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Ha! Well if you and Brenda are bringing the wine, I will come over and we can do puppy games because we all have puppies. LOL! Looks like I won’t be doing much traveling any time soon…
Hi there! Good stuff here!
1st rep was perfect, so you were right to move the wings further apart. On the 2nd rep, you were leaning back as he was almost at the wing, and he was not quite as sure… but he committed GOOD BOY!
3rd rep you tried to leave sooner at :25 and he was all like NOPE lol!! You said it was about the toy, but he successfully ignored it moving around on the last 2 reps, so my vote is that it was about your motion LOL! He did better committing on the last 2 reps – you were a little closer to the jumps, which helped. Definitely keep playing this game so he lets you cue and leave as fast as you wanted to here (you were pretty darned speedy!) with one tweak: throw the reward back to him at the wing as you leave, so that the balance of value gets shifted to maintaining commitment even as you speed away from the wing.Tunnel commitment video: he did a GREAT job of committing to the tunnel as you left in all sorts of crazy directions. Well done!! He is still learning to turn on the exit, you can see he wasn’t always sure where you had gone even when you had a really early visual/positional cue. That will come with experience, no worries. But, you can definitely call him a lot sooner. Your first Robie call at :07 was your best one, he was still about 3 feet from the tunnel when you called him. On the other reps, you were either a little late (calling when his head was entering the tunnel) or really late 🙂 calling him when he was halfway through or almost out. So, remember to call 3 feet before he enters. His tunnel commitment appears to be super strong so you can time your cues to be nice and early. And if you have been working on a left or right cue, you can use those too!
Lazy handling video: wait, no glass of wine? I highly recommend a relaxing beverage during this game LOL!
I swear I snorted and startled my dogs when he walked into the wing at :05 LOL! <3 puppies <3 Thank you for leaving it in the video, we will look back someday when he is winning big things and remember this LOL!!!
This was a GREAT game for him - finding the jump without a massive effort from you is going to be really helpful in his future course work! When you were just strolling along, yes, he did want to default to heeling: but the jump should override that when you are moving towards it. Definitely do a couple of sessions of this til he immediately goes to the jump. He was starting to figure it out nicely towards the end of the clip. He won't be going fast yet on this, and that is fine - we just want him to find the jump 🙂Nice work!!!!
Tracy
Good morning! First, some answers:
Yes, this is where you can post your videos 🙂
Tags are just if you want to add key words for searching later on, like “rocking horse” or something. I haven’t found a need for them, as the forum threads keep things in order very nicely 🙂
Adding a picture:
Our website software pulls profile images from a popular profile image service called Gravatar. You can create an account at Gravatar.com using the same email address that you use on agility-u.com. Then follow these instructions to upload your profile photo over on Gravatar:
https://en.gravatar.com/support/activating-your-account/And lastly – video! Yay!
Rocking horses:
The first set look good, complete with the multi-wrap! Interesting that he looked at the tunnel first – good information from him about where his focus is directed even though there was no real indication of it. So, a way to add challenge is to bring the tunnel into it by moving it closer and sometimes giving him a cue to take it in between wing wraps. That way he can hash out when the tunnel is in play, and when it is not in play. You can even put the tunnel out past one of the wings for added excitement (I have some proofing games coming soon that ask these questions of the dogs :))Nice use of wrap verbals!
Now, what to look for to reward – his commitment looks good so I would look for effort at collection before the wing to reward. And, ideally, effort at collect NOT on a multiwrap (it is very easy to collect on wrap 2, I like to see collection on wrap 1!) My favorite of his collections was at :13 (wrap to his right after the first multi-wrap) – that is a good moment to reward. Throwing in a multiwrap here and there is fine, but don’t do too many because it tends to slow the youngsters down too much – they wait for multiwraps, especially if those get rewarded a lot.
You can reward the great collection/commitment either by running out of the wings to a toy, or with a cue to the tunnel. Wheeee!!! I like to reward collection with the opportunity to explode forward.2nd set, more distance – well done! You warmed him up with a bit of simple sending forward, then ramped it up by leaving earlier with countermotion. He did a great job maintaining commitment AND turning. Woot!
