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Hi!
This looked good! Question about your around verbal:
on the first rep, it was a left cue and on the next reps, it was a wrap. You were using more of an ‘out’ for the left/right turns on the other reps, so maybe that first around (there was one later too) was just an oopsie? I totally throw on the wrong words with the pups all the time – oopsie!The first race track looks really good, she is holding the line beautifully and with speed. The wraps on the 2nd run also look good – you can begin your crosses sooner. As she is exiting the tunnel, connect and send her into the wrap like you did, but decelerate sooner (as she is passing you) so just before she arrives at the wing you can do the front cross and be rotated before she exits. That will help you get further ahead of her and it will help tighten the turns too!
When you added the turn on. the tunnel exit at :50, you got a wide turn. You send her in on a go then turned her on the exit. You can switch the verbals so that just before she goes in, you call her (or give a directional) and let her see you decelerate and turn: that will help tighten up the tunnel exit (I have some games for that in coming weeks). You gave her a right cue at 1:08, but it was after she exited the tunnel so the turn wa sa little wide. You an deliver it to her when she is about a stride before the tunnel entry: she should still commit to the tunnel, but then turn right on the exit. That is *definitely* on my list of things to train with these pups! At 1:27 you gave her a go before she entered and she did no turn wide – I think by this point she was a little tired and wasn’t driving as hard as she normally would have been. And that course ended up being a bit too long, she was she slowing down – 14 obstacles/40 seconds long, which is a lot for a puppy without reinforcement. She was peppier on the last one and you rewarded a lot sooner, which is good! Try to limit the smiley faces to just 3 or 4 obstacles between rewards, because I think she starts to feel like it is too repetitive and loses steam if you go for too long at this stage. Always leave her wanting more 🙂 Her understanding is looking really strong, so you can mix things up but keep the length of sequences super short and fast moving so she stays super fast.
Nice work!!
TracyHi!
Doing this without physical cues is harder, she had some god steam coming out of her ears 🙂 When you are totally motionless and she gets it right, throw the reward (rather than cue the next thing) to affirm that yes, she was correct in that moment.
When you added speed, it was a whole new bar game LOL!! You can meet her in the middle with the motion – rather than running, maybe jog to the wing so she hears the wrap verbal while you are moving but she doesn’t get caught up in the excitement of you sprinting. That will help her process the wrap verbals and be able to override the body language. When you want her to wrap the wing that is after a tunnel (whether it is the one next to the exit or she exits on the other side), call her before she enters so that she knows to expect a cue on the exit – that will also prepare her to process the wrap verbal and then it will be much easier. She is doing really well, which is why we can ramp it up 🙂 Nice work!
TracyHi! This is also looking really strong! Nice tight turns around the wing, no drifting, and she is leaving you in the dust 🙂 On a couple of reps, you were ahead of her so she couldn’t get too far ahead but as you added distance, she had more room to drive ahead. Very nice! As you keep adding distance, you can add in a parallel line past the wing so you don’t end up stuck behind the wing or converging in towards the bar. This will challenge her to find the bar with you more laterally away on the line (I think she will be fine with it). You can move the wing over so that it is easier to run past the wing of the jump.
great job!
TracyAh yay, this is looking good!!!! The bouncing is there very nicely now and she is organizing herself to jump rather than trot. yay! When you see a change in form (like trotting in more than powering in) – my rehab vet friends tell me that it is fatigue and that we should shorten the session. I found that really interesting and it works nicely – the instant I see a form change in jumping grids or in conditioning work, I end the session (and try to do a shorter one next time) and then the form is better than ever in a few days. So, if you see her change her form, just end the session rather than raise the bar. In general, I do no more than 5 reps (even if they are not great) then leave it alone for a few days, so we work other areas of the brain and body 🙂
On the next session… I think we should see what a 6 foot distance looks like. The 5 foot distance was looking a little compressed now that she has sorted it out! But, don’t try it until maybe Friday or Saturday – let this “settle” for a few days so she can wire the muscle memory and recover. it doesn’t look like a lot of work, but it is 🙂
Great job!!!
