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Hi there! I found the serp game, sorry to have missed it!!
Your lap turns look good! You can place yourself a little closer to the wing, maybe just past an arm’s length: that should help drive her in very directly and set up even tighter turns.
The tandem turn also looked good!!She is show super balance between line focus and handler focus, even when you added speed from the tunnel: no change in her ability to focus on you versus the wing. SUPER!!!! Love this! And your mechanics are really solid, with my only suggestion being to be closer to the wing on the lap turn (you can see there is a little zig zag in her line as she comes to you on the lap turn).
When you play with this again, add in more running from the higher level sequences, where she does the wraps or race tracks, and sometimes you throw in a lap or tandem turn. And if you have the space, spread it out a little! Adding speed and the balance of being sent around the wings will make it more challenging, but based on your training here: I don’t anticipate her having any trouble. Yay!
Great job!!!
TracyHi! She did well here at the beginning! Note the hind end use to put herself into the 2o2o, and then when you pulled the target, she hopped right back on. You had good timing of marking the hind end on and getting the target in, then pulling it when she came off. I think the barking was just arousal – she was still thinking and offering, so the barking was probably her opinion on the game (“why do you pull the target when I come off, just keep feeding me, human!” LOL!!) The higher arousal did make it harder for her to offer the behavior, but that is fine: we want her to think it through in arousal. One thing you can do is clarify the release for her – get a couple of cookies in, then release her (before she moves off the board on her own). I think she might have a good understanding going of getting into position but is not necessarily sure of how long to stay there or when to release (which might be why she is cursing, I mean barking haha!)
Great job!
TracyHi! I did miss this, sorry! Thanks for pointing me to it!
The one jump game looked really good on every single rep except the last one: she did something funky with her striding there at :30. I think she was just on a harder angle and needed a moment to get organized.
On the 2 jumps: when the first jump was the serp jump, she did really well on your left but was pushing to the backside on your right. And we saw a similar thing when you did. the send to jump 1 and serp jump 2: she is stronger on your left than on your right. I think she is trying to set herself up to turn to her left more and is having trouble setting up the angling jumping effort to jump to her right. Aha! And several of pups are doing the exact same thing (I think we are up to 5 total pups doing the same thing :))
So – for now, angle the jumps a little so it is easier for her to find the correct side and and not push to the other side (or threadle). The flat angles are just a little too hard for the moment. And, in the next games package, I will add a jump grid to help the pups sort this out so then we can work to flatten the jumps again.Let me know if it makes sense and how it goes!
TracyThis is such a great update, thanks!!! I am picturing him smacking it and it is making me laugh lol!!!! Very cool to hear his is enjoying the process 🙂 keep me posted!!!
TracyHi!
yes, we try to balance what the dog brings to the table. So some of my dogs, like some of your dogs, were naturally a little under-aroused in sport needed us to be crazy loud wild lunatics. And then some of our dogs are naturally a little over-aroused and then need us to be CHILL. LOL!! Chill is NOT natural for me so to be honest, I totally fake it and the dog is happy haha! Welcome to #TeamFakeChillHe looked awesome on the teeter!!! I loved his drive to the end and more importantly… I love how he waited there, shifted is weight. GOOD BOY! Yes, I would say the mountain climbers you’ve done are really paying off. Yay!! You don’t have to ask for more targeting than he is already doing there (arriving in position and waiting) because that is the exact posture of what he will be doing when he arrives at the top of the board. Just try to get there quick enough that he doesn’t turn around LOL! You can add a little more jogging in to add challenge. The extra targeting will come into play as the board moves more, when all the pieces come together. But this looks fabulous and you are well on your way to a great teeter!
Question: this was in the daytime and he didn’t appear to do any zooming off. Does that happen when the teeter games are in play? Or did it used to happen and not it has stopped? (I think you said it used to happen but I need to scroll up and look :))
Great job here!
TracyHi!
The first couple of teeter reps looked really good! Then on that 3rd rep, there was more drop or something and he said “WHOA! Different!!” That is totally normal. But then he continued to think about it – so as you add drop, stick to the super limited number of reps in a row. 1 or 2, tops, then either be done for the day or go do something else. That can maintain the grand slam level of reinforcement 🙂 If you did 5, 6, 7 or so reps then 2 things are happening: he is going to start to think about it (and we don’t want them really thinking about it because it is a weird obstacle indeed LOL!) and also the value of the reinforcement goes down because you are breaking the jackpots up to accommodate the added reps. So in effect, he is working harder for less pay LOL!! So you can do more reps on the easy ones with no or little motion – but when adding tip, stick to the Thanksgiving-dinner-style reinforcements and super short sessions 🙂 Pretty soon he will just freakin’ love the teeter and will be insane for it, and then you will be able to get lots of reps without having to jackpot them all 🙂The GO reps are looking good! Giddy up! He isn’t necessarily running to the wing but I don’t care, I love the blasting out and then there will an obstacle there for him to commit to.
