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One other thought – you can use a station like a Cato board to give him a place to go between reps, to use as a lineup spot, and a reset place! That can help clarify things for him and reduce the jumping up.
T
Good morning!!! You are pretty far north of the fires, yes? I am worried about all of my California peeps!!!
> driving, hotel, canopy setup crating on the show grounds, no off leash time at all, and tons of unfamiliar dogs around. He was pretty overwhelmed and started to get barky at dogs in the distance, I mostly just did my best to support his emotions (lots of get it pattern games!!). >
Good for you for recognizing that and helping him with pattern games! It sounds like it was a HUGE show and challenging environment. Plus all the travel is hard too.
>So we got back late Monday night and Tues & Weds were total rest days, no pressure to do anything.>
Sometimes the best dog training is when you choose to NOT do any dog training š Good for you!!!! Rest and recovery are critical.
>He actually pooped in the house Tuesday for the first time ever, thatās how out of sorts we all are.>
Poor buddy! I believe it is a minimum of 72 hours for a puppy to bounce back after a big trip, and can be longer. When I imported one of my pups by plane from Europe, the neuroscience vet told me to be chill for 3 weeks so allow for recovery. Eek!
> Heās coming up on 5.5 months old and feeling very much like an adolescent so none of this surprises me- but feels like such an adjustment for ME from the cute happy baby to the āaware of all the thingsā teenager.>
Yes – probably hitting early adolescence where the brain does CRAZY THINGS lol!! It is the craziest period in terms of the brain reconstructing itself, heightened responses to things, longer bounce back periods…. at least he is small and adolescence won’t last as long as many of the large breed dogs š
>We did training today (Thurs), high reward and just having fun. I gave myself a talking to about putting pressure on the baby- currently trying to just reward every approximation and make everything super happy. He was really happy to train today>
Perfect! Ease back into things and maintain a high rate of success. That high rate of success is a great lifestyle when training anyway š
Looking at the videos:
The parallel path game with the 2 dishes went well! It looks like he was able to grab the reward very quickly without having to search for it. And he was looking forward more than looking at you, which is great. You can add more distance between the dishes and the jump now – that will allow you to move more (in terms of more speed, and more distance away from the jump). At this stage, you can shift the marker and toss to happen on his first step towards the jump, rather than when he is arriving at it, to really emphasize looking forward.Strike a pose also looked great! Your mechanics were spot on, in terms of being ready and in position before sending him away to the cookie toss. That allowed him to see the info immediately after getting the treat, so he was super successful. YAY!! Earlier this week I posted the threadle concept transfer – he is ready for that.
Backing up: this went really well, using the mat as the target. He definitely has the idea of backing up and targeting to the mat! Super!
He was ever-so-slightly sideways, with his right hind leg not being on the mat. It might be a side preference for him, or it might be the angle you were presenting the cookies from using your right hand (he was straighter when you used your left hand sometimes). So you can help him target with his right hind too, by giving him something slightly higher (maybe 2 inches high?) to step up onto so that right hind can say “aha! I have to touch it too!” You can also havve boths hands in front of you and mix up which hand tosses the treat, so he is not locked onto only your right hand.Perch work –
> I didnāt realize until pretty far in he was trying to offer going back and forth,>
That was hilarious and also brilliant! Bowl wraps! LOL!!! Good boy!
For shaping these precision behaviors, you can use reward placement to get you to the behavior pretty quickly. I think the early reward placement was getting more of him not being on the bowl, because it w3as being delivered when he did not have fet on the bowl. . You can mark the interaction but then place the reward over the bowl so he has to step up onto it to get it. This is what you did at 3:35 and then he got another couple of treats with his feet on the bowl – that all really helped!
> I donāt think just trying to free shape a foot onto the bowl was working.>
I think it will make sense with the placement – so if he investigates the bowl, you can mark that but then hold the treat over the bowl so he has to step onto it to get it.
