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Hi!
>the fact that she’s fast and I’m getting slower.>
I think it is more that the courses are including the darned dog walk in the center and all sorts of handler obstructions and layering, so we need to be able to cue at a pretty significant distance and without physical cues in some cases.
She definitely has value for the TnT now! Super! You can make it easier (as you add angles) by putting the TnT inside the tunnel – just inside the entry then progressively moving it further and further down. You can also do this with a toy!
>I figured since she’s a lefty that turning left into the tunnel would be her preferred side… not sure why but that wasn’t the case today>
It might have been that the tunnel was really dark, so she was not sure about going in? You can shorten the tunnel and also having the reward inside it can help too 🙂
>Also really doesn’t like being restrained for the send. We’ve been doing collar/harness grabs and touches with lots of rewards. She’s been doing well except when we are lining up for an exercise. Not sure why that is.>
I can see where she didn’t want to be held! The lineups were edited out – how you line her up might be where we can help her get happier with being held, combined with letting her go sooner (I am not sure if she is going to look forward to the tunnel at this stage, and that is perfectly fine).
You can also change up the line up by teaching it between your feet, pr having her at your side with a cookie lure followed by a quick hold and immediate release on an easy angle.
Let me know what you think! Nice work here with the tunnel!
Tracy
Hi!
>First video should have been my crap show of lap turns again>
Where is there a crap show? I only see a good session here!!!
Basically:
Turning away to his left (when he is on your right side) was hard – your hand cues are not that clear when he is asking questions but when you were clear (like on the last rep) zero questions! Looked great! The good reps to his left had him clearly following your hand (I think there was a cookie in it) with a palm-up to draw him in and start the turn, then you turned the palm down to complete the turn (like at :10).
Compare to the rep at :20 where you fell over 😂 and watch your right hand: it was palm up the whole time as you tried to turn him, which made no sense to him.
All of the turn aways on your left side were palm-up to palm-down during the hand cue!
When you went back to the lap turns on your right – at 1:35, it was all palm up. But then on the last one which worked great – palm-up to palm-down. Aha! That is the key to fixing the mechanics 🙂
So try to just work turning away on your right side more, separately from the prop, etc. with the palm-up to draw him back then palm-down to turn him away.
Turning away to his right (when he is on your left side) was easy! Lovely! Is he a righty? Or are you both more comfy turning away on that side, so the mechanics are better? Either way, that looked good!
Definitely not a crap show – just needed a bit better hand mechanics on your right side 🙂
Nice work!
Tracy
Good morning!
The tunnel game looked great!
It sounds like the auntie was giving the tunnel verbal a few times before releasing him. Thanks, auntie!!! Perfect! He was lovely here and really driving to the tunnel.
Turning away to the tunnel (when he was on the inside/threadle side) was a little harder at first – nice job with the first reward even when he ran past the tunnel – he turned away, I the correct direction so the reward built the confidence to try it again and get the tunnel too 🙂When he is turning away with no questions, you can add the tunnel threadle verbal to replace the regular tunnel verbal. It sounds like she was saying something there too, but I think it was the tunnel verbal which was a good way to get it started.
He did really well backing up on the incline! He started off straight then was curling a bit – he was tending to curl when you were rewarding from your left hand but was pretty straight when rewarding from your right hand. Good job breaking him out of the curling then resetting to get a whole bunch of straight reps with your right hand doing the rewarding. You were definitely alternating, so keep doing that – mostly with right hand with some left hand rewards mixed in. Are you left-handed? It was interesting to see him so locked onto the left hand! I don’t think the curling had anything to do with a strength-imbalance for him – he seems pretty balanced here and was just choosing which hand to back away from, based on the cookies 🙂
Great job!
Tracy
Good morning!!
>Since she’s a poodle we also have to work a lot on acclimating to grooming. Not as fun as agility. Gerber’s baby food is our friend for that.>
Yes, I bet the baby food is helping her enjoy the process!
