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Good morning! All going great here!!
>I keep forgetting to ask you if I should add the word “wait” before I lead out, like I use with Benni which I use with him in obedience along with the flat palm cue towards his face. Or even just the verbal or whatever.>
You can add an additional verbal if you like – as you can see, he doesn’t really need it right now (maybe never!), but it can help support the stay when things get even more exciting.
To be honest, I am not sure we ever really need it 😂 but it makes us humans feel better and keeps us more connected, so that is good! I use a stay word (not sure if my dogs need it at all) but it makes me feel better to say stay, then if I need to change position or something, I say stay again… it might be more for me than for the dog but everyone is happy. And it kind of forces me to breathe while leading out, which is always a good thing 🙂
I don’t use a hand in front of the face because that is definitely not needed and I have seen a lot of agility dogs in high arousal, ready to run, actually flinch when the handler does that.
Minny Pinny:
He figured this out immediately! ! Super! You were using your arm/shoulder to kind of trace his path and you don’t need to at all – once he started moving, his commitment as great so you can even do a FC and run away!
When you added the bars – remember to keep rewarding him in for sliding in between you and the wings front of you (some of the rewards here were more straight then turning)When adding the verbals: hold him at your side, say the verbals 3 or 4 times… then let go and don’t move 🙂 Let him go do it without you as you keep saying the verbals 🙂 The verbals get repeated because he is turning left/right 3 times. We use this setup to help create a ton of independence on these verbals (including turning away) so the first step is to getting him to do it without you moving at all.
Stay video:
Great job working the stay in higher arousal with all the toy play and tricks!! He was wonderful 🙂He only had one question, at :20 when you moved the toy away and asked for the sit at the same time he couldn’t quite process it (so he ended up in a play bow, CUTE!!!). It all happened too fast 🙂 Separating the toy removal from the sit cue makes a big difference so you can move the toy away, stand up, then cue the sit so it is very clear.
You can put barrels or even wings on each side of the bump now, so it looks like a real jump 🙂
Also, if you have opportunity to work the stay skill in a different environment, go for it! It can be off to the side in class, or if Brioche is still sharing a lesson with Benni, or even in your yard (you can have him on a long line if you are worried about puppy shenanigans). In new places, assume it will be a lot harder and make the stay a lot easier (shorter duration with you closer). I would rather be surprised by his brilliance because it is easy than ask for too much and have him fail.
Great job!!
Tracy
Good morning! I am glad the rain stopped for a bit!
>My timing is off with her as I don’t think I completely trust her commitment so I’m hesitating which makes me late for the front and/or blind crosses.>
That is normal and relatable – we are not really sure what the puppies will do, so we kind of have to delay the next thing until we see commitment. So it is perfectly fine if you are a little late for now! And as you saw with Jack – his experience made it much easier for you to have earlier timing. Plus, with him, I bet it all just feels more natural and comfy because you’ve got so much time under your belt working as a team 🙂 Very fun to have tried it with him too!
The session went great overall and Jazz is really figuring out the commitment!!
>Still working on the turns to the left>
Yes – the right turns were all spot on and it took a moment to get the left turns going, but then she got them brilliantly! One on of the first left turns, just as she was deciding about the left turn at :16 – a car turned on and she got distracted. Normal adolescent brain to not quite be able to process the left turn AND the car starting.
But after that, the left turns were sooooo good!!!!
She was really zipping around the barrels on the rep from :26 – :33.She got several in a row but you asked for one barrel too many, got a little hesitant, so she was not sure what to do and things came off the rails. So for now, stick to 2 or 3 barrels then reward.
Speaking of timing – as you got more comfy with her commitment, the blind cross element of the spin got earlier and earlier. The spin on the last rep was especially good – and that was to her left! Super!
One suggestion here:
You can have the toy or cookies in your hand… but don’t switch them from hand to hand. That switch happens in the pivotal connection moment, so it delays connection and also draws her attention to your hands. You might not even realize it is happening 🙂
So either leave the reward in one hand, no switches – or tuck it into a pocket. We don’t need a precision reward here, so you can always pull the reward out when you are ready to reward.She did GREAT with the toy so having it in a pocket will make things even smoother!
