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Hi!
>> A bit of Luring is okay to get her to trot. Yea. I did not want her to get in the habit of running through.
I have learned from the fitness professionals that is it perfectly fine to just use lures to get things started, because form is the most important thing. I used to NEVER use lures and now for this stuff, I am all like: let’s just put a cookie on the nose 🙂 I also use a tiny dab of peanut butter on a spoon.
>> Hmmm…wasn’t going to tell you but my Trainer had her doing it a wk ago and she let her run through and skip bars, take two bars at a time. Had the buckets on each end. I didn’t think it was right but I didn’t say anything.
No worries, one session won’t make a big difference 🙂
>>>Toss a treat out from the ladder. Ooo…yea. that was the problem. I was never ready going back. And then she went ahead of me.
Yes – she is so quick that it looked like you were in catch-up mode 🙂
>> I can take the legs off and then flip it over and it will be a little higher resting on the “T’s” I’ll do that.>>
That should be perfect! Keep me posted!
TracySounds good! He may never drive as fast to the MM as he does to the toy, partially because the toys might be more stimulating, or partially because he has to decelerate to a stop to get to the MM (pups can grab toys and keep running LOL!). But as long as he is not afraid of it, you can use it to shape behaviors and then eventually fade it and replace it with a toy instead 🙂
TracyYep – Pinder and Reilly courses are the exact reason that I have added more cues for my dogs LOL!!!!!
Good morning!
This went really well – I think the only thing was that he thinks the figure 8/mini race tracks on the 2 wings is stooooooopid, not enough running, he totally rolls his eyes at those LOL!! So you can make them more exciting by running in deeper to the tunnel (he loved it when you dropped the toy and had to scramble LOL!) and closer to those wings.
I think the threadley moments to the wraps (can’t really call them tandems anymore because you are not doing the RC element) – look great! The first one was really good but the one at :43 was AWESOME. He got that very independently and you barely needed to help him. NICE!!!!! Have you decided on a verbal cue for threadle-wraps? Might as well start naming it since he is doing so well.
And great job on the tunnel threadle – you let him read the cue with good line and patience, and he was fast and happy to do it. It looks like he turned himself away to the tunnel without needing handling help other than the threadle cue/arm. Yay!
And he really loved the race track moments when all 3 wings were involved 🙂 I think when courses get bigger in the spring and he sees jumps rather than wings, he will be less judgey about the 2-wing moments LOL!
>> I realized I am switching the toy to the other hand unconsciously so that I can the hand without the toy to cue something. Will have to think about that more.>>
I have started running with a toy in my pocket on this stuff, to help have my hands free and start to get the pups running without the obvious toy. For these skills, we can have that moment of delay to get the toy out, as the timing and placement of the reinforcement is not as critical. You can keep running til you get the toy out then tug or throw 🙂
Great job here!
TracyGood morning! He did well on this set up, even with the bucket in the middle of the line LOL!!
1st rep – really good timing on your serp cue position – the upper body was in place as he exited the tunnel an you held it and ran a good line – nice!!!
2nd rep – this was also really nice – the right verbal might actually turn him a little too tightly at :21, as you had to push him back out to the backside (and then the was like “what the???” with the bucket right there LOL!!!) He will probably follow your shoulders and a name call there for a perfect line. He is quite brilliant at following the lines you set, which is great because you don’t have to sledgehammer him to get him to turn. Yay!
He did well on the backside and the serp after it! On that serp back to the tunnel, stay closer to the serp jump to get a better line to the tunnel entry. You were serping and running more towards the center of the tunnel (:26) so he didn’t read the turn to the tunnel you wanted til after he landd and you stepped back in.3rd rep – Because he is so responsive, this is a good use of the right cue to the front side of the jump at the beginning, it lined him up perfectly for the front of the jump.
I obsessed a little on why he might have jumped into the wing here. I like to blame the handlers LOL so I looked for what you might have done to cause it with handling… I don’t really see anything that would have caused it, so we can check “handler blame” off the list LOL!!!! I mean, we can all be more perfect in timing of the shoulders opening and keeping them open and all, but really that was not an issue here.
He didn’t slip, and he is not a thoughtless lunatic when he runs, so we can’t look at footing or state of arousal as the issue.
