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Hi! This went really well – she held her stay perfectly, you had plenty of speed – and her commitment was excellent. You were pretty far past the exit barrel when you released and she had no trouble with it – yessss! Both sides looked equally good, and I think she liked it because she was driving through it. If you aren’t already doing so, remember to run back and reward the stay and also to throw a reward back to her on the landing side of the jump, to maintain value for commitment. Next step – put it on a full jump with 2 wings and a low bar, to give her the complete visual. She seems totally ready for that!
TracyGood morning!
Yes, he did a great job on his station! Yay!
On the threadles – this is moving along very nicely 🙂
A few ideas to keep moving forward:
>> And with the trheadles, I think my arm wasn’t far back enough on a couple?>>I thought your arm position was fine! You can play with using a cross-arm to see if it helps him differentiate. I teach both styles of arm use to my dogs.
On the reps where he did not come in (went straight to the Ready Treat) – 2 ideas for you:
– It is possible that the visual of the reward was overriding your physical cue, so you can shake your threadle hand to add a little more saliency to it, and also be sure to look at it (it was hard to see where you were looking, your head was cut off LOL!)
– also it is possible that “ok” as the release was too confusing. In general, OK in that context means “stay on the line” or “take the front side” so you can change the release to the threadle verbal rather than OK. I am pretty sure that my most experienced dog would take the front side of the jump on the OK cue and only threadle on the verbal, even if I am standing in the position you were in 🙂If he misses and heads to the ready treat, you can happily call him back (I use the pup’s name or a “c’mere, silly!” or a chuckle) so he doesn’t get to the RT and wonder why there is no cookie 🙂 Then reset like you did and ask again.
He did really well with the catch moments, after the first one – I think he was surprised like you mentioned (he was anticipating a release based on the context) and you did not have a cookie ready – you can still toss it back even if it is late in that moment, even if he moves forward – the catch word just means “reward arriving back near you” and doesn’t require any behavior from him at that moment to get it. You had the cookie generally ready and tossed quickly on the next catches, and that really helped 🙂 The cookie can be in the threadle hand like you had it, or in the remote hand – as long as you don’t accidentally also toss the remote back to him (I’ve done that by accident LOL!!!)
The serps looked terrific! He did anticipate the first verbal as a release forward (you said catch) but you still got the reward to him. So in those very first moments (which tend to simulate start lines at trials, where he is most anticipating a release forward to the jump) – have the cookie ready if you are going to do a catch toss, so you can say it and toss it immediately 🙂 The rest were great because he seemed to remember that the catch as a possibility 🙂
This is an appropriate place for the OK release, because we do want him on the line he sees and to take the front of the jump. I thought he rocked it! Even with motion – no problem. So, you can ramp it up: start next to his station, walk through the serp line on the landing side of the jump with your serp arm back and release (keep moving) when you get near the exit wing. You can start off oving slowly but add speed if he is finding it easy 🙂 And of course sometimes don’t release forward, sometimes toss back a reward or walk all the way around and hand deliver a reward 🙂Great job here!
TracyGood morning!
Oh wow, where are you? Looks *amazing*!!! Brilliant use of vacation structure for a little bit of agility training LOL!
His head turns look terrific – the 2nd wrap is looking really good (he does need a bit of a hand cue for it, which is perfectly fine, I really prefer is the dog does not keep offering a zillion wraps in a row LOL!) but also note how he is leading with his head on the first approach as well: that is ideal and you can totally reward it! So when he whips his head around on the first approach you can click that and then toss the reward out past you so he completes the full circle. And since he is doing so nicely leading with his head, you can start a little further back to challenge him to do it with more speed coming into it 🙂>> Lennan seems to totally get it when he is turning to the right but not quite yet turning to the left.>>
I think this is when he was offering 2 in a row to the right, but not to the left? Yes, he did offer the doubles on the right – there was the tiniest bit of physical cue (you were leaning in a little) for the 2nd right turn, and there was no lean-in on the left. And also he might has slightly more ‘slither’ to the right than to the left at the moment 🙂 So keep helping with the hand cue for the left – you will see it even out quite nicely! I also do lots of flexibility games, like puppy stretches and weaving through my legs to help even out the flexibility on both sides. But I think he is really understanding the concept of “turn your head” on both sides and that makes me do a happy dance!
