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Good morning!
>Omg, this is crazy. I’ve lost my post 3 times as it kicks me out buffering. So, another new thread for me.>
That is really weird, but yesterday was a brutal tech day – lots of outages on the internet (and FAA!)
>I thought we mixed it up in the session. She had a break before the last error watching Sprite do the race track.>
I think it just gives us insight into how expensive it is to work the games outside. It is probably like me, when I am hungry, working in an area with a lot of Reeses Peanut Butter cups around LOL!! Very distracting and I usually find a way to wander over and get one 🙂 But also she is really young so we can recognize the level of challenge, and not be too concerned about it because she will overcome it with age and experience. (Side note: I have plenty of age and experience but those peanut butter cups get me every time hahaha)
Rainy days are great for sit games! She did super well on all of it!
The middle lineup looks strong – you were a little explosive with the cue on that first rep so she thought you were moving forward for a moment, but then you were more casual about it later and she had no questions.
Lining up at your side also looks good. She ws a bit wide from you on the first one then very tight to you on the others. If you want her line up straighter/tighter more consistently, you can cookie reward that – for coming in tight to your leg and then lining up tight to your leg. The lineup at 1:43 was super tight and so was the last one. So that can be a precision reward of a cookie right there for coming in tight to your leg, then lining up right next to you.
Since this was easy for her and maybe a little too easy (she considered checking out at about 1:00 approximately), you can add challenge by having her sit in front of something fun (a barrel, toy on the ground, etc) so there are more little puzzles for her to work through. For example, you can do the triangle game to get more focus forward on the toy on the ground. I don’t think we’ve done that one with her and it will be a fun puzzle and perfect for a rainy day 🙂
If a toy is too hard, you can use an empty food bowl.
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi!
Excellent timing of releasing him when he very specifically looked at the toy target on that first rep! That set a great tone for the rest of the session. He did really well both with holding the stay (only tried to release himself a little bit LOL) and with looking at the line. Super!
The next step is, after you point to the jump, to add very quiet praise after he looks forward and before the release – so he keeps looking at the line but does not release himself immediately after looking at the toy 🙂 He is going to want to release himself when he looks at it, so it was great to see you throw the reward back many times 🙂 And always take your time with the release, until you see the behavior you saw on that first rep and at 2:37 and 3:46. That is why adding praise will be great to really solidify the stay and forward focus.
And when he can do that, we will fade the toy and get him using the jump (and eventually a tunnel) as the target to focus on.
He is showing excellent impulse control on the bow target with that big target of food right there! Yay Benny!
For this game – add the very quiet praise before the release too, to keep extending the duration so he doesn’t release himself.
And you can add in more of your motion too – you added in starting next to him and walking past him towards the target. You can add more of your speed, and also add doing a front cross (as if he was on the teeter and you were doing a side change as he is riding it down).Since he did so well with the toy at the jump in the start line video, you should add it here too! He is ready for that level of challenge.
He is doing great with the wraps and flip aways! This is especially true with that big lovely tunnel not that far away 🙂 And even after he got to run through that tunnel in the middle of the session, he never looked at it when you changed sides to do more wraps – he was still quite perfect abut his wrapping and turning away too. SUPER!!!!
Using the wall jump as a barrel was clever! You can also push him to the backside of the jump there to add balance so it is not always front side wraps
He had a legit oopsie at 2:34 when you sent to the tunnel (he was still in wrap mode) but that is not big deal, he was great with the rest.
He had a good question at 2:40, though when he exited the tunnel and you were way ahead – he could not see your connection that well as he exited the tunnel, so he was not sure if he should stay on your left and take the jump, or change sides (blind) to your right. You can see him looking at you so he was definitely paying attention and trying to figure it out, good boy! It is great to have you get that far ahead (because he is fast already and will continue to get even faster :)) so keep sending and getting way ahead. And as you get way ahead, point your arm low and back to his nose, so when you are 2o or 30 feet ahead, he can still see your upper body and connection, and will have no questions about where to be.
