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Hi!
>>Our target is hard for you to see in this video, but you’ll figure it out because he did GREAT.
100% correct – I couldn’t not see where it was but he made it obvious LOL! Great job! I think he totally had the lead changes going here, both directions. Nice!! And rewarding with less excitement for an ‘almost touch’ is fine – soon enough, it goes to a wing or jump and then it is more obvious in terms of commitment (or not committing :))
On the get outs, you can probably play with a softer arm cue, meaning not quite as extended – the more you extend it, the more your feet will want to turn. So you can add a bit of jogging and experiment with what the balance will be: how much does he need to see, and what is the minimum needed so you can keep your feet straight and keep running? He will let you know.And on the balance where you do not want the out – you don’t have to cue it, just stay connected and moving forward. He should follow your line to help clarify the default of ‘stay on the line unless specifically cued otherwise’. Because the target is a lead change away, you don’t need a bypass on it or a here cue. Let me know if that makes sense! If he offers the get out without being cued because of the target’s value, you can move your line further away.
Great job here!
TracyGood morning!
Nice job on the banana game here! He did think the toy was a little silly for this LOL! You can throw the toy, if he likes that better rather than tugging. But he loved the ball – and it brought more excitement to the game but he did not lose his mind: perfect! That is what we want – excitement but no massive brain explosions. He had 2 misses at about 1:20 (good catch!) then he got back in the groove. The misses happened when he started to gallop a bit: so you can go back to a slightly bigger mat for a session or two (easier to hit!) and add more speed – then you can go back to the smaller mat again after that. I don’t mind that he had a couple of misses because it helps the dogs solidify exactly what we are looking for – but his overall success rate was still really high.
We couldn’t see you on the video but based on his path, it appeared that he was doing the real banana and you were straight. Yay! Great job!!!Tracy
Hi!
It is fine to use her name for now! We can add the verbal later on. What was happening here was that you were rotating towards her to cue the threadle – and if you stopped moving or ran backwards to the threadle entry, she got it (like at (:01 :16, :43, 1:02, 1:10, 1:37)
But if you ran backwards on even the slightest line to the straight ahead entry, she didn’t threadle (like at :10, L23, :27, :37, 1:27)
Backwards motion works the same as forward motion 🙂
Ideally, you turn and face the threadle end of the tunnel and move forward towards it, with the verbal and hand cue getting the turn (plus turning and moving towards it helps too) – that is definitely a trained cue but totally worthwhile because you won’t have to rotate and you will be able to keep moving (and get her to do it even if you are not ahead of her). So take out the speed for now (and you can even more the wing over a more centered position relative to the tunnel – use your wrap cue on the wing like you did then her name – but turn your feet to the threadle entry of the tunnel and use your arm cue and keep calling her til she gets the correct end. Walk slowly the whole time, so she doesn’t see motion and just have a giddy up to the tunnel 🙂 If she can’t find it with your feet turned towards the threadle entry, you can turn the straight line entry a little away so it is a little less visible, or you can start with the wing wrap closer to the threadle entry of the tunnel.
I think she will figure it out really quickly, because the arm and verbal are so different plus she will be able to see your feet turning.Let me know if that makes sense! Have fun!
TracyHi!
These are also looking good, she had a nice balance with turning to the far end and staying on the line. She seemed to have no trouble reading the difference (and she definitely enjoyed the race track moments :))
One thing to fine tune, which will become more important on bigger courses: on the threadles/ “far” cues, keep your feet pointing towards the tunnel entry you want and don’t rotate towards her. At :46, 1:12 and 1:34 you were generally pointing your feet to the tunnel and that is what we want her to read – the arm & verbal so that you can keep running. On the single wing reps at the beginning and at 1:00 and 1:52, you were turning your feet towards her as she came around the wing – she will read it that way, but it causes you to stop running and also might cause her to rely on rotation (which also makes it harder to keep moving). So, as she is going to the wing, add in the wrap verbal then the ‘far’ verbal but turn and face the tunnel entry. It is a fine line to show upper body without turning your feet, so you might find you show her a little less threadle arm in order to keep moving.Great job here! Stay warm and safe!
