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Hi! The games are looking great! Clearly you’ve done a great job teaching him to offer behaviors, and you are super strong with your click timing and getting lots of rewards in fast.
>shows me we need to do some work on switching from food to toy and back.>
Switching from food to toys is HARD especially for smaller dogs because their noses are right over the food smells! His facial expression was hilarious when you asked him to tug in the middle 🙂 Two things to try to get more tugging:
– the toy you had was great and really enticing! You can tie it to another toy or a leash to make it super long – then swing it/drag it around on the floor for him to chase (like chasing a bunny :))
– you can move to a different spot to tug, so he is not tugging in the food spot. I used to run down the hall to tug, then run back to the training area to shape the target, then run down the hall to tug. It was hard to get on video but super effective to get more toy-treat-toy alternating.On the 2nd video, he was interested in the squeaky toy but the presence of the treats nearby was challenging! So running to a different room can really help him get into his toy.
Getting him to paw target to the hat was great. You got a ton of rewards in very quickly, so he was all about smacking that hat! You can toss the food further away now, so he runs a few feet to get it and then runs back to smack the hat. And when he can do that for a couple of reps, you can move directly to the sending game we started on Tuesday 🙂
The nose to target game went great too. Nice job having your hand nice and low, so he didn’t have to jump up for it at all. To make your life easier, you don’t need to click anymore – one less thing to hold LOL!! This game doesn’t get used for a couple of weeks, so you can set it aside for now 🙂
Forward focus to the toy is looking great. My only suggestion is for you to look very directly down at him as you throw the toy, so you can see exactly where he is looking (and so you can practice being super connected).
You were able to add distance and your movement to this game and his forward focused looked great. The next step would have more distance and more movement – you can take this outdoors, or you can take it to a long hallway if you have one, so he can really start running to the toy.Nice work here!! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
OH NO about the COVID!!! I am sorry to hear it. Hopefully it is a very mild case.>I’m not sure I have a long enough toy that’s small enough. But, I’ll look through the pile of toy toys.>
You can do some arts’n’crafts and tie a bunch of toys together to create a long one, or tie one to a leash.
>She is a very slow eater. Goes to the bowl, takes a kibble, walks away and chews 100 times.>
Ha! That is so cute. She will get faster, of course 🙂 but for now, she is probably just processing how to use her mouth and think about things etc.
>I’m struggling with offer to touch the object. She just sits and stares.>
Totally normal! The sit-and-stare might indicate that she is more thoughtful in her processing and less of a ‘throw herself at it’ type of pup. Or it might not indicate that – it will be fun to learn more about her personality.
To help her out, do a session with delicious treats and a HUGE thing for her to get on like a big dog bed… and jumpstart the concept by putting the cookie right on it for her to go to. Then toss a treat to the side to get her off it… then as she heads back your way, put the next cookie right on it. It is kind of a pattern game LOL that says: getting on this thing is great! By making the object huge for now and jumpstarting the game by putting the cookie on the object early and often, you will see her have a lightbulb moment that moving towards novel things can produce cookies.> Also, we have zero recall. Sometimes she’ll chase me. Other times, she lies down and just stares. Baby!>
Yes – also totally normal baby behavior. She has only known you since Saturday, right? She is still settling in, no worries. Maybe she is waiting on the final decision of her name 🤣😂 but again, this is all totally normal.
Looking at the video:
She did great here!!!! And she is adorable. She wanted to kind of chill out by the bowl – that might be a product of her litter experience when she was fed from a bowl: you eat from it then when it is empty, chill out. But she was definitely getting the idea of going back to the other bowl! She is basically learning that bowls are things that we use for training, not just for eating.And she got right into the toy at the end! You can try this game with two toys like I did with Elektra in the demo video – that way you can add in the going around something, while her understanding of going back and forth between the bowls continues to build.
Plus, latent learning is on our side. If you played this yesterday (Wednesday), let her sleep on it for a couple of nights and try it again on Saturday to see what she locked in 🙂
Great job here!! She is off to a wonderful start!
Tracy
Hi! He is so cute!!!
