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Hi!
I am glad you got this in before the rain – it looked great and that toy is AMAZING!!!
Did you watch this in slow motion? It is really cool to see his form and power. NICE!!! I think the bar on jump 2 can come up 2 inches for now, just to give him a little extra height there. We need to proceed slowly became he is young, but his form looks lovely so we don’t need to worry about anything. Great job!!
Tracy
Hi! I am glad she is feeling better!!!
>We played two toy game and she was better. It’s better, but she still wants to stay on one toy.>
Identical toys are not identical in the eyes of the dogs LOL! But she did really well here switching, especially considering you were stationary. Handler movement (running back and forth a bit) can help make the toy more active and get the original toy to fade into the background a bit. She did really well doing the repeated strikes at the end!
>I played toss the toy and she actually returned it to me several times. I was smart and didn’t push it. I only did a few and it was all very successful. It’s an N of one..but the first time she’s done this in the backyard. Yay!>
Super!!! This sounds like great fun! Does she show any interest in tennis balls? Short ball retrieves are also a great way to build up bringing the toy back – toss a ball then have her bring it to you for a second ball or a treat. I don’t suggest doing it outdoors because we don’t want her to splat herself chasing a ball, but you can sit in the living room and roll a ball, send her to it, then have her bring it back. Easy and fun, while isolating the ‘bring it back’ element.
Great job!
Tracy
Good morning!
>I hope you are still in FL & avoiding “the weather”!>
Oh yes! Still in Brooksville and completely avoided the giant ice and snow storm (but did not avoid the anxiety of hoping the power would stay on at home so the pipes wouldn’t freeze – so far, power is still on!)
>We have a ways to go on getting him ready to travel to do agility, happy crating & he has to get over car sickness too (poor baby). I got a prescripion for Cerenia and we tried it out this weekend with mixed results – one perfect & one better but not perfect. Fingers crossed it works once we get the dosage right.>
Cerenia is good stuff. I know a lot of people who have had tremendous success helping with car sickness by feeding the pup a ginger snap before the drive. Simple but effective! I can find out exactly which brand and how much, if you want (one of them is a vet so I trust her advice)
I love his fancy harness! Great color for him! Great job getting his attention off the harness hold and onto the toy! The only delay was letting him finish chewing but he didn’t seem concerned about the collar holding at all. Super! Since he focused forward and drove to the toy really well, you can add more of your movement by walking forward as soon as you let go of him.
>He did so great!!! He surprised me and was really driving to the target! BUT I FORGOT TO RECORD! >
Oops! The best sessions are the ones that end up not getting recorded! But the re-do here looked fabulous! He had had no trouble with the sideways and backwards sending, plus he was great about transitioning from the ready dance (handler focus) to the send (obstacle focus). Super!!!
Since this went well, you can try with a toy as the reward, no cookies needed (and you also don’t need the clicker anymore).
>Blind Cross foundations a. I am so uncoordinated 2. I am such a bad thrower>
Ha! Yo are not uncoordinated at all and try to get treats to land on the run is HARD! He did great here! And he was having a super fun time!
And you were doing a great job rewarding across your body so he knew where to be on the blind crosses. Because he is so tiny, he saw the connection the best when you dipped your shoulders down a little bit.
We are building on this game with ore handling added to it – yo can add decel and pivot after the blind, along with the other stuff we are adding in today’s new game 🙂
He did great on the resilience walk – it is hard being a tiny soul in a big world! Letting him lead the way was great and he brought you back to the vet when he was mentally tired of it all. Good boy!
>He seems to pee whenever he is unsure or doesn’t know what to do. And also to mark, but I feel like a big percentage of his leg lifts are kind of obsessive. I have never had a boy that did agility. Do you & your boys have any tips for me on teaching appropriate pee habits?>
I have 7 boy dogs, 6 are intact… so I have pee thoughts haha!! No worries about the peeing. He might have been peeing a lot here because he was stimulated, there were many scents to add to, and yes – sometimes when they are a little anxious, we get some leg lifting/marking.
I do give the boys longer pee walks than the girls before training and trialing, because they pee several times (they are pee camels!) and the girls pee once. I have found that most of my adolescent boys have tried to pee in the house once (marking) and I responded with shock and horror so they never did it again LOL!! But as far as peeing during work? No problem as long as I keep it fun and don’t let them wander around as teenagers 🙂
Great job here!!
