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Have fun at Purdue! It is a great school!
And yes it is weird traveling without dogs… I wouldn’t know what to do with myself LOL!!!
T
Hi! This game went really well – he focused forward really well and he showed really good impulse control as the game got harder! Super! And he did really well with the bowl and the toy. Nice!
>One time I tried using the dog side arm to send which is normally what we do but was kind of awkward…it wasn’t planned, it just happened that way!>
Using the dog-side arm works great here too, and that is generally what we use when they are in a stay at a jump – as long as it doesn’t feel too weird to hold him with the opposite arm (that might be why it felt awkward :))
He sometimes would nose bop your hand like a hand touch, so you can also indicate the forward focus with a closed hand and a finger pointing, so he knows it is not a hand touch cue.
For the next session, you can continue to move the bowl and toy around the cone until it is basically next to you and Brioche – asking him to focus forward past it to the cone, then go all the way around the cone to get it (rather than just dive on it because it is right there 😂)
One other thing to add in, since we are also looking at collar grabs and lineups – try to line him up here for this game rather than grab and pull him into position. You can see him leaning away and avoiding the hand moving to his collar a bit when he had the toy and thought you were going to grab him (even though you were feeding him) – so using the lineup then holding him without moving him will help him not want to move away.
Nice work!
TracyA-ha! Got it! I thought you meant the full page, but it was the PDF. Thank you! The PDFs should be correct now!
Thanks again!
TracyNice job here! He definitely prefers the ‘touch don’t pull’ approach to his collar being used – at the beginning you were kind of pulling up on his collar and he started moving away. But then later in the session, you were lining him up and touching the collar without moving him or pulling up and he seemed to really be happy with that. He seemed to really like the between-the-feet line up and came driving back for more!
Then at the end you were holding without pulling him, and moving yourself into position – that was great!
> Need practice lining up on the side!>
A cookie lure going straight back or following a hand touch with a big step back can help him line up nice and tight to your side, like this:
Then you can add the collar touch when he is at your side.Great job!
TracyGood morning!
Looking at the prop video:
>Food value seems good as he had a harder time getting on the toy initially.>
Yes, he did great with food here!
I think he had trouble with the toy initially because it was not moving that much, and he was intrigued by what you were hiding behind your back 🙂 When the toy got moving more, he engaged better! And in the middle of the session, when you ran to the toy and really got it moving, he engaged really well!! And you can tuck the prop away a little more for now, like in your arm pit or on a window sill so it is less distracting during the tugging moment at the beginning.
He also did really well when you did the ready game before the send! Try not to have cookies on his nose (or empty hands right in front of his nose) for the ready game, because I think that might have been obscuring some of the other info at the end.
>is he bored? Too many reps?>
Nope and nope! He was asking a good question, easy to see why on the video but I would not have ‘felt’ it in the moment if this was me training my own pup:
On the reps where you used your hand as part of the send cue, he did great! The info was very clear about what to do.
For example, at 1:55 and 2:01, you had a very clear, crisp arm-and-leg step back to the prop. He was able to move to it really well, no questions. Backwards sending is hard so he was definitely thinking, but he did super well!
Compare to reps at 2:12 and 2:29 for example – your hand did not point at the prop here and instead your hand went behind your leg/back, with the step being subtle. That caused the cue to be less clear as to where he should look (along with hands being right on his nose for the ready game), so he kind of bopped your hand. Puppies see *everything*!!
He was still engaged and trying hard, just not sure what the cues meant. So do a big ready game without your hands right in front of him, then do a big arm point/leg step to the prop – and that is where he will smack it really well 🙂
He did great with toy races! Do you have a taller toy, like a hollee roller, that he can scoop up and run through so he doesn’t stop as hard on the turf?
