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Awesome, thank you for the update!!! I also do a lot of ‘catch’ in front of the jump because when they get excited about the jump, I want the pups to keep LOVING the stay 🙂 I am glad you are having fun! Keep me posted 🙂
Tracy
Hi!
>>Sometimes she offered the down. So I should just release her with the reward and play for the down too? No sit is not at the top of her list. Helping her with the hand signal and verbal is okay. Got it. I’ll still try to let her offer it too.>>
I think you can totally help her with verbals and body cues: say ‘down’ and maybe bend towards her a little. Or say ‘sit’ and use a hand cue, and stand up/lean back. That can help her differentiate.
>>Distance. Turn a little but stay connected. Oh geez, didn’t even realize I was backing up. okay. Do these in different places. K. We are going to do the one in front of jump today. Thanks! Sounds good!!>>
Perfect! Keep me posted!
TracyHi! She totally does love her crate 🙂 This set up simulated a favorite piece of contact equipment like the a-frame, overriding the joy of the tunnel 🙂 You can raise the value of the tunnel in this context by starting her closer to the tunnel, and on your side (and you can even give her a little step/send to it) and do a bunch of tunnels in a row for lots of reward, with the crate present. When she realizes that that tunnel does have good value with the crate near it, you can add a bit of the crate verbal as well. I think that can help her be able to go back and forth more rather than having more value on the crate.
You can also play with giving the cues in slightly different tones, for now: the tunnel cue can be louder and more exciting, and her crate cue (I think you were saying ‘go home’) can be calmer and softer.I love that you have a high value distraction like the crate, because we can totally work the skill without having to run her over contacts a lot. It saves her body while working her mind 🙂
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! This also went really well! In terms of the distraction/proofing: you can move the wing closer to the jump, or do this in front of a tunnel 🙂 You can also definitely do this on a jump, not just a wing. He did not appear to even think about anything other than your cues. Yay!!!
>>I had a hard time staying where I should be in proximity to the jump. One thing I wonder if you have a suggestion for is my blind technique? I feel as though I overestimate the size of my butt on all the blinds so I take a large step and end up drifting so I feel like I could execute them better to get tighter turns. Thoughts? Would it help if my position were better? If so any advise on how to fix my position?>>
I think your FCs went really well. On the blinds, you can try a couple of things to help tighten them up:
– a little bit of deceleration as you get closer to the wing and before you start the blind. That will help him read it and also it will keep centrifugal force from pulling you a little past the line. It is not a butt size issue LOL! It is just the physics of your momentum.– you can start the blind without going past the edge of the wing, start it a little on the takeoff side so as you finish, you are on the perfect line.
– try rewarding across the body, meaning if he starts on your right side, have the toy in your right hand. Then after the blind where you switches to your left side, show him the toy with it still in your right arm, and that right arm is across your body so your toy hand is on your left hip. That will open up the connection more clearly by dropping your left arm back. With the clearer connection, he will drive in to the new side sooner and tighter.
Great job! Let me know if the ideas make sense 🙂
TracyWow Jamie, this went GREAT!!! It is really hard and there was steam coming out of his ears, but he nailed it. GOOD BOY! I love how on the check and especially on the dig he had his head turned for the wrap nice and early. He had his head straight on the Go cue too – was the MM beeping? He just didn’t seem convinced that he should go to the MM and I couldn’t hear if it was beeping or not 🙂 If he just doesn’t give a big hoot about the MM, you can replace it with a tunnel – that will be fun and challenging! Everything is the same, except you replace the the MM with a tunnel and he can go through the tunnel and you can throw a toy 🙂
And now that I am thinking of it, you can replace jump 2 with your short tunnel and set things up the same: can he still process the wrap cues with a tasty tunnel out ahead?
Great job!!!
TracyYay for the retrieve! Tiny dogs open up a whole new world of toys 🙂 She might also like cat toys LOL!! I love that she hops into your lap here, that is the first step to jumping into your arms.
Have you seen the squishy balls we use in flyball for the smaller dogs? I will see if I can find a link for them – those would be great training toys.
You can attach a really light line (cat toy or cat leash) to these little throw toys to create tug toys that she might bring back for tugging. These toys are awesome for hooking to other toys! And yes, I agree that she was a little tired by the end. But she was a really good girl, bringing stuff back!
