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Hi!
He did really well with the wind in your hair game! This is a good game to revisit occasionally (we build on it in future weeks), continuing to add distance between the wing and the jump. You can also change your position: sometimes send to the start wing from further away then move up the line to see if he can find the jump when you are ahead of him. And sometimes start right at the wing (especially when it is further from the jump) and stay at the wing, starting to move forward only when he exits the wing to challenge him to drive ahead of you.
The tunnel exits are also going really well! The GO reps had him exiting straight (great job with the timing and reward throw!). And your turn cues also looked good – your timing was earlier with the verbal and he was turning really well. Super!
>Although not videoed, I am making a lot of progress with Set Point – short sessions in the basement where it is cooler.
>Yay! Smart to do it in the basement to stay out of the heat! We build on it soon 🙂
Great job!
Tracy
Good morning! He did really well here!!!
For the Wind In Your Hair game:
This went great. Moving the toy to the outside hand made it clearer to see if he was committing to the jump or following the toy throw. When it was in the dog-side hand, I think he was looking at it and waiting for the throw. But when it was in the outside hand, he was looking for the jump 🙂 YAY!!!
So definitely keep the toy in your outside hand as you add more distance between the wing and the jump.
>I also in stages between yesterday and today got a tunnel out.>
You were motivated to play! The setup looked great 🙂
For the tunnel exits: his natural tendency is to want to look for you at the tunnel exit, so this plus the good timing of your eft & right cues made for lovely turns on the tunnel exit! Yay!
At the beginning, the Go verbal was late (when he was exiting the tunnel) so he was looking at you. But then at the end (4:45) you got the GO verbal out before he entered the tunnel and threw the toy before he exited – so you had a great GO exit there! Super! Definitely keep going with the early verbal and throwing before he exits to keep him looking straight on the exit. It will be easier when you can run more, but this is great for now to teach him not to rely on your foot speed alone.
Great job!
Tracy
Good morning!
I love that new toy! Fun!!!
>We have been trying to have others drag the toy for me but he’s just not really liking it. He tends to want to come in to me for reinforcement – tug mostly or get the thrown or dead toy and then bring it in.>
What if you made it into a toy race? He does like his toy races! A person starts dragging it (slowly). Vibe is next to you, you are gently holding him. When the dragging starts, you can cue him to get the toy but then you race him to it! And if you win… you win, and tease him a bit, then play then start over. I bet as soon as he knows it is a toy race game but with another person added, it will get him liking it more 🙂
Thank you for the video! As a fresh eye, some things for you:
The run by at :28 was not flanking or toy watching… it was him seeing your pressure to the get in between the 2 jumps that set a line to the backside. The position of the jump after the tunnel was totally a backside line, especially for an inexperienced dog. He looked at you because you said jump but your body/motion said backside line. Setting the jump on a more natural path to the front side for a baby dog will help a lot.
At :39, you added a big high arm which broke connection (totally blocked your face/turned your shoulders away) so he widened his field of vision to see the cue. Resetting at :48 & :52 without a clear line up confused things a bit because he was still on the line to the backside and told to go forward, so… he did. Good boy!
I agree that he got the ick by being corrected by a stranger for a skill that was unclear to begin with following multiple failures. He probably thought he was correct, then the toy was thrown, then he was told he was wrong. Ick! Then being asked to jump into a tall strange man in a hat very close to the jump? A no-go on top of it all. Placing the toy was a much better option and he was far more successful, and moving the jump to the natural line after the tunnel made a big difference… but I think that was only one rep before it got moved to the original line to the backside again (so he went to the backside :))
Another think to consider here was the processing of mechanics and adolescence:
He was jumping 12” here I believe, which might not seem like a lot but there are definitely jump mechanics involved. And at 10 months old with limited PFC development and with soooo many stimuli bombarding his brain to be processed in terms of the new environment, handling, all the obstacles and layering and people and dogs…. The mechanics are always the last to be processed so that behavior is the first to disappear.Taking out the jump mechanics (putting the bar at 4 or 8) will make a world of difference because the brain won’t really have to devote much bandwidth to that at all, especially with so much bandwidth being devoted to everything else going on. So even if 12” is fine at home, 4 or 8 is better for new environments like there where there is a lot happening.
