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Hi!
>Had an interesting thing happen in class on Monday, where Reacher missed the weaves twice. He hasn’t messed up any weaves in quite some time and I’m not sure why. Not fretting, but it’s interesting. The video was really far away so I zoomed in in editing so it’s pretty hard to see. I thought maybe it was the color of the poles blending in too much but I’m not sure. The entry was tucked pretty close to the wall back there but I’m not feeling that’s so much it either.>
Yeah, it was odd for him! It could have been there was some visual clutter with the weaves near the wall? Have you done any skin rolling with him (gently lifting his skin and rolling down his back with your thumb and fingers)? That can tell you if he is tight anywhere. You have had weird weather lately and I have found that the sudden shifts from cold to warm to cold/ice/snow can make my dogs pretty tight.
>The other part of the video is just some running to try to do our little test of speed. You’re welcome for the comedy relief of watching me run back and forth as well. 😂>
OK that was pretty hilarious, you were running in full extension and he was kind of loping along LOL!! I think on the very last one, though, we got the closest to his full extension. You might need to do it as a long restrained recall, to great food or a fur toy? And we got a good view of him running hard on the line from :14-:18 on the video. He was in big extension there (and really fast!), so it would be interesting to see if you can get an at-home bunny chasing video to compare it to 🙂
>but it’s the desire to go fast that’s missing in agility I think. I just wish he was a little more intense about it. But I’m still hoping that will come. >
Agility has a lot of complexity and that requires a lot of thinking. For the dogs that we want to think MORE? We add more complexity in the form of turns, hard lines, etc. For the dogs we want to think LESS? We take out the complexity, making the puzzle easier to solve… so they can just feel the wind rushing past their ears as they race around the course.
I don’t think he lacks desire to go fast, and I think he is plenty extended on the big lines. But he might also be thinking hard to solve the technical challenges (backside, threadles, etc etc) and that can cause dogs to go slower in order to find the right answers. So you can experiment with taking out the technical stuff and just let him rip! Approach everything like it is a speedstakes class: big fun lines and lots of blind crosses, etc. Not thinking, just fast 🙂 And then structure dictates the rest: you can see how his body naturally moves in extension, and get some stretching conditioning stuff going to give him more ‘reach’ in the front and rear. Length of spine and shoulder angulation plays a role in this and can increase speed because they cover ground more easily.
Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Hi!
>I wrapped her feet for the first time. I didn’t get her first turn on video because I forgot to press play. But here are the second and third turns. I wrapped her front feet only for her first turn. For the second turn I wrapped both front and rear feet. And then went back to front feet only for her third turn. The wraps on her front feet definitely showed wear so I think I’ll keep wrapping her front feet on these mats. I wasn’t sure if I should wrap the rear or not but they didn’t seem to have a much wear as the front wraps.>
I think this went really well – she didn’t seem fussy about the wraps and she did really well finding her lines and turning too! Yay!
For agility, I find that wrapping front feet helps with landing and wrapping back feet helps with the brakes needed to collect for turns… so I wrap both front and rear 🙂 The front feet generally will show more wear but the dogs do use the wrap on the back feet too.
I think she did really well on these! The hardest part was the circle wrap on the first part of the video:
At :24 – you did a super good job getting her committed to the backside wrap there! I think you left for the next line with a bit too much speed and not enough looking behind you at the landing spot to support her line, so she did not take the jump. For now, try to leave with less explosiveness and a lot of connection to the landing spot behind you: then throw her reward back to the landing spot. That can shift value to the bar, rather than having her follow you for the reward. And that will also make it so you can build up to running away explosively and without a ton of connection.
At :36, we had an example of Lu being able to see ALL of your cues: you had converging pressure but she was still coming in, the nyou kept moving and pinged your shoulders towards her which pushed her away to the threadle wrap. Good girlie!
At :48, you were blocking the backside wing a bit by facing forward/forward arm blocking connection. I think the TW cues also have a forward arm s she might have been confused about which cue it was.
You had the wing more visible at 1:34 and 1:54, and on the rep at 1:54 you supported the commitment to the takeoff really well. She turned beautifully!!!