Hi! I see what you mean!
I think there are a couple of things happening here –
The placement of reinforcement for interacting with the target is all in front of you and not on the target, so the value is mainly about being in front of you and not necessarily going to the target.Plus the objects where the target is near are not comfortable for her so she is not as comfortable thinking about offering behavior on something. So in effect, she is working further from reinforcement in a less comfy environment (plus food is not the best thing ever yet) and the efforts which were approximations did not garner reinforcement – so she checks out.
You can flip it and approach it differently: get more value on the target by having the reinforcement come directly on it: cookies ready in the other hand and when she interacts with it, put the cookie out on or very near the target so it is less associated with being in front of you.
Then, as you move the target into less comfortable locations – reinforce approximations such as going towards it or hitting near it.
And you can break up the session with a lot of tugging, as that can keep the arousal level in a better state for going near weird things 🙂
Let me know how it goes!
TracyGood morning! It is fun to watch ZestTV!
Plankrobatics: She looks super confident on this! Happy to jump right back on and move around on it. Because she is so tiny, you can add in the challenges on a more narrow plank if you have one?
Two suggestions:
when you have her turn around, do it in place, in a small tight circle and reward right there rather than a few steps out – it challenges balance.
On the releases, cue it and let her jump off rather than lure – that will also get her thinking more about how to get off. If she is not wanting to leave the plank when you release her, you can tap the ground a bit to encourage and then reward when he jumps off.Jungle gym: Also super easy for her, yay! You have a lot of nice equipment to run around on LOL! You can take a small/portable piece of equipment that she likes, and use it to help bring focus and engagement different places: start by having her play on it for cookies or a toy in different rooms in the house, then outside the house (brrrr!) and then on random trips to new places (also brrrrr haha). I have been doing this with my pandemic puppies to help acclimate them to new environments because we have very limited access to different training environments.
Blind crosses:
These are going pretty nicely too! Good choice of toy, she really likes it! And your blinds look good! She is still learning how these cookie toss games work – I like how she brought the kibble, that was funny LOL! You might need to go to something very easy to swallow (I use little strips of shredded cheese with the Pap puppies) and also, because the BC in her, I highly recommend you institute Operation Criteria: Swallow LOL! What I mean by that is: toss the treat so she goes a bit away to get it – but stand still until you would bet she swallowed it (you will get good at knowing what swallowing looks like for her – opening the mouth, movement of the throat, etc) – and then after she swallows it, run and reward (or throw in a blind). Criteria: Swallow is a normal BC training thing 🙂One more idea for the blinds: at 2:11 she switched sides a little early and I couldnt tell why because I couldn’t really see your head – it is possible you looked away early or she migrated to your right side because it is a stronger side or because she had the groove of the game. Either way, keep a clear connection on the original side and sometimes don’t do the blind, so she follows the connections and doesn’t anticipate.
On the prop send session – hard to see all of the mechanics because I couldn’t see your upper body, but I think that what was happening was that you were a little too far away on the sends so she was not entirely sure of where to go in terms of leaving you to the prop. So the ready ready game can be done closer to the prop for now til she has a really high rate of success.
On the parallel path element, she was on the cusp of zoomies LOL! She was hitting the prop generally pretty well, but she was really wanting to run around and do a butt-tuck-zoomer. I think part of that was that you were using food which is not super exciting to her – you can use a toy on these – click and throw a toy, then join her for a party with it. That can release some steam while also getting high value rewards on for the prop hits.I like the harness grab game – doing that predicts the start of something fun, so the harness holding/grabbing is much more fun! I can see a difference already, she did not appear to be concerned about it.
While I am thinking of it – because of her size, add in leaning over her and bending over her to this because it is something she needs to learn to love. And I also highly recommend teaching her to jump into your arms (eventually) by teaching her to jump into your lap with you sitting like this 🙂2 bowls with the cone: She is doing well with this!
Have a handful in both hands so you can now tweak the mechanics to have no hand movement until after she is moving to the bowl. She was watching the reloads and watching the hands move to the bowls before the decision: so now we change it up and let her drive the bus 🙂 Have the cookies in each hand already but don’t move until after she can move to the next bowl.
