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Good morning!
He did well with the tunnel here, both the normal sends and the threadle-side sends. Super!!! When you revisit this game, you can add your tunnel threadle verbal when he is on that side to turn away into it.
>I worked for 3 minutes but I did play a lot again to keep his attention and enthusiasm.>
He has come a long way in a short time in terms of staying focused and engaged! Part of that is how you add a lot of play in the sessions and you are really connected. Having the flirt pole is a very motivating reward, which is helping the sessions get a little longer. You can create a flirt pole out of as many different toys as possible by tying them together into one long toy or by putting a line on the end of a toy so you can swing it around.
Plus, it is fun to see some impulse control happening on it, like when you tossed it to the end and he had to go through the tunnel to get it (lots of terrier noises happening that detailed the level of challenge 🤣😂)
Looking at the barrel wraps:
>I also worked some barrel wraps again but his flirt pole broke oops lol. >
Ha! He was surprised then he figured he won the lottery and took his prize LOL! So funny!
He did well when you ran back towards the starting point (before the toy broke).
Yes, when you had it on the ground, he was a little confused – the toy doesn’t need to be on the ground for the turn and burn game because that requires him to go past the toy to get to the barrel based on where it was. What you did on the last rep was great! You can put a leash on the ground near the barrel so you can have a visual aid for yourself about when to do the FC and run away – earlier and earlier, as the line moves around the barrel closer to his starting point 🙂
What you can add is the toy on the ground behind you near the starting point so he moves away from it to get to the barrel and doesn’t have to go past it (then after a FC like yo did on the first couple of reps, he drives back to the toy). I think he can do it – he was successful with something similar in the tunnel game!
The hand touches went well – I think the hardest part was finding the treats in the grass. You can use a towel to toss the start treat onto, then you can reward from the other hand after he touches the target (or use a food bowl and drop the treat right down into it). When rewarding from the hand or bowl, try not to move your feet at all or close your shoulders – we want him to ‘find’ the next line without you having to move towards it (other than presenting the cookie hand to deliver the reward).
Great job here! Have fun this weekend!
Tracy
Good morning! I hope you are feeling better today!
The ball in the house was HARD! LOL! The value of the ball is not in doubt, plus the novelty of it being in the house definitely draws the attention of an adolescent dog. It seems her body language and tail set told the story of how hard her brain was working to process it LOL!! She did really well 🙂
One thing that can help as the SSC games get more challenging is to use ‘work’ that has a visual component for her (hand targeting for strike a pose, foot target for the prop, simple cone wrapping to a bowl, or even the Super Bowls game which she has probably learned in her CU class). That can help her brain ‘decide’ what to attend to and what to ignore. The back and forth pattern game is good but might not be as useful of a framework as the others can provide.
>I also tried the Lao turn to the prop. But, she was trotting by my side and looking up at me. She’s not seeking out the prop. Should I work on building more value?>
Generally when this happens, it is because there is something cueing the pups to look up at us: cookies in the dog-side hand, or tooooo much eye contact to them, or holding our arms in a bent-elbow position which tends to cue heel-like focus on us. Even if we never teach heeling, the pups figure out the different arm positions as context cues and the bent-arm, eye-contact posture from us can indicate attention to us and not looking for an object (even if we never deliberately trained it LOL).
So try walking past it with soft connection – kinda looking at her – with your dog-side arm relaxed at your side and cookies in the other hand. And walk really slowly, in case motion is overriding the location of the prop.
The other possibility is the expectation of the reward placement: after the turn away, the expectation is that she sees you throw it so she is waiting for that. If that is in play, no problem: keep moving as you throw it from the other hand and throw so it lands on the prop 🙂 Or lands as close to the prop as you can get it 🙂
Try to grab some video so we can see why she might not be ‘seeing’ the prop.
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
Super nice accordion session here! Onwards to 6 feet between jumps 1 and 2 🙂 He ight have been the tiniest bit too close to jump 1 here – maybe move him back less than the width of your hand? It is a game of inches: we want him to have a little more room to lift his front feet, but not toooo much room where he can tap them down again before jump 1.