When you tried getting the threadle wrap after it, it worked best in flow like at 2:01. When you did it just on the threadle wrap jump, it looks like you were blocking the line a bit and it made it look like you were cueing the front of the jump.
The big line at the end looked really good!!! She seems to be finding her jumps really well on those big fast lines and not running past stuff. YAY!!!
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
>Then I started overthinking it – what was getting rewarded, passing the RC or the weave / tunnel performance. >
I’d say both are being rewarded! Think of it a ‘passing the RC to do the tunnel/weave/etc’
>Do I need to think of this as a chain, with ignoring the RC as just part of the chain? obstacle – ignore the RC – obstacle = reward.>
Basically yes – technically more of a sequence, because each element is cued by your motion but it is all linked 🙂
And also, I don’t want to risk having the lotus ball appear anywhere near the ring crew because that could tip over into enhancement learning where we accidentally pair the RC person with food… making the RC even more ‘visible’ to his brain. I’d rather have the weaves/tunnel/jumps more visible and the RC person fade into the background 🙂
> I’ve committed to picking up a person who comes out from Manhattan by train and I’m too nice to tell her she’s on her own! >
You are a good person to do that! So kind to help her out!!!!
>The mat floor instructor has a hard time following my plan, she’s forever throwing in off script challenges that cause him to fail – doesn’t get incremental increases in difficulty so now I ask her to stay seated. >
Good for you for figuring out how to get her to not create failure! You can add in keeping her seated, but maybe holding a bag of treats of something – incremental increases that you can control. Or having her remain seated behind a tunnel or something.
>The turf facility instructor is great, but it’s another home base type of situation for Coal. You probably know her from UKI – she just had the trip from hell to Chicago. Drove NY to Chicago, senior non competing dog passed on day her knee blew out on day 2 and she had to withdraw from the balance.>
Oh yes! That trip sounded like a horror for her 🙁 She is a really strong trainer/instructor and I bet she can help make home base feel more challenging too! Even practicing things that look easy will help him learn how to do it in harder places.
Keep me posted!
TracyHi!
Hi!>If you notice I got one tiny black wrap strip on! Yay!>
YAY!!! She seemed fine with it. Also, a gentle curve of the tunnel will help her find an easier line into it – having the tunnel straight here creates a 90 degree entry, which causes slipping at the entry). And remember not to lift her up as yo start the end… and don’t let her lift herself up – that also can cause slipping. So bend over and lock your elbow if you need to, to maintain 4 on the floor 🙂
I agree that she is totally getting it, and she had a really nice balance between the left/right soft turns and the go lines! Nice!!!
The hardest part for getting the tight turn was after the wrapping the wing on the straight line then needing her to turn right on the tunnel exit. Those right cues at 1:28 and 2:20, for example, were late so she exited a bit wide. You can definitely say the verbal sooner, but mainly give physical cues sooner. Ideally you can turn your shoulders when she is still a stride or two away from entering the tunnel but that is hard to do on that line – so you can even whip out a brake arm to help get the turn even though you are accelerating forward.
Looking at the grids:
> I hate her sit bc she tucks her fonts to her backs ( working on this on the day to day) and it’s literally all I can see.>
Do you mean her front feet are too close to her back feet? On the sits here that were visible, she was doing a tuck sit (back moving forward). She couldn’t sit on the last rep at about 1:50, because your hand was pulling up on her collar and she felt it was weird/stressful. So yes, keep working on the tight sit without any splayed feet (maybe a roll back is better for her than a tuck, if that would keep her hind further from her front?) but also don’t make it an issue in front of a jump: holding her collar up or physically moving her position by lifting her neck (1:08) can add a negative feeling to sitting in front of a jump. I’d rather she learn to sort out her mechanics from a less-than-perfect sit, or get cookie-lured/hand touched into the right spot, than developing stress by trying to have a perfect sit in front of a jump with physical manipulation.
She sorted out her mechanics well here! She was a little too far from jump 1 on the first rep so there was a tap of her front feet before takeoff. But the rest looked really good! We might give her a little more distance between the 2 jumps as we add height to bar 2: what is the distance here in the video?
>I do believe she broke ahead of me almost every time.
I think she was releasing as you opened your mouth to say the word perhaps, so you can mix in praise and also throwing rewards back to her, so mouth movement doesn’t anticipate the release 🙂
Great job here!!
