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I am so glad your snow melted!
He did great with the tunnel threadles here. One question – do you want to use your outside arm or inside arm for these? I think you had reps of each, so you will want to clarify for him which one you want to use.
The next step would be to see if he could turn himself away to the tunnel without you needing to do any arm flip movement at all. And you can also meet him more at the exit of the first tunnel to see if he can drive himself ahead of you to find the entry of the threadle side.Nice work!
TracyGood morning!
He is doing great with these! Most of the reps were really perfect. Sometimes he doesn’t finish the wrap as you are moving forward – you can mix in tossing the reward behind you to the other side of the barrel instead of rewarding for completing the full wrap – that can get his eyes off of you and more on the line around the barrel as you are moving. You did toss them back on some of the reps, so you can toss them even sooner sometimes. Mix it up, so it is a bit variable and he keeps looking at the line.
He had very few errors – one blooper at :12 when you stepped forward so I can see his point about going to the next barrel. He also had a couple of questions about which side of the 2nd barrel to be on when you did 2 barrels in a row – you exaggerated your hand cues and that really helped! You can also add more connection to his eyes while showing him your hands, to really solidify which side to be on.
Great job here! When the weather gets better, you can take this outside. You can also mix in all sorts of other rocking horses: FCs, spins, race tracks, and then add in some threadle wraps too 🙂
Tracy
Good morning! Sounds like a busy time for you, but I agree – training breaks are great for puppies. He certainly looks great on these videos.
On the pivot session:
He is doing GREAT pivoting back to center!!! This looks great!!! He is slightly better when he is coming in on your left side than on your right, but both sides are dramatically improved 🙂 Yay! Latent learning is glorious LOL!!!
>Have a little pitter-patter with the front feet that I will try not to reward.>
He might not even realize he is doing that 🙂 It is probably a bit of excitement and motivation to play the game (being highly motivated can sometimes get more movement in the form of little behaviors like front feet pattering). No worries at all – there are other behaviors (like stays) that we can isolate the front feet and ask him not to move them.
Find My Face also went well – he was really fast with the pattern game and then he patiently allowed you to reconnect after you “error” of disconnection LOL!!! I did see a little bit of a Skizzle thought bubble (lift of the front paw which can sometimes be a canine question mark) as he worked through what the disconnection was all about.
You can also reward him for patiently hanging out even if he doesn’t come all the way in front of you – the main goal of the game is to help the dogs regulate any potential frustration or stress or arousal shifts when we humans screw up handling (because we will haha!!). We don’t want to see any barking or biting or zoomies or stress sniffing, so he can get rewarded even if he does not make eye contact.
He left to pursue something else towards the end – possibly just because there were enough disconnects here that he might have thought that you were not really training LOL! So you can keep the sessions of this game nice and short for now.
He had no trouble figuring out the concept of the minny pinny. He was a little smoother to his left (maybe the lineups were cleaner on your right side, or there might have been a visual he was heading towards on your other side?) but he did it well in both directions! For the next session you can hold him while you say the verbal a few times then let him go, so he can propel himself around it in response to the verbal.
>I think I’m going to use “lolololo” for left (though maybe I shouldn’t because it sounds like “go” and “razrazraz” for right.>
Yes, I can see your point that “lo” and “go” might sound the same. What if you changed the vowel and make it “loo loo loo”? That sounds pretty different (and now my dogs are all thinking I am nuts because I am sitting here yelling GO GO GO and LOO LOO LOOK hahaha
I love the ‘raz’ – a fun, distinctive sound!!
On the rocking here video:
He was actually playing find my face when the info was not as clear! Good boy!
Some of his questions had to do with connection. When you pointed forward/looked forward to the next barrel while he was still behind you, the cue read like a blind cross so he was changing sides (you can see this at :07 and :19). So as you exit the FC or the spin to send to the next barrel, prolong the eye contact as he is catching up to you and as you send him past you, so he knows which side to be on.