He did well with the changes in the distance to jump 3. If I did the math correctly (don’t judge, I haven’t had a lot of caffeine yet haha) the 3rd jump got to be about 18 feet-ish away on the 3rd rep (:14)? At that distance, and because he is over a year now – you can how him a little more height. Give him 2 more inches of height on jump 3 and see how it goes – but only at the bigger distance for now, and not on jumps 1 and 2. I am sure it will be fine.
Mission transition with more distance was great for locking in timing!
On the early reps, I think you were trying to get close to the jump to cue the wrap, but it was making the timing of the decel late so he was going wide. He was already in the last part of the distance before the jump when the deceleration started.Then you moved the timing up to be earlier – you can see him responding and collecting before takeoff at :22 and :44, for example.
The rep that started at :56 was my favorite due to the timing! Your decel and verbal started when he was maybe one stride past the exit of the start wing, so he had a lot of time to collect and turn. SUPER!!
So the ideal timing is based on his position as you saw at :22, :44, and especially :57 – wherever you are when he is a stride past the start wing, you begin the decel and wrap verbal. If you are ahead of him, you might be near the jump… but if you are starting with him at the wing, you will not be near the jump. But that doesn’t matter – as long as you are connected and decelerating facing forward, he will commit like he did on those lovely reps.
When he didn’t commit (1:06) it was mainly a bit of disconnection (you were looking forward to the jump and not as much at him) and he was a little tired. So the connection plays an important role as well as the timing.
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
I agree that the forward focus went well! He really only had a question on that very first rep, so that is where the toy can go on the ground for more focus forward (and it will be easy to fade it out). When you throw the reward, you can help solidify the forward focus even more by throwing it to the landing side of jump 1 and not as much near you on the line. He is turning beautifully so we can use the reward placement to emphasize the commitment rather than the turn.
The backside session went well too – in fact, maybe your dog-side arm was too far back and that was causing you to rotate too much at the waist, which was pulling him in to the front a bit?
You can add more motion (especially when he is on your left) by jogging up the line because that’ll help propel him to the backside.
>One overall thing I question with Dublin is if he really understands my release word of go and also his commitment to going over a bar vs just wrapping wing. I>
He is definitely at the age where he understands a lot but we are not entirely sure of how much of it relies on physical cues?
For the release to start moving – I think in general, he understands it. He was very good about letting you put your hand in position and NOT releasing til he heard Go. For eaxample, at 1:05 when your hand moved by the Go verbal was not clear – he stood up but stopped himself, and didn’t take the jump until the Go was very clear 🙂 Good boy Dubs! And at 2:48 for example, your hand was pointing and he didn’t move til he heard ‘go’. Yay! So while he might not be perfect with the Go release, he is really quite excellent at this stage 🙂
About going over the bar versus wrapping the wing:
The bar definitely has value in a variety of contexts, he seeks it out a lot. On the backsides – his question had to do with staying parallel to your line versus a bit of countermotion to come in and take the bar.This was at the very end of the session, so to get him to take the bar as you move away on a serp line (like at 6:06 and 6:30) – you can look back at the landing spot and point to it as you drop the toy. Exaggerating that a bit will help him look for the bar and override following your motion. Then he will seek it out like he does in other situations.
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
For the league courses – he was a super good boy to try it and that is definitely good info about the ring crew. A good approach would be to dissect the challenges and stop and reward a lot. That way you can take him on a ‘tour’ of the course, but also making being in the ring SUPER fun. We don’t want him to experience huge leaps in challenge in new places, as that can actually be stressful. We want him to look at being in the big ring as basically the same as being at Disney – all fun fun fun and cookies 🙂
>Hopefully speed will come with confidence. >
Yes! And confidence comes from lots and lots of reinforcement in that location 🙂
Looking at the rear cross concept transfer –
>He was spunky but he kept running past the jump. But – he was running! >
Yes! He was running and looking forward – I think he was looking for the reward thrown then went around the jump after he saw it thrown.
He was driving ahead better when you did wing to jump instead of the tunnel, especially on the rear crosses to his right. He was definitely engaged and happy to play in both of these sessions, but either sticking with you or looking up at you sometimes.
