Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
The collection sandwich is looking strong! After the blind, decel almost immediately so he can collect. You were decelerating as he was arriving at your hand, so he was a little wide.
>Then I printed up the diagram this time (um should’ve done that the first time!)>
Field guides for the win! Yay!
>.due to the show coat I don’t keep a collar on him so I just plain forgot so I lured him into position with food for this video.>
Maybe leave a collar with your barrel so there is one available when you train? Or have one with the toys, or just floating around the training room? He didn’t like being reached for to be held without it.
>I think the food slowed him down on the send perhaps because he was thinking about that.>
Luring with food was helpful to get him to your side but it was harder to indicate when exactly he should start the rep – so he would often start a little early and didn’t explode into it as we know he can 🙂 He was not really sure about when to start, which is why he was moving slower.
And since we are adding wrap verbals this week (and he needs to hear the verbal before he starts moving) you will definitely want an easy way to hold him.
Once he got moving to the barrel, his commitment was really strong! Your timing of starting the FC was spot on as the line moved around the barrel, allowing you to do the FC earlier and earlier, and he seemed to have no commitment questions. SUPER!!!!
Since he did so well with both the collection sandwich and the turn and burn, you can move to the next game added last night! The handling combos basically combine turn and burn with the collection sandwich, while adding in verbal wrap cues as well as some self control too 🙂
Great job!!
Tracy
Good morning!
Thank you for the kind words!!!>Long-track speedskating. Maybe the flyball equivalent in dog sports?>
FUN!!!!!!! And fast! I love watching it!
>Repetitive movement where good technique makes it look effortless and has a huge impact on performance.>
Right – the technique is where the speed probably comes from, just like in flyball. Done right, it might even look “slow” but it is most definitely not slow 🙂
>his specific changes of behavior are easier to pick up with slo-mo.>
That is a great application – he is small and fast, which might also make it harder to see some of the indication behavior.
I am glad you enjoyed the webinar!
>also the general theme: Reward the dog, because it’s probably the handler’s fault!>
Yes – that is why I did the webinar. There is too much blaming of the dog and the reality is that the dogs are correct almost all the time (and when they are incorrect, it is still likely due to human error :))
> As a hope-to-be novice agility handler – important for me. I have so many mistakes to make before I figure things out!>
And agility is a sport that keeps changing/evolving! Handler errors are made at every level – watching the world championships last weekend, there were plenty of small handler errors that would take a run off the rails.
>It seems like the efficiency should almost double by reviewing mid-session – because you can fix-yourself before the next session. I imagine Skizzle would also appreciate the break!>
Absolutely yes! My efficiency has more than doubled which is good because I have a lot of dogs that need some training time LOL!! And the other benefit is that reviewing video frequently trains my eye – so I can recognize errors in the moment. That creates a nice cycle where I don’t always need to watch the video because I already ‘see’ what happens and can fix it on the spot.
And as you mentioned – the ability to make fast adjustments gets behavior change very quickly, like the slow motion demos of the change in the box turn position for my Whippet.
Looking at the video with the distractions:
Those were all relatively quiet environments so the noises really stood out – and the noises were higher pitched and could be interpreted as anxiety or distress (the kids in the part were not distressed, but he didn’t know that :))
>In this video, she’s quiet initially, but then whines when the intensity increases, and Skizzle reacts. >
Yes – when you started to run and things got more excited, your new girl started making noise. And he didn’t know how to process that, especially because the noise indicated distress (FOMO is distress LOL!).
>We haven’t done so much work in busy places, but I feel like we need to work towards it. >
Yes, getting him into these busy-but-quiet environments is great! You can get him assessing and processing the environment with pattern games as the first order of business. The games provide a framework for him to be able to process and ignore the distractions.
You can find them here:
>It seems like this is something I need to start working on for our future sports career. Trials are noisy with barking and whining!>
In some ways, you might find that dog sport environments are easier because they are busier, so one dog making noise doesn’t stand out as much as your pup in the car. And since no single thing stands out, the dogs have far fewer distractions 🙂
Let me know how he does with the pattern games in different places!