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
You were getting some good pivoting back to center here! You can try a subtle alteration of the treat delivery to get even more so you don’t have to add your movement:
rather than feeding her with her head straight when she stops moving, you can deliver the treat while continuing to slowly turn your hand
So at 1:45, for example – when you deliver the treat with your right hand, slowly keep moving your right hand towards her left shoulder, so she continues to turn and pivot. Doing it slowly and at nose level should get even more pivoting – it is kind of like a slow flick of the wrist where you palm remains facing her nose.
Then when she is approaching the bowl from your left side, you can feed with your left hand with that same slow hand movement. You did do a lot of left hand rewarding, click/treat to you!!!!Remember to be careful of tug mechanics – stay engaged while tugging the whole time you are tugging, so she doesn’t grab your hand or accidentally break herself (1:12). If you disengage to reload cookies or think about something else while she is tugging, you will get toy mechanics errors.
Threadle wrap foundations:
Note the nice clean transition from the tugging to the cookies at the start as well as later in the session! Very nice! Keep doing that, even if you have to check to see if the camera is recording 🙂 When you are not keeping it clean, your toy comes up high and she loses her footing and grip.
The turning away went great! You worked up each step progressively, and she did super with all of it!!! You can add in the 360 (full circle) with you moving next (you had the u-turns here which were great). But also, she is ready to see this go to a barrel for the next steps, added here:
Great job!
Tracy
Good morning!
Super happy with the Go reps here, she is definitely committing nicely! And she stayed super focused and on-task (without getting too excited!) even when the ball came out. You can mix in throwing the ball back to her to reward stays (so she doesn’t try to start without you LOL!!)
You can add more of your motion here. 2 ways to do this will be to either send to the tunnel then get away ahead on the line (no need to wait for her to exit the tunnel). Can she find the jump AND keep the bar up, while you are way ahead?
And the other option is to get close to the tunnel and deliberately stay close to it, starting to move forward as she exits the tunnel: can she drive ahead of you to the jump?
On all of these, you can repeat the Go verbal several times to really solidify that yes, she should take the jump and go straight no matter where you are or what you are doing 🙂
And the next step can totally add in the other cues like the wrap or rear cross.
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
Mountain climbers are looking great 🙂 Happy, confident little goat!
Looking at some of the Cynosport maps made me glad we are working some angled entries!
He seemed happy with the additional tip and the different angles.
2 things to put on your radar as you train this:
– adding target behavior so he doesn’t always have food at the top of the board. How is his targeting going (4on, yes?) We will be playing with the bang game here soon and can look at it
– do you have something more narrow to use to prop the board up? The table it great but it is also wide, and creates a specific visual. We need to find a way to prop the board with something more narrow so it is not visible as he is heading to the teeter. This will help him begin to learn the difference between the teeter and dog walk – lots of dogs have some confusion on this early in the training of both.
The lining up between your feet during motion overrides was hilarious at the beginning, I feel that pain LOL!! He did well with the sit! It took a few steps to process but that is perfectly fine. I see what you mean about the down being more fluent – that is interesting! It was still really good as you added running. Have you worked on the down a lot, or is that just easier for him in general?
Since we were talking about ‘staygency’ where he picks his own position, you can do a walking version of this where you just teach him to be stationary, any position (this is where I taught my ‘stay’ cue which is the staygency cue). Slow walking, maybe even stopping – he picks a position, then you move again, then reward. We can fade out the stopping when a verbal cue is added.
Since his motion override is going great – I don’t think I sent this option to you yet? Since he struggles with positions in front of something exciting, we address is very specifically here (but in small pieces):
It is a clip from a live seminar so ignore the references to “later this morning” LOL
It is framed as a contact game (for stopped contacts specifically) but also great for moving to the start line. This does not have any agency where the dog chooses the position, this is all cued positions. But when he understands agency for this game, you can add it here too!
The handling looks great! On 2 jumps – the Go looked strong, and so did the wrap! Yay!
Yes on the first backside rep, more connection less arm pointing forward as noted 🙂 You adjusted to that really well! No need to run closer to the backside wing (that might have been a product of the increased connection though)
You can use that connection to be even further across the bar for more slicing, as if going for a German turn or serp exit!