And the other adolescent factor is the “Nailed It!” thing, where the adolescent brain is totally thinking he got it right (and I can also see his argument for the line after the tunnel being a line to the backside). So if his brain is telling him that he was correct, and we adult human brains know he wasn’t correct 😂 then we can break it down and give him a clean line to the front of the jump for example (moving the jump, or setting him up on a line to the front of it).
He is doing really well and the future is super exciting!!!
Tracy
Hi!
Wow, Rosie was a real pro here in the Under Pressure game. I agree, she did not seem to even notice anything else in the environment. Yay! I am sure she knew it was there but she was able to ignore it and follow the handling quite nicely! We have more coming next week and I am sure she will be ready for it.
Lily has the more normal response to something novel in the environment: the need to check it out. Then a bit of sniffing as she had to process the challenge. She did sort it out pretty quickly but a good plan for her is to start with something different each time, but further away so it is not as challenging to process. Then, instead of moving it closer: switch to a different challenge in a different spot (but still further away). That way you are generalizing the behavior of ignoring novel things in the environment, rather than habituating her to a specific thing in a specific spot. I think generalizing will lead to more long term success, as long as the novel challenge is far enough away that she can override the impulse to go to it.
Rosie did well here! She is sensitive to your motion, so maintaining the lean forward when you send until she is well past you (like you did at :37 & :58 & 1:42) really gets commitment. If you rock back in a visible way, she pulls off the jump (like at 1:20
Pulling her to the backside for a threadle wrap needed a big pull away from the line – her generation was never really taught these, so the handling needs to be very dramatic 🙂 since we cannot use verbals to help out.
If it was not a dramatic pull and looked at all like a front side from a distance, she would go to the front side because that is her history (like at :42, 1:52 and 2:01). You pulled away a little but overall the line of motion and direction your feet pointed still supported the front of the jump.
The big dramatic pulls where you were basically not moving anywhere near the backside jump worked great – 1:08 was a perfect example of that. Your feet and line of motion were clearly turned away from the jump, so she found the line you wanted. YAY!
Lily also is sensitive to you stepping back to early, so lean forward til she is past like you did at :44 & 1:16. But all add more connection – if you were looking forward and not looking at her, she would curl in toward you to look before going to the jump (like at 2:38). And lots of thrown rewards to the landing side of the send jump will support the sends too!
>I couldn’t keep her from taking the front side of the jump when she was going full speed through the tunnel.>
Yes, that was very hard for her, she was locked onto the line for sure!
Starting from the tunnel, you were able to call her and give a big dramatic change of line in terms of your motion (like at 1:24 & 1:50 & 1:57)
You almost had it at 1:33, but then at the last minute your line of motion change to parallel the jump (instead of paralleling the threadle wrap line) so she went back out to the front of the jump.
When you were trying to get it in flow in the sequence, I think 2 things will help:
– call her a LOT before she goes into the tunnel, so she is already looking for you when she exits.
– Let her see you already turning to the new line before she enters the tunnel.
And you can reward her from your hands for coming to you in those moments, and that will help build the value too!
At 2:41 & 3:19, for example, she saw you running straight before she entered the tunnel and I don’t know if you called her couldn’t hear anything, but your back was to the camera so sometimes it doesn’t get picked up by the camera) – so she exploded up the line going straight when she exited the tunnel based on what she saw before she entered. Your line when she exited the tunnel was good, but the cues before the tunnel were what set the line to the front of the jump for her – that is big commitment for a little dog!
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Good morning, thanks for the update!
>Judge saw the chiro again yesterday and everything had held up, so he is feeling good.>
That is a relief! And it was a no-disc week, right? So maybe disc is indeed the culprit.
>We did our first group class last night. It went very well! >
YESSSSSS! Happy dance!!!
>Is a pretty quiet time at OTR – for the first half of class, we were the only class and then halfway through, another class started.>
Perfect!
> All quiet dogs, a lot of small dogs in Judge’s class, so the energy is good and pretty calm.>
Double perfect!! He is an adolescent Malinois, we don’t need to start right off with insane high energy LOL!
>It was so empty that I could use his cot for some stationing before his turns (no one in the warm up area but us). >
Awesome!