>You are right he matches pace to me. I have to figure out a way to get him to smoke me over the jump.>
I think he was locking onto the reward throw, pacing with you to wait for it. So let’s try a placed reward for a bit – it can be placed straight for the Go reps and placed on a slight turn for the rear crosses. It can be a manners minder or a cookie bowl. That can help him continue to look forward AND get ahead of you because the reward is not in your hand (then we fade it out as other obstacles are added).
>We did the first try at the accordion! He did AWESOME at his stays. >
I agree, this went GREAT! He had perfect stays and did a great job with his jumping! On the 3rd rep, he extended his stride to really power through it – I think that power surprised him and his back end went a little high 🙂 But then he got right back into great form for the short distance on the last rep – excellent! That is what we are looking for: being able to extend and compress with confidence and power. Yay!
Great job here! Have fun at the trial this weekend!!
Tracy
Good morning! The turn aways are going well!
The lap turns in isolation caused him to ask some questions, but that went away immediately and were much easier when you added more motion from the previous wing. The key is the timing and not being too early. I know, we are often too late LOL! But if you are too early, then he will question the turn away or even read it as a backwards send to the other side of the wing (like at :59).
But when you let him get closer to your hand, just a couple of inches away – they went great like at 1:28 and 1:43.
If you are moving backwards into the lap turn, you can make the hand cue more visible by leaning over, slowing down, and fully extending the arm to him (elbow locked). At 1:09 for example, the motion was overriding the arm and it was not clear enough so he caught the cue very late.
He liked the race tracks a whole lot, in the middle of the session and towards the end too! Fast and fun!!
Tandem turns: he is doing well with these too, and you will likely use these more than lap turns on course (plus these turn into threadle wraps). You can make the opposite arm a lot more visible when he is behind you, rotating at the waist more to show it to him (and using both hands helps too in terms of making it really visible). At 2:34 & 2:54 as you are moving away from the camera, you can see the tandem turn hand is hidden in front of you. He reads the turn of shoulders so he still got it right, so having the hand more visible will help even more.
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning! Hope you are feeling better today!
>when we move on to the lap turn with prop we walk towards the prop?>
Think of it as a 2-part game: lap turn then parallel path. After you turn her away (lap turn) you go into the parallel path game, where you walk a line parallel to the prop. The lap turn should put her on the line to the prop, and your movement parallel to that line helps cue her to go to it.
She did well with the pattern game and the NE object! Good job adding a leash to the game – it will make it easier when she takes it on the road and is on leash. You can keep switching up NE objects… put a toy on the chair, or maybe the exciting ball from the yard on the table 🙂 Novelty is key to this game, so feel free to add something to any game that she is good at already.
>Reese is supposed to offer the sit, correct?>
In theory, yes, but the reality is that the pup will tell us how she perceives things. The stay shaping was interesting – perhaps she is used to offering behavior on an object or prop rather than without it. I swear she was looking around for what you wanted her to interact with at the beginning LOL! So you gave her a tiny bit of help and then she immediately offered the sit on the next rep. You helped her on the rep after it – I think as this game progresses, she will start to recognize context cues and you won’t need the tiny bit of help. But also, you can cue the sit – I would rather she gets the cue than she gets frustrated about it all. The goal is a great stay in high arousal, so we can help as needed when the arousal is higher.
Great job here!
Tracy
Howdy!
Look at you posting 2 days in a row! Woohoo!!!>The session was a bit longer than my normal training sessions. Guilty!>
Yes, it was a little long LOL He was happy to work for the food so didn’t seem to get tired but did start making mistakes at the end (wrong side of wing, stay stalking/moving) so set a timer on yourself to prevent those end-of-session brain-tired errors (I don’t think it was a change in toy placement, but also you don’t want to do something that might be harder when you’ve already been at it for a while). You can take a short break between sides rather than change sides and keep going.
You can also add in more of the stay rewards, specifically when you arrive in position and put your hand in threadle position – that is when you can throw a reward back (‘catch!’). That way he doesn’t predict that your arrival and hand movement is the release (puppies are sooooo good at picking up on our rhythm when it comes to releases LOL!)