RCs – What made the timing a bit more challenging was that you were setting the line forward and then trying to get on the RC line, so he was reading left turn first (based on how you set the line with the shoulder pull). He did adjust to get the right turn, but you don’t need the shoulder pull to set the line. You can accelerate up the line closer to him, arm back (no need to point it forward because of how it pulls your shoulders to the left turn line) and towards the center of the bar of the RC jump.
That will get the dual info to him of ‘take the jump AND turn to the RC’, plus you won’t be as far behind 🙂 Pulling then doing the RC puts you pretty far behind – he was getting it based on the reps, but you can mix in Go reps and wrap reps to be sure he is reading what you are cueing rather than him remembering the previous rep 🙂
Here are some visuals of what I mean:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ZObJ9p4sOzVP21xj16X3nP-ygsbK6e5DTJMCTG3a5xI/edit?usp=sharing
Adding the tunnel was good, he was ready for it and it was fun!
The go reps were easy of course 🙂
For the wraps, add more decel as he is approaching the jump after the tunnel, no need to rotate til after he has seen a few steps of decel at this point. At 1;53, the bar down because there was no decel into it and he was surprised.
The decel was definitely clearer at 2:07 and 2:21. Keeping it distinctly separate from the rotation will help keep it different from the RC cues – when you were decelerating and rotating at the same time, you ended up pushing towards the center of the bar which can lead to rear cross questions.
The backsides are going well! This is another spot where you don’t need to straighten up the line before it. At 2:49, you can
get directly to the backside line as he is in the tunnel, no steps to square up to the jump after the tunnel needed at all.That is why he jumped to his left over 3 then back out to the backside – he saw the straight line over 3 before the backside cue for 4. You can almost serp 3 if you are far enough ahead, to set the line to 4.
Great job!
Tracy
Good morning! Lovely session here! How is he doing with his focus as you start the training session?
For the Go – you are sending to the tunnel with a ton of lateral distance. That is great! You can stay on that lateral line for the Go on the jumps too rather than run towards the jumps, to keep adding distance skills for the Go lines.
Wrap: super nice transition into decel at :19! He read the collection cue of it really well.
The transition at :29 was not as clear (not a lot of decel, there was more acceleration) so he jumped wider. The most effective cue there was when you decelerated a little when he was at the jump after the tunnel.
On both of the wrap runs, try not to get past the wrap jump, try to stay on the takeoff side. If you get there early, you can stand still there 🙂 Going past it cues him to jump wide.
The push reps were both PERFECT. Excellent timing, position, verbal, and connection!
And the rear cross went well too! He looked a little tired on that last run (not as fast going to the tunnel) so you can try the rear cross as the first run next time, when he is feeling fresh 🙂 Your timing & position here were strong and he had no questions. It will be fun to see you get that same timing when he is faster!
Great job!
Tracy
Good morning!
The line ups are looking good and her commitment is going well too! As the session went along, you got better and better at moving through the spin by doing the FC and moving away a few steps before doing the blind. That will be even easier when you have more space between the barrels, which you can start to add! Your connection was strong too, one little blooper at 1:26 but otherwise very clear. Super!
>Reese still struggles to send if I have a toy in my hand. She leaps up to grab it. Then, gets distracted by the hackberries. What exercise can I do to help her leave a toy in my hand alone?>
It might not be a specific exercises as much as it is mechanics that might be creating confusion:
If you drop it for her to get, rather than reach in and lift the toy up while she is trying to grab it, ask her to grab it and lift it to you (a mini retrieve) before you tug. If she is moving her mouth to it and you are lifting it (:08) she might grab your hand as she is trying to get the toy.
Looking at :34 where she jumped up for the toy: this is mechanics too. The physical cue to get it from your hand is looked very much the same as the cue to the barrel there, where your hand dropped low and the toy dangled. The verbal cue there happened after the hand/toy motion (playing it in slow motion shows the timing), so she might have been anticipating the toy reward (because that is a possible context for a reward).
