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Hi!
>We have been working on the pattern games, toolbox and volume dial>
Keep me posted on how she is doing – I am sure she is great with these!
The handling is going really well. One thing I notice is that she is very responsive to changes in connection and motion – so if you are correct, she does it! If you change your motion or connection so it looks like a different cue… she does what the motion/connection tell her to do. Good girl!!
>I have trouble with my left and rights…>
To help me get my lefts and rights when I first started using them, I walked the courses with the verbals and videotaped the walk through even if was just 30 seconds 🙂 Then I watched to video to check if I had the verbals correct or not LOL!! That really helped me get them right so I could be correct during the runs with the dogs too 🙂
First sequence looked great – lovely connection and motion!! She seemed to have no questions.
Second sequence: when you looked ahead at :15 she looked at you to see if there was a line change coming, and she almost pulled off the line.
One thing I think will help on a line like this, where it is basically a pinwheel: a verbal cue for that middle jump. Even if you just say “jump”, I think the verbal will help so you don’t need to be perfect in your connection or line.
And adding in a bit of verbal support for that middle jump can also help you with the next line – when you didn’t need to support it as much (like at :18), it was easier to get her on the line to the tunnel. When you supported it too much with motion (like at :31), the extra support caused you to get in too close to the jump before the tunnel and had to turn to get around the wing – and she turned with you, coming off the line for the tunnel. She really pays attention to the handling, good girl!!!
> she wrapped left on the last jump, I’d used my left wrap cue.>
Yes, I thought that was your left wrap cue! Watchng the video of you walking it will help you plan the verbals. Also, your motion cues were supporting the left wrap by facing that line until she was almost taking off. You can run more to the center of the bar to get the RC there.
Nice work! Stay cool!!!!
Tracy
Good morning!
>I’m with you on the idea that they see the off side hand better and I would probably continue with that if I wasn’t paying someone to give me feedback. No point asking/paying for advice then not trying it. lol! I’m still working on changing my evil ways, so my handling isn’t that precise, but he’s really learning to listen to the verbal to make up for the bad mama.>
So true, and Lee is definitely an excellent instructor! Deciding which arm(s) is really about a combination of handler preference and feedback from the dog. Many large dogs see the dog-side arm cue really well as long as it is distinct from the other dog-side arm uses. I’d probably use dog-side only if I didn’t have the smaller dogs telling me that can’t see it LOL
So that makes me ask the next question: what does your threadle slice arm cue look like? On the video here, the dog-side arm was moving back, which looks like it could be similar to a threadle slice cue… which might be why he was looking at you a lot on the first rep: “slice or wrap, human?” You might need to punch that threadle wrap arm downwards (straight elbow, closed fist) so he can differentiate. The 2nd rep also had decel, which really helps – most threadle wraps have an element of decel (even though I am not sure people realize they are decelerating LOL!)
On the 2nd video:
>I did notice I used a ‘go’ to get the tunnel on at least one of those reps so not really letting him make the decision from the obstacle name.>
One thing I have noticed is that the GO verbal can often imply the tunnel. A few years ago, course design made that easy and useful! But nowadays, I think it is biting people in the b*tt – we don’t want the dog looking for tunnels when we say GO 🙂 so yes, definitely add the tunnel word.
On the video:
He is doing well with this but I think we can also make the handling look the same on all reps to get him to really process the verbals (then when we do add the handling back, it will be the easiest thing ever!)
To do this, try not to change the speed of your motion or handling line (decelerating or turning more to face the one you want) at all for this game. Just kind of wander along the same line each time to challenge him to process the verbals and not rely on the handling here (you can draw a line in the sand so you are on the same line each time :))
On the first side, I think having to go past the jump to get to the tunnel was HARD so he slowed down to sort it out. Good boy! He will get faster with that skill as soon as he is more comfy with it 🙂
>Then we did the same thing on the other side – not sure if my cues were less clear or if it’s that he was past what his brain could handle or the occasional slow processing that I was telling you about. >
He might have been tired but also, he was mainly reading the physical cues here: when they supported the obstacle you wanted, he went to it. When they did not, he went to the obstacle they supported.