He brought the toy back really well on the 2nd rep! Yay! Good job having a LONG tug moment after he brought it back which will help build even more love for bringing it back! Too many folks take the toy away immediately and the pups learn to stop bringing it back LOL!> I didn’t have his collar with me so made it as least invasive as possible lol!>
Girrllllll your homework right now is to put a collar or harness in your car, and one in the training building, so you are never without one. Do it right now LOL!! Yes, you were able to grab him but you were having to grab him, he still found it invasive…and he was moving away more meaning you had to grab for him more. So to get really clean transitions that he will move towards and not away, and allow for cleaner restraint… use a collar LOL that way you can just slip a finger under it as you tug and be ready for the next rep without having to try to grab him quicker than he moves away 🙂
Since he loves the toy races, you can take this different places as a fun way to get games happening on the road. And you can add a novel-neutral object too! And it is a fun way to get him engaged with the toy before any cookie-heavy games.
Great job here!!!
TracyHi!
Thanks for sending – I double checked on different devices and it looks like the game description/video is on the primary toy races page. It is possible that your server held onto a cookie in the wrong spot? You can try to refresh it by signing out then signing back in. then let me know if it is still showing up as duplicating the field guide for you, and which device and server you use – and we will check it out.Tracy
Good morning! She did beautifully here, driving to you and pivoting! She also got back onto the toy which is great – keep the toy nice and low in those moments so she can really get a good grip on it 🙂
Since she is in a stay, you can use your stay release word to ask her to move forward. You alternated ‘free’ with her name, but I try to avoid the name as a release (for the moments like when the gate steward says “why dog is this?” and I have to yell the dog’s name LOL!!)
Just be sure not to move your hand and release at the same time, because the hand movement can easily become the release, so either put your hand in position before you say ‘free’, or you can say the release and wait a heartbeat, then move your hand.
> I’m not sure if I am starting the turn soon enough?>
I thought you were good! And she was nice and tight to you.
You can also use the cookie throw start, because that allows you to add more running which is the next step to this game – as she is getting the start cookie, you can take off and run. Then as she starts moving towards you, show her a big decel (and pivot when she gets to you). That will be a fun way to show the fast-then-slow transition without her potentially breaking the stay if you start moving too fast, too soon.
Great job!!
TracyGood morning!
This session is exactly why we use video – hooray for easy access to being able to share videos!!! She is an excellent communicator – and seeing the session as a 3rd party from the camera angle you used provides great info.
2 things I see as feedback from baby Dot 🙂
Good toy play info here at the start:
The moving toy is a winner! Chasing and grabbing it is very engaging, according to Dot. The dead toy in front of her – not a winner. She would stop engaging and look up at you. I think you were trying to let her grab it, but she was like ‘why did it stop moving’. So keep it moving more and she will grab it more.
>She doesn’t seem to want to offer to come back and touch the object. I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong.>
You are not doing anything wrong – she is letting us know what she thinks the game is… and she appears to think it is about waiting and watching your hands move, as a cue to move. When your hands were not moving (:50-:53 for example), she was indicating the prop by head bobbing towards it but did not move until your hands moved. Then she moved towards your hands. There were a lot of rewards here with her being stationary while you delivered treats, or with her stepping towards your hands. So I think your hands are her focal point, which would explain why she was not smacking the hat with her feets 🙂
No worries – we can change that pretty easily! You can make the hat even more salient by maybe putting something under it so she has to setp up onto it a bit (a rolled up/mushed up towel would be good). Then we can minimize the hands as cues and get her moving to the prop more by having you sitting on something low so your hands are a little more out of the picture. And start the session by tossing a treat several feet away so she really has to take a bunch of steps to get it. Then be ready: when she takes her first step back towards the prop, drop a treat on it – then after she gets that treat, toss a treat several feet away so she gets off the hat to go get it (using the markers for each delivery). But you won’t be rewarding directly from your hand, and you won’t be doing much hand movement other than flicking a treat or dropping a treat. And you can gradually delay the reward for the hat til she is really driving back to it and getting on it.
Let me know if that makes sense or if I need more coffee 🙂 And let me know how it goes! Nice work here!
Tracy
Good morning!
First of all – what a gorgeous cat!!!! And there is another one behind you! I love cats!
Second – cats are magical about knowing when a camera is on and getting in front of it LOL!!!! My cat Hercules Mulligan makes an appearance in one of the week 2 videos LOLI laughed SO LOUD when the toy landed on the cat, Dean drove to it, carefully grabbed it, and brought it back to you… and the cat was like… ‘whatever, this is fine.’ OMG that was sooooo funny. Then Dean had to drive over/past the cat, who just remained entirely chill. Good boy Dean!
