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Hi!
Yes, these games generally require maintenance so keep them on the regular rotation. One thing to think about here is keeping his success rate higher – he had a decent number of failures, so try to have the cookies further away and reward more frequently, adding the difficult challenges more gradually. Also, I like that you are using a get it cue – just be sure that you don’t put ‘ok’ in front of it (or any of the other releases) . You had ok get it and ok come, which can be confusing because the ok might be what he is listening to rather than the get it or come.
One other idea is to change locations more frequently – it keeps the game interesting if you can get him to earn a few rewards in one place, then change rooms and surprise him with another round of the game, and so on. That element of new place and surprise also help us transfer the self-control to new locations and real life more easily.
Nice work here! And nice transitions to toy play!!
THey there!
He did a really good job, the cookie tray is a great choice in terms of texture and noise potential!
On the toy tosses – yes, nice retrieve, good boy! I think you can add words to tell him when you want him to go retrieve it versus when it is dead 🙂 for example, tell him to get it on the tosses when you want him to go get it. But when you are just putting it down and don’t want him to get it, let’s come up with a different word to tell him it is out of play. Maybe “all done” or something? This can help him focus back on the shaping and not try to get the toy again or watch it.
On the shaping, he was watching you a lot so you can tweak the reward placement to encourage him to look at the tray – either drop it on the tray or turn his head away to deliver the treat. You can also move further from the tray so he has to look at the tray more to get on it and can’t watch you AND get on the tray LOL!!
You can also add something under the tray to make it move and make it noisy, like a pen or wadded up paper. That is a great pre-teeter opportunity 🙂
Nice transitions from the toy to the shaping and from the shaping to the toy! Great job here! Let me know what you think 🙂
TracyHi!
You make really good points here about perception! It is all so interesting. And yes, it is important to let go of what happened in the past and only focus on the run in front of you: yes, learn from the previous run but don’t dwell on it or obsess! One of the joys of agility is that it is an up-and-down ride and some runs are great and some can be train wrecks LOL!!>>So since this seems to be a them on this discussion for me anyway. Do you think that having many of these mental preparedness skills down/understood/ applied gives off a certain perception to others??
Or would you say that it all goes back to the beginning of teaching the dog how to do obstacle, read your body, building their confidence in understanding , the whole agility foundation from the beginning??All of the above? To be successful in agility, we need all of this: a well-trained dog will not be successful for the most part if the handler has no mental game. And handlers will great mental games will not be successful for the most part, if the dog is not well-trained. There are always more things to work on in both the dog training/handling and the mental aspect. Agility is a complex, difficult sport that keeps evolving, so sometimes we feel like we are scrambling to keep up LOL!!! But that is also part of the fun 🙂
T
Ooh, absolutely! You can add acclimation games and similar things to performance goals. You bring up a good point – performance goals are not limited to inside the ring, you can apply them everywhere!!!
T
I think you will like Speed Visualization! Let me know how it goes. And adding regular visualization to non-gym days too will help it become habit – the ability to whip out a visualization anywhere will be a great tool!
T
Hi there!
>>I get very use to speaking to my dogs in a somewhat natural language and this is the consequence.
Same for me!!! We are trying to avoid any stress by being clear. But, it turns out, that my dogs figure it and they don’t have stress about it 🙂 Yes, I am always trying to be clear but I am also pretty conversational – and I don’t fight with them. Between the happy chatter, striving for clarity, and ‘no fighting’ rule, my dogs put up with my sometimes lack of clarity by figuring me out and not being stressed 🙂 So yes, try to be perfectly clear – but also you are really a great partner to her in training (you don’t fight with her about things) so I am not worried about any stress.
>>Hey, are we going to do things that will help Zing with waiting her turn while another dog is worked? I know self-control and age are contributing factors, but just curious if you have stuff up your sleeve? Zing firmly believes that all turns belong to her, more so than my other dogs did at her age
Yes! I have some “dual training” games coming – we have a couple of self-control layers to get to and then you will see the dual training next week. We can add more, I think they are useful!!!
T
No worries about the separate posts! I will investigate to see why it happened – maybe a size limit? Dunno. I will let you know! Thanks for your patience!!!
T
Hi!
Yes, he was being a bit too polite here LOL!!! It is possible that indoors doesn’t have as much room to explode and there a bit of pressure with you moving into him, so he is more chill about driving ahead of you? You can work this indoors as more of a “get it” where you send him but don’t race him – then he can retrieve it to you (he did try to take it on a victory lap on the first rep LOL!!). My guess is that when you are outside and he has room to gallop, that he will leave you in the dust 🙂 So try some ‘get it’ sending on this and see how it goes!
