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Good morning!
These serp sequences are indeed difficult! They are training sequences and they ended up going really well! Try to be careful of where you have tunnel entries – the red tunnel was a bit of a visual draw for her that made it harder.
1st rep – good handling good reward!!2nd rep – starting with her at :18 made you late to show her the line to 2 so you had a little zig zag. Give yourself a little lead out to make it easier. Nice handling on the serp line!
3rd rep – she missed the middle jump at :30 here. I think a few things caused it – a little bit of delay on the info 1-2 by starting with her, plus the visual draw of the tunnel, plus you turned your shoulder forward. The toy grab was funny though LOL!
4th rep – MUCH better position on the upper body for the serp, great job rewarding that!
Last rep had all the elements – slight lead out so you had clear info 1-2, so she had a great turn on 2. Good serp cue! You moved in towards the last jump a bit more than needed, so be careful not to pressure in, just keep running straight.The tunnel sequence is SO HARD, right?? That was Voodoo in the demo and you can see how hard it was for him as an adult 🙂 The visibility of the 3rd jump makes it pretty hard. Breaking it down was smart – your motion was fine when you started it but she needed to look at it without motion at first, that really helped. When she is coming from the tunnel, you can also slow down – you were moving pretty fast and either it was a little too fast or she got ahead 🙂 So send waaaaaaay away to the tunnel so you can trot through it. Your connection looked really good throughout! And you can also add verbals – calling her name or left/right verbals to help out.
Nice work!!!
TracyGood morning!
This is looking really good! She is showing excellent commitment to the lines – is she barking at you? LOL! She is getting pumped up 🙂 One general note is that you don’t need to call her at the tunnel exit – it turns her attention up to you when we want her to go go go to the jump. A go verbal or a jump verbal would help her not look at you. The crosses look GREAT! I looked at each of them to assess timing: your timing ranged from really good to freakin’ awesome Yay!!
FC: the timing at :05 good. :16 even better! BC timing: Blind at :29 was super! Same with :41 and :51 and 1:03.
On all the crosses you were finished before she took off, and she was reading it because she was turning before she took off. Happy dance!
So – onwards! You can do 2 things with this setup:
spread it out, so she has longer distances between jumps. That will actually give you more time for the crosses – you had very little time on the shorter distances and still nailed it.
Give her a bar to jump – first on the easy jump (the one after the tunnel). Then next session, one of the harder jumps can have more bar (the pinwheel jump or the cross jump) and eventually all 3 will have bars.Great job!
TracyGood morning!
All of these videos looked super! Yay!
One jump serp looks good! Just move the toy further away if it is placed on the ground, he is landing on it2 jumps on left – very nice! Your line of motion was spot on, perfect upper body, and the angle of the jump really helped on the first couple. And you maintained it when you flattened the jumps – note how well he read the line to jump 2 without you needing to step to it.
2 jumps on right – also very nice! You were dipping your shoulder here (maybe looking at your hand or back for connection) on the serp jump and I don’t think he needs it anymore – you can maintain the position and look at him, see how he does with that!
3 jumps – looks good! the slight angles are helping but he also did fine with the flat lines. Your line of motion was exactly right which really helped him out. You were super connected – as with the 2 jumps, leave your upper body open but see if you can fade the dipping shoulder – just look at him with your arm up. I suggest it because it will allow you to run faster. You can also add verbals to this – left/right or soft name call or a jump verbal, just to be able to name the behavior. We add more to this tomorrow!
He did well on the bending grid, I don’t think the height was a problem at all. In a few dayss, try the middle bar at 8″. Also, you can keep turning your shoulder so he turns on the 3rd jump as well. He is following your line of handling, and you were facing a bit straight over 3 so he didn’t really turn. If you keep turning as if you are going to have him take 1 again, he will continue to turn over 3 as well.
Great job!Tracy
Hi!
I think he is doing fine on the tunnel exits – I prefer young dogs to come blasting out as opposed to turning too tightly 🙂
First rep – Go – terrific! Very nice.
Second rep – the last thing he saw before he entered was you facing forward, which is the same cue as the go cue – so he came out turned.
Third rep – I think you were working harder to get him to turn by getting to the tunnel exit faster – so before he entered, he saw you moving straight, faster 🙂 which means accelerate more on the exit.
So to work the turns, maybe put a cone out 3 feet away from the tunnel entry (off to the side, so he passes it and you can see him passing it). When he gets to that 3 foot marker, you turn your feet, call him and move the new direction. That should immediately tighten up the exit because he will see it before entry. He was great about changing lines when you connected when he exited, so I am confident he will read the earlier turn cues really nicely 🙂
Let me know if that makes sense!!T
Hi!