The spins are going well, you were getting them by the end! It might feel easier when you have more room, if you think of them as 2 separate moves: a front cross as he is arriving at the barrel, then keep moving and a blind cross as he is maybe halfway around. And when you are happy with the physical cues, add the wrap verbals – that will help him go to the barrel without accidentally using a go cue on the turn.
Great job on these! Safe travels and I am sure he will be wiring these into his brain while you are gone 🙂
Tracy
Good morning!
The Minny Pinny is going really well! My favorite rep was the last one, where you had him smoothly lined up and facing the jump bars. On the others, he was a little sideways and looking at you so the starts were not as clean. Lining him up and holding him til you are ready will also let you start the verbals before you let go… which also means you can start to fade out the shoulder turns that are cuing him to start. That can make the verbals even more independent.
The wing wrap concept transfer went great! I think he was waiting for a cue at the beginning because we have added so many cues – but then when you added the cue, easy peasy! You can start adding wings to the easier rocking horse games, fading out the barrels.
On the rocking horses with the spins: he was happy to let you sort it out because you were rewarding him a lot 🙂
For the timing: because it is a cue combo, it is probably easiest to pick out a timing spot (where he will be) for when to start the FC and when to start the blind. Starting him a little further away to send to the barrel can make this easier: that way you can start the FC as he is approaching the barrel, then do the BC when he is beginning the wrap (on the first side of the barrel). That is what you did on the last rep on video 1, and on the first rep of video 3 – those were my favorites! And it seemed like you didn’t have to work hard or go fast at all to get the BC done.
Compare to the 2nd video where the FC started closer to when he was exiting the barrel and then you got the blind in. It might have felt like you had to move really fast, and it can also delay connection for the next send. This happened at :37 on video 2 where you were not quite connected and he didn’t know to go to the next barrel. So even if the BC is a little late, show a big connection as you send to the next barrel and try not to point forward to it.
One other suggestion is to line him up at your side for cleaner starts – when he was facing you or sideways to the barrel, the send was not always as clear as it was when he was at your side to start.
>The last video is where I forgot his wrap cue (Dig) and tried to use his sister’s wrap cue (Flick) that actually sounds like his name (Check) hence extreme confusion for all involved>
Ha! Yes, he definitely had questions but then when you went back to Dig… no problem. Smart pup, and proves he is listening!!!!
>ou’ll see me a bit slow to reward quite a bit here- I was trying to keep food out of my hands.>
He did really well with empty hands! Just be sure not to reach for the pocket too early, that can pull his attention off the barrel.
Great job here!!!
Tracy
Hi!
Hooray for people doing strange things LOL!!! She seemed pumped up but not concerned or distracted 🙂
On the first video:
Thanks to regular exposure and reinforcement, she is so much better about ignoring the other person in the ring and so much more comfortable with running past them and staying on the line. YAY!! Her line finding and speed looked great here! Next step is to get some men involved because there are so many male judges in agility.
>I think she needed a shake/cued bark or a moment on my 3rd line-up.
Yes, possibly a slower transition into the sit, or asking for a trick or not trying a line up will all help. Leading out from the stand was not all that clear for her so she was engaged but moving with you.
It is not likely that you will get 3 runs in and out of the food box at a trial (NFC times are tight!) so getting that 3rd line up might be moot anyway 🙂
She only had one question on the handling, where she took the front instead of the back at :38.
I thought you made good connection at :37 but possibly turned forward too much and she read it like a blind to the front of the jump. It was very subtle but she was convinced! Plus, the front of the jump has a lot more value right now so she is migrating to it a bit, which is a good thing for starting her trial career. On the 2nd video, it looked like you held the connection longer and better, but still got the front of the jump. I file that into the ‘separate issue’ category 🙂 and it is possible that her brain is processing the other 10,000 things happening in the environment and the backside cues did not really register (which is also fine and normal, because she was still choosing to do the agility and not worry about the environment).