TracyGood morning!
>We had a great time. I think letting the two puppies play 1st helped him acclimate but he did well before that coming in to say hi to Tammy and Beth too. They commented how confident he seemed.>
I think the play and socializing definitely contributed to acclimation and helped the whole adventure become super fun.
>For the blind to the decel I think I am still confused since I have the toy in the off hard for the turn. Do I switch the toy to that other hand to try to use it?>
Because there are a lot of things happening in that game, you can do it empty handed: when you do the blind, you can use your arm to put an invisible toy across the other side of you. Doing that will show him the connection he needs to see for the blind. Then you can decel and ue your dog-side hand to bring him to you for the pivot – then you can whip out a toy or treat reward from a pocket 🙂
>Today we went on an outing to one of the local agility trials. Said hi to people. Watched dogs run courses. I forgot to bring my toy in so we safely chased a plastic bag. Was another fun day.>
Fun! He has having so many great exposures to the world 🙂
>I think the next lessons drop tomorrow. Do we need to work more of the other lessons to move on?>
Yes, they are posted 🙂 You will get an email soon. You and Dublin are ready to move on!! Have fun and stay warm!
Tracy
Good morning!
> I think I should be adding energy and movement with food rewards >
It depends on what the reward is for and what you are shaping – mixing in more toy play will be better in the long run.
>and he tries so hard it is easy to get to push just a little too far. >
You can set a timer to 90 seconds, that is a tried & true way to stop, play, and assess if you want to do more or not.
>I will look at using a toy as that will increase his motivation and energy. Didnt want to use a toy at start as he doesnt think as well when a toy is present but he has more fun.>
One of these reasons we use a toy at the start is because we are actively teaching them to think and offer behavior when in higher arousal. It sets up better learning overall – and if he has trouble with offering, you can split the behavior more and reward smaller pieces.
>Because I am lazy usually we train with lots of neutral novel things present – training things (when doing stuff In Synch and fusion) clothes leads, often toys but boring ones , as one thing I have worked on from the start is playing with me regardless of what else is around – although not alot with good toys as that is too hard.>
The usual stuff might not be novel, though 🙂 For example, I often have stuff around like shoes etc – so it maximize learning, I add something completely new and out of place for the brain to process 🙂
Keep me posted!
Tracy
Good morning!
>We are getting buried under snow & Sunnie is taking a nap now
>I hope your snow has ended! We got ice ice ice at my house but so far the power is still on!
>If I bring out the food first, I’m finding the toy play isn’t as strong until later. >
That is normal and probably depends on how hungry she is in that moment or the value of the food. For my food-driven dogs, I tend to feed them a bit of their food before training so they are not STARVING 😂 and also because they think better when they are not hungry.
>This was a morning session, I saved a portion of her kibble for this training session.>
Perfect – treats that are good but also she was not toooo hungry (hopefully :))
>The there are times that switching back & forth between food & toys are no problem. I just go woth the flow and never force the toy.>
It can be hard for puppies to tug in the same spot where there was food and where the food scent remains floating around. In those moments, you can move her away from the food smells and get her chasing the toy in a different room or area – the movement of the toy plus being away from food smells can really jump start the toy play. More on that below.
The longer toy was great on the first video! She was playing really well until you tossed a toy in to the toy area… and she noticed all the other toys so it took her a moment to get back onto the long tugger you had.
She was very interested in the toy when you threw it but then was looking for the food – part of that might have been that the ‘dead’ toy is not as exciting as the moving toy, and part of it might be that she caught some food scents.
On the 2nd video, great job keeping the toy moving away for her to chase and she did get on it! She was tugging brilliantly! Then you got a great rep of the driving ahead.
Driving forward for the food is no problem at all for her, and she also drove ahead really well for the toy! So we don’t need to worry about the skill at all, that is going great. We can focus on the food to toy transition to balance it out a bit:
For now, keep it a bit separate in that you can have empty pockets and empty hands when you are playing with the toy.
And you can make the toy crazy fun by moving it away and squiggling it and sliding it around (like a crazy bunny :)) for her to chase and grab. You can even tie multiple toys together for the craziest possible toy 🙂
The movement of the toy away from her is key: When she did not get back on the toy at the end – you were very engaging but the toy was not moving as much, so she engaged with you and not the toy.
