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Hi! This went really well too! She moved into the sit really nicely when you used the verbal and the hand cue. You can also use a hand touch line up to help her get into the sit, have you ever tried that? She is getting the idea of which position you want. The duration when she is in the position is looking REALLY good, she is staying while you are getting further and further away! You were releasing and using a food reward, which is fine – but you can also release and use a toy reward! She will like that 🙂 When you move away, add in turning a bit so you want walk forward while she is in the stay rather than backing up (as long as you stay connected so you can see what she is doing). She only had one error and she fixed herself right away (that was cool too see, she put herself right back in the sit, good girl!!)
Next time you are in a new place, definitely try these stay games! And you can also do short stays in front of a jump so that she learns that stays in front of jumps are the BEST THING EVER before she learns how much fun jumps are 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi! You were really great on your transitions here – super quick releases, exciting play, and then you were calm and quiet waiting for her to offer. It was interesting that the down was the thing that she offered the most, and you were good to reward it with the release and play. For whatever reason (I don’t know why LOL!) she just doesn’t seem to have a sit at the top of the list. Ha! You were helping her with a bit of a hand signal and a verbal cue – and that is perfectly fine. She is not being naughty, she is just thinking of all sorts of things except the sit LOL!! So, helping is good and that will get you even further to the stay. And yes, I think she liked it!!!
Great job here 🙂
TracyHi! He is just so clever 🙂 Doing the out? No problem at all, good boy! You can definitely add your motion on this, meaning you are walking on a parallel line to it and his parallel path is to you – and sometimes cue the out and sometimes have him come to you.
Now to answer the question about what to do if he doesn’t hit it… ideally he hits it and if he strides over it without hitting, we still pay in the case of this behavior. But after about :50 he was stopping short and turning back – and it was a placement of reinforcement thing that caused it. And he picked up the chain very very quickly (CLEVER!). The out behavior is a lead change away and then continue along the line, so the placement should reflect that chain: he moves away to hit the prop and then you throw the reward past the prop in the direction he was moving. That will get the behavior and he will continue to hit the prop, no problem. What was happening here is that you were ‘looping’ this behavior, meaning he went towards the prop but then the reinforcement was placed back at the starting point, creating a turn away from the line you wanted – and then losing the value of the prop hit. So he was moving towards the prop and then setting up to turn back to where the reinforcement would be. Smart, efficient pup! I love it!
So with this game and all of the handling games – don’t loop the reps. Isolate each rep, reinforce on the line you want – then play a bit, then reset for the next one by bringing him back to the starting point, set up (sit or cookie toss) then cue the next rep. The looping the reinforcement back to the reset spot doesn’t help with the handling cues because it creates too much turn and also doesn’t give us time to engage and deliver the cue as the permission to start the behavior (all handling cues are permission cues). Let me know if that makes sense! In a nutshell – throw the reward past the prop on the next line of travel, then bring him back around to reset – that will allow you to maintain the good commitment and also to set up where you want to be next before he comes into the area 🙂
This is looking great so far, he really reads it nicely! Have fun!
TracyHelloooooo! And welcome 🙂 Great to see you here! I think the decel proofing game will be a really good one for him so you don’t have to be perfect in timing! And the wrap versus tunnel versus GO will be good too 🙂 Keep me posted!!
TracyHi! I am glad you started this, I think it is a PERFECT game for him!! He was not all that collectiony when you were decelerated, he did end up turning but did not necessarily collect before the jump to do it. And that is why we play this! So, set yourself up to drive to the wing and be fully standing still just as he exits the tunnel. At first, reward any collection and then we will up the ante to ask for more and more – building up to the head turns. Based on this: My guess is that when you are handling a sequence, you have to handle a lot to get a tight turn with little leeway for being maybe a little late or not perfect. I think this decel game will help him read decel as an important element so you don’t have to be as perfect! So for now we will start with you completely stationary, then we will build up to you shifting into deceleration – I am excited about adding this because I think it will make your life MUCH easier on course! Yay!
Great job on all of these!!
TracyHi!