2nd video: ah yes, that was a LOT at the start line. Poor Henry LOL!! But we do see and hear gate stewards like that. Since you had food with you, you can switch into a pattern game when you see her be like WTAF IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW when the gate steward is being crazy or anything weird is in the environment. If you are at the line and have no food, you can try asking for her to bark for you 🙂
She was happy and fast here and the other distractions were no big deal at all.
Does she have anything this weekend, or is her Casey seminar and UKI trial in a couple of weeks?
Great job!
TracyHi!
It sounds like she did really well even with very hard challenges!
>the other part she couldnt get was a rear cross which was quite hard too. Most of less experienced dogs people got a blind in but with a hard send and then the turn I couldnt get there because she was smoking it.>
We should definitely emphasize rear crosses in her training – with her speed and low jump height, getting to blinds or fronts might be VERY challenging so rear crosses can be the winning choice!
>We got great drive between jumps and they were set like a competition, >
Super!
>shittery waits on a mat >
What is a ‘shittery’ wait? LOL!
>and amazing drive to her bag at the end.>
Also great!
She did really well on the video, finding the big lines with the big distance. It was hard to see everything but it looks like you were staying in motion and using your verbals. Your ending line was especially lovely! Things are coming together really nicely!
I will look on Facebook to find the tag.
For the trial, do the rules allow you to use her mat for a stay in the not for competition runs?
Great job :)
TracyHi! This looked great! And it didn’t notice Snap sitting there watching til the 3rd time I watched it LOL! Since the reps all look this good, you can take this skill to the next step: adding the jump! This will allow you to add the serpentine and the threadle.
> Teeth must still be sore. She’s just not tugging.>
She is definitely at the teething age! I noticed that she did tug well when you kept the toy low and moved it side to side (:13-:15 approx). When you lifted it up at the beginning of the tugging (or moved it up and down), or tried to smack her :), she didn’t grip as well. So definitely keep it low and moving ice to side so she can grip it and rock back.
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
Fingers crossed for some snow melt in your early spring this week!!
>Yes, he has historically had a very difficult time lining up when there is a toy in the vicinity – that was a know thing for me. At the end of the video, I decided to see if we had made any progress (this has been sitting for a while). And he did some terrific lineups with the throw toy out ahead of him. Now I’m having trouble with him going on his dead toy marker. Ha!
>Yes, arousal regulation is constantly shifting at this age in particular! That is part of why we jump right in and start teaching it so early 🙂 I think the cheese in your mouth might have been overriding his interest in the dead toy, plus he was watching for your movement (a bit of leaning). Could also be what happens after he gets the toy (the video cut all of this out). Ideally, after getting and bringing the toy, he gets a very fun tug session that is 2 or 3 times longer than the rep itself. If you were doing a short tug or not tug/trade for treat, the interest in getting the dead toy might be reduced in favor of sticking near the treats.
>In this session we did find your face. I did not think it would be too much of a problem for him given his personality – he’s too much sometimes with controlling his emotions (MOMMY!!!!). At the start, I felt like he was targeting my hands, so I put the cheese in my mouth. He really likes cheese.>
He did great here! And yes, cheese is delicious, I love it too 🙂 I am going to rename this to Find Any Part Of Me 🤣😂. They don’t actually need to find our face for make eye contact, they can look at face/hands/feet/pockets, etc… anything that is neither leaving us nor biting us 🤣😂. Young male dogs start off with all the loving MOMMY MOMMY stuff… but certain breeds can get bitey when frustrated (cough cough Mals and other hardy dogs) so this game heads that off by presenting an alternate behavior well before any frustration arises.
You can add praise to this before the search marker, and you can also do this with a toy (tugging before the cookie game to increase arousal, or tugging sometimes as the reward).
The spins went great! You will need more room to be able to stay in motion on these more, but the connection before and after looked really strong!
