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Very very nice banana line here!! She is doing a good job with hitting the target even as you added more speed – and good catch by *not* rewarding when she didn’t touch it 🙂
Now, if the weather gets poopy again and you want some indoor hind end work – this game can be done indoors on a raised target where you are marking all 4 feet moving across the target. It is from the running DW class but it is a great game for getting the dogs to think of all their feet and put them in a small space: I think it has uses for jumping, weaving,2o2o on the dog walk and teeter, etc. Here is a video of Contraband on the bigger target (an aerobics step with his mat on top of it) and also a smaller target (a small carrying case). I was trying to mark for the 4th foot on – he was doing banana lines with me sitting on the couch in pajamas haha!
Hi! She was terrific here with the hopping on in the center and hopping off, and also turning around… but only turning around the her left. Whether she was turning towards you or away, she was always choosing to turn to her left! I had to watch a few times to make sure I was not going crazy haha! She turned to her right only once – at :50ish, and she lost her balance. So we have unveiled a side preference and we can strengthen right turns! You will probably have to lure her to convince her to do it – nothing wrong with a good use of a lure LOL! You can put a cookie on her nose and slowly turn her to her right on the plank. That will help balance her on the plank and also strengthen her right turns in general.
Everything else looks great, it is just one little thing to add 🙂
Have fun!
TracyOh good! He might like the smack the baby stuff! I figured a Lab would like it but I didn’t want to assume then have him get offended by it!
T
Cool! I went to Facebook to friend her, but it turns out we are already friends but FB doesn’t show her to me for some reason. I am looking forward to following her adventures too!
Hi! He is doing well here!
On the threadle/serps: He is hitting the target and moving to the next line really nicely on both!!! I think the hardest part was the stationary elements (for both you and him :)) After he has touched your hand, maintain that position without turning towards the MM until after he reaches the MM. That is so he doesn’t rely on shoulder turn to take the jump (on the threadle) or to make the next turn (on the serp). Getting them to be defaults and independent of additional body cues will make it much easier on course when he is going 10,000 MPH 🙂
The other place to be careful of motion is when you put the hand target cue into position – he is pairing the movement of the hand with the release cue (which is why he had trouble later in the session when you did not have the verbal). So make the hand going to position and the verbal distinctly separated – both in time (have at least 2 or 3 seconds between your hand getting into position and the verbal cue) and in motion (try not to move your hand before/during/after the release, until after he has hit the hand). It is super easy for dogs to pair motion and verbal, making the verbal secondary to the motion. And one good way to separate it is to put the hand in position, then reward him back in position on the place. That will help the stimulus control of the cue on the hand. It is not super important for serps and threadles because he will generally find those in the middle of courses when he is not in a stay – but it will be super helpful on lead outs for stuff like lead out pushes, forced front crosses, etc. and the times when you want to get your hand in position before he starts to move.His stay practice is looking good in the 3 positions! Feeding in position like that will work perfectly for building the stimulus control on the verbal in the serps and threadles! Question about your ‘free’ on these – I think it was generally a release but sometimes you were saying it when you were delivering the cookie to his mouth in the sit? So I wasn’t sure if he should move or not. I use a different verbal for ‘cookie is approaching mouth’ 🙂
The wraps are also going well! You can start start further away now so you don’t have to move so fast as you turn, and you can start to turn just before his nose arrives at the wing! You were generally doing spins and post turns, so remember to add in some plain ol’ front crosses to pick him up on the other side too 🙂 He only had one question (:34) and it looks like there was not enough support from your dog side leg there – so remember to step the wing with the dog-side leg as you give the upper body cue. You can also start him with you sideways or backwards to the wing, as long as the dog-side leg (which will also be the leg closer to the wing when you are sideways) moves to help deliver the cue to start.
You can also add in tugging to these wing wrap games: the food rewards and MM are good but getting the tugging will help get a lot of drive to da momma after he exits, which sets up really lovely turns! Now, I realize that you might be avoiding tugging indoors 🙂 and that is fine, it can happen when the ice has melted and you are outdoors again 🙂Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>but he won’t perform it the same with the treat and train.
Was he not as fast driving through the tunnel to it? Or he doesn’t yet perceive it as a reinforcement to run to?
If he isn’t that fast about it yet, no problem 🙂 Food-based reinforcement does not always produce the same speed as a toy. You can put the toy in the cookie tray and send him to it 🙂
If he doesn’t yet perceive it as a source of reinforcement, you can start using it to shape behaviors (he does something and you click the MM) – provided he doesn’t mind the noise of the gears.
Let me know!
TracyHi –
The current update on this is that it has something to do with this specific iPad update (14 generation on iPhone and iPad) being perhaps the buggiest update yet. This seems to involve the 14.2 and 14.3 updates and YouTube not playing nicely in the sandbox. I experienced it on my ipad that is running 14.2 when I was doing something on YouTube (but haven’t experienced on the other devices that I refuse to update LOL!!)