Nice work on all of these!!Tracy
Hi again!
It cracks me up that there is a shoe in the middle of the floor here. LOL! Good job keeping your hand on his collar until after the treat delivery. He seemed to be fine with the collar grabs, especially when you came in from the side next to him. Coming in from the top or over his head to the other side was a little more surprising to him, but that is a good thing to have happen. Definitely add this in randomly to daily life, both for cookies and grabbing his collar during tugging – he seems to be fine with it so we can keep him happy to be touched 🙂Next video, shaping! Good work here! Nice transition from the tug to the shaping! It took him a moment to get back on the toy (because… cookies!!) but you got him engaged. Yay!
I like how you were waiting for him to offer more (I think you were waiting for back feet) – that was good to see if he could offer it! But, during the waiting… be quiet LOL! You started talking in an exciting way (“whatcha gotta do” or something like that) so he became interested in what you were saying and he stopped offering. Be quiet in shaping is really hard (trust me, I feel that pain, because I personally never shut up in real life HAHA!!!)
So, be quiet and wait… if enough time goes by, you can break off the session and change something – you can use a bigger prop for example so it is easier to get his back feet on along with the front feet. Or, rather than place the cookie in front of it, you can try tossing it as the reward to encourage him to sort of run over it rather than stop on it.. Keep me posted on how he does!1
TracyHi there!
On the backing up, we can tweak the cookie placement to get more backing up. On the cookie that goes between your feet – put the cookie further back (under your bum, past your heels rather than between your toes) – that way he has to come further forward to get it and will instantly offer backing up more steps. Your cookie here was not far enough under you so he really only needed to take one step back to back up.
The other placement tweak is that the actual reward for backing up should be tossed low and long (between his front legs) so he continues to back up to get it. What was happening here was that you were feeding him from your hand the instant he got out from your feet, so he was only taking one step back then stopping and raising his head to the reward. A tossed cookie will get more backing up and keep his head low, rather than looking at your hand. You were tossing treats or moving him backwards with a treat after the reward, but the initial reward when he steps out from under you was stopping him – so if we tweak that placement, you will get more backing up. Let me know if that makes sense!Tracy
Hi there! I am glad it all came through – I am not entirely sure why it didn’t go through the first time. I will ask the tech crew to find out if there is a size limit that we don’t know about.
>>Dogs – (confident) he is confident but not overly alert meeting other dogs, kind of matter of fact, except for 1 dog we met. He kind of bowed up at her (more alert, hard eye, tight mouth) then when she came right up to him he barked twice. Later that dog had a puppy approach and she snapped lunged at the puppy, so I put this one down to Spot was reading the dog and warning. He met a nice aussie yesterday and she could have already been in our pack the way it went. Yay!>>
Great! Confident and dog neutral is perfection! You can add the coping stuff as he gets around more exciting things like dogs running agility, particularly when he begins to understand what agility is all about 🙂
>>People – (neutral) He goes up to people calmly if I allow him to. Usually smells their leg. Accepts a pet – most people pet on the head and he is fine with that. In puppy class he is able to loose leash walk around a person acting goofy (funny poses, flinging arms, etc). Has gone past a person in a wheelchair and just looked, but walked on with me. During Thanksgiving dinner he laid on a bed about 10′ from the table, didn’t bark when people came in. Yay!! >>
Whoa, that is lovely! Again, confident and people neutral. Keep rewarding that!
>>Different environments – (confident and alert) in wide open spaces he tends to lose his ability to hear for a couple minutes as he runs around and sniffs stuff, but after a couple minutes I can call him back and reward him. In tight spaces where he has to go through a small gap in a barrier he hesitates like he doesn’t know what to do, but once he understands will go thru fine.>>
So these environments will be great for incorporating his favorite coping mechanisms, just to help him chill out and be able to hear you immediately 🙂
>> I can make the bed with him in it and he doesn’t move for a bit – once he tries to get out he does so without getting stressed.
Ha! That is funny 🙂 I bet he likes snuggling up in the bed!
>> In general, outdoors and stores he tends to look more at his surroundings but out of curiosity not stress from what I can tell.
Yep, sounds perfectly normal. You can totally get him to these different places to learn to chill, not because I think he needs any intervention or help at this moment, but in case he might need it in the future. If he does ever need help, we will have the foundation in place. If not? well, then he has had multiple great experiences in many places 🙂
>>Noises – (Neutral) when the lid off the trash can fell right next to him he jumped away not to get hit, but then just turned and smelled the lid. I had the people at the feed store drop my keys from a height and he didn’t quit sniffing the treats below the counter. A baking sheet fell in the kitchen when he was laying by me relaxing and he jerked his head up at the noise, then laid back down. He reacts, but gets over it quickly. He’s alert and interested when he hears agility videos playing on my computer – will come over, perk up and tilt his head.>>
Again, normal stuff here. So exciting! I love normal reactions! LOL!