In the early part of the session look at him running right past the toy in your hand! That deteriorated a bit later (he had a grab moment or two) – I couldn’t hear a consistent reward marker for the toy in your hand, so use it as clearly as your wrap verbals were used. He seemed to be targeting off the toy when you stopped or when you turned it slightly sideways. For example, at 2:11 you said strike very quietly and after you stopped and turned the toy, so try to get the marker to be more prominent and happening before the physical cues.
Great job here!
TracyHi!
>I guess the one thing that I can see about how I’ve seen it used is that for the visually stimulated herdy dogs, being asked to stay fully engaged with the handler and NOT watching would actually cause more frustration>
Outside the ring, I personally don’t ask for full engagement for extended periods – the full engagement gets turned on pretty much before the run. Outside the ring, the difference is that the engaged chill is looking around, soft eyes/expression, moving around, checking in with me, looking at the ring for a moment, maybe saying hi to people we know or dog friends, relaxed body language, relaxed breathing, no barking LOL For me, this is different from actively watching the ring. The full engagement (sustained attentional state) gets turned on as we are moving into the ring.
> the level of arousal the handler would have to provide in order to compete with the movement would wind up increasing the arousal too far and certainly be annoying for others ringside and fatiguing for all.>
I have not had an issue with that, because watching the ring is for any length of time is not something my dogs will do (thanks to training, not lack of interest LOL!). So they are excited and they will look at the ring… but they don’t actively watch it or get over-aroused by it. The arousal level doesn’t not overshoot optimal (or get anywhere near optimal for the run, when we are waiting) so I don’t need to do a whole lot to then optimize the arousal.
> So it’s used as sort of a replacement for engaged chill. If you can “chill” and be disengaged, but still engage when I need you, you can watch.>
I guess it is about how you define “watch”. Look at, then look at me, or at other things? Ok then. Watch for prolonged periods (20 seconds can be prolonged in a high arousal dog sport!) without check in with me or looking at other things? That can tip things the wrong direction. A lot of folks use watching the ring as a way of babysitting the dogs outside the ring 🙂 and it very often tips arousal the wrong direction.
> The reason I called it a reinforcer is more when it’s used as a premack- engage with me, take a cookie (which the dog would likely not find reinforcing around that kind of movement) and I will release you back to your agility tv. >
Premack and reinforcement in general do not operate in a vacuum though, so the agility tv is likely to be hacking the arousal systems (HPA axis) and potentially the dopamine systems – so then we get undesired behavior in the run and over the course of the day/weekend. I guess you can say that I am not a fan of agility tv (or flyball tv LOL)
>I HAVE used a similar version of this with my 3 year old while hiking. He had a tendency to be a screaming maniac (can we see a theme here?) at the slightest rustle of leaves that might signal a critter to be chased. Asking him to fully engage with me (heads up heeling, doing tricks, pattern game, etc) would be exhausting to do on an entire hike and “engaged chill” (in this instance, just walking with me on a loose leash when the critter is present, he does do a version of engaged chill for most of the walk when no critter is present which is mooch along sniffing the ground on his long line) is just not possible. >
The context is very different though, different bandwidth needed, different outcomes – you don’t need any high level engagement in terms of cue response or optimized arousal state for ‘work’ in that context. And then at the end of the hike, he is probably happily depleted 🙂 and that is often the goal, physiologically.
> When engaged chill isn’t going to happen and full engagement isn’t totally appropriate either? >
That is the thing we need to teach for dog sports so the dog is prepared: when to be relatively chill outside the ring (engaged chill and ‘calm’ are not the same LOL) and when to move into full engagement. This is a combination of shifting attentional states and shifting arousal states (linked but not the same – one is processing, one is physiological). Many folks bring dogs into the trial environment without teaching the dogs how to handle themselves outside the ring. That is actually the first thing I teach the dogs 🙂 and it makes transitioning them into the competition ring sooooo much easier.
Tracy
Hi!
Yes, the snow is ANNOYING it can go away now LOL!!!
I think the JWW run went really well!
>I was hoping you’d be able to see us playing the pattern games and volume dial game before the run, but most of it’s off camera. You can see the very end of the up-down game before we go in. >
Yes, that looked good!!
