[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!

>>I took a chair arm rest to the ribs (11/10 would not recommend, makes laughing very hard and our househould is all about laughter).>>

OMG!! I am glad you are both OK!

Looking at the videos:

>>which surprisingly came up in class a week ago and he ran past the jump when I was ahead of him>>

Yes, it is a common young dog behavior: going fast but not always managing the jumps too 🙂

>>but he is surprisingly fas>>

He has gotten faster in recent weeks, and his body shape has changed too – more of a grown up sportswear body. Very fun!!!

I think the session went really well here (only one blooper where he needed one more step to the tunnel). Since the class environment is more arousing and with more room between obstacles (similar to what the trial environment will be) you can use your yard to add more arousal so he is working in the same/similar internal environment. Get him tugging, have him do the tunnel 2 or 3 times in a row, get him wild, then run the sequence. That will really challenge him to find the jump while you run!

And, at home, you can soften the connection up a bit to add challenge – instead of looking directly at him as you run, you can kinda sorta look towards him and a little ahead. That is a style of connection he will find harder to see on course… and when he is more stimulated in class, it is harder to ‘find’ the connection. So a little less connection can prepare him! But at the actual class, give him BIG connection to help him out. We want to prepare him but not set him up to fail 🙂

The lateral lead outs looked great! Yay! The best part is the stay, of course, because that allows you to go anywhere. His commitment looked really strong too 🙂 and he read all of your handling on either side of the 2nd jump really well.

You can change his angle a bit to add more challenge (and also reflect what we are seeing on course nowadays) – rather than facing the jump as he did here (which is correct per the instructions) you can make it more challenging by putting him on a slice facing jump 1 (slicing over it towards jump 2). That has become a VERY popular lead out recently so we might as well show it to him 🙂

>>Thanks for nerding out with me on the neuroscience/dog behavior intersection.>>

Thank YOU!! I love learning more about it. And thank you for the paper and the info on Erin Hecht! I tried to sign my dogs up for stuff at the Canine Cognition Lab at Duke but never heard back from them 😭

>> Its constantly on my mind and I’m compiling relevant research, I’d love to connect about it when something clear and cohesive comes out of it>>

Yes for sure! You bring a different perspective and it is really fascinating!!!

Great job here!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!

>>they are proving to be super hard for us>>

If stays feel hard to train… it is because they are hard to train 🙂 They are one of the most complex behaviors in agility!

When there is a struggle, I look at the old school things that help us clean up the behavior: timing (of marking the behavior), criteria, reinforcement (rate and placement).

Basically… I think if we change a detail or two on each of these, you will easily have your stay. Things are a little grey in some aspects and you might be lumping a bit too 🙂

Looking at the 2 sit videos:

The plank helps, but there was still not enough success even with the plank. Looking at the 3 things:

– for timing, make it your job to reinforce before he moves. And this means you must live by the 2 failure rule: 2 failures total in the session (there were lots more than that in each video). Each step forward of the front foot where you went back and adjusted him were failures (reinforcement withheld). More on that below

– Criteria – you have defined it but I am not sure he understands it based on the reinforcement. Going back to feed him in position actually dilutes the clarity of the behavior in two ways: trying to feed in position actually promotes foot movement and butt movement as you deliver the food. Also the start and finish of each rep is unclear so he sometimes moves between reinforcement because I don’t think he actually knows the behavior is still in progress. Since criteria is to not move his feet during a sit stay, we will focus on reinforcement to clarify that:
–
– Reinforcement is split into 2 categories for now: rate of reinforcement (2 failure rule, so it was too low here) and placement of reinforcement. Placement is important! We want him to stay ‘over there’ where you left him as you move away, you will need the placement to reflect that. So rather than walk back to him and hand deliver it (which shows the placement of reinforcement as being next to you), you should lead out and use your marker which means it is coming back to you, then throw the reinforcement behind him (that marker is also a release to get the reinforcement).
–
– He doesn’t have to catch the reward, he just turns around to get it. There are other ways to do deliver it separately from you, but a clean marker followed by throwing it behind him will really help. That makes the end of the behavior clearer (also clearer when you release him forward) then the next rep is very clear, because you can cue the behavior and reinforce it again.
–
As you build this up, you will want to get 2 super successful sessions in a row (90% success or better) before changing 1 variable (and only one variable 🙂 ) When you took it out to the yard, you changed multiple variables – added a wing, a jump, being on the grass, releasing forward, leading out without connection, etc) and the sit stay was not quite ready for that so it deteriorated very quickly. The 2 failure rule will remind you if you are moving things along too quickly.

