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Hi again! Her hand touching falls into the “well, that was easy!” category LOL!! She loves to nose target as you mentioned- made me giggle too, what a good girlie!!! Her nose targeting is already very strong, yay! My only suggestion here, for now, is to tweak the placement of reward: when she touches the target, leave your target hand out to the side where she touched it – then bring the cookie hand over to the target hand and plop the cookie into the target hand (or deliver to her right in front of it). That will keep her from hitting and then moving across the front of you to get the cookie (as we build this, it will make more sense LOL!!)
Great job 🙂
TracyHi! It was so fun “seeing” everyone last night!! The puppies were rockstars and so cute 🙂 We had folks there from every corner of the country – it was really cool to see!
Little Caper is so fun!!! She is smart and quick!! The foot targeting looks great – the hat is an excellent choice (I used a hat with my now-2-year-old, Hot Sauce). Tt appears that she has done some foot targeting so she picked this up really quickly! You can use it as an opportunity to work on quick mechanics and transitions: have your cookies and clicker ready and your tuggie tucked into your armpit… all before you drop the hat in to start the shaping. It took a moment to get organized at the start of the video, but then you were more like organized with a quick transition at the start of the 2nd part of the session. Then after a few clicks & treats for the great paw hitting, you can present the tuggie with one hand and grab the hat with the other LOL (3rd arms are useful here too). The super quick mechanics are not necessarily required for this game, but this game is a great one for getting really fast on the prop/treat/clicker/toy mechanics for later on and more complex behaviors. Because she is already so quick, clever and coordinated, you are going to need to be quick too LOL!!
Great job here! Maybe do one more short session just like this to really get the prop value up and then go right into the Sends game that we did last night!
T
Hi!
This is great first session, he is so keen and smart!! Hard to believe he is so young!!!
The mat is clever and does make it more salient! And I don’t mind the other dogs barking if the pup doesn’t mind – it is more that we don’t want the other dogs right in there, honing in, getting in the way, wandering through, LOL!! That is a distraction the pups don’t need 🙂
He did well here! He likes to look at Da Momma, so we can adjust the placement of reinforcement to help him look at the prop more: you can drop the reinforcement right into the center of the ring for the first mini-session, then have him leave it to come play with the toy – then remove the toy and when he goes back to the ring, plop the treat into it. That will raise quick value for the ring. When you play with the toy, lift the ring up for a heartbeat so when you are ready to go back to having him offer, you can re-introduce the ring and that makes it really salient – so he will look at it and hit it more, which gives you really good stuff to reward 🙂If you feel like you are needing 3 arms to get this all done… then you are doing it right hahahaha! I always feel that way with each new pup 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyFirst one into the pool! Hurrah! Great job on these sessions!
First up, spoon shaping 🙂 It is a VERY clever prop, considering where this goes next – and since you probably don’t know what we are using it for, you will find this to be a good choice!
Nice job getting good clicks in for spoon hitting! One suggestion to make the mechanics faster so you can get him even more focused on it: have the cookies and the clicker in the same hand – then present the spoon off to the side. When he hits it: click then, leaving the spoon where it is, bring the cookie hand over to it and plop a cookie reward onto the spoon or into your palm of the spoon hand for him to eat. That will keep him even more focused on the spoon and also will keep him from looking at you or following your hands. Then it is easy for him to tap it again because it is right there. Every now and then you can toss a cookie away to restart, or break it off with toy play like you did here – he did GREAT getting back on the toy after the treats! Yay!!!
Great job!
Tracy
Yay! It is a family affair! First cousins for our little girls, and Contraband is a cousin too. Elektra is related somewhere way back there (I forget how) and when I look deeply at the pedigrees – Export is also related.
Nacho and Contraband – not related at all haha!!!!
See ya later!
T
Welcome to you and Wingman!!!!! One of these days we will have to have a puppy meetup in Floyd 🙂 He is an adorable dude and it sounds like his brains match his cuteness 🙂 can’t wait to see more!!!
TracyWelcome Lisa and Caper!!!! I miss seeing you all at the NE trials!!! Caper is a gorgeous pup, we are going to have a blast 🙂 Yay!!!
TracyHello and welcome to you and baby Mae!!! She is so cute!!! 5 months is the perfect age to work through this, I’m excited to see her!!!
THellooooo and welcome to you and Vanessa!! I love the name!!! Can’t wait to see her 🙂 Yay!!
About the profile photo – you’re not old lol! I still don’t know how to use most of the functions on this site. But we can change photos:
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/Hope that helps and see ya later!!
TracyHello and welcome!!! Being a bit older is actually good, you’ll make quick progress 🙂 and being a bit more thinky is GREAT – we want the dogs to have understanding before we add speed so I am glad Ria wants to sort it out before blasting through it. Have fun!!
TracyHello Glenda and Ribsy!!!!! Welcome 🙂 I’m so excited to see you and Ribsy 🙂 and oops, I think it screwed up the dates, it should be Tuesday. I will fix!!
TracyHello and welcome! She is the cutest critter and I love her name (so many nickname possibilities :)) And of course now i must figure out how she is related to my dogs 🙂 yay!!!
Hi! He is a funny creature on the set point and ladder – he kind of finds them to be yawners. LOL! Not a lot of challenge, so he doesn’t really power through them. He is just like my Voodoo – totally like “whatevs” on a regular set point or ladder grid. But…. add some challenge and some action, and GAME ON! LOL! Kaladin likes the challenge of the zig zag grid, definitely not a yawn-fest for him. But he appears to think the set point is dullsville. His form is really nice! But he just doesn’t want to power through because it doesn’t seem to be all that stimulating for him, even when you are running. But on the mini ladder grid, especially after wrapping the fox barrel? Oh heck yes, game on! He zipped around the barrel and powered through the ladder, both on the regular wrap and the tandem turn. So cool! Ok, noted, then: we will just give him jumping challenges that are challenging and action-packed. He doesn’t lose his head over it, he just finds the regular grids to be a bit dull LOL! And he certainly didn’t lose his form when there was more speed and challenge, he added power and push. Cool! Noted LOL! And when you went back to the set point at the end, after the running – no loss of balance, same good form. Makes me chuckle! Good boy!
>>You recommended doing the progressive grid with different intervals. First 9 and 12 ft. Would that be a 5ft-9ft-12ft spacing?
Yes.
>>I think he’s going to short stride the 9ft one.
Yes – 9 feet is an awkward distance – he is either going to have to bounce or add a small one stride. Either way, we are asking him to solve the puzzle – balance is the correct answer, even if he bounces or one strides.
>> Then how does the 15ft come in? (assuming that should be an extended stride) – 5ft-9ft-15ft? (hope it’s not 5-12-15 or I’m going to start running out of yard)>>
Well, I was going to say 5-12-15 LOL!!! But it can also be 5-15 if you only have room for 3 jumps, and save the longer grids for when you have indoor access.
Great job here!
Tracy
