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Hi! Nice update!!!! Yes, recognizing any struggles the dog might have is a good thing for the list, to be able to add more support.
And on this:
>> when we finished one of my friends said holy cow I didn’t know you could get that kind of distance with him that was awesome. I said thanks and almost let mr. negative come out of my mouthYay for you! That is a great friend to offer up such a great positive, and double hooray for you saying thank you and not letting any negatives out. This is a big moment!!!
Sounds like the boys did well and you had some really lovely runs! Hope the rest of the weekend is super fun too!Tracy
Hi there!
He was a super good boy on his cookie recalls outside without his head gear! Great job using countermotion by running the other way while he was heading towards the cookie. I think you might have run out of room at the end of the recall because you ended up facing him or even moving back towards him – so if there is more room, keep running 🙂 If not, hold still for a few heartbeats before running for the recall, so you can still be running when he reaches you.This is a good game to help teach him that outdoors doesn’t mean eating things off the ground 🙂 You can also mix in loose leash walking with TONS of rewards – maybe on a head halter? It is important to help him understand not to eat things… when he grabbed the mulch, was he in a stay and grabbed it, so was he in between reps? It will be interesting to hear more about it. I know there are some good protocols out there, so I can research them.
The backing up session – of course the good session isn’t on video, LOL!!!!! On this session, you can help him more by tossing the cookie more, rolling it between his front feet (more like what you did at the very end). I bet you can jump start it as well but holding him around the belly (with his head facing behind you) so you can drop the cookie a little further back, and the holding will prevent him from going all the weary through, and then you can get even more steps backwards. I bet he will also pick it up if you try shaping it while sitting on the floor, he is a smart shaper!
Nice work here!
TracyHi!
So this game was actually pretty hard for him, based on his reactions! The first few reps went ok but he had a bit of trouble really playing, so stick with this a bit longer- use a more obvious treat so he can snag it instantly and then drive to you, and then keep the toy really active to get really strong tug – he was tending to let go pretty quickly. Ideally you can also call him sooner, and a more obvious treat will help that too- start to call even before he full gets to the treat.
Another way you can make the treat more obvious is to hold him longer, let the treat land, let him lock on, then tell him to get it.The bag of treats was really hard! True, he didn’t run to it, but he had trouble tugging and also getting the other treat. So, I’d say it was too hard for now 🙂 start with just getting more tugging in the presence of the food distraction, starting further away and keeping the tug really active: throw it, lunge it around, run and let him chase it, for example. He didn’t seem to like the physical play (like when you were tapping him) when he was trying to figure it out, so more chasing of the toy will help. And when he can chase it and really latch on in the presence of the food bag, then I think you can go back to the recalls. It won’t take long for him to figure it out. Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
Yes, these games generally require maintenance so keep them on the regular rotation. One thing to think about here is keeping his success rate higher – he had a decent number of failures, so try to have the cookies further away and reward more frequently, adding the difficult challenges more gradually. Also, I like that you are using a get it cue – just be sure that you don’t put ‘ok’ in front of it (or any of the other releases) . You had ok get it and ok come, which can be confusing because the ok might be what he is listening to rather than the get it or come.
One other idea is to change locations more frequently – it keeps the game interesting if you can get him to earn a few rewards in one place, then change rooms and surprise him with another round of the game, and so on. That element of new place and surprise also help us transfer the self-control to new locations and real life more easily.
Nice work here! And nice transitions to toy play!!
THey there!
He did a really good job, the cookie tray is a great choice in terms of texture and noise potential!
On the toy tosses – yes, nice retrieve, good boy! I think you can add words to tell him when you want him to go retrieve it versus when it is dead 🙂 for example, tell him to get it on the tosses when you want him to go get it. But when you are just putting it down and don’t want him to get it, let’s come up with a different word to tell him it is out of play. Maybe “all done” or something? This can help him focus back on the shaping and not try to get the toy again or watch it.
On the shaping, he was watching you a lot so you can tweak the reward placement to encourage him to look at the tray – either drop it on the tray or turn his head away to deliver the treat. You can also move further from the tray so he has to look at the tray more to get on it and can’t watch you AND get on the tray LOL!!