Tracy
Hi!
Bummer about the snow and ice! Ick! Hopeful it comes and goes quickly. I am hoping for an early spring LOL!
She did well with the serps here (actually, did well with ALL the things) so we can fine tune it a bit: -one thing you can add on your serp handling is have your serp arm back (showing shoulders facing the bar) sooner so she can do the in and out without you needing to pull her in and push her back out. For example, when she is exiting the tunnel and heading to the serp jump at :03 :17 and :37, your arm can be back already and you can be moving up the line with your shoulders facing the bar. That way she will get the come in cue sooner and more importantly – set herself up to turn back out before takeoff rather than after landing. It will make a clearer difference when the bars are higher in the spring. You were tending to open up your shoulders for the serp cue as she was approaching takeoff to the jump, so she was not coming in directly after the tunnel and was looking at you over the bar rather than thinking about going to the next jump. We can see it on the other side at :29, :45 and 1:01 – she is waiting for your shoulders to cue the in and then the out, so you can help her do it more independently on the serps by opening the shoulders sooner and leaving them open as you move up the line so she sets up the next turn before takeoff.All of the backside sends looked good, she had nice commitment on those – both going to the backside and taking the jump when she was there! Yay! And she was really strong about responding to the cues whether it was just a post turn or a serp, or the FC on the backside or the BC to the tunnel at the end! Very nice to see her being able to respond to the cues!
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
The raised target platform will also balance turns in both directions – in Contraband’s first session, he was fine turning one way but couldn’t do it the other way at all. He would go near the target but not ON the target haha!! It is a great snowy weather game.
>> When I put her reward far enough away so she had to run through the grid, that seemed to help her bounce, so we’ll experiment and see what we can do with this serp grid.>>
Perfect! She just needs to be convinced that it is not a boring jump grid 🙂
>> I’m assuming you don’t try to do a bounce with the jumps completely flat and lined up? That sounds tricky….>>
We totally do want them to bounce with the jumps completely flat… and at full height! BUT that is a very long way off – I don’t ask for that until the dogs are fully mature adults. It is very tricky and so my 6 and 7 year old dogs see it sometimes totally flat and at full height – but the youngsters only see low heights and open angles.
> I hope you’re having decent weather.
We might get an inch or two of snow tonight, so everyone local is freaking out LOL!!!! I guess I won’t complain 🙂
Good morning!
You have a ton of good stuff happening here so now I will bug you about planning how to incorporate it all, so it gets built into something super and not have any pressure added to something that worries him. I have found the less-is-more approach will actually bring faster results with fewer slide backs. He has a lot of really good skills on the individual elements, and that will be super useful! With all the stuff, think of it as needing a workout schedule so it all gets done eventually but not all at once.
Because this is a lot of stuff all in one day and adds up over the course of several days, plus the training that is not on video… I think you can calendar it and slide it in in smaller pieces, sandwiched between things he finds really stimulating. You already saw that with the tunnel 🙂 that was a great addition to the fun! That will help build value for the movement without added pressure and you’ll see quicker results and fewer “no thanks” moments or times where he poopoos things. I find that shaping with food adds pressure… but playing with toys, balls and tunnels turns it more into a dance party 🙂 So yes, train for the big jackpots with him meals, that is a great opportunity to work skills – but also do a lot of wild stuff with toys and running around. If he has a most favorite toy, save it for a wobble board – tunnel – toy session.So each day, pick one or two things, one element on the list of training something that worries him to work on – do maybe one session in the morning and one later on. The stuff that is not worrisome or is adjunct to building value for the teeter can be done more regularly – but the stuff that might worry him should be done in tiny bits and ideally every other day (because of the stress hormones that might be associated – even if he eats treats/plays with toys, he will still have some stress associated with it and we want to make sure that is not still floating around in his system the next time you attempt something that worries him).