>>Also, when does this course end for posting videos?
Last day is Sept 15th, which gives us time to turn it all around for part 2 🙂
Enjoy your vacation!!
TracyGood morning!
>> Kinda like the rhythm in America – lalala – lalala – na – na – na.
Perfect way to put it – without needing to hear it, I know exactly what you mean LOL!!!
>>You asked about the verbal cue for the 360 backside. Min’s is na-na-na, but I don’t use it much and I’m not sure it is too close to the lalala backside slice even if I try to draw out the na-na’s a bit more than the faster triplet sounding lalala.>>
In the video, they were very distinct, probably distinct enough… but the question is: can you make the naaa-naaa-naaaa sound like that when you are running hard? Yes, I am actually the person that tests the verbals at a run in my field, without the dogs (ask the neighbors). It is possible that the lalala and nanana will begin to sound the same, but the only way to know is to run while you do it 🙂 You can also review Min’s videos where maybe you used both in the same run and see what they sounded like in the heat of the moment?
One thing I have noticed about the lalala and the nanana cues, as an outside ear: for whatever reason (not sure why or where it comes from) many many folks who use the lalala and the nanana cues have added an ‘upbeat’ of “ah” so the verbals end up being AH-lalala and AH-nanana. Waaaaay too similar, I suggest NOT adding the upbeat because we want the dogs to respond to the very first part of the verbal and not wait for the complete sentence or the physical cue. The AH makes it all sound the same by adding the same sound/pitch/rhythm and also ended up making the lalala and nanana sound the same. I will tell you that when we ‘tested’ the dogs who had the upbeats, they really did not understand the difference between the lalala and nanana. Food for thought!
>>I think Susan deliberately picked 2 similar sounding words for the backside cues, but I’m wondering if that is confusing for the dog since they jump the slice and the 360 differently.>>
Did she say why she wanted similar cues, and does she still do it that way? Yes, both cues send the dog away to the other side but the rest of the behavior is entirely different.
On the video – this is going well! The cute barrel is getting a nice workout. Small details:
On the backside slices, try not to help him serp back in on the jump when you move away on the serp line. For now, drop the toy in behind you on the ‘landing’ spot as you serp through, so you don’t need any arm movement to help. I think the bump in the grass is probably not salient enough for him to hop over in this game, so you can add a low bar to a jump when you get back home for him to default to (he is old enough and coordinated enough to do this on a low bar, methinks :))
When you were doing different version of the backside slice, like a FC or a post turn, he came back over easily because the physical cue really supported it nicely.
He did really well on the 360s! A little distraction here and there but no real questions about the skill from him. You can crank up the excitement and the challenge by adding more speed/motion: first by letting him chase you at a run to get the toy, after he completes the circle. Then, add in more and more motion as he is doing the wrap – eventually you will be able to do this at a run 🙂Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning! Great stuff on these videos!!
Moving the prop further away really helped, you can also reward at your hand before the turn away. Unlike the serp or threadle, there is no automatic turn away or default behavior on this – it is cued – so feel free to keep balance on your by reward him for coming to your hand. He was doing a good job coming all the way to you on the tandem turns but he was anticipating a little on the lap turns and turning himself away a little too soon (overchiever LOL!) So the balance of cookie from your hand for coming ALL the way to you and then another cookie for going to the prop will help keep things nicely balanced 🙂
TUnnel whammys – going really well! And since we are putting the threadle on a verbal, it should not matter what the physical cue is, theoretically LOL! I htink he did really well here and he seemed like he was having a great time. Fast and fun!!!
Toy place/racetrack:
>Last time you wondered whether he doesn’t want to play with the toy – the problem is he REALLY wants to play with the toy.>>
Got it!