Tracy
Sometimes puppies just have a day where they need to chill 🙂 Maybe that is what was happening. And also, if she was not sure where to go outside in terms of treat throws, you can use really big chunks of food sp they are very visible? Definitely grab some video so we can see what was happening 🙂
T
Hi!
He did really well here – yes, he was looking at the bag a bit but he never actually grabbed for it which would have been easy to do 🙂One of the reasons he might have been looking at the cookie bag at the beginning was because even though I think you were clicking for his feet on the disc…
the clicks were coming when he was looking at the bag at the beginning. The first few clicks had his feet on the disc and then also he was looking at the bag – so you might have been thinking of his feet but he added in looking at the bag because that is what was being clicked. He is a clicker savvy dude!!Then the timing changed a bit and he topped looking at the bag – you were no longer clicking when he looks at the bag and so he stopped looking at the bag 🙂
He had a little trouble getting all 4 feet on the disc – The disc is fully inflated here so it is hard for a puppy to stand on it especially when attention is split away from mechanics a bit, thanks to the exciting distraction 🙂
When you added the cookie recall games past the bowl and then past the cookie bag in the bowl:
>I don’t know if you can tell in the video how much he looked at the bowl when I worked recalls. >
Was he flicking his eyeballs to it? He was great about not turning his head to it or moving to it! All of your clicks were for driving back to you and that really clarified what would get the reward. Yay!
Great job here!!
Tracy
Good morning!
He was fantastic with the big bag!! And he did great with it in class last night too. It reminds me of a foundation element for a wall jump LOL!!
It took him about 45 seconds to realize that the bag was for wrapping, so he did some toy grabbing and bag smashing. But then he had a lightbulb moment and it was mostly smooth sailing after that.
Your timing of doing the FC and running away was great! Waiting til he was at the line at the exit of the wrap? Great!
When you moved the line (or kong toy or whatever it was LOL!) so you could do the FC sooner then sooner again? Great! His commitment is looking strong!He had a couple of questions where he didn’t wrap and instead jumped up at your hand (2:12, 2:30, 3:16). In those moments, your hand cue was ahead of him a little too much, which caused your connection to break by turning forward. And that also turns your shoulders to the bag in a way where he is not as sure of where to wrap.
On the wraps where he had no questions, your hand cue was lower and moving with his nose, so your connection was clearer and your shoulders showed the line to the jump. So we can take his jumping up in those moments as feedback that you are a little disconnected (even though you could see him, he needed to see more of your eyes) – you can try these games with as little arm send as possible!
You can also add your wrap verbal that you added last night, and try it on the other side as well.
Great job!
TracyIs that a tug Leah? Cool! I love the color!
The hand touch session went well – she started out with a very strong nose bop and you were delivering where the delivery would be in the strike a pose game. Yay! Then I think she was anticipating the placement of reinforcement so went more to side-swiping it. And that is fine for the purposes of the game we are using the actual target for 🙂 If she starts missing it completely, you can switch to placing the reward back into the palm of the target hand (and that is something to do when you are doing hand targets without the target – the target itself is a cue to do the in-then-out behavior we are looking for.
To get the out of the toy by getting passive, have your hands lower – when you went to passive hands, they were high enough that she could still hang off the toy. So lower hands will make is easier for her to let go of it quickly.
She is ready for the next step that we introduced last night – it is basically what you were doing, except you can add in your feet facing the cookie hand. And you can try it with a toy!
>I suspect you’ll know today’s song!>
Ha!! Yes! Her name fits nicely in the singing of this song LOL!
The wrapping game is looking really strong! Super! I think she is ready for the next step. True, there is not a ton of distance yet but we can add that in the other games too.