> He was quite happy to follow my hand lure when it made sense to him.>
Nothing wrong with a lure in this case! A lure is a sibling to reward placement, in terms of clarifying for the pup what we want. A lure happens before offered behavior, to create the behavior. Reward placement happens after offered behavior (even a small approximation of it) to also create the behavior. Lures are helpful to jumpstart something, then can be quickly moved to become reward placement.
>. We started the threadle vs serp stuff,>
Perfect! Based on the video from 12/31, he was ready for this. And he did really well! Your mechanics were really good here too! It is a hard game but he was really looking at the info and making great decisions.
About the verbals: for the threadle, use your ‘dish’ marker and stay completely frozen in position until he turns to the dish. That way we get the automatic in-then-out behavior without you needing to move your shoulders – shoulder movement can accidentally build in a 2nd cue to take the jump after the threadle, which we don’t want.
> I didnāt add in the verbal because Iām still torn what I want to use.>
Do you have a threadle slice verbal with your other dogs? It is easiest to keep it the same of course LOL!
Looking at the volume dial video:
The touches for treats went well! Spin is also a really good trick for this!>. I can see the last sit took longer- I assume itās baby brain processing?>
Yes, processing… but not in a bad way! Note how he sat without jumping up on you!! So that is good š You can also play this with a toy – it really can help with arousal regulation for the him to get really stimulated, then do a few things… then have a scatter to decompress. It helps to ‘train’ their physiology for the up and down feelings of arousal they will have when doing sports! And when doing life LOL š
Great job here!!!
Tracy
Good morning! Excellent question and definitely something to nerd out on a bit.
>Pony heads hanging out of stall doors (which honestly Iāve never seen a dog NOT at least look twice at disembodied, floating horse heads the first time they see them) and sheās running under them like they arenāt even there.>
That is really impressive!
> But if something (human, dog, bird, etc) enters a space unexpectedly she canāt stay focused, hence why I was VERY careful in the entryway of the training building. I understand itās totally normal for dogs to find sudden environmental changes distracting.>>
Yes – totally normal. *Nerding alert* It falls into 2 categories that I try to keep in mind when training youngsters:
– multisensory integration, where the brain has to receive, process, and prioritize the info that it is being bombarded with. So in a busy environment (like all the floating horse heads, or in a crowd of people), she is better able to prioritize the info you are giving her. But in the quiet environment, with a sudden appearance of *something*, that stimulus can actually appear bigger to the brain. As in, literally giant-sized compared to the other things in the environment. The new, isolated stimulus is so salient that her brain prioritizes it over other things (like cues you are giving her).
– the prefrontal cortex is relatively underdeveloped and also, it is the part of the brain that tends to drive ‘good decisions’. And to add to the fun – in adolescence, the PFC signaling/communication to the areas of the brain that are associated with impulsive responses is, at best, incomplete. So the executive function area of the brain is not telling the impulsive areas of the brain to ignore those responses. So…. we get bigger responses to random salient things.
So what we are trying to do is to help the adolescent brain out with all sorts of helpful tools, while we wait for adolescence to be finished (spoiler alert: it is a long wait LOL!!!)
It sounds like she is responding in a way that is “This is interesting, I want to go interact happily” and not in a fearful way? Although occasional fearful responses are also normal in this phase and nothing to worry about unless we see an inability to bounce back or more generalized anxiety.
>But I struggle a little to find a way to āsliceā that practically.>
Yep, it is hard because part of the issue is that it is a surprise to you and her. But we can get creative! And also part of it will involve being prepared in case you do get surprised.
> I tried tonight to have one dog crated, work her a little, release the dog out of the crate to a snuffle mat, then work her some more but I feel like that is a very different scenario as I am breaking off her engagement, bringing the new thing in, then re-engaging her.>
How did she do? I am guessing she did really well? It is a good slice to work on – we don’t need to see the reaction to the new element, because we know the brain is processing it.