>>. I’m curious to know if you think this has more potential and whether I should focus on the down instead of the sit >>

I think the down is a more stable position for him at the moment (might be clearer and also, BCs like downs!) You can and should work on both, but at different rates – the downs right progress more quickly that the sits and that is fine.

>>is that he raises his butt like he’s doing a play bow.

That counts as a failure, so that is the warning light that the session is too hard and to make sure you get the reinforcement to him sooner.

>>maybe I can correct the play bow if I notice it after I have led out.>>

That is a slippery slope 🙂 So stay connected on the lead outs, watch his butt, and get a TON of reinforcement thrown back behind him before his butt goes up. Also – it is entirely possible that he doesn’t even realize his butt has gone up, so it might get very confusing!

>>We’re still working on down posture. I think I can clean that up pretty easily though.>>

I thought his down posture was fine here! He was excited but holding the down.

>>I watched a podcast about start button behaviors for agility and the trainer was using her arm and leg back as the start button.>>

Start button is a cue to line up at your side, 🙂 and that is fine… but will only be reliably effective as part of a stay cue if you also work on the timing, criteria, and reinforcement.

Let me know what you think of the ideas! I am sure we can get the stay behavior!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Yay! Great to hear she got them at a practice jump, where the distractions are even harder. SUPER!!!!

Keep me posted and see you soon in MaxPup 4!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

She really loves the meatballs 🙂 Yay!!!! She is still building up the love for the teeter, so 2 suggestions to keep her really excited about it:
– straight lines of approach will help her not have to slow down to get on it, so then she will be faster driving up the board. If she has to slow down on even a slight angle, she is likely to not speed up to the top of the board.
– because that teeter is really loud, you can dampen some of it by putting a towel or something on the upside where the board meets the thing holding it up. That way she has to deal with motion, mainly, and not a lot of sound – then when she love the motion, we can add the sound back in : )

Good job keep the teeter session short – it is better to do super short sessions and huge amounts of meatballs on each rep 🙂

>She preferred running off the teeter rather than being lifted!>>.

Yes, she was a happy meatball eater on that part too! Fun!

On the lead out video:

>>I discovered that Gingers start line stay is much better when she is further away from the first jump…she took off very quickly on the first rep!>>

She did come in really fast to the first jump on the first sequence here! Yay! I like the start as far back as possible, like at 1:13 where she was up against the ring gating. That happens a lot at trials! And jump grids can help her takeoff with power even when they have to be close to jump 1 (which also happens a lot of trials when it is a tighter space.

The handling went well! To help get the BCs started sooner, you can spread out the jumps so there is 18 feet between them or more – they were close here so that made it harder to get the blinds started. They were maybe one stride late so she read them on landing instead of before takeoff for the pinwheel jump.

On the 2nd rep with the FC, you were actually a little early 🙂 The FC was in progress as she was jumping the first jump, so she correctly came to jump 3. Good girl! You can let her land from 1 then look at 2, then start the FC.

The rest looked really strong with her line commitment!

>>Ginger saw the canine chiropractor today and was adjusted at L6 R, L3 L, and T8 R.

Yay for a good adjustment! And it is something to track: is she always out in the same places? That could indicate a need for strengthening certain spots or an ouchy spot.

>>She thought that her left quads might be slightly different than right. >>

Slightly different, as in larger or smaller? That is definitely something to pay attention too. The vet I take the dogs to actually measures the muscles – equal balance is good! Different sizes could mean she is compensating for some reason (and that can be why she is ‘out’ in spots for the chiro).