>We were also able to do a little walking around in the building.>
Also great!
>For his turns, we sat at the ring gate, went in, did the side to side pattern game with bowls – he was giving me very good attention. Then we did some tricks – some spins, shake, then we tugged. >
Fantastic!
>He was great about outing the toy (he usually is, but the environment did not cause this to fail).>
The toy ‘out’ latency is a great indication of arousal state for a dog like Judge. I am glad he did super well!
>I was able to do the 2 bowls in various places in the ring. We were tugging when other dogs were running on the other side – one went over the dog walk next to fence when we were pretty close and he did not stop tugging. >
This is all GREAT!
>We also did a set up in front of a jump and released to strike the toy.>
Yay!
>In between turns, he would go back to the car, then come in, be on his station and have his turn.>
Super! Rest is important!
>I kept in nice and easy, leash stayed on, although I did drop it a few times – when were tugging and I resisted all temptation to do more.>
Good for you. The goal was SUCCESS and you nailed it! YAY!! Getting that first super successful class is critically important, because of the conditioned response it brings to the ring – and a positive conditioned response brings position happy emotions too, which is ideal of course 🙂 So the goal is to make things a little harder while maintaining the high level of success. And change the plan at any time, if the environment changes: easier than expected? Make things harder! Harder than expected? Make things easier.
>I will need to come up with slightly more plan for next week.>
Before you do that: observe him today and tomorrow. How did he recover? Happy, pumped up, relaxed? Then make it harder. Grumpy, tired, maybe a little overaroused? Keep it easy. The recovery can take up to 72 hours and how he feels during it will give you insight into just how hard the class was for his brain and nervous system.
I definitely have leash off, engagement on as part of the possibilities for next week (you can have 2 leashes on and take one off, if you are concerned with him being totally off leash).
And maybe simple sequence stuff? What is his favorite and more successful parts of sequencing?
Great job with him!
Tracy
Hi –
>all depends on the day it seems with him. >
Yeah, adolescent dogs… totally relatable.
>I sat down and he laid on my lap and passed out. He’s done this before. As a puppy he slept through class and he snuggled with me in obedience class. I find it confusing. >
Different arousal state – he is either in the lowest arousal state that he can sleep, or totally overaroued that he is overwhelmed… and sleeps. Probably the context cue of you sitting down in a chair with him in your lap is getting a really low arousal state so he sleeps.
> I still do that and he seems to relax but I could be making up emotions from him that are not capable of dogs lol! >
Dogs do cue off of that and there is plenty of co-regulation and context cues, etc. But we need him to work in a higher arousal state than sleep LOL
>He can walk around for a minute. He can eat. But then he says I’m out when he sees a door. >
What is his physical appearance in that moment? Ear set? Tail set? Eyes? Sounds like heading for the dog is an anxiety behavior so video of him in the context will help. Can you do a decompression (snuffle mat?) when he sees a door, or pattern game or play away from it?
>This week in class he watched Dan do agility. Could eat watch tail loose. >
When he was eating – just eating? Or doing something? I would prefer you guide him into doing something (pattern game, tricks, even goofy stuff like catching cookies you toss to him) rather than watch and eat. I don’t think watching helps adolescent dogs moderate arousal and know what to do with themselves, so he defaults to ‘flight’ (heading for doors) when he feels internal arousal state tip into overarousal.
>The classes he’s in no all the dogs are out. >
No dogs are out, or all the dogs are out?
> He can observe and he can lay casually outside the ring. >
I don’t think laying outside the ring is helping, because while he might appear calm and casual externally, we don’t really know what is happening internally and he is still struggling. So let’s change the approach and help direct what he does more than letting him watch.
>We actually did instant focus today in a quiet green house parking lot. It took home about 30 seconds. He just had to hop on a mat. No Cooke first rep. Releases tried again and he was fine and was like oh! We are working!!!>
He really likes to work, so instant focus is a great one! My Jitterbug (black dog with curly tail) is often the demo dog for the instant focus games because he copes with the anxiety of the world by staring at me and work work work. And it has helped TREMENDOUSLY because he can eat, tug, work, function and be happy in a variety of environments.
>I’ll use time based assessments now!>
Yes, latency is a time based assessment and super useful!
Keep me posted!