> Natural environments I wonāt have any control over the distraction as far as distance or how long we might be sitting there waiting for something. Thoughts on how to āsliceā that safely when I donāt have a class environment? >
Since I also homeschool my dogs through slices, a couple of ideas for you:
– I use video a lot because it can add sounds in a way that I can control… and the dogs totally *do* process it similarly to real world sounds (based on their physical reactions). So since we are looking for the happy surprise element, you can get a video that is largely quiet… then randomly, someone says “hello!!” or a doorbell rings, or a dog barks. That can sound like the sudden environmental changes that happen in the real world. And you can be playing a pattern game while this is happening… start it before the surprise noise, and then keep going. She might need to stop and process the sound, which is perfectly fine, and then the game resumes after she has processed it.
For example, different behavior to train but same slice concept: right at the beginning of this video, I was using a video of me running a dog and all of the sudden, I yelled “TUNNEL!” on the video. Very hard to hear (for us humans) but clearly very salient for him – watch him start looking for the dog running through the tunnel. This is in the first 5 seconds of the video:
>Clearly the middle of the town green from a few weeks ago where she wound up running up to a stranger and jumping up to lick her face (who greeted her warmly right back thank goodness!) wasnāt the right answer!>
And this is where I would say hello to adolescence, and goodbye to off leash privileges where she might run over to something/someone (even if it is a friendly departure). Her puppy license has been revoked LOL!! So in any environment where there is a possibility of sudden environmental change and she might leave to investigate it. she can be on leash. That can help you control the environment. You can see in the video with the ‘tunnel!’ verbal, my pup was on leash even though I am inside my house LOL! Controlling the environment allows us to shape those neural pathways the way we want them to go, rather than develop the neural pathways for the ‘run towards the distraction’ behavior. So as weird as it is to train with a leash on in my own house or yard, it totally helps in the neural pathway development department š
Another option is to enlist friends/people to help out. So if you know a client is coming at 2pm, for example, ask them to text you when they arrive but before they get out of the car or enter the building. That way you can get her out, doing pattern games or something simple, and you are ready for the suddently salient new stimulus.
And for the moments of surprise that you didn’t know where coming? You can go directly into a pattern game or you can mark her looking at the new thing (like Control Unleashed’s Look At That game). If she is off leash and runs to the distraction, ask the person to greet her normally then send her back to you. Ideally she is not off leash to have this opportunity, but life happens! And I always ask people to greet my young dogs normally (I am happy if they give them treats!) because the adolescent brain is forming associations in those moments: if the person is normal and maybe even fun, then the pup will have a positive conditioned response. If the person goes all weird (like getting stiff or turning their back on the pup or shooing the pup away or worse) then the pup is developing a more negative conditioned response. It is much easier to train with a positive conditioned response than a negative one, so I ask all of my friends/students/colleagues to greet and even feed my youngsters if the pups visit.
And, there is actually no increase in visiting, because the positive conditioned response relaxes the pup enough that their adolescent brain doesn’t need to investigate the sudden appearance of something new. The responses in those surprise moments are not operant, so we don’t need to worry about reinforcement all that much.
Over time, you will see that she doesn’t even acknowledge the appearance of new things in the environment, unless it is incredibly startling.
Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
I am so glad Max likes the snow! My dogs all think it is DUMB because they can’t really run on it – totally crusty and icy.
> I would get another Max, best, funnest dog I have ever had. He is up for anything.>
I love this! I agree that he is a fabulous little dude. So many fun times ahead!!!!
>I am going to try and get a private with Carol, but it is hard.>
Tell her to put you on the friends and family program with Camper Kids! I don’t know if that program exists LOL but it seems like a good ideas š Since he is so quick, the main goal will be to develop all sorts of skills and verbals, so you can use a lot of distance. There is no way any of us can outrun these fast little dogs!