> I started adding in the word because he was pretty consistent and I stopped asking for the nose touch when I added in the word.>
Perfect! The word does *not* mean nose touch 🙂 so it was correct to take the nose touch out. But the word should also mean in-then-out as an automatic behavior (not requiring a second cue), so take out any shoulder movement to the reward or motion to help him turn away at this stage. That way we get that default of looking for a bar and not requiring a second cue to go to it. You can totally add in a get it marker to indicate that the reward is all his, after he makes the turn away.
And since we want him to default looking for a “bar” but he is really young – maybe add a small jump bump if you have one, or a pool noodle sliced in half to help solidify the full picture: come to the ‘other’ side then go back out over the thing 🙂 Let me know if that makes sense or if the caffeine has ruined my brain hahaha
Nice work!
Tracy
Hi!
It looks like she loved the tunnel and the toy, making for a winning session! Fun!
Looking at both sessions:
>! I did some with toy and some with food but I’m not sure the reward placement is right (story of my life!) and I think I’m adding too much motion using the toy. Thoughts?>
Do you mean too much of your motion on the first video? I think your motion was good – she was happy to find the tunnel on her own, and throwing the toy was super fun for her. She was not relying on your motion. She was also happy to work for food, but we still want to throw a food reward instead of feeding from your hand, because we want her blasting out of the tunnel for now rather than turning hard to you. A treat hugger can be a good treat carrier for this!
Looking at the evening session:
> Again, not sure my reward placement is good as I’m rewarding when coming back to me with food. I can reward away by throwing the toy but I can’t place it on the ground quite yet for reward without her stealing it. Should I tried a lotus ball for food or use my manners minder for rewarding the tunnel sends?>
I like to teach small dogs to blast out of tunnels (it is easy to get them to turn). So throwing the toy worked well, and yes, I think a lotus ball or treat hugger will work well to get the food out of your hand. You don’t need to place the toy right now – you can use the Manners Minder if you want! You can use a ‘get it’ marker and throw the reward rather than have her come back to your hand each time.
What we do want is a clear line up, so using the food for that was very effective! Yay! You can try using a boring treat to line up then a thrown high value toy – and if the food overrides the toy too much, it can be food for the line up and then also food thrown in the ball or treat hugger. You can line her up and cue the the tunnel each time – no more rewards for her offering it without being cued LOL
>I’m glad I saw your note that the threadle verbal comes later because I wondered about that!>
I think the tunnel threadle verbal can be added now 🙂 She is very happy to turn away and find the tunnel, which means you can have her line up and add the new verbal at this stage.
Great job!!
Tracy
Hi!
>Did you get a chance to take a look at the Turn and Burn video?>
Yes, just re-posted the info above.
> I did plan to continue using tugging on the board but just wanted to let you know of my concerns re relying on arousal to get her over any issues she might have.>
Absolutely! And letting her offer a lot will give you insight into if she has any concerns or not.
> I won’t do it on the newly refinished hardwood – LOL! >
Ha! Yes, no floors need to be damaged for this game LOL
>Although, maybe I can find a couple of plywood pieces to get noise that way and could use it in the basement then. will have to look around.>
Yes – it can be anything, really. A random set of keys will make it sound different, or a piece of plywood or even a different mat.
>With the wandering around I think at lest some of that is the fact it’s was her first time in the basement and while I gave her a good bit of time to look around and check things out it is really new for her. I do like the idea of tugging after every every rep.>
More play will help, and also quick transitions into lineups between play (she was disengaging a bit when the toy got lifted and before the transition). It is also a great opportunity to teach her and work the pattern games!
Tracy
Weird! The balance discs and turn and burn stuff got chopped out. Here is the reply:
She did well with the discs and moving around on a bigger playing field. The bone and the large disc are overinflated which make for a very hard challenge so she moved off them really quickly. To get her to be able to stand and balance on them, you can replace the overinflated objects for now with things like pillows or cushions (with apologies to your couch haha) as she is more likely to be able to balance on them at this stage.
She also found the 2 handed tugging at the very beginning engaging, when you presented the toy nice and low, with a hand on each end. That might be the best way to get the toy low and get lots of tugging when you aren’t moving (having her chase you with the toy).
Turn and burn:
Starting with the bowls was a good way to move the game to a new location. She did well with that but definitely preferred the action of you running.