>>She has a massage scheduled in about 10 days and I visited with our local canine rehab vet in the event she needs some PT…>>

Perfect!!! You can make an appointment with the rehab vet just as a wellness visit, to get the measurements and see if there are stronger versus weaker spots, as well as get some ideas to strengthen. For example, one of my dogs had a patella issue as a youngster so the rehab vet did measurements (the bad leg was smaller than the good leg, because she was compensating). Then I was given exercises to do and worked up to the legs being balanced and then no more issues 🙂

>>Any recommendations for what course we should do next?>>

The next official class is MaxPup 4, which has more sequencing stuff as well as how. to transition the dogs into the trial ring. It will start later in the summer, to give the dogs time to practice their skills and grown up a little more. You can also try the CAMP class, and her brother can do the hard stuff and she can try some of the simpler skills work! That content is really hard so I don’t recommend a full working spot for any of the MaxPup 3 alums 🙂

Great job here!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

>>dogs helped supervise me pulling some nasty spiny things out of the yard.

Ewwww! I hate those spiny things!!

The zig zags are going great! So now we are in Operation Get Her To Bounce 🙂 And also, we can start to add handler motion up the line so that she can coordinate her mechanics even as you are (eventually) running.

Picking up where you ended here, with the bars and wings all touching – let’s add motion first! The goal is that you can basically serp her up the line without as much upper body drama and no lower body rotation.

To do that, opening up the line of jumps helps so at first, she can see a straight line through them it will probably be something like 12 to 18 inches of gap so she sees a straight channel. There should always be a target at the end (the Pet Tutor or a toy are fine, about 10 feet past the last jump). At first, you can lead out and be stationary to see if she can find the line (it will appear straight but she still has to do some zig zag action.

Then if that is comfy, you can lead out less (and less and less) and be walking forward a she is doing that line. If she cannot bounce (she is little!) then yes, go to weave poles. The goal is to, at some point in the distant future), have her bouncing side to side while the jumps are lined up like there were at the end of the video here, and with you running. This can take a long time (weeks, months) so it is fine to start it now and there is no rush to get it done. You can use overlapping jump wings to get the distances to work and the bars to stay in.

Here is a visual of what it looks like, in case I am not making any sense haha:

She did really well on the lateral lead outs! Super high rate of success (and a strong stay too :))

Her only questions came when you moved to the release too quickly – what I mean by that is, you lead out, then almost immediately released so she was still looking towards you and you were looking at the jump. You can see it at :59 and 1:29.

So you can take an extra moment on those: lead out get settled in position, connect with her, Mayne even point to the jump so she can take a moment to look t the jump too… then release. It will feel like a long time 🙂 That will be helpful as you add more and more distance between the jumps and as you put her in a stay position further back from the jumps too (I think she is ready for more distance between jumps or starting further back then eventually more distance AND starting further back :))

>>I think this is what you were describing with the 5& 4o clock positions, but I’m having a hard time thinking of a course where I would want to set her at that angle if the course was going back towards me later>>

I described the clock poorly LOL!! Sorry! Because yes, I meant the easier slice angles so she is facing the direction you will eventually be going (like you did at 2:06 and 3:27 for example)

It was not a bad thing to practice the harder/weird angles because it does challenge the forward focus to the jump, but for real life use, yes, it would be the more natural slice angles 🙂

Great job here!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

I am glad you had fun! On the lateral lead outs, we are seeing these types of openings all the time now! Since he did so well with it and had very few questions, you can keep working these and also moving his angle around so he is slicing it more and more rather than facing it straight on (those slice angles are SUPER popular nowadays in course design!!)
And his stay looked awesome 🙂

As you add more distance between the jumps, you can exaggerate the cues a bit more: face the takeoff spot (about 3 feet or so in front of the bar) and step to it (rather than to the bar). That will let him see more connection which supports the commitment. And be sure to throw a lot of reinforcement to the landing side of that first jump so he is really locked onto it.

The backside proofing looked great – he got the backside and didn’t seem to look at the tunnel at all! He only had one question (3:05) where he took the front, and it looked like yo song your arm a bit too much and that broke connection. You adjusted back to great connection on the next rep.

After the first couple of reps, you started dropping the reward on the landing side of the jump and that really pumped up his independence! Super! You were able to get further and further across the bar, and you were great about staying in motion which sets up the countermotion exits. So you can practice those countermotion exits separately then when he is happy to take the jump while you are moving forward past it, you can add the backside send and coutnermotion exit together in flow.