And we can set up a separate game to build in food and toys together:
>When I wanted to set up FF I realized I had nothing to help her (me) release the toy! At that moment I also realized is now the time to teach her an out? Up until now I’ve switch toys or just had a cookie in my hand.>
This is where you can have boring cookies up high on a counter and trade the toy for one cookie. Toss the cookie as the reward for releasing the toy… then when she gets the cookie, take off and run to a different area, dragging the toy and being wild with it. It might mean you run to a different room or a hallway so you are pretty far from the food – but this can really help get her right back on the toy in a fun way. Just be careful not to run into anything!
Prop game went great! She drove right to it – having the cookies not in your hand helped a lot, plus latent learning helps build up the behavior while she sleeps 🙂
>I’m sure she can smell the cookies when they are in my hand or sees me reaching for my pocket!>
She totally can, and also she has a longer of history of getting treats from your hands than she does for hitting the prop, so it makes sense that the cookie hands would be distracting.
You can start to add the sideways and backwards sends here!
Great job! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Good morning! Thanks for the video, it looks like a super fun weekend at the trial!
He was so happy to hop on his mat/cot. So cute! And he was great about ignoring the noise in the background – the “ready” was really loud and then there were barking dogs, then he was able to do his back up with dogs running and someone talking to you. That was actually pretty hilarious: you were chatting and he was offering 10,000 behaviors LOL!!! That is where you can reward stillness a bit more – toss a treat to the cot while you are not full engaged with him. Because he is so keen to work & offer, I think we will fast track the engaged chill game for him in a couple of weeks so he knows when he doesn’t have to offer and can just chill.
So far his puppy brain seems to be wired to naturally ignore distractions in the environment, balance internal arousal, and offer behavior. Happy dance! A combination of genetics, training, and life experience. And you’re keeping a high rate of reward without pressure, which totally helps. I say ‘so far’ because, well, adolescence 🙂 and I don’t want to jinx anything 😂 😝
Great job!
TracyHi!
Doing a ‘simple’ behavior with some freedom and lots of play with any type of flyball around is HUGE! Flyball is noisy and active, so it was a great opportunity to work with him in a very stimulating environment. Great job with the active, fun toy play – but then holding onto him when the ‘madness’ of flygility started. I think he did well watching but not flinging himself around while you were holding him.
And also, when you did let him go and cued the tunnel: he was distracted so didn’t quite get himself into the tunnel but also… he did not run away to the other dogs/people, he came right back to you. GOOD BOY!!!! I was proud of him!
Thanks for the flygility video! Super interesting! The dogs looked very happy and the box was really interesting 🙂 How many runs do they do? I agree that all of those weave reps can really add up. The independent skills were impressive though!! I admit to cracking up when the dogs blasted past the weaves to just go get the ball LOL!!
Tracy
> But there’s definitely heaps of games later where we didn’t even do once, because work is very dumb and stressful.>
Good point! So we will stay here for now and can change it later – no need to add pressure when work might get in the way 🙂
T
Good morning!
She did a great job offering to get on that cool watermelon object! And you did a fabulous job mixing in the toy place after every few treat rewards: massive click/treat for you, for keeping the game arousing but also having great mechanics of toy play to food/shaping. It was almost like you had 3 arms!
Since this went great… what other random things do you have that she can get on? It can be a cushion from the couch, or boxes, etc – you can set up a few of them next to each other for her to walk all over and balance on.
Great job here!!!
Tracy
Good morning!
>I’m a little disappointed with myself this week – wasn’t feeling well and didn’t record as many of our practices as I think would be helpful. I’ve worked this weekend to set up a schedule for recording next week, but I think I need to push past some recording nerves as well >
No need to be disappointed! You got lots of good video this weekend and it sounds like you ave a plan for this coming week – love it!
The focus forward video looked great.
Nice transition from the tug to the cookie to the tug! She was focusing on the thrown toy and driving to it brilliantly. It sounds like you were able to already be adding in your motion with no problem, so you can add more and more of your running. Then add the toy race element where you try to get to the toy first and win 🙂 That will get even more speed 🙂>My only concern is that she loses interest in toys pretty quickly when we are doing training games – hopefully we can capture this a bit better in videos next week.>
This is pretty normal and might have something to do with her age (she is only 5 months :)) so keeping toy sessions super short and super exciting will help! Longer sessions with toys at her age might tire her brain out, leading to less tug interest. But definitely try to get it on video and we will see what is going on.
