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Hi! Great to see you here in the Forum! How do you pronounce his name?
The link is not coming through for me to watch the video – can you repost it? I am looking forward to seeing him 🙂
Thanks!
Tracy
Hi!
The 6 foot plank here is perfect for indoor training and you can probably find some longer planks at class or other road trips 🙂 She was definitely comfy hopping up onto it and turned around well – until you went fast at 1:02 and she lost her balance. So… don’t go fast 🙂
One other thing to note is she almost exclusively turned to her right here. She only turned left when you were slow moving and right at her nose 🙂 When left to her own devices more, she would choose to turn right even if it meant turning away from you. This is good to know! So since right is the easy turn side, you can help her more on the left turns by staying close to her and moving slowly. Adding a good lure is perfectly fine too 🙂
>I’m constantly working on “bring it.” Somedays she does and others she doesn’t.>
That is pretty normal 🙂 You can try rewarding bringing a low value toy with the opportunity to run around with a high value toy (cued with a ‘go for a run’ or something similar) to see how she feels about that 🙂
Nice work here!!
TracyHi! It sounds like the injections are going really well!!!
She is making good progress with the stealth self-control game. What will help the bowl get all the way around the cone is to add a hand cue to indicate focusing forward while you are holding her, to help develop the cue for focusing on the jump. That will also tell you if you should let go of her or not, based on where she is looking 🙂
Her focus forward on the bowl was great! But that is also why she went to the bowl when it was in the harder position: she thought the game was to look for the bowl. Adding the cue to focus forward will help her figure out that it is focusing on the cone, not the bowl 🙂
So the one hand will hold her, the other hand will point forward – then when she looks forward, let her go. When she didn’t go around the cone and went right to the cookie bowl :), she was looking right at it. So getting the cue to look at the cone will help you know if she is looking at the correct line or not. Getting her go is basically permission to go where she is looking 🙂
Speaking of hands: she much preferred it when you lined her up with a cookie then put your hand on her collar. When you were reaching for her and pulling her into position, she definitely got the ick from being pulled into position so she was avoiding your reach. So definitely keep lining her up with a cookie then putting your hand on her collar rather than pulling her.
Looking at the goat games video: She did much better with this bigger disc! Super! And the little stick up nubs are not as hard on her feet so she was happier to put her feet on them. The disc is a little small so she can’t entirely fit her whole self on it – you can get a couple of different objects and put them all on the ground next to each other, to give her a bigger playing field to get her back feet on too. And you can add in changing your position to standing because that will help her move around more and offer back feet too 🙂
Great job here!
TracyHi!
>I did some sends with a toy. We have a lot of possession to work through so I’m not sure I want to combine that emotion with agility. I will work on our toy skills separately.>
Yes, definitely keep it separate for now so there is no conflict about play and giving the toy back. She has a ton of food love so you are still getting lovely behavior.
>Also, I really dislike her hopping up when I point to the prop. I’m going to back off on pointing and do some more shaping. I’m going to get the reward out sooner and mostly use food on the ground. I really don’t want jumping up at me to become a thing.>
I think the video posted was the same as the 9/210 video, even though it is titled 9/11. It might have gotten loaded twice, can you repost the new one? I am interested to see where the hopping up is coming from because yes – we don’t want jumping up.
Thanks!
TracyGood morning!
The placed reward target definitely helped him get the turns to the correct direction. You can start each session with the target already placed so he can head the correct direction immediately. The left turns were easier for him for sure!
For the right turns – you mentioned having him lined up better and that will totally help him not face you first then turn.
You can also start him on easier angles so he still has to turn away to the right turn, but he can see the bar better (more of a 90 degree angle instead of a 180 degree angle). And since he finds the right turns harder, you can keep the reward target between the first 2 bumps for a longer time and inch it around more slowly than you did for the left turns.
You were MUCH more Madonna-worthy in the serps here! He finds it hard to come in for the serps at speed but you can see he was getting better and better as session progressed. The best reps where when you stayed in motion but were relatively slow & steady (like at :44, 1:37, 1:49, those were my favorites).