> I stood in the ring way too long and made her wait. >
I don’t think it was a problem for Katniss, but yes, it probably felt like ages LOL! When you have a height change, you don’t need to go in until they are at least halfway done (especially at the end of the day when everyone is tired and moving slowly :))
>Otherwise, I would have at least asked for some easy behaviors or played with her toy with her while we waited. >
You can make it a habit to always go in interacting with her – toy for NFC, or leash tugging, or even just talking to her.
>I was super happy with her forward focus to the tunnel; she was looking at it before I ever turned around to see her on the start line. She did turn her head to face me before I released her, but she had already told me she knew what the first obstacle was.>
She did great with that, and also great holding the super long lead out!
> I turned a little too early on the tunnel entry, but I was able to turn her and get her back in there pretty easily. >
That was such a weird opening for novice dogs (ok for all dogs LOL). I mean, that 2nd tunnel was really offset from the line The other option would be to get her on your left for 2-3 then rear cross that tunnel. But that is icky too. Bleh.
>However, that put me behind where I thought I’d be for the line after the weaves since I was skipping those and trying to get to the next jump. I was also completely shocked that she hit her weave entry, haha! >
Ha! She says she is ready for weaves to be in the run LOL!!!!
>This made her miss one of the jumps in the pinwheel because I didn’t show her the correct line, but I kept going (improvement on my part, lol!). We only had one other bobble where I didn’t tell her about the rear cross side change early enough. I think the last rear cross was a bit late as well, but she read it better.>
You did super nicely! Stayed connected, kept moving. Yay! Yes, there was one RC that was more of a RC on the flat so she turned the wrong way, but you were hustling and connected so she kept going. I think on the last rear cross you were maybe a little late but also decelerating (reaching for the toy?) so she was looking at you? Hard to tell from the camera distance, but it was really minor.
Overall, a great run! What is coming up next on her calendar?
T
Hi!
>Challenge of the day was that we were consistently the 1st dog of our class – walk the course, go get Coal and go run the course.>
Yes, that is a big challenge! Most of the warm up needs to be done before the walk through, and then the walk through is short so you can get the dog. Not easy! I am often the first dog on the line at small trials, so my walk throughs are 3 minutes so I can do finish the warm up with the dog.
Video 1 – definite difference at the start!! When you are up early in the class and feel you don’t have his full attention (looking around here and at the start of the next run too) – you don’t need to do a lead out. Those are disconnecting for him. You can stay with him and do a ready-set-go start with your hand on his collar. Then take off running 🙂 That might be very effective especially in harder environments!
>I see the potential. I made up the course we ran here on the fly, but he didn’t need to know that.>
Yes! On the 2nd video, he had a good opening line – not enough turn cues got you an off course but then you stopped at :33… so he disconnected. Stopping is something that tends to stress him, so try to keep going and don’t fix anything (like you did at the end of the run).
The ring crew behind the tunnel was hard – at :38 you started going the other way, by :40 he was coming back to you. Then later on – ring crew behind the tunnel was still hard and you kept going so he really didn’t visit! Yay!!!
>So I’m thinking that our path to success is not teaching him how to ignore the ring crew but rather figuring out the path to not need him have to go visit – one missing piece of the puzzle that needs to be found.>
Not needing to visit and ignoring the ring crew is the same general concept, both of which involve ring crew in random places during his runs (and reward in the ring when he has gone past them, either hidden on you, or the instructor has it to throw.
>More pattern games outside the ring to help him with the trial environment>
Yes 🙂
>Keep building his volume dial skills -I’m now using a variable reinforcement schedule when playing with him between 1 to 6 reps before reward. >
You can see if you can get one behavior (like a high five or something) that he can do on the start line, like a check in before you lead out.