You actually accomplished 2 big training things here: you built on the forward focus, and you added a new level of stealth self-control. Dean absolutely rocked it. Thanks for your help, Mitten! I will be smiling about this all day for sure.
> Trying to work on delaying.>
The delay went great! And he is looking at the toy even with the cat distraction.
> And lo and behold the cat provided a distraction so I didn’t run with him.>
I’ve tried running and more than a few steps he runs to the toy but doesn’t pick it up. >Try walking slowly and see what he does? And the toy races posted yesterday might get him to pick it up when you run, because if you win the race, you party with the toy 🙂
> Tried food to get him to drop toy and boy does he drop it and then doesn’t want the toy right away again. For now I’m just waiting him out. I think it’s a little better.>
I agree – waiting is better than losing the toy drive especially for this game. You might get a quicker drop of the toy if you are not holding his collar – and mix in lots of immediate giving the toy back or tossing it right away. If my pup gives it back really quickly, I reward quickly by giving it back to the pup or throwing it.
>Do I need to post video of one game and then move to another game. I am trying to train a lot of things but I don’t want to get confused. >
It is kind of a ‘choose your adventure’ format: you can post one video then move to another game, or post a few videos on one game, or do a couple of different games and post several videos (no limit on how many videos you post a day, as long as the pup is not getting toooooo much training). For most people, depending on how busy life is – they sometimes post multiple because there was time to train, or sometimes only have time to post one video because things are busy.
In general, you can do a session or two and then move to the next step. Everything builds on the previous steps so it is easy and fun to move forward 🙂
He has plenty of forward focus and drive to the toy, so you can start looking at the toy race game – start by walking forward and see if he grabs the toy. And you can also win the game once or twice and party with the toy (without him haha) and see if that helps him pick it up even when you are moving 🙂
Great job here!
TracyGood morning!
> so I have some catching up to do! >
I think you are in great shape – you have done enough of week 1 that you can proceed to week 2 on any of the games you have touched on. Most of them build on each other, so you won’t feel like you are falling behind.
Looking at the blind cross video:
> I thought that went pretty well, I think I need to “cross” a bit faster.>
Totally agree that it went great!!! I think the element of the cross you can show sooner is the big connection after the cross. You had really strong, clear connection as you started moving away from her when she was eating the start cookie: your arm was back, your eyes were very visible, just lovely! And when you gave that same arm-back, eye-contact heavy connection as you finished the blind, she got to the new side immediately. The rep at :44 is a great example of getting the connection as you exited the cross. The connection being visible is more important than the arm cue, so you can even point your arm back to her eyes more to let her see the connection sooner.
The forward focus session also went great!
> I think I need to “cross” a bit faster. >
It was excellent 0 You basically using all 3 of your hands LOL!! I agree that the toy-treat-toy transitions went super well, your lineups rocked, and it was all really fun and exciting!
So the result was really fantastic forward focus from her, super drive to the toy, and she was bringing it back really well! There was a small delay in her bringing it to you at the end – hard to see what she was doing, maybe she was kind of chewing on it like she did at the very end? That might be a bit of a decompression behavior, where the pup shreds the toy a bit (repeated mouth movements are known to be good for self-regulating). She might have felt a change in her internal arousal state and was self-regulating back to baseline. THIS IS GREAT because we want puppy brains to ‘learn’ how to self-regulate. And it is good for us to see, because it is a sign they need to regulate. Some of my dogs also shred the toy a little to decompress so I build in decompression to their sessions: this could be letting them shred for 5 or 10 seconds then asking for another rep (this is an expensive habit because expensive toys are sacrificed in the name of self-regulation haha) or I build in a snuffle mat or lickimat for a quick decompression moment. It is fun to play with because it really helps the pups.This went really well, so you can go right into the toy races posted yesterday.
Have fun! Great job!
Tracy
Hi! He did really well here! Not being hungry because he’d already had a little breakfast probably helped.
When you were working the cookie to toy, I don’t think you lost him at all – I think there was something interesting on the floor, and the toy lost its squirrel-like excitement 🙂 That is a really cool toy but when it was just squiggling around in front of his face, it was not interesting to tug on.
