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Hi!
>These distances between jumps much bigger than she is used too. It nearly killed me- the answer was when I gt it right so did she. >
Yes! The important detail is: when your arms were down and she could see connection, she was excellent. You can see this on rep 1, 1-2-3-4-5 for example. And also at 2:19-2:26.
When your arms were way above your head and she could see connection from under your arm? She found the line with only a few questions but it was hard for you to run. You can see that on the pinwheel jump on the last rep.
When your arm was pointing ahead or moving up and down? She had questions and missed jumps or bars went down. You can see that at 1:19- 1:20, 1:26, 2:17, and on the last run where she dropped the bar after the tunnel.
>Arousal did go up as she was running faster .>
Yes, but she was still perfectly engaged and focused on her work. Yay!
>> we missed the far jump several times as my arm came up so disconnect and didnt run hard eougn – her commitment point is later than fusion not really a surprise. >>
It was definitely a high arm question – it blocks her connection and turns your shoulders and feet away from the line, which pulls her off the line. She doesn’t have that question when your arm is low and she sees connection. And then I think you will find her commitment point to be similar to Fusion – it won’t be as early yet, because she is so inexperienced.
>But her understanding of distance and obstacle commitment has improved heaps since last did some distance.>
Totally agree! She is looking great!!
>> so now I need to get my shit together to help her.>
Yes – it is all about your arms – don’t use them up and down to point ahead as that blocks a lot of the info.
One other thing on this sequence:
For the tunnel threadle, you were giving her a turn cue on the jump before it which is great! Then, use a threadle arm to give her the rest of the info and run directly to the tunnel entry you want. You were pulling her too far off the line and. Then trying to send her back with the dog side arm, so she was confused and was spinning. A direct line of motion and a threadle arm to cue the in AND out to the tunnel will make it much smoother.
Also, try not to reach for the toy in your pocket – that was happening on the 2nd run and she was looking at you do that, then you pointed forward so she was unsure of where to be on the line.
Nice work here! Keep those arms down!!
Tracy
Hi! It sounds like Lift is having quite the New York adventure!!! Fun!
And great job building in decompression – travel is stressful, and add in all of the stimuli bombarding her brain… decompression will be a huge help!
The RR session here was great! There was a lot of stuff that she had to process: new place, stuff in the environment, people nearby… she was very successful 😀
Yes, she turned the other way on the first cue but in challenging environments you can make her cues bigger: louder verbals, bigger hand motions, to help break through the processing challenge.
After she settled into the environment, she was great! Leaving the room was clever 😀 she looked at the rewards on the way back, but then she made a great decision. Super!!!
Great job here! Keep me posted on how the rest of your NY adventure goes!!
Tracy
Hi!
>>Hunter and I did the pattern games when we got to the field. He was very engaged.>>
Yay!!! That’s awesome!
>> I am working those and not letting him run and play when we get there. >>
Yes, that might help get even more engagement: the agility place is where you engage and not running off to party 🙂
>> After the pattern games I walked him on leash to decompress and then a couple of volume dial games and a couple of jumps. He stayed engaged the whole time. >>
This is great! Sounds like he was terrific!
>> He really wanted to come out to work with me. That was good. >>
A little jealousy goes a long way LOL!
>> I reset the jumps and started the sequences with Hunter after some more pattern games and volume dial games. I did the volume dial games in-between when we moved around the field. He did very well with it. I used go swim in-between but think I need to use it more. That is his number one reward to play in the hose or pool. >>
This is all lovely! And it builds in a lot of engagement and speed and excitement.
>> His bark on cue is still only at home.>>
No worries! He will sort that out and then you’ll want him to bark less haha
>>Setting up sequences today with another dog coming to the house so big distractions and I plan big rewards.>>
Super!!! I’m looking forward to hearing how it goes!!!
Tracy
Hi!
>>In class when the collar comes off he automatically goes into a sit for his start line stay. >>
That would totally explain why he didn’t want to tug in that moment. It wasn’t part of the plan! Lol!