Tracy
Good morning! These went really well!
PO 1
The opening looked lovely!>he questioned 4-5, so tried again and noticed my arm was straighter or perhaps showing the line better?>
Yes, you had a bit too much arm and shoulder pull at :07, so letting him see your hand drop down low rather than pull away as much worked a lot better. You were much clearer there at :27 and he did well!
One thing to add to this sequence: you can cue the turn on the tunnel exit before he enters – show him the lateral motion to the net jump and give verbal cues, all while he is still 2 meters away from the entry so he sees and hears it. He came blasting out especially on the first run.
PO 2:
>PO2-I think he read the backside at 4 pretty well and the timing of my cue 6-7 felt swift>
Yes, this all looked great! One suggestion is to try a slice on 6 instead of a wrap, because that might be faster 🙂
PO 3:
>We had trouble 2-3 several times and I really tried connecting>
He gave good feedback here! It is definitely a magnet-fingers moment, keeping your arm/hand pointing back to him the whole time.
>looking at the line.>
This might be where things went wrong – looking at the line caused you to look ahead, which turned your shoulders away from the line. So don’t look at the line – look directly at the dog 🙂 Looking at the line requires you to have to stay close to the line so motion makes it clear. But you will get more commitment and distance if you look at him directly, and keep your arm pointing back to him.
His question on 2 was about connection. On the 1-2 line, your left arm is getting ahead of him and pointing to the jump, which turns your shoulders away from the jump (past it and towards the tunnel a bit). You can see him look at you there and he takes #2 based on your motion to it.
O n the way to the tunnel, you were pointing ahead/looking ahead, which turned your motion away from the tunnel and he was correct to question the cue (especially with a jump right there). When you ran right to it, he got it but if you look right at him as he exits 2 and don’t point ahead, he will commit to the tunnel much more easily with fewer questions.
One thing we have learned about Rexx: if he slows down and looks at you, it I always a connection question 🙂 So even if you see him, he isn’t seeing the connection so keep your arm back and eyes on his eyes to get the line and the speed 🙂
>He did this same sequence in PO1 nicely and I was further away too. We did have more speed though.>
You did have more speed coming into it (he was slowing down at the end because the info was not as clear) but you were also much more connected and not pointing ahead at all 🙂
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
>Well, if it’s not one thing… Spent hours on the chat with Microsoft because my new CPU does not recognize my MS Office license. >
Oh noooooooooo I feel the pain of that torture!!!! Hopefully they got it fixed? Sometimes I just want to throw all the tech out the window. Sigh.
The course work looked lovely, though! Casper did really well on a hard course!
Opening looked great! Can you challenge him to stay on the teeter without you also having to stop your motion?
Threadle wrap to the DW looked great! That is a context we see a LOT of lately and you both were lovely there. You can rotate your feet to point to the DW even sooner, but he held his end position really well even with all the speed coming into it.
He had a bar down at 9 & 10:
The forward send to 9 (jump after the DW) didn’t really tell him about how much turn he needed at :32 – this is a great spot for brake arms on the send to tell him to add a collection stride. I really thunk finding brake arm spots on courses (especially smaller distances) will really help him add collection strides because that is not something he naturally defaults too.Then standing still on 10 didn’t give a lot of info so that bar came down too – since you were mikes ahead of him, you were easily there for a blind. For the rear cross, you don’t need to be as far ahead so you can keep moving through the RC and eliminating the standing still (which doesn’t provided info).
>I was super pumped by the “weaves, turn away, jump, tunnel” which he did beautifully.>
YES! That was great! And you layered a jump on the way to the weave exit too. SUPER!!! He was cueing off of your foot rotation to get the jump after the weaves so you can turn your feet even sooner 🙂
>forgot 16 was a backside>
That still worked to find the tunnel, but with the angle of the tunnel and you pushing forward to it, he thought it was a left turn exit so be sure to pull away to the right before he enters.
>there is something funky about the way I set 17-18-19-20 because the A-frame entrance was bad>
I think the setup was pretty close to the map – the wide turn on 19 was what set up the line to be zig zaggy there. You were decelerating but the big arm cues and facing the outer edge of the wing sent him a little wide, so you can stay decelerated, use smaller/lower hand movement, and for Casper think of it as a threadle wrap instead of a tandem turn. This will mean your feet will rotate away from him kind of like a spin, to tighten it all up. Part of it is that these turn away threadle wrappy moves are not all that familiar for him, so he is wider as he figured them out. But he will tighten up when he sees them more regularly and as we figure out which cues help him the best.
