[Tracy Sklenar]

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 🙂 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 don’t 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 (“try again”) 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 ‘try again’ 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 don’t 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 doesn’t 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 ‘come here’ 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 doesn’t 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 doesn’t 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 don’t 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!!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good 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 tire…which he was perfect with on its own….but he passed by it when I tried to put it into sequence…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 🙂 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 it… so he is not chill about it 🙂 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 🙂

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 don’t 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.>

Don’t repeat things 🙂 He had a moment of overarousal, you got him back successfully… don’t ask for more 🙂 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 relax….but I think I need to work on some remote sits & downs so he doesn’t 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 ‘less is more’ 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 don’t 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!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
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 🙂

Second 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 🙂

Since 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!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!

>1) would using a spray bottle to discourage Ringo’s 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 frustration

Separately 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 “positive” 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 didn’t teach him the leave it cue. Part of me thinks “leave it” is old fashion and not a good thing to teach….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

[Tracy Sklenar]

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 🙂 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 – but then he didn’t 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 undesirable…could try a target stick – though at the moment he likes to bite it >

I think that hand tagging was because you were clicking it, which strengthened it 🙂 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 🙂

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 – 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 – I just don’t have anything ready right now (too bad don’t 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

[Tracy Sklenar]

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 🙂

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 🙂

>. For some reason my iPad could not access my own agility videos, so I search for agility videos – 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__gSw

And also 4 Legged Flix has stuff!

OK now all my dogs are barking too hahahahahaha

Great job here! Stay warm!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good 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

[Tracy Sklenar]

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!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good 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 🙂
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good 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

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
It is entirely possible he is teething! You can still use toys that he can run around with and carry, then come back to tugging in a couple of weeks.

T

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
The sessions here went well! The bump looks shorter than a bar, which adds challenge (she seemed perfectly fine with that). And using different “wings” were great too, because it helps generalize the behavior.

She did super well on the variety of angles in both sessions here. It looks like only one angle made her ask a question:

At :52 and once more after that on the first video, the angle was super hard and she was reading it like a threadle going the other direction. Interesting! I think it was your foot position being a little ambiguous – pointing at her and to the wing, rather to where the reward would be. When you did the hard angle on the other side, your feet were pointing to the correct line (towards the reward) and she had no questions. Andf also at 2:58 in the 2nd session, your feet were pointing to the reward line and she almost came in for the threadle but then put herself back out to serp. Good girl!! So definitely keep your feet pointing to the reward line (exit line of the serp).

>Once you get to having the toy on the ground, when do you cue them to get it?>

For the placed reward, you can cue your ‘get it’ just before she arrives at your hand. We are looking for the definite intent to come in for the serp, and marking her before she arrives at the hand can also get the turn away for the reward

> In the first session she was stepping on the jump bump a bit, which I presume is fine at this stage? She didn’t in the second session but there was also less speed.>

Yes, no worries about touching the bump for now – she has a lot of mechanics to sort out, plus her legs are probably slightly longer every day haha! When the in-then-out movement is more established and the reward is on the ground, she is not likely to be touching the bump.

> the other this afternoon in a small entryway at another agility training facility where I was seeing a patient.>

It is great that she gets to practice her games in so many different places!!

Great job here!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi! He did really well here!!! The hard barrels are much better because he is not tempted to smack them 🙂

>Hew was quite wound up – so nice to see he could also process a bit. >

Yes! He was excited but still paying close attention. Super!!!

As you get ready to cue each wrap, the eye contact on the exit of the previous barrel is key. If you can keep your hand pointed back to him, and look at his eyes, you will have a smoother time on the sends. He had some questions because there was a lot of hand and not enough connection with your eyes:

>Seems like he’s looking for the toy when he comes around the barrel – esp. the first one?>

That was not a toy question, those were disconnection moments. Bearing in mind that the big connection (Hallmark moment :)) is when he can see your eyes (and not if you can see him peripherally), at :35, :40 and :43 – as he exited the previous barrel, he could not see your eyes so he stayed on the line he was on and did not read the side change info. The toy happened to be in that hand, but he was not distracted by the toy – he just never got the connection cue. You can see that same question at 1:15 and 1:40, where he looked up at you for more info.

You kept your hand down low longer which got him to find the correct side but making a clearer eye contact with your hand back to his cute nose will be the clearest info for him (and he won’t look at the toy :))

Great job here!!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!

Yay for latent learning!!

She did well with the strike a pose game here with the jump!! She did a really nice job of coming to the target hand then turning to the reward hand, creating the in and out line we want on serps. Super!!!!

>I asked for one too many stays 😞 The good thing from that was it forced me to work out my mechanics to be able to do this from a thrown treat.>

Quite possibly! Or, you can add more action between reps – tugging, for example, so it doesn’t get boring for her with all the stays and cookies 🙂 Or you can mix in asking for a stay with starting by tossing the treats. You were really good about releasing after you got into position (and NOT at the same time you put your hand into position) so I think that it was not an anticipation thing and more of a ‘more action please’ thing 🙂

One suggestion:

Even with a rather large puppy, you will want to be close enough to the jump that you can touch the wing. That will get her to turn before takeoff rather than after landing. You can see here you were far enough away that she could jump straight to you without turning.

She looks ready for the next step which is to have the reward on the ground. It can be an empty food bowl placed on the ground under your reward hand, or a toy (which might be harder :))

Great job here!!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!

Watching the video, I don’t see anything that would worry me – she was pretty calm and watchful in a normal way, in a challenging environment.

> In the kennel she tucked her head to sleep.

The clip of her in the kennel with her ears pinned was the only time I thought she was not comfortable in the environment, so a crate cover and crating further from the action would be helpful.

You can give her other tools to handle the environment too – when she is on a cot for example, give her a snuffle mat to help with decompression and resilience (or a lickimat or a bone to gnaw on). Watching the world is good in small pieces, but adding the other tools will also help.

She did not appear sound sensitive here, but there is a lot of sound in the environment so nothing in particular stood out. She might be more sensitive to loud sounds in an otherwise quiet environment, and that is where you can do things like pair the sound with something amazing. For example, an isolated loud bark can get you to throw her favorite toy or something fun! That type of associative learning can help her not be concerned about the random loud sounds.

let me know what you think!
Tracy

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