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Hi there! Interesting view of him exiting the tunnel – he would look to his right even when you were on his left sometimes – my guess is he has a long memory for where the ball is LOL!
2 thoughts for you on this:
I think the turn cues to get the tight turns just need to be sooner, and that will get the turns tightened right up. It looks like you were starting them when he was approx 3 feet from the tunnel but because he is long and fast, he didn’t quite see the cue. He probably needs to see you starting the foot rotation while he is still 6 feet from the tunnel (so you are fully rotated before his head goes in) and then I bet he will read it perfectly. It is hard to see from the camera angle, but I think the cone closer to the hammock was probably around 6 feet from the tunnel entry, so you can start your rotation when he is just getting to the line the cone is on.
The other thing to consider is that when you are running, GO and COdy might start to sound alike when you are repeating them fast. So, you can use the same wrap verbals as you do on the wings here, which should be different-sounding enough that it is easier for him to hear them even with the roar of the tunnel 🙂
His GO lines look good – he is exiting straight, with maybe his head turned a little looking for the ball 🙂 and the earlier turn rotations should help him turn a lot tighter on the exit.
Nice work! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi there!
These are looking good! There were many really smooth lines – she does her best when your arms are low and back, that is when she can really see your eyes. When you point forward to much or your arms are high, that is when she had questions. Here are some ideas for you:Course 2:
All 3 reps had REALLY lovely openings, 1-7 was pretty much perfect on all 3 runs.
On the 8 tunnel, your turn cue was a late on the first run so she exited wide, but the next 2 runs had the turn cues earlier and earlier so she got tighter and tighter on the exit. On run 2, I thought you had a great combination of turn on the tunnel exit and rear to the weaves. The rear to the weaves on the 1st rep was impressive at how well she sent out to the entry, independently!! On the 3rd rep, you had the tightest line out of the tunnel but you also ended up a bit too far past the 9 jump, which made it harder to get all the way back to 11 for the threadle.Based on how well she send to the 5-6-7-8 line, I bet you could hang out by 5 and send her around that loop and easily get a blind cross between 8 and 9! That would allow you to get to the threadle jump after the weaves more easily.
At the threadle (#11) – you had a little too much motion into it on the first rep, not quite getting rotated in time to show her the forced front cross position (motion overrode your rotation there). The motion also contributed to the straight line after the 12 tunnel there too. When you have to get that line with a lot of motion, you can consider doing a blind cross while she is in the weaves (just before she exits) then it is easier to get her to the backside for a throwback. You got to the position and decelerated really well on the 2nd rep and had super hustle to get it on the 3rd rep as well! Yay!
The 12-13 line is a hard one!! The key will be using your turn verbal (I think your ‘right here’ on the 3rd rep was the strongest) nice and early as well as showing her your motion moving away. If you are running forward for too long, the motion will override your verbal. On the 3rd rep, you had the strong verbal – I don’t think you need the spin there (she was already in the tunnel and it takes a lot of footwork) so the stepping away to the new line should be fine an you can also add a soft brake arm! It is a hard turn to get with all of those other juicy obstacles being very much in her sight as she exits 🙂
Course 3:
Run 1 – On this opening, she can see the opening line nice and early so you can turn for the blind even before she lands from 1 – that will get you up the line even sooner. She barked at you on landing of 2 because you were a little late on the blind and your arm was a little high, blocking her view of the connection 🙂Good RC on 5 – 6 (5 is a backside on the course map, but you ran it as a front here). The RC is a great choice there because it is hard to get far enough up the line for the blind there.
After the teeter – You can be earlier on the blind at 8-9 with a lower arm (she barked there too, I am sensing a theme in her feedback to us LOL! )
On the RC at the #10 tunnel: this is a place to handle it without a pull to indicate the obstacle because that presents a go line to her rather than the RC. By pulling, she didn’t see it as a RC because you turned your feet and shoulders forward until after she was in. To get the rear cross info to her sooner, drive her line to the tunnel on a very slicing line so she sees your feet facing 11 before she enters.
When she turned left then had to come back, it messed up the timing a little on the send to 11, so that is a place to keep your arm down and back to connect to her even though you were pretty far away at that point, and maintain the low arm and big connection as she exits 13 to the 14 tunnel – you were pointing forward a bit there so she looked at you.Run 2 – Nice open line here, I think she was even faster!! You tried the BC 4-5 here – it was late (she barked) because it is just so hard to get to on time on this particular line. I liked your RC choice for sure.
