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Hi! This session went very nicely! She is getting the concept now, so we are beginning to see the lead changes more. When she isn’t sure, she trots – so I think the next couple of sessions should have the wings slightly offset so she can run more – that is where we will see her thinking about how to use her lead legs in a way that will help the future jumping more. Basically, we are trying to convince her to run forward, do a quick shift to the side, run, shift to the other side, and so on. She was getting it on the very last rep (yay!) especially on the more difficult side. The offset wings can be just a foot offset and I think that will encourage her to consistently bounce/run through it, which will set us up nicely for eventually adding bars. A good warm up would be starting on 3 wings t the beginning of each session, then doing a couple at 4 wings. After that, when she is no longer asking questions (by trotting :)) then we can start moving the wings in closer 🙂
Nice work!
TracyHi there! It was so nice seeing you and Tilly last Sunday – I could see tremendous improvement in her commitment already, and the connection stuff will help seal the deal. Yay!!
I am happy with the session on the video – you were using connection to convince her to drive ahead of you even when you were NOT accelerating. That is hard! She had a question on the exit of the tunnel and looked at you on these, but then she DID drive ahead each time. There was one cheaty moment towards the end where she looked back at you (you dropped the connection as you started throwing the toy), but overall she was making solid commitment decisions. Your connection was looking really strong – very direct to her eyes but you were also staying nicely in motion, and she got on her line and was not sticky. You can use this game to get her more crazy and aroused – tug tug tug, have her do the tunnel a few times back to back… then send her over the first jump to the tunnel to the go line. She did well here in a relatively “chill” state so now we can make her nutty to get her into the trial-state where she might be stickier.
The length of the tunnel and your foot speed got her only a little bit of driving ahead – and that is a good start for what we will build it into! However, I do want her to get the feeling of driving ahead while you are accelerating, so that you can work up to adding rear crosses. To do that, I think you can replace the tunnel with a jump or even just a wing – it gives you something to commit her too but then you will have to accelerate because she won’t be spending time in the tunnel LOL! That can add a bit more speed and confidence to her driving ahead, that we will quickly morph into rear crosses without her being sticky.Let me know if that makes sense! Great job!
TracyHi Anne!! It was great seeing you in the live seminar, I am so impressed with how well you and Mochi are working as a team!!!! It feels like just yesterday that she was a baby puppy 🙂 And I am glad it is helping in your in-person classes too – I totally relate about the exit line connection becoming more second nature! You are definitely coordinated, but we are changing years of muscle memory so it might feel awkward for now 🙂
Your timing videos looks (and sounds :)) great! You were cuing the obstacles with the verbal at the right time, which means you were connected 🙂 She seemed to have zero questions there – she was fast, tight on the turns and looked at her lines the whole time. Perfect! Yay! You can also repeat your verbals (tunnel tunnel tunnel, for example) which helps to guarantee the timing will be right 🙂
On the exit line connection video: it took an extra heartbeat to get the exit line connection on the first rep (so it was a slightly wide turn), but then the rest of the FCs were perfect! And her turns got tighter and tighter, they looked really great!
On the spin reps, you can start the spin sooner so the connection is there sooner when she lands – I liked the rep at 1:00 (last spin rep) the best because it started a little earlier than the others so she was able to drive out of it better. You can probably start it even earlier, rotating as she is passing you so then you are finished in time to see her jumping. 🙂
The serp reps looked really great! Look at how tight she was to the jump as she was serping – VERY nice!!!! Your dog-side arm was a little high when she was on your left for the first couple of reps, but the exit line connection was clear and then the dog-side arm was lower when she was on your right (exit line connection was also very clear).
Great job on these!!!
TracyHi!
Wow, that is a heavy topic in grad school! Is it vet school? As the owner of a couple of sport mixes (and some purebred dogs too) it is always interesting to hear how people think about the ethics of breeding. Massive topic for sure!