When you over faster, the speed of your lower body overrides the upper body – so to add more speed, you can angle the serp jump t face him more (turn it make 45 degrees so when he exits the start wing, he is seeing more of the bar and it is easier for him to drive in. That should allow you to add more of your speed, and when he is happy with that you can start to angle the jump back to its ‘flat’ position here 🙂
>I’m feeling a little panic-y about the class ending. Are you doing another session of MP2 right after this one? Do you think we need to repeat it? I didn’t think we would fall so far behind.>
No worries! I think the start date for Maxpup 3 is October 26 or thereabouts, so there is still plenty of time before it (it just got posted). The next MaxPup 2 will be in late January, so for sure you won’t need to repeat it 🙂
Nice work here!!
TracyGood morning!
At the end of the first rep, you said to him “That was so good!” And I totally agree: it made a lot more sense in flow and you nailed it. Lovely! He was fast and accurate, and seemed to have no questions. Your timing was top-notch!!! When he was at the wing before the tunnel threadle, you were already starting the cues and he knew exactly what to do! YAY!!!!
Since this went so well, you can move on to the next games 🙂 We will come back to this in bigger sequences in the future 🙂
Tracy
Good morning!
>If I stand – how do I keep toys on the floor? Or The toys will be on my side and not on the floor. >
The toys can be at your side, they don’t need to be on the floor when you sit or stand. When you are standing, the food will be much easier to use for now – but we will very quickly add a game next week which is easier with toys 🙂
>Also, when I sit – the food target shall be on the floor and I just drop treats there?>
Yes – the targets are there and you can drop the treats into them.
His cone shaping looked great, he knows this really well and was well-balanced in both directions. The toy section at the beginning as looks good, and he went into the food part of the game really well too. Interestingly, he tended to make a mistake on the first rep after a transition.
When you went back into the toy part of it, he had more mistakes in general – that might be because he needed a break rather than go right back into the session. So when you switch between toys to food to toys, consider them as separate training sessions where he can relax for a minute or two, then come back to do the next session. You will see sharper even more consistent behavior when you do that.
You can add in sitting in the chair to do the wraps, along with using different objects for him to wrap around, to help generalize the concept.
For the platform: He is sending to it really well! To get more explosiveness, remember to have him start next to you and do the ready dance so he is excited and shifts from handler focus (ready, ready) to the send. That makes it even easier to add distance and will get even more speed on the sideways and backwards sending. as we build this game, we will want him to drive right off of the platform back to you, so he doesn’t need to sit. You can use the prop for him to just hit his front feet to if you want to maintain the sit behavior on the platform 🙂
Excellent job with the recall game! During the blinds – yo can keep your arms in tighter to your sides, so he can see your connection sooner (arms block connection when they are too far out). That way he can change sides based on the connection, without the toy needing to be visible.
He really liked the recalls and using the tunnel was fun too. Remember to keep the sessions short, though – this is super high energy stuff and it was over 8 minutes. Their brains and bodies get tired at this age so errors happen more frequently plus the puppies slow down because they are tired – it is better to do 90 seconds to 2 minutes, then take a break. When focusing on right turns, you can make it a separate short training session so he is fresh and ready to do the harder turns.
For the next steps using the recalls to help with confidence around other dogs, 2 things to do:
You can play the basic recall game in areas where there are nice, calm dogs around (I suggest nice calm dogs because we don’t want any out of control dogs lunging at or chasing Benny).
And also, we need a ‘helper dog’ and a handler for that dog, that can wrk alongside Benny and will 100% ignore him: the helper dog should be friendly, but also able to ignore Benny when they are working very close to each other. Let me if you have a helper dog & handler and I will send you the next steps.
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
I didn’t think you were floppy! The blinds went really well (at least the one I could see on the video 🤣😂) – your mechanics and connection were great and Frankie had a blast 🙂
She had a little trouble finding the treats in the rats, so you can use a towel to drop them onto for a more immediate pickup. The you used the big circular things on the ground (septic lids?) you can see how much quicker she was able to engage and start the recall.
>Don’t ask me why I labeled it rears. >
Ha! Clearly you didn’t want the blinds caught on film 🙂 But the visible one looked great!
