Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Hi!
Good morning!
>>Do you think it would help to add a verbal when I capture really good reps? This is mostly about hind end awareness, right? Any other ideas? I just don’t think this has clicked for him yet.
Don’t add the verbal yet, I don’t think we want to name it yet – it is about hind end awareness in some ways, but it is also about shaping and mechanical skills – and I think that is what will help it click for him! Lots of ideas 🙂
Yes, the mat and especially Cato board have some clear value now! You can see how nicely he got onto the Cato board 🙂
The backing up straight will come, and I have ideas for you (see below) for that… but first, I think we can tweak training mechanics to get the behavior. He is not offering as much and I believe it is mechanics (as Bob Bailey says, training is a mechanical skill!)
Ideally, the order of festivities when shaping this would be:
– your cookie hand places the cookie between your feet
– he comes forward, eats the cookie
– he moves back
– you click
– your cookie hand moves to place the cookie back to the mat or board
This should help build the understanding that is it his movement back that produces the click which then produces the cookie on the mat or board.What is happening here is slightly a different order of festivities:
– your cookie hand places the cookie between your feet
– he comes forward, eats the cookie
– your cookie hand moves to place the cookie back to the mat or board and you click
– he moves backSo I think the backing up or moving back on the mat was incidental, because the reinforcement was being paired with following your hand movement. That would also explain why it was harder to get the backing up on the Cato board and you were helping him onto it more, if that makes sense – harder to follow the hand straight and step up onto something. He is focusing on following the hand, because that is what is preceding the reinforcement.
On your next session, keep your cookie hand completely still – I leave my forearm on my leg when I am bending over for this. Drop a cookie in between your feet then don’t move your hand – when he offers a bit of backing up – click and then move the cookie hand to flick a reward to him. That can help him realize that it is his movement that is causing the click/treat to happen, not following your hand. Speaking from experience, it is really hard to keep the cookie hand completely motionless LOL! That is why I glue it to my leg 🙂 I do move my hand to get the reward in, but after the dog moves and after the click – not before the dog moves. Admittedly, it is REALLY hard to be motionless 🙂
Now, it will change the picture so I suggest helping him get it right early on by having him start with all 4 feet on the Cato board – the cookie drop can be close to the board so he gets one or two front feet off only… then wait and see – and reward getting those front feet back on the board, even if he turns around to do it because he offered without needing your hand to move. You will be able to build that to backing up when he realizes that he needs to move in order to make the cookies move 🙂
As for other ways to work on this and get straight backing up:
– do you have a plastic or mesh crate? You can start the pup with all four feet in the crate, cookie drop gets one or 2 front feet out – then toss the cookie in when he steps back into the crate (I don’t use wire for this because I worry that little toes would get caught in wire)
You can totally start this as you change the picture with the motionless cookie hand, if he likes his crate 🙂 Eventually he can be all the way out of the crate and back up into it, nice and straight.– you can create a channel – a couch on one side and a gate or crate or something on the other side, and he is facing you at the end – with the mat or target in the channel, just behind him – he can sort out stepping back to the mat or target, which eventually gets further and further away 🙂 But don’t start the channel until he has already seen the motionless cookie hand or he might think it is really weird LOL!
Let me know what you think! It is these little puzzles that can break things open with lots of behaviors 🙂
TracyHi!
Good boy on the plank!!!! Great session. After the first click, he totally said “hey do you want back feet too?” Yes, please and thanks LOL! That shows an unusually good hind end awareness for a youngster. And he had no trouble turning around that first time! A little distracted by a cookie the second time perhaps but then at 1:27 perfectly balanced again. And in happy-making news, when you switched sides to get him to turn to his right at 1:42, he was very balanced – no difference between turning to his left or turning to his right. That is unusual and also fabulous 🙂
On the next plank adventure, you can ask him if he can be this balanced and self-aware when he is a little more stimulated, setting the foundation for speed across the planks. You can do that by doing some tug before he gets on, then a cookie for the being on and turning around: then release to a tug toy and get wild for a bit – then ask him to get back on. In that moment, he will really have to think about his body! Releasing to a cookie search is calmer – so if he struggles when things are wilder, you can do a cookie search release to settle the excitement, and then we can add more arousal more gradually. Based on what he did here, though, I don’t think he will struggle 🙂Great job!!