Tracy
Hi!
Another super nice session here! He did well on the single wrap versus tunnel. It seemed like it was harder for him to find the tunnel when passing the wing and without you moving. But he definitely figured it out by the end (and turning left as you mentioned) and it looked great! His right turns also looked good.
Things were harder with the tunnel-to-wrap combo, but you did a great job helping him out – the wrap verbal sounded VERY different from the tunnel verbal and that makes a big difference for the dogs.
Then on the other side, he nailed the tunnel-to-wrap the first time you tried it, with a nice tight turn! Yay!
You can play with making it even crazier: tunnel then tunnel again – then the wrap. That will be fun and challenging! And you can do a FC on the wing wrap and send him back to the other side of the tunnel, I bet he would have fun with that.
Great job!
Tracy
Good morning!
This was a great session! It was just about perfect! Your connection was super clear throughout. He was strong with the turns and also when you cued the GO… he accelerated straight really well! And locked onto the wings perfectly too. Super!!
There were only 2 spots were the verbal cues were spot on but the shoulder turn to the new line was a little late (the physical and verbal cues were on time on all the other reps, creating great turns and lines). Those 2 spots were the left at :33 (you can have an earlier shoulder turn so he sees it before entering the tunne) and at 1:08, where your right verbal cue was really good but you were accelerating forward so he exited a little wide.
Compare to 1:17 where you had good verbal timing again and turned to the right turn line before he entered the tunnel, so his turn was even better there.Great job!!
TracyHi! This was a good session!
She did well with her stays overall! Sometimes she was a little too good, needing a couple of releases 🙂 but I think that will not be a problem in the future.
Looking at her form: also looking good! She had strong forward focus on the toy at the beginning which really helps too. For setting up, the closer to the little stride regulator, the better. On the first rep (not including the one at the beginning where she broke her stay :)) – she was a little far from the regulator and her back feet hit it.
On the next reps at :40 and :48, she was set up closer to the regulator and did not hit it. The distance looks pretty good, we can tweak it maybe a few centimeters wider but not more than that.
At about 1:04 and after that, something was catching her attention so she was looking around and not jumping as well. Adding the thrown back cookies back for the stay was a great addition to the session , and the last rep was really good! She was set up a little far from the strider so she touched it, but overall her focus was strong.
It is possible that a smaller stride regulator is ideal for her, maybe taking this blue one and slicing it in half, lengthwise, so she has something smaller to go over. She is really little so finding the sweet spot on the stride regulator will help! Her work on the bars looks really good 🙂
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi!
> “Jump” and “hup” don’t really make sense as tunnel verbals, so I’m going with “gee” and “haw”. Luckily “jump” is right and “hup” is left, so gee and haw weren’t that far of a leap to make!>
Good point about jump and hup! And gee/haw are good options for the tunnel!
> I didn’t really introduce these verbals on the minny Pinny, this is her first time hearing “gee” and being asked to turn out of a tunnel.>
Since they are tunnel-only verbals, I don’t think you need it on the minny pinny – we can apply them directly to the tunnel and use reward placement to help her understand the turns.
>Those first reps of just doing wraps to the tunnel, I think I need to remember to remove my hat. I noticed years ago that with that style hat it hides enough of the side of my face that from the dogs level they can’t even see my head turned to the side. Whoopsie!>
Possibly! But also, having your arm back to her and running more forward will really help.
At the beginning, I think you were having a bit of a champagne problem: she was going FAST FAST FAST so you were trying to out run her to get to the tunnel exit… but that created questions at :09 and :30 where more connection was needed to drive her to the tunnel.
You might have been feeling the pressure of her speed (FUN!) which was causing you to look a bit forward/arm blocking connection, with sideways motion to try to get to the tunnel exit – since she couldn’t see the side info, she went with the direction of motion.
Note the difference at :40 and later on at 1:50 where you made a big connection and moved on a line towards the tunnel entry, and she got it perfectly. Yay!