>>I think just a month ago I would have said that he could be difficult to engage in toy play, but lately he has lots of toy drive and overall his food drive has declined. He’s started weight shifting back and doing some shaking the toy to death. >>
This is a normal shift, and a good thing! The food drive will come up again and it will all end up being in a nice balance.
>>But he’ll jump as high as my face to try to grab it. In this session I was working on tug, release, reward with tug again.
I am glad you left a lot of the toy play in the video! One thing I noticed is that – yes, he is doing a great job of releasing the toy. But, and this might be where the waters are a little muddy: when you cued the get it for him to jump up – you are moving the toy high and fast, either just before or simultaneous to the get it verbal. That might mean that he is not responding to the verbal, but that he thinks the higher/faster toy movement is the cue to jump for it. When you keep the toy low or slowly put it in your pocket: no problem.
So you can change how you use your get it cue:
tons of rewards for him ignoring the toy moving fast and up after he releases it (you can toss treats into the grass in that first moment of impulse control, then add duration and reward from hand, and eventually wait for him to offer a sit.and when you do want him to get the toy – get the toy into the spot where you want it – hold it there for 2 or 3 seconds – then give the verbal without moving. That can help isolate the verbal as the cue, and not the toy movement. That should result in less launching for the toy 🙂
Let me know if this makes sense 🙂One other idea (I do this with my 2 toy-crazy pups) – the toy is present, the toy is swinging around – but the toy is not the reward 🙂 It is hanging out of my pants or tucked in my arm pit (classy!) but I use food rewards. It helps to desensitize the thrill of the toy being in the picture LOL!
>>I mixed the toy play up with running the racetrack (kind of…I keep accidentally doing a front cross instead of the second post turn!).
I think the racetrack/cross elements on the video look GREAT! No worries about the extra FC LOL!!!
>> It was frustrating though because after a couple barrels he was starting to get more focused on the toy in my pocket. Perhaps 5 “obstacles” may be a bit more than he’s ready for?>>
Possibly, he is really young so you might take more of a ping pong approach: 1 barrel then 3 then 2 then 1 then 4 then 2 and so on – with more rewards thrown out past the barrel (and less on you) to keep the value out on going to the barrels and not on coming back to you (loves da momma and also da momma has cookies and toys!) I think he did really well when the toy was on the table!
But one other thing I see – if your connection is not spot on, he moves to you rather than commit to the barrel. It is super subtle from him – it is more obvious with other dogs when it happens. In the demo video, I believe I left in a spot where Contraband slammed into my butt because my connection broke LOL! Not subtle. It *looks* like the pup is grabbing for the toy, in the moment – but they really aren’t – they are just losing info and either coming to us or trying to blind cross to the other side. The disconnection is subtle – I had to play it in slow motion: You made a very lovely connection at 2:37 – then before he passed you at 2:38, you looked ahead (broke connection). So he didn’t know what to do and came to you (which is better than slamming into you like Contraband did, OUCH! LOL!). Compare it to 2:57 where you made a great connection and maintained it until he was past you. Subtle to us, massive to the pups! It gets MUCH easier as they get more experienced, we don’t have to be quite as perfect with connection.
And throwing rewards out past the barrel (rather than delivering from your hand or near you) really helps: whenever I get a question from the dog (or slammed into), it is a reminder than the value is shifting to me (and away from the barrel) so I remind myself to put more value back past the barrel (and away from me) for going to it even when my connection isn’t perfect 🙂
Let me know if this makes sense! He is doing really well, so we are able to get into the tiny subtle details of the training – so fun!!!!
Tracy
Good morning!