TracyGood morning!
He is getting so big! Wow, even though he is a baby dog, you can totally see the power in his body!
He was AWESOME here, I agree that this went really well! Your set up was perfect: lots of movement but not soooo much thta it might have freaked him out. Also, no real noise – allowing you to isolate just one element. Storm was perfectly ti play with his tuggie on the wobble board! And I love that he offered it again with no questions. He was beginnign to pull back on the toy – so you can see if he can stay on the wobble board and pull back, shifting his weight into his rear like he will do on the teeter. You can get lower to help him do this – either sitting on the ground of a chair – so he can pull straight back on the toy.
Great job here, he is off to a terrific start!I am grinning from ear to ear too, what a GOOD BOY!!!!!! And what a great opportunity that our pandemic puppies do not get enough of: training with other people around! There is some science that says when the dogs make a good decision that is reinforced, there is a dopamine release – so yes, I bet that smile on his little face says he was feeling pretty darned good! You can also put a “go visit” cue so he can have the reward of neighborly greetings 🙂
Great job, WM!!!!!!! That is a huge moment of engagement, self-control, and also a big stay moment!!!!! The stay was lovely but turning around to engage with you was HUGE. Yay!!!Tracy
Hi! These are going well too, it looks like he is happy going back and forth from cookies to toys! He was turning a little wider, but I think it was more about timing the decel than lack of cookie – you can do the blind as soon as he starts moving towards you, then decel immediately (I think you were doing 2 blinds LOL! Handling a big course!) – the decel was later here and you were leaning forward, which was propelling him a bit wider. So, the earlier decel and the you can put the magic cookie hand at your leg (without a cookie) to get him nice and tight. He was driving nicely to the toy, so you can add in the go go go verbal (and make it a toy race, where you can win and party with it if you get there first :))
Flappy tappy is a fun tool! It is commonly used as a bypass, so you can use it in the house when you want him to come in tight to you and past something. I don’t train it a lot, because I have found that if we disconnect completely and do the flappy tappy, the dog automatically drives directly to us, no training needed LOL!
Nice work here too 🙂
TracyHi! He did really well! The first couple looked lovely. Good job recognizing that you had gotten a little too far away and moving back in, so he could be successful again. You can gradually work your way back out; he is already more independent so I am sure you can add more distance in coming sessions. The other thing you can add here is you being ahead (but not too lateral and not too fast, yet): when you toss the treat, you have been perfect about waiting for him then proceeding up the line. So now I think you can *not* wait – turn and start walking back towards the prop, so that you are ahead of him – see if he can still hit the prop. This correlates to stuff like finding a jump when you are ahead, and making a weave entry when you are ahead: look at your job, pup, and not at the momma! Don’t add too much speed and only be a little ahead, and see how it goes!
Nice work!
TracyYes, I mix in a lot of tugging to keep the dog exciting and as a mental break – and I either pick up the prop or move away from it, so the pup doesn’t obsess on cookies when I want tugging 🙂 Keep me posted on how it goes!
Tracy
Hi!
Your stays look good here!! When you do the ‘catch’ reward when she is in a down, you can throw the catch cookie off to the side so she has to get up between so you can reset – catch is a release word, so it is fine for her to move to get it. It looks like she had good duration and was letting you move away really nicely!
She does mix up sits and downs – you can let her offer (so it doesn’t matter which one, it is her choice) and you n also cue a sit or a down with a hand cue to help her out if you want specific position. Both positions are perfectly acceptable on the start line. The down is more comfortable for a lot of Border Collies, it is pretty natural for them!
Because this went really well, you can also use a toy to teach her to do it in higher arousal. She is going to be in higher arousal when looking at a jump in the agility ring on the start line, so you can start preparing her for that by using a toy in this game, instead of treats.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
Backing up: When working on this on the flat without the barriers, you can start with a bigger target – something that she can easily get on with all 4 feet. I think the targets here were too small so she didn’t quite know what to do. On a bigger target, ask her to start with all 4 feet on: then for the backing up, you can start with just front feet coming off (use a hand touch to help her step off) then front feet step back on. When she can do that, you can use a hand touch to get all 4 feet off, then back up back on. This will help her understand that it is all about the target 🙂 The wider target that you used later on definitely helped, but she couldn’t get all 4 feet on it. The diagonal in the backing up is probably because of reward placement – it is all coming very close to you, so she wants to look up at you and is moving on a diagonal to make that easier. It was hard to see where you were rewarding, but it looks like you were handing her a treat then putting one down in front of you (or clicking and putting it down in front of you), so she was looking at you. To change that, after the click, toss the treat away back towards the prop so she gets more value for moving towards it – the treat will land on or near the prop, so she keeps backing up to it – then you can drop a treat between your feet to reset.