Adding the soft turns:
The timing of the verbal at :51 was good, but the physical cue was pretty forward-facing so she locked onto the wing there and a 1:00 (you can reward moments like that even with just a reset cookie, because there is a 99% chance it is handler-induced). Plus, that will bring her back to you so she doesn’t keep offering and you can reset to show the cues.With the turn verbals here: because they are new, physical cues and reward placement will help solidify them. You added decel which helped – you can also add shoulder turn to face the new line and even a brake arm (all before she goes into the tunnel, while she is till 6 feet or more away from entering it). Then you can toss (or place) the reward on the exit line. I think BWs are pretty verbal and you will see that you don’t have to rely on physical cues for long, they will be easy to fade and she will respond nicely to the verbals.
I LOVED how she committed straight to the wing at 1:54 and you could easily do the circle wrap!
>I did not mean for it to be a wrap away to the left (ski) I just said the wrong word (gosh this is going to be so hard!) >
With all the verbals, it might seem silly, but give yourself a walk through on these baby dog games! That way you can slowly walk to make sure the verbals are correct… then run it and still make sure the verbals are correct… then add the dog back in 🙂 I used to have to video my walk throughs of these games without the pups then watch the video to make sure I had the verbals right. That helped me get it right for the pup, and made it more automatic for me 🙂
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi!
23” tall is a great size! And it was smart to warm up the MM – for a moment I think she forgot where the cookies came from LOL!! And she will get better about not moving forward with the catch cue (she was already figuring it out by the end!), but she still got rewarded for a good stay even when she did move forward:)
She did well with the set point on 2 jumps: I think her start position near jump 1 was good. The 6 foot distance might end up being a bit too small for her size (I think 7 feet ight be the sweet spot?) but we won’t know for sure til we gt her head down. She is looking up (towards you, I think) as she is jumping, which shortens the stride a bit. So to get her head down to get the jumping arc, 2 ideas for you:
– before releasing her, you can bend down to get your hand onto the MM. You pointed lower to it on the last rep and her head was already lower! Yay!
– or, you can go to the moving target. This can be a toy being slowly dragged, or put the MM on a dolly with wheels so you can drag it slowly too. That definitely will get her head down!
Nice job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Hi!
Countermotion is indeed really hard!
>I send her to the treat and train, a dish, or her toy while my feet aren’t facing it and I start walking away. It’s definitely a lot easier for her with the treat and train than with the dish or toy. >
Yes! That is like the backwards sending to the prop, with the TnT being even more interesting to her. It is funny that the toy is not as enticing as the TnT!
>My thought process is if she can’t even respond to the direct reinforcement marker I can’t expect her to correctly respond to an agility related cue with motion.>
Yes, that makes sense: the agility wing, for example, doe not have the same value as the TnT (not yet, as least, because she is young. So developing the concept in a simple way can really help apply it to jumps because the cue (upper body for example) needs to override motion lower/body.
Looking at the video: This is definitely a challenging game! Angling the jump was the way to go, you can angle it even more to make driving into you even easier. The TnT was in a good spot – and the serps with handler motion are HARD!! The first successful rep was hilarious – she had a lightbulb moment!!! Then an early TnT click caused a bit of a question where she would come in then push back out. You dialed back your motion and that helped too – so for now, I would say that angling the jump a bit more so the bar is more visible, plus you walking soooo slowly will help solidify the skill. You can also call her or use directionals, because verbals can help her lock onto you too.
Nice work here!
Tracy
Good morning!
This went great! I like the creative use of wings and stuff to set up the things to run around. You were showing great connection so she had really good info about where to go, and she was happy to do it. Fun!!!She was popping up a bit a she arrived at your side at the end of each rep – you can throw the cookie past you to keep her moving forward a bit without popping up. Or using a toy will give her something to grab a bit lower too. You can also decelerate sooner, to see if she can also decelerate sooner (which helps control the popping up).
One blind was a little late (at 1:09 where you did the blind to an inside turn and you apologized to her LOL) causing her to pop up a bit as she tried to hit the brakes but overall, I think it was a great session. If you have access to doing this outdoors, it would be fun to see her really open up and run run run!
Great job :)
TracyWelcome back!!! And more snow? NOOOOO!!!!!! I am ready for some warm weather!
Looking forward to seeing Millie in action – I can’t believe she is 14 months! How tall did she get?
Tracy
Hi!