Looking at the drive to toy video:
>Aelfraed doesn’t like being restrained very much and also doesn’t like toys that aren’t moving very much so I wasn’t sure how the drive to toy game was going to go. However, he has been improving with both those items recently and he did way better than I expected.>
He did great here!!
Having the leash to help is good to be able to add the restraint – you can sometimes use it at the start of the rep, instead of reaching for his collar each time. That way we can get the same feeling of holding him to be able to get the toy out ahead and get forward focus, and gradually build up the love of the collar behind held. Just be sure that you don’t step on the leash or stand on it – that was causing a bit of a correction on his neck when he was moving away.Since dead toys are a little boring 🙂 you can throw the toy further, as far as you can – watch him as you throw it, and when the toy is almost landing or just after it lands, you can let him go to run to it (if he is looking at it) That way he can sometimes run to an almost-dead toy 🤣😂 mixed in with waiting for a heartbeat after it lands, so he runs to a fully dead toy. You can also add your movement (walking, to start) so he drives to it while you are also moving.
Looking at the prop sends: he did really well hitting it when sent, and he seemed to do it really well on both sides of you! Super!!! He only had one question (approx 1:40 on the video) when you were sideways – I think the cue was a little too subtle and you were a little too far, but then when you were clearer and closer he was great with the sending.
> He does not enjoy treats in my hand nearly as much as collecting them himself which is why I was rewarding with the treat toss, and especially after he wasn’t interested in the food in my hand while I was setting the prop down.>
That was really interesting, when he passed by the treats in your hand to go to the prop. Perhaps it was a combination of not loving treats from your hand, and thinking that the prop being placed was the cue to hit it. Throwing the treats as the rewards was a good option, of course – but we can also use this game to help build the love of eating treats from your hands (because that is an incredibly useful skill!) So since he likes the prop and he likes chasing the treats, you can put the treat in your hand sandwiched between the other two things: send to the prop, give him a treat from you hand – then when he eats it, toss a treat for him to chase. And repeat 🙂 The value of the ‘work’ (prop hits) and the value of the treat chasing will help build the value of the treats from hand. And you can have the best treats coming from your hands, if he has preferences in terms of type of treats 🙂
He ate treats perfectly from your hand on the drive to handler session! And then he got a tossed treat, which he liked and helped build up the drive to you for the treat in your hand. Yay!
He was happy to come to your side here. His butt was swinging out a bit wide (probably when he was looking up at you) so you can now add the pivoting when he is getting to your side. That will help him bend his body and keep from swinging wide.
How does he feel about food and toys in the same session? We can start to incorporate the toy in the foodie games to get even more excitement.
Great job here!
TracyHi!
>Oh cool!! I see Bokeh is here too!>Family reunion! So much fun! They are all really fabulous pups!
The blinds went really well – super fun even when you were late. And even when you were late, it was still a fun game – love it! As long as she keeps getting rewarded, she won’t mind if you are late 🙂 She is already a speedy little dude, so you can start your blind as soon as she takes her first step towards you. You were waiting til she was halfway to you on some of the reps, but with her speed, you ended up a little late 🙂
>I had trouble remembering to use the arm across my body to deliver treat/toy>
I think you did a great job working the connection! One thing to add to the planning is put the toy in the reward hand (dog-side hand to at the beginning so it is easy to reward across the body) before you start the rep, so you don’t have to switch hands while trying to outrun her 🙂 And if you have anyone who can hold her, you can do this as a restrained recall.
Wing wrap foundations was also a super nice session! She did really well with the upright getting a little further away. I think the next step is for you to be standing up (starting with the upright close again, and if she does fine, you can move it back out. And if that is easy peasy: you can fade out the bowls and just drop treats on the ground (this will be easier to do indoors so she can find the treats easily).
I think the hardest part was getting her to tug – at the beginning, you can get the tugging going from a bit further from your setup, before you get into wrap position (sitting with the food and upright there). Then after some tugging, you can go sit in the setup or stand near the wing to start the shaping part of it with treats.