You can set this one up a little differently so he knows what the game is about – put him in a stay about 10 feet back from the jump, you lead out to the jump – then stand still and release. I think that way he will know to offer behavior on the jump and not weave your legs LOL!For now, reward any semblance of collection on the takeoff side of the jump. Give that a session or two, then we up the ante to reinforcing when his head turns. The head turn means the body will follow, so if he approaches the jump turning his head, then he intends to turn tight.
He did well on the Go – not entirely convinced LOL! but he did it! And that darned MM was being NAUGHTY LOL!Good job here! I see you added the tunnel, which is what I was going to suggest. Yay!
T
Hi! He did well here! And yes, you had a couple of human proofing moments with the wrong verbal LOL! But I think he should read the physical cue (turning) and not just the verbal – he did a GO on those even though you turned. So, you can take out all wrap verbals for a session and then just use his name or go. Or just proof the physical cue, no verbals at all. I know, I am a bit evil 🙂
The next thing to do with the *correct* verbals LOL is to take out all motion 🙂 Start him in a sit, maybe even between your feet – and see if he can discriminate the wrap verbals and the Go verbal. It will be hard but fun!
Great job here!
TracyHi!
>>I think my mechanics are getting more of a workout than Tess 😊
Ha! That is so true – these games are all about handler mechanics and also about being careful to not give too many hints with our mechanics LOL! Your videos look terrific, though, I think things are going well.
Wrap video: Great session here!!
I love that you were able to fade your motion a lot and she was still correct. She was incredibly successful on this game – On her one error, you can give a little quiet oopsie so she hears that it was not entirely correct then carry on like you did. She was barking and tugging and excited, but still accurate: PERFECT. Notice how she is picking up speed!You can move the wing in closer to the tunnel to make it a little harder 🙂 And also you can add MORE motion into the wrap, meaning send her into the tunnel, meet her at the end then drive forward into the wrap (giving the wrap verbal) – and see if she can still get it even with the flurry of motion 🙂 And vice versa – you can stand still after she exits the tunnel and without motion, send her back into the tunnel.
>> I’m making an effort to use my verbal and not lure with the toy.
You were great!
>>I want to improve the retraint. I don’t like her up on her hind legs like that. eek
She was excited so pulling herself up. You can start her in a sit stay or hand on her chest so she doesn’t stand up 🙂
Serpentine:
This is also going well, and this one in particular emphasizes handler mechanics at first.
On the first rep – your shoulders closed forward and you were moving, so she did read it as tunnel on the release. On the 2nd rep, you have great upper body serp position and she nailed it, good girlie! And wow, she did well with the sirens distraction! When you went back to the tunnel cue – you can exaggerate closing your shoulders forward so she really sees the difference.
I think you can add motion to this, showing her the difference in the cues as you start to move.>>. I also noticed how I hover over her for a sit. That’s a lot of pressure!>>
She didn’t seem too worried about it, but she was distracted by the sirens LOL! You can try a hand touch line up?
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! I am glad you are feeling better!
>>because Enzo is brilliant and I might be known to occasionally skip steps, I put out the manners minder (MM). I didn’t like the way I was throwing the toy.>>
This is my rule about skipping steps. If it works, then clearly it was brilliant fast tracking. If it fails, then I am lumping. LOL! So I do sometimes try to skip steps to see how it goes 🙂
On the wing reps – he did really well, it looks like he was about 100%, yes? You won’t see a ton of speed on these because there is no real motion or momentum, so that session was pretty perfect. Repeat the session… but with absolutely zero motion. Either be crouched or be upright – but don’t move til he makes a decision to either wrap or go. You had some movement on the first part – after about :25 you moved a lot less and that was good on the wraps – sho the same lack of motion on the go.
You can even pull up a chair and do it while sitting!When you added the MM – I think it was actually a great training session for him. He was not entirely ignoring the wrap cues, he was collecting… but the Siren Song Of The Manners Minder drew him in to his doom on the rocks LOL! He was going to it but he was entirely unconvinced that he was correct, based on his striding LOL! Too funny! On the 4th rep, I think you had started to figure it out and then gave him a tiny step to the side, so he got it – then it was easy after that. It was a good brain scrambler! So we will chalk it up to brilliant fast tracking 🙂
For this set up, I think we can make one tweak: don’t just mark collection in front of the jump: wait until he turns his head for the wrap. That is something that will really help with the turns, so that he makes the decision even sooner because the head turn is getting rewarded – which will create better turns as well. So be totally stationary and silent until he turns his head, then throw a party 🙂
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracHi!
