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This is awesome!!! She is way ahead of things at only 15 weeks old 🙂 So fun!!! Keep me posted 🙂
TracyHowdy!
>>We have done a couple sessions of shaping a retrieve. He has grasped the concept of picking up the toy.
Wow, that was fast. If you hear your doorbell ringing in the next few minutes, answer it – I am sending Elektra over so you can train her LOL!
>>He wants to naturally step back and throw the toy in the air over his head (silly boy).
Freakin’ adorable, I sense a trick there you can train!! Like get him to toss a hat in the air to land on his head!
>>So, now how to figure out how to shape him to come forward and put it in my hand.
In a nutshell: Keep doin’ what you’re doin’, clicking for toy touching hand. This was a really good session!! (but keep sessions shorter, I think he was a little bored by about 2:30. You can also tug on the toy to keep things lively :))
Hand stays closed til he picks up the toy – then you open the hand (which reinforces picking up the toy by presenting the next part of the sequence) then click for toy touching hand. But I do have a couple of ideas for details to help:
– He does want to back up, so you can take that out of the equation by making it harder to back up with the toy – he can be on the couch, or in a corner, or someplace that is comfy but not as easy to back up with the toy.
– make the hand as toy-drop-target a little less of a hand target for his nose by curling your fingers so your palm is more of a ‘bowl’ – that can help take out the nose touch attempts.
– when I was training Voodoo and Nacho to bring the ball for flyball, I took the largest water bowl I could find (a GIANT one, almost a mini swimming pool, the kitten is now using it as a litter box!) and I did a few sessions with that as the target both on the ground and in my hand – giant target for dropping the toy into. Then it was easy to transfer the concept to my hand.
I found a clip of parts of the progression: the clang of the ball to bowl was actually the click, better than a real clicker LOL!!
Let me know what you think!
Also, I like how he gets ‘broken tail syndrome’ when he is deep in thought. LOL!!!
Tracy
Hi! So sorry for the delay here, I didn’t see the video!! EEK!!
This is looking really good! You are a little too far from the jump 🙂 To help teach her the in-then-out, you can be almost an arm’s length away (if you are short like me :)) or half an arm’s length away if you are tall. Being that close will help teach her to come into the serpentine line already turning before takeoff, rather than coming in straight then turning. The different angles made her think but she still got it right – good girlie! Because she did so well, I am glad you moved to the reward on the ground, she really had no trouble with that (I am guessing you have done some self-control games in the past with that :))
So, since she is doing well with the reward on the ground, 2 ideas for the next session: you can make position 3 slightly harder, by having her on a bit more on an angle out by the wing – she might find it easier to go directly to the reward but she will get paid nicely for coming in 🙂And you can also start to fade out the hand touch aspect of it by giving her the ‘get it’ cue for the reward on the ground when she is definitely coming in over the bar but right before she touches your hand. When we have the hand touch faded, we can start to add motion 🙂
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
He did a great job driving in over the bump from all 3 positions on your left! Yay! Including position 3.5 LOL! And he was setting up his turning really nicely.On the right – a lot harder for some reason. You can pay him for coming back around to touch it, and then make it easier. My guess about why he had the error was that on the change of sides, you released and put the target hand in almost simultaneously, and he needed one more heartbeat to assess how to use his body to get in there (it is a hard line/turn). When he was in the rhythm of it, the timing of the release and hand going in didn’t matter – so on each new side or the start of a new session, put the hand target in place for a couple of seconds so he can look at it, then release and see how he does 🙂 On the first rep of the first side at the beginning, you didn’t have the target in for a long time but you were in position for a while getting set up, you made eye contact, all before the release – I think that helped.
If you get another high success session doing this same exact set up, you can add the food bowl on the ground and we can start moving into the advanced level.
Great job!
