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Good morning!
I love your giant cone: brilliant!And yes, he was STARVING 😂 😜 but working through the food in your hands while continuing to offer behavior is key. He was so cute and figured it out! Super smart!! Yo were good about just letting him figure it out without helping too much.
You can also add in more toy breaks 🙂 I know it is easy to get into cookie mode with this game, but we want to keep him pumped up and moving fast. He gets a little chill when there are a lot of cookies in a row 🙂 So you can start with tugging, then after every 4 or 5 treats run away from the setup and do more tugging, then end with tugging. That will start to layer in some more running and less walking.
The engagement before the sends looked great! You can see how getting him pumped up more brings more speed 🙂
>then I think I did something wrong and he was following the hands with the food.>
I think him watching your hands a bit was him working through shifting from handler focus (cookies!) to obstacle focus. You can reward a ‘close enough’ hit of the prop if he goes past your hand, even if the hit is not perfect.
And this game would be a fun one to play entirely with a toy – no cookies needed!
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning! Big party!
Overheard on the video:
“Who’s the bestest boy? Well, except for you know” hahahaha so funny!
He did great here!! Part of what was effective (and fun to watch) was that there a bit of a surprise element when you partied and presented the reward (helloooooo dopamine when there is a happy surprise – you could almost see it on his face).
One suggestion is to try to do ‘cookies’ or the toy marker as the first order of business, before the yays and praise – moving the marker to being first can build the marker to have tremendous value and it won’t get lost in the excitement of it all.
The only time he had a small question mark over his head was when you were waiting for offering with the toy and food on the ground (nothing in your hand) and coinciding with a vacuum in the background – that was hard! Brain split processing so much! He did great 🙂 The toy or treats in the hand might be a bit of a context cue to offer behavior so it might be easier to introduce one thing on the ground at a time.
Have fun at the trial!! I am sure he will think it is a blast 🙂
Tracy
Good morning!
The tunnel turns are looking really strong!!
The soft turns on the tunnel exits and on the wing-to-wing sections are going well. Your cues were timely and connected so he was really driving the lines beautifully. You might notice he was not necessarily super tight on the turns – what he was going was setting up the turns more like a race car: slider wider lines so he can maintain a higher speed/more extension. I love that with smaller dogs on the soft turns!! It ends up being faster on course. Yay!
The GO lines are generally going well – that is harder for most pups!
There was a blooper moment at 1:01 – your connection was a bit soft (he probably couldn’t see it based on how small he is and where he was behind you) and your line of motion was moving to the left and not forward as much, so he migrated to your left side (perhaps he saw the connection shifting as he exits the tunnel and read it as a blind cross cue). That is a rewardable moment – either reward as if he was correct (because he was 🙂 ) or keep going back to the tunnel. The pups are almost always correct when they end up on the wrong side of us – there is something in the cue they are reading or the connection is unclear so they are guessing. He had a Big Mad when you tried to fix it and asked for a hand touch. He practically stomped his little foot in outrage LOL! He did come in and do the hand touch but then he got in the last word by jumping up and barking (he cracks me up!) So better to just keep going and reward the next thing, then look at the video to see what happened.
My go-to when something like that happens is to just connect more, which is what you did:
Compare to the connection and line of motion at 1:19 and 1:39, for example – even though yo uwere not as far ahead as the previous rep, you had very clear connection and you were moving straight up the line so he got it really well without holding a grudge
The moving target game is going super well too! Great job breaking it down for him to teach him about the joys of the moving target while also maintaining the stay. He did seem to have a blast chasing the target and was really exploding towards it!!! If you feel the stay is strong enough (we want to protect that stay like GOLD), you can move to the set point. Or you can do a few more sessions like this, to keep rewarding the stay. The moving target understanding is strong enough so it is really a matter of how you feel about the stay.
Great job here!!
Tracy
Good morning! This went GREAT! She was going fast but also paying close attention to your cues.
She was doing the GO section brilliantly – usually puppies find that to be really hard. Your position was good (a little ahead of her) and your motion and connection were clear, so she was able to get it each and every time – even after having done a few soft turn reps.
Then she got the first left pretty easily after the GO reps – SUPER!!! She had no questions about transitioning from Go to turn to Go, and her commitment looked strong too!
You got all of the verbals out nicely too! You can add in saying them a little earlier – aim for her to arrive at the 6 foot mark on the ground before she enters the tunnel to begin saying the verbals.
>When she stopped behind the wing she had hacked up the treat I just fed her.>
Oops! Ha! She got two treats for the price of one haha
Great job here! Have fun with the right turns too!