Adding the jump bar in – you can really see how leaving early gets him to think about how he sets himself up to commit AND turn. Yessssss 🙂 When you are facing forward for too long (like at :46 and 1:00, which were the first reps), he reads it more as a soft turn cue so lands wider. Compare that to :52 and the wraps in the 2nd session, where you were rotated and leaving much sooner, and he was able to set up much better turns. It definitely challenged his commitment, I could see some steam coming out of his ears! But he nailed it!
Nice work here!! We will be building on these even more very soon. And I use the beginner level (with just the 2 wings) on the warm up jump before a run at a trial, to get the bending and commitment warmed up. Food for thought as he gets ready for trials 🙂
TracyHi there!
RC on the flat: the trick to consistently get her to come in is to draw her to your hand before you step back, then step straight back and not to the wing. At :16 and :30 and :41 you had the slight delay on the leg but at :22 and :52 and 1:0 and 1:260, for example, you moved too quickly (you might have also been too close to the wing to give her enough room to squeeze in there). This cue can be done pretty slowly, to get her focused on your hand (I find it helps the young dogs for us to look at our hands too!)
About the verbal… what does “close” mean? Threadle? If can work for this, but usualyl in threadles we are moving forward (feet turned the other way) and not rear crossing. So you can consider calling her name here then either a wrap-away cue (or wrap directional).
The dig dig dig on the 2nd part of the video is looking good! You can use a bit less of a hand cue, just kind of pointing towards the wing (like at 2:08) rather than using your hand for the fulll circle. It might have been too hard for her to have the cue hand also have a treat in it, so you can try the empty hand and see if it is easier. Although it was fine with the cookie hand on the other side!And the quick session of one then the other looked really good, your mechanics were crisp & clear so she was able to read the cues nicely!
And her hand touches at the end looked really good! She is not quite as precise when your hand is a high enough that she has to reach up or jump up to do it, but the reps where your hand was nose-level were pretty perfect. Nice!!!
Great job! See ya over in MP 3!!
Tracy
Hi there!
1st rep looked good! On the 2nd rep, she didn’t know which side of you to come to at :13 and :20. This was a conection break, meaning she could no longer see your eyes so she thought maybe it was a blind cross starting, or not sure of which side to be on. So to fix that, keep your dog-side arm low (like it was, yay!) and back – and make a moment of eye contact with her as you turn. The arm back plus eye contact will give her the connection to know which side to be on.
At :28, you show her a cookie and that helps, but compare the :13 and :20 connection with the connection you had at :32 (getting her on your left) and then getting her to your right at :45. Those were really good and she knew where to go.
She did well here on the commitment – she wasn’t quite ready for you to leave really fast, so keeping to smooth for now will allow you to build up to the fast 🙂Jumping shaping:
She loved it! Good girl! And no worries about the big hello to the paparazzi LOL!!! She was also happy to let you expand motion in the lazy game. You can add challenge to this now in 2 ways:
1 – note the 2nd jump out there – you can do a 2 jump in a row lazy game by walking by both of them – rewarding each sometimes, rewarding only the 2nd one sometimes.
2 – you can do the lazy game by starting her on an angle with you a couple of feet away (I like to hold the collar and the let go as I start to walk) and see if she can pick up the jump from angles!Nice work! Have fun!
TracyHi! The arms are fine for this beginning stage because it will feel really unnatural to not use them 🙂 So as long as your leg and arm move together, and your arm stays relatively low, it is fine 🙂 Just use as much of a soft arm cue as the dog needs, without making it feel bizarro or stilted 🙂
T
Yay! He is the perfect age to start layering in these games. Fun!!!!! Can’t wait to see him in action.
Tracy
Hello and welcome!! This will be fun!!!!We can add challenge if anything is too easy 🙂 Fun times ahead!
Tracy
Hello and welcome! Let’s look and see how he does in the commitment games and then figure out what to do about bars. You can have a low bar in the lazy game and see what he does! Lazy game will be key (and I am pretty sure we didn’t do it in MP3 last year LOL!) Running around jumps is generally a commitment question and not a jumping question, but we will figure it out! Plus we have specific jumping skills coming too 🙂
T
Hello and welcome to you and Robie Kenobi!!! So fun to see you here. Looking forward to seeing him in action!!
Tracy
Happy 10 month birthday, Lanna! Welcome! Games will be posted shortly 🙂
Please check out my tunnel question below and let me know 🙂
T
