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Hi! I hope the Chamber Orchestra broadcast was fun!
He did really nicely on these, and the positions changes did not seem to bother him! He didn’t drive hard with you standing still on the first couple of reps, but then he picked up steam and was bending really nicely without you needing to move – yes!!! And also note how nicely he was leading with his head 🙂 That makes for such nice turns!!
He did need a little bit of help on the first right turn when he had to turn away from you… but as soon as you showed him, I think he transferred the understanding really nicely!!! I agree with your assessment that we are not really seeing a favorite side at the moment – balanced dude!!!>> I tend to see the bitey behavior instead of good tugging when he’s mentally tired. So I got him to do a sort of tug when I tossed it and then switched to food. He hasn’t shown issues in a long time with switching back and forth between food and toys so I figured this was the smart thing to do.>>
100% yes, it was smart training! You focused on the skill and reinforcement he would actually find reinforcing 🙂 If he was a little fatigued and the tugging was going to be a battle, it was a great decision to switch out to food so it was happy-making for you both 🙂
Great job! I think another session or two like this will set you up nicely to do the neutral position reps here.
Tracy
Good morning!
>>He is getting better about leaving the toy on the ground and heading back to the barrel with me.>>
Yay! That will be super helpful for eventual start line routines!
He did well on these! He was a superstar ignoring the toy on the ground til cued and also not leaving the barrel wrap til cued… but he drove ahead more when you threw the reward. It might be that he finds that more exciting plus you had to move faster – or that particular toy was not as exciting ‘dead’ so yo ucan try with the ball or a remote feeder and see (or a cookie in a bowl, that would challenge the ignoring of the reward target LOL!) He is driving ahead really really nicely, so it is mainly a matter of tinkering with the reinforcement to see which he prefers the most.
>> I can’t figure out a good way to get the 2nd wrap around the barrel but he doesn’t seem to take off to the jump until I start to move away. (See at 1:15) >>
It might not be needed because he had zero trouble with ignoring the toy and he was not trying to anticipate! That might change with a different toy out there or food 🙂 You got it to work icely at 1:30. You can also send him around the outside of the barrel on your left, then as he comes around face him, get him connected to your left hand, then turn him away around the barrel like a lap turn – then run (and vice versa on the other side :))
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
Excellent start on your zig zags! Part of the 2 jump session was sorting out the handling to help him zig and zag, but then you had it really nicely on the 3 jump session!! He was doing his lead changes really well, this bodes well for his future slice jumping. He was starting to pick up speed, which means you need to handle the turns sooner especially that first turn after the release – he likes dramatic cues for the first one, then is fine for the other 🙂 At this stage, you can build on this 3 ways:
using 3 wings, spread them out so there is more distance and therefore more speeeeeed 🙂 Speed makes it harder but I think he is fine. Add 2 or 3 feet to each distance and see how it goes!
Also on 3 wings, you can add challenge by squishing it, havig the wings just 3 or 4 feet apart (picture using 4 foot jump bars) – you will have to handle with quickness, but it will challenge him to make very quick zig zag lead changes.
and, using the distance you had here – you can buld up to 5 wings 🙂 No need to do this all in one session, you can spread it out and mix it up.The tunnel-jump game does really look and feel like real agility – so fun! He did a great job! So did you! There were mostly successful reps where he found the jump pretty easily. On the first half of the video, he was on your right – that went super nicely, my only suggestion is to throw the toy sooner so he doesn’t look at you – that probably will mean to throw it as soon as you see the blur exit the tunnel towards the jump 🙂 I was a bit late on the demo video too.
