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Good morning!
Questions are good, keep ‘em coming!he did a great job on the smiley face game (you both did!) The cookie session looked good – I think you should try this without using your arm to support the lines. You are tending to keep your arm parallel to your body and I think that blocks connection a little so he slows himself down (now, I think it is perfectly fine for a whippet to go slowly at first and think hard 🙂 The speed will be there when we need it :)) But practicing without arms will help establish connection for the future courses you run – try running with your hands in your back pockets (not at your sides) and see how it goes (it will feel weird LOL!). His commitment looked great on this first session and you did a lovely job spreading out the reinforcement and remembering all of the dang verbals LOL! And his focus is awesome in that environment!
The toy sure does add an element of speed and excitement. We don’t need a ton of speed from him right now (we want understanding and we want body awareness) but I think using it on this game after the food session was great – it basically just ramped it up a notch and he was ready for that. You can give him feedback about the accidental chomps – if one of my dogs bites my flesh while going for the toy, I just yelp and stop the game for a second or two, then go back to it 🙂 It sounds like it was not a frustration chomp but more of him not paying attention to where his teeth were relative to your flesh 🙂Wind In Your Hair – when he was on your right after the wrap, you were less “helpy” for finding the jump than when he was on your left after the wrap – on your right, you just kinda walked past it and on your left your were pointing it out more. This is a good game to be less helpy with – when you added speed, you were just jogging by the jump with connection and that is ideal 🙂 No need to point to it and show the line – as long as you are connected and moving past it, he will find it. He did REALLY well!! I think he had one little error (towards the end, when he was on your left) but then he fixed it immediately. So you can keep working that moving past the jump and letting him find it like that.
The other thing he is ready for now is more driving ahead: start super close to the wing, almost touching it, and don’t move towards the jump until he is just about finished with the wrap – then move up the line 🙂 That will help him begin to drive ahead of you (rather than finding the jump on a parallel line or slightly behind you). It will be a useful skill! When you added some speed, we could already see how much speed he has (FUN!) so now we will teach him to leave you in the dust. That also bridges nicely into the advanced game. Using the ready treat worked well and I think your timing of tossing is great too!
Great job here!!!
TracyOh wow, you made tremendous progress on this in such a short time! She went from being nervous to starting without you to run to the tunnel. So great to watch!!!! You made great training choices: no pressure to start with, tons of rewards, and using the bowl instead of the MM. Very nice intro to the tunnel and I love how quickly she overcame her concern. Stick with a. Couple of fun tunnel sessions like this, then I bet we can start using it in the other games like the Smiley Faces 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi! I think the most important thing with verbals is that they are clearly defined so they are use consistently. It sounds like you have that going, and that is great! And it is much easier to keep them the same as your other dogs’ verbal cues… so much easier to remember. And when you teach one direction in isolation, just be sure to add games/turns the other direction to make sure she stays physically balanced. These don’t have to be verbals, it can be simple puppy stretches or clawing wraps or turns out of a tunnel.
She did well on the video- she had to slow herself down a little to think it through, but she was very successful! I could see how hard she was thinking especially on the last few reps 🙂 she was a little wide in the around on the first few reps but then you helped with body language to tighten it up- that helped a lot so then she was able to remain tight without the body language. Nice! The wraps are hard in the presence of the tunnel, so you can move the wing away a foot or two to encourage speed at this stage, and also add in the advanced level where there is more running 🙂
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
She did really well here!! Yes, she liked the running a lot and she really likes when you cheer her 🙂
Her commitment is looking great 🙂 yay! You mentioned seeing that you were not always connected as you were moving forward to the jump – yes, stay connected longer as that will tighten her turn around the wing. Dogs tend to drift a bit out of tight turns when we are a little disconnected, because they are trying to pick up the line and can’t quite see it til you are closer to the next obstacle. Being more connected will show the line sooner so she will be tighter.
I didn’t see a difference in her speed based on which reward or if it was placed or thrown, she seemed happy on all of them and FAST!!!
The next step is to get her happy driving ahead of you, both on the sending with you stationary and with you moving. You can do that by adding a little bit more distance between the wing and the jump, and starting super close to the wing, practically touching it. And stay next to the wing until she is just about finished with the wrap, then you can run (or send) forward. She will be able to get further and further ahead. Our goal is that she can be several strides ahead of you 🙂
Nice work!