Continue to make the sessions super valuable in terms of rate of success, quality of reinforcement… then be finished. Set a session timer and also a total daily timer 🙂 Resist all temptations of adding something more difficult towards the end of later in the session especially by adding more of what worries him. Think of the sessions as a bell curve – start with something easy, easier than where you left off last time, then go to the harder stuff earlier in the session, then towards the end of the session back it off into the easier stuff and end there. That will help progressively add the harder stuff without the hardest stuff coming when he is the most depleted.
Don’t do ALL the things in one day, even spread out – because what happens it is looks good til the dog gets depleted (which generally coincides when we humans ask for more) and then things go backwards – especially in the evening, for most of our dogs. The science behind depletion and behavior is pretty interesting and has changed my approach to training. I feel it in myself too, when depletion is happening.
He did well on the inflatables! Since those challenge his body (not just brain :)) and build muscle/strength/core – the conditioning vets recommend we limit those to every other day at most or every 2 days, so he doesn’t associate any potential soreness from a workout with something that moves as you work on that positive conditioned response on things that move. That makes it easy to schedule: it can be something like Tuesday/Thursday/Sunday are inflatables days, which leaves Monday/Weds/Friday days for other games. Saturday is for wine drinking lol
And keep the toy involved a lot. He is working nicely for food but he goes cuckoo for the toy – and we like the cuckoo, in this situation 🙂 We want him to loosen his tie and forget himself – and in shaping and cookies, the dogs get thoughtful. With toy games, they get wild and that is good here 🙂
>>We went to LU last night and today but I don’t have video from there. But, we did a wooden wobble board and he was not liking it. I got him to put a paw on it and then I threw a treat away from the board. I did that with him last night and today.??
I think a toy is a better choice for this and if there is a tunnel available, use the tunnel and then the toy. Also, prop the wooden wobble board so it moves a little less for now (tunnel bags or towels or something) and then build the movement back in – make it as easy as possible for him to earn the party then gradually build in more movement.
>>I also got him on an elevated flat teeter and going across 2, 16” tables. I added in him running through the tunnel after her ran across the teeter. Whoa! He loved that.>>
YESS! Fun! More of this! A mini course: tunnel, teeter/tables, tunnel. You can do it at home on the lowered teeter: tunnel, lowered teeter, tunnel – cue the tunnel as soon as he moves the teeter (it doesn’t matter if he stops or not for now because it is relatively easy to install the end position)
>> I added in the finest bit of movement.
Don’t do that LOL! Working through worry about movement takes human self-control because we want to ‘boil the frog’ and add movement in so gradually that he barely notices it because it is so much fun. He loves it? Great! End. Let him be foaming at the mouth for more. If he can love it twice, 2 separate sessions over a couple of days? Cool – then perhaps on the 3rd session, you do a warm up with where he left off, then the early rep has a tiny bit more movement rather than the end of the session. Bear in mind that this applies in the same environment – so if you get to LU and the teeter is in a different part of the building, the best bet is to do the same session as the last time because a change in location is meaningful to the dogs even if we don’t see it that way. Environment is a different training track, so if environment (location) changes then that is the only change, for that session. He will let you know if he is fine with it or not.
>>He poopooed that but did it anyway.
I am glad he did it but we do want to avoid any poopoo moments where he doesn’t enjoy it. That is where we see the up-and-down coming from. A more gradual approach will have a steadier increase in behavior, working each track separately.
>> I probably won’t be able to do that with him again until next week. I can stop by there and do the disc with him again though.>>
If you go and do the disc there, be sure that it is sandwiched in tiny amounts in between other much more fun things. Make sure it is not first and not last at this point (primacy and recency play a role in association) until we are sure he is loving it. Doing something else easy and fun will get him in a high state of arousal and then a bit if disc then back to something else really fun (tunnels are perfect for that). You will also find that sandwiching it in among other little fun things will help make sure he doesn’t make any negative associations with that environment – for example, if he goes into LU then does the disc right away especially if he is not liking it… you run the risk of him associating going to LU with the pressure of the disc. So sandwiching it in tiny bits will take that pressure off and help protect associations.