For example, to show how he was watching for handling:
He was on the line to the tunnel at :57 then you moved the toy from hand to hand so he looked at you and stopped heading to the tunnel.At 1:04 – you didn’t move much and big decel on the wing, so he took the jump: the verbal did not override the motion change.
On the tunnel sends, he went to the tunnel when you were facing it but to the jump if you were not.
This is good info!!! Might be a side preference (he seems a little better on the other side) or maybe he needs a bit of mental rest between sessions/side changes but taking a ‘lazy handler’ approach will help solidify the verbals for this game: the handling won’t really indicate anything with the same steady motion up a line parallel to the setup.
And since this game is so hard, balancing it with the handling games were you do get to run and connect and use physical cues will help solidify the verbals too, through rehearsing correct behavior in conjunction with the verbals.
>I love the reps when he started to go to the jump and corrected himself. Such a cutie and trying so hard to please.>
He is such a good boy and trying so hard to solve the puzzle! I love it!!
> Between these two videos I’ve used half my weekly time allowance but that was my session and I wanted you to see the whole thing.>
Don’t worry about that, I don’t really keep track LOL!!! As long as we are not over-working the dogs, we don’t need to track the exact time of submissions 🙂 The limits are mainly to get people to NOT submit 10 minutes every day (yes, people have done that and the dogs are exhausted!)
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Hello! He is doing really well – this is such a hard game!!!
You have made big progress with this!! And your jump versus tunnel verbals sound very different, which is super useful.
One adjustment to make is to work on being able to hold him between your feet so you can say the verbal a few times before you let him move. When you did that (like at 1:19 and 1:54) he was at his most successful. He was getting good about letting you hold him off to the side, but that makes this game harder by adding a bit of handling influence. So between your feet is the best start position – it might require a lot of cookies to convince him that is indeed the best place to be while you hold him 🙂
Starting between your feet also allows you to see where he is looking: when he looks at the correct obstacle, you can throw the reward (or hit the MM button) then release him – that can mark the decision really early. It is not really a lure because it happens after the behavior we want (deciding on the correct obstacle).
If he was moving as he heard the verbal or after only hearing it once, I agree with your assessment that there was some guess work/randomness 🙂
But over the course of the video, his success rate was definitely increasing and more importantly: he was actively thinking his way through the puzzle and that is exactly what we want. YAY!!
Separately from the verbal-only games, you can do the handling games because they support the verbal-only games and also because they are fun fun fun. I am sure he would like the movement and running around 🙂 The verbal-only games do not need to be perfect to also do the handling games.
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
>With double partial knee replacements coming up the pain is making me very short tempered and Cranky. >
I am sorry to hear about the pain – it definitely is hard to live with and I can see why you would be in a funk! I am counting down the days to when you can get the knees fixed and then onwards to pain-free times ahead. It will feel sooooooo much better! November 14th and December 19 – going very soon and will be totally worth it. Then we can have some fun modifying the games while your knees rehab 🙂
>PoweR turned one today and is definitely suffering from teenage brain.
I think I need a brain camp video on this particular stage to help me NOT want to kill him. Heavy sigh.>Happy birthday PoweR!!!!! And yes, teenage brain… it is hard for all involved. I added some adolescent info here, if it helps understand the crazy things happening in their brains:
All 3 Shelties thought the remote reinforcement game was awesome and easy! PoweR did the great about moving with you away from the cookies. Since this went so well, you can add in heading out of the room so the cookies are no longer visible (you started this at the end). And you can go to the next steps of asking for tricks or simple behaviors with the cookies in the other room.
Pivoting is also going well. Doing it on the inflatable is harder, of course, so we had a little extra foot movement on his front end as he was sorting out the balance. He seemed to find pivoting to your right side very easy compared to pivoting to your left side, so you can do fewer steps to your left side to help him sort out the mechanics.
I think he is ready for more independence so you don’t have to move a much. You can try tossing the cookies off to the side and slightly behind you, so he drives back and pivots back to center from the side which can eventually be built into pivoting all the way around to your side.
Great job!!
Tracy
Hi!