The first video with the porridge heating was indeed interesting, as you mentioned in the video 🙂I think he was in an optimal state of arousal for working – you had his pretty undivided attention in a very happy way, which is what we were going for. Now, why the downs versus sits? Based on how he did the downs the first couple of time (sit then into the down) it is entirely possible that what we are seeing is a conditioned response to stimuli in a specific environment. What I mean by that is: food, in your indoor area here, elicits a ‘offer behaviors because we are shaping’ response – so when you didn’t instantly mark the sit, he moved on to the next behavior in his repertoire (down) which is likely to have been highly reinforced with food in that room (beds nearby, shaping area, sister in a down nearby, etc). Now, the toy elicits a very different response: in that area, you probably don’t shape behaviors (like downs or hanging on beds) with a toy – the toy means games like ‘tug-sit-tug’ or stays to releases for agility-related behaviors. You were very careful to be upright and not pressuring down towards him when you cued the sit, I didn’t really see anything different other than what was in your hand as perceived reinforcement (cookie or toy) which leads me to think that the cookie or toy is playing a role in it. So I think your porridge heating is going great and we are getting insight into how to elicit behavior we want! When you are going to shape or train something, choose the reinforcement that is MOST likely to help elicit the behavior you want. You can get great porridge with either treat or toy and so then you can choose depending on the environment and what you want to elicit. Let me know if that makes sense 🙂
You can balance in the sit with cookies in the environment by using a perch or something that is easier to sit on than down on. You can also do super quick rewards for the sits in the presence of treats, either hand delivered or tossed back high behind him (which is a response cost, he has to get up to get them, which makes it less likely he will offer a down because the down is a less efficient way of getting the treats in that case :)) And if you give a verbal sit cue, don’t reward the down – just call him out and ask for it again with the super quick reward.The other thing I noticed was that he needs a bit of a physical cue on his turn cues (spins) – when you had cookies you were helping with a small physical cue (which is fine :)) and when you had the toy, you were stationary and he didn’t quite know how to respond. It might be partially reinforcement-related but worth it to see if he can do it with the physical cue with both types of reinforcement in view.
On the rocking horses video:
So convenient to have a rocking horse AirBnB! Ha!!! And a built in other-dog distraction – perfect. It might have felt annoying in the moment but it is a priceless training opportunity! He did well with all that. At :28, did you cue a down or did her offer it? I think he offered it but I had trouble telling if you gave a soft cue or not because my old dog is barking his head off at the moment LOL
Kal did a great job generalizing the rocking horses – new items, new location, AND his sister was barking. Excellent commitment which allowed you the freedom to do crosses, spins, race track – all looked good!!!! Generalizing is so hard and he seemed to find it easy 🙂He was offering a sit for the treats in porridge heating round 2 at the end, also he still needs the little hand cue for the spins on the flat (and that is fine :)) So that might be an environment thing: at home, down is a well-paying job 🙂 and out on the road, sits are better paid with either type of reinforcement. Interesting! Either way – he was really focused and did a great job in the different environment.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>I have a question about wraps. I don’t like my dogs to take out the wing. I’ve always wondered if there is a way around that. Maybe just use wingless? Thoughts?>>
Do you mean when he was touching the wing with his side here in the first video? I agree, we don’t accidentally want to create a positive conditioned response to touching the wing 🙂 Based on this video, all you need to do is change the timing and placement of the reward – you were marking his head turn to the wrap as you were moving forward (spot on!) and plopping the toy in position (also spot on) and then he was touching the wing/moving it as he was tugging with you coming the rest of the way around it. So, a couple of ideas:
continue marking the same correct decision but toss the toy way back and let him retrieve it, rather than hold the other end and have him tug with you
continue marking the same correct decision, but toss a cookie way back to the other side.The tossed rewards might seem like we are creating more of an extension exit but I promise you that you will not get an extension exit on this wrap cue 🙂 Partially because the handling cue is VERY strong (you were really great with your line) and partially because we change timing and placement again:
– keeping moving forward and don’t mark until he has finished the 360 wrap, then either toss the reward back to him or have him drive to you to get the reward. (This should also eliminate touching the wing). If he touches the wing on any of these, play with this on a barrel or cone until the mechanics are sorted out (his and yours :)) – we can always institute a “no touching’ rule as part of the criteria but I don’t think he will need that.His tunnel/papas are going really well! He had a little question on the first tunnel but I think you changed motion for a heartbeat and that caught his attention. On the papa threadles – keep moving forward without turning your hand or turning your feet to the tunnel entry until *after* he has turned his head to it. That way, the papa cue is giving permission to self-send (is that a word?) to the correct end of the tunnel and he won’t have to wait for a hand or motion cue. It will be especially useful when you will not want to be turning and heading towards the exit, but rather when you will keep running past the entry of the tunnel.