Also, procrastinating is fun 🙂
The connection – yes I agree that she is thriving on the VERY direct eye contact as you move up the line. That is normal with less experienced/younger dogs, and most dogs allow us to fade that into needing the eye contact only in certain specific situations. Some dogs thrive on it and we can never really fade it (my big black dog is one of those) but it becomes second nature for us humans, so either way it is all good.
On your first video here: first run was AWESOME! You were REALLY working the connection so she committed (not a problem) but also jumped it really nicely AND was turning. YES! You were very helpful on that last jump so we will play with what she needs, exactly, so you can fly up a line as needed. Nice job on the turns here!
I admit to chuckling at the look on your face when you saw her butt was up on the lead out for run 2 LOL!!
The first part looked great again, very happy with that! This is the rep where you were running more – connected, I thought, but running harder – and she couldn’t process HOW to commit and smacked the bar. You fixed it really nicely on the next short rep.
Last run – I loved your spin at 1:12. The other reps were really good but this one was FABULOUS because you were connected long enough to commit her but then you rotated earlier and she saw the new connection before she landed. Such nice timing and a fabulous turn!
Lovely connection on the last jump – you were ahead but not but that much, connected nicely and not helping toooooooo much. She might have a “bubble” on these lines for now, meaning that you need to be within a certain distance so she can multi-task process the handling cue (watching you) and the jumping effort (watching the jump). Right now the bubble might be 4-5 feet of you being ahead of her (or lateral, we can play around and see). When you get past 6 or 7 feet ahead, she can’t figure out how to use the jumping skills appropriately. We will be able to figure it out and expand her bubble so you can get ahead more. For now, let’s set her up for success by having you be connected like you were on this last rep, and staying within the 5 foot bubble (you can go deeper into lines so you don’t end up too far ahead).2nd video – this is looking really good! On your front crosses, you can slow down and turn sooner – mainly so you can get that exit line connection into place before she takes off. The FCs (jumps 3-4 then 8-9 at the end of the sequence) have a great camera angle, so you can see what she is seeing and why she goes wide (or turns tight):
On the first FC at 3-4, when she lands at :09, :32, :53 she was a little wide, partially because you were a little late starting the turn (you can probably start it when she is halfway between the tunnel exit and the 3 jump), but also because you were looking at her but your dog-side arm blocked her view of the connection a little so she drifted out a bit. Try to exaggerate showing her the opposite arm across the body, which will push your dog-side arm out of the way and help her see it. And, by connecting across your body rather than with the dog-side arm, you will find that you can run forward to 4 better, which will also set a better line to 4. Connecting with the dog-side arm was causing your to try to find her which was pulling your line backwards a bit, so she was reading the motion and that sent her a little wider.
At 1:15, the last FC there – you were earlier AND more connected, and it was already so much tighter. YAY!! Nice!On the FC to the tunnel 8-9 at :17, :41, 1:01, you can also exaggerate the exit line connection with the arm across the body for now. Your rep at 1:23 had more of your dog-side arm back and a very clear view of your connection and that was a really nice turn!
And now you are going to laugh…. it is entirely possible that her turns will be better if you use blind crosses here instead of fronts. Blinds are easier to get the new connection finished and you can run up the next line faster – fronts have so much rotation that it is much harder to get ourselves turned quickly. You might have heard that blinds are for extension lines only, but actually they are VERY effective on tight turns if we use proper connection. So on your next break from schoolwork 🙂 try this with blinds and exaggerating your exit line connection and we can see how she does!
Great job 🙂 Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
Yes! The snap offs are very similar to some of the wrap work we do for commitment. I personally think that all agility people should do flyball foundation work… but that is NOT a popular opinion with many agility folks LOL!!! And the understanding of agility jump commitment is really helpful for flyball. I love both sports!