Great job!! Fingers crossed for good weather ahead!
Tracy
Good morning!
>. I fell over my own feet just doing this exercise. No I didn’t send u that part of the video lol. But after that I was quite sore.>
Oh no! Hope the soreness is gone!! Do you remember if you got tripped up doing a FC? On those, decelerating before rotating prevents us from tripping, it is possible you were going too fast?
But the session you posted here was lovely!!!
She is looking GREAT – super fast with great commitment and also turning tight. And tons of play in between reps. Love it! Really wonderful!
You did a regular blind at :27 (turning away from her to change sides) – she read it but it might have felt weird and a little wider than the others. You did spins (the FC/BC combo) and those worked great. She is doing super well with her countermotion commitment!
One tiny moment where you looked ahead of her too soon, which led to broken connection at 1:38 so she didn’t know which side to be on.
But you immediately fixed it on the next rep and gave clear connection at 1:45. Yay!The racetrack at the end was fabulous – I always find the to be the hardest to maintain connection because of the should return, and you nailed it.
Great job here! You can spread the barrels out a little more so you can send more and she can go even faster 🙂
Tracy
Hi!
Reducing the high arms definitely helped you set the parallel path line of motion that propels him past the tunnel to find the jump. The parallel path is key here and the high arms turn your shoulders away from that – the shoulder turn ends up looking like you want the tunnel.When you were keeping the arm low but also turning too much – that is when you saw him still glance at the tunnel. But then at :29-:31, you had the parallel path line of motion – lovely! And so did the last rep – yay! You can test the theory by cueing some tunnel reps in there, so we know if he is responding to cues or if he has learned that you want the jump.
Great job!
Tracy
Good morning!
These are looking really good!!Run 1 went great, nice conencted backside push!
> My set up didn’t have a clear threadle side for sequence 2, and I don’t think it did here either, but we did get a lovely line in this redo.>
The threadle was run 2 and it also went well. Because the natural line around the wing does put him on the line to the backside, it is a threadle to get the front. Decel and rotation at the wing set the line, but that will end up putting you behind him on the line. With his speed, staying ahead and staying in motion is a good thing so you can also see if he will read the threadle cues without you having to decel or rotate towards him as much at the wing. Instead, you can turn and run forward like you did on the backside push, but the verbal is different of course 🙂 and you can be swinging your threadle arm back too to cue the line change.
run 3 – blind after backside – very nice! The clear connection makes it very easy 🙂
Great job trusting his commitment!Nice work!
TracyGood morning!
This was hard! She was definitely getting it by the end, but we can definitely look at why it was so hard. Two things might have been happening to get the extra jumps and not enough tunnels:
But first, a question: did the first session also use a frisbee as the reward?
Frisbees (and tennis balls) elicit a response that involves accelerating away on a big run out while tracking the frisbee throw. That would explain why the tunnel was so hard for her at first, because the presence of the frisbee was eliciting a specific response that would cause her to not naturally even consider the tunnel (which was tighter and also blocks the visual of tracking the frisbee).
I have seen this a lot of frisbees and tennis balls too – the elicited response overrode the processing of the cue.
So try it with a tug toy not a disc for a session or two (tug toys elicit an entirely different response). That way she can process the cues better in a slightly lower state of arousal. When she is closer to 90% successful? Then heck yes, we go back to the frisbee! We do need her to be able to process cues in that higher state of arousal, but it is not necessarily the starting point 🙂
The other thing that might help is different cues on the start wing: in this setup, a wrap cue on the wing before the tunnel cue can help. And a ‘soft’ turn cue on the wing before the jump cue can help (because it is not a real wrap when you are going to cue the jump). That can definitely help with the processing!
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Good morning!
>I tried introducing bowls on the gravel parking lot at class Tuesday. Ven could not focus on them nor eat cheese out of them. >
This is really interesting! First order of business is going to be getting him to eat anywhere 🙂 Not being able to eat is a sign of overarousal/struggling with regulation, so there are a couple of options you can try to help that:
>I’ve booked another field rental for tomorrow (Fri) evening to see if by ourselves he can focus and play the game. I’m also going to work the game in the back yard after work today.>
Yes, good plan! Work it at home first so the game has value, then take it to the field and play it in a variety of places: parking lot, in the ring, by the crating area, etc.