She definitely has value for the prop!!! Yay! Nice warm up to refresh the value here before the sending.
Try to send with an empty hand so it is easier for her to pass by your hand without checking it for treats 🙂
I agree, the backwards and sideways sending looked great! You can add in using your leg on the backwards sending too – give a big step back with the leg to support the arm cue.You can add a bit more distance here – we build up this game more in the 3rd games package, so it is something you can revisit here and there this week and next week.
Wrap shaping went great! She immediately got into the back and forth rhythm between the bowls. Super! You can break it up a bit more with tugging – every 5 or 6 treats followed by a tug break will keep her passion for the game high and it will also let us see why she might not tug as much
She did well with the cone too! When she stops moving to look at your hands – try to let her solve that puzzle and don’t help her. Let’s see if she can put herself back on the line around the cone (I bet she can!)
For her next session, you can start with you sitting on the ground and get a little more distance between you and the cone. And in a separate session, you can bring the cone back in close to you but change your position to sitting (the couch behind you here is perfect for that!) Our goal is to work you up to standing while maintaining the high rate of success you had here.
>I’ll start reaching out to dog sport friends to see who might be willing to assist.>
Perfect! I am sure there are plenty of neutral dogs that would be great helpers!
Nice job here!! Have fun with the new games this week!
Tracy
Good morning! I am glad the snow is melting!
>She wasn’t super excited to go, but it could have been partly because earlier we had done the set point and she had raced around in the yard with my others, and she’d never done this sequence before. But I’m feeling like I need to work on her starting enthusiasm, or maybe it will come as she gets more experience.>
I have learned that my sighthounds tend to have short bursts of high speed then get tired and conserve themselves – so you can save the racing around with the others for after the training, to being able to save the high speed for the training 🙂 I bring the whippets into handling training sessions totally fresh so they are a bit wild LOL!!
But she did really well here overall!
The angle of the tunnel entry was really hard for her – she was pumped up on that first rep but couldn’t quite coordinate ducking low into the tunnel.
She found it really well after that and had lovely speed – great job continuing even if there was a little blooper. On the exit of the ‘Go’ reps, add more connection to her eyes as you move up the line – that will help her see the line to the wing out ahead even better. You did that at 4:50 and she drove to the wing really well!
The wrap speed on the start got better when you held her collar and it looks like you were talking to her a bit – you can give her a little ‘ready-set-go’ when holding her collar there. And to get more speed when starting from the standstill, you can sometimes mix in rewarding the wrap by running with the toy for her to chase – I think she will like that 🙂
She was a bit fried by a little after 5 minutes or so was wanting a break – to keep her speed up, you can cut this session into 2 minutes, take a break (whether she wants one or not haha) then come back a few minutes later and do another 2 minutes or so.
Great job here! You can flip this setup so the wing after the ‘go’ exit of the tunnel is on the other side, so she can practice it on your left too 🙂
Tracy
Good morning! Hope you had a good weekend!
>I did notice he wasn’t super tight, but really just thought he’s still learning the cues. He definitely looks like he can keep speed around the curves this way though!>
Small dog handling is different than big dog handling 🙂 We want to see the collection and tight turns with our bigs… but the smalls get more freedom to set up their own turns. We still teach the collection and at some point with the smalls, we set up timing lights to see what is faster: cueing that super tight turn with collection, or letting the dog set his own line. The results might be surprising in that the ‘wide’ line is dramatically faster! That is the case for my 15.75” tall dog. We have that on the radar with Aelfraed when he is older 🙂
>On Friday he had made a huge game out of stealing my mitten from the car and running away with it.>
That is hilarious!!!! Fun!! And I am glad he liked it as a toy on a string too! He was tugging on it like a madman during the first pillbug game! He did the shadow handling the brilliantly. I think it was hard for him at first so he had to really think about it (note the silence LOL) but then he figured it out, added speed, and added singing 🙂 Great job with your connection!
>I think perhaps because he was rather offended by the holding start. After the 3 reps at the beginning, he absolutely refused to go back to be held again and started to take himself around the circle instead. >
He does get bonus points for wrapping her like a barrel on the 2nd rep, though! LOL!