So a couple of things to get that cleaner:
– a small, non-dangling toy that can be crunched up in your hand is a better choice for this scenario for now, so there is no confusion about presentation. You can throw it or drop it when it is time to reward. Or, you can have the toy in your pocket so it is not in your hand– start your wrap cue earlier, as soon as she exits the previous barrel, so she hears it and see it before the toy starts to move as well.
If she won’t find the smaller toys interesting enough to throw as reinforcement outdoors, then you can use a lotus ball which I think she will like!
Separately from this, you can use just one barrel – have her next to you and the toy dangling from your hand. Cue the wrap without moving the toy hand, then reward. Alternate with cueing the ‘strike’ without moving the toy hand, with the barrel present. This can begin putting more stimulus control on the toy before adding the motion.
>she got tired. Too many reps. Sprite had a turn before I repeated the last 2. She just lost interest so we stopped.>
How many reps total did you do? I wonder if it was less about being tired, and more about too much repetition of the same thing? (Unless you saw her tongue hanging out and it was hot out) You can change things up a lot: spins versus FCs and add the race tracks (advanced level, it doesn’t need to wait til the spins are more practiced), changing sides, and adding distance between the barrels more. Start with an easy rep, then do a couple of harder reps, then do an easy rep, then be done and let Sprite have a turn 🙂 before Reese having another turn.
Nice work here!
Tracy
Hi! Great session here!
The threadle slices are going really well. Adding the wing was easy for her, and she had no questions with you closer to the jump. Super! You were delaying the click timing really well too – she was actually hilarious, trying to lean towards the bar without taking uer eyes off of you 😆 She was figuring it out that it was about leaving you to go to the bar. You can delay the click timing more now, waiting til she turns to the bar and steps towards it too.
Threadle wraps are off to a good start! She wants your magic cookie hands to turn her away, so now we are going to convince her to turn herself away to the barrel. That way the cue is .ore about the in-then-out, and you don’t need to cue both the in and the out.
What will probably be very convincing is to use the bowl we used at the beginning of shaping wraps: the bowl can be kind of hidden on the other side of the barrel, so she will really only see it when she comes to the threadle side near your hands. Then she will see it and turn away to it… then you can toss the reward to it.
As she gets the idea, you can move the bowl further and further around so she completes the wrap without your help – eventually she will have to pass it to get to the threadle side of the barrel, but that’s an excellent challenge 😀
Great job here!
TracyGood morning!
> I think there’s a typo in your response. Did you mean the bumps were easy for her? >
Oops, yes, I meant easy 😀 she did well placing her feet in both direction and it will continue to get easier and easier.
>We tried find my face. I started outside, but that environment was too hard. So, we moved indoors.>
The indoor session went well! I can see why starting it outdoors didn’t go as smoothly- at first, she was trying to see if you threw another treat, or go where you were looking. By the end, she was getting it really well 🙂
You can add more praise as she finds you – that might be even more motivating for when you take it back outside. And you can totally also have her tug with you outside too:
Cookie toss, find my face, praise/tug, cookie toss to start the next rep 🙂Nice work here!
Tracy
Good morning! He is so speedy but also so focused and bendy, I love it!
He is really figuring this out brilliantly. The footwork is coming together REALLY well, he is making excellent adjustments to be clean over the bumps!!
>Kurt’s comment was that I should be leaving sooner.>
Well, he isn’t wrong LOL but also the question is: at that speed, how can we set it up so you can leave earlier? I think what was delaying the FC a tiny bit was that you were kind of turned towards him then using a shoulder turn to get him into the game. That extra movement will make you a step or two late.
I think a cleaner lineup will help: have him lineup at your side, facing the setup (cookies are fine for this to help). Then hold his collar and start quietly saying your left or right verbal (whichever one applies). Then after you say it 3 or 4 times, let him go. When he moves to the first bump: you can do the FC and leave (but keep saying the left or right verbal).
My only other suggestion is to delay the marker to get the toy until after he has fully completed the entire Minny Pinny – when you say it as he approaching the 3rd bump, he sometimes accelerates to it the toy and drops his feet onto the bump.
Great job!
Tracy
Fun!!! He is doing so well with super challenging distractions! And doing it with Hoopers is brilliant: the hoops are simple enough behaviors that his brain can devote bandwidth to dealing with distractions and be successful. And then when you add more complex behaviors like contacts & weaves, he will have no trouble. So fabulous!!!!
