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Good morning!
I think these are off to a really good start! There is one small adjustment you can make so it feels smoother and less directionally challenged 🙂
Think of each rep as a double wrap: line him up at your side, send him around the upright – then catch his nose to turn him away for the 2nd wrap – then reward. After each reward, reset him at your side to start the next rep.
I think it might have felt awkward because you were not lining him up to begin each rep from your side – you were trying to get it from any angle he was coming back from after the cookie toss so there were a lot of different directions happening. He was good about following the hand cues but I think it will feel smoother for you and also get a better head turn from him when he starts at your side each time.
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Good morning!
This went really well! He has a strong undersanding of the parallel path concept, so he seemed to have no questions about staying on the parallel line here to get to the backside. Your line of motion and your connection were super strong too, which helped support the line. Yay!! He was even starting without you at the end 😂🤣
Since this went so well, you can start adding more lateral distance so your path takes you more towards the center of the bar. The key is still using the parallel path, so you will want to start with him either on a stay facing the correct line, or a cookie toss – that way, you can get on your line and move forward on the parallel line before he begins moving. If he takes the front of the bar, it is possible that your motion was pulling away rather than staying parallel (or your connection shifted to looking ahead at the jump).
Great job here!
Tracy
Hello!
> Other than that I wonder if the contour of the hill is having an effect?
He was guessing a bit, and I think his questions were about what to lok at and go to: when you are in position but looking at him, the visual is jump versus threadle hand. The jump is a lot bigger and has more value which is why he was probably taking it a lot. We can help direct his focus by having you look at your hand instead of at him when you say the ‘come’ verbal, and even shaking your hand a bit. That will help direct his focus away from the jump and to the threadle.
You can also take the stay out for now and start with cookie tosses – there were enugh broken stays that the rate of reinforcement was getting low and also a good portion of the broken stays resulted in him going to the threadle hand – but then he did not get a reward. You were thinking broken stay was the wrong answer but he might have been thinking threadle hand was the wrong answer, so there were more questions.
Starting with you already in position and tossing the cookie away to start him instead of a stay will help with that for sure!
And then when you add the stay back in, add in tons of rewards thrown back to him after you put your hand in position – he might think the hand movement is part of the release.
And to keep the overall rate of reinforcement nice and high – if he makes a mistake and comes to the front of the bar even when you are loking at your hand and shaking it, you can reset him with a treat right away. Effort gets rewarded even if he doesn’t get the BIG reward of the MM. Speaking of the MM:
> He’s not quite as foodie as most of them so the MM is not quite so irresistible.
I was keep turning towards it.>He did a good job of going to it, but you can pump up the food value by adding stinky, delicious stuff to the mix of treats in it. The MM probably won’t dispense big pieces of the good stuff but the other treats will pick up the scent which makes them more enticing.
Nice work here! Have fun this weekend!
Tracy
Hello and welcome back! It is great to see you here!!!
>I would like to put Georgie’s picture up on my profile, but could not find a way to do that>
Profile pictures can be created on gravatar.com and that will get rid of that gray default photo you see now. In order to do that, create a new account at gravatar by clicking on the link below and register using the same email address as the one you use to log in here:
https://en.gravatar.com/connect/?source=_signup
Once you create an account with gravatar, just upload whatever photo you want as your profile photo on the gravatar site and it will automatically update your photo here.
>Georgie is very fast and is typically in front of me, often by quite a bit, so I rarely do front crosses, and mostly use rear crosses and directionals. I would like to use blinds more often, but I don’t feel like I can accurately gauge whether there’s enough time for one, and I don’t want to get run over. :-). >
We do have a big emphasis on NOT getting run over LOL!!! And we will be working on how to send her away so you can get to the blinds, and also how to time the blinds and where to put them on the line, so you have enough time to do them and not get run over 🙂
Have fun!!
Tracy
Good morning!
>I will be doing a session (or more) of just me to get my mechanics in order.>
This will be the most valuable thing you can do! I have spent plenty of times walking up and down my hallway just doing blinds without the dogs LOL
>I know I don’t need a blind cross verbal for Bazinga but it seems like my brain needs me to say something in order to do change sides.>
You can totally say “blind” or something!! Or call her name. Words are good!
The double blinds on the flat were GREAT! So quick! I thought I accidentally had the video playing in fast forward but nope: you were super quick. The quickness was aided by your hands being low and tight to you, so she was easily able to see both blinds. SUPER!!
On the 2nd video:
The single blinds on the wing looked good! Nice connection on the exit!! You got quicker and quicker as you got comfy with them too.
