up lines when you aren’t perfect, because it is impossible to be perfect all the time.

Now, about that #2 tunnel: On the previous reps of this sequence, you went in closer and it was fine because it allowed you to move up the line and make a transition. On this rep where you need a blind nice and early – it is a definite send-and-leave moment so you can be in position for the blind when she exits the tunnel.

You totally left sooner and got to the blind sooner at :46 – your timing of starting it was much better and she read the line really well!! Then be sure to start the transition immediately so she can wrap the next jump nice and tight. You were still flying from the blind, so the wrap cues were a little late and she was wide. It all happens really fast there – be ready to start the transition almost as soon as you finish the blind. You can play with sending-and-leaving even earlier so that you are there with more time, which should make it easier to get the transition going.
The next rep shows you have a great understanding of the timing of the blind: as she exits the tunnel at :59, you started the blind. Perfect timing! Positionally, you can be further up the line and between the jumps: you went a little too close to the #2 tunnel so as you started the blind, you hadn’t yet reached #3 – which meant you were a little in the way when she landed from 3. The main challenge on this sequence is to be how far away you can send to the #2 tunnel so when she exits, you will be maybe halfway between 3 and 4.

Next sequence – threadle 4-5: you ran the line perfectly 1-2-3-4 to put you into the position for the threadle! At 1:10 from 4-5, you did a FC/BC spin. That is a good move to use on threadles, but be sure to hold the FC part of it until you see her coming into the gap, then do the BC. By “hold it”, I mean do a FC and run away towards 5 (don’t stand still) so you do the BC to send her to 5 while you are in motion. You did the BC a little early so the reconnection at 1:11 sent her back out to the serp side of 5.

Last rep – you showed a little deceleration right before she entered the tunnel, so she exited turned. You can go in nice and close, but keep moving so she only sees acceleration. The timing of your FC/BC 4-5 was much better and you had your close word going! It looked really smooth.

Really great job here – she is doing a lot of grown up stuff!!!! The hardest thing, I think, was gauging your running lines – for example, how deep to go into the tunnel or when to send and leave. That will come with more experience playing around with these types of sequences – it is the hardest thing about running little dogs: trying to know exactly where to be so you don’t get too far ahead and also so they don’t smoke us LOL!

Great job!

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi! These went well! I see there are bars in and she seemed to have no problem with the bars, let me know if you saw otherwise while you were running these. Overall, they were pretty smooth. I have a couple of tweaks for you to make them smoother. Both are basically ‘trained’ cues – the serps are a little easier than the threadles. I think threadles are REALLY hard and they went well here!!!

Some specifics:
1st rep -very nice serp! At the start, remember to call her before she goes into the tunnel so she is already turning on the exit. She was blasting out and then realized where you were 🙂
2nd and 3rd reps – Also really nice!!! I don’t think she ever considered the off course tunnel. you can step in a little sooner on the serp jump to send her to the far end of the tunnel – rather than go parallel to jump 2 then push in when she lands, you can try pushing in as she is on her way to 2, before takeoff. It is definitely more challenging because it adds countermotion to the serp but she looks pretty ready!

4th rep & 5th rep: serp to threadle: – the opening serp looked great on these! On the threadle: Good job keeping your feet straight! You can start the threadle cue a little sooner so she sees it before takeoff – it can start when she has landed from the previous jump. Then, ideally, the threadle cue also means go-back-out. So, as she is coming in, no need to switch back to the dog-side arm – that confused her a little at :23. You can ‘release’ the threadle arm by swinging it to the next jump, that can help support the line to it. You were quicker with it at :28 and your motion along the line was strong, so she was able to find the last jump more easily.

