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Hi!
The left wraps to the dish: easy peasy! The dish (Treat N Train) is easy to ignore 🙂
Her mind had to work harder for the wraps with the toy on the ground but she did it – only one blooper moment that you handled really well by making it no big deal, then helping her a little more on the next one. Yay!
I am guessing you thought she would run to the toy you threw is you let for go her collar. I think she totally might have!
So a fun thing to add here is to let go of her collar and give her food rewards for walking to the cone with you. You might have to start this by just putting the toy on the ground then rewarding her for walking away from it because throwing it might be too tempting at first 🙂
>Should we only do one direction at a time?>
You can work both directions! That can keep things from getting repetitive.
>ut she’s bringing it back to me! Progress>
Yes! She did great with that!!!
Nice work here! Let me know she does when you convince her to walk away from the toy on the ground (with fabulous cookies for ignoring it :))
Tracy
Hi!
>Yes, target practice…great for desensitizing but I can see how they’d be a distraction, even if she is not afraid.>
Yes – the puppy brain gets bombarded with all of these noises along with everything else, so she has to process it and that might delay processing other things like finding the ball. But I am super happy that she is not scared of the noises!
>Moving my hand out of my pocket & the treat into the other hand makes a lot of sense! I will give this another go with those tips; thanks for the pointers. I am excited to take on the back half of the games this week alongside more reps of parallel path >
Keep me posted! Have fun!
Tracy
Hi!
For the pattern game, we will be using it to introduce him to new environments and get him past anything that might be weird or concerning, as well as getting engagement in new places. With that in mind… we do not want the obedience front and eye contact criteria for this game 🙂 We just want engagement in any way especially because you and Rusty will both be moving during this game (not heeling, just moving). The front/eye contact is very easy to train when we have his engagement and he is comfy in the environment.
>the first time I tried this game and Rusty wasn’t quite sure what was up. I guess it seemed too simple to him so he was offering behaviors to earn his treats – quite cute – backups, spins, twirls, sits.>
You were probably getting the extra behaviors because you were waiting too long for the eye contact and he was not sure what you wanted. To help him engage but not offer other behaviors, you can mark him looking at you or towards you then toss the cookie off to the side so he move a few steps to get it. He does not need to be in front of you or making eye contact. He was able to offer looking at you more in this video, but that will be harder to do in more challenging environments.
For the next step, you can start moving back dnd forth in the room – I usually add a leash at this stage, because that simulates what will happen when we take it on the road 🙂
Nice work here!
TracyHi!
>Someone called me and it stopped my video without me knowing.>
They need to develop an app for phones that tells people “Do Not Disturb, She Is Training The Puppy” haha!
She did great on the raised plank! It is the perfect height, click/treat to you 🙂
You can change the reward placement a bit, rewarding her for staying on the plank and walking back and forth a bit, turning around, and the sits too.>I had trouble getting her to “down” on the plank. She doesn’t like the surface. She won’t down on my Cato board either.>
No worries then! You can add a towel or mat to the cato board and see if that is a more comfy surface for the down.
On the Master Wobbler video:
That was Ready Whip that you gave her ready whip for the reward? Brilliant! She was definitely happy to get on the wobble board LOL!!! The first reward was definitely a BIG surprise in the best possible way – VERY motivating!! Behold the power of ready whip! Even with fewer towels, then eventually NO towels, she was totally on board with getting all the way on it. LOVE it!!!Great job here and thank for making me laugh out loud with the giant Ready Whip reward 🙂
Tracy
Hi!
He did so great with the backing up with you standing! Super!
He is good at it, so you don’t need to move towards him at all: you can just stand still and pitch the cookie towards him. Moving towards him was lifting his head, and being stationary will keep his head position in a more natural and lower position.The parallel path is going really well, especially in a new location. And you were able to get some lateral distance added!
>He is still looking at me and not 100% hitting the object. Let me know if you have any tips for getting him to look forward more.>
The looking at you is mainly after he hits the prop, no worries about that because we move off the prop very soon and that is when we will easily get him to stop looking at you 🙂 The next thing you can do with the prop is put it further away so you can start right next to him, and he drives ahead of you to it. That will set up the rear crosses.
