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Good morning!
>>Ever had one of those moments where you type all your stuff in, just to realize that the site had timed out and nothing got saved. Y>>
EEK! I feel that pain. I have not had a time out issue on this site but I have had the crappy satellite internet go out when I hit “post” and lose things – I find that the back arrow usually recovers it. And thanks to Facebook, I generally type the reply on a post it then copy & paste – things get lost on FB all the time, so annoying!
Good news about the physical clearances!!!!
Teeter video:
The hardest part will be getting the down while you are running, as you can see at the beginning of the video and at :49. So you can do tons and tons and tons of motion override with the down position on the fkat- it will transfer really easily to the down on the teeter.
When you were walking he was doing well – interestingly, he couldn’t down until you were past the end of the board, so I wonder if it was either a matter of taking a moment to get the weight shift, or if there is a positional cue element to the down?
So you can play with sending him ahead of you to something to down on, like a target on the floor – so he starts shifting back to the down while you are still behind him. And you can have the MM out ahead so he doesn’t curl back to look at you.>I’ve been doing it with tugging – when he wants to tug>>
You can ramp the tug up separately, he might just be associating some of the skills work with food rewards.
You can also use a bully stick or something to get him tugging on it and weight shifting (as long as he doesn’t resource guard).
Tunnel threadles – good job mixing up some big fast lines in there!
double whammys are going well, I think you were clear about your arm and feet.
When you moved to the jump, the arm was great and just keep reminding your feet to keep moving 🙂 – at :36 you were a little stationary.
Looking at :50 (where he didn’t read it) versus 1:00 (where he did), I think it is mainly about your line, there was a subtle difference in your line of motion: on the miss, you were moving a sideways so your feet/line were unclear. At 1:00, you were more turned to the wall and moving that way which seemed much clearer for him. So you can rotate more so you are moving parallel to the path you would like him to take. It will get easier when the verbal is more solidly understood.Decel video:
This makes my heart do a happy dance! I don’t think his collection could be any better – it was really tight AND we were (on purpose) not really helping other than decelerating. Any more collection will just end up being slow. So now you can add back the transition: decelerate then rotate and see how it goes especially on the reps where perhaps you aren’t perfect (consistent perfection is impossible, but consistent clarity is totally possible and the decel adds that clarity). I thin he really drove out of the turns to chase you – ad the balance of the big fast lines looked great too! Every time you raise the bars, revisit this game so he can look at what he needs to do to collect or extend on the higher bars.Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
No such thing as quarantine thighs – I think of it as “survival pounds” because we made it through 2020 🙂
His soft turns on the wing are looking GOOOOOOOD! He is collecting soooo nicely! Thinking back to the collection games from the beginning of the class, I think he has made enormous progress with collecting before the wing on these and is asking far fewer questions. There was the one oopsie at
:18 – you had a lot of acceleration and a tiny bit of lateness so he didn’t read it (he could have read it late, but the distraction jump grabbed him instead). But then at :23 you were clearer and he was paying good attention – then after that he was able to process the cue when there was more motion and even if you were not perfect with timing. Some of the reps were perfect, some of the reps were less than perfect (not as early, but not quite late) and he was fine, turning nicely on all of them. Now, you don’t need to be perfect with timing if he understands how to respond quickly and listen to verbals. Perfect timing is impossible to do consistently, so I love that he processing things and not insisting on perfection. Good boy! He was *particularly* awesome with the blinds!
The next step would be to replace the turn wing with a jump and see how he does, gradually raising the height of the bar.Great job! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Good morning! I like the reminders that you are using – those basically set performance goals for each rep, and it was really effective!
The serps looked really good! For the Go lines, he just needed one more step to be really sure that was was supposed to go. You can use a MM out ahead, pas the Go line – when you cue the Go, mark the instant he looks at the line and click the MM so he continues to drive forward. Then you can eventually delay the MM click building up to when he arrives at the jump. And you can balance it with serps, sometimes rewarding from your hand and sometimes clicking the MM on those too. That way the MM is there and useful for building up to the layer – but it is not a lure 🙂
For the layer, you can replace the jump with just a wing to get started. I think once he gets the joys of the GO GO GO then it will be much easier to get the layer 🙂
Nice job here! Le me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>>We did parallel path yesterday, but I wasn’t wearing a bra and decided not to share that with the world>>
Ha! I feel that!
He did really well here on the Rocking Horses!
rep 1 – nice!!!! Very patient and connected, which is perfect 🙂
I also love the play in between the reps – this session emphasized the play and that is great!!rep 2 – this one started off really nicely! It was hard to see exactly what happened when he had a question at :49 but I think your leg was too early on the send and then the arm happened after it, so he was confused (baby dogs are very literal). When he was correct on other reps, the leg and arm moved together and started moving just as he arrived back at you. It will get easier and you won’t have to be as perfect when he has more experience 🙂
rep 3 – he ended up behind you and jumping for the toy at 1:07 – this was not a toy distraction, it was that the send was a tiny bit disconnected (meaning, you looked forward to the wing while he was still behind you). Many puppies end up trying to grab the toy when we accidentally disconnect, so be slower and maintain the eye contact until he is past you. The jumping for the toy will go away when the connection is smoother and when he has more experience.