You can also use a variable schedule for remote reinforcement, but volume dial doesn’t need it (it works on a different physiological system). Volume dial is more about how excited and engaged you can get him, so a 1:1 schedule might be more effective depending on environment.>Rewarding too much is not going to help the skill carry over into the ring>
No such thing as rewarding too much LOL!! It is more about what is rewarding (like keep going in the ring no matter what) rather than stopping.
>Your thoughts on letting him be a bit more social at class and trials. I generally want him minding his own business but he does have a “go say hi” and then come back to me for reward cue.>
I think it is fine to do that outside the ring. Inside the ring might cause a bit of conflict if he is looking at ring crew as potential sources of reinforcement (they never will be inside the ring – outside the ring is a different context so I think it is fine, as long as it doesn’t cause any confusion and he can snap back into work focus very quickly.)
>Plan for tonight’s class working on his enter the ring, leash off, 2 obstacles and then back to leash leave the ring to remote reward – all with a cooperative leash runner in place>
I think the remote reinforcement is going well, so rather than do that – what if you got people in as leash runners, sitting behind tunnels (he thought that was weird), etc – and someone else has the reward for inside the ring when he passes by them (even if he doesn’t take an obstacle, the criteria is to not go to them). You will keep going no matter what.
The other thing worth revisiting is the find my face game on course, in the class/trial environment. If you stop moving or make a mistake, he almost certainly disconnects. The find my face game is all about teaching the dogs to not get stressed by bloopers or disconnect, so that might be a great one to bring into class! You will have reward on you for now (or the instructor has it) and eventually it becomes part of remote reinforcement.
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
Frankie did great too!!!!>She BARKED! She did it and I marked it and gave her a treat and she had a light bulb moment!>
Yay! I think this might be something to move closer to the entry gate? If you can get her barking right before you go in (or doing wild tricks to get her pumped up even more), she can have even more blast off the start line. Having the a-frame and DW as the 2nd obstacle in the T2B and standard runs really helped her kick into high gear sooner.
The standard run was hard, taking the dogs right past the exit gate then back into the course – she did great and kept her speed up really well without thinking about the cookies just on the other side of the gate 🙂
One thing for the starts to try: you can angle the drop and run a bit more sideways so you are a little ahead rather than parallel to her. That way she is chasing you sooner off the start, which she likes 🙂
>Our body warmup before a run is: Down to stands, sit to stands, sit to stretch up on my legs, paw gives, side steps, backwards steps and the nose stretch yo hip, middle & shoulder and neck up & down. I do 4-5 reps of each.>
This is a really good active warmup! My PT vet people also recommend trotting in big circles for a few minutes before starting the active warm up, so make sure everything is loose before the powerful moves begin. Then a longer slower cooldown after so the dogs don’t get tight in the crate.
Great job here!!
TracyGood morning! This is exciting!!!!
She was definitely more comfy on the 2nd day! So the leash tugging returned. I wonder if she was simply doing mental calculus on day 1? I see that in my dogs too. For example, when Ramen is working hard mentally, he does not tug on the leash. When he is relaxed and ready to go fast (not doing calculus :)) he grabs to leash to tug. It is good to know!
She was her normal tugging kill-the-leash self at the beginning of the run. And the run was GREAT – she actually saved the line in 2 spots, where there was a slight lead change away. You can step in closer to those spots to help support her – walk the courses looking for them because they are a really popular AKC trend (subtle but definitely there!)
This was basically a real run, the toy was on your person but basically uninvolved.
So the next step would be to leave the toy outside the ring so she can experience that delay.
Also, what other obstacles are ready to go into the ring – any contacts? You can add them in if she is running them in sequence in practice.
Great job here!!!
Tracy
Good morning!
>Had a training party with some friends today and Beat got to hang out while other dogs ran.>
So awesome! And what a lovely facility!!!!
>She’s definitely turned on by watching dogs running these days, but she was still able to do her pattern game, some hand touches, and sending to a Klimb all on leash. >
Super good girlie!!! Both of her breeds are wired to respond to visual stimuli, so if she was NOT interested in watching other dogs than I would be worried LOL!!! And your choices of the pattern game, touches, send to Klimb are excellent for learning how to be around “action” without getting involved in that action 🙂
>Towards the end I even did some sit stays and releases to a thrown cookie with the leash dropped and she was great. So YAY!>
What a good girl. This is so wonderful to have her get such a great exposure to other dogs working.