If you can get 2 short sessions of that (about 1 minute each) where you don’t need to move your hands… then you can start to move the cone out. Keep the cone close for now so she has an easy time going around it.Nice work on these! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi Suzie!
When I can get at least 2 sessions in a row of confident blasting up the board, no hesitation on any rep… then I add about a half inch of tip. And I do an easy rep with the tip to start, so there are no surprises at top speed. Elektra was a nut job and was able to do that after her first 2 sessions. Contraband was a LOT more cautious so it took a 4 or 5 sessions to get to the point where he was ready for movement.
>>We instroduced the bang game, not sure how to teach her to scratch at end of the board, she is a bit timid, I am not concerned with that.>>
I taught the scratching separately – Elektra likes to dig (naughty! Ha!) and I hate trimming nails… so she and CB and the others all learned to file their own nails on something called a ScratchPad. She freakin’ loves it (nut job, as I mentioned earlier LOL!) And it was then easy to transfer to a target, which I taped to the end of the board.
I introduced the movement of the bang game separately, with one rep sessions and SUPER high value rewards. When she was comfy – I put the target on the board and shaped her to jump on and start scratching.
Now, you don’t need to have Amore scratch at the end of the board. I am adding scratching because Elektra is small and light, so I am giving her something extra to do as the board travels down. If she has something fun to do, she is more likely to stay on the board 🙂 especially when there are distractions. That extra layer of criteria helps the behavior hold up better at trials.
Tracy
Good morning!
Your description says turn aways, but the video is circle (reverse wraps) and a bit of backside proofing with the tunnel right there. I don’t think you posted this video yet, so here are some thoughts:
She is doing REALLY well with letting you leave on the reverse wraps! Yay! You can add in some rewards tossed back to the wing behind you so she gets paid for ignoring her favorite agility game: chasing da momma 🙂 Her only questions here were on the wrap that was right in front of the tunnel, at :15 and :34 for example – she thought you wanted the tunnel. The reason for it was that you were blocking the wing, she would have had to cut you off to go to it so she chose the line to the tunnel. You can be a little further over to let her see the lattice of the wing, and then I think she will be perfect.Question about when you added the full jump next to the tunnel – on the reverse wraps on the wing, you were saying ‘around’ and on the full jump you were saying “back”. If ‘back’ means reverse wrap (backside circle wrap) then you can also use it on the wings where she is doing the full circle (instead of the around cue). Or if around means backside circle wrap, you can use it on the jump here instead of the back cue.
She did well with the jump right in front of the tasty tunnel! There was a lot of pressure on the line and the only time she really had a question was at :57 – you said a quiet tunnel cue, so you can repeat it a bit to help support her line.
Nice work on these! Looking forward to the lap & tandem video!
TracyHi!
>>On the discrimination exercise, I realized I was taking a step, and it was almost impossible for me not to! It’s been ingrained for too long! We’ll work some more on this, concentrating on verbals, and I’ll try to neutralize or at least make the motion consistent for each send. :j>>
I think the one step worked nicely in that session!! We have to get these pups started with a high rate of success and the one step helped 🙂 Since she did so well, we can now fade it out. Fun!
T
Good morning!
This was overall a good session! I noticed right at the beginning when you took the toy out of his mouth that he considered taking off to run or something, then came back – good boy!! You can reward that!
He is doing a good job on the wings!! And I like the speed. The speed, though, can be directed into commitment and not just running – bearing in mind that he has a reinforcement history of running out there without necessarily doing obstacles, you can approach this 2 ways:
On the tunnel cues when he had to turn to his left to get it, you were pretty darned exciting 🙂 Running, verbals, WHEEEEEE! Plus the straight tunnel is exciting. So he ran in the general direction but in the arousal, could not ‘find’ the tunnel. So break down the stimulation of your cues. As he comes around the wing before the tunnel, say the verbal quietly and walk. Then reward with a jackpot for taking the tunnel (and if he runs around it in the general direction, reward with praise and a boring cookie perhaps :))If he can do it with you being quiet and walking, add one element of arousal: still walking, but the verbal can be louder and more exciting. If he can do that… switch it: moving faster but verbal is quiet and calm.