So you can start the Turn and Burn game – use that line on the ground on the exit line, and to help her make the transition you can also put one of her bowls on that line! That provides an easy visual. The difference is that you would not put a cookie in the bowl – you would do the FC and run 🙂 And the bowl can stay there as the line moves around the barrel. The line is your visual aid, and the bowl is her visual aid 🙂
The only other suggestion is that now that she is doing really well tugging with food more in the picture, you can start to incorporate a bait bag or cookies in your pocket. In the transition from the tugging to the treats in some of the games, having to get treats from a bag on the table can delay the transition (and distractions can pop up, or arousal/attentional state can change). I think she is ready to tug with food on you, to speed the transitions.
Great job!
TracyHi!
He seems to really understand the cues here – yay! He nailed the side change after the blind (nice connection!) and he was working the decel really well – then drove really well to the toy throw. Was he eating the treats? I know in class last week, the treat eating went away when the toy throwing and running started LOL!
Since he is doing so well, this game can also go to a grippier location: outside on grass or on the agility footing at your facility That way he can go as fast as he wants to (super fast :)) and he can do the decel into the pivot followed by the acceleration into the go go go without slipping.
Great job!
TracyHi!
On the indoor session of the parallel path game, he did well finding the line! He was better on your left than on your right on the parallel path, wanting to look at you more on your right side. It was hard to know why – could have been where you were looking, or visual distraction in the house, but it is something we will look at when you are in different spaces to see if there is a theme 🙂For the countermotion – great job adding something under the prop so it wouldn’t slide out from under him. He was really digging in and that is good, so the more stable surface is helpful. He has enough drive for this game now that outdoors or on the mats at your facility are probably the best places to play this so he doesn’t slip.
On the parallel path outdoors, we got some looking at you as well, because he was basically done with the behavior before the marker and toy throw. So with this parallel path game, you can think of the prop as a jump bar replacement and mark/throw earlier: when you see his intent to go hit it and before he gets to it or looks at you: mark and throw. That can keep him really driving forward for it! He might not actually touch it but that is fine for this level of the game 🙂 It is more about finding the line over it for now.
Rear crosses: getting to the new side was the key element here. When he could see that, he got the turn! Yay! It was hard to see your starting point on the video – start very close to him and on a direct line to the prop and where you will be rear crossing – that way you can be on the new side before he gets to the prop.
And, since he is moving fast to get to the prop, you can also job to the rear cross side to make it easier to get there on time. When you were not on the new side before he got to the prop, he was correct to turn left to get back to you. When you were on the new side before he got to the prop at 5:35 he found the right turn. And you can compare 6:27 (where you did not show the new side, so he turned left) versus 6:36 where you did get to the new side and he turned right! Yay!
Well done!
Tracy>He is still a typical boy puppy–no clue>
Haha yes 🙂 But I love these happy boy puppies 🙂
Definite progress here on the video!!!
At the beginning, he seems to know it is something something with the target but stepping backwards onto it took a moment!
You broke it down to get one back foot off and those were really successful moments – getting good clicks for that foot stepping back on then towards the end, both feet. YAY!!!
>He really likes to curve (his left/my right). This time I played with treat placement. It worked best if I placed it off center to my right to counter his natural tendency.>
Yes, possibly a natural side preference and also possibly because there is more space on one side of the setup.
To help get more of this going, you can have the target up against something behind him (like a wall :)) him turning around is not as easy of an option for getting onto the target by stepping back onto it.
And if there is a way to double the width of the target, I think it will be even easier for him – he can engage his front feet too and get them onto the target as a way to start the session (all 4 feet on, lure front feet off, then let him step front feet back on). That can jumpstart the backing up mechanics and then it might be easier for him to add back feet and be straight.
Nice work here!
TracyGreat question! I love the Treat ‘n’ Train and I do use them a lot! For this game, you can use it for one direction, and treat throws the other direction to get the back-and-forth across the prop. Just be sure that Poppy is hitting the prop and not going directly to the TnT 🙂
And keep working the tossed treats too – it is a great opportunity to work those mechanics for places where the TnT doesn’t work, and it will help her to *not* become reliant on the visual of the TnT (they are hard to fade out).