>I wanted to get your take on allowing dogs who get very visually stimulated to watch the action. >That is a very good question LOL!! I am NOT a fan of having a dog, especially a young dog, on a station with a toy in its mouth watching other dogs run dog sports (or at the end of a leash, or behind a tunnel or under the a-frame, or running laps around the field, etc etc). I’ve got about a zillion reasons why I don’t like it, but mainly it is a waste of the dog’s bandwidth, jacks their neurotransmitters unnecessarily, and can lead to depletion without any gains in impulse control. I also think it leads to a whole lot of frustration which leads to a cascade of other things we don’t want.
Plus, adolescent dogs simply don’t have the brain development for simply watching. The part of the brain that is responsible for driving good decisions is not nearly as formed as the part of the brain that drives the impulsive decisions 🙂
But we do have to expose them to being in that environment and teach them how to function – so I teach a lot of the different pattern games (back and forth, up and down, and super bowls are my 3 favorites). And when those games are fluent at home, they can go on the road to add the arousal regulation elements in – eventually being ringside while other dogs are running. This includes ringside at flyball, which is probably the most stimulating sport to be ringside (visual, auditory, etc).
I build it up to a game called ‘engaged chill’ where they can be ringside, ‘watching’, but by then they have so many tools for arousal regulation that they don’t lose themselves to arousal, don’t get punished, etc.
And all in short bursts with young dogs, because this is very mentally expensive and we don’t want to deplete them.
>So far with Beat I can see that she does find it highly arousing and she could end up over threshold if I allowed it for too long a duration, but so far she can watch quietly and is still responsive to cues and will happily leave watching to work with me when asked>
Part of that is early adolescence/late puppyhood (it is a lovely stage :)) and part of that is the associations of watching the other dogs and the excitement are not fully formed in terms of behavioral expression. So… help her out with the tools like pattern games, rewarding when she automatically checks in with you, etc, to keep this nice behavior 🙂 Eventually you will be able to drop the leash or take it off with no problems or concerns.
>I know people who have actually put watching on cue and will use it as a reinforcer. Opinions on this? >
Meh. LOL!!! This is all good stuff to think about, though. If I needed watching other dogs as a reinforcer (or stimulator, which is actually what many people are using it for), then I would probably want to figure out *why* I needed it as a reinforcer in terms of why the other things were not valuable in the same way. A true reinforcer involves a dopamine spike (not everything is a true reinforcer) and I am not sure I want the dopamine spike for looking at other dogs moving – dopamine spikes are following by the reuptake/degradation which is some ways creates ‘pain’ which is where the motivation to move more to get the dopamine spike again comes from – so using watching as a reinforcer can very very easily lead to moving towards the thing they are watching which could way too easily become chasing (reward systems in the brain and motivation involve movement).
So it doesn’t make sense to me, in terms of how reward systems work in the brain. I will keep thinking about it and see if I can think of any reason why it would be useful outside of not having any other valuable reinforcement.
>With my terriers I have always felt that it just wasn’t a healthy place for their brains, but maybe different for herdy types?>
Agree! I think it is an unhealthy place for herding brains as well. Or any type of brains 🙂 And as far as I know, there is no decompression/reset that is associated with watching exciting things move, so there is not a lot of value there. There is a definite ramp up in arousal associated with it though, but not in a direction that I think is useful or healthy, as you mentioned.
I just think we see different expression of behavior in different breeds – and for a breed like a BC, people find the expression of behavior that comes from this to be ‘acceptable’ – staring, lunging, toy shaking, overarousal, etc. A JRT or Malinois or Rottie doing that behavior would be looked at very differently, right? So many reasons NOT to do it – the HPA axis/arousal systems, resilience/recovery, decompression, depletion, etc.