So the only other thing I can think of is that, because there was no other jump out ahead and he had been rewarded there on rep 1 – he stopped thinking about the jumping and was looking at you a little for the reward. When I compare it to that same moment on rep 1, he is a little close to the wing he hit on that rep too. So my best guess is that he made a jumping error based on “sequence done, reward coming”. So to keep him driving ahead through the end of the sequence with good jumping mechanics, you can throw the toy sooner (or have it out there), or put a wing or cone out past the last jump and have him drive to it.Overall, he did really well here! Next serpy lines can have tighter serping angles!
Great job 🙂
TracyGood morning! Sorry about that, it must have arrived and then gotten shuffled down 🙁 Sorry!!!!!! Thanks for reminding me!
On the zig zag – he is doing well! LOTS of good powering over the bar. Some added steps here and there, and some ‘carrying’ of his hind end rather than pushing off it – but that will all balance out with a little more experience and one suggestion: for now, try to keep it a his wrist height approx, for now – eventually it goes up higher but that will be when he is more physically mature and experienced. My dogs see this concept at wrist height until they are 3 or so, then sometimes I challenge with more height (but not often). And the lower bar will help get a more consistent approach. And in each session, give him breaks after every 4 reps or so – the fatigue will be more obvious on this because of the plyometric element as opposed to the striding he would normally use on courses.
>>Should I put a short bar on both jumps?
Nope, I think it was fine 🙂
>>And I think some of the variability comes from where I set him up. I’m setting him close to the first bar so he’s got to come off his rear and I’m setting him up more or less parallel to that bar but I’m not sure where along the length of the bar? I assume for this game it should always be the same place? Mid-bar? Or closer to the take off wing?>>
Set him up nice and close to the bar, parallel like you were – but next to the first (outer) wing as if he is coming from a backside slice around it, or a serpentine from the jump before it. The variability is more likely coming from the lack of experience (this is a particularly hard grid!) and from the bar height.
On the turn aways – he is driving into you REALLY well, lots of speed! It is hard to convince dogs to drive into us when we are facing them and he is doing it beautifully. You can extend your cookie hand towards him fully, so you can remain stationary – the next step is to fade the backing up. Two reasons to fade the backing up: first, backwards motion often gets read as forward motion/acceleration from the dogs, so the end up off course or don’t get the tight turn info. Second, we humans get off balance when running backwards 🙂
So if you fully extend the hand towards him, elbow locked – you can stand still to bring him in and the arm and leg can move back – this gets drive in, tight turn away – an you don’t have to back up at all 🙂 He is understanding his turn away cue, and for now you need to let him turn his head away before you move forward (you were a little early on the one rep where he didn’t go to the wing). But I think soon enough you will be able to do a quick hand flick and go, he is catching on really quickly 🙂Great job!
TracyHi! Both of her tunnel videos look terrific!
On the first one with the Manners Minder, she certainly loved offering her tunnel! The Manners Minder was helpful but I think she has value for the tunnel already. I don’t mind that she offered it on the way back, just keep making it clear when you don’t want it and reward her for *not* taking it (I use a cookie in my hand for that).
I am goad you went ahead and added the toy play and angles in the next video – it was a very fun high energy session!! Time to take the line off of her so she doesn’t trip you up or catch herself on it LOL! It was a graceful fall 🙂
She also did well here! You can hold the toy on the sends now, I don’t think she needs it out at the end of the tunnel before she enters – you started throwing it towards the end and I agree, it was much better – both in terms of her finding the entry and driving to it at the end. She really liked it!Yes, add in the threadle where she is between you and the tunnel, starting from the easy angles. She is ready for sure!!
>>Wow I love my puppy.>>
I love her too! SO MUCH FUN – smart and athletic and also very cute 🙂 Feel free to send her to me if you get tired of her HAHAHAHA!!!
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
This is off to a good start. It is hard to slow the speedy dogs down to get them trotting in the ladder when they can trot fast or want to run. I think you did fine! A bit of luring is fine to help convince her to trot – and then she did really well! You can get rid of the clicker if you feel like you need 3 hands for this LOL! And yes, as soon as she figured out the trotting, she was getting ahead LOL! Rewarding in the ladder helped her, and then when she finishes it you can toss a treat further away out of the ladder to buy you time to get the next cookie and be ready 🙂 I am happy with how she settled in and trotted – you were really good about not rewarding when she tried to run, and that helped clarify it for her.
How big do you think she will get? We want to give her more challenge on the ladder, but she is too little for you to turn this one over. You can use jumps on the ground for now until she is a little taller, unless you think she is almost finished growing!