When he is not hitting it, like at :36, and 1:24, it was more that you were looking forward and disconnected from him, so he looked at you and missed the prop. When you were connected and looking at him, he hit the prop perfectly 🙂 So add in looking at his cute face as you move, and I bet the misses stop happening.
Great job here!!
Tracy
Hi!
>Do you have thoughts on what I should work on? We said the deceleration part 2 with go and maybe the parallel based on your feedback from today. Would the pattern game be too soon?>
Anything that you think he does well with at home and that you both enjoy is perfect for the rental! The environment will be a bit harder so keep the sessions to 90 seconds or 2 minutes to avoid him getting brain tired.
I do think the pattern game is perfect to bring to the rental, as well as any fast-and-fun wrapping or baby handling games.
He did really well with the parallel path game! He had a harder time on your left side – looking at you more. You might be putting a lot of value for walking on your left, maybe? So he might have thought that looking at you is more valuable (at first) then he remembered to go to the prop. He didn’t have that question on your right, he was happy to find the prop without looking at you as much.
You can also build in more tug breaks so he stays pumped up and the game is not too repetitive. That will get even more speed especially when you want him to drive ahead of you 🙂
Your timing of waiting for engagement was good with the pattern game! This game is one of the ways we get engagement in a new place, so waiting for him to look at you is key. He definitely liked it – check out how he started to wag his tail and engage faster once he figured out how fun the game is 🙂 The next step is to add a leash to this game, so he get used to engaging while on leash (and so you get comfy having the leash and cookies).
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi!
>’m going into our sessions without as clear a plan as I normally have with Ripley because I don’t know where our toy drive and food/toy switching will be day to day with Vibe.>
That is a really interesting observation! And I can totally see how that makes planning more challenging. From the view of getting to watch the videos, I think you are both doing GREAT.
>Some of it did show up but not super cleanly YET.>
To clarify, I am also a big fan of dirty training LOL! By that, I mean adding in arousal, goofy noises, not looping, etc is all good! I tend to look to avoid things that we might tell the pup they are wrong to do in the future – such as sending themselves to the prop or obstacle. So it is a bit of inserting that engagement to be able to cue starts more, and the rest can be fun fun fun and a bit wild/freeform in some ways. Being tooooo precise or loopy can suck the fun out of the puppy games.
I think we are totally on the same page, and the video lets us see different things in his movement and his thought processes 🙂
>Another milestone that might or might not be visible in the video, but we’ve got “ears up” this week – they’re big and adorable.>
OMG SO CUTE!!! They fit his face perfectly.
The handling games were a fun way to see how well he could go back and forth from food to toys to food. He did great and was happy to do all of the elements: driving away to the cookie, driving back to you, pivot, toy play: all look lovely! My only suggestion is to decelerate after the blind – if you didn’t decelerate, he was not prepared for the pivot and was a bit wide. When you did feel he was nice and tight to your leg.
It is fun to see how much he really loves the hugs-and-kisses interaction – that is going to be a fun thing to use in sport as well as a great relationship builder in life 🙂
For the taking-of-the-toy moment when you asked him to take the toy from your hand, you might need to be out of hugs-and-kises position 😂 he was like “why take toy when we can do hugs-and-kisses?” LOL!
Having the toy off to the side was a bit clearer and you an also sit on something low, just to present a different picture.
Retrieving went really well and he got the hugs-and-kisses reward too as part of that 🙂
He loved the long toy at the end! You can get more hind end weight shifting (like he did when tugging with Ripley) by ‘fake pulling’ on the toy so he can really pull back. What I mean by ‘fake pulling’ is using a hand-over-hand motion and sliding your hands up the toy, so it looks like you are really pulling on it (but you are only adding a little bit of toy tension). He will likely see it as really pulling and will tug harder with a good weight shift. I have a video *somewhere* of the fake pulling if the description doesn’t make sense 🙂
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi!
The proofing game went great after the first rep 🙂 She was definitely surprised that the tunnel was not the right answer there LOL!!
But then she locked in and was brilliant on the serps and with the tunnel cues for the rest of the session on both sides. Super!!