She liked the timing and connection of your FC at 8-9, there was only a little bark and it was not a very convincing bark 🙂 It was earlier for sure!
The pull to 14 had the a left turn here too – for the RC, you will feel like you are almost running across her tail 🙂 Don’t give her too much room.
Nice connection to 11 and 12!!
The pointing forward to the 14 tunnel arm fling caused connection to break, so she pulled off the line with you. That is a definite arm back spot for her.
The ending lines are looking good!On the short practice clip – the FC was much sooner on 8-9, she gave it 2 paws up: no barking! Yay! It was also really connected. And on the tunnel at 10, you did not pull as much, you were facing the rear cross line so much more and she got the rear cross. Super!!! I bet you can be moving forward while you do that, which will put you even closer to 11.
Great job on these! She was very helpful in barking her opinion on the cross timing or when your arm was too high 🙂 Let me know if the ideas about the RC on the tunnel make sense.
Have fun!
TracyHi!
Yes, she definitely loved the food-in-hand delivery at the beginning! She was nice and tight on her drive to you and turns. Be sure to mix in some delivery to her mouth along with throwing it ahead – the handing it to her will develop a nice balance for driving to you on tight turns. Nice timing on your turns here too!On rep 3 when there was no treat in your open hand she was wider and not as sure of what to focus on. But when you had a bit of a ‘magic cookie hand’ (a closed hand) motion in rep 4 & 5 and after, she was much tighter to you on the drive in and turns. On the last rep you had your hand open too, like on the 3rd rep, so she was a bit wider on her turn. And it was interesting to see what she liked as rewards in each situation!! All this is good to know!!!
So, ideas for you:
when there is no cookie in your hand, you should still present it in the ‘magic cookie hand’ (closed) position – and on some reps, do have a cookie in it (and on others, same hand position and no cookie). We will eventually get it to a flat hand cue but for now, stick with magic cookie hand because it produces fabulous behavior.
Now, about reinforcement:
mixing in all the things – sometimes have the cookie in your hand. Sometimes have the cue hand empty and the cookie is in the other hand, and you can either throw it ahead or quickly pass it to the empty hand to deliver it to her.
And sometimes use the flirt stick (which is, I agree, a pain in the behind to run around with, but you did a great job and she loves it!)
You can also use your lotus ball or the other foodie toy, but tie them to a leash so you can swing it around – she likes to chase and she likes to eat, so that would be the best of both worlds LOL!
On the other toy, when it was presented in front of you and not moving, it was not interesting – so let’s save that particular toy, for now, for the chase games where that toy is in motion a lot. As she gets more experienced (not quite 8 months old, so young!) you will find that the toys/treat will equal out in value and you can use them more interchangeably.Overall, she looks fabulous! Great job working these games! Let me know what you think.
TracyThis is great, Kristie!!! She is so fun!
>>Keiko loves food
I can relate, I love food too LOL! She was terrific here.
She is driving ahead beautifully and I think she *really* likes your new toy – that last rep was especially good (fast!!!!)
Only one little tiny suggestion for you: try to let her go before you start moving, so she feels th joys of being very far ahead of you 🙂 I suggest it because she was looking at you as you started to move on these, then looking ahead again. You were doing it simultaneously so I think now we can add the step of you letting go, she moves, then you move. This way she gets to drive ahead and not look back at you.
You can also add more distance, work up to throwing the toy as far as you can. You can also take the game to different locations to generalize it in various places. She looks great!!Tracy
Hi!
Yes, putting the links on YouTube (or similar site) then post the link is the best way to get them here 🙂Great job on the video, she is so fun!!! Nice warm up to get her in the groove, then she did really well with the sending to the prop. Feeding her back at you and from your hand really helped, because it brought her back so you could be ready with the next send. Be careful not to say your ‘yes’ marker as you are sending (it was early a few times :)) be sure to wait til she hits it – it is ok for the yes to be just after the hit, it doesn’t need to be simultaneous.
Because she is soooo quick, two ideas for you:
add more distance to start your send to the hat, so you have an extra heartbeat between the send and the reward. You were nice and close which was perfect to start it… but wow you had to think fast LOL!!!
Take the game to grass or carpet – she is so quick to respond that she was slipping here, so carpet or grass will help give her better grip so she can go fast and not slip 🙂It looks like she is also ready for the sideways and backwards sends! Remember to use the ready ready dance on those so she knows exactly when to go to the prop.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>Haha you should see the vast crazy furry options I have after 3 Vizslas who don’t tug. I tried everything!