Your PJ bottoms are perfect!!!!! Love it!He was a really good boy on this first one! He was reading your deceleration at the blue jump perfectly! You were a little late getting into the decel on the 2nd jump (I thought you were going to run straight) so he was wide. On this set up, since it is really hard to outrun him – you can do the decel at the first jump then after the 2nd tunnel – stand still near that first jump and use your verbal Go Go Goooo! And see what he does 🙂
On the 2nd video – you set yourself up to be at the 2nd jump a lot earlier so he saw the decel sooner (before he had to make a takeoff decision) and he nailed it. And the Go at the end was easy.
So…. you can add challenge by standing relatively close to the tunnel, maybe halfway between the jump and tunnel and see what he does if you try it all on verbals 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi!
She is really good at the lap turns! Look at her whip around the wing, especially to the left (she is really leading with her head through those turns and bending nicely!) She is also doing really well turning to her right but I think she is slightly better on her left. – on those, you were able to deliver the cue really quickly after she arrived at your hand. On the little oopsie moments, I think her questions had to do with your leg movement. When you were too early with stepping back (:28 and :43) for example, she didn’t read the lap turn. When you were later, meaning you kept your feet together with your arm stretched towards her until she was almost at your hand: fabulous! So even though she is coming at you with a lot of speed and power, remind yourself to be super patient and don’t move feet or arm til she is about 2 inches from your hand. Keep connected her eyes and then you can even look at your hand to help draw her in. At :43, I think the leg cue was early and you looked back to the wing (a bit of a connection break) so she ended up on the other side of you (I don’t think she was going for the toy :))
The tandems also look really good!!!! I am very excited about how well she focuses on your hand cues when you ask her to. Yay!!! This requires a similar amount of patience – be sure to let her get almost to your hands before cuing the rest of the turn. I think you were really quite lovely on these!
On both of these turns, you can exaggerate the movement and deceleration into them when turning her to her right, that will help her shift into the turn and be a little tighter. The turns to her left were great, no changes needed there 🙂
Great job!!!!
TracyHi!
Yes, my first thought was the mini pinny games for solidifying the verbals, and you can add in wrap verbals to that one too! We were working it with left/right turns but wraps are good to!
Using your short tunnel, you can put 3 bowls at the exit, kind of like a triangle: one straight out, one to the left, one to the right. Sit in a chair and send him through with just the tunnel – go!, tunnel-left, tunnel-right, and wrap verbals. The cookie to gets thrown to the corresponding bowl and the wraps are rewarded back at you. Maybe I should film it with my youngsters, I haven’t taught it to them – Hot Sauce can do it but she is not ready for tunnels yet. Let me know if that makes sense! You can start with motion to get the concept going then fade the motion.
Using the dummy MM is a great idea LOL!
He did really well on this short clip, so I think you can definitely try the 3 bowl approach (or have the MM out ahead and bowls on each side). I am feeling inspired to try it to! Let me know what you think 🙂
TracyGood morning!
>>Stark worked on the same thing as Sizzle today>>
FUN! Plenty of what we do in that class is appropriate for Stark – and you can post his videos there too (folks are invited to work more than one dog within the general time limits of the videos – so if you do a minute of Stark’s work and a minute of Sizzle’s work, then you are perfect!)
I am super happy with the backside slices, look at him whipping his head around the wing and towards the bar! Keep going with those early drops, they are really upping his commitment as you were able to show countermotion, blinds, speed, etc. NICE!
Sit wraps – I think this younger generation has the head-turn foundation so this will help them pick up their circle wrap jumping really nicely. He did really well and looked to be whipping around the wing here too (and he did not give you any WTF looks for asking for the sit near the wing LOL!)