Max looked great with the strike a pose game! He founbd the target hand very nicely and was really good about *not* going to the toy on the ground until you cued him to do so. Super!!!
The only blooper was when he released from the stay before you were ready. That might be because you were releasing him as soon as you hit the pose position… so he might have been thinking that you stopping in positoin or moving your hand was the release. So to avoid that, you can get into position, praise, and then either release or throw a reward back to him.
Since this went so well, you can do the concept transfer with the serpentine (adding the jump) and I think you will also find it very easy to add the threadle concept transfer too (added this week).
Great job! Stay warm!
Tracy
Hi!
Since we are looking at the jumping up behavior, we also look for trends and things that might trigger it. I see a trend here! The line up! More on that below. Do you have video from the class where you tried to call him back to sequence the tire and he jumped up? I would be interested to see if it was the same trigger.
The threadle wrap foundation circles looked great! It is all a nice physical warm up for his body š His only questions were when he thought the hand cue when he was facing you looked like a go-behind cue, but that was not an issue when he was moving in from behind you.
For the threadle slice – he did well here! Yes, this one has both uprights so you can add the 2nd stanchion. Try to hold your threadle arm out the whole time until he arrives at the MM. That way you donāt accidentally build in an arm cue to take the jump and he learns to go do it by himself.
One moment of a handler error moment here, which can potentially lead to jumping up in higher arousal situations:
The angle of the cookie throw produced too hard of a line and not enough room for him to find the correct line to your threadle arm in time at 2:10. Rather than mark as incorrect (ātry againā) you can just throw the next start cookie. Throwing the next start cookie tells him pretty clearly that it was not correct but avoids any potential frustration by keeping the umbrella rate of reinforcement high and keeping him moving for the next rep.
Yes, he went back out and got it right, but that might not happen with a harder skill and/or in a higher arousal context. And ātry againā becomes a punishment marker (paired with withdrawal of reinforcement) so it in itself can produce frustration and an arousal shift.
Backside slice foundation: this game does not have the 2nd upright, because we donāt want it to look like a front side of a jump. Changing the placement of reinforcement will make it easier – rather than use the MM, use a cookie or toy and deliver it on the landing side of the jump, so he is looking for the jump bump (eventually bar). If you use the MM, you can wait til he goes over the bump to click
As you start each rep, remember to be moving forward to where the bump and barrel meet so he is seeing the motion cue here. He got it without motion, yay! But the motion will allow you to teach him the parallel path understanding and that way you can move to more lateral positions pretty early in the training.
And using motion will also take out the line up issue (see below) because you can toss a cookie behind you on the line you want him to take, so he doesnāt have to line up.
About the line ups:
The MM adds arousal, which is fine. When you tried to line him back up at 2:45, he jumped up. And it was an even bigger jump up at 2:57 during the line up moment. The cue was a ācome hereā and a small hand cue. Why was he a bit overaroused by that in a relatively calm situation? Hard to know – could be the cue was too vague, could be the line up is not reinforced enough, or it interrupts the flow because he doesnāt know what you want, or the line up has been paired with fixing errors, or all of the above.
You can make the line up a lot easier by using a cookie to lead him through a bigger reset cue and then reward the reset. He doesnāt really seem to know what the open palm cue is there and ends up looking up at your face. So a closed hand and leg stepping back can make it clearer, and a cookie can be in that hand for now. Plus, you donāt need to use a line up for everything – tossing treats makes for an easy start too.
At 3:10, he moved away after the MM almost as if avoiding the line up cue.
At 3:36 he was facing you and not lined up so you tried to cue the push – it was not a clear cue (dog side leg did not step forward and he was facing the wrong direction so he jumped up).
Look at the line up at 3:55 though – perfect! This is exactly what I mean about giving a clear line up cue and you can reward it with a treat.
Running a-frame foundation – you cued a line up at 4:54 and he jumped up a bit. More of that lining up trend! Aha!