THi! I think he liked it when your throw went awry LOL! You were throwing sooner and that helped keep his head even straighter. yay! He is jumping a non-existent bar when the dead toy is on the ground, that is interesting LOL!!! Maybe from the baby dog grids? But the toy on the ground was good for the first couple of reps, then he backed off it a little, waiting for you to move it perhaps? I think the ball generally elicits that “kick it, momma! response” so saying ‘get it’ helps and also only doing one or two reps with it on the ground so you get the drive to it before the ‘kick it momma’ kicks in. Are there other toys he might drive to that don’t elicit that response, because they are tug toys more than kick it toys? I think the Nemo ball works GREAT as the throw reward (note how he was beginning to drive ahead!!) but not as well as the dead toy. We can use one of his other tugs for that, complete with you winning the tug toy if you can beat him to it 🙂 And, mix in driving to the dead toy with the thrown toy – that will get both behaviors going really nicely!
nice job!
TracyHi there! I am very glad you were able to get to a friend’s house for this, he did REALLY nicely!!!! Yes, for the first couple of Lala reps you were a little exaggerated but then by the end of that first video, you were using more distinct tones for the lalalala versus the tunnel verbals. He was perfect on the tunnel on the first video and after he got over the little distraction he was also perfect on the wrap. if you see he is distracted, you can use a little “ready…ready….” and when he turns his focus back to you – then you can start the verbal.
On the 2nd video, he wrap was solid right from the very beginning and for whatever reason, he was not as sure of going to the tunnel at first. I don’t think your wing was further away than the other side, I think maybe he is stronger when he is on your right than on your left, in terms of going to the tunnel? By then end he was perfect though 🙂 So a bit more value on the tunnel when starting on your left and the whole game will be perfect – you can start him from the closer to the tunnel and also using body language (stepping towards it like you were adding) will totally help too. I think he is ready for the advanced level!!!
About editing videos together: which device are you using to tape the sessions? I use an iPad and then use iMovie to splice them together – it is easy. I am happy to explain how if that is the device you are using (you can also do it from an iPhone). If you are using something else, let me know and we will sort it out! Also, having them as separate clips is perfectly fine 🙂
Nice work here!!
TracyIf you prefer a more international, think of it as Le Bidet Turn.
Hopefully things are moving along nicely at your house!!
ha! That made me laugh – I also used to put sooooo much emphasis on stay behaviors and stopped contacts. Now I am all like, well, I guess I need to ask the dog what he wants to do about it LOL!!!
Hi! I think the smiley face is going well – he looked hot here, was it hot out? Also, I think he was a bit in food mode, so he was not going full throttle and that was probably why he didn’t go directly into the tunnel a couple of times when he was on your left: following the food and a bit toasty. I think your connection and body language was good here – if you rotate to him more, you will be toooo rotated 🙂 He is still really young, same age as my smaller pup and she makes the same mistakes – just young dog stuff 🙂 So 2 ideas: isolate the tunnel a bit so he gets more experience going into it. And… use a toy at this point, no more food, especially if it is hot out 🙂 Both of those combined will help ramp it up – you only want to do a couple of reps then take a break. As I am seeing, whippets run ‘hot’ and they do not want to do a ton of reps. Do 2 or 3 then take a break for several minutes so he comes back fresh and cool.
The Wind in your hair video is linked to the Smiley video, can you repost? Thanks!!!Hi!
Was this the last training of the day? He might have been mentally fatigued so it was harder for him to process the verbals. You started with a tunnel send and if he had just done all of those smiley faces… he needed a moment to come back from tunnel mode 🙂 But then when he got it, he did great! We can set up the first reps a little differently – wing can be a bit further to start, and start with a wrap cue (instead of a tunnel cue). That can help him be immediately successful, then you can add tunnel cues and move the wing in closer. He got the advanced mini sequences beautifully! I am also interested to see what would happen if this was the *middle* session of the evening. – warm up on the sent point, then try this. Just curious to know if that would help him be in the perfect state to nail the verbals… or if it has nothing to do with it at all, and the distraction is the presence of the tunnel regardless of when we present the game to him LOL!!
Great job on all of the games! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! I am glad the magnetic fingers to the collar was helpful! NHis warm up wrap-to-tunnel looked great. Easy peasy.