The LifterLMS and the Agility U folks have not been able to reproduce the issue directly and we haven’t heard of it happening to others, so the suggestion from tech right now is to try a workaround while Apple develops fixes: on a mobile device, copy/paste the URL into the text and then make it a live link using the ‘LINK’ feature above (rather than have it come up as a video in the message, if that makes sense). Let me know if it works better!Tracy
Hi! Yes, I agree with your assessment of the sticky moments: not enough connection. It is a little about eye contact, but more about shoulder position. In those 2 moments (:36 and :48), your shoulders ‘close’ forward and so he no longer has side information… at which point he abstains (“I can neither confirm nor deny that you want me on your left side” LOL!!) On the reps where he knew where to go, you had more connection, for longer, so he moved through really nicely!
So 2 ideas for you:
from the handling perspective, make eye contact for longer but more importantly – keep your dog-side hand pointing to his nose (so it is back and reveals connection) for longer too. I generally keep my arm back until I see the dog has exited the wrap and is coming to the new side, at which point the arm can shift forward a bit for the send to the next wing (while maintaining that eye contact too :)) It will feel like a long wait with a baby dog, but as he grows up, he will be able to read the new side sooner and sooner so you won’t have to be as perfect for as long.
from the dog training perspective, we want to convince him to always choose something involving commitment rather than abstain 🙂 So if he ever ends up on the wrong side… reward as if he was correct (then go to the video to see if he was correct LOL!). If he ever freezes, throw a reward forward to break him out of it rather than re-cue or ask him to continue. That way, when he is in a rocking horse configuration, he will lean towards choosing commitment rather than delaying to get more info. When the pups choose commitment, it is easy to massage the info to get the lines we want 🙂
Nice work here! Let me know what you think,
TracyHi! He did a good job on going to the backside here! As you build up the backside and have more room, you will want to do it as less of a send and more of a parallel path moving forward (that can wait til you are outside again). Inside with less room, you can show him the difference between the send to the backside of the wing and the send to the bar/front side by changing your starting position and switching sides.
About the rewarding –
On the first part of the video, when he was starting on your left – the reward was a little delayed because it was in your pocket so he ended up getting all the way back to you and looking up at you. On the second half, after about :30, you got the reward in a lot sooner by having it in your hand already – I like that a lot better because it keeps his eyes down and not on your hands or pocket 🙂>>I realize that he sometimes got his treat before he was all the way past the “bar.” I realize that this won’t be an issue when he starts actually jumping, but should I made a point to place the reward deeper in the future?>>
And yes, when you drop that reward in – now try to have it deeper so he comes all the way across the bar. Dropping it in close is perfectly fine for the first session or two, but then we want to use the placement to help him come all the way over the bar, so he also thinks about his back feet and staying in motion. He is definitely ready for that 🙂
Great job!
TracyYay! He definitely liked this toy and was doing some really good head shaking while tugging 🙂 And that is a really impressive toy!!
How does he feel about being touched while tugging? One way to increase tugging is to have one hand on the toy, holding it relatively stationary – and the other hand touching the dog. We start by moving our hand near the flank, or on the flank -then stroking, then patting. I suggest this because dogs tend to get really into the tugging and weight shift into it even more when we do this. And it can get worked up to gentle smack the baby 🙂 But some dogs find it very offensive if we go directly to smack the baby, so you will want to start with hands near him and see how he does. You had mentioned that he was not loving the collar grabs at the moment, and so adding in touch to tugging also builds the value of the collar grabbing (I grab the collar all the time during tugging, and I never touch the collar as a ‘drop it’ cue).Let me know what you think!
TracyHi~ Those are good choices for verbals. The here here will feel more comfortable when you use it more – it can take on the meaning of “this side right here” haha 🙂
T
Howdy!
After a couple more sessions, here is Contraband on the bigger target moving down to the smaller one, and first time adding a toy. I’ll probably need to get this out on grass because he moves it no matter what I put in it lolHello! I’ve done few more sessions and this one is the smallest thing so far. I’ve added the toy (this is the first time I introduced the toy) and tried to mark/reward for foot #4.
Good morning! You are off to a great start here!!