For the right turns – yes, the wing was a distraction so good idea to move it and then it looks like you put it back after several successes, but a little further away. And got a nice right! yay! And balanced with the go. Good dog training there!
He has the most trouble with the right when he has just experienced the glory of the go go go, so helping him with a lowered tone and less motion is definitely the way to go (no pun intended haha) for now. It was hard to see where he was when you were showing the physical cue for the right: it is possible he needs to see it sooner, at about the 6 foot mark before he enters the tunnel (lay a leash on the ground) – that can allow him to fully see the cue and process it before entering. I know I had suggested a 3 foot location as the timing spot, but now that the pups are feeling the wind in their hair, we might have to back it up to 6 feet. For example: Contraband now feels the wind in his hair of the ‘go fasts’ so his timing has gone to the 6 foot spot in front of tunnels. Elektra does not yet feel the wind in her hair with tunnels (only with dragging the cat around by the head) so I wait for the 3 foot spot with her). Stark has probably moved up to the 6 foot spot for the physical cue and you can start the right verbal even sooner!Great job here! See you later this weekend for some handling fun fun fun!!
TracyWow, that is some super nice backing up for such a baby dog!!! Really good form, gives us a good view of how she moves. Nice! And since this is going well, you can be a little tiny bit pickier now: try to not reward the head toss reps – the first 3 of the backing up reps were great then she had a couple of head toss reps and then a good couple towards then end.
If she head tosses, she is pushing from her front (and also probably sassing you LOL!) – it could also be that she is stimulated so getting hoppy and not thinking about balance and hind end as much. So if she does the head toss, you don’t have to click or toss the treat, you can just praise, call her back, give her a lick or tiny taste of the cookie, and see what she offers. I don’t want to withhold reward because that might make her hoppier 🙂 If she consistently gets hoppy 3 reps into a session or so, that is just puppy hind end fatigue (it is a real thing! LOL!) so keep your sessions to 2 or 3 reps then let her run around with a toy, then do a couple more. That way you can really expand on the beautiful form you’ve shaped!
Great job!
TracyHi!
Those are perfect tug toys for her size! And she seems to really like them. I think the toy play is going nicely. She leaps into your lap for the retrieve, adorable and also useful! Have you tried this kneeling? We can gradually get you more and more upright.
Other ideas:
You can incorporate harness grabs or reaching for her or touching her to happen right before the big throw: I take the puppy by the harness or collar and then immediately throw the toy before she can even think.
How is her food drive going when toys are around? It looks good on the other videos. I do a like of Operation: Swallow The Damn Cookie with my BC-ish dogs in this game: 2 toys and some non-descript cookies, Throw the toy, party like you did, get her to eat a cookie (she doesn’t have to earn it, just swallow it) and then throw the toy (criteria: swallowing :))Great job!!
TracyHi!
She is just so fun to watch!
On the wrap versus go – the wraps are looking good and she is too funny when she curses at you first then does it. We know she loves wrapping to her left so it cracked me up when she got mad at you after the Go reps!The wrapping to the right is harder for her, so a tiny bit of leg help (just one step) will make it perfect.
About the GO lines, you totally read my mind: I was thinking that the Manners Minder could totally help – and it did 🙂 But it also made the wraps harder – but she got it! Yay!!! She still curses at you a bit but she was doing it 🙂
The wraps to the left with the MM out there were REALLY great (and the one accidental hit of the MM remote was actually fine because it happened right as she turned her head to turn left.Good job rewarding the GO moments by clicking the MM when she looked straight. She was not 1000% convinced to keep going and pass the cone (she loves the cone) so that was great timing of the click.
One thing you can do to help the GO moments is to have the wing closer to the jump. That will make the cone wraps harder because they are closer to the MM, but that is fine: those wraps are her stronger skill for now so you can increase the challenge there (and help with a little bit of handling as needed).
Simple decel:
This looked great on the jump! She turned beautifully AND she did the go really nicely! I like that she to think about it when you went back to the wrap after a couple of Go rewards – perfect challenge! When you came back to the wrap after the 2nd set of GO reps, she was perfect. (Also: nice stays!!!!)When you added the tunnel – she had some questions about whether or not to take the jump: I think that was a connection thing. When you were a little more connected as she exited the tunnel she was perfect in her commitment. When she had the questions, you were looking ahead and also beginning to rotate into the FC – so she just went into handler focus. So keep adding that little bit of connection as she exits the tunnel to support her commitment.
She only had 2 other questions here on this one:
She did a Rear Cross at 4:31 – and if you watch it in slow motion, you can see that your left foot was pointing to the rear cross line as you stepped in. She was paying attention!!
And then at 4:59 she went straight – that was because you were late in the decel, so she made a takeoff decision based on you accelerating.
So these were good errors – she was paying attention!!Soft turns – this went really well, she does not seem to be looking too far ahead an she is watching the handling REALLY nicely! You can increase the challenge by putting the MM out past jump 2, or put the tunnel out past there… or replace jump 2 with the MM or tunnel.