When you switched sides and he was on your left, there were a couple of oopsies and he seemed to have more questions (looking at you). Now, that could be caused by any of these 3 things: he might be stronger on your right than on your left, or your connection was better when he was on your right, or he was a little fatigued. Or any ocmbo of those 🙂 so on the left session, start with him on your left and see how it goes! When the wing went down, I think that was more about the toy throw than him hitting the wing 🙂 At 1:11, he did not take the jump – you were pretty far ahead and not all that connected, so he went into ‘go to the momma’ mode. And similarly at 1:04 when he didn’t take the tunnel – you turned and left sooner, so he was following the momma (pups get sticky when fatigued, so maybe that was it?) So a bit more connection later in the session will help support his lines.>>but when he was a little tired there was clearly no room for error!>>
This statement basically summarizes all handling with young dogs 🙂 I agree 100% – fatigue is real, even when you gave him a break 🙂
For the driving ahead – to add challenge to that, drive all the way to the tunnel entry, touch the tunnel entry… then run to the jump 🙂 He is likely to be ahead of you as he exits the tunnel there and that will help create the driving ahead very nicely 🙂 He did well on all the other challenges and positions, so you can up the ante on that one 🙂
Minny Pinny – wow, look how zippy he is on these! Bending nicely and bouncing! He did well as you changed positions – having him turn away was hard but waiting til he looked to the right (and later on, to the left) was brilliant! It reminded him of what to do and set up success – with lots of balance on the ‘easy’ turns towards you. I did a little happy dance on that last rep, where he turned right on a harder angle when he was turning left there on earlier reps. YAY!!!
Keep playing with that one and we will be able to get into the neutral position work within a couple of sessions. Great job on these!
TracyGood morning!
>>“This is weird mom” is totally an accurate Lennan comment, lol! >>HAHA! I feel like I am getting better at reading his thought bubbles LOL!
GOOD BOY on the right turn away from you on the minny pinny!!!! You set up the session really nicely – TONS of reinforcement for the ‘easy’ lefts and rights then just slid into the first right where he turned away. Smart to start on the easier side too! And he did AWESOME on the left turns too – a small question to get started and and you gave a tiny bit of help… then he did really well! I think at the end you were beginning to introduce the neutral position and he turned right instead of left (perhaps defaulting to the easier side when he wasn’t sure?) So when you introduce the neutral position – start it where the correct side is obvious, which will likely mean that you are in front of the bar that you want him to take. Then you can progressively slide over to be in the center where it is truly hardest. I am very impressed with how well he did here with his directionals!!!
Wing/tunnel games:
>>He loves going straight.>>
This is what I call a “champagne problem” meaning that I know we would eventually like him to turn better on the tunnel exits, but for now it is GREAT that he likes running hard and going straight, because it generally translates to mean he is having fun and going fast – both of which will make for a fun agility career 🙂 And, going straight out of tunnels will help you get him out of starters faster 🙂 Dogs that turn really well don’t do well in starters where we need very few turns – so my personal goal is to always get more “yeeeeehaw!” and straight line running out of tunnels and then gradaully dial it back *after* we have survived starters LOL!!!!On the video – did you try any left turns where you flipped it to do the mirror image? I wonder if he was looking at the other blue tunnel out yonder? He also looked like he was scoping something out when he turned right, I htink there was a wing out there – big visuals drawing his eye? 2 ideas for you on the tunnel exits to the left and right:
– try a ‘heads up’ attention verbal: as he exits the wrap and is going to the tunnel, the verbals would be “tunnnel tunnel LEN left left left”. Some dogs find this very helpful, because the tunnel verbal is stimulating and the tunnel itself is stimulating, so the left or right gets lost in the excitement because it does not yet have a ton of value. But his name does have value, and we often say the dog’s name right before another cue – so that can help him ‘hear’ the left/right better.
– you can do a few reps with the toy pre-placed on the exit line you want – so he exits and turns to it, in accordance with the verbal. For the few few, you can make it visible while he is in the tunnel – then if that goes well, you can get it further and further away so it is less visible but he will still anticipate it being there. Being able to predict exactly how/where to earn the reinforcement is one of the easiest ways to convince dogs to turns with verbals 🙂 And it will get him scoping the line you want, rather than scoping the obstacles. Start it where the are no other obstacles to scope (those are bigger visual that are harder to ignore) then it can go back into places where the visuals are more distracting.
And keep balancing with the go lines like you did at the end – those looked great and we don’t want to lose that skill 🙂
Great job!
TracyGood morning! Sorry to hear about the fires again 🙁 I hope this is the last time you have to deal with them!!
