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Hi! Great job on both of these sessions, Fizz is so fun!
I like the unedited sessions better because we get a fuller picture especially if the dog has questions. And I am glad you had good weather; working outside provided some new distractions but he did really well!On the target video, nice warm up! Are you saying Brava? Is Fizz a girl? Lol! Great marker word.
She is showing strong hits to the target, especially at 1:20 and after. Two things that will help:
Start with your dog side leg back then as you cue the target, let her see you step forward with it. That will add more oomph to the cue and help guide her especially as you add more distance. Your leg was forward before the send, so she didn’t get the benefit of the little bit of motion the leg adds.
Also, try to have your treats ready in your hand so the reward gets presented sooner from the hand (and so she doesn’t look up at the treat pouch). It will make upcoming games easier, plus it provides a nice little self-control element to the game 🙂 you had the toy off to the side which was hard but Fizz did well!
On your bowl work – the back and forth worked best when Fizz saw you dropping the treat. You were great about using a nice noisy one but the sound didn’t seem to help her as much as the visual of the treat did. So, on the next session, delay the drop til she can see your hand moving. That will be easy to fade out when she gets the groove of it (which she was, by the end of the game).
Nice work! Let me know what you think! I’m looking forward to the blind cross videos 🙂
TracyHi! Really nice sessions here! With the Nemo ball: you did have interactive play, it was just a different style of play 🙂 It wasn’t tugging but it was play and it was reinforcement! Yay!!! The ball is definitely high value and the bopping it around is high value too 🙂 He had more speed and giddy up to it than to the cheese bowl, but that makes sense 🙂 with the Nemo ball, start to add your motion forward. You can be running to it and that will help make the play happen even faster 🙂
He had great forward focus on the cheese bowl! At this stage, there’s no need to get a lot of duration on it, you can let him move to it on the first look. He was starting to offer it naturally at about 1:10! And there were a few reps after it where you waited too long, so he looked back at you (“mom, what’s the deal?” LOL!!)
He isn’t as fast to the cheese bowl yet but that will continue to build as he develops the game. Great job here!
TracyHi! Glad you are having fun 🙂 it is so fun to have you here!
yes, new games are every Saturday afternoon, after the live class 🙂
THi! Yes, you can totally use food to build the driving forward, especially as you add motion and distance. Separately, you can play with the toy: will she pick it up but not bring it back? If so, cool, tie it to something for now so you can engage with her to play 🙂 if she will drive to it but not engage if it is stationary, you can also have it tied to something – and when she get *almost* to it, start moving it so she can chase it. Let me know if that makes sense 🙂
TracyHi! Quote of the day: “toys are hard!” Omg so totally YES!!!! But,I was SUPER pleased that there were no bites in those in between moments when his mouth was not otherwise occupied. Yay!
I think the difficulty was more about the food value versus the dead toy, so leaving you for the dead toy was not as exciting when there was a possibility of food right there. Let’s focus on the food to toy for now and then the driving ahead game will be easy 🙂
For now, have a low value treat in your hand, and toss the close and keep it moving – if he engages with the toy, yay! Play! Then give the treat. We will be able to fade the toy movement when he understands the back and forth more.
And, in those moments of “hmmm, now what?” it was very smart to toss some treats so he could settle and be busy while you thought about what to do. It produced a toothless sessions 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! She did really well with the decel game here, she drove in nice and tight!!! Great job getting the rewards in low, it sure isn’t easy with such a small pup! You can do this game sitting on your butt at the stage or on your knees, if your knees won’t get mad about it lol! You can toss the cookie away and have her drive back to you for it with you already low.
When you added movement, she definitely likes the recall aspect of it! Nice! Because she has more speed, you should decelerate sooner, so she has more time to process the slowing down element (she is still learning how to use those new legs of hers lol).
About the wrapping foundation – yes, totally wait on it for now. In the meantime, work on the reward mechanics of ‘eat a cookie here, then eat a cookie there’ (easiest game on the planet haha! And you can also do that with 2 toys, back and forth – I also like to do toy-to-cookie-to-toy with the baby dogs at this age, just to get all of the reinforcement in place. Then you’ll find the wrap shaping is super easy (and all shaping in general too :))
Great job here!!! Let me know what you think 🙂
TracyHi Estelle! Skylar was awesome here!!! Because he is a little older, you’ll find that he might progress through some of these games very quickly – and this is what happened here 🙂 so I might give you more advanced things to do 🙂
Great job establishing the back and forth then adding the cone. He had a little trouble when the cone got really far, but I LOVE how he thought his way through it and went out and found the cone 🙂 yay!!! Resist the temptation to help while he is thinking, it will feel like an insanely long 5 seconds but wait for him to sort it out. If he doesn’t, move the cone in a little closer and that should help kick start it.