Tracy
Hi!
>Last night at star puppy class they had low wood box that the dogs could get on or in. He had no issues of course 🤣>
I am not surprised LOL! He is at least 50% goat LOL
>I think there are cones at Dash and I can bring my bowls. If I go it will be Saturday or Sunday.>
Yes, I am pretty sure there are cones at Dash.
>For the wraps is the idea to have something round? I might have a pop up round basket but have to look. I have a variety of wings in the basement and other uprights. I have a few bigger boxes too.>
Something a couple of feet tall (as tall as a jump wing or a little taller). Round is good or square/rectangle is fine too. We don’t want to get a wing involved yet because we want the understanding to be really solid at this level and when we start adding running 🙂 in case they accidentally hit it or smack it with their feet.
So a few more weeks before the wing comes out and then it will be really easy.Tracy
Hi!
He did well here! And he even got on the tug toy with you sitting and not running around!
You can keep him moving by tossing the cookie away from the suitcase rather than multiple in the suitcase. Tossing a bunch of them in is making him think you want him to stand still, so tossing the treat past the suitcase will help him drive back to it and keep offering movement.I don’t think he fully understands ‘break’ yet when you are not moving, so you can say break, wait 1 second, then throw a cookie. That will help him understand that he should move when you say the release.
>I’m pretty pleased I kept this to ~2m despite me forgetting my timer haha.>
Yes! Your internal clock was keeping tabs on it!
Great job here :) Tracy
Yes! He is really great about switching. You can limit yourself to 4 or 5 cookies by only putting that number in your bag! Then go reload after a tug break 🙂
Good morning!
A first for MaxPup: a video featuring multiple camels as part of a game LOL! He did great!
It was really interesting to see the intro to the big critters. I think he was very confident but also smart about not flinging himself into things.>I am literally not able to not speak to him when we walk on leash so apologies.>
No worries 🙂 The higher pitched chatter already has a +CER for him (and adding the specific phrases in that tone helps too, as you mentioned) so it was useful in that environment and possibly has a social learning element as well. Letting him lead the way at this age is great (I tend to not let adolescents lead the way in this type of context) and he gradually got interested in going into the their pen LOL! Nice recovery from the snort too 🙂
Really cool video to watch! Thanks for sharing it!
Tracy
Hi!
This was a good review for her! She was cracking me up when she was hitting the bowl LOL! She got back into the rhythm nicely here. For the next session, you can start off where you ended here (getting her into the back and forth rhythm) and then after a couple of reps you can add the cone. Our goal is to get the cone back to where it was (18” away or so) and then get you to move from being on the ground to sitting on something to standing up. It will maybe take 2 or 3 short sessions to do this? She will let us know how fast or slowly to move through the steps, depending on how well she remembers about wrapping the cone.Great job!!!
Tracy
Good morning!
>Apparently I’m still on the video struggle bus, but think you can see the progression>
Not at all! These videos were great!
Good for her for driving to the toy in the new environment AND bringing it back! You did a great job of letting her start moving before you started really accelerating as well, so she seems very comfy driving ahead and directly to it. She go faster and faster on each rep.
Because this went so well – you can add starting to move as soon as you let her go to start to move – and race her to it a little. If you get to the toy first, you win the race and you can have a party with the toy (kind of teasing her). Then immediately start the next rep and she is likely to find a whole new gear of speed 🙂
She also was great with the decel and pivot! As she is going to get the start cookie, you can run away from her a bit more so she accelerates to you – then be sure to let her see you decelerate no later than when she is halfway to you, so she can set up her collection to your side.
Was she ignoring an auntie while she did this? Yay! What a good pup!! And it was a fun reward to send her to visit at the end 🙂
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
>We had done a fun run the other day and played musical tugs in the ring. I honestly think he will tug anywhere. I will see if I can get ring rental at Dash or the farm this weekend. It is supposed to be brutally cold >
Fun! What a good boy!! And be careful in the cold and ice. The weather forecast is NUTS!!!!
> Let me known if you think I should try anything different or if you have suggestions for plan. Not sure if I will have helper to hold him but can check around.>
You can bring the bowls for the cone wrap! And you can try some cookie toss starts and blind crosses!
His prop sends are going great! He was hitting it beautifully in both directions! The only thing I would add here is a bit of engagement with you (having him come to you to do a bit of ‘ready ready’) before the send, That all get him more pumped up leading to even faster sends and snappier hits of the prop. Plus it helps him shift from handler focus to obstacle focus which will be super valuable later on down the road. And you can use a toy as the reward for this as well.
