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Good morning! This was another super strong session! She seems to be having a great time finding the lines here, and she has a lovely balance of speed and tight turns.
>I spread the jumps out. I don’t have a ton of room in my odd shaped yard. The tunnel is still slightly offset and she did have some issues with that on some of the reps.>
The distances worked really well! And having the tunnel a little offset created slightly different lines when she was on your left, but that is great – it keeps things exciting because you had to handle the lines and she had to do some extra lead changes. You both did really well!
At :13 she dropped the bar – you got the tiniest bit past the wrap jump and decelerated a little late so she was trying to adjust for the turn in the air.
Compare to your timing and position at :40 & :58 where you stayed on the takeoff side of the jump after having decelerated earlier – she had a good turn and the bar stayed up! The timing of your decel and the position on the takeoff side was particularly nice at 1:25 so her wrap was gorgeous! On that rep, you started your decel shortly after she landed from the middle jump.
The best timing was at 1:45, where your decel began as she was landing from the middle jump – perfect! And her collection was fantastic there.
Also worth noting is that you did a great job staying connected as she exited the wrap jump on every rep, so she knew exactly where to be on the way to the next line. Yay!
On the 3rd run (and last run too), you wrapped her to the inside on jump 1. You can also wrap her to the outside there – it might be a little more distance but it is a straight line. Plus it is great prep for this type of opening (jumping away from the course on jump 1) which is really popular lately.
When she is on your right heading to the tunnel (like at 1:02 and 1:29), the slightly offset tunnel entry creates an opportunity to use more of a ‘get out’ cue than a regular ‘go’ cue. In that case, you can add an opposite arm (left arm here) to point to the tunnel as you connect and keep moving. She will see the exaggerated shoulder position and connection with the outside arm which will help to automatically shift her away to the tunnel entry. You did a bit of that by converging to the tunnel at 1:30 – adding the outside arm makes it even more obvious and that way you won’t have to move towards the tunnel as much. Plus it will really help when you are not as far ahead (like at 1:39) – the outside arm will help her move away even with you a little behind her.
Here is what I mean by the outside arm, in case you are thinking that I am nuts hahaha
Great job here!!! You can add the other handling games to this setup now too!
Tracy
Good morning!
This session went really well, and it is a good topic for him: he was taking a few extra strides and looking at you, asking a couple of questions. The more you got the reward out ahead, the more he was sure he should drive ahead. It is definitely hard to connect, run the line, and get the toy thrown at the right time but you did a great job!
As you keep building up the driving ahead, you can either throw the toy while he is in the tunnel so you can just run (and so he expects it out ahead and looks ahead). Or you can enlist someone else to throw it – your videographer perhaps? Or in class, hand the reward off to the instructor to throw. That way he will look forward even more because you won’t have it in your hand and he won’t see you throw it 🙂 It you enlist someone else to throw, be sure to tell them that the timing is early – when he exit the tunnel – and not when he arrives at the jump.
Super nice job here!
TracyHi! The added distance was good for him, more room to open up! And you had to run more too 🙂
>. I’ve done a bit of AKC with Dellin and usually they have those pinwheels but there’s also a straight ahead jump (after jump 2) that you don’t take, so when I sprinkle, she knows she’s not going straight>
Two things to consider about the sprinkler cue –
Plan the timing, so it starts when he is over the previous jump. On most of the reps you were starting it after he landed, which is a little late for a large dog 🙂 Picture him jumping full height – he will land pretty far from the jump and closer to the next jump, so you will want him to have the info before he lands.
Also, turn your shoulders to the wrap jump sooner rather than round the curve of the pinwheel in parallel to him. Even with the sprinkler cue going, he was reading your line of motion which was facing straight after the pinwheel jump, so he was landing straight then turning after landing (when he saw you turn). So at :04 he was going straight til you changed the frisbee to the other hand 🙂 then he came towards you.
At :11 & :32 you were facing straight as he was jumping the pinwheel jump. so even with the sprinkler cue, he was not sure of the turn and dropped the bar. Same at :25 and :43 (bars up here) – he went pretty wide on the way to 5, based on your line of motion.
So along with the sprinkler cue, you can add in sending and turning to the next line as he is finishing the previous jump. Or you can move closer to it but add brake arms so he collects for the turn.The wraps themselves are looking strong! He was collecting nicely before takeoff and had good turns! The better he turned on the pinwheel jump, the better the wrap was, so it is worthwhile to get a better turn there 🙂 And you can start the decel sooner: when he is over the pinwheel jump, you can start to decel so he can see the cues sooner (also in prep for when the bars get raised).