Have fun with Nexus! I was actually just messaging with Munnings about bringing Nexus to the USA because I think it will be fun!
Tracy
Good morning!
>I taped a strip of a licky mat to the end of the board and placed kibble there & you suggested we make a paste from soaked kibble to get something lickable>
Yes! Now I remember – you had to be creative because of food restrictions.
>Lew doesn’t have any diet restrictions and he likes peanut butter a lot. I’ll try that & see what he thinks of cream cheese too because – variety!>
Yes! Variety is good and also cream cheese is a little less fatty (no upset belly!). Also, I get nervous about peanut butter additives like artificial sweeteners. Ok, it makes me neurotic hahaha
>we weren’t perfect but I was pleased that he was finding the jumps away from home.>
This is great! A perfect game to play in the new environment because yes – we want him to find jumps there and get paid BIG for it 🙂
>Is it cool to use a treat toy like that on a field when dogs are running in turns? No one seemed to be distracted after we were out there, but someone was concerned it would be a distraction. I don’t want to be “that person” if it is rude.>
Great question! Of course it is cool to use it. Reward your dog! No one will be distracted (other than some humans LOL).
Agility in North America has some “issues” in that rather than people teaching their dogs to work through distractions, they are trying to sanitize the environment entirely so there are NEVER distractions. That is kind of crazy because it is a high distraction sport so in all fairness to the dogs, they must learn to ignore distractions. And if they don’t know how, it can be very stressful!
It is no different than you teaching your pups to ignore food smells from other dogs getting rewarded. And your pups are small, so their little faces are right there where the food smells would be! And yet, they have learned to ignore all that. No problem!
Or teaching your kiddos to ignore other dogs playing tug outside the ring. You have fully embraced it and your dogs are doing GREAT.
So it is NOT rude. Keep rewarding Lew. And it is kinda funny that in a giant outdoor field, the distraction the person was worried about was the tiny food reward for the tiny dog LOL!!!
>I didn’t always send to the tunnel to try not to tire him out.>
Great idea! He has to take a LOT of strides on course, so he will tire out faster than a big dog who takes half as many strides or even as third as many strides.
>I’m going to try & do one game in the morning and one in the evening to move along faster. I think he can only handle 1 running & jumping game per session.>
You can do one handling game and one ‘intellectual’ game (contacts foundation, for example) and that will double up the games without draining is brain.
Looking at the video: The blind crosses looked fabulous! You were doing a big celebration and he was like “that was easy, what is the big deal?!?” Hahaha Your connection was really strong and that is why the blinds were easy 🙂
The FC was easy too but the blind was smoother for you both.
One thing you might not realize you do is you call him when he exits the tunnel and is on the way to the jump 🙂 No need for his name there, you can just tell him to jump.
He is also very watchful of your shoulders and adjusts his line if your shoulders turn. That mostly works great, but if you turn your shoulders away from the line, he will come with the shoulders:
You can see that on the first drive to the tunnel at :05 – you said tunnel but turned your shoulders away, so he came with you. And at the very end, you glanced ahead on the Go Go Go cue, which turned your shoulder, so he came with you (thinking it was a blind, perhaps?) and didn’t take the jump.
So the 2 options to help there is to either be perfect with your connection and shoulders all the time 🙂 or to reward more on the line so he looks for the line even more.
Since being perfect is IMPOSSIBLE 🙂 I vote for more rewards on the line. And what I mean by that is you can surprise him by changing where you throw the rewards, making them randomly appear on the line of jumps as you keep handling (rather than waiting to the end of the sequence). The random happy events of surprise rewards will get him really finding the lines more so you won’t have to be perfect.
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
The session went GREAT! It is hard to get all of the different turns on just 2 jumps, but you did it really well!
>12 inches and no bars down! >
Yes! The only tick I heard was when you threw the reward and he accelerated to it.
How far apart are the jumps here? You can move them to 18-20 feet apart if they are closer than that. And that will give us room to start showing him a 14” bar too.