>>Also, tugging and retrieve. I block the retrieve, but he is doing so good and it is hilarious because that thing is as tall as him, but he gives it all he has! >>
OMG yes! The tugging and retrieve were awesome!!! What a good boy!!!! I loved it!
>>He is getting very consistent bringing it back to me. He likes that way more than winning.>>
That is awesome – rare, but awesome! And I know that just about every puppy owner is jealous hahahaha!!!
Great job here!
TracyHi!
Here is the movement! What I suggest for this set up because he is a downhill skier more than a mountain climber 🙂 Have him start at the top and go downhill – then off, then start again at the top (pick him up to get him there)
And then you can have him in a sit at the top and you lead out – and release so he can ‘chase’ you downhill. Now, he is doing well doing uphill especially after the first couple of reps – but we can focus on the part he really likes (downhill) because it is actually an incredibly useful part of teetering 🙂 Let me know if that makes sense! Great job!
TracyHi!
Yes, this is exactly it! Stick at this level for a bit. He was happier going downhill than uphill for whatever reason – so when you add a little bit of motion, start him at the higher end (no movement) so he can go downhill to make it move a little and then jump off and run around (or into a tunnel wheeeee!) I don’t mind having them jump off from the low end rather than stop because it is easy to train the stopped position when we want it.
Nice work!Hi! He is doing well here!!
>>I do need to keep remembering about connection- I get worried about where I need to be and I forget about connection which is the most important!>>
Yes, super important with baby dogs! We kind of forget about it with the experienced dogs, but the youngsters remind us immediately LOL!!!
>> I ended up putting the toy in my jacket because I was struggling with the handling with the toy in my hand. I felt like he was too focused and distracted by the toy and was following the toy instead of the handling. I wasn’t sure how well it was going to go, but I think he did better when I ended up having the toy out of sight.>>
That is great! He did really well, and it is also useful because it helps transition to trials (where he has to run without seeing the toy in your hand).
Tunnel threadles:
He is making progress here! One thing to consider on these – there is no need to go back to dog side arm to cue the threadle side of the tunnel, it is a trained cue where he can just leave you for the threadle side of the tunnel. You were threadling him in then going to the other side to send back out – you can keep threadle arm up and moving towards the end of the tunnel you want, and that is his cue to go find the other end of the tunnel – you won’t need any additional arm cues.
Speaking of the tunnel reps on Rep 1 & the last rep – these went well, so you can keep moving your feet towards the threadle end to let him figure out how to turn himself away. You can meet him at the exit of the tunnel so you have more room to stay in motion.Wing – tunnel rep 2 – nice line of motion to the tunnel! He did well on that side.
On your right side – this was a harder side for him (turning to his left):
rep 3 – This is where he went ot the next wing and not the tunnel, because your line was too much to the other wing (:23 you were facing the wing and swooshed him forward to it).
Rep 4 – you were better with your line here but moving fast enough that he didn’t process it. 3 ideas to help him on the left (and on the right too)
– you can rotate your shoulder more, to exaggerate the turn. You will still be facing the threadle end of the tunnel but ‘pulling’ your shoulder more as you show the htreadle arm too.
– slow down to a slow walk and make a lot of eye contact (but keep the good line you had on rep 4 and don’t turn your feet :))
– you can move the wing over to a more center location, so his line is not exactly straight to the entry of the tunnel 🙂 That will make it easier to find the threadle entry.No need to really add the threadle verbal yet, you can us a wrap cue on the wing and his name 🙂
Deceleration:
> I’m not sure he understands standing still means decel>>
I agree – I think I left a hole in the foundation where this generation of dogs just doesn’t really understand that decel is predictive of turning (oopsie, my bad!) – they are great with rotation but that means we have to be PERFECT in handling – which is nearly impossible. So…. we are going to fix the hole with this game. You can see on the one jump rep that you were perfectly still and he jumped long like he was continuing down a line LOL! So when you were doing the line coming from the tunnel, your decels were good but you only got a turn when you were rotating.
> I’m wondering if I need to start rotating earlier because I’m not sure he understands standing still means decel –
Nope – for now, work the standing still until he slithers around the wing 🙂 Otherwise you will be locked into having to show perfect timing on your transitions. He is just too fast for you to have to always be perfect 🙂
>>should I got back to one jump then?
Yes – I suggest one jump for a full session on both sides. And if by the end of the session he is really collecting before takeoff, then you can move to the next step: alrady basically standing still near the jump, send to a tunnel so he has more speed but you don’t have to move.