TracyGood morning! This looks good! Yes, he needs you to be facing the tunnel more – to fade out turning to it, you can start him on more of an angle where you are already turned to it, so he can see it out past the wing.
The advanced game is looking good too! 2 ways to advance the game:
Put the wing closer to the tunnel, maybe an arms length away. That will make getting to the tunnel easier but will make the wraps harder – and that seems to be what he is ready for 🙂
And, for the advanced game, add motion as he exits the tunnel by running forward and handling the wrap. In this case the motion should make it harder 🙂
Great job!!
TracyThis looks terrific!! She is a little speedster!
She showed great commitment- looks like she went directly to the adding speed part LOL! Perfect 🙂
Two little details for you:
– as you run forward, be sure to run a very straight line past the jump and try not to step in towards the jump. On the first couple of reps you stepped in towards the jump/takeoff spot and that can look a little like a rear cross cue. You stayed on a straight path when she was on your right heading to the jump in the 2nd half of the video and that looked really good. Feel free to move the wing around so you have an easy path after the wrap; I generally move it to line it up with the wing I am running to on the jump– because she did so well finding the jump with you running and there is good distance between the wing and jump, we can emphasize getting her to drive ahead. You can get this by starting super close to the wing, close enough to touch it – and stay there til she is just about done with the wrap then go go go 🙂 that should help promote driving ahead of you more and more (we have to be strategic to set up the littles to do it, so sticking close to the wing should help).
Your connection looked really strong!!! Great job on this session 🙂
TracyHi! He definitely enjoyed the running element!!!! Two little details- stay closer to the wing til he is almost finished with the wrap, so he can get the feeling of driving ahead of you to the jump (you were ahead on most of these, which is great but he is ready to leave you in the dust :)) and I think you can do the advanced level where the toy is out past the last jump – that will help solidify the driving ahead while adding challenge to the wrap (wrapping away from the toy on the ground is HARD!)
Now that you were running, gauche and go do sound a bit too similar in the heat of the moment. El sounds different enough, I think! Feel free to play with it more.
TGreat! Keep me posted on the next set point session.
She did an awesome job with the Wind In your Hair game 🙂 yay! To make sure your verbals sound very distinct, maybe have one be elongated and the other choppy? Chehhhck chehhhxk versus chchch for example, so she hears the difference in them since they both start with ch
She seemed to have no trouble with finding the jump! Nice timing of the rewards, too! So, start to add more distance now. And when you do, start with both of you close to the wing, almost touching it, and don’t move forward til she has just about finished the wrap – that will allow you to be right there to make a strong connection and, more importantly, it will help her learn to drive ahead of you (with the wind in her hair LOL!)
Great job!!!
TracyHi! As I was reading your post, my first thought was to add height, so I bald you did 🙂 A couple of 5 inch bars will be fine 🙂
What was the distance at the end of the clip? It looked a little too close for her, so here is a couple of ideas to get more of the bouncing-
Go to a 5 foot distance (or, 6 feet if that last distance was 5 feet). Keep that first bar real low (4inches). Instead of a single bar for the second jump, let’s try an oxer: 2 jumps with the bars 6 inches apart. First bar at 4 and second bar at 6 (both locked in). You’ll be out by the reward, facing forward (not facing her) , release… then let’s see what she does. You can also try the 2nd jump of the oxer at 8 inches. Let me know if that makes sense!
TracyHi! Nice session here! It is perfectly fine to help her, either with the toy being visible or with a front cross. She got the idea very quickly then did a great job!
This game (and the set points) are big workouts for the brain, so she might have been mentally tired (she started making mental errors towards the end of the first part, before you switched sides). You can start on the other side next time when she is fresh to see how it goes. If she does well, you can get her more excited with more tugging and also do the advanced games. She looks great!
You asked about the toys – I often train with 2 toys or a toy and good cookies. I throw a toy as a reward, then turn and go the other way and whip out a treat or another toy when she starts to come towards me (she doesn’t even have to get all the way to me :)) if she won’t come towards you, train the game separately- put the toy on a long-ish leash so that she can’t take off with it, then you can work the exchanges up close and personal. 🙂
Great job here!