TracyHi! Empty food bowl session is looking great, the bowl is high value but not so much so that he couldn’t focus on the target. Nice! Cookie in the bowl was harder – you can reward the stay when you put the cookie in the bowl, he made a good choice there! And the reward *at* the target was a good training moment, it really helped him think about the target in the face of the cookie distraction. In the next session, you can start with the food bowl being empty, then gradually add in some pre-placed cookies by putting one in there as he is getting a set up cookie (and yes, you have to be quick to get back into position, but letting him see you move to position is actually helpful because it makes the target hand really stick out, visually). You can do some reps with the cookie pre-placed in the bowl, and some reps with the bowl empty, so it is less predictable – the reinforcement is only predicted if he touches the target hand 🙂
I was about to type in that he is ready to do this on a jump, but I see it next in the queue! Yay!T
Hi there!
Lap turns are going really well! Your mechanics are almost perfect -the only thing to add is to remember your step back with the leg, not just hand – your hand was perfect and you stepped forward, but the leg should move with the hand too to really draw him back and set up the turn away. The lack of leg is why you might have felt tangled up at 1:06 🙂 Then it was REALLY nice at 1:20, great leg!With the prop – nice rewarding for coming to the MCH past the prop! You had your leg going too, which is good – you can start the leg one step sooner – it can move when your hand starts to move back (your timing on the hand was really good). He did a great job of going past the prop on these! Nice presentation of the MCH 🙂
You can work these now with the reward coming after the prop, either with the cookie held in your hand but not delivered, and/or an empty cookie hand – mix it up!
>>Question on the tandem turn. In the video with Contraband, it doesn’t look like he gets a treat for coming in. Is that because he’s more in to food or are the lap turn mechanics where you did treat for coming in different?>>
He is totally NOT into food LOL!! I do reward for coming in on the tandem turn and for turning away – I probably edited it out for time purposes (I usually have about 15 minutes of video between the 2 pups and the talking to whittle down LOL!). Oopsie, sorry! Yes, the magic cookie hand can deliver the goods on the tandem turn too 🙂
Great job here!
TracyAwww, your hamper is the cutest thing!!! I love her work here, so is ridiculously fun!
and OMG she hits that tug like she is doing Mondio or something!!! I notice that as the session progressed, her toy grab got closer and closer to your hand – that peaked in the middle then she progressively came back down the toy. When you got it nice and low like at :32 it seemed to help direct her focus to the end of it (but not always, because I am sure there is something inherently reinforcing about leaping to grab it) like the rep right after that :36. So, you can try two things that might help de-Mondio her drive to the toy:
– tie something big and visible and delightful to the end of it, like a holee roller (if she likes those). Those hollee roller things are so useful 🙂
– slap the toy down so the thing on the end whacks the ground then drag it – that can direct her focus to the end of the toy so all feet stay on the ground and so she doesn’t torque herself flying through the air 🙂 You can slap the toy down even earlier, when she is maybe halfway around, so she is targeting the end as it moves. This has nothing to do with her commitment and everything to do with directing her chomp 🙂
(These are both things that I do in Flyball to direct the tugging as I am running, partially to keep the dog safe and partially to protect my hands LOL!) The dogs that do not have directed tugging in flyball are often provided a mattress to target to help them stop – zoinks!!About the commitment – lovely!! She was MORE than happy to zip around the hamper and let you leave hours early. I love it! Speedy and bendy. Good girlie! My only suggestion is to have her set up and opt in at your side, facing forward – so you can cue the send (looking ahead to upcoming games :)) She was mainly offering here which is terrific, but we are going to need you to be able to have a moment to send her 🙂 She was offering it with you already a bit rotated which is also really good!!
One more little detail – try not to say “go” here, just make a silly noise or use an interim cue. We will be putting directionals on it soon and saving go for extension lines.Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
This is going really nicely, note how well she is driving in and lining herself up for the second turn as you bring her in and send her away to the bowl. She is showing nice self-control on the loaded cookie bowl on the ground!! You can have the bowl on the ground a little closer for when you are plopping the treats into it (making it easier for you :))
The toy on the ground was harder, she wasn’t coming in as well – you can warm her up for it by having the toy in the other hand, so it is enticing but not *as* enticing and she will still target then go to it 🙂
My only suggestion for your position is to extend the target hand out further from your body, lock your elbow with your arm extended parallel to your shoulders – that will look like more of a serpentine arm. Your elbow was bent so it was a little too close to your ribs. If it is hard to keep the target hand low, you can dip your shoulder a little (you won’t have to do that forever, because we won’t always want her touching your hand :))
She is totally ready to try the next step – concept transfer to a jump from the Week 4 package! Have fun! Great job!