Then when you break things off to tug in the middle of the session: I loved your energy when it was time to tug! SO FUN!!! When you break off for tugging, you can leave the wing wrap spot and have a big party, so she is not confused about whether she should tug or offer wing wraps for treats. It looked like you did that at the very end (moved away) and got the tugging going really well.
Great job here!!
Tracy
Good morning! This session looks great! He drove right to you and was nice and tight while you turned. Super!!
>Looks like I’m turning a bit too quickly.
Yes – a bit too fast but he did well with it. It is amazing how a 13 month old dog can maintain the coordination to turn fast like that, and when he was a 5 month old dog he would have had a harder time! He was great!
And I think the turning a little too fast will disappear when you go to the next steps: throw the start cookie as far from you as you can – and while he is going to it, you are moving away. As he is moving towards you, you can start your decel, then pivot when he gets to your side. You can add moving faster to make the decel more obvious – so it might be a good game to take outside! The start cookie can be a bowl if he has trouble finding it in grass or dirt 🙂
Great job here!
TracyHi!
>Josie got obnoxious when someone pulled in>
Ha! That stuff happens when we are all ready for a puppy session, right?!?! LOL!
Maybe the adult dogs can be further away or the car can be closed up, so they are not as ‘present’ in the environment if they bark. It draws bandwidth from Bella’s brain as she is working the new skill (especially when she is outdoors, where there are other competing distractors).She did well with the sends! She looked pretty balanced on both sides of you. My only suggestion is to remember to add the ready game for each rep. Take a moment to get her jazzed 🙂 and then send her – that will get a nice level of arousal and snappy targeting, while also building up the handler focus shifting to obstacle focus. On most of the reps you were lining her up but then going immediately into the send. On a couple you did do the ready game and she had a nice “snap” to the behavior (like at :30) instead of trotting to the prop. We like the snappy behavior 🙂
The video wen black at about 1:07, let me know if I missed any good stuff!!
Great job!
TracyHi!
Very nice sessions with the forward focus & driving ahead here too!
She did really well looking at the toy, and you were good about being connected and releasing her before she looked back at you. Excellent choice of toy (she seemed to love it!) and having it on the line helped make sure that she couldn’t run too far away with it 🙂> I forgot to set the timer on my phone for the sessions today.>
Yes, you will want to either set a timer or count the # of reps you do, so the sessions don’t go for too long. You were really good about advancing the game rather than repeating the same thing but there is a lot of running & tugging in this game, so giving her a break after 2 minutes or so will help! You can see she was tired by the end of the dog-on-left session… she stayed engaged but she was trying to move away with the toy but didn’t want to tug. After a break, she came back strong on the other side, then got a little tired at about 90 seconds (moving away qith the toy rather than spinning back to you like she did in the earlty reps). For the games with running and tugging, you can build in breaks after 90 seconds or two minutes (even if she doesn’t appear to need a break haha) then come back after a rest for another session 🙂 I think the cookie-based sessions can probably go a little longer (2-3 minutes) as long as you break them up with toy play in between every 4 or 5 cookies 🙂
The driving ahead looked great on both sides, so you can add more distance to throw the toy (you might need a heavier toy, or attach a heavier toy to this one, to be able to throw it further). And that way you can add more of your motion as well as the “GO!” verbal.
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
She is so cute! And I love her tail!She did really well with the value building session here. Lots of good hits of the prop, anbd excellent timing on the clicks! She was easily able to hit the prop and take her eyes off of the cookies 🙂
Only one suggestion for you here (and for shaping in general): You can break off the session more often and play, to keep her excited and keep things from getting too repetitive. For this type of behavior (easy foot targets), after every 4 or 5 treats you can pick up the prop and play with a tug toy for a bit. This session was all cookies for the first 2 minutes, so even though she kept going she was slowing down and starting to look around a bit more.
After the tuggie break, she was totally energized! So you can do a few more click/treats for hitting the prop. That brings the energy to the prop game too 🙂
Great job!
TracyGood morning! She is SO CUTE!!!