You ask great questions – keep ‘em coming!
Onwards to the threadle slices –
This was a good session! I think she was just doing mental calculus: hard skill (driving in close to the handler to then do a lead change away is HARD) plus new environment (HARD!)
So for the left turns, she might have needed more room to get in between you and the jump, maybe a treat for coming all the way in before the toy marker. You were pretty close – she did have room to fit, but in the early stages she couldn’t quite get herself into the pressure of the gap. On the other side, you had moved over a bit from the wing so there was more room, which worked better, plus the toy was in your hand on the first rep so it was a shade easier. She still told you it was hard by jumping up on you at 1:37 (I get clacked at when it is hard, so the pups all have their own “this is hard!” behavior )
But she worked GREAT in the new environment and she had many many options for other behaviors – and she chose to do threadle slice calculus 🙂 Yay! Let her sleep on it and in the next session, adjust your position to give her a tiny bit more room on the left (and start with a cookie or two for coming all the way into the threadle side) and I bet she nails it 🙂
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
A whole week! I am glad you are feeling better!!!>My biggest challenge with left and right is calling the right word. I’m often calling a left when sending her to the right. Dang Dyslexia! Just short of drawing a line in chalk with the word, I’m not sure what more I can do about that.>
What I did to get the left & right solidified was to take about 10 seconds before each rep to first point out the direction I wanted the dog to go, then look at her shoulders – is that her right shoulder or her left shoulder? Then I said it a few times out loud LOL! That really helped me – trying to remember it just from my own brain was very hard 🙂 but lokoing at the pup’s shoulders was much easier.
The tunnel recalls are fun! For now, if you are adding stuff at the exit of the tunnel, I recommend a verbal before she goes into the tunnel – a turn cue or go cue or obstacle cue. If you are quiet, she will look at you which can make it harder to keep her out on the big huge lines she will eventually be running on. For the recalls, you can call her and don’t have a jump in place – you can add handling on the flat like blinds and decels, etc. And if there are people or other dogs around? The tunnels as recalls are a great way to being teaching her to ignore all of the other stuff around 🙂
She did well with the Minny Pinny! Very nice reward placement! At this stage, this game is not a turn away game (everyone has turn-away on their mind from the threadle wrap work LOL!) so start each rep with her at your side and facing the setup. The mechanics of turning away into the Minny Pinny are really hard for the dogs at the age (they do all sorts of funky lead changes like she was here) so you will want to wait til the going forward through it is more solidified. She is happy to do it faster, but she was slipping a lot here with added speed (the mats make it hard for her to go fast and not slip). So to protect her shoulders, and rather than let her rehearse slipping/ticking the bumps or have her learn to compensate with different mechanics, keep her nice and close for now. It will be very very easy to add speed when she is not on mats.
And great job adding your left/right verbals!! It gets easier as you practice it more and more, and it is totally worth it to have them 🙂
She is really doing well with her line up get! She is offering a down a lot, but we can help get the sit more consistent by now going to the next level: You can move her to the mat like it is a start line, cue the sit, then lead out (like a start line). And you can place the mat in front of a jump or tunnel or anything tempting and exciting.
Since she is pretty solid with stay behavior already, our goal would be to have you be able to start moving away faster and faster, building up to a running lead out. Visualize when she is grown up and running one of those huge ISC or UKI courses: she is in a stay and you start to run, so you are releasing on the run 🙂 Start with a fast walk and then build to jogging then running – it might take multiple sessions because you want to set her up to be very successful with very few failures.
>Rocking Horse is absolutely her favorite game>
Yes, she is great at this game – such a lovely balance of going fast but also paying attention to cues! Yay! Next steps here: add your verbals 🙂 You might need to do a quick walk through to make sure you have them ready, because trying to get them out while she is running is hard at that speed 🙂 And you can add in the reverse spin, to make sure she understands the mechanics of it.
Great job on these!!
Tracy