All of the handling looked really good, so now we need to add the tunnel before the jumps 🙂 He will have more speed from the tunnel, of course, so the timing will be earlier but also probably easier 🙂
>My handling needs improvement especially on the rears at the end.>
The last rear looked really good! The one before it had a little disconnection so it looked like a blind to him. But I think the rears will actually be easier for you when he is moving from the tunnel – doing rears on just 2 jumps is actually harder than doing them in flow 🙂
Nice work here!
Tracy
Good morning!
One thing that was very cool here was that when Rou was not totally sure where to be or what to do when the blind went sideways… she remembered the ‘Find My Face” game we taught her a while back and stayed engaged by finding you (or taking the backside and finding you). No stress – just find the momma as part of the game. LOVE IT!
The first several reps where she found the line from the wrap to the tunnel all looked good!
One thing I would like to add with her, because she has a lot of speed and a big stride: a brake arm on the middle jump of the pinwheel. It will ask her to add a stride before takeoff, to cue the turn. It is a pretty tight turn for her so the brake arm will help! (Side note: I use a brake arm there with my 22” tall whippet).
The brake arm is very easy: everything about the handling is the same as what you did here, except now the outside arm comes up to join the dog-side arm to cue the middle jump. It comes up when she is at the jump before it. And it can go down when she is at the middle jump.
The brake arm will also help her find the jump before the tunnel when she is on your left, without you having to decelerate!
>I don’t think I connected with her at all when I did my blind. I was so so so late.>
The blinds were late, which made the connection late – but she was trying hard to find the new side! And when she went to the backside of the jump after the blind, it was because you were standing in her takeoff spot and she made the good choice not to go through you 🙂
To be more timely on the blind – simple adjustment is all that is needed! You can handle the line after the tunnel from further away laterally (from as close to the jump after the blind as you can get.
What was happening here was that you were close to the jump after the tunnel, and walking. So she got ahead of you and then accelerated (which cued more extension)
If you can be lateral as she exits the tunnel – maintain your connection and be moving up the line, which will commit her to the jump – then as she is heading to the middle jump, you can start the blind before she gets to it (ideally, no later than landing from the jump after the tunnel).
Your connection was strong before the blind, so I think adding more distance will make it naturally better timing.
The 2nd video looked good! You can see that little bit of wideness on the middle jump – this is just because she is tall and fast 🙂 and that is why the brake arm will be helpful!
Here are some visuals of the brake arm on a similar setup:
The young tall whippet is at :50 & 1:46 so you can see me using the brake arm to adjust the stride. It is a SUPER useful cue for big fast dogs (and my terrier who is small and not a great turner LOL) on tighter lines!
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi!
> I was having a very hard time with my timing and positioning.>
For these blinds, you will need to have more distance away (laterally) from the jump after the tunnel, so you can be far enough ahead for the blind.
That way you will be able to support the line and start the blind when he is at the jump after the tunnel . You were a little too close here, which made it harder to get to the blind cross position for the blind. You can play with seeing how far away from the jump after the tunnel you can be when he exits – 10 feet away? 15 feet? That way you can use parallel line motion to support that jump and the middle jump while starting the blind earlier.
Then the timing will be much easier! You were tending to start the blind at the middle jump, which is a little late but you were still moving to position, so it couldn’t really be earlier.
At 3:32 when he did not take the middle jump, you were actually too early 🙂 You were already blinding before takeoff for the jump after the tunnel, so he correctly thought the blind was for that jump, and changed to your right side. Good boy!
> He was very sniffy today. Not sure if what he was looking for but showing me more of his tracking behaviors.
>I think he was in food-mode, picking up all sorts of good smells because of the tossed treats and the toy was a cookie toy, I think. He actually did find something at one point! And the cookie rewards kind of make him a bit too chill 🙂 so a tug toy will keep the sniffing away as you work through the handling.
>For the motion override game does it matter how much space I start it in? >
It can be in a small space, just enough to take several steps.
>Should I start basic and show you where we are? I had been doing it outside vs in and he was on leash.>
Awesome! Yes, post up where you are and we can move forward from there.
Nice work!
Tracy