Tracy
Good morning!
Her prop sends looked great – it looks like she was targeting it really well and happy to move away from you to it, with means you can go to the next steps.
The only thing to add is that ‘ready read’ moment before each send: have her facing you a bit, you are talking to her (I literally say ready, ready…) then send. That will help with 3 things:
– Transition from handler focus to obstacle focus
– It gets even more explosiveness on the send
– Gives you a moment to set up sending sideways and sending backwards, which are the next steps 🙂You can see how she feels about the toy mixed in with the food: she might prefer toy play before and after the food, or you can try an entire session where the toy is the reward and there is no food present. We will let her guide us on how to mix in the toy so there is no frustration and it stays super fun 🙂
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
>I have found she can’t work on an empty stomach so I train after feeding her.>
Good for you! There wa a study published recently about scent dogs having a much higher error rate if they hadn’t been fed. It makes sense!
>This was closer to bedtime and she had an active day.>
Her nervous system was probably entering into ‘rest and digest’ mode, which takes tugging off the table.
>She was like ewwww what is this lol. She slept on it and now likes it.>
Ha!! That is great! There are all sorts of good vermin toys out there that she will like 🙂
Have fun!
Tracy
Hi!
>I’d rather have her run at the moment and win. I’ll try the FC and call her. Usually she spits the toy out, but she returns to me.>
You can do gentle push backs to try to win. I also do an occasional air cookie that I put down next to the dog and point at – they realize immediately that it was just a rude distraction LOL🤣 but it allows me to win sometimes.
As you turn and run, you can also ask her to do ‘bring it’ and if she carries it even a few steps towards you, you can mark and offer the next toy.
She was great with her balance on the plank! She was stimulated from the tugging but was excellent about not falling off or dropping her feet off when you turned her. You started off moving slowing but then moved a little faster on the last rep – she was still great. That is unusually good for a young dog, most of youngsters have feet going all over the place 🙂
Do you have any access to a longer plank? She is ready for a longer plank in the yard or a road trip somewhere to play on a long plank 🙂
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi!
He definitely was interested when you focused on one toy over the other. The fur toys are very stimulating so he seemed to want to shred them here rather than tug.
>I think I probably went too long because he was leaving me at the end.>
I don’t think you went too long here. It might have been that there was too much of the same thing, and not being allowed to shred them might be why he went to get the other toy – it is better for tugging. Good to know! You can move to the next steps and put something for him to wrap around into the game. It is also possible that he was getting bored with the same thing, so moving to the next step will keep things interesting!
Looking at the toy races video – the good news is that he will have no confidence issues on the dog walk LOL! He was nicely engaged with the toy, but the highest value toy was too present as you saw. So either it needs to be in the house or it needs to be the toy you use 🙂
He was driving ahead nicely when you didn’t push him back – I think he didn’t really like being pushed back that much and wasn’t sure what to do. So you can push back a lot less. And if you win, you need to truly win: pick up the toy, dance with it high up, tease him a bit – the immediately go into the next rep when he is really wanting the toy. You can also cheat to win if you can throw an air cookie instead of a real cookie (I know, so rude LOL!) It will only work once, but it will be hilarious and you are likely to win that one 🙂
>Oh, and I always debate about using a toy I want to use vs using the toy the dog likes best. What should I do about that?
>You will also want to use really high value toys. So if you are using one and he is distracted by another – switch to the better one for that moment, because we don’t want to make it about demanding a certain toy or arguing with him over it. But definitely try to clear the area of all other toys, so the only available toy is the fun one you are playing with.
He was super with his mushroom wrapping! Yay! Since this was easy for him: onwards to the next steps!!
The next thing to do is, using the mushroom, sit on something low and repeat the game as you did here (with the mushroom close to you to start it). If that goes well, move to standing up as he wraps.
You can also switch what he wraps around to use different objects.
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi!
>I notice the forward send went really well in here( not recorded) so maybe outside is too much stim.>
That is entirely possible! Also, she might have slept on it and consolidated the learning and can do it in more places now too.