The FC to BC (spin) looked good – on the rep at the end, you kept moving as you did it and that is the key element: go into the FC rotation, keep moving out of it, then do the blind as you are moving up the next line. Super!
You are ready for the 2 wing blind game! It is probably the hardest game ever have in this class 🙂
Great job!
Tracy
Good morning!
>I have a question about the Startline stays with “catch”. When should we start to add the “wait” verbal to this game? Or do I just keep building on him letting me move & waiting for me to say “catch’?>
Great question! Because sit means “sit and stay until released”, you don’t actually need a wait or stay verbal. Sit should cover it all. But do I still use a stay verbal? Yes, yes I do 😂. It is more for me than for the dog – I call it my emotional support verbal. It helps me stay connected and sorta calm 🙂
So if you want to add it, you can add it when you know he is going to wait. If you think he might break early, don’t say it as that might dilute it. But if you are pretty confident he won’t move until you release or throw the reward back to him, you can add it after he sits.
Looking at strike a pose: Jumping in close to you was hard at the beginning! Coming to your hand was easy but then slipping into the spot between you and the jump was hard! He was so funny, expressing his feelings by huffing at you LOL
Then you had a masterful moment of presenting the reward very carefully and clearly at :33 – and that turned the lightbulb on. Then he as perfect!
You repeated that excellent reward placement on the other side which really helped too! Placement of reward for the win! And he was able to find all the different angles too. So cool!!
He cracked me up with the contact box when he started offering backing up LOL Good boy!
>It was right after the other game so maybe he was a little tired. He wasn’t really bouncing back through the box after the treats.>
I see what you mean – I don’t think he was tired, I think he was thinking hard about solving the puzzle and finding the treats. You can try flinging the treats even further away so he races to them. And letting him sleep on it will probably increase the speed for the next session – his brain will practice it and be ready to run run run 🙂 I prefer that the pups are a little more thoughtful at this stage because the speed will come easily. If they are flinging themselves everywhere, it is hard to get the accuracy. He is doing great!
Nice work here!
TracyIt is nice to have a helper dog, thanks Benni!!! But I think you are doing a great job with Brioche too – this game is actually pretty hard, especially with a baby dog, and you made it look easy 🙂
Tracy
Good morning!
>Brioche did the mountain climber on 3 different see saws: max 200, galacan, desert paws. The first one was Max 200 and he declined the first attempt to get on but then after getting on he was fine for everything we did after that on all 3 see saws. >
This is great!! Good boy, Brioche!!! It is fantastic that UDog has 3 different teeters. So now he has seen 4 total! We just need him to see a Clip and Go and then we are really rolling!
>Jess really liked my red band! And those see saws it fit much better around the board because they are thicker. So we did our homework on that.>
Yay! And if you can get a white band and a yellow band, we can use them for the fading process when we start to remove the target. That is a long way away, so no rush on that 🙂
Looking at the videos:
This is going well overall!>I see that he goes wide coming out of the tunnel to go around the first wing. What am I doing to cause that? I must be encroaching on his line too much to push to the backside?>
Yes, he is seeing converging pressure into his line like at :10, :45 (blocking the wing on that rep) and on the other wide turns there, which pushes him further away on the parallel path. So you can run a bit more forward to the jump cups which will straighten him out – like at 1:26 where you had less pressure towards him on the line and more of the wing as visible so he was tighter on the line. Super!
He had some questions on the exit of the 2nd wing (and at 2:41 on the exit of the first wing). You can see him going a bit wide behind you at :15 & :24, 1:31, 2:03 for example. What was happening was you were looking down at your hand, which was at your side – so with him behind you, all he could really see was your back and he was not sure which side of you to be on til he saw the rest of the motion.
To get him to drive more smoothly to the next line, you can connect directly back to him as you exit the wrap so he knows which side t be on.
That more ideal connection for a better line would be what you did at 2:05, as he exited the wing on the way to the tunnel. Your dog-side arm is back and your eyes were on his eyes as you move. He was able to keep looking at his line and go fast to the correct side of the tunnel. That looked awesome!!
On the 2nd video (the other side): this went great!!
You ran directly forward to the wing after the tunnel, no convergence, and he was nice and tight on the line each and every time. Yay!
He had one question when you slammed the brakes and rotated to the outside foot at :17 and that caused the refusal. The left food coming forward like that almost looked like a turn away cue so he had to check in. The rest of the reps were much smoother into the decel after that and he had no questions.
You were also more connected on the exit of the wings for the most part here. Your arm was back and your eyes were on his eyes, so he was able to see the new line sooner.