Using the channels is perfectly fine to help her out! And I think she did really well with the channel you set up here! The channel helps straighten her out and I think it helped her isolate the target because there were fewer options to go around the target. To get more steps, toss the treat back so it lands on the target – then you can also gradually move the target further away 🙂 When backing up to the target gets easier, you can then widen the channels and then fade them out altogether.
Great job!
TracyHi!
I like the mats! They really help her to be able to move and not slip. Very cool!The parallel path to the prop looks great. She is hitting very distinctly and your click/treats are great (the early one can be considered a good reward for her heading towards it lol :))
On the rotated sends, when you were sideways – she was hitting it nicely but I am not sure she knew when she had permission to go to it. So you can start by engaging her in front of you (saying ready ready ready or something like that) then you can make a very clear arm & leg motion to the prop – that should tell her she can start moving to it
On the rear crosses – those are hard for dogs! I think the most helpful thing will be to give yourself more room: using a long hallway or as much room on the mats as you have, start with some of the parallel path stuff until she is driving ahead of you to the prop. Then, starting as far back from the prop as possible, start by moving& sending her forward to it with you cutting in behind her as early as possible: that will help get her seeing the rear cross sooner, so she can change sides sooner. Keep reinforcing the new direction, even if she is not perfect yet – it could be that your timing was a little late, or it could be that she needs to figure it out, or both 🙂
Nice work!
TracyYay! He is so adorable AND brilliant too 🙂 And yay for the 15 month old girl! I have 2 dogs aged 2 and under, I might be insane but I love every minute of it.
He did well with his tugging here!!
When he comes off me, what do I do. It seems like it puts me back into ‘shove it in his mouth’ position. Do I wait? Make it move then bring him back?>>Bearing in mind how small he is, you can do a shorter session by letting him win the toy: when he pulls on it decently, let him win it out of your hands and then you can cheer for him as he runs around or kills it (or bring it back :)) Be easy at first, let him win easily – then gradually increase the amount of pulling you want to feel before you let go. If he comes off of you and lets go of the toy, it might just be that he is a little fatigued – so yes, you can wiggle it around, and lean back an entice him back up – and then on the next rep, let him win so he can be on all fours again. If he will grab it when you present it, you can totally hold it in front of him and tell him he can grab it (without moving it towards him). If he doesn’t find that engaging, you can squiggle it around and get him chasing it 🙂
Nice work here!!
TracyHi!
He was doing some good backing up offering! I think a wider target to back up to along with your sitting will help (then getting him straight will be easy – I think he was not quite correlating the backing up with the target yet). You can also try a tug toy between your feet rather than the cookie tray – he was looking up at you and offering some head tossing, so a toy down there cna give him a focal point and then you can release him to it.The retrieve looks good! And it was also really good alternating between toy and MM, so he got to practice food and toys in the same session. Yay! When he is tugging, let him do more of the pulling so he is pulling back on the toy (you can let him win, too!) – there were some moments when you were pulling him towards you, so he was losing his grip and letting go. I like to let the dogs do all the work of the tugging, so they do all the pulling LOL!
And hat a funny puppy moment when he totally did not know where the toy was – TOO CUTE!!!!! He is doing really advanced stuff so it is easy to forget how young he is… and those puppy moments are a good reminder 🙂
Great job!!
TracyHi!
>> We will just keep plugging away at a pace suitable for BliZZard…
No worries! We have plenty of time – taking it at a comfy pace and you will not be behind at all 🙂 He is doing really well!!!!