Great job!!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!
I’m so glad the RCs went well!! Google would let me open the document (Google is annoying like that LOL). She normally turns really well to her right, so it might have just been how things were set up.

And thank you for all the kind words! I’m glad you had fun 🙂 it has been so fun for me to watch Bazinga as she grows up, you’re doing an awesome job with her training and the joy you two share when playing together is so clear and wonderful 😊❤️

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

Nice work with the tandem turns here! You were too quick and too far from the wing at L03 and L55 so she didn’t know what you wanted, but you switched to much smoother, clearer and yes – slower 🙂 movement at :09, :49 and :59 and she looked great! Tandem turns and their cousins, threadle wraps are actually deceleration moves, and we need to wait until the dogs turn their heads AND change their leads to get to the jump before we change direction.

>>I was not connecting well and she wanted the toy in my hand>>

I agree that it was a connection question in those spots… but not a toy issue. The disconnections looked enough like a blind cross that she was correctly switching sides (or coming towards you to switch sides). So it might have felt like she was looking at the ball because it was in the hand she was heading towards… but when you were connected and the info was clear, the ball was not a problem 🙂

There were 3 spots she had questions with that:
At :16 – the connection break looked like a blind cross (you closed shoulder and looked forward, which is identical to the beginning of a blind). So she changed sides. You held the connection better heading to the wing at :22 until the last moment where you turned away so she turned with you. More movement up the line will help, so you don’t end up standing still for that long.
At :33 you disconnected and pointing ahead with the dog-side arm… which also looks like the beginning of a blind 🙂

Compare to the other side when you ran the mirror image – looks like the ball was still in the opposite hand and your connection was so much clearer, so she didn’t go to the ball at all! Yay!

So really emphasizing the connection helps a lot – and keeping your hands back towards her nose helps because that will keep your shoulders on the line you want and not accidentally showing the start of a blind.

If you want to test the theory, run with a full cup of water in your dog-side hand – you will feel the difference between the connection and disconnection (when you arm goes too far forward) because you will feel the water splash out everywhere 🙂

Great job here! Have fun at the trial!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!
This went really well! Glad you got a break to do it between raindrops!

He had an easier time finding 1 when you were on the landing side of it on the wing – your position drew him there better. When you were on the takeoff side, he had a harder time taking the jump and not coming to you. The things that really helped him be successful were when you looked at him before the release, as well as hen you took a big step towards him (towards the takeoff spot). If you stepped to the jump more than to the takeoff spot (like at 1:13) then the info was not as clear and he came to you.

Also, great job with the reward placement! As you add more distance between the jump and the wing, you can place the reward there in advance to help get more forward focus on the line even before you release him. You can probably do that for 2 or 3 reps, then switch to a thrown reward as he gets more independent with the skill. And that will also help as you move him further back from jump 1, and as you add more handling like serps and front crosses.

Nice work here!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

Rear crosses are definitely tricky! There might have been a couple of factors at play here – it was hard to see the exact line you were running (especially on the right turns) because of the camera angle. Here are some ideas!

On the left turns at the beginning of the 1st video, I think she was getting the info early enough to adjust to the left. They had a little “pull” of your shoulders to her right so she was turning right before turning left (you can see it right before takeoff, especially at :20) but the rest of the info got her to switch to the left turn. Your timing of putting pressure on the line was as she was landing from the previous jump, and you were not accelerating a ton (moving forward but not big acceleration). Those helped her read the RC info. So you can take out the slight shoulder pull and those will be perfect!

For the right turns – since I can’t really see the line, we can look at timing and motion 🙂 the timing looked a little later in terms of pressuring into the line (watching your feet) and also your motion had a lot of acceleration – so the acceleration might have been covering up the other info on the right turn RCs. There was so much acceleration that the RC info was not really visible to her til after landing (you can see how wide the turns were, due to the big acceleration cues.

Also one other factor might be that it looks like she was turning towards a fence on the right turn RCs? Hard to tell exactly how far away it was, but maybe that was a contributing factor – the pressure of a fence.