Skye says the bending is hard!! He has his head turned and is sorting out his leads but yes – we need to convince him to bounce these 🙂 He was starting to get it coming in from the wing wrap on the first wing wrap rep at :55 but he couldn’t quite get it sorted out so went to adding a stride. That is a smart way to sort it out! So now we can tweak the grid to help him choose the bouncing – the two things I suggest for that are
– lower bars or, better yet – jump bumps if you have them. Even with low bars, he will hit/drop them so we can use something that is not displaceable.
-shorter distance between the jumps. The grid distances are just general suggestions, and then we tweak based on individual needs. So we can play with distances to see where we get the bouncing: start with 3 foot distances and see. If he bounces, we can try 3.5 feet or 4 feet. It might take some trial and error to find the bounce distnce and that is fine – we can find it then we can gradually expand it to extend his bounce distances.Looks like he was a happy dude coming in from the xpen, lots of good toy play!
>>I did these over the course of 45 minutes with trips to the expen or snuggle time, walking a path, or ball throwing.
That might be why he was more interested in eating stuff at the end – even with other activities in that 45 minute period, he got depleted (any activity will deplete a dog). So if you have 45 minutes of time to train him, I suggest rest breaks only – train for a minute, rest for a few minutes, train for a minute, etc. The ball and path walking can be at the end. Rest can be some sniffy walking for a minute or two or just chilling in the xpen. Does he like to chew on bones? He can chew in the xpen, that is often a great relaxation tool for dogs between turns.
>>is he now eats stuff to get me to ask him to “drop” (which he does really, really, well.) so he gets attention or a cookie.
It is entirely possible that he has switched into more of an operant process on this, rather than the reflexive response – and that is a GOOD thing! The reflexive response was either environmentally triggered (see mulch eat mulch) or triggered by anxiety/stress – not sure we know 100% why. But… if he is choosing to offer the behavior of picking something up to get attention and a treat, it generally means we have left the realm of anxiety/stress/environment issues and are in the ‘normal dog training’ realm. Happy dance!!! So, honestly, I would continue to reinforce operant decisions in those moments for now 🙂 You can try to head them off by watching him closely in situations where he might grab something to get the cookie. When he looks away, call his name and give him the cookie or toy (before the grab). Then you can shape it to him offering looking back at you in those situations – for big rewards. Let me know ifthat makes sense – this shift is a very good thing 🙂
Tracy
Hi!
I feel your pain about the rain – May was insane here! Hopefully June will be better.On the running rewards – yes, he is totally GAME ON at the start line!! So now you need to protect his happy stay like it is gold (because it is :)) Broken stays that are fixed can create stress at the start line (and lower the success rate) and broken stays that are not fixed will also cause stress because at some point you will want him to stay – so the key is to make it a goal of always releasing before he breaks. You can release forward into the sequence, or release forward to the toy, or throw a toy or treat back: but release before the break when you see he is excited. I think you were focused on your handling so you were taking the extra moment to get to where you wanted to be, get ready, then release – turned out to be too much for a pumped up 1 year old dog. So be super connected and release or reward before you think he will break 🙂
The first rep of the running rewards was a little wild indeed 🙂 But I agree with your choice to keep running then reward. He did pick up the last jump nicely, so it was rewardable. The bar down at 2 was a slightly late/disconnected turn cue and then he made a young dog mistake of blasting past the tunnel. I think both of you were a little pumped up LOL! The 2nd rep was great: just as fast, but you were more connected and earlier, which helped him find the lines. Yay! Really nice.On the bending – moving the outer jumps in closer was the right choice. Also, the 2 outer jumps were a bit too high – the middle jump can go to 10″ if he is able to bounce these – but the outer jumps stay at 4 or 6 for a while. The middle jump does eventually get tall but the outer jumps always stay super lower to help the go step into the bounce.
>>Any idea what I might be doing to cause this?
Could be that he, at the moment, is a little better to the right than to the left. Also, there was a difference in your movement – on the left turns, you were stopping more and facing straight more while on the right turns, you were continuing to move through them. So keep moving through the bending, that helps! You can also try with a toy as a reward, it might be more exciting. Also, if he goes around a jump – try not to mark it, just keep moving and send him back through it in a fluid motion – the marking it can deflate him a bit which we don’t want. But I think the main things will be lower outer bars and staying in motion on the bend on both sides.
Nice work! Fingers crossed that you get some dry weather!!
Tracy
Hi –
>>What is your take on the 10″ jump height for him? Should I only do random jumps at 10″ and some at 8″ or continue to shift more towards 10″. I felt like he had the skills for those tunnel FC drills to be able to handle the 10″…perhaps that affected his commitment?Having to look at the commitment and the 10″ height might have been contributing to him coming off the line, it is hard to tell, but yes definitely keep the harder stuff at 8 while the easy stuff can go to 10. So harder stuff is anything where a newer concept and handling is being put into play can stay at 8 for the first session or two. And separately – show him a 10 inch bar on one jump exercises then 2 jumps before trying it in sequences.