Ha! I feel that! My dogs with lower tug drive have the BEST toys, zillions of dollars of fancy toys… and my dogs with great tug drive have crappy toys from the dollar store LOL!
>>I will work on less contact and I have a tail on a line that might be that long.
I think it will be most important at the beginning of sessions when her arousal is coming up – but then when she gets rolling, she will be more engaged and it won’t matter as much.
>>If not I’ll add length. The good news is we tried the send game with toys and she was so locked on I couldn’t get her to go back and forth. Sitting in the send game is much less body pressure.
She was locked onto the toy? Cool!
Great job on the video here!
At the start of a new session to get it rolling, you can let her swallow the treat then drop the next one in – I think when pups are chewing, they don’t process anything else til they swallow LOL!
You were plopping the next treat in very nicely, but she was happily chewing and didn’t quite notice it as clearly as she would if she was one chewing 🙂
The cone definitely has value and it was really interesting to see her light up when it came out! And yes, you can totally see the wrap stuff you’ve already done, great job!!! She seems to understand it AND love it!
To help her not cut in between you and the cone (and not do a full circle), you can change the timing of the reinforcement placement ever so slightly – you were getting it in on the target as she was at the previous target, so now you can shift to waiting til she snakes her head around the cone. That way she will see you plop it on the target she is heading towards (as a reward) and won’t be as tempted to cut straight over your knees to the next target (because there will be no cookie on it LOL)For now – to make sure she doesn’t get frustrated with the circling versus 180ing, no need to move the cone away until you have a session or two with the tweaked reinforcement timing. And, you can also use something else to go around: a pole or single jump stanchion instead of the cone. We will be teaching her to differentiate very soon and don’t want to frustrate her in the meantime.
Great job 🙂
THi!
>>Asking him to sit or down is going to be hard! Lol. We will try! If he’s successful then release and race to toy?
Ah yes, sorry I neglected to mention that important point: yes, release to toy 🙂
>>He was in cheese mode with the drive to handler! I ditched the toy partway through because I decided I was happy with him in cheese mode and it was also a little easier for me to remember what I was doing!>>
I was very happy to see cheese mode! Partially because it means he likes food during training now (the days of criteria:swallowing! are behind you LOL!) and partially because it is almost an acknowledgement that decel/turns are lower arousal behaviors and food drive is a lower arousal thing too, if that makes sense.
>>Will try to incorporate earlier slowing down and turns. Haha, I definitely knew the timing was off when I received the tooth hug!
Yeah, I don’t think he was biting you, I think he was just running into your hand with his mouth open. Contraband does that when I am late.
>>I think he can probably do the toy on the ground distraction with the stationary drive to side. Will see what happens!
>>The different reward placement sounds great. Will try that!Yay!! Keep me posted on all this.
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Have fun!
TracyHi there! He did well here but I do see what you mean about not really driving hard into the recall.
He might have been hot/tired, or he might have done enough toy play for one day, or both, he was not really driving to the toy as reinforcement here – you can totally do this with food! I am happy to start these games on food then bring the toy play into it later. I realize now that it is fine to build it separately. So he was playing with the toy (and playing really well!!!) you can also limit the toy play to a rep or two then switch to food while he is still wild for the toy. He will certainly not be sad about a bigger piece of cheese 🙂 But you will also get snappier recalls into the blind if the reinforcement you have on your is higher value – so on a cooler day or when he is not as tired, a low value cookie to the highest value toy. Or a low value cookie to a high value cookie when he chases you. His understanding of the game was perfect, so it is more about working the drive to the reinforcement as you run away. That is part of the fun of all these puppies… figuring out how to use their natural drives to build the games we want, while building the other drives to be able to use all the reinforcement. My little puppy (Elektra) came to me with just about zero food drive – yikes! So some training was easy because toys were more useful as rewards… but plenty of other training was harder because in order to train it, I have to figure out how to use toys instead of food while I built the food drive. It is a fun puzzle 🙂
Great job on all of these games! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>he’s just a deliberate chewerA Sheltie that is a deliberate chewer, LOL!!
I think he is getting the idea here for sure! Yes, sometimes it takes a session or two to get the ball rolling but I see definite intent here (not accidental back and forth). If he gets stuck you can totally help him out – start each session with the cookie drops, then let him offer, then before he over-thinks it (which seems to happen after a particularly long chew LOL!) you can do a couple of cookie drops to re-establish the back and forth. I am happy with his intentional back and forth around the wing here – if you get another high success session like this, you can move the wing a little further out 🙂
Tracy
Hi! He did really well here too! This was a hard game because he had to move away from the magic cookie hand! (Cookies are life!)