You can also add something under the tray to make it move and make it noisy, like a pen or wadded up paper. That is a great pre-teeter opportunity 🙂
Nice transitions from the toy to the shaping and from the shaping to the toy! Great job here! Let me know what you think 🙂
TracyHi!
You make really good points here about perception! It is all so interesting. And yes, it is important to let go of what happened in the past and only focus on the run in front of you: yes, learn from the previous run but don’t dwell on it or obsess! One of the joys of agility is that it is an up-and-down ride and some runs are great and some can be train wrecks LOL!!>>So since this seems to be a them on this discussion for me anyway. Do you think that having many of these mental preparedness skills down/understood/ applied gives off a certain perception to others??
Or would you say that it all goes back to the beginning of teaching the dog how to do obstacle, read your body, building their confidence in understanding , the whole agility foundation from the beginning??All of the above? To be successful in agility, we need all of this: a well-trained dog will not be successful for the most part if the handler has no mental game. And handlers will great mental games will not be successful for the most part, if the dog is not well-trained. There are always more things to work on in both the dog training/handling and the mental aspect. Agility is a complex, difficult sport that keeps evolving, so sometimes we feel like we are scrambling to keep up LOL!!! But that is also part of the fun 🙂
T
Ooh, absolutely! You can add acclimation games and similar things to performance goals. You bring up a good point – performance goals are not limited to inside the ring, you can apply them everywhere!!!
T
I think you will like Speed Visualization! Let me know how it goes. And adding regular visualization to non-gym days too will help it become habit – the ability to whip out a visualization anywhere will be a great tool!
T
Hi there!
>>I get very use to speaking to my dogs in a somewhat natural language and this is the consequence.
Same for me!!! We are trying to avoid any stress by being clear. But, it turns out, that my dogs figure it and they don’t have stress about it 🙂 Yes, I am always trying to be clear but I am also pretty conversational – and I don’t fight with them. Between the happy chatter, striving for clarity, and ‘no fighting’ rule, my dogs put up with my sometimes lack of clarity by figuring me out and not being stressed 🙂 So yes, try to be perfectly clear – but also you are really a great partner to her in training (you don’t fight with her about things) so I am not worried about any stress.
>>Hey, are we going to do things that will help Zing with waiting her turn while another dog is worked? I know self-control and age are contributing factors, but just curious if you have stuff up your sleeve? Zing firmly believes that all turns belong to her, more so than my other dogs did at her age
Yes! I have some “dual training” games coming – we have a couple of self-control layers to get to and then you will see the dual training next week. We can add more, I think they are useful!!!
T
No worries about the separate posts! I will investigate to see why it happened – maybe a size limit? Dunno. I will let you know! Thanks for your patience!!!
T
Hi!
Yes, he was being a bit too polite here LOL!!! It is possible that indoors doesn’t have as much room to explode and there a bit of pressure with you moving into him, so he is more chill about driving ahead of you? You can work this indoors as more of a “get it” where you send him but don’t race him – then he can retrieve it to you (he did try to take it on a victory lap on the first rep LOL!!). My guess is that when you are outside and he has room to gallop, that he will leave you in the dust 🙂 So try some ‘get it’ sending on this and see how it goes!
Nice work on all of these!!Tracy
Hi again!
It cracks me up that there is a shoe in the middle of the floor here. LOL! Good job keeping your hand on his collar until after the treat delivery. He seemed to be fine with the collar grabs, especially when you came in from the side next to him. Coming in from the top or over his head to the other side was a little more surprising to him, but that is a good thing to have happen. Definitely add this in randomly to daily life, both for cookies and grabbing his collar during tugging – he seems to be fine with it so we can keep him happy to be touched 🙂Next video, shaping! Good work here! Nice transition from the tug to the shaping! It took him a moment to get back on the toy (because… cookies!!) but you got him engaged. Yay!
I like how you were waiting for him to offer more (I think you were waiting for back feet) – that was good to see if he could offer it! But, during the waiting… be quiet LOL! You started talking in an exciting way (“whatcha gotta do” or something like that) so he became interested in what you were saying and he stopped offering. Be quiet in shaping is really hard (trust me, I feel that pain, because I personally never shut up in real life HAHA!!!)