The rocking horses are going great!!! Excellent connection on the FCs between the barrels. As things got going faster, she would jump up a little bit on the way to the 2nd barrel – I think what was happening was that your hand as moving a little too high and too soon ahead of her, which broke connection a tiny bit. You can see it at :27 and :36
Compare to the reps where she did not pop up at all, and your hand was nice and low the whole time. It won’t matter as much when she has more experience, but for now you can keep your hand really low and following her nose so you don’t accidentally point ahead of her too early.One thing to consider: you were using ‘wrap’ as your verbal in both directions. Consider having a separate verbal for wrapping to the left and wrapping to the right, for those big courses where you might not be close to her. That can help her find the direction you want without you needing to be close enough for her to fully see you 🙂 Course design evolution has caused us to build in a few extra verbals 🙂
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning! The videos all came through with no problem – lots of good work here!
Collection sandwich videos: she is reading everything really well!
>I was so late on one of these blinds. Four months old and saving my ass already >
Ha! Yes, that is why we use so much reinforcement: so they are motivated to save our asses hahahaha
Yes, you can give her the cues even sooner, starting with moving away while she is getting the start cookie – then do the blind as soon as she moves towards you, which then gives you time to show the decel. The blind was a little late on the first clip which made the decel late. The 2nd clip was earlier so it was easier for her to read, plus on that 2nd clip you were able to keep your arms down which made the blind more visible too.
Turn and burn: click/treat to you and (Kathy) for having the line on the ground and the smaller cone to run towards! That set up great mechanics so Ember was able to do a great job. You get another click/treat for moving the line to a slightly harder spot but still being totally patient and letting her get to the line before doing the FC. Excellent!!!
The next steps on this game are to keep moving the line around, inch by inch, so that you can keep doing the FC earlier and earlier.
And you can add the cone to the handling games with the handling combos!
>Novel exciting was interesting. She only noticed the object going in one direction.>
This falls into the category of “dogs see everything” 🙂 If you watch your feet when she was on your right like at :12 and :32, you will see that you stepped directly towards the object. That made it look like you were indicating she should go towards it, like going towards the prop. Good girl!
When she was on your left, watch your feet – you never stepped towards it, you only moved past it, and she never went to it.So I don’t think she was making any impulse control errors: I think she was following the handling! So definitely stay further from the object so you don’t accidentally cue her to go to it 🙂
Rear crosses are definitely the hardest handling we have started with the puppies so far! She has a ton of value for the prop and is driving ahead really well!!! So then it was a matter of timing:
The first couple of reps at :04 , :13, and :26, were just a step late, so she didn’t see you on the new side to make the turn to the new direction.
The rep at :36 was on time and she got it! You were visible on the new side before she turned at the prop.
:45 a little late but she did get it
The last rep at :58 was fantastic – you were the very visible on the new side so she had no problem with the rear cross. YAY!! So definitely keep hustling to the new side like you did on that rep (and mix in some straight line reps so that she keeps driving ahead and not expecting a turn).Great job!
Tracy
Good morning!
It is really fun that you all have puppies at the same time!!! Overall, I think she did GREAT in a new environment with a ton of challenges!
>She’s at the Aussie phase where she wants to leave and check things out.>
Early adolescence! Plus, it is a really challenging environment there: so much visual clutter, smells, people, dogs, etc.
The pattern games are an excellent go-to in the new environments. You can see she was definitely attending to the things she could see and hear, which is totally normal. I am not sure she was ready to ‘work’ when the video cut to the barrel wrap – she was still looking around a lot, which means she still had questions about the environment.
When you started the barrel wrap, bear in mind the giant visual distraction of the jump on the other side of it and the people nearby – so try to limit the distractions by moving the blue jump there away from the barrel.
Ignoring distractions is a HUGE impulse control challenge so you can do one or two reps of ‘work’ then just go to play and pattern games on leash. Trying to do sessions like you would at home base will be challenging in a hard environment but keeping them short and then breaking them off to play and do the pattern on leash will help her out.
She did great with the prop!