Zig Zags grid – he is definitely getting the side-to-side action going here! He was adding strides on a couple of these (2 hits in the gap between jumps rather than one). It did not seem like a left versus right thing because he did it both directions, and I don’t think it was a fatigue thing – just lack of experience because he has not been alive that long. It is possible that the gap was too big to elicit the bounce and the one stride was easier (because, well, it is easier indeed LOL!) so you can try to elicit the bounce by having the wings of the jump overlapping rather than touching end-to-end. That is what I will be doing with Elektra when I show her this – she is a little shorter than Stark but not by much. I couldn’t really see if your wings were end-to-end (like I had with Contraband) but I think they were, so try them overlapping and see how he does!
Woot woot on the teeter! The first rep is never the indicator how he he feels about it. It is the NEXT rep when he knows it will move. He appeared to NOT have any concerns, which produces a big happy dance! My only suggestion is to move the wing you are sending him around so he has a straight line up to the teeter (he had to get on it from an angle here). You can gradually, oh so gradually, ping pong more tip in: do a couple of sessions like this, then make it a little more tip, then back to a couple more easy ones, and so on. I am excited about his confidence and speed!!
Great job!!
TracyGood morning!
>>He’s been a bit sticky about releasing on a verbal cue when on my left, esp if I am slightly behind the end of the board.>>
Do you mean he would rather stay in target position than release off it, like at 1:06?? If so, that is a champagne problem LOL! Most dogs are a little too happy to leave target position LOL!! No worries about it and no recommendations to change it other than tap you legs or the ground to encourage him off the board. I have never seen this be an issue with young dogs when we get them on course, I have only ever seen this early stickiness produce amazing contact behavior 🙂
I was super excited with his bang game!! He definitely finds this easier with the target already out there. When you did not have the target, he looked up at you a bit. So, leave the target there and then it will be easy to fade when he is more experienced. You were plenty fun and exciting to get arousal going 🙂 Because it is a smll area, you can add challenge while arousal is still in a calmer state: at this stage, you can play the game with the variation that your feet will be anywhere in the room *except* next to (parallel to) the target and either you will be standing still the whole time, or in motion for 2 more steps til after he stops in position. This means you can stay back, walk past , walk laterally, etc. I add the 2-more-steps-after-stopping criteria so that we don’t accidentally get into a rhythm of stopping as the dog stops, because they learn to read that as a cue to stop. So think of it as combining the bang game with the motion override game 🙂
I am not sure how much room you have to add more movement, so feel free to get all creative about it LOL!!!
The other small space thing you can add is taking the same exact session as here… with a distraction sitting out ahead. Nemo ball, for example, just sitting a few feet away. Or the Pet Tutor. Or a bag of treats. Can he still look downwards to his target position?
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>>I’m now seeing verbals will be a must since I struggled with the wraps due to his speed.
Yes, my bigger faster dogs convinced me on this too 🙂 The more verbals, the merrier!
>>I see what you mean and his back being curved up. I’m not super worried about that right now, especially since I have continued to lower the tip assist on mountain climbers and his position has been fine>>
Perfect! If it shows up elsewhere, we can deal with it.
>> We did a nice short session here and his targeting seems to be getting better.This looked really solid!!! Yay! So…. let’s build up it 🙂 2 ways to do this (you can do both, concurrently):
– with you in that position, you can add more height to the board so there is more tip.
– with the same amount of tip you had here, you can add in standing up in front to see how he does (then we move you to the side if that goes well).
The backing up was also really good – you can see him thinking about independent use of his back feet. Yay! I agree with ideally he will be able to eventually back up to all 4 on with no mat, but this is AWESOME so far and he was not relying on the mat. You can move a little to help him, but mainly just let him sort it out (as a body awareness game, we are not on a timeline – he doesn’t have to be perfect on this one in order for us to keep moving forward in teeter training :)) Over time, you can delay the reinforcement to when he has all 4 feet on the board rather than use your position to help him out too much.
>>All went well until heard the noises behind the fence and wanted to run over. Massive temper tantrum! I redirected him with some pattern games but I definitely can see that he needs work on this area a lot. I’m going to try to do some sessions I
During the day and at night during high volume Neighborgood times.>>I think this might be the key to getting engagement in different areas! And honestly, it is a little harder in our own backyards in many ways than it is at trials. I am excited to hear that you were able to pull out pattern games and help him out! That is great! Start with easier environments and then yes, I bet you will be able to build up to him being engaged while crazy things are happening all around him 🙂
Great job!!!
Tracy