Remember to use a line on ground to make sure you are progressively leaving earlier and earlier, to help advance the game.She also gave good feedback on the toy here too – she was more likely to disengage and check out the room when the toy was relatively stationary (like wiggling around in front of her). When it was moving and she could really grab for it – total engagement! This toy was a little short for this game, and so she was tugigng up high at your hand to try to get a grip. You can tie 2 toys together so the longer end can be on the ground when you are moving, or easy to swing around when your feet are not moving. That will help get her off your hands 🙂
Nice work!
Tracy
Hi!
The shorter bars definitely got the bounces! Yay! The only suggestion is to put yourself right at the end of the last bar, where a wing would be, to get a bounce on that too. Being too far away was getting more strides (appropriately) based on your position.
> I’ll try to get a better camera angle next time, and I think I need to work this in a larger space >
More room will give you more time to show the transition 🙂 My favorite rep here was at :48, based on how he was collecting best before takeoff. That indicates that your timing was the best of all the reps 🙂 On the other reps where he was a little wider (:17, :23, :44), you were a little late based on his response.
On the first decel rep at :10 amd later at :37, he thought for a moment it was a rear cross cue. That happens when you decel late & rotate at the same time – kind of like hitting the brakes hard and turning the wheel 🙂 That is all still rewardable because he was reading the info as he got it. On the reps where he knew it was not a RC, you decelerated and *then* rotated – that was really good!
He definitely likes the big GO cue on the layering! Yay! He did well here.
> He does go into the tunnel once here, but I think the class distraction has a lot to do with that one.>
That was at :29-:30 and yes, I think there was a bit of a distraction element happening. Because he was looking away, you were not able to cue the ‘go’ as early so when he heard it, he was on his way back to you and facing the tunnel… so he applied the GO to the tunnel. Good boy! And that is still a better choice than taking off to check out the distraction 🤣😂 Compare to the timing you had on the previous rep (:19) and the rep after it (:39) where you got the GO cue out before he finished the wing wrap, so he went directly to the jump on the layering line.
Great job!
Tracy
Hi!
>Do I need to find new things to do this with in our next session or can I use the same ones? I don’t want to try a toy for a few sessions I think.>
Yes, novelty is the key – novelty is what draws her brain’s focus to it, plus novelty helps generalize behavior. But it doesn’t have to be *harder*, just different. And you can use a toy, but it doesn’t have to be on the ground or any place where it might be too hard. it can be up on a shelf or someplace where her brain will ‘notice’ it but she won’t be overly challenged to ignore it.
Motion:
> I am going to say I am not comfortable relying on heightened arousal to get her comfy on the board. >
Think of it as optimizing her arousal with a higher value motivator, rather than trying to get her hyper-aroused to mask any concerns she might have. The toy is the higher value motivator at the moment, unless you whip out steak or something that is super delish 🙂 The goal is to create a conditioned response to things that make noise or move, using tiny steps such as tugging on the rocker board, so that she loves it so much. Using a lower value motivator will keep her under-aroused, which is when the conditioned response doesn’t really turn out the way we like it to – either it never fully pairs as a fabulous thing, or it becomes frustrating because she doesn’t really want the food and wants the toy instead. Let me know if that makes sense – it is more about creating the conditioned response that Kyrie is saying will come from the toy more than from treats. You can get it with treats… but they will need to be better treats 🙂
Looking at the video: some mechanics things to consider for this – keeping the toy lower and longer will get her tugging on it more here. She was interested in tugging, but she is not really yet tugging unless the toy gives her room to grab it and pull back (there was not that much room here for that). She was interested in the food at first because the toy was kind of ‘meh’ (not moving much) but also the food was kind of ‘fine’ at first. Then after the first tug break, she was really interested in the toy when you took it out of the picture… she ate the food but went back into the ‘this is fine’ mode rather than OMG I LOVE THIS mode LOL She lit up with job when the toy came back out… but you were lifting the toy so she was trying to grab it up high on a moving board. She was able to get into it and pull back on it, but you will get a lot more joy into the wobble board by keeping to the toy low and long rather than lifting it. You can see a difference in her engagement and muscle tone after the tug versus after a few treats, so I think keeping the toy involved with better tug mechanics will really help that.