When you were doing the tandem turns, I don’t think she could see your hands that well, plus you might have been too close to the prop so your motion overrode the hand cues. When she could very clearly see your hands and you were a little further away (like at 3:38) things went great!
On the parallel path game – she did a lovely job finding the jump setup!
Bearing in mind how hard the environment is, I think the pile of toys on the ground and the leash near the parallel path setup makes things harder and not easier. She might not run to it, but she was looking at it an going around the jump a bit at the beginning. Once she got into the game, she did great! But you can clear the environment at the beginning. That will also make it easier to get back into tugging when you ask for it (because she was in ‘ignore it’ mode so it took a moment to get her back into tugging).Nice work here!
Tracy
Good morning!
>I had to go back to my journal from last year’s class to find my key for verbals. Am I right to assume it’s the left and right verbals?>
It might be 🙂 If you were using left & right to mean come all the way around the wing, then yes! But we work on left and right in a few weeks to mean “soft turn” of about 90 degrees, so your wraps might have been different and something like ‘dig’ or ‘check’.
He totally smoked you on the toy races here!, and you were hustling!! That is fantastic, especially with all of the distractions of the great big world 🙂 You can add a GO GO GO verbal to this game!
>I think I could have let Skizzle parade with the toy instead of grabbing it so quickly. But it seems much better in that Skizzle isn’t concerned with my being close.>
It depends on what his favorite version of the reward is: does he love to tug with you, or is the victory lap a preferred reward? You can mix in the victory lap with the tugging if that is what he loves – partially because it is fun 🙂 and partially because as you mentioned: we do want you to be close and driving hard without him being worried about that. He did NOT seem worried by it at all here, the game looked great!
Great job!
Tracy
Good morning!
>So, when you are rolling the treat between the front feet in backing up are you using any verbal marker?>
I was saying ‘yes’ to indicate the delivery would be from my hand, then the hand moved the cookie to where I wanted it to be.
>Also, with the diary do I put everything we do all day?>
Yes, just a general list or any observations. It does not have to be extensive.
> I’m terrible at notes and literally she’s entertained from 7 am until 7-8 pm. >
I use post its on the fridge, and I text stuff to myself – both are fast and easy, and don’t rely on me having to remember anything 🙂 Also, if she I entertained all day… build in times where she is not entertained and has stretches on her own even with you in the house. That can go a long way to helping at bed time.
>Each one brings new challenges!>
1000000% true!!!
Rocking horses:
It took a moment to get her to do the left turns but then things went really well! You were nice and precise with the mechanics and that helped her figure out how to do each cone, then 2 in a row. Yay!
>I think I was looking forward when she struggled with the left turn.>>
Possibly, and that is the harder side, but it could have also been simply because it was the harder side at the beginning. You got it going really well! The only spot I think you were looking ahead too soon was at 2:15 (she had a question there) when you were doing 2 in a row – you can keep your dog-side arm back longer, until she arrives at your side, then send forward.
You might have to leave the space between the cones to get the tugging going. Or, when she is regularly doing 2 in a row, play this with the toy and not with food as the reward.
She was adorable at the beginning, flying in to interact with the pile! Yay!
When she is in higher arousal (like right at the beginning) she seems to get her hind end on the stuff immediately. As soon as she gets more ‘thinky’ about it, you get a lot of front feet only. This might be partially because you have shaped 2 paws on stuff when you were not moving, and partially because it is easier & more comfortable for her.
> I needed to move around to get her to walk on stuff. I hope that was ok.>
Yes, moving around was good to do. Moving around definitely helped her get back feet on the stuff and you can also break things off more frequently to get her into higher arousal and keep her there. So after every 2 or 3 treats, break off to run around and play tug, then go back to the pile 🙂
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
Lots of good work on the games here!
Turn and burn – very nice! She is totally getting the idea of wrapping that cone independently. Try not to say “go” because that is a straight line cue and this is a wrap turn. You can start adding your wrap cues if you like!