TracyHi! She was definitely feeling the wind in her hair here! She was happy to show us her speed 🙂 Your path was good, it was parallel enough 🙂 As you add more distance, you can move the wing over a bit so it is easier to run without accidentally running into the jump. A couple of ideas: be sure to mix in some reps where you are lazy, so she focuses on the line without you having to run as much. You were running here, which is fine but we want her to also go without you. Also, now that the wing is a good distance away, start the wrap with you very close to the wing, so that as you exit the wrap, she will learn to drive ahead of you to the jump. If y send to the wrap, you will be parallel to the jump so by starting next to the wing (close enough to touch it) she will learn to look ahead when you are behind. And as you build the distance on that, you can throw the toy sooner, so she continues to look ahead as she approaches the jump. (We might play with the timing of the toy throw a bit, to help her not touch the bar with all the motion and the moving toy – if you throw early and she touches the bar, try leaving the toy out ahead (advanced level) if she still gets excited and touches the bar, we can try throwing later, when she has landed, and see what she does :))
Great job here!
TracyHoly cow, that must have been so scary!! I am so glad she is back! Whew! It give me grey hairs just thinking about that.
She did well on the set point! Most of it was basically getting her to see what the set up was about, then by the end she was totally on it 🙂 For the next session, remember to add in the stay rewards. The only other thing I suggest to tweak is your position. Put yourself right by the Manners Minder, so she can go in extension to it. She was trying to take the 2nd jump based on your position (good girlie!) so she was turning a bit when you were too close to the wing. We don’t want to discourage that, so it is easier to have you right next to the MM. You can also use a toy instead!
Great job 🙂
TracyHello and welcome to Part 2 🙂 fun times ahead!
Great job with distinct verbals, and also keeping the swing as a turn away (certainly can be useful!) A question: what is your extension acceleration cue? I use Go. If you also use Go, you mught find that Go and Gauche sound too much alike? (I pronounce it Gohsh, unless I am pronouncing it incorrectly?)The session went really well, he was keen to both wrap AND find the jump. Nice!! You made an excellent connection on all of the wrap exits, that really helped. Yes, you can add speed before distance, but he was basically adding speed for you LOL! So on the next session, start at that distance and add more speed, then even more distance. Yeeehaw!
Yes, I see those little head checks you mentioned – he was over the bar and asking ‘what’s next?’ . So, you can throw sooner – after the wrap, when he is locked on the jump (looking at it and taking a stride towards it), throw the reward. That way it lands before he gets between the uprights and he won’t look at you.
Great job here! Onwards to more distance and running. 🙂
TracyHi! Excellent work here, she looked great on both games!
The wrap to the jump wind-in-your-hair game looked really good – you had great timing on the reward and she terrific with driving straight to it and not looking up at you. She looked a little more comfy turning to her right (1st part of the session) than turning to her left (2md part of the session) but she ended up turning left then looking ahead really nicely. You can totally add more speed now, and then (probably in the same session) add more distance between the wing and the jump. She looks totally ready for more.
Your hubby was a perfect holder – she didn’t seem icky about it, and he was very casual so she was not too ramped up (we don’t want her too ramped up for jump grids LOL!). You did a lovely job progressing through the steps and she had really nice form when you did both jumps: head low, nice curve of body, bouncing. Yay! This is great. Keep working the stay separately and I am sure you will be able to incorporate it at some point soon.For the tunnel games – as you train the tunnel, you can do the smiley face with 3 wings/cones/barrels 🙂 It will get you running!
Great job – I agree that she looked like she was happy and having fun. Yay!
TracyHi! Lots of good work here, she is growing up so nicely! Great job with the stay – she seemed just fine to hold the sit to get cookies tossed back to her, even with the Pet Tutor out ahead. With the jumping – I think the head-up you were seeing in the jumping was more about your position than the distance between the jumps. She is definitely long in body enough that 4 feet might be the best distance (or 3.5 feet :)). When you lead out, go all the way to the Pet Tutor, standing right next to it. I think you were a step or two away from it on most reps so she had to pass you – and that made her ask a question about how to stride. So if we put you right next to the PT and facing forward (not towards her), I think you will see her head get lower again. Also, the PT and Manners Minders as reward targets tend to create pretty thoughtful behavior, which is what we want for now. You can try switching to a toy if you think that will get her head a little lower for now – and be right next to it.
She is looking organized and balanced, and that is what we want! yay!!
Great job! let me know what you thinK!
Tracy