>> My thought is to have him tug on the leash when he comes through the gate to keep him engaged and then take the collar off, do couple spins, and have him bounce to keep engagement. Your thoughts.>>
Yes, that’s a good plan. And he will give you feedback – some dogs find that perfect, some dogs find that not enough, some dogs find that too much. We will ask him by doing it and see what he says 😀
>Have to admit my blinds suck period. It is a long work in progress with him. >(
Your blinds don’t suck at all!!!! You just needed to be a stride sooner. Everything else was really strong, especially the connection back to him after the blind.
On the video you added here, that blind can be sooner too. One way to be sooner is to bring your arms in as you do the blind, holding them closer to your ribs. That will allow you to start sooner and show the mew connection sooner too! Everything else looked lovely, especially the connection.
>Thinking about POW POW POW!!!>
I love it!!!
Keep me posted 🙂
Tracy
Good morning! This was a great session 🙂
Video 1:
Super nice toy and tugging on the way to the line!The run was lovely lovely lovely especially your connection. You are connecting brilliantly on all of these runs!
You can reconnect a shade sooner when you finish the blind on the tunnel exit so he sees the new side before he exits (and call him so he is turning to you before he exits as well). He was a little wide on the tunnel exit, so earlier timing will make that smoother.Video 2 – either this is a duplicate of video 1, or you nailed it the exact same way twice 🙂 Let me know if it was supposed to be a different video.
Video 3: interesting how he didn’t want to tug with the leash coming off at first here – is there where the collar was on? (possibly a conditioned response to the leash, maybe usually he gets food in that situation). You did a wonderful job getting him ready to run though, with his tricks and dance moves and singing!! He was FLYING!!!
Your connection was great again here. Yay!
You can trust his line commitment here to get the BC earlier: send to the tunnel from further away so you are more ahead of him as he approaches the jump after it. Then as he lands from the jump after the tunnel, tell him about the pinwheel jump (verbal, connection, motion like you had here) and start the blind so it is finished before he takes off. At :46 you were still watching him takeoff on the original side, so the turn on landing was a little wide because the BC started late. Nice connection to get him to the new side and the ending looked great!Video 4: whoa! He nailed the threadle cue to the other end of the tunnel! Like a rocket!!!! I love it!!!!
One thing you did that made him so successful here was between 4 and 5, you decelerated and turned your shoulders to the correct end of the tunnel. So when he took off for 5, he was on the side of the bar closer to the line you wanted and not looking at the wrong end of the tunnel (and your threadle arm was visible too). So even though he barked (excitement, probably), he had a fabulous line to the correct end of the tunnel.And another click/treat to you for fabulous connection 🙂
And he did really well with his treats out of the ring too! Super!!!
Video 5: he might be getting tired now, and the tugging was not as interesting to him. This is where you can either change to a different toy or food. He still ran brilliantly!
He had no trouble knowing when it was the jump or the tunnel threadle or the straight tunnel that you wanted because you were very clear on your cues in terms of timing and connection.
One thing to consider is clarifying your verbals – in video 4, you used ‘come’ for the tunnel threadle. In this video, you used it to get the left turn to the jump, and “here” for the tunnel threadle.The physical cues were excellent so he got it, but with his speed we don’t want to rely on physical cues only. Since ‘come’ and ‘here’ probably mean ‘turn towards da momma’, you can add a ‘tunnel threadle’ verbal that means ‘go to the other end of the tunnel’. I use ‘kiss kiss kiss’ 🙂 and it means something very different than the turn cues on the jump.
Last video:
Nice job getting the tricks before starting!!! At :27, you can give the ‘tunnel’ cue sooner – when he is landed from 4 and looking at 5, you can start it. You started it when he was over 5, and he was looking at you a bit so he ticked the bar there.He was great about getting his leash back on and going to the cookies at the end of the run! NICE!!! When you are working on sequences (especially in a class or seminar) you can have the reward with you to reward on course too. But being able to work this brilliantly without the food in the ring is going to help trials too!