But then when you swooshed it away at :43? He was right back on it. Yay! So always remember that the toy is a squirrel-substitute and needs to run away from him to get him to engage with it.
You can see the power of the moving toward in the outdoor part of the video: he could have easily taken the thrown toy and had a nice party without you… but you were running away and that made the toy in your hand really come alive, so he drove back to you! Yay! And when the toy remained ‘alive’, he stayed with it. If you let it die a little (1:48), he considered going back to the other toy.
You can slide a cookie into this game: throw toy 1, he brings it back while you run, he plays with toy 2, and then before the next rep you give him the most boring possible cookie ever (maybe 1/4 of a Cheerio? LOL!) then go back to throwing toy 1.
And wow, that is a great retrieve and he is carrying that toy all the way back til you say strike! Love it! We need to teach him some flyball too LOL!
>I think I can probably add the novel object next time 😃>
Totally agree! I think it will be easy for him.
Great job!
TracyHi! He did well with the nose touches here – I think he had a few questions about cookie smells.
He had a little trouble engaging with the toy at the beginning. JHe was happy to chase it and grab it, but then started thinking about something on the ground – I wonder if he could smell treats from the previous session and that made the toy play hard? And then when you were tossing the treats to reward the hand target, he got a little caught in smells too. Perhaps it was pools of scent being a little distracting. So for this game, you can have him touch the target then reward from your other hand, so he doesn’t have to find the tossed treat in the pool of scent from the other treats. And to get his engagement back after treats tossed in the grass, you can play a little cookie game with him: toss a medium value treat for him into the grass. Then after he eats it and he re-engages with you, whip out an amazing treat and hand it to him. That can help him ignore any potential pools of scent on the ground because better stuff will be available for engaging with you 🙂Nice work here!
TracyHi!
Happy birthday, Spirit! Welcome to class! He is super fun 🙂
He did well with the pre-game here! I agree – he did a great job especially if this was the first time! Since this went so well, you can move to the next steps for your next session: do a quick review of the foot targeting and if he is fine with it, move to the sends we posted in the week 1 games.
Nice work!
TracyHi!
Wing wrap foundations are looking great!He seemed to have no questions until the cone got a little too far away – that was the threshold until you kind of pointed it out to him but he still had a couple of questions. You worked the cone back out to that spot slowly and then at the end, he had it! Fantastic!!
Thinking about next steps: we want to get you to be able to stand up, so you can do that for the next session with the cone close to you. The cone is short, though, so you can stack a bunch of them up to make a taller cone. And the new stuff for today includes adding different (bigger) things for him to go around – that will help when you are standing, and it might also help when adding distance because a bigger/taller object is more salient. But based on where we take this in week 3, being able to stand up is a top priority (and then we can fade the bowls too!)
Great job!
TracyThe toy play here was fun to see!
On the first ready moment at the beginning, he was perfect in terms of being able to regulate his arousal. Then you can see after the first rep, the toy brought a new level of excitement so he was jumping up more and it was harder for him to regulate the arousal.We can help him by having you think of your ‘ready’ dance as being on a volume dial (have you ever seen the movie Spinal Tap?) What I mean by that is we can dial up or dial down the intensity of the ‘ready’ based on what else is happening in the session. A calm, quiet ‘ready?’ with no movement from you and no toy play happening before it is probably a 1 on the volume dial of excitement here. If you were tugging like a crazy person then did a big READY READY READY with a lot of movement – that would be more like a 10 (or 11 haha). You did *not* have him dialed up to 10 – it was more like a 7 or 8, with the word being repeated and fun body language.
So since the toy play brings him up and the volume dial being at a 7-ish got jumping up, you can dial down the ready game a little by using the word maybe once, with more relaxed body language. After he tugs, that level of ready dance might feel like a 5 but that might be perfect!
It is fun to noodle around with just how much we can ask for as their bodies learn to self-regulate. And starting it now helps us tremendously through adolescence and into adulthood.
Using the treats as part of the transition from the tugging back into the session worked GREAT. Your mechanics were lovely and he did great!!!! The yoga mat works well until he added more speed, so it will be fun to see this outdoors!
Nice work 🙂
Tracy