The glass pan is definitely a texture she probably has not worked with before LOL! She did a great job of putting her feet into it – you had to be very close so it wouldn’t slide around, so when you put it on silicone like you mentioned or something grippy so you don’t have to be as close, she might offer more interaction with it and get all feet into it..
You can also put a piece of a yoga mat in it – that will give her the securiy of a non-slip texture to put all her feet into it.
I see a possible entire room of kitchen items as part of her goat games LOL!
I love that she was a wild woman with the toy during the break and then she drove to the toy really well too at the end – you can add your movement as well, walking forward then jogging forward so you can build up to toy races 🙂
>I finally found a house on 30 fenced acres and I am making a big dog room!>
That is so exciting! Yay!! I am looking forward to seeing her in her new dog room!!!!
Great job here 🙂
TracyHi!
>Last night I tried to do these exercises but I couldn’t get her to engage with a toy. She kept running to the food table crying for treats.>
Interesting! Was this later in the evening than usual, closer to bed time? Or before dinner? It is entirely possible that time of day plays a role in being able to tug or not. If she is hungry for a meal, or if her nervous system is winding down for the night, I can see that toy play might not be something she can do. I mean, if it is close to my bedtime or I am hungry… I am not a trainable creature LOL!
>So, I abandoned the excercise and moved to a further part of the room and was able to get a good play session out of her then we stopped for the night.>
Great! It was smart to get some play and end for the evening so she can sleep on it.
>So, if I know she’s likely going to refuse a toy ( like later in the evening) would it be ok to not even present a toy to her and do the games with just food ( I think she’ll happily work for food)? Or should I stick to games just when I know she’s likely to want to tug (early morning when she’s fresh?).>
Yes and also yes, but also no LOL!! If you can identify times of day where she is less likely to want to tug, that is good to know: if you are planning on teaching her new stuff during those times, use food. And for toy-based games where you want to teach her something new, stick to times of day where she is fresh and spicy.
But in the other times of day where to play might be harder – just play with toys 🙂 Don’t have food in the picture at all and don’t plan for big learning. Just hang out and play silly throw or chase games, to help re-wire her body to want to play at any time, all the time. If it is later at night, she might need to sniff around for treats to wind down from the excitement of it 🙂
She did get with the folding it in game!
You were cracking me up with the ‘get your bunny’ and it actually did look like a bunny on a rope LOL!
Her forward focus was fabulous on both the food bowl and the toy. Yay! I think you were saying ‘go’ but since it is a wrap, you can switch to a wrap cue.
She is ready for the next steps here, where the bowl or toy moves all the way around the cone to the point where she has to focus forward to the cone, passing the food or toy, to then get to the reward 🙂
Since we are protecting her toy drive, I would do that with food in the bowl first – that way if she skips the cone and heads directly to the food, you can cover it 🙂 But I really don’t want her to head to a toy and NOT get it at this point, so we can add the toy in later when she knows this game with the food bowl.
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi!
>We’re heading across the US to our national shortly and I promised I’d use the platform until then since I’m not the one showing her. It’s the path of least resistance sometimes>
That makes sense! Where is the national specialty? I hear the Dobe national is especially amazing 🙂
>Yesterday we were doing some front cross work and as I sent her around to wrap the first wing her TNT started beeping and releasing treats. She gave it a good look, hesitated and did the wrap and send! I love the way you had us add distractions.>
What a good girl!!!! Yes, you worked on the skill of doing the wrap even when there is something exciting behind you. And she did great even with the TnT trying to sabotage your session 🙂
>This morning we worked on zig zag and moved the jumps closer.>
She did really well with jumps moved closer together – it was definitely more challenging and she had one miss. But by the end, she had sorted it out and it was easy again. So when you revisit this, have the wings of the jumps touching 🙂 That will mean she has to be very quick in her movement and possibly even bounce between the jumps.
>My personal play is a tad calmer because she’s started jumping and biting at my shoulders and upper arms lately>
Ah yes, dialing it back is great because we definitely don’t want any tooth hugs. All exciting stuff can be done with food and toys, to help direct her focus to putting her mouth on treats/toys and not on flesh 🙂
Great job here!
Tracy