Try the right turns on the other side of the sequence – it will just be the two jumps after the tunnel, with her on your right , so she will be turning back to the center of the sequence – and that might give us info if it helps her see it better : )

Nice work here!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

The wind-in -your-hair I going well! The first couple of reps were smooth and then she had questions about the RCs:

>>Not quite sure what I was doing to turn her off the jump early in the next RC unless I wasn’t keeping my shoulders pointed to the bar enough for longer as I pushed on her line?>>

What was happening was that you were looking ahead of her to the jump and running the RC line… but not in according to where she was on the line. You were ahead of her a bit and were pushing across before she was past you, so it was more like sideways pressure on the line which pushed her off. The successful reps at the beginning and at 2:27 had more forward motion to the center of the bar, parallel to her line but also with the RC pressure (forward rather than lateral) so she could get past you and make the correct turn. Yay! So adding more connection to see where she is on the line and also setting the RC from closer to the tunnel entry will smooth out the question spots.

Looking at the backside video:

>>Starts out brilliantly with me moving a bit faster. Then starts cutting behind me. >>

I think what was happening there was on the first rep at :09 you were close enough to the wing and connected enough that the backside was obvious. One thing on the arm placement there is that it is fine to let your hand travel with her a bit when she is past you, so the shoulder doesn’t pull open like a threadle. The shoulder opened on that rep at :10 so she considered coming in to the front side. For the shoulders & connections, I think of it more as the opposite shoulders coming forward and less as the dog-side shoulder pulling back (which might be too much rotation and too threadle-looking).

On the 2nd rep at :31- :32, two things pulled her to the front of the bar: you were looking ahead of her to the backside wing and also your shoulder was opened – add in being further across the line and she took the front.

And then she was locked onto the front, between the reward and the value of the bar and proximity of the tunnel and tiny moments of you looking forward. That put you into the 2-failure land at :47 – even though she got cookies, there were indicators that the behavior was incorrect and she knew the difference. Rather than keep going after the 2nd failure (which can get more failures), you can either go back to closer to the entry wing or angle the jump so the entry wing is closer to the start wing, making the backside line easier to see and the front of the bar harder to see.

The countermotion looked good – so switching to that was a good idea, she did well! That is a good spot to end the session there (and watch the video or make a new plan) rather than try to put things together. The 2 failure rule holds for the full session, not just successive reps, and we don’t want her to slow down or fail more until we’ve adjusted the plan. On the 2nd part of the session, she was a little slow on the first rep trying to sort it ut, but your position was good so she got it, then drove to the backside fast on the 2nd rep. For now, rather than trying to add the countermotion, keep rewarding driving to the backside. The countermotion will be easy to add on when she can go to the backside more independently.

Let her sleep on it for a couple of days, and I bet latent learning will work its magic 🙂

Nice work here!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

The plankrobatics session on the teeter was great! She was so cute, trying to get on the end at the very beginning 🙂 She seemed to have no questions or struggles with the early part (back and forth slowly) and hopping on, and at the end she was running across it beautifully with a bit of tip. Yay! So you can keep going with the happy sessions like this, running across it with gradually add more tip in tiny increments.

The decel session looked super too! All of the reps where you were up at the jump looked great – she powered to the jump, collected, and turned brilliantly. Yay! The sends worked best when you had connection as she exited and then let her see the send movement. At :36, she had a question and I think that was mainly the connection not being as strong and the send a little too soon (she didn’t quite see it as well). Compare to the reps before and after it, where she was easily able to send with the bigger connection and more visible send step.

And adding more speed and the FCs definitely made it faster but not harder, you both nailed it 🙂

The heat & humidity does get challenging at this time of year! At the very end, she pulled off the tunnel because you turned away from it on the send (facing the other entry at 1:00. If she was less hot she might have found the correct entry anyway but when she is hot, you’ll see that she is more likely to come off lines if you turn too soon. Does she like water? As the summer heats up, you can do one or 2 reps then let her sit in a baby pool or cool off with a hose or even a wet towel draped over her, so she can stay cool 🙂

Great job here!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
The pushes went well! He found the backside line really well! My only suggestion on those is to drop the reward in on the landing side of the bump, right where the bump and the wing meet (and nowhere near you 😀 ) that way when he comes around the wing, he defaults to looking the bar and not at you. I prefer dropping it rather than placing it because it will draw his eye better, and for now use a bump not a bar so we don’t have any rehearsal of hitting bars.