And bring a variety of food – just because *we* think cheese is great, doesn’t mean he agrees LOL!! So you can try cheese, chicken, salmon treats, etc – basically we are asking him “what can you eat” and “where can you eat it”. Getting a handling on him eating will help in two ways:
– it will help his nervous system self-regulate
– it will help us be able to assist with arousal regulation and reward behavior.>Of course Mr. Social finds it hard to focus when there are people and dog friends he wants to go greet even though I rarely allow him to do so.>
That is probably part of what tips him into overarousal: the huge challenge of having to ignore people and dogs. The pattern games will help him ignore them happily without stress (which is why we want him to eat) and also, you can allow visiting! You can put it on cue: I have a ‘go see’ cue for my social dogs which means they can go say him to the person or dog I am pointing at. Being able to know when he is allowed to socialize can be a lot less stressful and overarousing 🙂
>Do you see any other things I need to work based on these 2 turns?>
A couple of ideas for you!
– It looks like you had the lotus ball in the 2nd run but not the first? He definitely did better with the lotus ball. You can even have someone holding a 2nd lotus ball, to throw as a reward on the bigger harder lines.
– he seemed to have trouble lining up to start when the food was not visible in run 1. You can see if you can get a hand touch or a simple trick without the food in your hand, then bring the food out for the line up.
– he had a lot of trouble with the weaves so for now as you get him more engaged in this challenging environment, don’t ask for weaving at all (make up a sequence that doesn’t go anywhere near them). The reason you want to avoid them is because either he fails and you fix then he checks out, or he fails and you reward. But that can ultimately be confusing about what correct weaving is, so better to just skip them entirely for now until he is better engaged and then it will be much easier to get correct weaving. Same with the contacts – he checked out a lot before or after the contacts, so skip them for now. Just stick to jumps and tunnels 🙂
With the jumps and tunnels – lots of rewards for doing them closer to the center of the ring, which is a little further from the super challenging distraction of the edges of the ring where the critters are. And if something goes wrong – the no fixing rule still applies because he checks out a lot when you stop to fix. Just keep going and add more connection, throwing the lotus ball when he gets on a line of jumps.
People and dogs being nearby are very challenging, so you can ask people to sit in a chair around the edges of the course to introduce rewarding when he does jumps/tunnels and ignores ring crew 🙂
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!!
Tracy
Good morning!
Good job working the stays in arousal! He is totally into the volume dial tricks. I LVOE how he was wild and tugging and then you said sit… boom right into the sit at 1:32 (and other reps too). That will serve you well in his agility future. You were able to praise and lead out, with a nice mix of throwing the toy back and releasing forward.
When you just cue the sit, he wa sa little sideways to look up at you. He was able to line up nicely at your side with the hand cue. I also think that when he understands that he will be released to a jump, he is likely to line up facing the jump more so we don’t have to worry about getting a perfect line up for now.
Since he was a rockstar here, you can take your parallel path jump setup and do stay games in front of it. So basically it is a stay in front of a jump with a pool noodle or something easy as the bar. Fun times with grown up stuff!!!!
For the wraps:
>Maybe for now I should just send and say nothing or make a sound that is motivating. >
That is how I ended up with one of my wrap cues – just a motivational noise because I couldn’t think of anything else at the time. Then I just kept it LOL!
This went well overall, his commitment is strong!
>When I try to send him with the hand that is holding the toy, he is slower to commit but hopefully this gets better with time.>
Yes, a little stickier because it was hard to ignore the toy but he was able to do it really well! He was using a lot of brain bandwidth to NOT try to grab the toy when it was in your send hand which is why he was not as fast on that side. But we will take accurate for now, rather than jumping at your hand!!