>We also started the back chain for the BC exercise – the wrap away and going back. I was running out of dog, so we didn’t get to the BC part yet.>
These looked great! He looks ready for the BC when he is fresh and it is not too hot.
Nice work here!
TracyHi!
>Not long after I stopped the last video, Ven had a huge poop blowout. Not sure what upset his GI tract but he was out of commission for a couple of days. I think that contributed to not releasing from the start line.>
Poor guy! That could have contributed for sure!
> I think he got stuck because he was HOT. Even though the sun was just setting, it was still heat index 96>
Yes, it is possible because that is really HOT! Keep an eye on the freezing up on the start line though (and leaving to dive into the jumps set up next to the house) – he also did it a little on the 2nd video. You can build in more reward for resetting at the beginning and rewards for the release too, and see if that helps him drive right into the release.
>. I’m also working to use the new clam toy as a reward so his brain was melting over that too.>
He definitely likes the clam! Is he able to open the clam by himself to get the treat out? We want to make sure he gets the instant reward for the good decision, rather than the reward coming for when he brings it to you (which might reward the discrimination as well as it rewards the retrieve :)) And that can make the clam even more useful for big distance work too!
He did well with the discriminations – both of the sessions were mainly showing him that yes, it is legal to go past the closer obstacle and find the one further away 🙂 So far, most of the dogs here have the same question. Ven was figuring it out really well, so it is definitely a game to revisit. Since he likes the weaves so much, you can use that to your advantage by having the jump closer to you, and the weaves further away (replacing the tunnel, so there are only 2 obstacles out there). Then you can see if he will pass the jump to go to the weaves! And then the tunnel can get added back in at some point, so he gets to practice all 3.
Great job here! Have fun with the ring rental!
Tracy
Hi!
>Ok we tried it again and walla! She can do them when I cue them correctly!>
Yes! She did really well and the 1-2-3-4 opening looked great! It will get easier to cue that #1 jump as she gets more experienced but she definitely needs that clarity of cue for now.
The whole session looked good! From the exit of 4 to the backside of 5, it worked well to go closer to the tunnel and keep your arm back/connection clear to drive her to the backside and be able to keep moving like you did a 1:05 and 2:14! You were a little too far ahead and pointing forward at :18 when she did not go to the backside.
You can start moving your line of motion further across the bar – you will still want to be parallel to her line and connected, but that line can be more towards the center of the bar. That will let you get further up the next line too!
> Sticky would be like those last two jumps where she is looking up at me being super handler focused.>
That was a connection question 🙂
As she backside serp on 5, you turned your shoulders forward which actually sends her past 6 (she needed to continuing turning to her left to find 6) . She looked up for more info in both spots – you ran hard to 6 so she got it at 1:06 but you were a little further behind/not as connected at 2:18 so she missed the jump.Ideally, you would bring your serp arm back as you cued the 5 serp on the backside, and keep it back (while looking at her) as you ran to 6. That will point your shoulders to teh line which helps her shift to her left to get it. Hold the serp arm back (strike a pose!) until you see her look at and turn to the 6 jump.
When you re-sent her at 2:21, you had your serp arm back and big connection, and she got it! Yay! That is what the cue should look like, all the way from approaching the 5 backside to when she turns away to look at 6.
For the jump after it – she just needed a little more connection there too, which turns your shoulders to the line to support the 270. When your arm was high and you were turned a little too much into the gap, she had a question and looked at you – at that point you reached for the ball, which sealed the deal and she came into the gap 🙂
I made some screenshots so you can see what she is seeing.
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ZVsQG8NhDLwCDkWJ_kHL92VH0lXVEovYmasHIVBVxFs/edit?usp=sharing
Great job! Stay cool!
Tracy
Hi!
Hope you are having a great weekend!>. I was at a seminar recently where she should only do the push, not the wrap and I have to say that the push is easier for us as a team mid-course ie I can be sure she will do it. Sass could not remember the threadle wrap at all!>
That is really interesting – the session went well here and she always went to the correct side of the jump. Your line was really good for the threadle wraps. It is possible that when you were at the seminar with more speed coming into the threadle wraps, that you did not show the line as well as you did here. Maybe you were stepping to the front of the jump by accident, or the cues were late. Do you have video? We can look at see what happened!