Yes, he seemed to be avoiding being held and that might be why he also didn’t want to tug, because the tugging was near her. Is not wanting to be held a relatively new thing? I remember him being happy to be held but maybe I am remembering wrong. Either way, no worries, adolescence might be to blame and he was feeling sensitive about being touched or restrained. You were smart to not push things or force it.
He did well with the inside turns! I think the first rep of bind to inside turn surprised him and happened fast with the blind a little late, so he jumped up . Exaggerating the connection and starting the blind sooner (like at 1:10) really helped him sort out his footwork to do the inside turns and it got nice and smooth after that! You can add in going to the 2nd barrel too!
>t definitely feels like the stay is precarious right now. He wants to do it but it’s very hard for him and I can tell he can’t do it for long.>
For a young dog that likes to move, the stays might be mentally expensive right now which is why they feel precarious. You can mix in having him stay on a platform – the visual aid and structure of the platform can help support the stay so you don’t need to use a real stay all the time at this point.
>He was enjoying the mitten inside which was great and also said it was very hard to see the mitten move away from him.>
Maybe shopping for mittens in other colors? LOL! Or put a ball inside the mitten so it is higher profile on the ground? He did appear to be tracking it when it was moving though, with good forward focus to it!
He had trouble holding the stay with the mitten on the ground but he was keen to keep trying – I think the mitten was super motivating and exciting, so he was a little twitchy with the stay. But he had a ton of lovely reps here!
He liked the smiley face with more distance! Running is FUN! And his commitment was lovely to the tunnel and the wings. The soft turns had even better commitment than previously, he was really flying from wing to wing!
He also doesn’t let you off the hook with connection and motion 🙂 At 1:2 you didn’t quite have full connection back to him as he exited the wing (you were looking more at your side which closes your shoulder) so he was not sure which side to be on went with th subtle line of motion to your right side. That type of thing is 100% of the time a handler disconnection, so if it happens just keep going to the line he is on and reward.
Compare to the next rep at 1:23 and 1:26 (and the reps after that) where the connection was so obvious that he had zero questions.
He is ready for the next wing-tunnel game (Tunnel Exit Turns in week 2)
He did really well with the proofing game too – he needed a tiny bit of motion support to the tunnel, but he wrapped really well even with the tunnel right there! We will keep working to get him to take the tunnel (layering the wing) without you needing to move at all – you can use this setup again but we are also adding new games this week!
Great job :)
TracyHi!
Your new training space is coming together beautifully! This session went really well.Getting a smooth line to the wing straight ahead after the tunnel is probably the hardest part of this! After those go reps: you had really good connection on the tunnel exit, but give him one or two more steps to get commitment – your decel was a little early and overriding the drive to the wing a bit so he looked at you when he exited the tunnel.
Sending to the tunnel from further away will help get you ahead of the tunnel exit even more: based on what he was doing here, I bet you can send to the purple wing (the wing closer to the camera) and tunnel from further away, even with you near the pink wing – that will ask him to find the tunnel entry with you pretty far up the tunnel which puts you way ahead of the exit. And being that one or two steps further ahead so he sees more motion makes a bit difference to create a smooth line, like at 3:52 and 7:01.
The tighter tunnel exits and the soft turns on the wings all looked great! He is committing and finding the wings really well. You can flip the setup a bit to put the ‘go’ wing on the other end of the tunnel so he practices the go on your left side as well.
It will be fun to see how he does when you are able to take this to bigger spaces and he can open up and run run run!
Great job!
Tracy
Good morning! Hope you are staying warm!
He did really well here on such a hard game. It took him a moment to sort out the framework of the game but then he was really solid: fast & accurate! He had a couple of questions about the tunnel because you were stepping back away from it on a couple of reps so he checked in to be sure you really wanted the tunnel – but when you faced the tunnel, he was very smooth to it and also got the wraps when you asked for them.
He did really well when he did the tunnel then wrap in flow! He didn’t consider a second tunnel on those at all (unless you cued it). Super!
Most (all?) of any bloopers were because the physical cues and movement started before the verbals.
So for he next session, remember to start by holding his collar and saying the verbals 3 or 4 times, so he can hear the cues before he sees any physical motion and before he starts to move. That will allow you to add more understanding to the verbals as we fade out the physical cues – this will be really helpful down the road when we add more distance and he is faced with tunnel-jump discriminations.Great job !!!
Tracy