Looking at the parallel path video:
Since I am obsessing on tug mechanics 🙂 you can use a longer, lower tug here too! I think what is happening is a bit of a cycle: the toy is pretty short and not moving as much, but she is interested in getting a good hold on it to pull back and tug… which results in her leaping up right near your hand because that is where the best grip would be based on mechanics. But that is causing your to lift the toy even more, which is causing her to come up near your hand even more. So, since we do want the big tugging but we don’t want her biting you: use a longer toy with something fabulous (but easy to grab) on the end closer to the ground. Keep it low (no pulling it up towards you) and move it more so she can really get into the chase/grab/pull of the game without coming up near your hands.The parallel path game is going great! She is doing a great job of targeting to the prop and the hunt marker is helping her look straight and not at you. Keep adding lateral distance away from it. She kind of wanders a bit after the ‘hunt’ cookie and you have to call her back, so you can tug after each cookie: hunt, eat, tug – then start the next rep.
She is driving ahead to it really well, so you can build up to the rear crosses by starting further away from the prop (you can move the prop almost to one end of the room). Starting with her like you did on some of the reps here, you can see if she will drive way ahead of you. And if so – you can add in moving to the other side before she gets to the prop, to cue the turn the new direction.
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi!
She is HILARIOUS with the prop! Tons of value for smacking it 🙂 I think part of her enjoyment of this game is the ‘pounce’ and maybe making it slide 😂🤣 I also have slippery floors in my house, so everything is covered with all sorts of mats and cheap rugs (and fake turf in the training room LOL) – it looks bizarre but works great… the things we do for our dogs 🙂
She did well with the bag of treats on the ground too! For the next session of novel-exciting, you can have the exciting thing already in the area before you bring her in. Then bring her in and get right to work (we don’t want her to come in and check out the novel thing, and placing it in the environment might enhance her attention on it).
The pattern game is also going well! You don’t need to reward her from your hand when she re-engages, you can say ‘get it’ and toss the reward to the other side. That keeps her moving and also keeps you moving, when you want to move back and forth or from point a to point b. I would add in doing this on leash, so you can take the game on the road and into all sorts of new environments.
> default to a gorgeous stack with eye contact.>
Ha! She knows how to make da momma happy 🙂
>This evening I took her to my trainers yard and she was able to work with her prop while other dogs were training. Such nice focus for a baby dog. Frankie says crating sucks but working for treats is fun.>
I am not surprised that her focus was lovely! She loves to work with you! For the crating – will she chew a bone or lick a toppl in those environments, so crating can be a chill time?
Great job here!
Tracy
Hello! Yay videos!! Still waiting on the bull riding video, though 🤣😂
Excellent first session with the serp/threadle foundation! Mechanics looked really good and he had no questions at the beginning.
You got the lotus ball to the ground when you switched sides – that was a little harder, as expected. When the reward is on the ground, you can make the serp/threadle arm more obvious by having it more extended away (elbow locked, arm straight, and as far away as you can make it while still bending over enough that he can hand target without having to jump up. If the hand target starts to become more of a side-swipe as he comes in then automatically goes back out without you needing to cue the 2nd element, that is perfectly fine 🙂
For the next steps, you can change his start position by changing where you toss the start cookie. You can toss it straight ahead of you so he comes in to the hand target at a 90 degree angle then has to bend back to get to the lotus ball. And if that goes well, you can toss the start cookie out to closer to where the LB is so he has to drive past it to get to the threadle hand.
And for kicks: play this game with a tunnel right behind you: it is never too early to introduce jump-tunnel discriminations nowadays 🙂
The lap turns are also going great! He seems to have good value for coming to the magic cookie hand but then going to the prop after the turn away. You can move more after you turn him away – he was questioning a little at the end, because you turned him but didn’t really move: “should I drive to the prop, hoooman?” So you can move forward (towards the camera in this case).
Knowing what his future holds, you can move to the tandem turns now – if he is happy with tandems, we will very quickly morph them into threadle wrap foundations because I think that is what he will see most of 🙂
Great job!
Tracy