He did well finding his way through the box, no problem at all! You can move your position away from the box so he looks at you less and forward more.
Since there is a lot of food being used, you are getting a lot of quicker reps in. With that in mind, you can add in more breaks in these sessions – there were a lot of reps in each of these skills. For example, in the frame session there were something like 27 passes through the box. More breaks will give him a chance to regulate arousal and decompress in the moment too, even if you help him with a snuffle mat or something similar.
Great job here!!
TracyGood morning!
Some more thoughts on this, because not all instructors are on the same page (and will go to punishment very very quickly without understanding what is happening).
Using the tire as an example:
>>We were teaching him the tireā¦which he was perfect with on its ownā¦.but he passed by it when I tried to put it into sequenceā¦so I called him back to start again and he started doing his over aroused jumping.>>
The tire is a pretty complex behavior because it is such a small opening for a big dog – and it requires a lot of mechanics. It is possible that he was not ready to add more speed to the tire approach because he had not yet fully developed the mechanics.
He is around 11 months old, yes? So even though he is in a LORG body š his brain is typical of early adolescence. And we know that the signaling from the pre-frontal cortex to the parts of the brain that control impulses is weak, at best. So if there is a moment of frustration or lack of clarity, he does not have the PFC telling the rest of the brain to be chill about itā¦ so he is not chill about it š All adolescents will present frustration behavior, his happens to be jumping up. Add in the higher arousal of being at a class location.
We also know that the adolescent brain will *think* it did something correctly when, to our eyes, it did not. It is possible his brain thought he did the tire correctly.
And add in the possibility of human error in handling cues (maybe the cue to take the tire in the sequence was not as clear as he needed it to be? That is a distinct possibility).
There are other things that can be going on too in the brain, but those are the important ones š
So bearing in mind his age – I suggest that if you *do* sequence, then you do *not* stop for errors and you reward at the end. And if you have to stop and call him back for any reason, call back to a reset reward (cookies or toys) and praise, like he was correct. Any indication that he was wrong and that reinforcement is being withheld seems to be a trigger for jumping up.
And if he starts jumping up – immediately go to a pattern game and bring him back to a more centered state. I suggest doing that anyway between reps.
A couple of other ideas:
Since he is so young, ask the instructor to cut his turn in half: do 2 minutes then come back out for another minute, for example. If they donāt do that, then shorten the turn and work on small pieces.
>we did a short tunnel-tunnel-jump-jump-jump which he loved but when we repeated it, he got over the top aroused and was jumpy.>
Donāt repeat things š He had a moment of overarousal, you got him back successfullyā¦ donāt ask for more š Same with the tire – he was able to be successful, you can end on success rather than try it in sequence, especially if it is a new skill.
>I frequently ask him to come into the middle so I can reward him there and massage his temples to help him relaxā¦.but I think I need to work on some remote sits & downs so he doesnāt jump on other people.>
Well, yes, but also structuring the situations differently will go a long way towards the jumping going away. Definitely taking a āless is moreā approach because of his age is important. Since there is nothing we can do about his age or brain development, we can focus on protecting his arousal state and making sure he does not experience frustration in training. And if he enters a training situation with high arousal to begin with, using food is the best option for now (because the environment creates the arousal, we donāt need a toy in that moment).
It will take some conversations with instructors to remind them of his age (he looks older than he is :)) and to end a session before things go sideways.
Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
How does he like the snow?The handling games are looking good here!!
First video: The tandem turns are going well! The target verbal worked better than the get it, probably because the target verbal cued him to look ahead for the target and get it means ‘treat’ to him šSecond video:
The lap turns also look great! You were perhaps a little early stepping back with your leg on the first rep, but perfect on the second rep. This video also had tandem turns without the prop and those looked great! This was probably the first video šSince these are going really well, you can take a look at the threadle wrap foundation games. Based on how agility is evolving, you will use the threadle wrap more than lap turns and tandems.
Great job here! Stay warm!