He did a great job with the box of toys as a distraction. It was a good challenge in that I am sure his brain had to process it, but he didn’t struggle or make big mistakes. Good boy!!!>I don’t know if the idea was supposed to be a moving distraction >
It can be stationary like it was here, or easy movement. Nothing tooooooo hard yet. You can even bring in some leaves from outside if he might be very interested in them at this time of year – that would be a good ’slice’ because it adds a big challenge, but indoors and in a controllable way.
>but I don’t have that unless I coral my husband to be in the vicinity doing something. My husband is EXTREMELY exciting to Brioche…>
So, your husband walking around is a huge challenge? We can use a slice of that by maybe have your husband in a chair, reading something or scrolling on his phone or watching TV, so he is present but not that exciting 🙂 And if Brioche might find that hard to ignore, you can have him on a leash and further away so you can set up success and get lots of reward to him without him pummeling your hubby. Then we can ramp up the level of challenge – so yes, maybe you can get your husband to play or maybe you can play in real life moments?
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
>I’m a bit conflicted about adding more verbals than I currently use.>
This is entirely relatable – there are SO MANY WORDS (directionals, obstacles, reward markers, etc)
My goal is to prioritize which verbals I will need and teach those effectively so they are very useful, rather than try to have a zillion verbals that the dog doesn’t actually know.
> I only do AKC and have no plans to do anything else.>
That helps us prioritize.
> And I don’t do much premiere course work at all. >
There are some premier elements that you will see in regular courses, so we can teach that too.
>Benni does know back sides and “in-in” to come to me on the take-off side and then take the jump.>
The threadle slice cue is good to have. I have not (yet) seen a threadle wrap in regular AKC courses so you can teach the puppy foundations of it, then shelve it. The independence of the skill is worth teaching!
And backside slice versus backside wrap is actually something you will need in AKC – I have seen it on those courses plenty of times.
>I have always just used “tight” to mean wrap the wing towards me no matter which side I am on. >
As courses expand and there is more distance and layering, it is worth it to consider a directional on the wrap rather than a single cue. You won’t always be close enough that he can rely on your position to know which way to wrap.
>The one thing I have recently thought would be useful in AKC is for me to have a rear cross wrap cue separate from “switch”. I was thinking “flip”. Words have to make sense to me in relation to the movement I’m asking for otherwise I will make mistakes in my verbals.>
Having a directional on a wrap (to the left or to the right) will solve that question because then the verbal already exists. The rear cross verbals are a bit vague, in my opinion, because they don’t tell the dog how much to turn. A wrap rear cross cue would need to be added but it might be more efficient to use a verbal that can be used in more than one context – that way you have a useful verbal and don’t need to have multiple verbals for the same behavior.
>I use “back” for any kind of backside although in regular AKC it would most likely just be a backside slice. >
*Highly* recommend you add a circle wrap backside verbal – you will see this in regular AKC and the separate verbal tells a fast dog a lot sooner how to jump the backside. My backside slice verbal is for when the dog enters and exits on different wings of the backside. The wrap is for when the enter and exit on the same wing. It has made a massive difference to all the dogs we have taught it too, in terms of the turn they produce and their jumping.
>I use “switch” for rear crosses. “Right” and “Left for directional turns on a jump. “Turn” on the flat as in tandem turn. “By” is my bypass cue for the non-obvious end of the tunnel. Of course, I use “go” and “out” in the traditional ways.>
These sound good- my only suggestion is to clarify the RC cue so he knows exactly how much to turn and you can use existing left/right/wrap verbals for that.
>So I am undecided about the additional verbals. Benni does fine with my current vocabulary. Not to say he doesn’t turn the wrong way sometimes but that could be more about my mechanics than my words.>
Course design is evolving, so adding the backside circle wrap would be a good one, and think about adding directionals to your front side wraps too (that you can then use with rear crosses).
Let me know what you think!
TracyThe backside slices are off to a strong start! He was being thoughtful about it probably because you were moving slowly – then when you added the verbal, he was not sure of what to look at. So you were correct to take the word off and build the behavior more. It will be easy to add the word when the behavior is easier.