Game 7 (threadle/serp/tunnel) – this is going really really well! On the 1st rep – your release came before the “in in” so he was already locked onto the front when he saw the threadle cue. On the other reps, he was further back and so had more time. You can show the physical cue for the threadle before the release, that will help when we make it harder (see below). At :40, based on line and shoulders, he was correct to take the tunnel. The next rep with his name and clearer shoulder position was much better for the serp. And then the rest was smooth sailing and you were able to add lots of motion. Yay! So…. let’s add challenge 🙂
First challenge: add more angles to his start position so he is progressively facing more of the front side and less of the threadle line. I know the instructions said to start him where you did, but now we can get wild 🙂 Think of th set up as a clock: the tunnel is at 6 o’clock and his start position was roughly 12 o’clock here… so try moving him around the clock to 11… 10… 9 o’clock. When he gets to 9, he will basically be sitting facing the front side of the jump – makes all of the options harder! Eventually you will work him starting at 6pm right next to the tunnel and show all 3 options. It is a little wicked and will take a while, so start it in small pieces and without motion for now 🙂
Let me know how it goes and then we can add more 🙂Contact-tunnel game: That DW mat has a lot of value, probably 800,000 rewards or so 🙂 He did well here though! The motion helped for sure. And for whatever reason, the mat was easier when it was on the inside curve of the tunnel but harder on the outside. The ‘in’ verbal is not something I would recommend on this type of discrimination, because it means something very different on a jump and we want to protect it like gold 🙂 But I do like a heads-up verbal before discriminations, so you can use his name for now. And when you add a wing before it, the name or turn verbal on the wing will help too! I think he is ready for the wing to be added. And you can also try it completely motionless (or minimizing motion) with the goal being that you can stand behind him and control the discrimination on a verbal.
Game 9: backside slices
The presence of the tunnel changes the picture *just enough* that we see if there are any holes or questions in the backside training. The ultimate goal is that we yell the cue and then leave and the dog is completely independent. This set up is showing us what he knows and what he needs more help with. Perfect tune up for spring trials!
Strengths:
When you step to the wing or your parallel path goes to where the wing meets the bar on the entry side – he is really very strong in committing in committing to the backside.
When you maintained connection over the bar, even a little – he was very strong in taking the bar.
And he gets a gold star for not getting sucked into the tunnel at any point LOL! Good boy!
The FCs and the BCs on the landing side were also really solid – I think he was better on the FC and he looked a little towards the tunnel on the blind, but I don’t think it was because he was too focused on the tunnel… I think it is because the FC is the earlier (better) handling choice in this situation. The BC here is really just a proofing game.So bearing in mind his strengths, let’s look at places to improve:
When you sent/cued the backside and tried to turn away (shoulder turn), he would come off the backside ad take the front. I call this the ‘banana line’ because your shoulders turn on a curved line like a banana 🙂 He didn’t not have this question when you stepped to the backside, and he did not have this question when you used more of an ‘extreme connection’ until he hit the backside commitment plane (the 45 degree line that intersects the foot of the wing and the upright part of the wing). This made it harder to get commitment when you wanted to be moving more towards the center of the bar or the exit wing, which are lines we need in order to set up what comes next in many situations.A couple of training ideas to play with there:
angle the entry wing of the jump towards his line slightly, so he has an easier line to commit to while you move your line further across the jump and also while you begin to turn your shoulders away early.Also, move your running path further across the bar and don’t step to the entry wing… but do use the bigger connection to help him commit. We can support with extra connection for now while you show him more lateral distance and also show him the banana line of you leaving earlier and earlier. In a perfect world, we would *never* do the banana line… but in reality, we do, so we can teach the dogs to continue to the backside 🙂
The best place to see what I mean by banana line is at 1:24 (he took the front not the back there). At 1:28 you took a step to the entry wing and that helped! But we don’t want you to have to help that much, so it is worth it to increase his understanding.
The other area we can improve is the ‘take the jump no matter what’ when he gets to the backside. When you were connected and serpentining, or when you tossed the reward in early – easy peasy! But when you disconnected (correctly) to run forward for the German at he didn’t take the jump (lots of visual distractions plus your motion and lack of connection meant he didn’t commit. You helped him at 1:32 and 1:38 with a lot of connection til liftoff but that slows down your running and also delays the blind – so we can get more commitment.
When you work the toy throws on the landing side – add in disconnection now 🙂 Cue the entry to the back of the jump, then disconnect before he arrives at the wing and move forward (dropping the toy in). Don’t wait for a decision on the bar for the first session or two – just disconnect, leave, and drop the toy in on landing side as he rounds the entry wing. If he is fine with that, we will start to delay the reinforcement until he makes a jumping decision while you are disconnected. Mirrors help with that, and also ears: you will hear if he jumps or not 🙂The left/right pre-game looks good! Try not to say ‘go’ to get him started because we want the first jump to be turning and not extension (and this set up will promote the turn, so you might dilute meaning on the go verbal if it is used here). He did really well with very little physical help!! I have used this set up for bouncing, so you can make it a little smaller for the left turns which is the side he had more trouble bouncing. The right turns looked good!!
>>shockingly, I reversed left and right for the first little bit. >>
It took me a minute to notice it! More coffee needed LOL!!!
>>In exciting news: Enzo’s sister just earned a bye into the World Team tryouts at the Texas Hold’em ISC cup)>>
That is great!!! Yay for a talented family! Who is his sister?
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