Start this with the toy but your handling cues are less stimulating. If he still struggles you can go to the lotus ball. But as your handling cues get more exciting, switch to the lotus ball and food to help him stay balanced.
Then over time you will be able to meld it together. I think it is pretty normal that sometimes the yougnsters get really excited and run by the tunnel, both of my young dogs dog that sometimes when I am running and yelling LOL! And I think Chapter was fine on the rear cross because the motion and verbal are less stimulating.
And if there is something in the environment that changes things (like the darned bird) you can switch gears and go into ‘let’s focus’ mode and see if he can do tricks or games, or even eat or tug.
2nd video:
>> I got the running off behavior on the first rep because I incorrectly assumed he knew a start line already lol.>>
LOL! The joys of young dogs. You can have every first rep be a quick reward as you begin your lead out. He did really well for the first few steps on that first rep!!
>> So I back up and went to the second jump and did a lot of throwing the reward behind him. His middle two reps are the blinds.
Perfect! Lots of reward for the start line in the face of exciting and arousing distractions! And I think he is reading the blinds REALLY nicely. Good boy, good momma!
>> I suspected he jumped the gun on the first blind rep but I wasn’t sure. If I’m not sure in the moment should I reward anyway? >>
Yeah, it was hard to tell – he was convinced it was the release but the verbal arrived at the camera after he started moving, so I am not sure. Be sure that you don’t have your arm/connection simultaneous with the verbal, or he will think that the arm/connection is the release (my youngsters are working through that now too). But yes, you were totally right to reward anyway: he did a great blind, found the jump, kept the bars up… and if you withheld reinforcement after that, I think the negative punishment would have potentially been associated with a lot of good things that had nothing to do with a potentially early release. So if I think one of my dogs has left early and realize it as I am running – I reward. Tie goes to the runner LOL! But then I make sure to be clearer and more consistent with the release so the dog understands it better and so I can stop if he actually does release early.
>>After getting the third rep we started to have more broken start lines so I went back to the second jump and did more rewards behind and ended with that.>>
Good job keeping an eye on the rate of success!!! That will make a big difference!
He seems to have a bell curve in his training sessions: starts off in need of a bit of focusing, does really well for a couple of reps, then ends needing a bit of focusing. So you can play your sessions accordingly to avoid the failures: start off with small bits and easy rewards, get one or two successes on the hard stuff – then either go back to the little bits and rewards for focus, or end the session 🙂 That can extend his focus and help him come into sessions with better focus and engagement.>>Overall his focus on the start lines was better and I was using a lower value toy since it was easier to throw back. Maybe our working through distractions is already helping!>>
Yay!!! He is a good boy and super smart, so helping him understand how to ignore distractions will definitely show up in sessions like this.
Great job!!!
TracyHi! This was a fun session to watch. Starting off with no real distraction at the beginning, I think he did a GREAT job of moving to position and hitting the target with his head low. That is what we want: that low head, target-focus, on the first rep. We don’t want him to move into it upright and then after looking at you, give a nose to the target LOL! So I am super happy with that element so far!!
He did indeed have more trouble on your left when you were not moving (but did really well when you were moving on that side). So we will, for now, chalk it up to being a little squished in and we can revisit it when you have more room. And he was really funny trying to figure it out when he wasn’t quite right on that side. Good boy! I think it was fine to praise and pet and tell him he was a good boy but not necessarily give cookies for the creative 1o2o LOL!
OK, moving into distraction land: the tug toy was not a big distraction, he offered the same explosive movement into position as he did without the toy. Yesssss! That first movement into position is the most important, IMO.
The Nemo ball… as expected, distracting! Because there is a conditioned response to it (staring, stalking a little) he had a little bit of trouble on the first rep: he got into position but his head was up. Good boy, worth rewarding as the first effort. But then the second effort was back to the low head to the target before looking up: yes!!!!
So a few ideas to help maintain the great form we are seeing even as we add layers of distractions:
On lots of reps, get the reward in fast for that first explosion into position with the low head. You can either throw the reward back to the target or be there and put it in. Or, you can quick release it forward. Yes, those quick releases are dangerous and I only recommend them to people that I know are good at criteria maintenance 🙂 So every now and then, when he nails that first moment, release and party.That quick release will be effective to mix in when the toys are out ahead!