Minny pinny – good session here! ! She was totally figuring out to go around the 3 wings and over the bars when you added them. Yes, try to put the left/right verbals on – it took my brain a while to adjust the first cou;le of times I did it LOL!!! You can start sending her in on harder angles too, to get more bending 🙂
On the send’n’serp:
>>It was a struggle for her to determine what to wrap. I realized I never did proofing wraps and wonder if that’s part of our problem?>>I think it was more of a connection thing than a proofing thing – more eye contact on the sending and less motion will totally help! Here is what I mean:
when she was on your left, turning to her right: on the send, it will help her to commit if you make a stronger connection to her eyes as you step to the wing rather than look forward at the wing and point. The pointing tends to turn our shoulders to the serp jump in the moment, which is what happened at :26. At :30 you had a VERY clear connection and send and she was going – til you said “yes” and stepped away – and she looked at you like “does ‘yes’ mean cookie?” LOL!!
The next rep at :36 was rally nice – great connection and you moved away smoothly so she did the send and the serp really nicely! When you switched sides at :40, she did well!!! It looks like hte wing might have been closer to the jump, which totally helps. My only suggestion there is to keep moving parallel to the serp jump like you did on the last rep on the other side (:36). You pulled away from it a bit here, so staying close and parallel to it is more challenging 🙂The rewards for the individual wing turns looked good – it looks like all the rewards were coming from you hands on those, so she might be watching your hands a lot (value is shifted to coming to you). You can shift it back by tossing rewards out to the other side of the wing (opposite of you) to help her go to them even more independently.
When you revisited the sends’n’serps at 1:07 – the best reps were when you were very connected and not moving that fast, so she could process all the elements. On the send to the wing, you can have her sit at your side, you lead out one step – then connect and release. That can give her the picture of what you want as soon as she starts moving. Then, hold relatively still until she gets to the wing – then slide away slowly to the serp 🙂 Motion is distracting to the pups, so we can move slowly for now and then add back speed in a couple of sessions. It was clever to put the wings together on the last couple of reps! It allowed you to send and slide away – as you move the wing back out, dial back your motion so you are walking – that will show her the line and connection without her feeling the need to chase the momma 🙂
Let me know if that makes sense! You are doing a great job of keeping her rate of success high as you sort out the new stuff – the tricks and also the breaks to get rewards for just the wing were great training moments. She seemed happy to let you work through the harder stuff, thanks to the rewards 🙂
Tracy
A yard ornament LOL!!! Brilliant!!!! Hope you have a chance to pop in tomorrow but I am glad to see you here and also looking forward to seeing you live on Nov 8!!!
Tracy
Howdy! This should do it:
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/Hi Abby! Yay for the first post! He is so cute that I was distracted and had to watch the video a few times. He was a tiny bit disorganized on the first jump, but I think it was because he was looking at something over to his right and then heard the release. My guess is that when he is looking forward, he will not jump it so high. He then got back into a nice form for the 2nd jump! He was nicely head-down which really helps round the form – little dogs can be too “head up” in their jumping. How far apart was this set point? We might experiment with opening it up with 6 more inches to see what the perfect distance is. And, when you have more room, move the reward target out another 6 feet or so to see how he lands and strides to it. Overall he is looking really good!!!
And were you training AND holding the camera at the same time? Impressive!!!
TracyHi Lori! THis was great – you were kinda sideways as you cued the wraps, and that adds a nice commitment challenge! When you were rotated but not moving away fast, he was perfect. When you were rotated and moving fast, it was harder for him to commit to the wing, like at 1:24. So – keep that nice early rotation, but hold the position til he turns his nose around the wing before you move away.
His tunnel work was basically perfect – lovely commitment!! And yes, he was playing with the toy nicely (and not as serious about just working LOL!!) And also great job with the verbals!!!!
The next games either don’t involve running (the slice jump foundations and the left/right proofing can all be done pretty much standing still) and we can tweak the sends’n’serps so you don’t have to run – we will emphasize the send to the barrel. He is looking great so we can make it work for you without running 🙂
Great job!
Tracy