Great job here! You can move to the next game!
Tracy
Good morning!
This went great – she was totally focused ahead on the line. YES! And it is a perfect exercise for a higher bar.
>She knocked the first bar but seemed fine after that.>
No worries – it was not a form issue. I think she was going fast and the toy throw was nice and early: so she was a little surprised by the new height at that speed. But she adjusted and looked great on all t he other reps. Super happy with how she is doing!!
Since it seems like she had no real questions and did great, you can keep adding distance. And you can add the drive-ahead element by going really close to the tunnel and waiting for her til she just about exits then move up the line: can she drive ahead? And you can also do the chase challenge: send to the tunnel from as far away as possible then take off and run to get way ahead. That will challenge her to find the jump and maintain her form. I think she is ready for all of these 🙂
Great job!
Tracy
Good morning!
Tunnel to wing:
The tunnel exit to the wing went really well, especially when you were moving forward at :57 and 2:09 for example. On there earlier reps, you were working hard to get to the wing and be rotated, but that ended up having you run backwards a bit and she had some questions. When you ran forward and then decelerated, she had no questions and a lovely turn!
>We had several failures on the spin blind – I am thinking it was my connection but “I thought I was connected :)”>
It was partially connection, yes – you were connecting as she exited the wing but then stopped moving forward and ended up pointing forward: that was the moment of disconnection that turned you to the other end of the tunnel.
Plus, since you were stopping, you were right next to the tunnel entry you didn’t want. So when you said tunnel, that was the one she saw (the other entry was far away and not very visible for a baby dog).
You were ramping up your connection at the end – you can ramp it up even more by keeping your dog-side arm further back and making more direct eye contact, while you keep moving so you don’t end up next to the wrong tunnel entry. Also you can angle the tunnel so it is curved towards you more and that will totally make the other side more visible for her too.
Day 2 of the tunnel to wing:
The FC went well again here at the beginning. On the 2nd rep with the spin, you had definitely better connection PLUS you kept moving: nailed it! Excellent adjustment!Adding the other direction: Lovely FC at the beginning! You did a fancy dance move on the 2nd rep (post turn to RC of tunnel entry) but you made it work 🙂 The spin at the end worked well too – you got the connection and then kept moving. Well done!
Tandem turns:
On video 1, it was not a poor start at all! You were just a little too quick with your hands on the first rep but you were good on all the others where you were stationary. Nice job keeping your feet facing forward! When you added movement at the end, you were too quick there too 🙂 Be sure to decelerate to get her to turn away before you move forward again.2nd video (other side) – these are going well too. You don’t need to be quite as quick with the hand cue – you were flicking your hands really fast, but you can doing it a little slower so she can follow it better. These turn away moves are slow motion moves 🙂
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
He is definitely getting the idea and did really well with the cone even with it being new. I think he figured out that the cone was a ‘thing to wrap’ really quickly, good boy!
To get the best body bend and head turn, remember to line him up at your side to start each rep, and each rep is a two-fer 🙂 meaning 2 wraps in a row. Those reps produced the best head turning which will lead to the best turns. You had more of those when you went back to the jump, and those looked the best!
Because he is small, you can also be sitting down for this particular skill – that will allow you to keep your hand down by his nose (which keeps his head down too) without having to lean over or make your back angry 🙂
Nice work her!
Tracy
Hi!
He is doing well on the sequence work!
On the first video, the best exits of the blinds were when you had that exit line connection going: dog-side arm back and opposite arm somewhat visible across your belly (like 1:24 and 1:42) When you tried to connect after the blind with the dog-side arm only, he didn’t really see it and was wide (at 2:45 and 3:18 for example)My favorite run was 1:58-2:04! Super nice in timing, connection, line of motion, etc. So nice!!!!!!
He had some questions on the send when he was on your left – it was a connection question. At 2:13 you pointed a tiny finger at the middle jump but the rest of you was turning away, so he was correct to not take it. Great job staying in motion to try again rather than stopping!
The reps there at 2:18 and 2:43 had more exaggeration of the pointing hand but not a lot of connection so he looked at you but then took it. Ideally, as he is approaching the jump after the tunnel, you make a big connection to his eyes as you send, without a lot of pointing. That will keep your shoulders and feet facing the jump.Looking at the straight lines 4 ways video:
>Nothing making me go nuts other than rears with him are so hard. I think I need more space between jumps for timing.>
Well yes, the jumps were all so close together on all these videos, it was like watching teacup agility. Have them at least 20 feet center to center.