To help Poppy find the tossed treat even if your throw is bad 🙂 You can use a ‘get it’ type of marker, which tells her to look forward to track the treat which will make it easier to see. You can also use a towel or large mat on the line where you want to throw the treat – it will give you both a visual of where to get the treat so she looks forward even if your throw is not great 🙂
Keep me posted!
Tracy
Welcome back! It seemed like a super fun trip!!! And you got to stand on a podium with one of your CAMP classmates, Kathy and her BT, Frankie!!!
>10 hrs in the car and super long naps turned my puppy into a wild wildebeast that now is thinking of trying out for the wwf as me as his wrestling partner>
Ah yes, it makes sense that he might be a bit wild LOL 😂😝
The collection sandwich is a good game for burning off a 10 hour drive! On the first couple of reps, you needed an earlier blind so you can show him deceleration earlier too. The blind happened when he was more than halfway to you, and then the decel was late so he shot past you on those.
Compare to the rep at :49 – :52 where everything was earlier: the blind started pretty quickly after he started running to you, and that made the decel earlier too. So he was able to collect and drive nice and tight to your side: SUPER!!! That was my favorite rep 🙂 The last rep was good too!
He did well driving forward to the toy after the pivot so you can now add your go go go verbal (instead of get it) to begin building up the GO skills 🙂
Great job!!!
Tracy
Good morning!
Backing up is going really well! I agree, she is catching up really quickly!!!!
>I realized that I should have followed up with more treats at her chest to encourage her to back up more rather than just rewarding once.>
I think your rewards were really good – throwing more treats might have been confusing for her in that she would have been standing still and not really sure why more treats were coming (but I am sure she would be happy to eat them haha) So resetting her at your feet for each rep worked well – and you can use more of a ‘ping pong’ approach to begin getting more steps backwards. You can sometimes reward one or two steps and sometimes 3 or 4 or 5 steps – mix it up! As long as she is still moving when you toss the treat, you will be able to get more and more steps.
You can also add in having her move back to a big target – you will see that in demo video and in the “Adding Challenge” section of the description.
>When do I add the verbal?\>
When you can reliably predict that she will back up several steps, you can add it – but no rush for now, because we don’t want verbals to distract her as she is thinking about her hind end 🙂
>We also worked on the Turn and Burn – Jazz liked this one! >
I figured she would like it: action and toys!
One thing to remember is that the pups can go fast, but we don’t have to 🙂 I think you were trying to go fast and that was causing you to turn before she reached the line on the ground, which might be why your mechanics felt a little sideways? So stand perfectly still after you send her, til she gets to the line, then you can do a front cross and move away. The front cross adds a good element of countermotion – you did a post turn on most of these, which worked well but the FC will be a bit of extra challenge that she is ready for 🙂
As you are sending her to the barrel, be sure she can see the barrel – you were putting your leg past it which blocks the line. You can stand a tiny bit off to the side so the barrel is visible to her, and step towards it and not past it. That way she can see the direct line to the barrel and zip around it.
>I should have rewarded her when she offered the wrap even though I wasn’t ready. Seemed to confuse her when she wasn’t rewarded but she go back into it quick. >
You can use a reset cookie if she zips around it when you aren’t ready! But I don’t think she was confused after that – at :32 you moved away too early (she had just arrived at the barrel and hadn’t starting wrapping yet) and that is what pulled her off the barrel. On the other reps you waited more til she got to where you put the line on the ground and that worked great!
We will be adding a discussion of verbals into the games this week, so you can use a wrap verbal here on the barrel instead of a go verbal. That will begin naming the wrap behavior that we can use on a jump!
>Also I’m going to have to watch how much cheese I use as she was getting pretty loose poops. No fun!>
Poor Jazz! You can save the cheese for reps where she needs to early find the reward if it is thrown, or for really challenging environments because it is high value. And you can try treats that ight be easier on her GI tract in other situations.