Only one suggestion: You can have your serp arm already up and back while you walk to position on the serp reps, so you don’t move it and release at the same time (protecting the stay release so she doesn’t think arm motion is the release.
Since this went so well, you can move to the advanced levels by adding the threadle cue and also adding moving into the serp and tunnel cues (releasing while you are walking, so definitely have your arm up before you start walking on those).
She is looking really good with the grid – the jumps being angled were not a problem at all. Super!! She definitely understands the concept, so now move to using the moving target as the reward. T
he stationary target is great for teaching the concept, but she is spending her time after jump 2 sorting out how to slow down to a stop 🙂 And we want her to continue to power with her rear over 2 and 3, so you can drag a toy for her to drive too. She has worked the moving target (the video is posted on Jan 27) but you can use a higher profile toy so her head doesn’t get quite as low. A really big hollee roller would be perfect!
I am glad her in person class is also showing her this grid – I totally recommend the moving target for the in person class too 🙂 Yes, they might think you are NUTS but you can blame me for it – it produces outstanding, powerful jumping and dogs that don’t struggle jumping when the handler is moving 🙂
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi!
>I’ll decrease the distance, for now, on the Go work, but keep the distance when doing the RC. Hopefully that will help her drive forward.>
Perfect! The initial Go work can be a warm up with a slightly shorter distance, then I bet once she is mentally warmed up the bigger distance will work well for both the Go and the RCs 🙂
>I’ve been working on tugging for 30 seconds after the recalls so either I edited that part out in the previous video, or I spaced out that part of our recall work.>
You can also let her win the toy at the end of the session so she can keep it (and eventually we trade for something else, or she brings it back or leaves it when you go back into the house).
The jump session went well! I think the distances might be a little too short at this point (she is getting more power!) so you can add 6 inches to each gap for the next session and see how it goes.
She had a couple of questions about the stay when you took the cookie out of your mouth – and also she might be predicting a rhythm to the release after you stop moving (the # of seconds before the release, for example). Great job adding in rewards for the stay! And mix up the amount of time before the release so she is not guessing – we humans are so predictable LOL!!
The rep at 1:38 – 1:44 was ideal in terms of her start position (nice and close!), excellent connected lead out, cookie in the bowl before the release, and she jumped it really nicely.
For the next session: add the moving target! She is ready for it and it will add more power as well as keeping her head position over the 3rd jump. The moving target will also help her deal with handler motion while she is jumping. I don’t predict she will have any struggles with her jumping with the moving target but you will probably want to continue rewarding lots of stays 🙂
> I think I may have had the dish a bit too close the the 3rd jump as it looks like she is having to pull up before she takes that “jump”. What do you think?>
What you were seeing was that the target was not moving, so she was indeed preparing to stop by pulling up. The moving target will smooth that over 🙂
Great job!
Tracy
Hi!
I agree – looking GREAT! YAY!!!
Stay looks great, he is powering into the grid, and he is also consistent: not losing his balance or getting too forward. Really lovely!!All the reps here had the stationary target… time to add the moving target, no more stationary target. Yes, I know that many people only ever use the stationary target but I add th moving target for two reasons:
– if you watch in slow motion, his takeoff and jumping of 1 and 2 are repeatedly lovely. But because the target is stationary, he is changing his form consistently on jump 3 (to slow down and stop). You can see I more clearly in slow motion. The moving target maintains the great form on all 3 jumps!
– the moving target adds the challenge of maintaining good form when YOU are moving too! That is hard for most agility dogs so we add it now 🙂
You can use a big hollee roller on a long toy as the moving target, or you can put the Treat n Train on wheels and drag it (yes, I have done that, piano leg wheels work great for that LOL!)
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi!
I don’t mind using balls (I use them all the time :)) as long as they are landed and not moving so the dogs don’t drive their shoulders into the ground or leap into the air trying to chase them if they are bouncing around.
Her ball retrieve looks great here, so I am sure the Fetch event will go well! She even retrieved with target practice happening in the background (although that might be part of why it took her longer to find the ball on that rep – the brain gets distracted with gunshots in the background even if she is not afraid).