When he was on your left, it was a bit easier for him! But both sides did go well. To help him understand that yes, he can blast up the line: you can go faster 🙂 Keep the start cookie, and keep the connection you had, keep the reward placement, and keep your line up motion: that was all spot on. But can walk faster or even jog so he understands that he can move fast too 🙂 You can move the barrel/ bump set up further away so you have even more room to go faster.
Nice work!
TracyGood morning!
She was so good here!!!!! She is a faster learner for sure. There were the normal outdoor distractions (fallen leaves are a big challenge at this time of years!) but she had the added challenge of construction noise – and did great!!!
She was excellent about sticking with you and starting on cue. You can see on the first video that she was circling you a bit, moving around, before you lined her up. I think this is fine because it gives her an outlet to move around when she is excited as long as she doesn’t start without you.
Finding the jump was great – she stuck with you during the ready game then exploded to the jump and MM as soon as you started – tons of speed and driving ahead! Love it!
Using the Cato board helps a lot – you can bring it to classes and different locations to help provide structure to those sessions too.
Great job!!
Tracy
Good morning!
>She definitely doesn’t bring stuff back to me. It’s more like run away and chew. >
That suggests the trade will be your best bet to get her coming towards you – trying to grab the original toy risks her getting faster and more creative about keeping it away/getting past you.
>The other day I out 4 chews out and she took them all. So, maybe a resource guarded as well.>
I am glad she is liking the chews! It would only be resource guarding if she shows body tension or growling or something, so it is probably just normal gathering of ‘stuff’ 🙂
She did great with the pivoting! It looks like the second side was a little harder but both sides are going well! You can tart wit ht eh 2nd ice on the next session to see if it is smoother when she is fresher.
You can build this up 2 ways to get even more independence: using the pressure into her, you can fade moving towards her down to just reaching your foot towards her back feet to see if she will start moving without as much pressure.
And you can also try the cookie rewards being tossed off to the sides, so she pivots from different angles back to the front.Great job!
Tracy
Good morning!
>(Yeah Virginia!!)>
Heck yeah! And my small super rural county had a swing of over 950 votes in a good direction compared to the last time we did this. VERY happy with that!
>I had a hard time getting her interested in the toy and tugging. She may have some teeth coming in.>
Totally could be! She is at that age! You can try for smaller, flatter toys with something like rabbit fur on them to help her mouth feel good on the tug. Dragging the toy sure helped her get interested in it!
There were also significant noise distractions (different than I normally hear no your videos) in the environment which can contribute! We humans don’t hear this but puppy brains sure do!
Look at the section of the video from 1:13 (where you start to move the toy to engage her and she is heading to it) to 1:19 where a child (?) screams in the background. She freezes and licks her lips then appears to put her nose down to sniff. My guess is that was a significant noise challenge for her! And you might not notice because it is probably a nearby school or something, and you are habituated to it (but she is experiencing it all for the first time in her young life and her brain is devoting bandwidth to it so she couldn’t also tug).
You can help her get tugging with the nose distractions by just going outside to play and chase toys and run around while the kids are making noise 🙂
But she could still eat! Switching to food worked well here. On the reps where she went behind you to the bowl, I bet she is seeing an element of disconnect and shoulder turn that somewhat indicates the bowl (1:59 for example). When you were super connected (2:10 and definitely 2:23 for example) she did not consider going behind you. You can see it on the last 2 reps as well, when she had to go past the bowl: on the 2nd to last rep, you pointed forward which blocks connection and turns your shoulders so she went to the bowl. On the last rep, you had more eye contact and less arm cue – and she went around the barrel. SUPER!!!!
So definitely keep working the BIG connection – it will get easier as her experience widens.
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning! I think overall this went great!
Position 1: these first reps where you were moving fast and connected went great. Yay!!
Position 2: He was not as sure about sending to the wing without motion/on verbal alone when he was right next to the tunnel and the jump –
>We had a bit of a struggle when another training team showed up. Jackpot noticeably struggles in his start position. >
Was this position 2 challenge also coinciding when the other person shows up, at :50-ish? You were holding him there – would he have gone over to check out the new person/dog? You can use a pattern game or even tugging to help him stay engaged even with the new distraction.