On the video:
Your line was good here! She always knew which side of the jump to be on. Super!
>This session she yelled a bit at the beginning so maybe I was slow with my cues or out of position?>
I think she is relying too much on your arm movement to turn her away, which was not perfect so she was mad LOL Since it is nearly impossible to perfect timing the hand cues to turn her away, you can keep your arms in the threadle wrap position and let her turn herself away to the jump (then you can throw the reward to the landing spot).
>Tried to do a sequence but stopped when she started hitting jump#4. She was probably tired but it was only a 4 minute session all up.>
I think that was more of a timing question than fatigue –
With the jumps relatively close, you probably didn’t need the ‘go’ at :36. It made the right cue late at :37 (she was already over the bar) so she tried to turn in the air and dropped the bar. On the last rep, you started your right verbal at the previous jump (:52) but didn’t quite get turned in time (you were facing straight) so she hit the bar trying to turn when you did turn after she was in the air. You can keep the timing of the right verbal here, and add in the brake arm (cueing with 2 hands) and turning sooner. That should help!
Great job!
TracyHi! It is great to see you back to training!
>Well, I am a bit slow with my motion but any motion is going to help, I guess. Interesting that distance work is a focus this summer because
(1) it is almost all that I can do and
(2) both of my dogs are surprisingly bad at it.>All course design in all flavors of agility is moving towards distance skills being super important… so we are cranking it up here!
>I have demonstrated to myself on various occasions that Enzo really needs handling to do these discriminations. I haven’t worked on it too hard since
(1) we do mostly AKC and don’t need it and>I am starting to see it more and more in regular AKC and in Premier – subtle discriminations and especially with distance work. The dog walk in AKC has started to migrate off the edge of the ring and more towards the center of the ring, so we definitely need these skills.
>(2) in order to become truly fluent in verbal discriminations you need to put more work into it than I have wanted to.>
I can totally relate – I do NOT want to put in a zillion reps, so I am taking the ‘work smarter not harder’ approach. This is why we use a bit of motion right from the very beginning because the number 1 complaint about verbals is that motion will override them (and I agree with this). So we expose the dog to the concepts and context, while separately working on the handling skills… and then bring it all together. At that point, the dogs are actually really responsive to verbals without having done a ton of training.
>Well, surprise! This summer is almost half gone with nothing done and I might as well spend the rest working on things I think I can do.>
Perfect! And with the way the weather has been going, I bet we have summer weather for a few more months… not sure if this is good or bad LOL
> Enzo and I have played verbal discrimination games and, without almost content upkeep, it falls out of his head.>
I think with Enzo’s generation, we didn’t add motion early enough in the training. And we didn’t add arousal in early enough either. Oops! Now we know more about processing and state dependent memory, so motion and arousal goes in pretty early. The results are much better, of course, when we use science to train 🙂
> Except weaves, he can find weaves on a verbal with almost no other help.
> He does have amazingly inspiring weave skills!!
>So, since Enzo is still on injured reserve (so am I for the most part), here is Casper giving this a try. Since he had an 8 week “vacation”, my big hope for him was: please don’t revert to the catch-me-if-you-can game. I feel sort-of bad for him, since tug is one of his big rewards for agility and I can’t really play tug at all right now. We did a bit of fetch with me sitting in a chair on the front porch starting a couple of weeks ago. Casper was pretty good at it. Enzo appeared to have the “if you won’t play tug, I won’t fetch it more than once” attitude.>
Bummer about Enzo 🙁 and I am glad Casper thinks fetch is also fun!
>Setting up the course is not a fluent skill for me right now, so I pushed stuff around and called it good enough. My plan is to try to do some of the specific skills and maybe some of the pop-outs.>
Sounds good! Don’t worry about the exact setup – you can make your handling choices based on what it looks like in your yard. And we can do lots of walking agility to get Casper really committed and turning and responding!
>I was ***surprised*** that you didn’t reverse the position of the runnel and jump (so the jump was further away) before you added the weaves. >
I verbally recommended it somewhere in the discussion part of the video. Mixing up the obstacle positions as much as possible is really effective.