TracyHi there! The flatwork for the lap turn and the tandem turn are both looking really terrific! My only suggestion is that you can slow down your hand & leg movement on the lap turn: she seems like the type that wants to go fast fast fast LOL! So when you turn fast, she is bringing her front feet up in the air during the turn. Ideally, she keeps her feet on the ground and shifts her weight into her rear, and so you can get that by having her follow your hand around very slowly and also keeping your hand low. That is my mantra when I do this: slow and low! The tandem looks just about perfect 🙂
So about the prop – she was coming in and turn away really nicely. I think there was a rep where she came in and went straight to the prop, but that happened because you were early moving your arm and leg and ended up stepping sideways towards the prop (good girlie :))
On the other reps where you did get the nice turn away, a couple of tweaks in mechanics and you will be able to convince her to touch the prop. What was happening was that after the turn away, you were remaining stationary and sending to the prop with a big point at it… and there was a big cookie over her head in the pointing hand LOL!! So she wasn’t sure where to look: at the cookie she was just following, or at the prop (she chose cookie LOL!!)
So, try this and let me know how it goes:
Start a little further past the prop, so when you cue her to come towards you, you are a solid 6 feet or more past it. She will come in to your magic cookie hand (like you were doing), you will turn her away (like you were doing, that part was really nice!) and then when she has finished turning away: let her eat the cookie 🙂 Then stand up and move forward towards the prop, like you did on the parallel path game – then reward again when she hits it. Move towards it rather than point at it and she is more likely to look for it. When she gets that, you can do the process with an empty magic cookie hand as well!
Let me know if that makes sense 🙂 Great job here!
TracyHi!
>>We’ve been stalled out for a little while because Teak didn’t under stand the paw target with the prop. I decided to make it an easier prop — a big rubber backed bath mat instead of a slippery metal lid.
That was smart – a bigger target 🙂 More salient in the environment 🙂 Yay! And super easy to get on it. The targeting behavior is not that easy, especially with very young pupsters 🙂
>> And we did a session with 7 year old Uncle Rhae so she could watch him and race him to the mat and see if that made the light go on.>>
Did it help? Sometimes modeling can work!
>>She didn’t understand the go to mat behavior and then she didn’t understand why she should leave it, so I mixed it up with “go to the prop” and then “come back so we can play position changes for cookies” and then send back to mat. When she didn’t know what was coming next I think I got a little more understanding and less stickiness to the mat.>>>
Yes, it was fun to see her processing the different cues! 2 small suggestions – for now, try not to say “go mat”. maybe just say “mat” – mainly because that Go word is going to take a life of its own when you use it to cue extension down a line, so I like to protect it like gold 🙂
And, rather than hand her the treat, plop it on the mat so she can pick it up as she gets to it. That will maintain the value while also helping you be able to add a little more distance away (mainly to get your hand further away so she isn’t thinking she needs to be close to the magic cookie hand in this situation LOL!) And then you can also apply that to the back and forth of the parallel path, cookie plopped onto the mat for a while.
You can also start to vary your position a little (sideways and backwards)
>> This was something that took all this time to figure out, but she is so little, we are learning how to learn too!
Exactly!!! She is sooooo young but doing really well 🙂 I loved seeing her think it through!!!
>>I think I could clean up my reward placement, but first she had too little value for the mat and then too much so it was hard to adapt in the moment.>>
Totally understandable – you are seeing the value swinging back and forth like a pendulum (not enough value then too much value) so it is a constant moment-by-moment assessment, like a tennis match! You can shift your placement of reinforcement within the session: for example, if she gets 2 or 3 reps of cookies plopped onto the mat and then she says, “well I will just stay on the mat, it is more efficient” (smart!) then you can release her off the mat for a tuggie or a tossed cookie… do that for a rep or two, then back to cookies on the mat. I think the one thing I would suggest avoiding is delivering the cookies from your hand to her cute little mouth, so we can start to vary your position more 🙂
Great job here!!!
TracyHi there!
