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Hi!
OK, hopefully this makes you chuckle:
the first 30 seconds looked awesome: perfect click timing, good placement, she was looking at her work – terrific! The prop has value and you can definitely move to the sending game with it. Yay! Super nice!
Suddenly after the first 30 seconds, the clicks were all wrong, she wasn’t touching the prop, she was looking at you, I was very confused. HA! When I watched it again, turns out that I had missed the part where the video said “Pre-Game 2” because I took a bite of a snack – and on the 2nd watching I saw that you were holding the target in your hand and the prop wasn’t there, it was a sun spot on the floor. LOL!! It was hard to see all of the clicks on the hand target, some were cut off, but the ones I saw looked great 🙂 And it explains why she was looking towards you LOL!! You can get it a little lower so she targets downwards – you can sit on the couch to do it so you don’t need to be bend over.We build on pre-game 1 in the Sends game and we build on pre-game 2 on Saturday 🙂
Great job!!
TracySo he is perfect, is that what you are saying? LOL! My Hot Sauce has all of those in her too, such a fun mixture.
Does he have a littermate named Cheese in South Carolina?Hi!
>>When you say softening the side info, would that be when a dog crosses behind when they shouldn’t? Because they were confused about which side to be on?
So by soft connection, I mean a peripheral connection where the handler can see the dog but is not looking at the dog… and the dog can’t necessarily see the handler’s upper body clearly.
Yes, that crossing behind the handler one thing that could happen – if the dog sees the handler’s head turn forward, the dog might think it is the precursor to a blind cross and switch sides. If the dog is coming out of a tunnel or around a wing and is seeking out side info and the connection is too soft (too peripheral), then yes, the dog might choose the wrong side.
Other dogs immediately sniff in that moment, some drop the bar, or some dogs just come into the handler. All sorts of different reactions to the same soft connection.
T
Hi! He did a great job here, he had a TON of good distractions and was so lovely! This will work nicely into a start line at trials – he will likely be really excited and have great things out ahead of him and tons of distractions, so being able to do a sit or down til released is a great way to get that start line into a really comfortable routine for him! And when you did the race to the toy, he was even faster LOL! It is a great way to channel arousal 🙂
On the drive to handler – yes, ideally he would drive to your hand for the treat. I can see how the treat might be lower value at first here, but it looks like he was able to drive into your hand and then get released forward. You can start with the toy further away and you closer to him to see if that helps him drive in to your hand without stalking the toy as much lol
When he is happily driving into your hand each time… you can add the rotation – do a half turn away and if he turns with you, nice and tight, you can send to the toy. You can also try the treats again and see if he is able to eat the treats in the presence of the arousal – it is a great indicator as to how difficult the game is!
Great job!
TracyHi! Thanks for leaving in the toy stuff! It is a really interesting video. First of all, the blind cross stuff looked great 🙂 Nice timing, nice connection, he read them really well! So yes, try a bigger location so you have more room to run run run! And you can do this with treats as we hash out the toy stuff.
About the toy stuff – yes, really interesting behavior! It is an arousal behavior, looks like a frustration behavior of some sort? It is not linked to the game you were doing (the blind crosses) so yes, as you mention it might be linked to going back and forth between food & toys. We can isolate it and sort it out. I notice that when the toy was not really moving at the end (last rep) when you presented it to him, he turned off of it and that was just before he jumped up/bit at your other arm. So, a couple of ideas for you –
you can tie the toy to something longer so it is on the ground, and present it by dragging it rather than from your hands. Keep it moving dragging it around. Then trade it for a cookie, then just hold everything still for a moment – if he can just stand there and not jump or bite – then he can have the toy back 🙂 presented by dragging it around. If he barks but does not jump or bite… that is fine for the first couple of reps, then you can wait til he doesn’t bark also. That can start to layer in a bit of self-modulation on the arousal with the toy. I am not 100% sure why he is doing it (we might be able to figure out why at some point) but it doesn’t really matter – he will get lots of rewards for choosing to have a calm moment between toy play moments 🙂
Let me know if that makes sense!
TracyHi! OK this is too funny that there were 53 amazing toys there and he chose the one little piece closest to you LOL! You can throw the whole darned toy as a giant thing and then pick up whatever end he doesn’t grab 🙂 He is doing well on the driving ahead, so we will chalk this one up to “entertaining moment” – we plan, puppy laughs at us. Ha!
T
Hi there! This was a cool session to watch and see how he responded to the different starts and different rewards.
Looking at the different starts and different rewards:
I think the cookie-to-toy reps at the beginning and later in the video were good, he chased you nicely, happy boy, nice and fast!
The cookie-to-cheese reps were REALLY good, I think he likes cheese 🙂
But to be honest – I think the stay-toy reps were the best ones! He exploded into them – there was a bit of excitement/tension in the stay and the release was exciting so he seemed to be fastest on those.