>I’m not sure I’ll get to add the weaves any time soon. Also, although I KNOW that most super-trainers have no problem with a short set of weaves, I have never been comfortable with fewer than 12. My personal quirk, I guess.>
Using 4 or 6 weaves is partially about rewarding fast for finding the weaves, and partially for folks who have space limitations. You can totally do 12 – and they can even be slightly open or use aids to help him stay in, nce he is in. And also limit the # of reps because it adds up very quickly when using all 12 poles.
>I am comforting myself with something you said recently (or at least, as I recall it): “I am not an athlete, my dogs are athletes”.>
Ah yes, that sounds like me LOL!! My dogs are amazing athletes. I was in the band in high school and college, providing music for the athletes 🙂 So my goal is to provide useful info so the athletes can feel supported and do their work.
Looking at the video:
I think part of this session was simply introducing Casper to the concept that yes, it is entirely legal to pass the jump to go to the tunnel. He was going towards it, looking at it as if saying “are you sure?!?!?!” The last rep was so funny: he was going to the tunnel but looking at you as if saying ‘really? seriously? This is correct?’ Too funny! But I like that he was thinking and processing rather than just flinging himself at whatever.
The middle section where you were out of frame but looks like you were just working on the verbals was good too – you can sit in a chair to do this as well.
He did lots of looking at you here as is really making sure he was getting it right – that is fine and it will go away as he sees more of the game.
>• I have added a “go” or “out” to a verbal to try to aid the discrimination. So “out-tunnel” when the tunnel is further away. It seems to me that this aligns with the louder, more energetic pronunciation that you are using for tunnel.>
Adding a directional is great, and I definitely recommend using it when you are handling the sequence for real. I would resist using it for now, because we are trying to name the obstacles without any extra cues. Yes, that makes it harder for now, but when you bring in more movement and the directionals, it will be soooooo much easier.
>• I have used “left” and “right” to help when the obstacle has two sides (weaves and tunnels, mostly) and we are at 90 degrees to them.>
Great! That also really helps! I also use directionals on the jump or obstacle before a threadle line, as that helps too. Add these in the real handling moments but not in t he name-the-obstacles game 🙂
>I did pull out all the best treats but food is pretty far down on Casper’s list of reinforcements.>
He looked super happy with the toy throws. It was not a really high rate of reinforcement session, but he was still really motivated to solve the puzzle. This type of processing must tickle his brain in a good way, because he was persistent without getting frustrated. That is a big win!
>If you tell me that I am using subtle (unconscious) cues to tell him which one, I’ll believe you!>
Yes, a little, we all do – the agility-version of the Clever Hans effect 🙂 But you did not do so much that it was super obvious to him and he still had to work out the options. And even with the motion, he was still surprised that he could pass an obstacle on the way to the tunnel!
You can change sides on the next session, with the tunnel being closer to you. See how it goes and let me know (don’t worry if it is still at 50% accuracy or less).
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi! This went GREAT!
Rear crosses are actually a hard skill… but you made it look easy 🙂 The first bunch of reps with the RC on the 2nd jump after the tunnel and the 1st jump after the tunnel all looked good. And he was perfect when you did the balance reps and did NOT rear cross! Yay!
On the last 2 reps, I think you got a little ahead of him on the RC line (:53 and 1:09) which actually can put you further behind him after the rear cross, because it delays you being able to get to his new side. When you are able to get ahead but are planning a RC, you can get a little closer to the previous line, or decelerate a little at the jump before the RC jump. That will actually allow you to get further ahead because as he is catching up to you, you an really accelerate up the line for the RC – which both drives him ahead and cues the turn, allowing you to cut behind him sooner – and therefore get ahead of him again 🙂
So in this case, you can get in closer to the jump after the tunnel, decel for a moment til he is about catching up to you… then accelerate up the RC line to the center of the bar of the RC jump. I bet he reads it perfectly and you will be ahead of him when he lands after the RC.
Let me know what you think! Great job here!!
Tracy
Hi! It has some overlap, probably about 15% of it. It focuses more on the neuroscience stuff we can do with the dogs to prepare their brain for sports – it doesn’t have a lot of sports-specific games (that is in MaxPup 1 :))
T
Hi!
Great job warming up the send and the blind to the tunnel! At :21 he didn’t take the jump before the blind because you started the blind before the release, so he never got a commitment cue to the jump. Adding the jump before it to get some momentum worked great!