On the first video: the RC at :06 was good! You can even get on the diagonal sooner, as soon as you pass the wing of the jump before it, not when he passes you. This is especially important when using teacup distances 🤣😂
Not sure what the 2nd rep was other than fear-based running LOL
For the backside: you can use more connection on the backside push – add very direct connection/eye contact over the jump after the tunnel and maintain it til he gets to the backside wing. You had it then turned forward at the last moment so he asked the question that pulled him off the backside line.
On the 2nd video of the straight line game:
The go reps were all really good, a toy that can be thrown better is definitely needed LOL
>He is showing some snatch and grab the toy issue. This isn’t when I’m whipping it away after we tug and it’s really hurt my hand a few times so I’ve just been trying to stop the game for a second when it happens. May or may not have happened in this series.>
I think it happened at when grabbed toy at 1:19 after the middle lineup cue – I’d say that had some conflicting indicators/muddy mechanics for a baby dog. You were asking for the lineup while moving the toy right above his head with part of it dangling, so he grabbed it. Correct, you were not whipping it away but also – definitely a bit muddy there for a baby dog.
Speaking of toys:
>We are working on a new way to release the toy by dropping it complete and my palms up but relaxed seem to be working. This will help me take th collar less.>
Great! We don’t want the collar taking. But – be sure you are actually playing with him when he brings the toy back. You were generally not playing with the toy in those moments in the reps that were not edited.
For example on the first video: at :50 -:56 and at 2:20-2:26 – you tossed the toy as a reward but there was no actual play, only taking the toy when he brought it back. Yes there was a cookie but I don’t think that is reinforcing like tugging is for him! So be sure you play all the time when he brings it back, rather than immediately getting it back. If you take the toy when he brings it back, he will stop bringing it back 😜 And getting him to play with it will also make him less grabby, along with clean mechanics.
Also on the 2nd video: the wrap timing at 1:29 was a little late, he was already taking off for the 2nd jump. Much better timing on the next rep! Be sure to finish the rotation of the FC – on both of those, you were facing straight for a while so that kept him wide on the line there.
The RC at the end worked nicely, yay! But with that little chihuahua distance you need the cues to start sooner 🙂 Add add more distance 🙂Motion Override
He did well when you were starting by moving more slowly so you don’t have to change your speed after you say the cue. When you were moving faster, you were changing your speed so go really slowly for now so there is no speed change. You’ll be able to ramp up the speed soon as long as you are staying at the same pace.
Good job doing it on both sides! He was actually snappier with his response on the right side!Nice work here!
Tracy
Hi!
This game has the hardest mechanics of any puppy game so far!
>Question- which arm am I supposed to be sending with? Does it matter if we are turning L vs R which arm I use or more so which side of me I am setting the dog up determines which arm I use? >
Send and turn away with the dog-side arm you started with. When she starts on your left, your left arm sends her and turns her away. That is what you were doing – click/treat for you!
All of the reps that started on your left side at the beginning then when you went back to it at the end looked great! Those were right turns for her.
Turning to her left (starting on your right in the 2nd part of the video) was harder – you mentioned right turns were harder so maybe the video is reversed? But you made an excellent adjustment which really helped: you made the turn hand more obvious for her to lock on to and slowed it down (like at 1:21), so she was able to do it. That was a huge help! And doing it like that will strengthen her ability to turn to her harder direction. The easy direction just needed a little hand flick 🙂
Great job!
Tracy
Hi!
She did well alternating the serps and threadles! Yay!
> I started with a toy, but Sunnie was looking for snacks LOL so I switched back to food and used a tree hugger >
I htink on that rep, driving to the stationary toy was not as enticing as a moving toy, and then you had food in your hand so she went to the food. No worries, you can keep using food as the stationary reward for this for now, then throw toys around in between reps 🙂
She was very aware of the reward on the ground – you can have ithe treat hugger empty then after she is successful on that rep, drop a treat into it. That way it is more of a target and should be easier to hold the stay and ignore it til cued 🙂 She had no trouble with the behavior you wanted (serp versus threadle), the challenges were mainly in the ‘stay til released’ and ‘don’t just run to the cookies’ department 🙂
> but getting her back when she took off exploring was a little challenging! We were in a pole barn. I lost her to the environment mainly when were doing wraps around cones. On the flip side, there were a ton of birds in there, she wasn’t distracted by them at all- YAY! We’ll go back there next month & try again! 🙂>
Yay for ignoring the birds!!! Pole barns and dirt are REALLY challenging! Do you have any video? We can look at it to plan for next time, to help her be even more successful.
Great job!
Tracy