Side note: with such a lovely ball retrieve (along with her other lovely skills) you should totally consider flyball training with her 🙂
Looking the parallel path game:
>Parallel Path transfer concepts went okay; she wanted to be very close to me (because I had the cookies!). >
Yes – the 2 instances where she did not get on the line were when you were walking but had your hand in your cookie pocket, or when you had a cookie in your hand but no connection to her eyes as you walked forward (when we disconnect, the pups look at us more).
>She seemed to do better when I was able to point on the line versus letting her walk herself.>
When you were throwing the treat, she was following the cookie and then when you were pointing – it looked enough like a cookie throw that she was looking forward.
But also, she had plenty of good reps where you were not pointing: on those reps, you were looking at her and you did not have your hand in the cookie pocket.
>Should I be pointing (I assume I could be doing that in agility but also she needs to learn to go on the straight line if she is ahead of me).>
I agree that we want her to look at the line as you move. So try not to point – instead, have the treat in your opposite arm (ready to throw). Move along the line looking at her, with the dog side arm pointing at her or relaxed at your side. Then when she moves to the jump, you can use your ‘get it’ marker and throw the cookie out ahead. That can help lock her on. The line for sure!
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
She did really well here! Part of the challenge was processing the environment (distractions in general plus some jealousy barking in the background) but she quickly figured out getting on the plank. Yay!
When turning her, she was losing her balance a bit because your hand was moving fast so you can slow down the hand movement and I bet she has no questions about turning around.
Do you have any blocks that you can put under the plank to raise it up a bit? 6 inches off the ground would be a perfect height to raise it, because she will get even more practice balancing on it and hopping off. You can also cue position changes (sit, down, stand) with a cookie lure so she can use her body even more.
Great job!
Tracy
This game went well! Thankfully you have the big piece of shaded area in your yard – I guess you are getting into the late summer heat.
He worked really well in the heat here! He found the prop nicely on the parallel path, but I think he preferred the action of the sending 🙂 To add more action to the parallel path, you can move faster. And you can start close to him for him to drive ahead (and then you can add rear crosses).
The sends were super fun! The clearer the send cue from you, the better he drove to the prop: when you were doing the ‘ready ready’ before the send, he was at his best. Fast and snappy! Holding the sit was a bit harder, so you can lead out to your start position then throw a reward back to him for holding the stay. He is developing lovely commitment when you are moving away, as long as you don’t pull away too quickly. Keeping the motion steady will hero you be able to move away earlier and earlier.
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi! I hope the coming weeks are easier!
>Will we be layering that control into the training in maxpup 2 or am I doing something wrong?>
You are doing nothing wrong 🙂 We will be layering in the stay element of holding the stay and looking forward, so he doesn’t blast into the work without you 🙂
Tracy
Good morning! These games are going well!
Good job starting with the warm up & getting her to hit the prop! And the parallel path game is going well!
>until I started adding distance. >
I see what you mean, she had a little bit of question about whether to stay at your side or go to the prop. That might have been because you were holding the cookies up high In front of you – that might have been accidental cue to focus on you. You can try it with your arms more at your side and even swinging naturally as you move.
The sending looked great! Strong commitment and value!
Of note: she turned to her left here on all of the reps. When she was sending from your left hand, that was the ‘correct’ turn because it was turning towards you. When she sent from your right hand, she turned away from you to turn to her left. That is good to know about her turn preference! To help her turn to her right on the sends, you can be further from the prop in the right turn direction to help encourage her to turn to her right more.
For the backing up – getting her to come forward between your feet was perfect! We can change the reward placement to get her backing up even more:
After placing the start cookie between your feet, keep your hands down low, just below your knees. Then as she backs up, toss the cookie back between her feet so she keeps moving away to get it. When you were standing up after the start cookie, her head was coming up high to look at you and then when the reward was delivered to her mouth, she figured you wanted her to stand or sit right there. So keeping the cookies low and throwing them to keep her head low and keep her moving will make a big difference 🙂Because there is a lot of bending involved to keep your hands low for her head position and treat throwing, you can totally sit on the couch that was behind you in the 2nd video!
You can sit on the edge so there is enough room to place the start cookie – and have your elbows rest just above your knees with the cookie hands hanging in front of you. That can make it easier to get the rewards in low and tossed, without taking your back angry from the bending over.
Nice work here!
Tracy