TracyHi!
>1) would using a spray bottle to discourage Ringoās jumping be a bad thing?>
Yes, the science of learning supports NOT using it for a variety of reasons:
Operantly, it is an aversive/punisher that might indeed suppress the jumping. But there are several issues with that and the potential for fallout:– the punishment doesn’t actually teach him what to do instead
– the punishment doesn’t address the underlying cause that leads to the jumping up (frustration?) and in fact, use of aversives with frustration can build more frustration. And if the jumping up is suppressed, there will be a different outlet for that frustration (and likely not one that you want).
– adolescent dogs do very poorly with punishment (they are far more susceptible to the fallout from it) and that can also build more frustrationSeparately from operant conditioning:
– the spray bottle becomes a context cue for the punishment. If the spray bottle is visible? He is not as likely to jump up (provided he does find it aversive). But as is generally true with aversive/punishers, if the spray bottle is not visible, then the jumping up will return stronger than ever (because alternate behaviors have not been taught and underlying reasons not addressed)
– in associative learning, the context the aversive gets used in can be paired as something negative, because negative things happen. That can lead to more arousal/frustration behavior, not less.
– if the spray bottle is an unexpected thing in a situation where his brain is predicting something else, then you risk a dopamine drop out (reward prediction error). That dopamine drop out can often lead a dog to be more motivated to do something and more motivated to move… and you night get more jumping up when the spray bottle is around.I think the best course of action is to sort out the underlying cause (what is tipping him into overarousal and causing him to jump? What coping skills can he be taught, and what alternate behaviors can be taught?) When/where are you seeing it? I know that he has done it when overaroused and also when frustrated, so let me know what is currently happening.
>2) we are in a āpositiveā obedience class and the instructor was teaching leave it in the first class. During the exercise, I played up & down with Ringo to have his full attention and made it thru the labyrinth of food bowls on the ground without having to cue a leave it or without having to do a collar pop. The instructor said nice attention but you didnāt teach him the leave it cue. Part of me thinks āleave itā is old fashion and not a good thing to teachā¦.and that I would prefer to teach attention on me. Am I in the wrong obedience class?>
Was the instructor wanting you to set him up to fail, so you can do a collar pop? I mean, that is definitely something we stopped doing in the late 1990s.
I prefer to teach a natural attention without me having to ask for it, like what you described you did. Looks like he did great! I don’t mind teaching a leave it verbal, but I would not do it with collar pops. Also there is no reason to teach it if you are teaching natural attention and impulse control.
Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Hi! These games are going really well!
> Still a little sticky pre-wrap, but better after he decided to wrap.>
On the first rep on each side, I don’t think he knew he was being cued to do something š The next reps on each side went really well! You can do a few more reps on each side before changing sides, to help solidify the concept (which will also make the next side easier).
The toy was probably too hard to ignore for the first couple of reps, so you can do 2 or 3 reps to get things going, then add the toy as the reward. And to help him see your motion as a cue, you can also move forward up the line with more speed so there is a more obvious cue to get on the parallel path.
> I tried a few (later) where I was further laterally from the barrel ā but then he didnāt wrap at all.>
I think after another session with you moving to where the wing and barrel meet will make it easier for you to then start moving over, bit by bit.
Strike a pose also went really well – I loved the first reps where he was drawn to the front of the bar but then changed course to do the hand touch!!! Super!
He had a couple of errors on the other side. You can throw the treats a little further so he has more room to adjust to the correct line. He was close to the jump (like at 1:24) so he ended up going to the front of it a couple of times.
>Watching the video, he was popping up to tag my hand, which is probably undesirableā¦could try a target stick ā though at the moment he likes to bite it >
I think that hand tagging was because you were clicking it, which strengthened it š So you can take the click out and just use your ‘cookies’ marker – and say that marker just before he arrives at your hand. That can get the in-then-out movement we are looking for without getting any hand tagging or tooth hugs š
Also, you can toss the treat to the bowl without moving as much (you probably heard me telling the folks in the live class to keep their shoulders frozen so there is no additional indication to run to the bar). You can delay the cookie toss til after he turns away to the bowl, then you can toss it.