If he likes toys, you can try this with toys too 🙂
An additional thing to try with this game is using different objects in place of the cone – laundry basket, garbage pails, anything you have that is easy to move and go around. That will help generalize the skill.
Great job here!!!
TracyGood morning! He looks great, glad he was enjoying the snacks lol!!!
He didn’t seem to have much trouble at all when the toy was out ahead. You were very decelerated, which was perfect for that – double gold star for him eating the treat when the toy was out ahead, plus turning so nicely!
My only suggestion is to now add your acceleration when you give him to the cue to get the toy: cue it and run forward so he sees your physical cue match the behavior.When you added speed, you were a little early on the turn, so connection broke and it read like a blind to him. You can wait until he is almost at your hand and then turn, while also giving more eye contact. Try to lower your hand on this too so he comes in with his head lower.
The toy races and sits in front of the toy looked great at the end! The down was more surprising to him but I think he was expecting the sit. I’m super happy with how he did with those, they are hard!
Blinds looked great too, just be sure to make connection on the original side before the blind, rather than look forward then blind.Great job here!!!! More games coming tomorrow 🙂
TracyHi!
These are looking really good!!
On the prop sends: he is really getting value for the prop, yay!! I’m glad to see that he could do forwards, sideways and backwards, k9tsbof good hits on all of them. I think the click was helpful, it is easier to help with isolating the exact hit. Add distance more slowly, though – he was asking questions and not quite sure, which is usually a sign of too much distance, too soon. So you can work up to 6 feet or so over the course of several sessions so he can be looking forward each time, with no questions.Wing wraps – the toy back and forth looks great, he was really good about releasing the toy and going to the next one. Try to wait a little longer now, before showing the next toy, so he can offer the back and forth more like what he was doing at the end. On the next session, warm him up for a couple of reps to get him in the groove and then wait for him to offer going to the next toy, before the next toy comes alive 🙂 when he can do that (and I’m sure we will be able to!) you can then start to move the upright a little further away.
Drive to handler- looks fabulous! You can use toys for this too of course! Yes, good job getting that hand lower, it made a difference on his head position for sure! And you also did a good job feeding as close as possible – keep working that super close feeding so he practically touches you – I notice that he and his sister want to be a little bit away from our legs on this lol!!Blind crosses – yes, you can sometimes use a tunnel, but do the blinds earlier 🙂 do the b kool blind while he is in it or just as he exits. You were starting them when he was a couple of strides from you so he had to change sides last minute. And when you are using a restrained recall (which is also perfectly fine and highly recommended when he meets new people), start the blind as soon as the person lets go of him.
Reward mechanics looked good! You can use an even longer toy if you feel like you are bending over, but I think it overall looked lovely 🙂
About the cookie toss, what was going wrong with it? I like to use them mainly as cookie to toy to cookie developer, and as a self-control thing, so let me know what was wonky and we will fix it 🙂 was he ignoring the treats? Or spending too much time searching?I am jealous that you get to go on vacation!!!! Bring your prop, cookies, toys, clicker, jump upright. And maybe a bigger thing like a soft pop up crate or laundry basket if you have one? Don’t make yourself nuts trying to find something, we can use anything you have wherever you are staying 🙂
Great job here, he looks amazeballs 🙂
TracyAwww thank you!!! I appreciate it! Our pups are so fun, presenting us with puzzles to play with in these crazy times 🙂
Hi! She read the blind crosses really nicely! And she REALLY liked the flirt stick! With the blinds, you can start with your original dog-side arm lower – that will allow you to switch to the new side even faster. The original dog side arm was high (shoulder height) which makes it a little harder to get it down and turn your upper body to the new side as quickly as she will need (she is already speedy and will just keep getting faster 🙂 Yay!) She has a great stay here, so you can also try this with more motion: be moving up the line, release, keep moving, do the blind as soon as she starts to move to make it nice and early.
About the class recording: it should be able to play! Try it maybe from this link here and let me know?
>>I’m assuming the lessons are the same activities we’re doing in the regular online class?
Yes, the videos posted here are actually a little longer than the ones used in the online class.
Nice work here!!
TracyHi! This looks great, the connection really helped her! She is still thinking we are a bit nuts (understandable, it is a nutty game LOL!) so you can do 2 things on the next session: be a little closer to the prop and toss the treat back to the prop. That will help her drive away from you faster (her turn back towards you is great, so this suggestion is to get more speed to the prop).