You can see him watching you a lot when you added more motion by starting from the wing, so consistently dropping the reward on the landing side will shift his focus to the bar rather than watching you for more cues to come take the jump. The independence will open up lots more handling options!

The countermotion reps looked really good – nice mechanics and great toy placement! And having the tunnel visible but not really “available” seemed like it was just right for him.

Putting it together was a bit of lumping, because he hadn’t seen you be far enough across the bar on the push to be able to get the backside push while you easily did the countermotion of moving forward. He hit the bar on the first one then had a big slide when you tried to run.

So before putting it together, work the walking and jogging up the parallel line on the backside pushes, first getting to center of the bar and then eventually working your way over to the exit wing. I say eventually because it is not intended to be done in one session.
When you can jog then run up the line with your line heading to the exit wing, and the reward placement is on the landing side… putting it all together into the German turn for example will be super easy 🙂 because the smaller pieces will come together nicely. The tunnel entrt being visible is not that important right now, so you can gradually add it back in but no need to emphasize it as a discrimination because he is still learning the skill 🙂

Nice work here!!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

Looking at the jump grid:
I think he is really sorting out form, especially over jumps 1 and 2. When there was a stationary food target, he was slowing down over 3 so you can move that target another 12 feet or more further away so he can maintain his power and not slow down as soon.

He did well with the moving target when it was moving very slowly 🙂 When you did the first rep and one of the reps where it might have been moving a little faster, he was rushing a little and touched the middle jump. No worries, he will sort that out, but for now the toy can be stationary about 15 feet past jump 3 or moving sooooo slowly 🙂

>>he manages ok though sometimes he just makes it over the bump?

Mechanics are percolating nicely, so with more practice he will be more centered (but that is not really all that important). Plus he still has to muscle up into an adult body, so you will see changes happening in coming months and until he is 3!


>Am not sure if there is any progress using his rear out of the sit???>>

He totally is! Much more organized, balanced, using his core, and pushing from the rear. Yay!

>>Tried the wind in the hair rear cross but I think I was running an L too much?>>

Yes, a bit too much “L” but that was because you sent to the start wing from too far away… so you couldn’t show the RC info til he was past you, which put him too close to the jump.

At :28, because you were far up the line, the RC info started as he was setting up his takeoff – and it was visible as he was in the air. You can see his head come up over the bar when he sees the RC info but it is too late to turn. The 2nd rep was earlier but still a little late (he turned his head over the bar and turned on landing), maybe one stride late. But this rep shows us that he is understanding the RC info, just needs to see it a stride or two sooner.

Easy fix! On the RCs, you can start right at the wing, and hang out there til he is almost exited (rather than send from a distance) to begin to set the RC line as soon as he is exiting. He will pass you sooner but will still have plenty of time to see the RC info.

>>West did a great job with his pattern games with a lot of distance at the back door – he was able to look around and reinitiate the pattern on his own and he had some excitement but was still able to think, engage, and respond>>

SUPER! This is better than probably 80% of dogs currently running flyball 🙂

>>He HAS learned his pattern games in calm environments but I’ll make sure to do lots of practicing in calm environments since now I’m mainly using them in high excitement situations>>

Perfect 🙂 Keep them neutralized as much as possible.

Looking at the flyball video:

One thing to note is that the 5 minute mat time for NAFA and the 7 minute Pre-Flight for UFli is a really long time, and toooooo long for most dogs. So you can do a rep, give him a break outside the lane, do a pattern game or snuffle mat, do another rep in the lane, then back out for some decompression, etc. You will get fewer reps in the lanes… but the quality will be much higher!

>>Recall looks ok to me, he is distracted but still engaged>>

Yes – do shorter recalls so you can call him before he looks away. Also, for recalls, do you ever run around the holder? So while the holder is holding him, you run around the back of the holder in a full circle before running straight up the lane. That can really help focus him away from the other lane.