She did well here with the line on the exit, so you can start inching it around towards the entry. That will allow you to do the FC earlier and earlier 🙂
Strike a pose – she is doing really well with hitting the hand target then going to the reward. Try to keep yourself frozen the whole time so she does the in-then-out: you can toss a treat to get her to move away then come back to you, then after she hits the hand target the reward can be delivered from your hand rather than thrown. She did well with both the treat and the toy!
Stealth self-control: I think the cookie bag was a little too hard at first because she was leaving for it and looking at it. You can make it easier by having it a lot further away rather than next to her path, and up on something like a chair or table. Ideally, it is present but the pups don’t really interact with it. She ended up ignoring it (yay!) but starting with it being a little easier can get that happening even sooner 🙂
She was a good girl on the collection game! On this rep, she read the blind cross really well even though there was a visible toy on the other side. The only thing to add is deceleration after the blind so she can collect for the pivot. As soon as you do the blind and re-connect, decelerate so she sees it immediately.
Tunnel: I think she had fun! Nice job getting her through the tunnel! For the next session, you can squish up the tunnel even more so it is shorter – then shape her to go through it by letting her offer stepping into it then you throw the toy to the other end. Then you can start adding all sorts of angles and your motion too!
Great job 🙂
TracyGood morning!
>>We do all things tricks on the right- middle leg weave circle etc and that’s probably not helping.>
Yes – it will over-balance things to the right side and can create confusion.
Parallel path –
He did well sorting out the parallel path here in a new place with a lot of visual clutter and people/dogs around! Good boy!>I think I needed to move with him vs being ahead on the first reps before we took play break? >
Ye, I think that was a really nice job breaking it down for him and making it easy at first. It was a new environment with a lot going on so breaking it down was great.
You can start to add a little more motion (you moving a little faster) and also change your position: go all the way to the reward with him, wait while he eats it, then turn and start moving up the line again – that way he can start driving ahead!
Make sure you actively play at the end – you kind of put a dead toy on the ground, praised, and walked away. He and I were both like ‘wait, what?’ LOL!!! Get that toy moving and get the tugging going for real – play together then exit together, rather than leave him hanging.
Both videos here were the same – if there a different one?
Nice job!
TracyThat is fantastic! I bet you were proud of her! And she will learn to ignore her bestie when working 🙂 It is great that she is a friendly pup 🙂
T
Oops I was wrong, the next live is on the 28th! But I got the live private lessons info ready:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScDxgW08hhu0HXCSIVVkiQsNxW1VY0kzXUMYZ1cuscDePr1kQ/viewform?usp=share_link&ouid=104182089305835532312Hi! Thanks for the update! I love the profile photo!!
>I was wondering if you think it’s okay to sometimes use a treat and train instead of throwing a treat? >
You absolutely can use a TnT, especially when the start is always in the same spot. You can also use a mat or a towel to toss the treat onto, to make it easier to see.
>I just wanted to ask in case there’s a reason you think a treat and train isn’t a good idea for these games.>
I think the only time I wouldn’t suggest the TnT is when the start position changes a lot, like on the Strike a Pose Concept Transfer. But you can change the TnT position each time, or use the TnT as the reward!
Keep me posted!
Tracy
Good morning!
>Recently, she is leaving training to go eat the leaves or grab sticks. I’m not that valuable yet.>
I think we should take a different approach to this: the puppy skills and engagement in the yard with the big distractions can’t be trained together, that would be lumping. It might be leading to too much failure on skills she is just beginning to learn, so she that is why you are seeing distractions come up.
With that in mind, let’s split the behavior like we would do with anything else we were shaping:
– puppy sporty skills can be done indoors or super simply ones on leash outside where there are no berries. There are plenty of things we can do with them without needing to be in the Land Of HackBerries.
– take a break from puppy sporty skills outside and shape engagement. This would look like going outside on leash and having her chase the flirt pole and play… then go back inside. Or going outside on leash and playing with a tug toy on a long line so it moves a lot and is fun to chase. Or doing pattern games outside with fabulous yummies.
You will see the needle start to shift: the backyard can take on a different meaning and engagement starts to come very naturally! At that point, sporty skills can come back in but for now – take those out of the backyard. It is too much pressure to try to get both the engagement and the sporty skills.