So, be quiet and wait… if enough time goes by, you can break off the session and change something – you can use a bigger prop for example so it is easier to get his back feet on along with the front feet. Or, rather than place the cookie in front of it, you can try tossing it as the reward to encourage him to sort of run over it rather than stop on it.. Keep me posted on how he does!1
TracyHi there!
On the backing up, we can tweak the cookie placement to get more backing up. On the cookie that goes between your feet – put the cookie further back (under your bum, past your heels rather than between your toes) – that way he has to come further forward to get it and will instantly offer backing up more steps. Your cookie here was not far enough under you so he really only needed to take one step back to back up.
The other placement tweak is that the actual reward for backing up should be tossed low and long (between his front legs) so he continues to back up to get it. What was happening here was that you were feeding him from your hand the instant he got out from your feet, so he was only taking one step back then stopping and raising his head to the reward. A tossed cookie will get more backing up and keep his head low, rather than looking at your hand. You were tossing treats or moving him backwards with a treat after the reward, but the initial reward when he steps out from under you was stopping him – so if we tweak that placement, you will get more backing up. Let me know if that makes sense!Tracy
Hi there! I am glad it all came through – I am not entirely sure why it didn’t go through the first time. I will ask the tech crew to find out if there is a size limit that we don’t know about.
>>Dogs – (confident) he is confident but not overly alert meeting other dogs, kind of matter of fact, except for 1 dog we met. He kind of bowed up at her (more alert, hard eye, tight mouth) then when she came right up to him he barked twice. Later that dog had a puppy approach and she snapped lunged at the puppy, so I put this one down to Spot was reading the dog and warning. He met a nice aussie yesterday and she could have already been in our pack the way it went. Yay!>>
Great! Confident and dog neutral is perfection! You can add the coping stuff as he gets around more exciting things like dogs running agility, particularly when he begins to understand what agility is all about 🙂
>>People – (neutral) He goes up to people calmly if I allow him to. Usually smells their leg. Accepts a pet – most people pet on the head and he is fine with that. In puppy class he is able to loose leash walk around a person acting goofy (funny poses, flinging arms, etc). Has gone past a person in a wheelchair and just looked, but walked on with me. During Thanksgiving dinner he laid on a bed about 10′ from the table, didn’t bark when people came in. Yay!! >>
Whoa, that is lovely! Again, confident and people neutral. Keep rewarding that!
>>Different environments – (confident and alert) in wide open spaces he tends to lose his ability to hear for a couple minutes as he runs around and sniffs stuff, but after a couple minutes I can call him back and reward him. In tight spaces where he has to go through a small gap in a barrier he hesitates like he doesn’t know what to do, but once he understands will go thru fine.>>
So these environments will be great for incorporating his favorite coping mechanisms, just to help him chill out and be able to hear you immediately 🙂
>> I can make the bed with him in it and he doesn’t move for a bit – once he tries to get out he does so without getting stressed.
Ha! That is funny 🙂 I bet he likes snuggling up in the bed!
>> In general, outdoors and stores he tends to look more at his surroundings but out of curiosity not stress from what I can tell.
Yep, sounds perfectly normal. You can totally get him to these different places to learn to chill, not because I think he needs any intervention or help at this moment, but in case he might need it in the future. If he does ever need help, we will have the foundation in place. If not? well, then he has had multiple great experiences in many places 🙂
>>Noises – (Neutral) when the lid off the trash can fell right next to him he jumped away not to get hit, but then just turned and smelled the lid. I had the people at the feed store drop my keys from a height and he didn’t quit sniffing the treats below the counter. A baking sheet fell in the kitchen when he was laying by me relaxing and he jerked his head up at the noise, then laid back down. He reacts, but gets over it quickly. He’s alert and interested when he hears agility videos playing on my computer – will come over, perk up and tilt his head.>>
Again, normal stuff here. So exciting! I love normal reactions! LOL!
>>I think as he starts to understand the game he’ll be more stimulated near the ring, but at present he can be in the stands with me and watch. First dog I’ve ever had that can do that!
This is great! I agree that he might end up being more stimulated near the ring when he knows the game, so add the coping games even though he is fine now – let him chew a bone or sniff a snuffle mat or lick a kong. This will help him not matter how he ends up in the future, he will either remain a relaxed dog around the ring or he will be able to come back to being relaxed even as the game increases in excitement. He sounds like a very cool pup!!!
T