I hope you had a great vacation!!!!
Oh no! Bad dreams about the prop!!!! OK let’s brain storm 🙂 Yes, we need to build more value but I think the question is HOW we can make it easier to get the behavior. We can’t build value without getting the behavior. 3 things pop to mind after hearing your description and watching the video, let me know what you think:
– first, make the behavior harder. I know it sounds counterintuitive, but it is one of the things that I learned at chicken camp from Bob Bailey about a million years ago: if the behavior is too easy, you might actually struggle to get it. And if the behavior is a little harder, it might be easier to get. And that has proven to be the case over the years any time I’ve tried it – make it a little harder and then BAM! We have the behavior. So – what do you think of getting him to step up to a prop? That is harder than just hitting it on the ground but not THAT hard. Plus it is easier for you to see, in terms of marking it.
– building on the stepping up onto the prop – to get him to do that, we have to raise the prop, which also helps by making it a lot more salient. Salient is also something I rely on when trying to build value. So, you can tape or somehow attach the prop to something that makes it about 2 or 3 inches off the ground, like a small balance disc so he can step up onto it – salient and harder and easier to see.
– last thing – I’d say 2 sessions of placement of reinforcement ONE the prop, with him holding position while you feed (kind of like getting him to get on a perch). That plus the other ideas might help build that value – it is possible that trying to place the reinforcement off the prop is causing him to touch it less in an effort to efficiently drive to the reinforcement, which dilutes the clarity of behavior? If you do 2 sessions with the placement all on the prop, you will know in session 3 if the value is being built because he will drive to it and get up on it right away 🙂He did well on the tunnels! Using the pet tutor is perfectly fine but you can also use the toy of course (he has great understanding of how to work with the toy on the ground). You can start to work a little further and further from the entry each time and yes, definitely add in the threadle element and see what he does. My only tweak is to not move your hand when you let him go – simply let go of the collar and see what he does. You were moving your arm forward with the collar and that can sometimes shift the pup’s weight forward when we want him to shift to his rear. Also, fading the arm cue here will help with increasing commitment because he will get the cue on the verbal and the hint of the physical cue, meaning you can leave for the next line even sooner (which it appears you will need to do, because Fizz looks like he is gonna have plenty of speed and POWER!!!!!)
Great job here! Let me know what you think of prop ideas!
TracyWheeee! Turn and Burn looks great here!!!! It is a fun one 🙂 One little suggestion (to help you be able to move away even sooner) – as soon as he is locking onto the barrel and moving towards it, stay connected like you did (it was a thing of beauty!) but support less with your send arm. You can just let the send arm relax down into a natural running position rather than staying up to point towards the barrel. When he was on your left, your left arm was up for longer than needed, meaning it was causing your chest/shoulders to rotate more than needed. This delays you from running up the next line (because you have to unravel that rotation before you leave) and also it can create accidental rear crosses when we put this on a jump (because you can’t fully turn your feet when your shoulders are rotated like that, so the dogs see RC pressure). When he was on your right side to start, it looks like you relaxed your right arm immediately and ran. His commitment was perfect 🙂 The goal is that his commitment is so well trained that you can turn and leave super early, without needing extra upper body rotation to help him commit. I believe you are totally there, in terms of his understanding of commitment so far!!! We will keep ramping it up, of course, but I think he will be fine to let you use let arm support.
Great job!
TracyGood morning! I love the sessions that test my training brain!!! And did you say breakfast? I can understand how the thought of breakfast would make things very exciting, I can relate LOL
Good job on the RCs! And it is entirely possible that he is stronger turning one way over the other… and the plastic cylinder is also very helpful to get the behavior. Yay! I think it came down to timing, though 🙂 On all of the successful reps to either side, your timing was sooooo early, cross behind him before he had to make a decision on how to hit the prop (which foot, which lead). And on all of the errors – he had already had to make the decision, so it was too late to adjust before the prop. On the ones where you asked if the timing was better or ok and he still turned the other way – those were still late. Not SUPER late, but late in that he had already made the decision. Compare those to how early your feet were facing the new direction – the plastic cylinder helped give you the confidence that he would do it, so you were much earlier on all of the cylinder reps (and he was correct because of that and the cylinder). So – be as early as you can and trust his prop love 🙂 The other thing that will help you be earlier (ok 2 more things) – start even further away, maybe 15 feet! That simulates the timing he will need on jumps. And, I think you can use less arm support. For example, when he started on your left, you can totally use your left arm on the early part of the send. But as you move up the line and he is passing you, and you are cutting behind – when you had the left arm continuing to support, it kept your upper body rotated towards the straight line (which does not show the RC line). So you can try softly dropping your arm as you move up the line, using motion and connection (plus prop value) to help get the commitment and turn.