He was so funny trying to get into the basket when you were getting ready to do the wrapping game.
He did GREAT wrapping the new objet and he had no questions about it when you were standing. SUPER!! To help us prep for the games coming up, you can start using a tall cone or tall pop up laundry basket with you standing. I got my pop up tall laundry baskets at a dollar store (for 4 dollars LOL)
>Do you suggest repeating same side vs every other side?>
I like to mix it all up as long as the pup is not having trouble with one side. He did not seem to be having any trouble at all. Good boy!!
Great job here! Stay warm!!
Tracy
Good morning!
>greetings from cold (a relative term), foggy grey, and damp California.>
Hello from warm sunny Florida 🙂 I finally got myself together enough to be able to avoid a whole lot of winter LOL!
>Jazz spent this morning with me at my older fella’s coursework class. She does great while the other dogs are running, with focus exercises, short retrieves, toy grabs and tugging. >
This is SUPER!! Yay Jazz!!!!
The Wind In Your Hair game is going really well – she’s got some impressive distance happening here!
>A light bulb moment for me was seeing the difference in her commitment when I don’t use my arm to send; like you’ve been saying, stronger commitment when I connect by looking at her.>
Her commitment to the jump when you are connected is looking strong, even on the hard side! Connection is magic!
For the wing wrap sends: hold the step towards it longer so she is just about at the wing before you do the FC and run away (especially on the left turn wraps). When you step back too early (like at :12) she pulls off.
You can also mix in rewards for just wrapping – it is possible that her frozen moments by the wing were because she was thinking about driving to the jump and was not sure where to go when you turned too early. And keep an eye on the frozen behaviors: is that something that is common for her? The last time I remember her being a bit ‘stuck’ was when she had some soreness so we want to make sure it is not an indicator of being ouchy.
>She wasn’t that interested in the dead toy. I think next time I do this I’ll try tugging with her in the drop spot, getting her excited and then see if she’ll leave the toy.>
Yes – she was interested in the dead toy in terms of driving to it, but I think there was a bit of confusion about whether the reward the toy or the food in your hand. So for the placed toy, try it with empty hands – and when she gets to it, even if she doesn’t quite grab it, you can grab the toy and get her really excited about it.
When she understands that the dead toy is in play, then I think food in your hands will be fine as long as you don’t give her cookies when you are trying to get her to pick up the toy 🙂
Nice work here!
Tracy
Good morning!
>Rebel, the high arousal Doberman, is 3 now. >
3 years old is still young – she is a late adolescent! Plenty of learning still available in her brain 🙂
>recommended I reach out for privates with Rebel if we can’t get this resolved with her current class. She can do most of the arousal games at home, in class, and at seminars. She’s been running off-leash since she was a young puppy and has the best recall of any of my dogs. At trials, she gets into a headspace and can’t think.>
My guess is the missing link at trials is being able to regulate arousal in an environment that is twice as difficult: harder distractions AND no reinforcement (food/toys) in the ring.
It is something that we tackle in our BrainCamp work – my colleague Bobbie is a behavior specialist who teaches privates and we all collaborate on webinars. Bobbie and Kathy (the vet/neuroscientist) have a series coming up about getting dogs into the ring!
>You mentioned moving the bowl so she has to pass it to go around the cone. This is the exact skill I’ve struggled to teach and often give up on. As a result, I can’t leave toys or rewards on the ground during training, and I’d really like to change that. >
We are totally going to get this going with Rou and you can also teach it this way to Rebel!
>I didn’t use my hands during the session because when I do, she tends to focus on my hands instead of the task at hand. >
The empty hand becomes the cue, so it is a good thing to work on: stop watching da momma’s hands! It is part of what we are working through at this stage.
>In today’s sessions, she wasn’t looking at the cone at all; I believe she was just fixated on her toy. >
That means the toy was probably tooooo enticing 🙂 So you can do two things:
– Have the toy halfway around or fully scrunched up and kind of hidden on the other side of the cone. She will know it is there, but will have to look at her line to get to it
– To get her moving past something on the way to the cone and looking at her line (not at the reward), try working the entire progression with an empty food bowl first. The treat can go in the bowl after she is moving around the cone. That can get the concept going, then it will be easier to add a cookie placed in the bowl and a toy.>I’ve never used a “look” command before and don’t necessarily plan on using it. >
Based on how course design is evolving in every venue, I bet it will be something that becomes important as Rou starts running courses for real 🙂 It can be a hand cue or a verbal or both, but it is becoming necessary in AKC, UKI, USDAA (and I am sure CPE will follow suit soon).