And yes, his sends were great!!!
T
Hi! The first 2 reps of just the grid looked really good – I was glad to see you added the wing, she was ready for the challenge! She came smokin’ into the grid the first time after the wing wrap, and did a great job of balancing herself and not losing control with all of the speed. I think she was surprised on that first one LOL! But then the other reps looked great – she was balanced going into the grid, tight, and got better on each rep. She hopped a little on the last jump at :25 but then smoothed it out after that and the last rep was my favorite so far! Very nice!!! And great job adding the verbals.
Question – how old is she now? 10 months soon? I scrolled around trying to find it and I must have scrolled right past… I ask because if she is 10 months in June, we can look at the set point from MP 3 and add a little bit of height into it. No rush at all, I just figure we can look at adding a bit of challenge to the easy grids.Great job!
TracyHi!
Nice job breaking this down for her – serps are HARD running lines for the dog. Part of it is teaching her what serps are all about (and your breaking it down and placement of reward was very helpful!) And part of it is handler tweaking: On the ones where she did not get the line, you were turning your shoulders forward and stepping in a bit. So, keep your shoulders “open” until she turns to the middle jump and move along a parallel path like you were doing when you were breaking it down for her. Try not to turn your shoulders forward or indicate the jump with an arm or motion – the open shoulders (arm back) and parallel running line will be the cues she needs. That open shoulder and parallel running path is what indicates the 2nd jump – if you turn your shoulders or converge towards 2 to indicate it, you will get the backside.
When you went to 3 jumps at 2:50 – first rep was really good, just keep your shoulders open to her and eyes on her when she lands from jump 2 (the serp jump here).
On the 2nd rep at 2:59, you converged into her so she pinged away to the backside of jump 3.
On the last rep, you stayed further from the line and that helped her for sure!Having the lotus ball on her path is helpful for breaking it down and makes for lots of reward (which is always a great thing :)) The other way you can break it down is to slightly angle the jumps so that she is always looking at the front side and the backside is harder to get to – but I also suggest a leash or something on the ground to make out your running line, so you run a parallel path and your upper body just stays open. If you step in towards a jump. you will cross over the leash and feel/see it immediately 🙂
Nice work!!!
TracyHi!
Sometimes training sessions become about hashing out the small details, it looks like these sessions were like that! Small details of the handling/dog training appeared, and they are easily tweaked.
On the pinwheel/crosses:
Good job on the first pinwheel – but remember to stay connected on the “go tunnel” at :14. – you said the cue but then turned forward and it changed your body line, so he came off the tunnel entry.On the missed jump before the crosses – sometimes it was a case of “oh I guess that was too early for him at this point”, sometimes it was a case of “that was definitely too early” and sometimes it was lovely! In general, be later:) Use your verbal jump cue, let him land from the pinwheel jump and take one or 2 more strides – these are big distances so we want him to be about 10 feet from the jump for now – then do the cross. Your exit line connection was strong!
– :42 too early, in the “I thought that would be OK but he says too early” plus you didn’t say jump, you called his name.
:57 was better and you had a jump verbal, that helped!
1:21 and 1:31 were both too early in the “a little too early” department
On the 2nd video:
:08 definitely too early – you were crossing as he landed from the pinwheel jump. Your timing at :22 was better – really nice!
Good job on the connection at :34, good pinwheel!!
:49 very nice! And also 1:04 was very nice – you waited longer to start the cross on those last 2 reps and they looked good!1 jump serps:
They started off really good! Then things got weird when you changed sides – It might have been the angle of your upper body or something in the environment that was too close? Hard to tell. Or, if you have been doing a lot of threadles, he might have been offering threadles? (I don’t think this is the case, but if you have been doing a million threadles, don’t do a million threadles LOL!! But again – I don’t think this was the case) But then he was fine when you showed him the toy. So this falls into the “learning is not linear” category – if you are in the basement again, just be sure to give him as much room as possible (my guess is there was some pressure in the environment from a tighter space).2 jump video –
The oopsies here were all about your running line. When he landed from the first jump, you will want to be moving on a parallel line past #2. You were converging into his path towards 2 and accelerating, which is what kept pushing him to the backside on the first rep, at :18, :30 and almost on the last rep. At :26, you ran a parallel path and he had a better line! So hold that parallel path – that line and your upper body are what will show him #2, you don’t need to move towards it.On the last short video – great training choice to angle the jump and also you ran a straight line (the parallel path I mentioned above) – so it was perfect. You can start with the angled jump on the next session and establish your parallel running line – then stay on that line as you angle the jump back to a flatter position.