>I feel a bit inspired by the demo dogs to add some impulse control and place work ā we should get started on place and ability to work with a toy on the ground :>
This strike a pose games are great for adding a toy on the ground!
Looking at the pivots: You’ve done a great jb already, convincing him not to sit! Yay!
What was happening here was that you were clicking for pivoting a bit and immediately tossing the treat away… so he was pivoting back to center less and less due to the response cost of getting the treat tossed to the side again. You can reward him in position in front of you after the click (even if he doesn’t quite get all the way in front of you, delivery position of the treat can help draw him in front of you), making the reinforcement come in front of you after he pivots back to the front position. So he can get a double treat on each rep (he will like that LOL!): first reward is in front of you for pivoting back to center, then you can release to the next rep with a treat.
> A shorter prop might help him sit less ā I just donāt have anything ready right now (too bad donāt they make those rubber bowls smaller).>
For real! Those rubber bowls are great and I wish they were smaller for the small dogs! You can use a metal bowl that is shorter, and tape a yoga mat on top of it so his feet don’t slide.
Great job here!!!
Tracy
Good morning!
The threadle wrap foundation with you moving and using the outside arm looked great! You were moving pretty fast and he was still able to turn really well in both directions. Stay tuned for the next steps for this coming next week š
The slices went well! We don’t need to see a response to anything because we know his brain is processing it. And if it appears easy, that is fine – we trust the neuroscience of processing that we are still carving out the neural pathways we need. And, at this stage, it is better that we don’t see a lot of reaction to the slices – starting with tiny slices is great! We did see him look around as if listening to something towards the end – perhaps the arousal state shift of the pattern game versus the recalls made the sound more salient? Either way, he was able to prioritize engagement with you which is exactly what we want š
>. For some reason my iPad could not access my own agility videos, so I search for agility videos ā all end up quiet. I search for flyball videos and they had music over them.>
I think I found my event videos by searching for specific events or key words, like Crufts Flyball:
Tunnelers NADAC:
Barking dogs (this is a particularly obnoxious video LOL!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuP3bN__gSwAnd also 4 Legged Flix has stuff!
OK now all my dogs are barking too hahahahahaha
Great job here! Stay warm!
TracyGood morning!
Backing up is going GREAT! Only one suggestion – don’t use food in your mouth because it causes her to look up at your face. That brings her head up past the ideal neutral position for this, which makes backing up harder.Next steps are to add a little bit more distance, and also a slightly higher target (maybe an inch tall). For her, you can also do a slightly more narrow target, just wide enough for her back feet to fit in a natural stand, with her feet lined up under her hips. On the wider target here, her feet were outside her hips so it is a bit of a conditioning game if we can get her to back up with her feet under her a little more.
Rocking Horses – yay for adding the toy! It helps her sort this all out in arousal too.
Nice connection on the exit of the single wraps at the beginning! She was nice and tight, knowing exactly where to go.
> still need to work on the cue for the next barrel happening sooner>
Yes – when you added 2 in a row at :52, the info was a little delayed when you switched the toy from one hand to the other. She was like “what is next, human?” LOL!! So keep the toy scrunched up in one hand the whole time. I is also great practice for her to go past the toy in your hand, so remember to give her the toy-in-hand marker when you want her to take it.
> I think I need to spread the barrels out more? Geez, she is a big girl>
Yes, she is not tiny LOL!!! You can spread the barrels out by another 4 to 6 feet for the sends where you are standing in the middle. Then you can move the barrels apart even more when you move to the advanced level of the game.
Strike a pose is going well! Try to have everything ready before you bring her into the session (treats cut up, target ready, etc) so she can start right away. She started offering behavior on the jump because she didn’t know what the delay was.