Sends: great job with the ready dance, he was super engaged!! And he is showing really nice value for the prop – great job shaping that! On the sends forward to the prop, add a little more connection to his eyes: look at him as you send forward more and less at the prop, as that will turn your shoulders more to it and less past it – he was not entirely sure if he should go to it because he couldn’t see your connection as well. The sideways sends were good too but I agree that the backwards sends looked great, I think because he could see the connection shift and your eyes/shoudlers clearly the whole time – plus all the value 🙂
Speaking of value: he wants to look at you a lot so I think you can shift the placement of reward on these by mixing in tossing the reward back to the prop. He was coming back and watching your hands get the treat out, so he was building focus on your hands into it. We can get him to focus on the ‘task’ more by having the treat ready (it can be in the clicker hand) so there is less time built in looking at your hands, and then toss it to the prop as soon as he hits it. That will get even more independence on the sending.
Wrap shaping – BliZZ is a chewer LOL! This was going REALLY well and he made a TON of beautiful choices… but I think the chewing was delaying things LOL! (It was so cute, though…) The noise of these particular treats was helpful but he was losing his chain of thought when he was chewing – you did a good job helping by looking at the other bowl and then he was really starting to pick it up! Yay! By the end of this section, he was in the groove of the back-and-forth so you can go to a treat that is less noisy, and therefore requires less chewing (hopefully LOL!) A smaller kibble or a bit of cheese or something soft can help him swallow a little faster without choking on it.
He did well when you added the upright – it didn’t bother him at all and he immediately resumed the back and forth. Very cool!!! He did a great job of finding it when you pushed it further away, you could se him really think it through. When it was a little far towards the end, he had some trouble going to his left but was fine going to his right – could be a slight side preference. So on the left turns (when he is going from your right hand to your left hand) you can keep it a little closer for now. And on the right turns (going from your left hand to your right hand) you can slide it out a little 🙂 When you get to the next session on this, you can add in something bigger to go around, and then add in standing up!
OMG the picture at the end is GREAT!!!! He was watching intently and also check out the great position on the screen of the video! Love it!!!
Great job here!!!
TracyHi!
>>I’ve been struggling with getting him to play with toys as of late. I think my toy sessions are too long- I really struggle with super short sessions which I need to focus on with him. He can play decent in my room and the kids rooms but if I move to the kitchen/great room or outside he loses interest.>>
SHort sessions are hard – we don’t always realize how long things go on! I set a timer on my phone during puppy training for 90 seconds or 2 minutes to help me keep track. And definitely try to switch rooms in the house, it is a great way to generalize behavior without having to go to agility trials 🙂
>>Tonight I did have him switch out frisbees and also eat food and alternate. This was my first time doing this outside and it went well- yeah for a win!>>
Yay! That is great!!!!
On the teeter video:
>> He was able to work though and this training session was less than ideal
Actually, it was a good bit of activity around him! He had to really focus in on what he was doing Your daughter was adorable, the MM does like to die at inopportune moments, and your son felt the other dog would provide a helpful distraction LOL!! I did hear Chapter getting excited, and that is fine. The one tweak is that you can start the session facing him to help him back up onto the teeter – when you were off to the side, he was not as sure. For a 4 on behavior, you can start with all 4 feet on, do a hand touch to get his front feet off, then let him step back to all 4 feet on. After a couple of successes, you can do a hand touch so he comes all the way off and reward for backing up into the 4 on position.
When yo usay he was getting worked up in the other class, other than barking or whining, what else was happening? You can break up teeter sessions with doing other things, so he doesn’t get too over-stimulated. I like to do very short teeter sessions because it is a hard obstacle!Motion override went really well! The only thing I noticed was that sometomes you had to cue twice – so you can walk more slowly because generally that is a sign of him not quite processing it the first time. He also might have been watching your hands for a hand signal, but that will go away when you add more motion into it, especially when you work it up to running.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! I wonder if he felt it was weird and was avoiding it a little? It is possible LOL! It was a smart decision to ‘refresh’ the backing up using the Cato board and he was doing much better towards the end. He was definitely thinking about his hind end a lot more there. I wonder if he will make the transition from the Cato board to the teeter more easily if you put the Cato board over the end of the teeter to get the general idea going, then fade the Cato board out and just leave the teeter? The teeter is narrow AND it moves, so that might be a good intermediate step. You can also see if he will back up onto the wobble board. Another way to jump start it is to make it more about front fete for now – start with all 4 on, then do a hand touch to get his front feet off, so he steps his front feet back on – then use the hand touch to get him further and further off, stepping back more and more so eventually he will back his hind end on 🙂
Nice work here! Let me know what yo think!
Tracy