On the video – I like how Mouse needs the last word on the stay and barks at you LOL!!! Love him! You absolutely nailed the regular connection to the tunnel. I don’t think he even looked up at you! Great job with the cookie toss starts, being slightly ahead made for a smoother line to the first jump. Beautiful! If you get a chance to play again on this, spread it out to challenge yourself to run even faster and maintain that connection.
The serp exit line connection was also lovely – yes, if you do it too soon the dogs might read it as a threadle and also it needs to be very soft, like you did here. He read it perfectly and gave you that somewhat sideways jumping effort that makes for tight lines on slices and serps. Yay! You can start to fade out the actual hand cue and move to just using your eyes at this point, maintaining the eye contact all the way through the landing spot (I have more serping in the next set of games coming up).
Great job!!!!
TracyGreat question!!! With distance work, generally a BC will stay out on the line when we keep our arms extended out away (this is also true in herding LOL!). So, when he is out on the line for the discrimination like a gamble, I think it is perfectly fine to use your arm as you describe (I am sure you were giving verbals too!). And also – it sounds like it falls into the ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ category 🙂 It is a tool that is working beautifully, so definitely keep it in the tool box 🙂
T
Good morning!
>>However, I have a question about something we did in our novice class yesterday. It was called “setting lines”…I think it used to be called or maybe still is called V set (?) where you shape the dog’s path on the take off side of a jump to manage what they see on landing. So she was having us step in on the dog’s line and then peeling away to whatever the next obstacle was…we practiced 4 different options. It felt weird to be doing this and I don’t recall anything you have taught us resembling this.>>
I think it is great to practice a wide variety of things, get good at them, then see what is effective. There is a time and a place for V-sets but there is also a specific way of handling them to get them to work (usually we need to decelerate or use a brake arm or a spin). Then… we time it to see if it is faster 🙂 Sometimes they are faster, sometimes NOT faster because the v-set adds yardage so it ends up being slower. I generally don’t v-set with small dogs but it totally depends on the context. You can email the map to me and we can discuss (agilityuniversity@gmail.com)
>Benni went very wide because he has never seen me do this before and I’m wondering if this is a useful tool to have or just let it be that we “tried” it and be done with it?
V-sets are ‘natural’ cues, meaning the dogs will get it right if the cue is correct – so you might have been late 🙂 And that would be normal if you were new to doing it and uncomfortable with it. Send me the map and we can try to sort it out 🙂
TGood morning!
Zig zag are going REALLY well, he has decided to do them REALLY fast LOL! The wider distances were easier because you both had more time to get the changes in place – and he seemed to have no trouble with doing them at high speed. I am glad you worked the tighter distances because he really had to think about it more! The timing of the cue had to come sooner as you found out but eventually this behavior won’t be contingent on a such exact timing 🙂 On the last few reps, he was getting his leads sorted out. He realized that he couldn’t just go fast – he had to adjust and so he did. GOOD BOY!!! That is exactly what we want when the wings are in close Iike you had them.
When you add another wing, you can totally start him a little further back so there is an extra heartbeat to read the handling 🙂 You can also back chain his position (by starting him at wing 3 then wing 2 then wing 1) or your position (he is at wing 1 and you start at wing 2, then wing 3, then wing 4). We can be in the ‘whatever works” mode for the handling because the handling is not that important, it is more about his lead legs and he is doing really well on that!!!On your tunnel video. – yes, I agree with how it all feels so wonky in the moment but then looks pretty darned good when we look at the video 🙂 LOL! My guess is that running the baby dogs just feels so weird and uncomfortable and we have to be pretty much perfect. Running the adult dogs is soooooo much easier in many ways. But he is looking really good here!
The left and right tunnel exits are looking awesome! Your cue is very timely (both physical and verbal) and he is using the body really well. Yay! Loved the wrap slo motion moment: he was bending his body, leading with his head – SO COOL!!!