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi!
The double wide plank setup here was great – gives him more room to get on and turn around for sure!Turning away from you (to the left) was a little hard when you hand was moving fast, but then he was great with the slower hand. The slow hand help him control his movement because he is not yet as good about going fast and turning around in a small space LOL!! So keep the slow hand cue for now and then you can fade out the 2nd plank when he is looking really comfortable.
He left to investigate someone appearing and that was fine – he was appropriate and confident, just checking them out 🙂 It seems like the person appeared while he was still working and he did great! If someone approaches that might be surprising, you can shift to a pattern game and see if that helps him process the person appearing without needing to go investigate them.
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
He did really well with the forward games! Food was lovely, he says, but the toy was THE BEST. You are getting a direct look at the line and very little looking away and only a tiny bit of cursing from him at the very end hahahaha!
Since he is reliably and predictably looking forward to the line here, you can add a verbal cue if you want (something like ‘look’). Since it is a new cue, you can add it after the toy or treats are placed and before you do the hand cue. (And if you don’t want a verbal on this behavior, feel free to ignore – plenty of people don’t want more verbals LOL!!)
Toy races:
>It does seem to work better when I let him go and move later. He doesn’t really want me to win but it still seems to be his goal to arrive at the same time when I’m running faster to get there rather than really driving ahead. >
I agree – he is wanting to drive ahead really well and get the toy! And he is MAD when he doesn’t get it. So why is his moving off the line rather than going directly to it?
I think what is happening is that when *you* are driving directly to the toy, your motion is pushing him off the line so he is a little wider and not as far ahead of you. Perhaps he is concerned about getting stepped on, which is a valid concern for a small dude!
When you are holding back on the release, he can drive the line directly to the toy and grab it.
And when you were parallel, he also drove directly to it and got there first, like at 1:25.
He was checking in a bit, possibly to be sure that he was not going to get stepped on 🙂So to help him be sure it is fine to get to the toy first, you can throw the toy as directly in front of him as you can (or even overcompensate a bit and throw it a bit to the other side of him, away from you) and then run parallel to his line to the toy, and less directly to the toy. You won’t win as much but that is fine – it can build up his trust that doesn’t have to think about your line or motion, and he can just drive to the toy. Start by letting him go first, then when he is driving hard to the toy without checking in, you can work up to adding your motion as soon as you release him too.
Tippy board:
>I don’t find him particularly noise sensitive so I don’t think the noise itself should have been too much but I have noticed in other situations as well that he finds it difficult when the “rules” of something he has done before change. Should I have shown him the change before allowing him to interact with it?>
I think you might be seeing normal adolescent brain development 🙂 He is right about the age where adolescence begins – and so you will see increased sensitivity to things like different reward values, changes in session setup or ‘rules’, noises, etc etc. And if he has always been a bit sensitive to changes in setup or adding things to things he has done before, you will see even more of that in adolescence. Totally normal! It doesn’t mean he is noise sensitive, as you mentioned, but you might see bigger responses to noises or surprises – and that can change day to day. Early adolescence is definitely a crazy time LOL!
I think he did well in this session! And yes, it was challenging – he had a sit’n’ scratch to think it over LOL!! Since he finds rule changes/criteria shifts challenging, a couple of ideas to help him out:
– you can split the behavior more by starting with where you left off in the previous session, then after a couple of rewards you can adjust one thing to add challenge. That way he doesn’t come into entirely different things and can see the transition to the new level. It is a way of showing it to him so it is not surprising, and also with reinforcement available.
– You can also change his arousal state more in shaping, so he notices/thinks about the changes less. That can be done with adding more tugging before the session and after every couple of treats. And you can use higher value treats, anything that is novel and crazy that will amp him up more! Increasing arousal states in training can help the brain process the new challenges more easily because they are less prominent.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