> I’ve taught her to focus on her bowl or the reward in front of her, so I’m unsure how to communicate the switch to looking at the object or obstacle instead of the thing I’ve been rewarding her for looking at. It’s possible that I moved too quickly in this process.>
It might be that you are not waiting for her to look at the cone before letting her start to move. On the video from the other day, she did wrap the cone at the end when the dish was visible closer to you, but you let her go before she looked at it. Adding the hand cue is really useful (pointing at where you want her to look) because the hand enhances the line we want her to look towards. Then you can let her start moving when she even flicks an eye in that direction 🙂
Looking at the videos: She is a wobble board superstar! Confident and happy to move it all around. Love it! The positions changes were easy for her too. The tugging get her to shift her weight back which is ideal especially for a tall breed!
Have you noticed any noise sensitivity with her? If not, you can move the board so it is on a surface that makes a little bit of noise when she slams around in it. Yo can stuff towels under it to dampen the noise a bit at first, then if she is super happy with it you can take out the dampeners and let her be as noisy as she wants to make it.
The prop sends are also good for getting her to stop looking at your hands! She moves to it perfectly with the foot step, so you can add a small hand movement to it – at :51, you did have the hand movement and although it took her a moment to(she was looking at the treats in your left hand) she did follow the cue really well! So keep adding in a little bit more of hand pointing moving with the leg.
>I am still figuring out how to do a little play/engagement before we train without looming over her. >
Try leaning back a bit then doing a small crouch/ knee bend. I think she will really like that!
>When any props are out, she’s less likely to do personal play so we’ve been working on it away from specific training sessions.>>
She wants to work work work 🙂 which is similar to obstacle focus: obstacles earn the rewards, at this stage (according to Roy :)) so you can do a little crouchy knee bend then when she looks at you: send to the prop. That adds in a little bit of handler focus as the gateway to being sent.
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
The inflation level looks good here! She got on during that first rep and then you can kind of see her thinking about it: “hmmmm, this is a different feeling”. She had lots of reps of front end after that but not quite hind end. I don’t think it was fully avoidance – seemed more like a bit of needing more room to comfortably sort out how to move onto and balance on the weird, unstable texture.
The plank was super easy for her and she was happy to get all four feet on, turn around, release off it, etc. Yay!
So what you can do to get more hind end on the inflatables is to change the configuration a bit: rather than a straight line which makes for fewer options to comfortable get her back end on, you can kind of makes them into a square or circle (with the inflatables touching) and you can even add the plank to it. That way she can explore different ways to climb around on it all and that will get her hind end more involved.
>More air out? Maybe the nubby side fee,s weird to her?>
You can take a little more air out so they are more stable. The nubby side is weird but the other side might be slippery, so I think we should leave the nubby side up for her to get happy on 🙂
Nice work!
Tracy
Good morning! He is doing really well here!!
He had the tunnel miss on the first run – I don’t think it was overarousal or anything like that. It looked like running past the tunnel was caused by slipping and couldn’t quite coordinate getting into the tunnel. He was much better on the 2nd rep and after that, where he expected it and coordinated himself to not slip earlier.
Yes, you were a little on his line as he exited the wing but that is not what caused him to go past the tunnel. But also yes – get off his line 😂
He did tell us that you are late with the cues especially on the tunnel exits 🙂 You can see him exiting the tunnel and looking at you: “What’s next, human!” And then the cues started after that. The cue for the wing can start just before he exits the tunnel and then keep repeating it as you drive forward. The last rep was the closest to the good timing and he looked at you less – until the left verbal came 2 strides after the tunnel where he was already looking at you and coming to you. And there was a little disconnect when you started it, so he did not find the wing.
In that moment… keep going! Yes there was a handler error but also yes, there is a wing out there that we would like for him to take even with a late cue. It is a bit of a grey area for rewarding or not: we don’t want to tell him he is wrong, but also we don’t want to reward him to not trying to find the wing on the line (turning away to it doesn’t count) so the best thing to do is connect strongly and continue, then reward when he finds the next wing.
>He’s getting quite amped about all this. Hoping it stays as a focused amp. Right now a cookie in between here and there helps take him down. He looks all nice and cute but you can feel the energy when you’re near him lol>
Don’t be afraid of the energy! He was actually in a very thoughtful mode here, looking at you for more info when it was not clear. Yes, you can use treats in the transitions but don’t worry about taking him down in arousal. Let him work through the arousal and learn in arousal because that is actually what helps dogs handle themselves best when they are in more arousing situations. He did GREAT here!! The energy is a GOOD thing!!
Nice work! Stay warm!
Tracy