You had a refusal on the wing at :25 – I think it was a connection moment,m where you were not connected enough (for a baby dog), your dog-side arm was blocking the connection a bit – so he was looking up at you and not looking at the wing. Then when you turned, he just kept looking at you. Good fix in that moment to be able to get the reward – that will build up to him saving you in the future when connection is not perfect (perfect connection is nearly impossible to maintain!). You did have the perfect connection on the wrap right at the very end, and he was beautiful on it. Yay!
For the go line – this is another moment where solid connection will make the line happen – as he exits the tunnel, he needs to see you making eye contact with your arm back (and running like mad too LOL!) You were running like mad at :37 and :47 but ended up looking forward, so he came off the line. So far all of the pups are doing this same thing 🙂 For now, cheat to get ahead of him at the tunnel exit so you can make the strong connection. You can cheat by sending him away to the tunnel from further away (ok, it isn’t really cheating , it is just adding distance LOL!) so you are further ahead at the exit. I will add more games to help all of our pups find that line too, it has proven difficult!
Minny Pinny: He was great! He totally had to think about it but that is good, we like thinking dogs 🙂 Your feet were in all sorts of positions that could have cued other things and he appeared to get the directional correct on ALL of them. Yessssss 🙂 I agree that he is just about ready for the neutral position: prime the pump with a couple of review reps then add in the neutral position in on an easy line… then work back to being able to stand in the center in neutral position. It is really cool to see how well he is responding here!!
And about the neighbors…. OMG I feel that!! I live in the country so my training area is several hundred yards from the neighbors… but during a session with Contraband the other day, I wanted him to hear the directional and then I wanted him to hear how excited I was about his response – so I must have been pretty loud and wild because I glanced up and they were staring at me from across the giant field LOL! Whatever, they already know I am nuts and they think the dogs are on TV or something (they saw Export on the Purina Incredible Dog Challenge on TV so they think all the dogs are TV stars LOL!!!) Gotta love neighbors who have to hear all of our shenanigans 🙂 Great job here! Enjoy your weekend in the cabin, I bet it wil be gorgeous fall weather!
Tracy
Sorry for the lack of clarity, more coffee needed 🙂 For. the serp arm: elbow locked so your arm is straight back and extended away for the serp arm, so your upper body is turned to the serp jump. Let me know if that makes more sense 🙂
Hope you had a great weekend! Funny that the notification popped in for this just as I was thinking about how your weekend went with the birds 🙂
Great job focusing on the tight sits and also on the zillions of rewards for the stay. As the excitement of the jumping comes up, the stay is going to want to deteriorate but lots of cookies will prevent that 🙂 He looked really good here: holding the stay in a tight sit but clearly keen to do the grid,
Because of the sit rewards, he let you lead out AND had really nice form developing! I think the first bar might have been a little too high for stepping right into it – it looked lower than the 10″ bar but not by much? Because of the plyometric nature of the first bar, keep it at 4 inches or maybe even a jump bump instead of the bar – the hardest part about jump grids is sorting out the perfect set up and distances for each individual.One other idea to try for convincing him to not look up at you, I have been doing something to help get the head down jumping when using the food bowl. Bearing in mind that it is a fine balance between holding the stay AND getting him to look at the reward bowl (and not at the cookies in your hand :)), I have been doing everything the same as you did here (lead out, empty bowl, TONS of stay rewards) and then at the very same time as the release, I have been dropping the cookies into the bowl (without really moving anything else :)) That gets the cookies into the bowl sooner and also the pups can track the cookie falling and it draws their heads down. It doesn’t matter if the cookie doesn’t exactly land in the bowl, the pups are happy to eat it anyway haha! And a side benefit is that it adds a bit of motion distraction challenge: can the pup maintain form while a distraction is moving? Right now the distraction is the cookie but pretty soon the distraction will be you moving 🙂
Let me know if that makes sense! He is looking really good – we are building on this over the weekend and he will be ready 🙂 Yay!