Sorry to hear you aren’t feeling great – I didn’t think you were flat! Hope you feel better soon! The session was really good.The mechanics of this game are challenging especially with such a tiny puppy, so feel free to sit on the floor with her (or kneel) for the next session, so you don’t need to bend as much. Your connection looked really good!
You locked in the mechanics on the 2nd rep: cookie line up, collar hold, toy throw/connection, then “get it” and release. Super!
Because of her age and because she just got to you, I think she was tired after the 3rd rep which is where you got the scooting away. That’s pretty normal with such a tiny baby dog, so you can do a rep or two then take her out for a pee, then do another rep or two. And when going past 2 reps or so, you can change toys – that keeps things very engaging!You won’t have to do this style of breaking up sessions for very long, probably just a few more days so she gets a week or so with you under her belt 🙂
I was also really happy to see how seamlessly you used food in the session, especially when you mentioned that food was not super valuable yet. Sessions like the one you did here will go a long way to boosting food value while maintaining tug value!
You can also add more distance on the throw, and more of your motion too. I recommend a big heavy fluffy toy for that: easier to throw further and very hard for her to run off with 😀 which gives you time to get to it and play.
Great job!!
TracyYes, a thin leash is a good idea! Do you have a harness? A short thin leash on a harness is the best option for a leash, because it won’t pull on his neck as you hold him for the toy throw.
TGood morning!
There was so much fantastic stuff in this session! A big click/treat goes to you for working out the mechanics while also keeping it super fun for Bokeh. Yay!!!Great job with your connection on each rep. It was really clear! And she got better and better with focusing ahead on the toy – she started by glancing back at you a bit but then by the end, she was totally locked onto the toy and driving ahead beautifully.
You are correct to feel that you need 3 or 4 hands for this! The best reps were when you got the toy back by using both hands to let it go ‘dead’, then a cookie to line her up, then taking her harness, then starting the next rep. The last 2 reps were good examples of that.
When the order of festivities was reversed (like holding her collar while she was still tugging), it was harder to get the toy and to line her up.So definitely keep the order as: getting the toy back, cookie lineup, collar hold, start next rep. One suggestion to add:
After you get the toy back, you can toss the cookie reward for letting it go away for her to chase. That gives you a moment to tuck the toy into your armpit, freeing up both hands. Then you can line her up with another treat and when she is at your side, hold her harness and bring the toy back out. That way she won’t be reaching for the toy as you are lining her up and you won’t have to move her by her harness. Apologies in advance if your armpit gets toy slime in it LOL!You can definitely add more distance and more of your motion to this game! And you can begin a bit of retrieve by rewarding her for bringing it back, with tugging on the same toy or a different one, or with a cookie trade.
I did see where she grabbed your hand – I think that was an oops moment and she only did it once, thankfully! I’m glad to hear to is getting better – keeping the toys long and fully extended them will help. And telling her that she has your hand can help too – you told her here, and you can also tell her ‘ouch!’ with a little squeak if it hurts. Most dogs find that useful info and stay away from our hands better.
Great job here!
TracyHi!
He did a great job driving to his toy! You can add even more distance and more of your motion too. Be sure you are connected to him – it was hard to tell with your head right over his head LOL!!And you can also get him driving to big chunks of food too, so he has both of those in his toolbox 🙂
> I am doing cookies to help line him up since he doesn’t usually have a collar on and he’s not a fan of certain ways of restraint.>
He seemed to be fine with you holding him but because there is a lot of physical pressure, his first step was to the side and not straight – and we don’t want to encourage a BC to move away from the handler to the side LOL! You can keep using the cookie line up and use this as a great way to introduce having a collar on and being touched by the collar! The trick will be to do everything very quickly so he doesn’t think about the collar: cookie line up, slip collar on (if he doesn’t like getting it on), throw a toy, almost immediately. You can even bring him in on leash and work it like that! And then add in a collar hold: cookie line up, one finger touches the collar (no real restraint, definitely no pulling back or moving him by the collar) then immediately throw the toy. Very gradually it can all built up to being held – but we definitely want to get this well underway before he gets into the Big Feelings of adolescence 😂🤣 since collars are a life necessity.
Great job!
Tracy