So keep doing those from the stay, and I bet you will get good explosiveness if someone (hubby?) holds him as a restrained recall.
Also, with the cookie throws – you can tweak it to get more explosiveness: throw the treat, send him to it…. stand still til he eats it: then run run run and call urgently, and see how he does.Two other things I notice:
when he gets to the toy, take a longer play moment and party before running back to the starting point. You were giving him the toy but moving back to the starting point, so I think he wasn’t getting the change to tug as much as he would want to.And, remember to make a quick re-connection and show the reward across your body. Note in 2 places, you had a couple of steps with connection using your dog-side arm (1:00 and 2:33) and he didn’t make the side change there – he only made it when you did get the dog-side arm back and the reward across the body, opening up the connection. That connection is super helpful for him, so remember to show it as quickly as possible 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi! Another good session here!
He got into the groove of this very nicely. Try to be more quiet in the moments of offering (whether he is offering right or wrong) – praise when you deliver the reward, then be quiet as he offers. There are 2 reasons behind that: first, it will allow us to pair the verbal turn cues in pretty quickly. Second, it will avoid accidentally pairing in no reward markers or cues to start. It is hard to be quiet for sure, so feel free to have a verbal party during food rewards LOL!
Having the upright 10 inches away is good! You can leave it in that zone for another couple of short sessions so the rate of success is very high when it is that distance away. Also, with it nice and close to you, take it on the road to various locations, such as the bathroom, yard, hallway, etc LOL!! As many places as life in a pandemic will allow, keeping it close so it is easy to recognize in new places – it helps us generalize even at this early stage 🙂Great job!
TracyHi! This went really well! Looked (sounded :)) like the clicks were spot on and he had very clear hits, lots of intent which also means the connection was strong. Nice! Keeping yourself close to the prop gave you the chance to really get a high success rate, which is great! I think you might have had a little too much energy on the ready dance though – there were a couple of spots where your foot stepped towards the prop so he wen before you wanted him too LOL! Good boy 🙂 So you can do the ready ready engagement with less foot motion, just some excitement from the upper body – and then the arm & leg step will be very distinct. As you keep playing with this, add a little more distance, gradually, til he can do it from maybe 3 or 4 feet away (doesn’t have to happen all in one session, you can take a few sessions to build it).
Nice job!!!
TracyHi! She did super nicely on all 3 of these videos!
Wing wraps – on the food reps, she figured out the back and forth pretty quickly and did well on when you added the jump upright too! She did have a little trouble with the upright away from you, so you start each session with the upright close (so she can’t squeeze between you and the upright) as a reminder then gradually slide it back out. By the end of the video, it was a little far away so she slipped in close to you several times – you can keep it closer for a couple more sessions so that goes away, then start to inch it back out. Definitely yes to trying it with toys – she did really nicely with the back and forth using the 2 toys in the 2nd video! Yay! I think it will be easy for her with the toys.
With both food and toys, break off the sessions after 4 or 5 reps of back and forth… when the session was going longer, she would sometimes lose her train of thought. So, you can get 4 or 5 good ones, then break off the session to play for a bit – then restart for another several reps.The blinds looked great! Well done with your mechanics and timing. You planned out where the toy had to be and you were very clear, and caught yourself the one time it was in the ‘wrong’ hand 🙂 That helped her figure out where to be at all times. When you are working indoors in a small space, you can do this from a stationary position to avoid the slipping:
Stand still, throw a cookie behind you (looking over one of your shoulders) – when she gets the cookie, call her and look over your other shoulder, then reward (placement is the same). That way she can practice the blinds without you having to run. And definitely take the running blinds outdoors, so both of you can run run run – that will give you a chance to add more distance too!
Great job here!
TracyHi there, I am glad you are here 🙂 Your email worried me a little this morning LOL!!!
>>Hi! I am so Thankful to be in this class with Fizz, an 11 month old BC.
Very cool!!!
>>Can you tell me about the eye contact when you are doing the forward send to the toy? We are supposed to look at the dog. I have always looked forward at the toy while keeping a peripheral view on the dog. Can you help me to understand the reason for looking at the dog?>>
Sure! Happy to chat about my obsession with connection and how to use it LOL!