Great job!
TracyHi!
I wrestled with YouTube again, they should be visible now. Let me know if you cannot see them.
Thanks!
TracyGood morning!
>> In between elements of what you’ll see there, we had a short but truly excellent session of backside threadles with me holding my position until he got to the MM. Video operator fail, so I can’t show you,>>
All of the best sessions fail to make it to video, it seems to be one of the Laws Of Online Dog Training 🙂
>> I think the distraction during the backside slice work was stressing down because he still wasn’t understanding where to be. I mixed up my approach a lot…….using different rewards and even a different object for the wrap, to see if I could build up his engagement and confidence. This helped, to some extent.>>
I watched the video from the perspective of which were the fast, confident zippy reps and which ones had questions – and what were the patterns for each. I think it comes down to 2 mechanics things – the first one is whether he can see the wing (or barrel) or not.
At :16, :39 and :57 – I think he could clearly see the barrel or wing on those, so he went to them pretty nicely. At :05, :10, :27, :48, :58 – I felt like he had questions and was either looking around or looking at you. On those reps, you were blocking the wing as he was moving up the line, meaning you were moving more on his path and he couldn’t see enough of the wing or barrel to know that it was in play. At :10, for example, your left leg was where he needed to be – so he ended up being between the barrel and the tunnel and not entirely sure of what to do.
So, move your parallel path over to your dog-side leg being on the line to where the jump bump meets the jump cups on the inside of the wing – and he will see the entire wing as he moves to it. It can even be a bit further over, closer to the center of the bar, but I think where the bump meets the cup will be fine for now. And on the barrel set up, pretend there is a jump bump there 🙂 I use a leash on the ground so I can know where to put myself and don’t block the wing. I think your line was trying to help him see the entry to the wing but ended up blocking his view of it so he wasn’t sure of where to be.
The other thing that will help is a more distinct start moment – it was hard to see with the edits exactly what the permission moment was (to begin moving up the line) so he might have been looking up at you to see if he should be offering. A start stay will help this – he can be sitting facing the parallel path, you start moving up your line to where the wing meets the jump bump – then release so he can also engage with the set up. That can help clarify too!
>>. I mixed up my approach a lot…….using different rewards and even a different object for the wrap, to see if I could build up his engagement and confidence. This helped, to some extent.>>
I think he really liked the toy engagement! It was fun!!
>>I think I need to back up and do really ordinary parallel path stuff wih him then come back to this. >>
It never hurts to do parallel path work! I would do it on a wing only (no jump, no bar) so you can really build the love of going to the other side of the wing – but be sure to not try to handle to that side by stepping to it, just let him see the entire wing for him to offer behavior on.
>>How do you feel about me putting the MM on the line in this game? And if you agree, where should I start?>>
For the straight line/front side parallel path stuff, I don’t recommend the MM as I feel the dog is targeting it and we prefer they target to the jump (it is too much of a lure in a situation where we don’t need the lure because he is doing well on front side parallel path). On front sides with the jump bar in place, early toy throws past the jump when he looks at it and moves towards it will be great. I sometimes do use a MM on backside stuff or parallel path wing work, but not as a lure in that case – on the parallel path on the wing, the MM is tucked into the wing so it is more of a reward placement than a lure to get the pup there. And on the backside, I will sometimes tuck the MM in on the landing side of the jump on the exit wing… but that opens up the can of worms that the pup has to ignore it to go to the backside, and I don’t want to open that can of worms yet LOL!!
I think the 2 changes in mechanics will totally help! Let me know what you think and how it goes!Tracy
Good morning! Lots of good work here!!
Perch work: Good job on the deliberate movement of the perch work! This is a hard skill and I like that she was deliberately moving her feet and not flinging herself all around 🙂 I think if you feed her with her head lower, she will be less likely to sit – so try to keep her lower jaw parallel to the ground rather than her nose pointed up to you, you won’t get the sits as much. I leave my cookie hands right in front of the dog’s nose with the head low, so they can have something to focus on while moving (rather than looking up at you and potentially sitting). And you can reward her lower so she reaches down to get the cookie rather than handing it to her with her looking up at you. Otherwise, you are off to a really good start! Keep convincing her to do both sides and she will keep getting better and better at it 🙂
Retrieve shaping – This is also going well! She got lots of good interactions on this session. So for the next session, to get more interaction and hopefully more mouth on the dowel –
you can hold the dowel up higher, at chin level for her so it is high enough to eliminate foot targeting (she probably has a lot of reward history for offering foot touches to things :)) and will also keep her standing. Then you are more likely to be able to isolate things to get her mouth to open and put it in her mouth. You can also try tossing it for her to catch or grab – that might be a good way to get more of her mouth on it.Great job! Keep me posted!