He did a GREAT job of accelerating out of the tunnel with your TOY verbal – you can now start to add a GO GO GO verbal to put the directional on it (followed by the toy cue).Overall, he is looking great!!!! You are accomplishing all-the-things with a high rate of success and therefore a happy dog. Happy dance!
>>I have questions about your cue for ‘out’ but I’m too tired to type them out right now. Lol.
Ha! I have 4 cups of coffee on board, feel free to send over any questions LOL!!
>>And I have actually started working on stay. God forbid I actually have to train my dogs. Eek.
Bwahahahahaha I feel that!!!! In this class, there are 2 littermates to my younger pup and a very close cousin to my older pup… all 3 of them are far better trained than either of my pups LOL!! I definitely have built in plenty of feral time LOL!!!
Great job here, let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>>We did some more rocking horse with more space outside. I think he did a good job!
Totally agree – his focus in a high distraction environment was *awesome*. That is really exciting!!!!
>> He got a little sticky one some of the reps.
Yes – I think the rep you are talking about was at :22 – you had connection then turned and pointed forward to the wing, so that broke the connection and he didn’t go (it is easier to see in slow motion LOL!!) That is pretty common with young dogs (on the demo video, that is where my pointy slams into my butt LOL!) so 2 things to help:
– your arm position is important at this stage (it won’t always be this important) so think of your hand being magnetically attached to his collar (not literally or actually attached, you won’t be touching him :)) – when he is behind you, you hand reaches back to his collar. And as he arrives near your and passes you – your hand will be low and moving with his collar, as if drawn there magnetically. Being low and moving with him will help with the commitment. When you (we) point forward ahead of the pups, that is the broken connection moment and they get sticky (or slam into us). So you basically your dog-side hand doesn’t really point out ahead of you or point at the barrel, it kinda moves with him. Your leg and connection and motion are what is cuing the barrel.– the other thing that will help is throwing more reward out past the barrel. He got a TON of rewards in this session – yay! You can shift the placement though – rather than the rewards being next to you or coming when he is moving back towards you, you can switch to tossing the treat to the other side of the barrel. This should reward moving away from you, which will help. And that way, your arm position won’t matter as much 🙂
>>I also am trying to make sure I really connect with him, but then as I have my head/chest turned toward him, I feel a little disoriented as to where the other wing is and my line can get a little wonky. How can I keep connected with him eithout getting lost? I know this seems so basic lol, maybe I’m overthinking it with him.>>
That is actually a great question, not basic at all LOL!!! I thought your connection was overall really strong, which si what these baby dogs need 🙂 I think the lower arm position will really help, because it will keep your eyes lower which also widens your field of peripheral vision. The other thing that helps is to mark your running line off of what you *can* see: in this case, the barrel you are doing the FC on. So if you watch the barrel you can see and choose your running line in relation to that one, then the next barrel (the one you cannot see) will come into view automatically when you are closer. Marking the line is something we do in course running all the time for when we can’t see the next obstacle without disconnecting.
The Minny Pinny is looking really good!! Definitely smart to add the verbals, he was ready. You can alternate the left and right turns more frequently – every other go-round or every 2 reps, rather than after 4 or 5 or so. That keeps things more in balance and helps him listen to the different cues. He was bending really nicely, leading from the head and using his body really well! You can move the two outer wings in a little bit closer so they are not at 90 degree angles, more like 70 degree angles from the middle jump, to see if he will now start to bounce while bending 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
I think on the first couple of reps and then on the other side, you can move over a little to the exit line so he sees the barrel more (the barrel will help cue him to wrap) But you were really good about getting the reinforcement where it needed to be and that helped him sort it out nicely! You can even plop the reward in earlier – as soon as he is looking at the bump, toss it to the other side of the barrel. You can also use a bit more leg – you can step back with your leg to help cue the wrap along with your hand, than can help propel him to the bump. It is a really difficult behavior (because the ‘natural’ cue says “don’t take it” so we are overriding the pressure of you turning towards him). He is doing really well – you might want to try adding the motion of walking behind it (Advanced Level) and then release as you arrive at the barrel -that might actually feel less awkward 🙂Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyThat fox barrel is so cute!!!