One thing that will help is if you use a toy marker for when he is able to grab the toy in your hand – you were using praise words, but a specific marker (like ‘bite!’) will clarify for him that the toy should be ignored until you say the magic word 🙂
And you can also tuck the toy into a pocket and whip it out when you are ready to reward (it doesn’t have to be a super precise reward for this game). That will allow him to go really fast without having to think hard about ignoring the toy 🙂
You were thinking hard about which move to do 🙂 You can either do a FC of a spin, both of which start with rotation towards him like a FC, but for the spin you then do a blind. You were doing some true blinds (turning away) which work but might have felt weird here and also promote a slightly wider turn in this context.
>I didn’t get to the post turns…that should really throw me for a loop!>
Disclaimer – they are actually kind of hard for us humans LOL!! But they are fun for the pups and get them learning to stay out on line. Have fun!
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
The remote reinforcement game looked really strong, with both food and the toy! He was definitely aware of the reward station but was fabulous about moving away and responding to cues. And it looks like the responses were crisp and accurate, no drop-off in quality or slower responses (that is normal but it is great that you didn’t see any of that). Since this went well, you can expand the distance by putting the food or toy in one room, going to another room to do a quick trick, then mark and come back to the reward.
Good job with the stays too – you lined him up and let him do the stay in a stand even on an angle, and that allowed you to get a ton of reward in with zero conflict about where he was facing or which position he was in. I love how he got ALL the toys at the end LOL!
Since this established a really fun baseline, you can ask for more in one variable: more distance (which brings more duration with it automatically). Or, you can ask for a sit but reduce the duration/distance. Or you can ask him to line up straighter (hand cue even with a cookie lure is useful, if needed).
And you can bring this game to different locations – and make it easier if you feel it is hard with new distractions/environments.
Find my face was great too! I think he was potentially wondering if he should offer something (like getting on the bed) but with you moving a bit, he looked into finding you. Yay! So this is also a good game to take on the road, even if he is on leash: start with getting the back and forth pattern game going really well, then add in a little find my face.
>Our snow has gone away for now. It all washed away in the rain while we were gone during the day. We came home and Aelfraed was so excited to go out into the yard, got out the door, and looked around with utter disappointment. His little face was so sad! I’m ok with the snow being gone for now but I was a little sad for him.>
Yay for being able to work outdoors again without snow (maybe some mud LOL!) But also, poor little Aelfraed who was clearly a sled dog in his past life! No worries, he will get plenty of snow this winter 🙂
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning! Nice work on these!
Minny Pinny went great, she was easily ale to zip around the 3 wings, no problem at all. Adding the 3 bumps – also no trouble at all.
She might have been getting tired at :54 when she cut in between the wings… or she might have seen your hands moving to get the treats ready and she took a shortcut to assist you in delivering the treats 😂 Good girl! You might have been tired when you were using the right verbal for the left turns right at the end 🙂
The only suggestion is to hold her collar while you say the left/right verbals 3 or 4 times then let go so she starts – it will be great for solidifying the verbals and you also won’t add an extra ‘go’ before it.You can add more excitement by using a toy and a front cross the run away as she is doing the minny pinny 🙂
She also did really well with the tunnel session! Since she has a good stay going, you can use it a bit here to smooth out the initial cue: that will give you time to tuck the toy away, show the arm cue, then use the tunnel verbal as the release. That actually slows down the info so she can read it better. You were a little too quick in some spots (like :12-:15) for her to process the cue cleanly especially on the right turns into the tunnel. On the left turns in the 2nd half of the video, you were a little slower to deliver the cues and it was already smoother. This is an instance where slower is good 🙂
The threadle slice on the jump went really well here! Based on her responses, you were much more visible in threadle position relative to the barrel and she was able to get lots of correct threadles even from the harder angles – super! The only thing that as going wrong was that the MM was misbehaving LOL!
For the next session: add your threadle slice verbal! You can start saying it as she is getting the start cookie and keep saying it (even shaking the threadle hand) as she is coming towards you. The other thing you can do it move the MM further away, so she can go all the was across the bar to get it.
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
Both games here looked good! Lowering the toy to the ground was really hard but after the first rep, she did GREAT! The other approach you can take to this game is to have your prop already in the room on the floor (like a jump would be) so you can line her up in front of it, just like at a start line 🙂 Then you can mix in release forward to it, or throwing a reward back to her.
Find My Face looked great! She was spot on and re-engaged as fast as possible. The only delay was caused by chewing the treat LOL!! But she seemed happy and relaxed to come find you when you turned away. Super!