In the second part of the session, you read my mind again and put the MM out there. Great minds and all haha! At 3:21 she went straight but I think that was a late turn cue and not the call of the distraction. The rest were REALLY strong!!Overall she is paying excellent attention to the verbals and to the handling, she looks great!! So you can add challenge by replacing a jump distraction with a tunnel or moving them all closer together. Also, you can add more emphasis to the GO cue. Her turns look outstanding so now you can focus on go go go without much running 🙂 We might over-balance the value on the big lines, but I think that will be excellent prep for running big courses 🙂
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyAwesome, thank you for the update!!! I also do a lot of ‘catch’ in front of the jump because when they get excited about the jump, I want the pups to keep LOVING the stay 🙂 I am glad you are having fun! Keep me posted 🙂
Tracy
Hi!
>>Sometimes she offered the down. So I should just release her with the reward and play for the down too? No sit is not at the top of her list. Helping her with the hand signal and verbal is okay. Got it. I’ll still try to let her offer it too.>>
I think you can totally help her with verbals and body cues: say ‘down’ and maybe bend towards her a little. Or say ‘sit’ and use a hand cue, and stand up/lean back. That can help her differentiate.
>>Distance. Turn a little but stay connected. Oh geez, didn’t even realize I was backing up. okay. Do these in different places. K. We are going to do the one in front of jump today. Thanks! Sounds good!!>>
Perfect! Keep me posted!
TracyHi! She totally does love her crate 🙂 This set up simulated a favorite piece of contact equipment like the a-frame, overriding the joy of the tunnel 🙂 You can raise the value of the tunnel in this context by starting her closer to the tunnel, and on your side (and you can even give her a little step/send to it) and do a bunch of tunnels in a row for lots of reward, with the crate present. When she realizes that that tunnel does have good value with the crate near it, you can add a bit of the crate verbal as well. I think that can help her be able to go back and forth more rather than having more value on the crate.
You can also play with giving the cues in slightly different tones, for now: the tunnel cue can be louder and more exciting, and her crate cue (I think you were saying ‘go home’) can be calmer and softer.I love that you have a high value distraction like the crate, because we can totally work the skill without having to run her over contacts a lot. It saves her body while working her mind 🙂
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! This also went really well! In terms of the distraction/proofing: you can move the wing closer to the jump, or do this in front of a tunnel 🙂 You can also definitely do this on a jump, not just a wing. He did not appear to even think about anything other than your cues. Yay!!!
>>I had a hard time staying where I should be in proximity to the jump. One thing I wonder if you have a suggestion for is my blind technique? I feel as though I overestimate the size of my butt on all the blinds so I take a large step and end up drifting so I feel like I could execute them better to get tighter turns. Thoughts? Would it help if my position were better? If so any advise on how to fix my position?>>
I think your FCs went really well. On the blinds, you can try a couple of things to help tighten them up:
– a little bit of deceleration as you get closer to the wing and before you start the blind. That will help him read it and also it will keep centrifugal force from pulling you a little past the line. It is not a butt size issue LOL! It is just the physics of your momentum.– you can start the blind without going past the edge of the wing, start it a little on the takeoff side so as you finish, you are on the perfect line.
– try rewarding across the body, meaning if he starts on your right side, have the toy in your right hand. Then after the blind where you switches to your left side, show him the toy with it still in your right arm, and that right arm is across your body so your toy hand is on your left hip. That will open up the connection more clearly by dropping your left arm back. With the clearer connection, he will drive in to the new side sooner and tighter.
Great job! Let me know if the ideas make sense 🙂
TracyWow Jamie, this went GREAT!!! It is really hard and there was steam coming out of his ears, but he nailed it. GOOD BOY! I love how on the check and especially on the dig he had his head turned for the wrap nice and early. He had his head straight on the Go cue too – was the MM beeping? He just didn’t seem convinced that he should go to the MM and I couldn’t hear if it was beeping or not 🙂 If he just doesn’t give a big hoot about the MM, you can replace it with a tunnel – that will be fun and challenging! Everything is the same, except you replace the the MM with a tunnel and he can go through the tunnel and you can throw a toy 🙂
And now that I am thinking of it, you can replace jump 2 with your short tunnel and set things up the same: can he still process the wrap cues with a tasty tunnel out ahead?
Great job!!!
TracyYay for the retrieve! Tiny dogs open up a whole new world of toys 🙂 She might also like cat toys LOL!! I love that she hops into your lap here, that is the first step to jumping into your arms.
Have you seen the squishy balls we use in flyball for the smaller dogs? I will see if I can find a link for them – those would be great training toys.
You can attach a really light line (cat toy or cat leash) to these little throw toys to create tug toys that she might bring back for tugging. These toys are awesome for hooking to other toys! And yes, I agree that she was a little tired by the end. But she was a really good girl, bringing stuff back!