6th rep – She read the threadle after the tunnel really well, especially after the reps where you wanted her to take the jump rather than come into the gap. You can give her the verbals (name call and threadle word) right before she goes into the tunnel (then again after she exits) so she knows where to go when she exits. Try not to turn your feet – by rotating, you got behind on the serp line which caused you to turn your chest away from the middle jump – even if you arm behind, show serp position by turning your chest to face the middle jump. This is mainly to help her know to go back out to the last jump.
Last rep was really good!! You got out of the threadle quicker, which allowed you to run a great line along the serp jumps and she found it perfectly. Very nice!
Great job on these – they are pretty wicked sequences, very grown up and she did super well 🙂

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi-
>>When you say warm up one rep at 10″ before trying 12″, do you mean set point, progressive grid or both? Striding grid adds up a lot of jumping with repetition which then limits what else we do that day.

One warm up rep on both of these at 10″ to get the session rolling. It will limit how much else you can do that day, but that is fine – none of the grids is meant to be done every day or more than once or twice a week.

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning! Good job here! One of the hardest things you’ll find is gauging your lines: meaning, how far ahead to get or where to run closer to the jumps. It comes with time as you get more experience running her. For example: On tunnel sends you often outrun the dog, and also outrun the dog on turf. This was hurting you in the early sequences but helpful on the last sequence. Here are some specifics:

First sequence, getting her to stay out to 5: Try to not get too far ahead here, go in a bit deeper to the tunnel so as she is taking 3, you are accelerating. Send to 4 in acceleration and then move away – that will help her stay out to 5. You were a little too far ahead, then decelerated at 4 and turned, so she came in rather than stayed out.

When you did get it at :39 – keep your shoulders open at 5 so she can see the serp more clearly, rather than turn forward to the tunnel.

On the wrap sequence – here is another spot to go in deeper to the tunnel, so you can then show a transition. On the first wrap rep, you were so far ahead that there was no place to go – so you were moving in a steady motion and that doesn’t cue the turn. She needed to see fast go to slow then go to rotation to turn tighter there. On the 2nd wrap rep, you went in a little more so you were running harder and had a much nicer transition a 1:06. Yay!

After the wrap wing, it is a push through back to the next jump – so stick a little closer so you can step her into the gap. On these reps, you ran forward – she did find the gap, but on the first rep she hit the wing. On the 2nd rep, you strengthened your connection and it really helped!!! Strong connection like that plus one step into the gap will make it perfect 🙂

Last sequence: this was a good one to send to the tunnel and run run run run away 🙂 It made for very good timing of the blind cross at 1:22 and 1:36!!!

I think you were actually working too hard to get her to turn on the wrap jump 🙂 You were using 2 hands and I think you said EASY at 1:24… but you were facing forward so she went wide and hit the bar. Bearing in mind that the transition and rotation are the strong cues – the decel then rotation nice and early will get a great turn! And yes, your verbal turn cues too LOL!
You can also see it at 1:38 – the hand cues were not as strong as the rotation – the rotation ended up being a bit late, which caused a delay in reconnection so she barked and had a zig zag line to the next jump. So the transition becomes even more important on the harder turns. I am fine with using strong hand cues – but those go in during/after the rotation, back to the dog’s nose (I can dig up videos of what Voodoo sees on course haha) and so the rotation is the stronger cue.

Nice work here! Let me know if it makes sense!!!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

>>the 12″ set point, 12″ with the progressive striding grid,
>> I feel like every time we have done this grid no matter the height he seems to struggle most with the 15′ distance.

These were introductory sessions, and with that in mind, they went fine. I think the set point and striding grid went the same as they do each time we show him a new height: he takes a session to look at it and try to adjust. So on the set point, he was hoisting his hind end a little and on the progressive – he added the stride at 15 feet and then was a little inverted on 18 and 21 – not fully comfortable yet. Knowing that this is how he ‘looks’ at a new height, it is perfectly fine 🙂 We show it to him – take a couple of days off. Show it to him again… and he is fine with it 🙂 The only suggestion I would make is one warm up rep at 10″ then going into the reps at 12″.

>> and then the zig zag grid but did not attempt to get the jumps all the way to a straight line.

Good choice! I think he did a great job with the challenges you presented here, and it was smart to then end the session. Getting them straight takes multiple sessions so he can maintain the form you had him doing here.