You can take this game (and Happy Stays) outside when it stops raining 🙂Great job!
Tracy
Good morning!
>I hope the family time was stress free! >
Well….. not really hahahaha but the dogs were well-behaved so that is a good thing. We ended up staying in a room that also had 2 guinea pigs in it, and the various sighthounds did not attempt to eat them so I will score that as a win 😂
This session went really well!!! My suggestions are mainly small details that can tighten things or make cues earlier.
One small detail is to tuck the toy in a pocket so you don’t switch hands – the hand-switch moment delays the cue the hand is supposed to be doing 🙂 like on the blind-to-threadle at :08. We don’t need a precision reward here, so toy in pocket is perfectly fine. You didn’t switch the toy around on all the reps, but you might not realize you are doing it and it is making your arm cues a little late.
On the push cue after the blind: you can use more connection (big eye contact as you deliver the cue) and less arm pointing to the backside to get a better line to the backside. If you freeze the video when he lands at :14, you can see he is behind you and not clear yet where to go, so you hang out there to help get the backside. If you keep your dog-side arm back to him and a little lower, and look right at him to say your push cue, that will turn your shoulders to the backside and he will go very independently so you can keep moving.
One detail for the threadles: you can cue a turn on the jump before the threadle to tighten up that turn, which makes the threadles much easier to get and on a better line. In this context, the turn can probably be cued with just a name call as he exits the wing wrap (different contexts might call for strong verbal and turn cues).
An example is when you are doing the threadle on the takeoff side at :26 – you can set up a tighter turn on the jump before it by calling him as he is exiting the wing wrap so he is already orienting towards you rather than jumping the jump in extension and heading into the threadle after landing.
Same with the threadle wrap at :30 – a turn cue to get him turning on the jump before it will set it up really well!
For the threadle wrap –
>But I repeated it because I stopped moving.>
I think decel is an important element of the TWs, but also turning your feet to get the new direction set will be helpful too. On these, your feet were facing the slice line so you kind of had to be stationary for a while. You can decelerate just enough to turn your feet to the exit line so you can set the TW and move away sooner too!
>With the threadle slice after the tunnel he came out wide the first time, so I repeated it to see if I could tighten that turn.>
Yes, he was a little wide there because you didn’t mention you wanted a turn 🙂 You can tell him to turn on the tunnel exit before he goes in – at least 6 feet before he enters.
You called him on the next rep but it was right before his head went in, so the cue can be a stride sooner there and also on the last rep where you were threadling to the inside. On that one, he exited turned to the backside of the jump and found the threadle a stride late.
So I think setting up the threadle from the jump before it will make it easier to get nice tight fast lines on all of it.
Great job here!!
Tracy
good morning!
For those of us who have no natural patience 😂 I think the 2 failure rule will be the best guide. One failure in the session (meaning, the dog does something you didn’t intend) – we note it, reward the dog. And if we think something needs to change we can change it. Or we try again.
But when we hit 2 failures? Definitely change something to get success. It doesn’t even have to be 2 failures in a row – just 2 failures total. And sometimes we don’t know what to change, so stopping to watch the video is the lifesaver there! When I stop to watch the video, I look to see if I am connected for real (not just kinda sorta LOL – can the dog really see my face?) and I look at my line of motion. Am I running towards the incorrect thing?
The 2 failure rule is helpful because it prevents the rate of success from dropping too low (and therefore prevents frustration or stress for both human and dogs). And we don’t need to be patient at all (I am NOT patient at all haha) – we have a plan for what to do if something goes wrong!
Have fun this weekend 🙂
Tracy
Good morning!
>I *think* we are in the same group for the Open, though that might not mean much depending on what heights are together in what rings. And free time… what free time? lol>
I think I am in E because I am always in E hahaha but I admit to not having even had time to look yet LOL!!!
> And Monday is the planned day to meet Pick’s new owner so if I somehow make it onto the chat that night from the road, I will have literally just handed him over and will be quite a whirlwind of emotions I’m sure!>
I am sure it will be a combination of joyous and sad. I will be thinking of you!!
T