There are two reasons for the eye contact/connection on the forward sends:
first, it is to train us humans to watch the dogs – the earlier we brainwash ourselves to connect, the better we will be at it when we need it on course. And, by watching more, we maintain criteria better – so the clicks are better. When we watch the prop/toy too much, we tend to not be as good in the clicks (late, early, etc).
second, the soft use of arm and eye contact helps us ‘steer’ with our shoulders. Most (all?) handling systems basically agree that our upper bodies show the dogs which line to be on in the present – our shoulders/chest point out the line very clearly as a much strong cue than our hands/arms. So by connecting to the dog’s eyes a bit more, we are turning our shoulders/chest to the exact line more clearly and giving very clear info as to which side of us we want the pups to be on. When we are more peripheral and pointing forward more, we are actually turning our chest/shoulders slightly away from the line we want and softening the side info. That is when we get errors on course (and in this game too). It has been fascinating to watch that happen in every system of handling! Over time, we can soften the connection and use more hands, but that is when the dogs are more experienced and can read context, understand verbals, etc.That builds into your next question:
>> For the forward send we look at our dogs
Yes, because of where it points your chest/shoulders/connection: to the line we want the pup to take
>>but farther in the video if we have pivoted we should look behind at the target.
Yes – for the same reason 🙂 When the pup is in front of me and I am sending him behind me (like the exit of a fancy move such as a ketchsker), if I look forward at him and only point back, he is unlikely to go (very experienced dogs will, but youngsters will ask questions). But, if we let the puppy see us shift our connection, what we are actually doing is also showing a chest rotation/shoulder rotation to point out the line, so they are more likely to go. And it builds value for that shoulder rotation to get more subtle and for us to be able to add countermotion, so down the road as adults they will be perfectly fine with us NOT connecting and still getting commitment 🙂
>>I am a noob to your handling system so any help you can give me would be awesome.
These are great questions. Let me know if it makes sense!
Tracy
Hello to you and the fluffy-brother-from-another-mother!!! Looking forward to seeing you again in class tonight. I love the photo, he is looking so grown up!
T
Hi!
>>. We can’t always get such detailed input when we’re in a real-time class.
Very true – the video aspect gives us a lot of time to really look at what is happening! So fun!
>> To respond: In the first video, I was purposely throwing the item close since I was hoping to (ha!) maybe beat her – or at least tie. Didn’t really happen.
Ha! We are going to have to cheat to win the race here – stay tuned for more on that in coming weeks 🙂
>> I wanted to see how she’d respond to different items, and this was a perfect exercise to test that out.
I think it is perfect that you did that – we can really see how a hand position changes behavior, as well as what the current hierarchy of reinforcement is. All very useful info!
>> I have tied strings to a couple of different tug toys so we could tug together after a set. This worked only partially.
I have found that a lot of the foodie dogs turn onto tugging when the lotus ball or treat hugger is a moving target that needs to be grabbed in order to get the food – at first we move it til they grab it only a little, then it progresses us to full on tugging on it. Then I tie the foodie toy to a real tuggie and transfer the game to it. It is kind of a ‘best of both worlds’ approach 🙂
Tracy
Good morning!
Blind cross videos – I think this went extremely well and you were probably just feeling the awkwardness of the arm-across-the-body rewards. Those are indeed weird at first! It might feel easier with a toy when you reward across the body, if he is happy to alternate between food and toys in the same session. On the less comfortable side, remember to put your dig side arm a little further back, kind of like pointing to his nose. I think you had it down at your side which makes it harder to show the connection and might just feel weirder too LOL!!
Your timing looked good, he had plenty of time to make the side change and he looked pretty confident on those, getting it right every time! Nice!!Wing wraps – this is also going well!! Good job bringing it to new locations (and added a well-behaved audience LOL!) When you are in the new spot, start the pole right up on you so he cannot squeeze in between you and the pole (especially when he is warming up in the back and forth – he might not notice the pole until after a failure so having it very close to you at first will help that. Definitely keep moving to different spots!
>> Oh, I tried this with two toys and it was a failure. I think I might be able to incorporate toys when there is more distance/action, but he just wasn’t interested in switching between two toys.
What was he doing? Locking onto one toy only? Let me know and we can help him out – it is a useful skill so it will be fun to figure out.
Sends – ALSO looking really good!
>>although sometimes I think I don’t deserve a clicker>>
Ha!!!! And that sums up why we start this on a meaningless prop! With each new puppy, we humans have to undergo a learning curve and basically relearn the timing and technique. I realize that shaping also relies on our ability to predict/recognize exactly what the pup will do, so we kind of have to relearn that with each new puppy until we can do it subconsciously. My shaping is MUCH better with my older dogs than with my 16 week old pupster!
So, we start with conceptual work partially for the puppy and partially for us LOL! You are doing a great job.The sending is going really well. He is showing strong intent, great smacks of the target, and he has figured out that it is actually a chain: hit then come back.
The ready dance adds a layer of arousal which is perfectly fine for this stage – basically asking Presto if he is able to produce the behavior even when he is more stimulated (he even barked at one point here!)
There was a couple of moments where he looked up at you (like at :45) on the send – it was hard to see your face but I think it might have been because you were looking ahead on the send and not at him? It looks like your body was turned a little away from the Santa hat so the send was not as clear. A little more connection to his eyes there will smooth it out 🙂
Great job on all of these! The games coming later this week will build on them.
Have fun!
Tracy