>>However I’m not sure about later when he was attempting ball to tug and his teammate is doing recalls>>

This might have been too hard to do side-by-side. If a dog is recalling at one end of the lane, I like the young dogs to be doing ball stuff at the back of the lane. He didn’t do badly in this rep when getting the ball, but he couldn’t remain engaged when the teammate went racing by and also more than one rep is hard to get in that pressure cooker moment.

>>he managed to just keep his thinking until the excitement begins and then he is “over threshold” he breaks off tugging, is staring, unable to respond and would 100% take off chasing if not for long line>>

I personally have not used a long line in a while because if it is being used to prevent running off or chasing… then the dog is not ready for the situation I am going to put him in. Giving away all of my long lines has forced me to make sure the dogs are ready to be off leash LOL!!! So I can do short stuff on leash, up close to me and far from distractions, and maybe drop the leash if thy are ready… but when I ask for the harder behaviors like recalls or ball retrieves, I always do it off leash so that I am pretty darned confident the dog is not going to leave.

Yes, it takes me a little longer to get my young dogs doing those things – but they do not have focus issues in flyball. My whippet will be 2 in July and he has not debuted yet, but he has zero interest in chasing and is totally engaged. That is pretty different than the dogs locally that are debuting at 15 months or whatever the minimum is, and they are chasing or have to be held til everyone else is finished. They are not ready to be in that situation. So something to consider is taking the long line out of the picture and making training decisions based on not being able to catch him if he leaves (it will totally change your planning LOL!!).

And the main goal is to put him into situations where he won’t want to chase. At this age, the front part of this brain is not developed enough yet to tell the back part of his brain to chill out. The back part of the brain is saying “CHASE! CHASE!” And the front needs to develop enough to be able to say “shhhh, amygdala, no chasing.”

So part of that is just patience, and not having him in an environment when he wants to chase. In mat time and training sessions, work alongside a seasoned helper dog who can be walking or trotting… but no crazy recalls yet because he can’t be successful yet. You will be able to systematically work up to the helper dog jogging, running, tugging, etc. Same with the people – the handler running/yelling/holding a toy is a bit too much for now.

>>Once the recall was over he re- engaged and retrieved the ball in a distracted manner while they walked back but next recall he was completely gone>>

Yes, too many reps, too hard, he couldn’t do it. You can build in a break after that first rep, maybe share the time with another dog. He is not trying to eat the other dog or anything, but he just doesn’t know how to ignore that level of stimulation. And one good rep is better than 4 or 5 where there are struggles!

>>My feeling is that this is probably not productive and that I should move him out of the lanes for more distance before recalls start so that I can work on engagement rather than struggling to work with him in this state?>>

Agree! And when he is in the lane for his mat time, ask for a seasoned helper who can be less exciting, as you build up the desired behavior and he learns to override the stimulation of the other dogs running. He is really young, we have PLENTY of time. He is about 11 months old now? PLENTY of time and the executive function part of his brain is still under construction – and there is nothing we can do about that other than set up great rehearsals and wait for biology to work its magic.

>>And I think there are sessions in brain camp flix that are relevant to him right now?>>

The Under Pressure webinars and the MYOB webinars both have stuff that can help, plus I have included young dog flyball examples in each of them.

Stay tuned for more flyball content coming up – the best flyball trainer in the US is going to do some webinars for BrainCamp and I am so excited. Yay!

Nice work here!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

>>THE COOKIE HAND!!!!!!!! Bwahaha!!! She is so stinkin’ smart!!! She was (correctly) convinced she was supposed to hold at the target!!! Ummm – thank you for letting me see it!>>

Ha! Yeah, when she kept offering the chin touches, I was like: what is she seeing that is cuing that? Is she stressed about something? Nope, not stressed. And yep, the magic cookie hand was saying “more cookies coming” LOL! Dogs see everything 🙂

When do we do the “Find ’em” tracks? After the regular 2×2 & Channels tracks are complete?>>

The Find ‘em descriptions will generally tell you when to d each step, but you can start them after step 2 of channels and step 3 of 2x3s. No need to wait til the other tracks are complete 🙂

Have fun!
Tracy

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