TracyHi! She was awesome on these!!! This is a hard game for BCs because they are wired to stay parallel to motion… but you have already done a lot of foundation on this AND you structured your session beautifully by adding in motion very gradually so she simply nailed it 🙂 Yay!! I am especially happy about it for two reasons: she loves going fast and she was successfully able to go fast here AND get it right. Yay! Also, you might not have noticed: that tunnel out there would have been a massive distraction for many pups (we are actually using it as a serp distraction with the new games coming this week LOL!) and she does love her tunnel… but she never even looked at it. GOOD GIRL! And you did a great job with your connections and verbals (helping with the quiet name call for the serp worked really well).
For the next session: add more speed as you run through the serp and see how it goes! Keep your connection and upper body position the same, it was really good. And you can move to the advanced level where the wing is recessed so it creates a push to the backside before the serp.
Her wraps looked lovely too – nice and tight and she stayed on the correct side (didn’t try to cut behind you for the jump). Great job with the connection there to help create it 🙂Well done!!
TracyGood morning! It looks like she is a righty! When she was on the outside of you, the left and rights both looked really good. She was pretty equal in both directions on those and she was bouncing really nicely!
The turning away revealed the rightness, so you can tweak the set up to make the left turn more obvious on the turn away moments 🙂 We can get it rolling by sending her to the left turns from the easy position when she is on the outside of you, turning towards you. Then, starting from an easy position where she is facing straight to the first bar (and really can’t see the line to the right turn bar), you can show the left turn to her first with her starting on your right side (so she is turning towards you) and then switch sides so she is starting in the exact same spot (facing straight to the first left turn jump) but is now on your left so she is turning away. Let me know if that makes sense in terms of the line up.Also, feel free to help her with handling – a hand cue, a leg step, or both 🙂
A lot of the pup are showing us a stronger/weaker side on the turning away here (including mine) so we can totally get it started with as much help as they need. Yowza likes to go fast so even though you were rewarding her when she did make the left turns after a spin the right, she still felt that just starting to the right was faster LOL!! Smart girl 🙂 So if a physical cue helps her decide she can turn away to the left AND do it fast… perfect! We can easily fade the hand or leg that you use to get it started.
Great job!
TracyGood morning!!
He is doing really well with the zig zags!!! He is already driving through them, giving the little bounces back and forth and that is exactly what we want. He is really excited about the game, so feel free to throw back a ton of rewards so you can get further away – he was definitely wanting to release before you were ready LOL!!! You can do a 3:1 ratio of reward to release: 3 thrown back reward reps for each release to the zig zag (that is about what I do with my dogs, I just edit some of them out of the videos LOL!!). He is working the leads SO nicely that you can emphasize the patience of waiting for the release rather than him saying “I see it, let’s gooooo!” 🙂
With the grid, 3 things to add when you get a chance (not all at once, at them in separate sessions):
– On 3 wings like you had here – go to bigger distances. That willl create more speed for him, which means he will have to sort out his lead changes with more speed! That is important for big fast dogs like Paco. I think you can do 15 foot distances between wings and see what he does.– also on 3 wings – go to 5 foot distances! This is difficult because he will have to be very quick with his lead changes, and it simulates what he will need to do on jumping lines. You will need to be quick on the handling at first til he realizes what you want 🙂
– and using the normal distances you had here… add a 4th wing and then eventually a 5th wing so he practices repeated lead changes.
Great job on these!!!!!
TracyHi! His finding of the jump is looking great! I am glad you decided to balance a bit, he had no trouble with that. I think you can also add a go verbal for the find the jump – at first we were just shaping it but now he is ready for the verbal to be attached. It will help when you get waaaaay ahead (like when he missed the jump on your right) because getting you way ahead is a good thing 🙂 Great job ramping up the connection after the miss! It really helped him. And at the very end, you were connected but not as helpful – and he still found it (which is exactly what we want). He is definitely ready for a GO or jump cue on that. AS with the set point: perfect timing for this to be looking fabulous, because we build on the concept on Saturday. Yay! Great job!
Tracy