She is definitely starting to understand the in-then-out behavior – note how she is side swiping the target a bit and not even touching it on some reps. Super!!! That is how we fade out the actual touch. Adding the bowl and the toy on the ground was helping that a lot too, in terms of getting the in-then-out motion.
When adding the really hard angles (like at 2:10), add in looking at the target hand to help direct her over the bar so she knows where to be. You were looking at her there, so she had the oopsie on the first rep. She got it on the other reps, but when we do a bit of compare and contrast with serps versus threadles, where you look will really help her.
>Do I need to still be a little closer to the jump?>
I thought your position was great on the first part of the session. You were a little further away in the 2nd part where the reward was on the ground, so you can move the reward a little past the wing, which should give you more room to get one step closer to the jump.
Last night we added the threadle version of strike a pose – she is ready for it!
Great job here!!!
Tracy
Good morning!
> I am stuck up north until mid-February and this weather is limiting my options!>
I feel the pain of the crappy weather. Fingers crossed it all warms up soon!! We missed you in South Carolina (but it was not exactly warm hahahaha)
Stays are going really well – at first I thought it was Artie doing the stay for a moment, because it was such a great, adult stay! Yay! Good job, Ringo!!!
The break worked well here – you had a little bit of impulse control practice on the first rep which went well too! It was hard to see where he was looking: if he was looking at you, wait for him to look at the reward before you say ‘get it’ so that you build in a little forward focus too. If he was looking at you and the reward at the same time, you can place the reward further away so he has to choose to look at you (no release) or the reward (release :))
The Catch marker went great – you were especially good about being sure to separate the marker from any hand movement, so definitely keep your hand totally still til after you say catch then toss it so there is no anticipation (same for all of the releases :))
The lap turns are going well – try not to step back too early or too fast. They work best when the dogs get to about 2 inches from our outstretched hand, then we step back slowly and draw them through the turn.
Tandems are also going well – I think they will feel smoother if is it more of a hand cue and less of a cookie magnet, meaning don’t let the dogs lick your hands as you move them through the cue. The hand licking is probably getting them too focused on the cookie and not the hand movement – so the hand movement has to be perfect (and it is way too hard to be perfect :)) You can do this with the magic cookie hand being empty until after the turn, then throw the cookie with your opposite hand.
Try it with Ringo now, and I bet you can add the prop in after the turn really soon too!
Great job!
TracyGood morning! Great job in class last night!
> we are simply riding a wave>
Yep! Adolescence and all that comes with it (brain changes, hormones, etc) can totally feel like a wave! I am glad she had no trouble through the ice storm!
>Link startled and 10s response was look at him and grab a toy and bring it to me. I was training the cookie jar, but I have a terrible time keeping healthy weight. So, I had her choose a toy instead. By the end of the day, the bark became a game. >
Fabulous! So bark became the cue to go grab the toy? That is so fun – it is great for producing positive feelings and also it gives her something else to do as a coping skill: grab a toy! Excellent!!!
Keep me posted š
TracyGood morning!
The first part of the session where she was doing turns with you stationary looked great! The second part where you were moving forward also looked really good!Haha yeah I was going to say that perhaps Chata needed to be in a different room LOL!!! She had a big mad when she was sequestered. But if she barks (or either of them move or bark or whatever) – try not to respond to them because that is confusing to Julee: ‘why is mom using the lowered tone and shush words?’ plus it disconnects you from what she is doing (we humans are really bad at multi-tasking :))
Question: for threadle wraps, which arm do you use with the other girls? If it is the dog side arm nice and low like it was here, carry on! If you might want to use your outside arm or both arms, you can start showing her that here on the flatwork games.
I am glad you added tugging in at the end! You can mix in more tugging throughout if you aren’t already doing so, so she can be practicing self-regulation throughout her training.
We will be building on this soon! Great job!!!!!
Tracy