TracyHi Heather! Excellent question!!
Up until a few years ago, I used to think it was fine to have one for both. Then I was teaching a clinic with a group that had *great* trained threadle skills (far better than mine haha!) and I accidentally set up a sequence that not a single one was able to get right because they were behind the dog and only had one threadle verbal – so the dogs did not know if it was threadle on a jump or threadle on a tunnel (both options were visible to the dog and the handlers simply could not be ahead to use a physical cue).
That was when I realized we did indeed need 2 distinct cues – and it has helped me on course because I am not reliably ahead all the time.
And the European handlers also suggest having 2 separate cues for complete understanding, and those Europeans are very trustworthy haha!!!
So the benefit is it will get the dogs to the right place when we handlers are not able to show perfect handling (I know, it is rare that we aren’t perfect haha!!)
That is why I use ‘close’ for jump threadles and ‘kiss’ for tunnel threadles (as in, “I will kiss you, dog, if you get the correct end of the tunnel!” LOL!). And nowadays, I work on the kiss tunnel threadle first and get it going nicely before I worry too much about jump threadles, because in all honesty – we use the tunnel threadles a LOT more often on American courses, especially early in the dogs’ careers. The jump threadle can be perfected later on down the road.
Let me know if that makes sense; thanks for a great question!
TracyGood morning! This is going well!
This grid is in the ‘harder than it looks’ category and he did really well! The first rep was a throwaway, meaning he needed to see what the heck this set up was. Then he was fine! He was able to consistently produce the side-to-side action with nice balance and no loss of form when you varied position or motion. Yay!
The next step would be to set him up a little closer to jump 1, so he lifts off immediately over the bar and does not ‘tap’ his feet on the ground in front of it (make it even more challenging to have to lift off from the rear immediately!). And then when that is fine (might only take one or two reps, for him, he is quite good at this already) – flatten the angles. The flatter angles are more important than raising the height on this. Eventually, they will be fully flat like serpentines – but that is a while down the road. And then some time after that we do go to full height but that is a loooooong way away for these pups. I do it sometimes with the 6 and 7 year old dogs (it is REALLY hard) but my young dogs have never seen it at full height – the littles have only seen it at 4 or 6 inches.
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
The sequences went really well!
Going through each rep:
Rep 1 – your blind was late 2 to 3 at :11, so he never saw the turn and reconnection before he made a decision about the tunnel – being a good boy, just didn’t see the new info until it was too late. Ideally, you would see him land from 1 and then start the blind so he can see it before he makes a takeoff decision for 2. The reconnection is the important part, which is why the timing was so critical. If we are late starting the blind, then the reconnection will be late and we won’t get the turn.Rep 2- You did a FC 2-3, and it was earlier and worked better. He read it well! On the throwback on jump 3: the throwback handling got collection but you were moving backwards so he went wide. You can execute the FC a little closer to 3 (send to 2 so you are there earlier) and then you can stop your motion for the throwback to get it nice and tight.
Rep 3 – opening was very nice!!!! Yay! On the RC element – you were a little late getting on the rear cross diagonal at :33, so he had already made a wrap decision. To get on the RC diagonal sooner, get closer to the middle jump and as you turn him to face the RC jump, you can start moving towards the center of the bar on the RC jump when he lands from the previous jump. That puts pressure on the RC diagonal sooner and should help him turn.
Rep 4 – Your BC at :39 started sooner and so he read it a lot better! Yay!!! The wrap at :46 was good too! To tighten up the exit line after the wrap, you can be a little closer to the wing or if he is too speedy and you can’t get close to the wing, you can hang out wherever you are for a heartbeat to push him into the gap from right there before heading to your next position.
Nice ending line with the BC on the jump after the tunnel!I think these all looked really strong!!!!!
The Zig Zag grids looked awesome! All of your foundation with body awareness and jump grids really help. So…. Make it harder now, by flattening the jumps so it is a harder line 🙂 I think he is ready for that!
Great job!
Tracy