And on the sequences – wheee! Looks great AND he is starting to turn on the speeeeeed 🙂 You had to turn on some speed too! The wraps are looking good. You can blast into the them more – when he exited the tunnel, you were already decelerated so he decelerated sooner than we need him to. That also happened on the first race track – you were decelerated when he came out of the tunnel, so he deceled too! I think his tunnel send is SOOOOO good at this point and that is putting you too far ahead. So… run into the tunnel more so you are accelerating and scrambling a bit as he exits (then decel and show the next cue). Basically, it adds challenge for you to show the cues, stay connected, say all the words LOL! I am confident he will be fine with all of that, he did a great job here!Tracy
Good morning! The set point is looking really nice. He looks smooth and organized. He does better when when he is a little closer to that first jump, maybe in the 4 to 6 inch range? When he is further away, like at 1:43 ish, he has to organize differently so he is actually jumping more upwards then forwards like he did at the beginning of the video. So, keep his toes 4-6 inches from that first bump and let’s see what he does 🙂
He is about the same size as Export so using that as my frame of reference – let’s try him at a 5 foot distance! He did well at 4 and 4.5 feet, but it is possible he was compressing. Let’s ask him what he thinks about 5 feet (in a couple of days) and let’s see what he says. I bet he does fine with it and can really push push push! Because of his size, we are likely to be able to get lovely work at 5 and 6 foot ‘compression’ distances from him – he will let us know 🙂 When we find the perfect compression distance, we can start raising the bar gradually – he just turned 11 months, yes?
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
You are fine for the live class – we can modify the game that uses the tunnel to use your barrel and jump, and the other game with the tunnel is not in the live class. It will be fun!And these games are getting me to teach a start line too LOL!! It is time to teach the no-fighting start line, where we and the pups have a happy-making start line routine. Now, because it is a work in progress, a shit-ton (<——- scientific term) of reward is appropriate and also since he has such great reward location markers, you can leave a reward behind him and turn him back with a cue to get it as part of the reinforcement. I personally prefer to do a LOT more reinforcement work in front of jumps in terms of the ratio of stay reinforcement to jump reinforcement, at this age.
The pre-game looks really good, he is responded well and leading with his head. He was hitting the barrel on the toy marker, from what I could see. First rep was cookie reward, I think, and he was not hitting it. The other rewards were toys – and he was not touching it until you got excited and then he drove in for the toy (you were exciting enough, verbally, that my 7 year old dog woke up, came over, barked at the computer and started hopping around, wanting to join in :)) So – on the barrel, delay the reinforcement mark until he is all the way around and has completed the “no touching” element 🙂 You can also go to a wing for this – he is less likely to push the wing because it is such a different footprint. When you use the barrel, I think delaying til he is all the way around will help get rid of the pushing the barrel without diluting the skill – he is really good at this so that he can come all the way around before you mark/reinforce.
Great job!!!
TracyHello again! This might be Yowza’s favorite game ever LOL! This is where we DO hit the gas pedal on the Ferrari and she responded with ALL the speed… without sacrificing the turn on the wing. Perfect girlie! Good job with the verbals and remaining relatively calm LOL! You can definitely now add in more of your speed and also, spread the wing and jump out even more (wheeee!)
On these, you were throwing the toy and she was terrific so now I think you can add the challenge of the advanced level where the toy is way out past the jump. The challenge for her will NOT be about driving to the jump… it might be about doing the wrap before getting to drive to the jump. Finesse gets the reward of the yeehaw running! It might not be hard for her at all – so then you can add distance, and you can even do this with a wing to a tunnel.
If it does turn out to be hard, as in she can’t get it right and keep going to the toy or the wraps really deteriorate: switch to a MM out past the jump rather than the toy. She is one of the very few Border Collies who drives really hard to a MM (most slow down) so you can teach the game concept with the MM before going back to the toy.Great job on all of these!!! You two are looking great!
TracyHi! This is going well! She was mainly patient on her stays (thanks to all the good rewards!) and you had her set up nice and close with the MM nice and far – her organization looks good. She wants to go fast fast fast, so seeing her have to organize herself and NOT rush was really nice! And her head was down, no looking up at the momma. Yay! This is 6 foot distance right? If so – perfect – if not – let’s try the 6 foot distance. I think we should stay with the MM as the reward because she is driving to it perfectly and I don’t want her to rush to a toy. How old is she now? I am trying to plan when we can show these dogs a little more height.
Nice work!
Tracy