Hooray for the gorgeous new a-frame!!!
>forgot 22 was a backside — probably why I couldn’t get the turn from 22 to 23!>
Yes, with the front side at 22, the teeter was 100% on his line as you accelerated. SUPER nice teeters, though! Hope you rewarded them!!!
A front cross would be ideal with 22 as a front side, or a big threadle pull (which worked on the last rep) then rear cross 23 But it is still a weird line (you were probably cursing me in your head 😆 but it does run better with 22 as a backside 🙂 )Great job here!!
Tracy
She was a super good lady here, going right past Chris at the beginning of the video! WOW!!! He was right there but not talking and did not have his hand in his cookie pocket 🙂 And the 2nd start was much easier, no human distractions in the ring.
You can definitely add that to class – ring crew sitting far away – as long as you get her pumped up with volume dial tricks and stay connected, then run Spike if the challenge is too hard and she leaves to visit.
Keep me posted!
Tracy
Thanks for the video! I always like to find what causes dogs to leave an in this case my guess is she was a little mentally tired (3rd turn) – plus Chris was talking, walking towards you, and asked if you were ready. AND he had his hand in his pocket which is the international signal to dogs for I have a cookie LOL! She thought he was super cool and needed to know if he indeed had a cookie 🙂 and you can see she was looking at him. So if you see her looking away, take that moment to get her engaged – it can be her spin tricks, or a magic word. But don’t let her go until she is looking at you or the jump, and not at the fun seminar presenter 🙂
I don’t think she was stressed – maybe just a combination of tired and a high level distraction.
In that moment… grabbing her and bringing her back by the collar *can* create stress. So instead of going to get her: run SPIKE!! Spike is always available. I am sure Luna will rejoin very quickly if you do that. Chris might think you are nuts haha but it will get Luna back very quickly.
Tracy
Good morning!
>I do have a question tho, he has classes obedience ones but they are meant to bring him into the real world. And I have dog shows. We are not actually working in these settings because he can’t. Does he just not go? Or is it ok to go with just a watch observe the world with some breaks. So not flooding for an hour.>
That is tricky because world watching is good! But it really depends on what he is doing when he is watching: is he able to relax on a bed or cot? Or is he stimulated or concerned about motion? And after a few minutes, can he eat/respond/tug? If he goes a long time watching and still cannot eat or respond or tug, I don’t think the watching is helpful. If he needs 5 minutes then can respond? Then definitely do it.
But also, we need to find the threshold for where he can immediately respond in those environments. Bearing in mind that not being able to do things like eat or tug or respond to cues is an overarousal state which is not a comfortable internal state, you an split things a lot more to find that comfortable state:
For the dog shows… you can hang out on the perimeter and world watch, and assess what he is doing. And you can be even further from the perimeter (parking lot?) and see exactly where the threshold is for starting to be able to eat/play/respond.
Also, the instant focus game from the Launch seminar is a good way to get, well, instant focus on the perimeter.
The key will be finding the threshold, as that is our starting point.
Since dog shows are not always available or easy to find threshold – I send people to work in the parking lot of a dog park all the time. You can park on the perimeter of the dog park where he can see/hear the dogs but there is a ton of distance available to find the threshold of where he can eat/tug/respond.
And at home & FF, adding to the environment in terms of distraction – it can be novel items on the floor, a new person or dog, slowly building it up.
>The one obedience class gave me permission to work him in the agility ring. That he can handle.>
In terms of finding the threshold, how far away is he and how well can he see/hear the other dogs? That is a great starting point! And then you can gt closer and closer over time. It can be something like setting up a line of bowls heading getting closer to the other dogs, then moving along the line towards them then away, then towards then away. And it is a great opportunity to use the cookie-engage-tug-run to next bowl-cookie-engage-tug-run to the next bowl progression.