Let me know if this makes sense! You were just one step from nailing it on these, so I am confident it will be terrific on the next session 🙂
TracyHi!
>>Except the reference to “fluffy” BC; that sounds like an in-joke that I don’t get. >>
Sorry! Not an in joke – just my description of a not-tight blind, like a blind cross through a diagonal that is mostly extension. I like those technical terms, like fluffy LOL!!
Keep the obsessing coming 🙂
T
Hi!
Obsessing is MY FAVORITE lol!!!On your video here, I agree that the sequence you ran required both different timing and different handler paths – the forced blind and the forced front looked really good in terms of where you ran to (entry wing) and your timing of starting (the FFC has more decel to it and you were earlier starting it, so it was easier for him to make the turn. The FBC was a little late starting so he scrambled a bit).
The wrap BC and wrap are on the other wing, so different things had to happen – different running line, to the other wing, for example. Plus at landing of jump 2, Enzo needed to see a deceleration into the rotation for the wrap – you had it on the FC which is why he turned but not on the BC where he was wider (those wrap blinds require the same fast-slow-turn transition as wrap FCs). On both the wrap FC and BC, be sure not to step sideways out of it but instead directly forward to the tunnel to set the line (then get off the line). You were getting off the line too soon, so he read lateral motion on landing then you needed to push him back.Going back to yesterday’s discussion about being too early – on that sequence, the backside entry wing I mentioned and the wing you moved past for the FC and BC were the same wing that you were moving to & through (on today’s sequence, they are different wings). So in the context of today’s sequence – using the side of the jump closer to the a-frame for all 3 of these suggestions and picture a 4th jump out past jump 3 (and assuming normal distances like you have here):
Dog on right to begin all of these, your running path is pretty much towards/past the wing of 3 next to the frame on all of these:* wrap FC to the tunnel under the frame on the wing next to it like you did here: timing of transition for the wrap begins at landing from 2 like you did here.
* forced cross (front or blind) with you wanting Enzo to come to the backside of 3, entering on the wing closer to the frame and slicing away from the frame – you would do a BC *before* he lands from 2, so when he lands from 2 you are on your left arm, moving past the backside wing – and when he is committing to the backside you would then do the FFC or FBC.
* “fluffy” BC to get the front of 3 (no wrap) and then carry on to jump 4: Dog on right until he lands from 2 as you are running past the wing of 3 on the way to 4, then blind after he lands. If you are finished with the blind before he lands, and you are near the wing of 3 – then you can confuse the cue with the forced blind or forced front cue. If you are way past jump 3 and on the way to 4 – it is less likely to confuse the issue, depending on the exact line (if the running line takes you between the uprights – no problem to be early. If the running line takes you away from the uprights – he might come off the line if you are too early).
Let me know if the image comes through:
Let me know if that makes sense!
Hi! Timing is hard indeed, especially with a young dog! I think some of the questions here were not timing questions, actually!
First video:
1st rep -She was wide here – This was a little bit of timing (you’re late slowing down & rotating), but also there is that tunnel out ahead – she is likely to lock onto it early because the value of the tunnel overrides the value of the turn, so at this stage it is probably better not to run these towards a tunnel (soon, but not yet :))
2nd rep – She had questions here and it was more about connection. As you exited the FC, you were trying to cue her with your dog-side arm down at your side, which closes off connection. She was not sure where to be and did end up on the side you wanted. She needs your dog-side arm to be back, away from your body and pointed at her feet (and the arm-across-the-body will help push the dog-side arm back) so she can clearly see your connection and know where to be – otherwise she really only sees your motion and there are different options there based on motion. If something goes wrong, try to not mark it but instead find something to reward. You marked it and it deflated (and turns out, she was correct LOL!)
On the next rep – you had the same connection but you dialed back the motion so she got it based on change of motion. Ideally you can keep running, so make sure you give that big connection. And when you add the BC next and at :45- another spot for bigger arm-back connection. She zig zagged a little because the arm at your side closes the connection forward, making it harder to see. Exaggerating that arm back will really help her see it.Your last rep was best one here, really nice! You did the transition earlier and then definitely opened up back to her more for connection. Keep working to exaggerate the arm back and cross-body connection on the exits of crosses and it will get even easier.
2nd video – where was she heading on those first reps? Crate? LOL! She was convinced and then she got mad LOL!
At 1:00 your ‘slow forward’ was good in terms of timing, but you can try to turn sooner. If momentum is what was making it harder to get your feet turned, then decelerating one step sooner will help that because it makes it easier to turn. And good job balancing with the GO lines! You can throw the reward even sooner, when she looks at the 2nd jump, so that she can really accelerate.
Good work here! Let me know if the arm-back ideas make sense.Tracy