And I share your love of blinds! But you are doing a great job with these rears!!!!Well done, let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>> A hand touch is probably the easiest thing for him. Let me know how to insert it into the treat-toy chain!
You can do it like this:
Tug-treat for letting go of the tug, another treat for NOT jumping for the tug when you move it away – hand touch – treat, tug. Lather, rinse, repeat 🙂>>>Unfortunately my phone wasn’t actually filming, but we did a couple more of the bx-turn-go! and he did really well with it! But then I was thinking that it is actually a nice switch from eating the tossed treat to chasing and playing with the thrown toy!>>
Yes! Exactly! It stealthily layers it in 🙂 Glad it is going well!
Rear crosses are going well! On the left turns, you can start pressing in and cutting across sooner: you were just a little late on those (he was almost at the prop so it was too late to turn). On your rear to the right, your timing was much earlier and he was great. At 1:05, you had really good timing on the left rear cross and he was perfect 🙂 Same at 1:22, nice and early 🙂 Super happy with these!!!!
Wrapping the object here is looking good! You can add in lining him up to face, by tossing the reward straight back after he finishes the wrap rather than feeding from your hand – I see you did the next step and he had a question, so that might be the gap we bridge: having him face it here before offering, then it will all be easy. You can also reward, then line him up then reward again (he won’t be sad about all those rewards LOL!)
Lap and tandem turns: You might not need these with your ridgey but you’lol need them with your pointy 🙂 Your lap turns are almost perfect: my only suggestion on those is to wait one heartbeat longer before you move your leg back. Your leg was moving too early so then you ended up popping it out a little sideways which is probably why it felt a little weird 🙂 You can wait to move the arm and leg until he is about an inch away from your cookie hand. Everything else looked great on those.
Tandems look terrific!! Good mechanics and he turned beautifully each time. Yay!
You can add the prop to both of these, they look great!!Turn and Burn – This is where I think we can add a session of getting him to offer facing forward to the object and not facing you that I mentioned above and that will reduce the “what the heck” look he was giving you LOL!! I agree that that might be the element he wasn’t sure about. However, you did a great job of getting the ball rolling here, without him getting frustrated! His offerings of smacking the object are pretty normal errors- paw whacking is much easier than going around now that we have changed the picture a bit! So I still count this as a really successful session, because you got the behavior in a new context and even though he had a couple of questions, he modulated himself and didn’t get frustrated (no chomp chomp!!). So on the next session, have him offer on the upright started with both of you facing it. Then move that to this object – then back to turn and burn for the session after it.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
This is an excellent question!
Good job keeping things fun for her! In these games, the previous skills should serve a building blocks so you can go to the next step as each game is introduced. Because she is young, though, you can start with a reminder rep to see what she remembers from the previous session(s) – for example, with Turn and Burn, I started with a reminder of getting my pup to offer going around the barrel. When she said she remembered it, I went to the next step. If she had said, ‘wait, what was this again?” I would stick to the reminder level. If she really struggled, I would go back even more.
So think of it like grade school. We started a kindergarten level, and now maybe we are in grade 3. So if the next level is grade 4, you can ask her for the last thing you did in grade 3 then go right to grade 4. There is no need to go all the way back to kindergarten and grade 1 and grade 2, or even the beginning of grade 3, unless the pup is really struggling.
I define struggling as success rate below 80%. And yes, I am that crazy person who counts the number of successes versus the number of reps to make sure my success rate stays over 80% (or higher, depending on the pup).
Let me know if that makes sense and if I am understanding your question correctly.
Tracy