>We redid the set point with a little more distance, hopefully this was better for him.>
Yes! It looks like he had more room to organize and he looked nicely balanced and powerful. It looks l;ike his only question was what to do with his front feet as he stepped into it – we want get more ‘lift’ by replacing the regulator with a low bar. That will engage the rear and core, and he will be pushing off rather than thinking as much about lifting his front feets 🙂
The tunnel turns went really well too, particularly if the concept is new to him!
The first rep whree he ran past the tunnel is pretty normal for young dogs going super fast 🙂 He didn’t do it again, so no worries 🙂The left turns were hard to see, but it did look like he was turning really well.
The right turn was easy to see (facing the camera): the verbal was well-timed! The motion accelerated straight forward which is probably why he exited pretty straight at :51. You were more decelerated and turned sooner on the next reps, so his turn was already better. Yay! Adding the physical cue of the shoulder turn being visible before he enters the tnunel will really help. along with the verbals. The sequence with the ‘race track’ at the end looked good! Yay! He seemed to have no question about he soft turns on the wing, and he accelerated forward on the tunnel exits as well.
Great job here!
TracyGood morning! Hooray for all the things aligning to allow for more training time!!
The set point is going well! Great job throwing treats back to help reward the stay, he did super well with that. I liked the line up spot you had him in at 1:52 and 2:12 – not too far, not too clsoe to jump 1, just right!
What is the distance between the 2 jumps? It might have been a little close for him to power through, so you can add another 6 inches and see how he does. You can also add the moving target (toy being slowly dragged or put the MM on wheels and drag it LOL) – that will help him keep his head down more and power through jump 2 more as well.
Tunnel exits: This is looking good too!
The wings might have been a little close to the tunnel, making it harder to give the turn info before entering n the first few reps but you did get the verbals and physical cues to him on time. He turned really well on the exits! Yay!More direct connection was the key element after exiting the straight tunnel with the go to the wing. When you looked forward on the first couple of reps, he pulled off the wing. Then with extra clear connection, you got it at 2:03 so he went to the wing. Super! But then disconnected to look forward after it at 2:05. He read the disconnect as a blind cross cue and changed to your right side (good boy!)Compare to the connection you used at 2:12 when he exited the wing, which worked great to show the line to the tunnel.
On that tunnel entry, the right cues were late at 2:13 and 2:53 so he was wide. The verbal was either when he was in the tunnel (2:13) or just before his nose went in (2:53) and on both of them, your motion supported the straight line exit. So as he exits the wing wrap before it, you can cue the tunnel and then let him see you start to turn to the right turn wing and cue the right verbal. That way he can see and hear it before he enters the tunnel, which should get a really nice turn on the exit.
Great job here!
TracyGood morning!
He was such a good boy here with his stay, the tugging, and giving the toy back! Was he also ignoring another dog/person at the beginning? I heard a dog vocalizing but I don’t think it was Zest.
The transition into getting the toy back at :58ish was great – you let him win it, he brought it back, you let the toy be ‘passive’ so he released it… and you rewarded him by giving it back. Love it! Also a super nice transition from 1:45ish to about 2:01. Many drivey/zesty 🙂 dogs need to have a moment to take the toy and shake it a bit before bringing it back, and I feel that allowing him to have a moment with it helps him regulate himself really well. He really only takes it a few feet away for about 10 seconds, during which time you move back to the start point. Then he brings it back and the two of you are working together nicely for the next rep. How are you feeling about his arousal and threshold and teamwork here in general?
The set point skill itself is going well. He is definitely pumped p, but holding the stay like a rockstar and moving really well through the set point. Because he is 3, we can add height on bar 2 a little more quickly. What distance are you using here between the 2 jumps? When you revisit this, you can raise the bar of jump 2 by at least 2 inches, or even 4 inches if you feel he will be fine with that.
The only suggestion for the next session is to face the way you would be going (towards the camera in this case) when you put the toy on the ground, rather than face him. 2 reasons for that: when you face him, you are cueing collection which we don’t need here. And when you face forward, you can start slowly dragging the toy (moving target reward :)) and I think he is ready for that!
Nice stay reward here at the end, throwing it back to him for being such a good boy with his stays. SUPER!!!
Great job!
Tracy