The ready dance was great in helping you set up a very clear send. I couldn’t see your eyes here, but I am assuming you were looking at his eyes 🙂 After the first moment where he had to sort out leaving the cookie hand, he did a great job of leaving to smack the cap (although I hear they are tasty, indeed haha)
If he starts to nibble it or change behavior, it might be that you have added distance too quickly so you can move back in closer to it.
Great job remembering to reward back at you!
You are ready to move to the next steps – starting nice and close to the cap, do the sideways sends, and then the backwards sends.>>Also – not sure if it matters how I thread these replies – I’m experimenting with tags and separating the games by threads (I think) but replying to the original post for a new game
Let me know how you like it – by doing it this way, the replies show up under each video so it is easier to keep track of.
Nice job!!
TracyHi! Great job here, he is so fun!!!!
We can build this drive ahead game using 2 approaches for him:
Using the toy, we can approach it as a toy drive building game where we are more interested in getting toy engagement than drive ahead. In this context, a few ideas to get us to the end result of him grabbing and pulling on the toy like he was in session 3 here:
– keep the toy version of this game to only 1 or two reps, and only in cooler weather so he hs all jazzed up about it. Black puppies heat up really quickly.
– when throwing the toy, throw it a little further so he tracks it moving… and let him go to it just before it lands. Since he likes to chase toys, we can use that to help build the love of the dead toy by letting him chase it just before it becomes dead.
– and have the toy on a longer line so when he grabs it (because it will be further away) you can play tug for a second or two… and if he gives it a good pull and/or shake, let him win it and take it on a victory lap. Wheeeee! The longer line will allow you to throw it further so he can chase more while still allowing you to engage when he grabs it – and also keeps you from bending over too much (that might be too much pressure as he is heading towards it).Now, I am assuming he is a foodie (Sheltie :)) so you can also build the game separately using food. I built this game with food with my Pap, Nacho, and he totally outruns me in agility and drives lines in flyball brilliantly. So, using a lotus ball or treat hugger (if he likes those) or just a giant visible cookie, play the game with food – you are probably going to be able to progress it very quickly by adding distance and running 🙂 And I bet the warmer weather will be less difficult when there are big pieces of food involved 🙂
He might find food too distracting during sessions with a toy, so you can definitely keep these sessions (food or toy) separate. We will for sure be able to get food and toys in the same session in training at some point, but I do like to keep them separate early on as we build the value for each.
Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>I hope the video of my Ridgeback was one where we looked like we knew what we were doing LOL! We’ve come a long way
Yes! It was a cool video – you were running courses and doing a great job!
>>Lazlo is from Poeta Whippets in Canada. I feel so lucky to have a Poeta puppy!
Ah! Yay! He is related to both of my puppies – the Whippet in both of them are Poeta lines 🙂 He is probably pretty closely related to Contraband!
>>But yes, please tell me if you think I am doing TOO MANY reps with him, or my sessions are too long. He’s so fun that sometimes I get carried away. I do have a timer, though I forget to use it all the time. >>
I will 🙂 And setting a timer to 2 minutes, religiously, will help you get the internal clock going. I did that for a long time and then I got lazy about it… and turns out my sessions all ended up in the 2 minute range LOL!
>>Or if you think he’s ready to progress to the next step, let me know so I’m not holding him back.
There is a way to know if you need to move ahead or stay where you are or make it easier: the 2×80 rule. If you get 2 sessions in a row at 80% success or above, it is time to move on. I will count failures in my head during the session, or go back and look at the video to figure it out afterwards – but if I get 2 failures in a row in a session, I make it easier in that moment (rather than waiting to see the video). Say that I am doing 10 reps of a behavior, and he is 100% correct. Cool! I will do one more session – and if he is 100% correct or even 90% correct…. time to move to the next step. There is no point in doing 5 sessions at 95% rate of success. Conversely – if the pup is failing 50% of the time, we need to back track and make it easier. It is a math game, really, and that helps either move us forward or prevent us from moving too fast.
>>As for doing the games with a toy…he really likes toys, but I find it hard to shape or train new skills using a toy. He can get really excited about the toy and has a harder time thinking. Sometimes he will just jump up and bite me if he wants the toy, or he’ll sit and bark. I really don’t want to build frustration into his training so I’ve just been using toys to reward things he already knows. I’m open to advice on this.>>
We should definitely incorporate the toys, then, to work through the arousal and excitement they bring and teach him how to modulate himself. I agree that you will want to use them only with skills he is really good at for now – so for example, do a session of the easy sends with the foot target. Have the toy in a pocket or nearby. Reward a couple of reps with treats, then in that session, reward with a toy, then go back to treats. We can gradually incorporate the toy. And I think you will pretty soon be able to shape with a toy as the reward – do something really easy like shaping him to get on something (like a new dog bed) based on a skill he probably already “knows” in a different context.