Yes, I think this is correct and going nicely! It might feel like you were stepping to the side but I think it was more because you needed to let him get past you. When you get this outdoors, you can start further back – so he will go faster so you can run right behind his tail more 🙂 His commitment looks terrific, it seems like he has no questions about finishing his commitment job! Yay!! Have you decided on your backside wrap verbal?
T
Good morning!
Yes, the hardest part of this style of backside training is to say the LaLa to him and not to the barrel 🙂 Saying it to the dog’s eyeballs when he is behind you will cause you to turn at your waist a bit and pop your outside shoulder forward of your body, which is the cue he is reading (not the eye contact). If we look a little ahead, the outside shoulder ends up behind our bodies which is more of a front side cue. When Your 2nd rep was more to his eyes so he got it, 3rd rep (:38) was more to the barrel so he took the front. 1:00 was more to his eyes – and voila! Backside LOL! Same with 1:26 and after that 🙂 Yay! Looking good!
It also helps if you move for 2 or 3 or 4 steps up the line before you release him with the lala – that way he can read the line of motion to find the backside and it will be much easier to move further across the bar as you add challenge. You were generally releasing and moving within a step, so he had to read the motion and hear the verbal all at once. He seems to have a fabulous stay, so this is a great time to put it to use 🙂
Nice job here!
Tracy
Hi!
>>so I think I might use left and right to be loose and loop and ri-ri as tight turns.
Perfect! That sounds like a good plan!
I think he did really well with the threadles – but yes. do less with your arm to help 🙂 At :47 he started to sort out that he he had to leave the hand cue in order get the tunnel, so now keep going with that concept – the hand cues both the in-then-out so he doesn’t need to wait til it shows him the out element.
About rewarding… – was he just not terribly interested in the toy? You can use a ball for this, or a manners minder out at the end of the tunnel (the remote feeders actually add a decent amount of challenge in the impulse control department too!
>> I also will have to add some balance in my next session because I’ve been doing about 99% treadles lately – time to do some “tunnels” too.
Perfect! I think this will be easy for him.
Serp countermotion – This is also going really well! You can reward sooner to help get the ball rolling at the start of each session. As he is looking at the bump, you can toss the cookie back to the landing spot on the other side of the barrel. That will also help keep his eyes off of you as you move forward, so he will be looking at the barrel & bump. He is better at looking ahead when he is turning to his left (2nd half of the video) than to his right – interested! But either way, that earlier throw and having the treat land on the other side of the barrel (away from you) will totally help solidify this, especially as you go to the advanced level with even more motion.
Porridge heating:
>> I’ve been working with him on going silent and holding the toy close to me as a cue to let go (for now, until I can start adding a verbal). And he was releasing and not jumping much.>>
Yes, he did really well! Remember to reward the release by giving him the toy right back as a reward, rather the cuing a behavior. The immediate toy-as-reward for the release makes a big impact and gets a faster and more reliable out 🙂
The toy play went really well, he was engaged and in a good state of arousal (his sit at the end of the toy session was spot on!) It was a little challenging – his responses to certain behaviors were not quite as shaprt as they might have been with cookies? But he did get them on the 2nd cue – and so it was a good oportunity to work through stimulation.
Cookies are naturally less stimulating – so his responses were very good on the first cue for the most part and his sit was also really good. So, with food (because it gets him slightly “cooler” than toys): if you want him “hotter”, you can cue a trick, run a few steps, then deliver the dancing cookie. I think that will bring him into a similar state as a toy would and can be super useful for places where either he is not yet comfy playing with a toy, or you don’t want to use a toy (I often use food right before I go into the ring, not a toy). Being able to use both and then choose based on the situation is ideal, so he is off to a VERY good start with this! It is definitely a game to bring into as many places as you can 🙂
>>And I did a session of the left/right with less motion and we was ticking the bumps/bars less. I might do one more session like that and then add motion back.