When you ran the full sequence:
For most of it, you ran with your arms low and with big connection and he did GREAT ! That also allowed you to easily get to the blind before the tunnel. Super!Remember the sends should also have a low arm and a lot of connection. He didn’t send to the middle jump at 1:13 because you disconnected and pointed ahead at the jump, which turned your shoulders away fro he middle jump. You were more connected at 1:28 before you arm came up and he was able to see the line a lot better. Ideally, on the send you would keep your eyes on his eyes and a low arm would point to the takeoff spot.
Nice work here!
Tracy
Hi!
>I do have the jumps spread out so lots of running. >
The distances looked good here – similar to what he will see at a trial.
>Max was running out of gas at the end (it is still hot and humid in the evenings).>
He started to slow himself down about halfway through, so when it is hot and humid like this, you might only get 5 or 6 reps then need to be done so he can cool off.
> I find it difficult to keep my eye on him and look where I am going. Wearing glasses doesn’t help. Looking to the “side” with my eyes, there is no glasses there so just blurry.>
I think the key to your connection will be to either just run (pumping your arms rather than pointing to the line) or using low arms where your hands don’t do higher than your knees.
That will allow you both to see each other a lot better (plus it is a lot easier to keep up with a fast dog if your arms are not high).
When your arms got high here, they were blocking his view of your face. And high arms also turn your shoulders a bit too far forward, which is probably why it felt hard to maintain connection and really see him.
For example, at :32 – :36 you didn’t use your arms out to support the line – you just ran and it was perfect.
Same at 100- 1:03: you just ran and the connection was perfect! So you can do the whole sequence like that – very minimal arm pointing 🙂He did well reading the BCs and FCs. On the BCs, try not to get past the middle jump as it causes you to have to push him back to the jump after the blind. When you did that, at :16 and :44-he turned the wrong way on the next jump there on both. At 1:12 you pushed back to the jump and then stepped backwards a bit, which read like a RC so he turned away from the line you wanted.
Even with those little bobbles, keep going because it is a clean run and is good practice for future trials if there is a bobble 🙂
When you did not go past the middle jump (like at :27) – much better connection and position, and no questions on the jump after the cross!
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi!
This session went REALLY well! He was very confident driving up the board with you facing him, and he definitely seemed to like the tugging in between each rep! It looks like you only did 2 reps – PERFECT! They were high quality, super fun, and you ended before he could start to over-think things. Do you have access to other teeters, so you can show him this game in different places?
Great job 🙂
TracyHi! These are the best tunnel exits I have ever seen her do. SUPER!! I am so proud of her! 🤩😭
You were very intense with the verbal and hands and it worked well! The next step on her tunnel exit turn adventures is do 2 things:
Add in balance with going straight on the tunnel exit to a jump out ahead.Maintain the intensity of verbals, use your two hands like you did – but fade out the rotation towards her. Your upper body and still rotate towards her with both hands, but we want your feet to rotate less and less so you can eventually keep running forward.
Her threadle wrap at :44 was perfection!!! You nailed the timing and delivery of the cues and you were patient as she set herself up to do it. YAY!! Click/treat for you both!! And I love the big party you had with her there as the reward. Fantastic!!
Great job!
TracyHi!
Course 2 went great!!!! Just a couple of subtle details to get the maximum speed:You can Ddecel sooner into 5 to get a tighter turn at :12 – start to decel as she is landing from 4. It was closer to the halfway point between the 2 jumps when you started it so she was a little wide.
Good timing on the name call before the 7 tunnel! You can trust the cue and immediately move to cueing 8 and 9 with a GO TUNNEL! She had a slight hesitation when you got quiet as she exited the 7 tunnel. No quiet allowed! LOL!
The FC 10-11 worked well!
I don’t think you have time to praise her on course at 13 🙂 It delayed the cues to 14 so she had some questions there. The praise she likes on course is the cue to the next obstacle 🙂Nice send to the 16 tunnel and name call before she entered! You can trust the cue here too – start your GO TUNNEL cues for the next line immediately. She hesitated (by dialing back her speed) until you gave her the cue when she was almost at the next jump.
She also had to dial back her speed when you did the FC 18-19 (waiting for you to finish it). The blind will be very effective there and you can get to it sooner too: when sending to the tunnel after the weaves, layer both jumps there and use verbals to get the next line as you basically sprint (with some connection) to the blind. You will be there easily and she will be blazing fast with all of the acceleration 🙂
Great job!
Tracy