My guess is he will be like my smaller dog, Elektra: she was wide when I started it but within these 2 sessions, she caught on and nailed it, so I could add back the handling without having to be perfect 🙂 Chapter is more ‘bendy’ than she is so he will catch on fast AND you will see some really beautiful turns.
>>I think you said this was the last week of lessons but we could still post video on the thread until the end of the month- did I read that right?>>
Yes – I figure we can keep working on this stuff til March 1 and then we will move on to the contacts and weaves 🙂
Great job here!
TracyHi!
OMG, -10…. eek!! It is ‘deep winter’ here with temps in the high 30s and I am FREEZING hahahahahaha definitely not spring but definitely not -10 🙂 Stay warm!This session went beautifully! She never even looked at the Pet Tutor. Brilliant girlie!!! Your FC “pop offs” were great. You can add in going straight – lead out less, keep moving and release so she gets forward motion and should go to the Pet Tutor. Mix that in with the decel, on both sides. I really don’t expect her to have any problems with it but it will be a good challenge. And good for indoor training!!
>>I honestly thought she would go right for the Pet Tutor (especially since she was doing some running contact mat work right before hand where she did go to it.) She blew my mind here. I even moved it closer for the last couple reps to test us more. Love the efforts of my baby girl here.>>
I agree – she was awesome! And we need the dogs to understand that certain behaviors are independent of our body language (contacts, weaves) and that others are entirely dependent on body cues (or verbals) – jumps are definitely all about watching the physical cues. She nailed it!
>>Full disclosure I had just gotten out of the shower so hair is wrapped up and comfy clothes on. I figured at this point what the heck, might as well provide some entertainment since we have all been together trying to keep our sanity and puppies trained the last 7 months lol.>>
Ha! See, I would not have even noticed if you hadn’t mentioned it – I only noticed the pants because I thought they were cute and fun looking 🙂 Over the summer, I got myself a little together for videos but at this point, I am all about pajamas and pony tails hahaha!
Great job 🙂
TracyHi!
The minny pinny went nicely! It is serving our purpose of naming the left and right behavior – great job starting on angles and also with delivering the reinforcement on the bend line, so he could really follow through on the left or right turn. He is treating it like a bending cavaletti, doing a nicely balanced trot. That is perfect for this age and he is sorting out how to work his body. Eventually this turns into a bounce grid but he is a little young for that (I generally don’t do that with big male dogs til closer to 10 months). He seemed pretty equal on both the left and the right, which is great!!!
>>On the first few reps, I clicked out of habit. And I saw his reaction to the click and clipping the bar, so I stopped.>>
Oh, I feel that! For some things I make sure I leave the clicker in the car (not even in the house where I would be tempted to pick it up LOL!) One other thing I noticed is that he finds the moment you reach for the cookies in your pocket to be a distraction. 2 ideas for that: in your ‘wrap the wing while I fidget’ game, add in reaching in and out of your pocket to help him not be as distracted by it. And on the minny pinny games – have the treats already in your hand and not moving until after he has exited the bend. This will help him learn the two skills of ‘ignore the treats’ an ‘use your bod’ separately, then we can add them together 🙂
Great job here!!
TracyHi –
>>Your feet stay parallel to dogs path even for the send?>>
It will ultimately depend on the angle of entry the dog is coming from, but on parallel path where the dog is already on the line to the backside – there is no reason for an additional step so we don’t use it in the teaching progression either. And on simple lines of entry – we don’t handle with a step anymore and it is really easy to get the behavior without it (that app has been updated, thanks to the Russians and Germans :)) If the angle of send if very severe, I might use a send step. So we teach it from the ground up without reliance on send steps except on very severe angles.
Tracy
Good morning!
>>Good reminder that someday we will be back in person and with other dogs doing things around us. So I put his harness on and got him tugging (it took a few tries before he really grabbed the toy) and then asked for a few tricks and ditched the harness in the middle before setting him up.>>
Perfect! I am trying to make lists of all the things we would normally have shown the pups by now without even thinking about, so we can show them before they have to go out into the world LOL! My dogs have been basically off leash for a year, so…. I need to get going with leash games LOL!
The decel games look really good!
He thought doing it from a stay at the tunnel exit was STOOOOOPID so I am glad you went to the sequences pretty quickly. He was great with his collections! The one time he did not commit was at 1:19 – I think that was just a matter of being too disconnected. He was fine on all the other reps where you had a tiny bit more eye contact.
When you added the sends:
he had a question at 1:32 and rear crossed: 2 ideas for you:
– don’t say go (use your left wrap there) – I think you said go or maybe jump? But the wrap verbal you used on the other reps is better suited (I don’t think the verbal was the source of the question, though)
– step more to the wrap wing and be a little more upright. On that rep, look at your feet and arm on the send, they were definitely moving towards the center of the bar which is more of the RC cue.