Great!! I think that is a good plan. The ticking will stop when we educate him about the specifics of jumping and when he doesn’t have to multi-task as much.
>>How long will you be taking homework videos for this class? We’re off on vacation next Wednesday…
Wow, that sounds *wonderful*, I hope you have a fabulous time!!!!!!! I figured generally the 15th would be the last day, but if you have videos after thatm feel free to put them here and I will take a look 🙂
Have fun!
TracyHi!
Thank you for the kind words 🙂 I appreciate your willingness to try all these new things, you and Kai looked AWESOME!!!!
>> I have a concern about working live with Kai as he will be 5 mo old ( not as old as you desire) and we aren’t as far along as this class went( we are working on it).
You are more than welcome to work live! We can break things down (or build them up) as needed – I let the pups lead the way on that! Some of the games will build on what we are already doing but also there are plenty that are brand new and no one knows yet (I guess I better teach my own puppies to get the games on video hahaha!) My smaller pup, Elektra, is 5.5 months old so she is very close in age to Kai.
>>Our next video is coming!!
Yay! Can’t wait!!
>> Ps.. i feel too many of your current students excel way beyond me.. i showed 2x in agility and both lost both of those dogs to death/disabilty issues. Starting again is so much fun and you are teaching me amazing skills not even approached by my past classes.>>
I am so sorry to hear about losing your previous agility dogs. Heartbreaking! And you are not behind anyone else – we all have moments of glory with the puppies where everything goes perfectly! And moments where it feels like we have never picked up a leash in our lives. Ha! I try to leave some of those in the video 🙂 In many ways, you have an edge because you are more of a ‘blank slate’ – nice young puppy and you don’t have any baggage from former techniques (which means you don’t have to unlearn anything, you can start fresh :)) The mechanics of training are the hardest part and those just take practice – and you are doing a great job with that, especially with such a quick puppy 🙂
Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
This was not a bad session really, there were lots of really good parts and there were parts where he was clearly communicating what he *thought* the release was and where the value was 🙂The first :28 seconds looked awesome! And there were other really good reps in there too. No need to release to just you – the configuration dictates the chain of in then out – which is why at 1:07, he came towards you then back out (on the other side of the jump because you were blocking him, so he was just moving the chain over).
Now about breaking the stays on the station: I think 2 things were happening with that. First, I think he was predicting that when you assumed the serp arm position, the release was next – so on the reps at :45 and :57, he held the stay and self-released on the same rhythm that your releases came earlier in the game. Some dogs are very rhythmic, practically musical, and Lazlo appears to be one of those for sure. Dogs are brilliant predictors, so that is what he appeared to be doing. Smartie! And, second, the value of the serp game is very high right now (yay!) so he was happy to leave the station to engage in the game (and, because the value of the serp game AND the station are both high, he did not appear to get frustrated or disengage when things were not rewarded – that is great!)
So, a small tweak for you should help (I do this ALL the time because it turns out that I am VERY predictable according to all of my dogs HAHA!): throw rewards back to him on the station as you move into potision and more importantly: when you assume the serp position. Make the rhytm unpredictable 🙂 What I mean by that is: as you move into position, put your arm out – then throw the cookie back to him (he is going to leave the station to get it, which is perfectly fine). That helps him understand that the position does not necessarily predict the release: only the verbal predicts the release. Because he learned it originally from a cookie toss, he might read the position & hand signal as the cue and needs more understanding that the release is the cue in this case.
You did reward him really nicely on the station, but it was with you always going back to him to deliver it. So, by showing him the position and then, while you show the position, throwing a reward to him – that will help clarify that he should wait for the verbal and not try to anticipate when the hand arrives in position 🙂
So – yes you can totally keep working on the stay as a separate thing, but you don’t need to stop advancing the games! You just need to transfer the stay into the games by helping clarify what the release is 🙂 I don’t think of it as a few steps backwards, I think of it is a clarification.
Let me know if that makes sense!
Tracy