>>I didn’t use so many wings as I couldn’t figure out how to fit them all in there!

You can overlap the wings, or use wingless to get the distances. It is like a puzzle LOL!

>>Also, not sure what you mean by possibly using weave poles instead of jump bars.

Literally using weave poles as the jump bars, because they are shorter 🙂 Which will make sense with the next answer:

>>As I straighten out the line from zig zag to serp…is the distance mid-bar to mid-bar supposed to stay the same which for us is 4.5′? I’m a bit spatially challenged!

On this grid, the distances are just suggestions as starting points – as the grid flattens out, it is more about adjusting the distances so he bounces rather than staying at 4.5 feet. So you can start at 4.5 feet and then you might need to squish it to get the form. Start this on 3 jumps – and if the distances need to be smaller, you can then use the weave poles as the jump bars.

He is off to a great start on this!! Keep moving it along gradually like you did – it is a really hard grid 🙂 If you see him foot-pattering rather than power bouncing like he did here, you can open it back up or try shorter distances. Let me know if that makes sense. Great job!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi! This is how I start them, probably pretty similar to Jenny:

Let me know what you’ve done so far!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!

The jump grid is looking good- he got better and better on each rep – he took a moment to get organized on the very first rep but then did well on the next ones! He looks ready for jump 4 – he seems much happier doing them!

On the serps: He also read these really well! Be sure you are further across the serp jump before you release – like at :06 and :12. One the rep at :04 you released him a bit too early, so he jumped straight (the serp cue wasn’t clear yet). As you build it up into the 3 jump serps – stay in motion the whole time. If you stand still then explode forward, you will end up pushing him to the backside like at :18 – standing still cues collection then the sudden acceleration pushed him away. And, when you are moving, keep moving through the reward (you throw it but then keep moving). You were tending to throw it and stop, so it made him question his jumping on the last jump. The throw can be later to make it easier to keep moving. He looks ready for the 3 jump serps here!

Great job!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi! He worked really hard on this! It is one of the hardest grids. I have 2 suggestions:
using just the 3 jump grid, tighten it up on just 3 jumps until it will be straight. He had a little trouble holding onto his balance on all 5. And then when it was really hard on all 5 jumps, he just gave up and ran straight LOL!
And, on 5 jumps, keep it wider for a bit so he can work the balance. Take a look at what he did on the rep that started at :12 (:12-:14): that was REALLY strong! We basically want him to do all of them just like that, no matter how tight the grid is. So Start at that angle of jumps and only very gradually tighten them. If he starts to ‘double tap’ his front feet rather than bounce back and forth, or if he starts to bounce high – it is too hard, open it up a little. It will probably take a couple of session (or more) for you to be able to get it tighter or straight, but that is fine because form is the most important part. He will see it straight first on 3 jumps, then eventually on 5.
Nice work! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi! I agree, I think he did really well here! Nice playing and nice job incorporating the treats for some calmer moments too 🙂
He also did really well on the grid – this is NOT and easy grid, but he made it look pretty easy 🙂 I didn’t see him bat an eyelash when you made it tighter, either. Nice!!! He seemed super keen to do them too – very “ON” but not overly aroused.
2 little tweaks as you keep playing with it:
I think on the first couple of reps, he was actually a tiny bit too close to jump 1, making it harder to take off without touching the first bar. I think your set up spot on the last rep was perfect!

And drop the toy in sooner. When you had it up high on the last 2 reps, he had a harder time keeping his head down. So you can release and drop it with the release, so it is down as he is moving into the grid.

>>I tried doing some serpentines from week four on my jumps near the house. I didn’t have any wings available. He does not like to do them without wings.

That is interesting! Was he going around them, just not ‘seeing’ them? You can do the one jump serp games on a wingless jump to get him rolling on it, then add in the other jumps. I believe that ASCA only has wingless, right? So he needs to learn more about wingless jumps. What about CPE – also plenty of wingless? We can randomly throw more of them into his sequences too, to help him get comfortable.

Nice job here!!
Tracy

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