On the videos:
Decel & turns:
His fast drive back to you was making me laugh! And you got a good luck at the pointy dog brilliance – note how after maybe 2 reps he was grabbing the treat and driving back to you before you even had a chance to call him. Love it!
You did a great job with the cookie hand out and with the timing on your turns and he was perfect with benidng his body through the turns. Because this went so well, we can build on it 🙂
You can add more distance and more motion – so throw the cookie and move forward as he is going to get it (a bit of countermotion added in by doing that) and then as soon as he gets it, decelerate.
When he is comfy with that… do the Advanced level where your cue hand is empty and he gets the cookie after arriving at your hand or after turning with you (I don’t anticipate this being a problem at all, t is just a delay of the reinforcement).Then, as we were discussing above… do it with a toy 🙂 he will have to decelerate and turn with you in order to get the toy, so it is a good way to teach him how to basically ignore the toy in order to get the toy.
Wing wrapping – good sessions here, he went from following a cookie lure to offering going to the next bowl on his own to the jump upright being in place and a little further away.
I think my only real suggestion for now is to move the bowls a tiny bit further apart – he has a pretty long body so having the bowls a little further away from you (maybe an additional 6 inches on each side of you) will help challenge him more because his butt will pass the jump wing so he will have to turn around to go back to it.
At the end of the session, the wing was maybe about 6 inches away from you or so and it was harder – LOVED the moment when he almost came between you and the wing, and then literally backed out to go around it. Clever!!!! So on the next session, start the wing a little closer until he is easily going back and forth, then start to slide it back out again. We don’t need much distance at this stage at all.
And, with the wing nice and close to you… this is a good one for toys! You can use 2 relatively low value toys and play – more to teach him how to handle toys in the picture than about the wraps (you can see the demo with my tiny pointy dog on the video)
Driving to the toy – this is a perfect game for the toy! He did a great job and was an extra good boy to bring it back to you! I do see what you mean about him not being as grippy on the toy, especially at the end. Keep using a nice big soft toy. Also, make the transitions very clear so he knows when he has permission to get it: play, hold him, throw the toy, let it land, wait for a heartbeat or two or three (builds up a lot of anticipation!) and then let go and tell him to get it. It looks like there were a few things happening at once or very quickly together: the toy release, the throw, letting him go, the get it cue – so he wasn’t entirely sure if he should get it. Add in teething and he turned off at the end. No worries! It will be fine on the next session – let me know how he does!
Great job here!!!
TracyI am glad he is having fun!! And clever to use your knee as a bit of a helper haha!!! The pups learn the wing wrapping really quickly this way so I bet he is now doing a great job. Watch his head – is he snaking his head around the upright? That is what we are looking forward 🙂
T
Hi there!
Your tech is great and the kids were perfect tripods!!!Poet rocked these games. Loved her very distinct foot smacks! And when you didn’t get the treat in as fast as she liked, she smacked again and bobbed her head LOL!!! Good girl , love her attitude.
She is building really nice value to our prop here – you can make one tweak to this, which is to click the foot smack just as you did, but toss the reward away to the side (rather than deliver one to her then toss one away). That will get her beginning to move to the prop, which will serve us really well in the next games.Game 1:
Love the long tug toy 🙂 She grips it best at the beginning when you keep it low (she lets go when it goes up in the air), so resist temption to pull it up as you play (she is so small, it is easy to pull it up!) To save your back, you can make it even longer 🙂 so you can be more upright while playing! When the game gets rolling, she had a better grip on it (more arousal). She didn’t want to give it back LOL! so a game I play to get it back involves sitting on the floor, playing some tug… then relaxing my hands and letting the toy go “quiet” – when the pup releases it, I give it right back to the pup for more tugging. That helps the pups start to recognize the release cue, while keeping it fun to give back the toy 🙂Her driving ahead looks *fabulous*!!!! Fast and focused forward perfectly. Yay!!!! She is ready for more – so you can throw the toy further and add more motion – start to really run run run and see what she does! If more running is too much pressure, you can back it off a little – but I bet she is fine with it 🙂
Great job here!!
Tracy