Watch is in super slow motion (Youtube let me put it into 25% speed) – he was heading to the wrap wing until your arm got involved at 1:32 with the point to the center of the bar, which then pushed him to center of the bar and to the RC line. So he was already considering the RC – then your left leg at 1:33 pointed to the RC line and that affirmed the RC decision for him. Really interesting to see in slow motion! So, standing up more an sending to the wing more than the bar will help, then push off the send leg to step back and do the FC element.You can see the difference at 1:48, where you were a little more upright and not sending to the center of the bar as much and he was great.
On the other side at 1:59 – really nice mechanics on the send and wrap verbal, he was great.
The Go balance rep looked good !
Nice simple decel at 2:35! More connection will make it perfect when you are trying to handle ‘for real’. I am super glad about his nice tight turn!
At 2:49, doing the bigger drill on the other side -this was similar to the send at 1:32 with too much pressure into the RC line there – is he a righty? The extra bit of pressure on the send might be turning him to his stronger side – note that you are pointing to center of the bar and when he is approaching the jump at 2:50, he changed leads preparing for a right turn.
He ended up turning left because nothing else about the handling said right turn, so he decided to wrap left (good boy).>> And got one send where I was getting really excited at how tight he was turning and then realized he was trying to get something off the floor! (maybe a dropped treat?)>>
That was great! LOL!!! Just think of it as a well-placed reward for his good decision there!)
I liked your send mechanics at 3:17 – he never considered right turn there (but the pressure of the initial send cue did cause him to shape a wider line to the wrap jump – interesting! So keep doing the softer send cues that are to the wing and a bit more upright. That is where he does his best 🙂
Overall, though, it was really cool to watch him be able to read the decel and sending soooo nicely!!!
Great job on these! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>>Are you still accepting videos?>>
Yes 🙂 Bring it on!
On the video:
The Go versus left in the beginning looked good! With the first left cue he went straight – I think you were blocking his line, a little too far up the line – so he didn’t know how to toss you out of the way to make the turn 🙂 The rest looked good!!And the backside through the box also looked really good! And the FCs also looked good- great connection, nice tight turns, he never looked in the wrong place. Nice!!!
Getting the backside on the inner wing in the middle of the box is REALLY hard. The trick is to NOT roll your shoulder while trying to cue it – move to position and keep your arm back and say the verbal. When you also rolled your shoulder to point to it, it added a bit of a motion cue which blocked the line a bit and also pinged him back out to the other jump.
Positional cue is important on these so he knows which backside you mean. The positional cue is heading towards where the bar meets the wing, so he sees the full wing.
For example, at 1:24 you were blocking his line/view of the wing you wanted. But at 1:31, your position was good and he nailed it:) And having good position plus arm back – lots of good reps when you did that!
At 1:48, your “fuck yes” almost made me pee from laughing LOL!!!!! Please warn me so I can potty before watching your videos LOL!!! LOL!!! But yes, it was worthy of that marker 🙂 Nice position an connection, you didn’t roll your shoulders until after he was committed to the line.When he had trouble, it was the shoulder turning as you were also moving up the line that was causing the question: he was feeling your motion as sideways motion to the line (same as forward motion) and it ended up blocking the line. The best reps were when you were moving more directly to where the wing meets the bar, rather than downstream (which presented the line more towards the off course jump). Let me know if that makes sense.
>>One thing I noted on what I think was our very last rep was that he was on the correct line and changes. I’m assuming I did something to make him question his path.>>
That was the combo of turning/rolling your shoulders to indicate the backside before he was past you, with the slight sideways motion on the line produced by that shoulder turn. It pushes him off it.
>>Is there anything from the class that you’d like to see is revisit- I realize you are instructing several classes and students and if nothing jogs your memory 100% okay.>>
I drink a lot of coffee so my memory is decent LOL!!!
I would say the two things are:
the collection and left/right soft turns (not the minny pinny, although that is always good to revisit, but the proofing games before that with the 2nd jump as the distraction 🙂 Those will be SUPER useful for a young dog at the start of his career.
and also doing the serpentine on this through the box game – where you are on the serpentine/landing side of the jump so he drives in to you and doesn’t stay out on the line – that is a good one for him!Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! Sorry for any confusion!
Using the set up that you have at the beginning of the video, you can tweak it to add height – raise the teeter to full height or closer to full height. And use a taller table on one end and a taller thing on the other end (taller lawn chair? LOL!) So the teeter is higher and height is in play – but the tip is the same or less (you don’t want to add tip AND height as new challenges at the same time).
The demo in my video is the full height teeter and very tall things supporting it – so there is lots of height without a lot of tip.
Let me know if that makes sense or if I need more coffee 🙂
T