When you were cueing the start of each rep, you added a little more motion and that helped a ton – he was still wildly successful with the jump versus tunnel part of the game.
Position 3 – easy because you had great connection and timing!
At 1:14 he circled the wing without a release and you noted it as worry on the video – concern about the other person? He might have been using movement to alleviate his concern, which is good! A back-and-forth pattern game can really help with that too: lots of movement but within the framework of processing the distraction and engaging with you instead 🙂
Position 4 with the disconnections: SUPER! I am so proud of him especially for finding the tunnel, because it is NOT on the line as he exits the wing so he had to rely on verbals-only. Good boy!!
Great job here!! Let me know what you t think!
Tracy
Good morning!
That tunnel is DELICIOUS, according to Bazinga!! She is getting the idea of finding the jump in the face of the tunnel being right there. Super! And she is moving when you say jump and not needing a different release, which is also great.
When you cued the tunnel at :49, I think she was on jump autopilot and caught herself after she moved – I love how she came back to you and reset: “try me again, human!!”
She has the hardest time switching after she gets to do the tunnel or des multiple jumps. But she is starting to catch herself and process, even if it is after she has started moving. And that is great because she is having a lot more success and not getting frustrated by any errors. YAY!!!
I think at one point you said “your brain is braining” and that is the funniest thing I have heard in a while LOL!!!!!!!!
Since this is moving along really well, you can definitely add in the handling games where you are both moving to work the discriminations with motion!
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
>The off course at the end of that for real run caused by crap handling was a tiny bit intentional. I had to abort the handling plan for a blind because of having to stop and gather him after the visit. >
That makes sense! Sometimes we do just try to fling the dog out on a line and hope for the best LOL!! Pick was a good boy! And it seemed like he remained confident, so it was indeed a win 🙂
> I think they’re both a ways off from “fight to save the run” status yet and I’m quite ok with that.>
Do you mean fixing something? Yes, especially after an off course. Sure, if you can circle back around in flow and try to fix the handling so the pups think it is part of the course, it is doable. But stopping to fix? Not yet – not until after they are both incredibly fluent in the levels of the Find My Face game 🙂
> It’s at a barn where Pick has never worked before, so it will probably be fully “just like at home” for both of his runs,>
Perfect!
> but I’ll start working on running with the toy stashed on my person at home. >
Also perfect! One thing I noticed with the sighthounds (BWs and full whippets) is that they did a lot better in the empty hands/toy hidden stage than in the ‘just like home’ stage. For whatever reason, they preferred to NOT have the toy in hand in trial settings and looked at their lines a lot better. That is exclusive to sighthound-types, though, which is why I mention it for Beat because you might end up moving to the ’empty hands’ stage very quickly – all the other breeds & types (terriers, herders, etc) all thrive with seeing the toy at first then we fade it out.
>He’s visited plenty of times when I’ve had a toy on me (usually worse at dirt trials and better on turf, which is why I gave him a shot at running for reals when we were on turf).>
Add in tracking the arousal-resilience-engagement games you play before the run and at the start line, such as pattern games and the volume dial game and even decompression before the run. Track what you did and how the run went – it might help unlock some useful trends!
> The set up that seems to be hardest for him is a long line towards a person where I am probably falling behind. Do you think he might feel an element of disconnect when he finds himself pulling away from me?>
Absolutely yes. He might feel distracted by the lack of handler visibility, a little uncomfortable with the independence needed on the line in that environment, or he might even perceive it as an error. All of that can contribute to the stress response of visiting. You can make up courses that set lines where you can drive him from ahead for now – then we can add in ways to help him love lines where you are behind. This can be placed toys on the line, or a helper throwing it, etc – hooray for UKI for allowing SO MANY options!
> Maybe the find my face game might be more crucial than getting the toy out of my hands?>
Both are useful. But he does need to know how to cope if something unexpected happens and the find my face game is soooo useful for that! Then we get him playing it as we fade rewards to outside the ring.
Let me know how it goes!
TracyGood morning!