And, since we are not going to quick release on ALL reps, you can add one more thing to the release after he has gotten a few rewards: he has to lower his head and not look up at you or the distraction to get released. That will add emphasis to the head-down position we like so much: he can arrive in position, get rewarded – but then to release, wait for him to lower his head again. It is kind of like he has to look at the target like a doorbell: ring the doorbell in order to open the door.
And since the Nemo ball is really exciting and I think his favorite interaction with it is when you kick it a little: after the release, you can kick the ball as part of the reward 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! Lots of lovely work here!
Wraps – He is a wrap lover! Great value on the wing! I think you need to cookie him on the ready word 🙂 He LOVES the wing wrap (yay!) but we don’t want him to love it soooooo much that he sends himself LOL! He looked great with his commitment so now you can do the ready dance and give him a cookie (or tug toy). It looks like he was also offering his chin in your hand, so you can also cookie that! That will help balance the value of handler focus and behavior in front of the wing, which will also lead to lovely stays!
On the handling: nice! I notice that you always do spins (starting and end on the same arm) so be sure to add in front crosses to start and end on different arms.Amd yes you can totally add a wrap verbal! I suggest a different verbal for each direction 🙂
Nice job with the downs! He looked good and sorted out the position change. Looks like he had a nice soft mouth with the cookies too! Only one suggestion here – to get it more on a verbal only, you can separate the word from the hand signal: say then word while completely motionless, then do the hand cue a heartbeat later. Your verbal and hand motion were pretty simultaneous, so the separation will help him predict the meaning of the verbal and then you can fade the hand cue.
Backing up – yay! He transferred the context really nicely! Woohoo! My only suggestion was to eliver the treats so he didn’t have to lean forward to get them (or to release him to you for it, which resets him to back up again). The leaning forward was halfway between so he was not sure what to do. But about halfway through, you started moving to him to deliver the treat so he didn’t lean forward.
Now that this is going so well, you can release him to come to for the treat too – and start to be gradually further and further away to increase the distance of the backng up!Serps: He is bending through these nicely! He is offering a lot of coming around the full jump when he was going to your left hand on the first part of the video – on the first couple of reps, coming in from the 1st position (slice line), you can help him out a little: you can angle the jump a little so that the wing closer to you is pushed a little further away from you – so it is easier to come in over the jump to the target hand and harder to go around the wing. He will see more of the bar. He didn’t seem to have that same question on the other side, yay!!
If he will hold a stay position, he will likely be more successful on the harder side because you can show hi mthe target and even move it a little – that way had can focus in on the hand more. I wonder if the right hand is more paired with reinforcement than you left hand, which is why he found it hard to go to your left hand here but very easy to go to the right hand?Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! He was a good boy here! He was definitely most comfortable on the first session (familiar set up, I think?) and on both sessions where you were moving with him. He definitely gave you judgey looks when you were not moving on the 2nd rep haha!
So a couple of ideas for you:
You can split the behavior of driving ahead without you to get him happier to go all the way across the board. Load up the target an start in the middle of the board and send him (or higher) and send him to the end, so he gets happy going without you for a foot or two. Then gradually backchain to where he is happy to do the whole thing without you (might only take a few reps, or a couple of sessions, either way is fine :))
When he is happy to do that… add some more tip! With you moving (not sending), move the chair out a little so there is a tiny bit more drop. Less than an inch, for now! But since it will be noisy, put a folded up towel or something under it just to be sure we are only showing one new distraction at a time. He doesn’t seem to mind the noise – the long jump board falling over, the teeter clattering when he went back down it…. he seemed perfectly fine! I just want to be sure he loves every step of it 🙂 I personally do a single jackpot session when I add movement – one rep with a giant reward, then no more – that is so the pup doesn’t over-think things. Pups are almost always fine on that first rep, but it is the 2nd or 3rd or 4th rep where they decide they don’t like it 🙂 But if we only do one rep, they will like it lots 🙂
I think things will happy pretty quickly once the chair starts to move out.
Great job here and keep me posted!
Tracy