>I can try the prop and food outside tomorrow.>
Try it inside, not outside.
>The other toys aren’t holding much value at the moment. If I toss a toy, she’ll chase it, grab it and run off. She doesn’t want to tug with me.>
Teething does make things harder, so it can be more about chase and light tugging on very soft toys at this point. And take out the option of running off with the toy in the yard – all play is leashed and fun and short, without contingencies of having to earn it or possibly not being correct.
You can still play/train inside and toss the toy – then play a bit of hide and seek where you run to another room and she comes to find you with the toy, to get a cookie or another toy. It is a fun silly way to get retrieves without having to worry about anything else.
>She slept perfectly fine and put herself back to sleep after potty easily up until about 10-14 days ago. Since then sone nights she’s fine. Others she is not.>
Keep track of what her days look like leading up to bedtime, sort of a daily diary: what did he do on the days when she settled down to sleep really well, versus the days where she did not settle down? The answer will reveal itself in the form of a pattern. I see lack of settling down with my own pups over the years when dinner is late and they don’t get the Evening Wilding (usually about 8pm) of running around like a crazy animal. It might be different with Dot but jotting things down will let you know for sure. Sleep is a good thing so you’ll all be happier when this is sorted out!
And you can also ask the vet to do a urine test – she might have a UTI and feels like she has to urgently pee a lot. That is a pretty normal occurrence with baby pups.
>I bought a pool noodle today. It’s actually higher than my jump bumps. Did you say to cut it in half? I’ll see if I can get it even.>
Yes, I cut it in half lengthwise (mine isn’t even though, it is a little wobbly 😂)
Backing up video:
>I have a Cato board, but it’s pretty high off the ground. I’m not sure it angles evenly. Should I try that?>
I think the Cato is too high for her, so you can take a flat board and put something under to angle it so it is touching the ground and on a slight angle up.
When standing, leave your hands low so you can get the treat in (and moving between her front feet) as the first order of business. The click tends to stop the movement and get the pups looking up at us, so if we click then take a second or two or so to get the treat in… we get more stopping and looking and less backing up.
Getting low was great in the 2nd part of the video – it produces a better head position which produces more backing up! So stay low (kneeling like you did to sitting on something) and gradually get further away (an inch at a time) to get more and more backing up.
Great job!
TracyGood morning!!
>I’m still struggling with motivation to work with PoweR I think I need more live classes.>
I totally understand and relate. We have a live coming up this Tuesday the 20th! And I am going to be bringing back live zoom lessons – we can put together puppy groups to work live. Stay tuned – it will be different stuff than MaxPup and on my agenda to sort out this weekend 🙂 I have folks with pups the same age as PoweR who are interested.
Looking at his videos: nice adjustment on the backing up video to start yourself closer, so he could back up and not turn around to get back on. And you kept your hand lower to get a better head position too – brilliant!
After that – very nice! He was backing up to the side because the rewards were all coming from the right hand, so he was locked onto it and backing up relative to the hand and not relative to the center of you.
Easy fix – reward with both hands! You can have treats in both hands, with both hands centered in front of you and low like you had here. And alternate/be less predictable about which hand tosses the treat, and he will go straighter. And feel free to sit on something while you do this in case you back protests all the leaning over 🙂
Rear crosses: the hard part on this had nothing to do with your Rear Crosses or mechanics, those were both really good! At the beginning, the treats were misbehaving and bouncing all over the place LOL!! Then it was a little hard to get past his booty (it was blocking the road while he was eating LOL!)
When you did get past him, the RCs went GREAT!
I think you need a wider place to do this so you can get past him when he blocks the road with his butt 😂 he wasn’t being naughty, he was just eating the treat, good boy 🙂
You can also use the MM or a bowl as a treat target so he knows exactly where the start cookie is and doesn’t need to find it. But overall – he is reading the RCs when he sees you in the new position, and that is exactly what we want.
Great job!!
Tracy