And yes, it is easy to forget how young she is because she does everything so well!!! Great job here!
TracyHi!
>>>> Question: is he happy to go back and forth between food and toys?
It can sometimes be an issue for him. I find that often once the food has been introduced, he has a hard time going back to the toy and would rather just get more food. It’s not every time, but it’s often enough that I notice it as a pattern. Or sometimes he will find a treat in the carpet while we are playing with toys and then he loses interest in the toy and looks at me like, “I’ll take more of whatever that was.”That is pretty normal stuff at his age – I have learned to look at the pup to make sure he swallows the treat before I offer the toy 🙂 And changing locations helps too: cookie in one spot, then move away to a different part of the room for the toy. It takes some experimenting and training at this age but it is smooth sailing once we get it figured out.
>>When you say get the toy back, what exactly do you mean? He has a pretty good “out”, but it’s not 100%. Sometimes he will chomp a couple more times before outing it. I’ve tried doing the thing where you hold the toy still close to their muzzle, but he is very persistent lol. He will just pull back and growl and tug and seems to think it’s fun. Eventually he does let go, but it seems like a game to him. Should I use the “out” cue? I’d say it’s about 80% reliable.>>
Being 80% solid with an out on cue at this age is great! And a couple more chomps before an out is fine for now too. But you can also just trade for a cookie, especially on the higher value toys or if you think he is stimulated and might not be able to release in the moment. I don’t suggest a verbal out cue yet, not until we can predict the behavior closer to 100% of the time with the physical cues or the trading..
>>Is the idea of adding in treats at each step of the forward send game to lower his arousal in the presence of the toy?>>
Yes 🙂
>>EDIT: We gave it a go, but he still got very bitey, including some butt bites while I walked to pick up the toy. Very sharky lol! Here is the video.>>
On the video: The first part of it was really nice: great transition to the collar and the toy drop with the cookies involved. But he didn’t understand the get it with the toy that far away and you not moving, so he got frustrated and bit. So, making that same great transition, start back with the toy right in front of you so he can pick it up without having to move too far away from you or the food. Then a moment of toy play, then cookies, etc. Now, if something happens and you want to get the toy and hie might bite your butt… before you go get it, toss a treat or two so he has something to do to settle himself then go get it, mainly so he doesn’t rehearse the butt bite. Also, I personally stop the game and do a brief time out if the pup tries to chomp me (time out by gently taking the collar and taking a breath or 6 and everything stops – I don’t get made, I just stop the pup until we have both taken a few breaths and it also gives me a moment to plan what is next, so the pup is not frustrated). Now, a time out like that should happen once in a blue moon, almost never – and usually it happens when I have frustrated the pup by accident, so we will do our best to never frustrate them. But I do stop the action in those moments because the frustration biting is something we can give feedback about, if that makes sense?
> I will confess I like to play with him without toys too, but he can get bitey with that, so I’ll stop that too. He doesn’t really seem to know how to play too well without teeth. Even his snuggles sometimes come with teeth lol! He gave me a bloody nose and an almost nose piercing this week while cuddling me – he’s so sneaky about it too!>>
Eventually you will be able to play with him like that, but for now I think it is important to help him learn that your flesh is a tooth-free zone 🙂
>> At first I was thinking I should keep a treat jar down there, but then I pictured the space between ending the toy play and walking to the treat jar, and I can just see him lunging at me and biting me
LOL. So I think I will need the food on my body so there is no lag time between the toy play and the treat scatter. I think I’ll experiment with your list of suggestions and see how it goes.>>Correct! Speed and smoothness of transitions is important with pups, and never turning your back on them 🙂
>> My Ridgeback has never liked toys, so all her training has been with food. I’m way more comfortable with treats than toys, so I have a lot to learn myself.
Training with toys is a whole different set of mechanics and arousal levels, plus it is different for every pup. IT takes some time to sort out but it is well worth it 🙂
Keep me posted!
TracyHi! His wing wrapping is looking really good! At this stage, get closer to the wing again and stand up (closer is needed to re-establish the behavior with the ‘different picture’ of you standing at a high success rate. If it is easy for him, then you can add the distance again very easily. Question: have you thought about what verbal cues you would like to use on course? Because he seems really solid on this, we can start to add verbal directionals for the wraps: I have 2 different verbals (one to wrap-left, the other is to wrap-right). Some folks prefer to use a general wrap cue. Let me know your thoughts on it and we will start to apply it!
Great job!
Tracy