>>I think as he starts to understand the game he’ll be more stimulated near the ring, but at present he can be in the stands with me and watch. First dog I’ve ever had that can do that!
This is great! I agree that he might end up being more stimulated near the ring when he knows the game, so add the coping games even though he is fine now – let him chew a bone or sniff a snuffle mat or lick a kong. This will help him not matter how he ends up in the future, he will either remain a relaxed dog around the ring or he will be able to come back to being relaxed even as the game increases in excitement. He sounds like a very cool pup!!!
T
Hi there! Lots of lovely stuff on this video!!
First were the self-control games – when the cookies are in your hand, you can work on getting more patience from him by opening the hand before feeding rather than feeding from the closed hand – I think he is ready for that level now.
He had even more patience when the cookies are on the ground! Ping pong the duration between rewards when they are on the ground – sometimes reward immediately, sometimes stretch it out, rather than always making it harder & harder.
With both of these, you can add in more changes of location because the traditional self-control games get too easy when we humans remain in one spot for too long – and they don’t transfer to real life as well. So, get a reward or two, break it off to play tug… then go to a new place and – surprise! – start over. You can also take this game outside to help transfer it to “don’t grab things outside” And also the cookie recalls that I posted today are going to be great for the outside work as well – establish them inside and then we will take them outside.The other thing you can add with the cookies in the hand self-control: he is very helpful by trying to come towards the cookie to assist you in rewarding him LOL! So, you can reward by tossing the cookie away (using a “get it” cue) and that will help provide a response cost for bopping the cookie hand: why get close to the cookie hand when the reward will be delivered 5 feet away? So he will remain backed off of the cookie hand.
Next up: Collar grabs – easy peasy! My only suggestion is to be sure to leave your hand on the collar til he has swalloed it, so we are more certain that there is a direct pairing between the cookie and the hand on the collar. You were taking the hand off his collar just before you delivered the cookie. This is a good one for a general life skill and also good to add outside in case you need to grab him if he eats something 🙂 I believe you are generally ready with rewards so you can incorporate collar grabs into daily life really easily.
On the mat work – this is great to start! You can try to incorporate into places where you can sit and chill – standing up with a toy is not super relaxing LOL! The trouble I’ve seen dogs have with the Overall Protocol as well as similar games is that we humans look like we are ready to do something action-based (we are standing, treats are in play, there is a toy in the armpit…) so the dog doesn’t quite relax. But if you are sitting, looking at your phone or watching TV and casually tossing treats – you will be more relaxed and so it will be easier for him to chill out. He can be on leash to start this in case he is busy and leaves to do other things 🙂
Toy races – very cool he can do it with his outfox! He had no trouble outrunning you – yay!!! You can encourage retrieving by, as soon as he reaches the toy, turning and running the other way and calling him. I don’t really worry about him bringing the toy all the way back, I would be happy if he dropped it and came to you! Part of the goal is to shape him to play with you outside and not want to eat all the things, with the eventual goal being to fade the outfox. If he takes the toy and runs off a bit, you can try tying it to a leash. You can also trade for another toy or treat to help encourage coming back to you after winning the toy race 🙂
Nice work!!!
TracyHi there! I love all the high energy play with both the toys and food – it was really engaging! She seemed to be very happy going back and forth. Her reaction when you started shaking the container all around was hysterical (bucking bronco! LOL!) and also the oopsie ‘jackpot!’ moment Was super funny too. I see a couple of things on the video:
What is your out word for the toy? It sounded like you had 2 or 3 different ones, so you might want to clarify it – early on in t he video, “yes” seemed to produce the out then later on there was an out word and one more different word. To convince her to tug til an out, even as the food moves, try to clarify which word will mean an out. And she seems to have a bit of trouble maintaining her grip when you lift the toy (baby dog issue) so keep that toy super low for now so she can really latch on.
I really liked all of the words and excitement surrounding the food! Add in lots of exciting delivery to match the verbals as well – have her chase the food in your hand a bit or toss it away for her to run to get (you did a bit of this towards the end) so that the food isn’t just a stationary reward. And, on the flip side – try some stationary toy play too, meaning the toy hand does not move and she tugs in one position – for something like the end of the teeter if you are doing a stop on it, or on the table, where we want her to hold position but we want to reward with a toy. So basically make each a bit opposite: more moving food and more stationary toy 🙂 You don’t have to do too much stationary toy and you can reward her with more toy movement if she can tug with the toy relatively still, and that way you have both applications.
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