Let me know if that makes sense!! I jot out training calendars at the start of each week on a white board, to make sure that I try to get things done without over-balancing any specific behaviors. I am really not all that disciplined about my training, but having the framework jotted out helps me keep all the little bits on track in small pieces, across several dogs – without losing my mind 🙂
Tracy
Hi! She did really well here! 2 little tiny suggestions on the mechanics of this set up: try to have her front feet a tiny bit closer to the bar, so she takes off directly from her hind end and doesn’t tap her front feet on the ground before jump 1. That will be a little more challenging but I think that she will be fine with it. And place the toy another 6 or 8 feet away from jump 2, so she can land and take a full stride.
When you play with this next, give her a warm up in each direction with the angles you had here – and then flatten them out a bit more to add even more challenge. She is doing brilliantly with every challenge we throw at her!Tracy
Hi! You have a fun indoor gym going here! I agree – he does much better when things are nuttier 🙂 So get excited, be a wild woman, throw the toys around (does he like balls? Ball are great for getting nuts LOL!!) The single food treats did not raise the excitement level as much so stick with the toys on the pillow teeter 🙂
For the Bosu ball – a couple of questions/ideas:
– do you have inflatables, like balance discs, fitbones, etc? If so you can do an obstacle course of sorts, of him walking across the various moving surfaces of the inflatables. The bosu is technically an inflatable – do he like get on the blue domed part of it? That can be on the obstacle course as well!– on the upside down bosu: to help him get on it with all four feet, an idea is to have it fully propped by pillows so it barely moves for now – and move it next to a chair or couch. Have him walk from the couch to the bosu to the ground and then from the ground to the bosu to the couch. It is an up and down obstacle course 🙂 Then you can gradually add more and more movement. And it can be incorporated into daily routines – for example, the exit of his crate can have a big wobble disc that he can walk over each time.
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
This was a good intro to the grid for her, now we are going to try to convince her to bounce. If I remember correctly, it took us a while to convince her to bounce on the jump grids we did in the fall. She gave you one bounce rep at approx :30, so now we have to convince her it is worthwhile LOL!!You can try having the wings overlapping instead of touching each other end-to-end. That might shorten the distance enough to help her bounce. Also, do I remember correctly that it was the lotus ball moving that convinced her that grids were NOT dullsville in the fall? If so, feel free to try that – I am confident that she will have no issues bouncing it as soon as she thinks it is fun LOL! And the bounce helps build balance for serp jumping and backside slice jumping too.Nice work on all of these! Let me know what you think!
TracyVery very nice banana line here!! She is doing a good job with hitting the target even as you added more speed – and good catch by *not* rewarding when she didn’t touch it 🙂
Now, if the weather gets poopy again and you want some indoor hind end work – this game can be done indoors on a raised target where you are marking all 4 feet moving across the target. It is from the running DW class but it is a great game for getting the dogs to think of all their feet and put them in a small space: I think it has uses for jumping, weaving,2o2o on the dog walk and teeter, etc. Here is a video of Contraband on the bigger target (an aerobics step with his mat on top of it) and also a smaller target (a small carrying case). I was trying to mark for the 4th foot on – he was doing banana lines with me sitting on the couch in pajamas haha!
Hi! She was terrific here with the hopping on in the center and hopping off, and also turning around… but only turning around the her left. Whether she was turning towards you or away, she was always choosing to turn to her left! I had to watch a few times to make sure I was not going crazy haha! She turned to her right only once – at :50ish, and she lost her balance. So we have unveiled a side preference and we can strengthen right turns! You will probably have to lure her to convince her to do it – nothing wrong with a good use of a lure LOL! You can put a cookie on her nose and slowly turn her to her right on the plank. That will help balance her on the plank and also strengthen her right turns in general.
Everything else looks great, it is just one little thing to add 🙂
Have fun!
TracyOh good! He might like the smack the baby stuff! I figured a Lab would like it but I didn’t want to assume then have him get offended by it!
T
Cool! I went to Facebook to friend her, but it turns out we are already friends but FB doesn’t show her to me for some reason. I am looking forward to following her adventures too!