>he comes charging to jump on me, which with his size is pretty dangerous. He often comes with an open mouth and he is going towards my face which makes it extra scary!!! Sometimes he nips at me. (He might go for my boob or butt)>
Alrighty then! I know he loves to run free on the beach but I agree – it is a safety issue. So the place to start is stopping all the rehearsal of it. That means no off leash privileges at the beach – think of it as kind of like taking away the drivers license of a teenager who has crashed the car. Putting him back on leash after it happens might not prevent the rehearsal so I think a full stop to that is important. Side note: it is basically the same behavior you see in agility, so similar neural pathways. We don’t need those to continue to strengthen, so we have found that not allowing any rehearsal of it anyway is a great way to eliminate the behavior everywhere.
A parallel example is dogs that charge dogs on the other side of a fence in the ring at a trial. That behavior is usually seen elsewhere in life, such as fence fighting with the neighbor’s dog or lunging on leash on leash walks. When we stop the rehearsal of fence fighting/leash lunging, the incidence of the charging at the ring gating in agility reduces almost immediately and then it is far, far easier for training to take hold and eliminate the undesirable behavior entirely.
So while thankfully he is not aggressively charging at other dogs, I think we should use a similar approach of not allowing rehearsal of the behavior anywhere to help eliminate in the ring.
Plus, OUCH! He could easily nip somewhere or ht you hard enough to accidentally really hurt you, which is definitely not what we want.
But since he will need a lot of exercise as an athletic young dog, leash walks on the beach are still great! And he can be offleash to run around anywhere that he will not charge you. You can also add in active fitness stuff like cavaletti work which are fulfilling for his brain and his body 🙂
He did a great job with the find my face game! He was looking for engagement when something unexpected happened (you disconnecting/turning away) but he kept all of his feet on the ground. Yay! He did spend some time looking for a treat that got lost but then re-engaged. Good boy!!
This game can go with you on leash walks (just randomly play it and toss treat) and you can add a bit of tugging before it to add a little bit of arousal.
>and then used it after a REALLY bad/late cue for a tunnel after the dogwalk.>
It is not quite ready to go into course work yet, because he did pummel you here. The number one thing for now in course work is to keep going *no matter what*. Doesn’t matter if you think he made the error (he probably did not LOL) – keep going to another line then reward as if he was correct. That falls into the ‘don’t rehearse the behavior anywhere’.
You will have to ignore all the seminar presenters and instructors that will want you to stop and ‘fix’ his error – it was probably not his error and any indication that he was incorrect might lead to you getting pummeled. The indication here on the video at 1:41 was when you stopped moving, turned your back – and when he came to you, you said “where is your tunnel” – he did not know where it was so he jumped up at you. Yes, he sat and got a cookie, and then the pattern game changed his arousal state – but we really want to eliminate that initial jumping up at you. So keep going no matter what, reward, then reset the next rep without any indication that something was wrong.
On the next rep here: he went to the tunnel on the line you set at 2:38 – rewardable! The tunnel was not visible on the video, but he went where your line sent him. I thought it was what you wanted until you indicated it was not correct. Was it the DW contact? So be super clear about what you want and reward his effort so you don’t get the jumping up.
>The May 4-6th dates will work for JAG. There was a meeting tonight and several folks were asking for the dates…so it should be fun!>
Awesome! It is on the calendar! Thanks 🙂
Tracy
Good morning!
You and Bokeh rocked this game!
I think she was a little surprised on the very first rep, but then after that you had just the right amount of connection as you moved up the line.When she was on your left, she was also doing great after a quick check to see what was in your hand LOL!!! So for both side, you can keep the dog side hand empty and drop the reward in with the other hand.
We can really see independence developing already: there were multiple reps where we can see her moving to the backside without you needing to be that close – clear daylight between you and her! Very cool! So as you revisit this, you can move up a parallel path that is increasingly further across the bar – and keep the great connection you had. You also had your push backside going here which is great: you can say it multiple times rather than once, so she can really process it as we add more independence. It also helps maintain connection: say push push push push to her eyes as you move up the line, until you see her heading to the backside.
Great job here!!
Tracy