>Trigger for him is a room full of dogs in case that matters.>
Are there times in the class when only one other dog is out on the floor? That is also a great starting point in terms of threshold. Or, set it up in training! Can he do simple fun things with Bella also in the ring, then you can switch and he chills out while Bella does a thing?
let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
> I gather that you first say tunnel like 10 feet away and follow it with go, left or right as the dog approaches the five foot mark. Is that correct? >
The tunnel cue comes at the exit of the previous obstacle: so when they are finishing the wing wrap in this game, or jumping/landing from the previous jump on a course. That makes the tunnel cue more like 15 feet away (with the wing wraps here, depending on how you set it) and o ver 20 feet away on a course. Then yes, the next directional comes no later than 5 or 6 feet before the enter: that is both the verbal and physical cue so the dogs hear and see it before entry.
Side note: some handler have multiple tunnel cues to cue the different exits. That would require more verbals, if you want to add more 🙂 but over the years I have found that ‘stacking’ the cues like this for the tunnel has worked perfectly.
>Then on exit, I gather it is a soft left or right, not a wrap. Or could it be a wrap using the wrap directionals?>
Yes – for this game, it is the soft left/right. You can cue a wrap exit if you see it on course, but we really don’t see them that often.
The video looked great and you locked into the timing! I was happy with the timing of the GO reps at :21 & :28 & :38, the right turn reps at
:47 & 1:01 & 1:14, and the left turn reps at 1:25 & 1:32. That was pretty much all of them, after the first couple of Go reps. Yay!2 suggestions for the turns:
– you can also let him see you turn your shoulders to head to the next wing on the left/right cues.– You can also say left/right more quietly so it is very different from the big loud Go verbal. The dogs might not always catch the actual word, but if the volume is different they always catch it. When I use left/right at this point, I say it like I am asking a question so I am not yelling it 🙂 The dogs generally respond to loud verbals with extension, and softer verbals with collection.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Good morning!
>I got myself turned around a few times on which way to wrap and realized I was cuing the equivlent of a backside >
No worries, this game can be played wrapping either way on the start wing 🙂
>And my other verbals were a hot mess… I need some mechanics planning before I do these games.>
I totally relate to this! When I started adding all of these verbals, I had to give myself a mini walk through for the verbals before I added the pup 🙂
Looking at the video:
She was lovely here!
On the 2nd rep, I think a fly or something landed on her flank and that distracted her, but the rest of the reps were good!>1) I feel like she’s still just barely committing to the jump and really cuing that off my movement to it, do I stay at this baby stage until she’s more clearly making the decision to take jump?>
I think she is moving forward to the jump AND tracking the toy throw, as hounds are able to do LOL! You had some really good reps of throwing after she looked forward at the jump and that is key. For example, at 1:24 you nailed the timing of the toy throw: you threw it when she looked forward and not at you. So definitely be connected and watching her like you were there, and throw when you see her look at the jump and not at you (no need to wait for her to get to the jump, you can throw as soon as she looks at it). And using a ‘get it’ marker will also let her drive ahead to the reward.
Because she is large and fast, you can also give her more room between the start wing and the jump – which will also give you more time to see her look forward at the jump to throw the reward.
It looks like she was going back and forth between cookies and the toy really well here, so a way to get her to look at the jump more and not at you or the toy is to use food rewards: using a ginormous light-color treat, you can throw it like you would throw the toy. It is harder to track the treats so she will end up looking forward at the jump more and not at you as much. Then you can tug between reps to keep her spicy 🙂
One more idea: you can use wings on the jump if you have more wings, to give her a bigger visual. A cone can the be the start wing if you only have one set of wings.
> I use “go” as a jump cue. I’m guessing your go go go is more of a go fast and long in whatever direction >
Yes, my GO verbal means big extension on a line and take the obstacles on the line. My ‘jump’ verbal is actually a bit of mild collection compared to the Go verbal.
>(I maybe use “go on” for this though haven’t introduced her to that yet).>
You can use GO ON with a different volume and energy to mean big extension to the jump. Or a different word: some folks use “RUN” but I am afraid the R would sound like the beginning of her name and it would sound too much alike.
And this is a good game to introduce the go on verbal! Give her another session or two of the baby level and when she is consistently driving to the jump, you can just add it into the handling to ‘name’ the behavior.
Great job here!
Tracy