Great job here!!
Tracy
Good morning!
>I did arrange to go to my mother’s yard this weekend. We can do some simple sequences, she has never been there. I was planning on using it for our teeter tour but we are a ways away from that.>>
That s perfect!
>I really like your idea of a simple one – lower level than we are. Ooh that gave me an idea 😉>
Yay! I love running at a lower level – it takes all the pressure off of baby dogs because the environment is hard enough. And we always learn something, plus I never end up having to explain why I don’t want to do 15 threadle wraps in a row with a baby whippet LOL!!! I am long past the days where I wanted all of my dogs to get to masters level seminars as quickly as possible. Novice is FUN!!!! My current favorite young dog instructor is Casey Keller. She is an up-and-coming seminar presenter, and she has experience with Border Collies but also small dogs (Sheltie and Cocker Spaniel). We’ve had a grand time at 3 of her baby dog seminars now, and I am *picky* about seminars LOL!!!!
>For these reps I left the collar no collar out completely. I wanted to focus on handling properly. >
Perfectly fine! Those engagement games are mentally hard for the dogs, and they do not need to be played every single time. They are like weave poles: train them a bit so the dogs learn them and love them, but it is definitely not good to do 10,000 reps 🙂
Looking at the video – super nice session! One thing that is developing is that your cues are really sounding different – not just because the words are different, but the pitch/volume/rhythm is distinct. I believe that really helps the dogs!
Sequence 1: great!! Lovely connection!
>I still follow the send to jump 4 with a big arm. 😣
Yes, you arm moved forward on the send at :14 but it happened after you connected and sent her. Your arm followed her nose (and the physics of movement caused it to go a little high but she had no questions). The trouble starts when we fling our arms ahead of the dogs without connection, and we look ahead at the jump. In this case, you had connection on the send and your arm moved with her: worked great!
You had less arm at 1:12 but also more decel as you were trying to keep the arm down, so I think the arm movement was actually more effective on a more extended line like this (as long as you keep that connection as you begin the send cue). Let me know if that names sense of it I need more coffee to explain it 🙂
At the end of the sequence:
She is super fast through tunnels so you will want to get to the BC sooner by calling her sooner – don’t wait to finish the blind to call her, you can call her as soon as she is approaching the tunnel. I thought you physically hustled to position beautifully, but you can add calling sooner to give her a heads-up that there is a cue to look for on tunnel exit.Good job on the RC at 1:18, being patient even when she fell (poor girlie!). The RC line was good and nice job driving her to last jump.
She is probably banking the tunnel up high, so with the tunnel bags down low on the ground, she is slipping higher up. You might need to get some of the wide straps perhaps, to help keep the higher part of the tunnel secure too.
And great job getting her pumped up for a last run – that is what her brain will sleep on 🙂 Yay! She is really understanding the pinwheel line so you can send her earlier (starting at landing of the jump after the tunnel) so you can be done with it before she takes off for the pinwheel jump. You were a stride late (she was taking off before you were finished with the blind) so the turn was a stride wide, but your exit line connection at 2:51 was GREAT so she got right back on the line and your spin at 2:52 was fantastic! That got a nice tight turn and put you miles ahead of her. Super!!!
Great job! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Good morning! This went super well!
Great job adjusting the tunnel threadle cue so that you got rid of rotating too much (pulling her in and out with your feet rotating).
Rotating in and out can actually result in the off course when you send her back out, if you are not n the perfect line – this is what happened at :07 and :35 and 1:15 because when you rotated back out, it totally cued the entry of the tunnel she went to.
You moved over on a better line at 1:03 and 1:28 and so that got the correct tunnel entry even with the rotation.
When you were on that line and didn’t really rotate like 1:45 , she had the best line – not too much pull away then push back, not too much foot rotation, she was lovely.
The rep at 2:08 was GREAT – not real foot rotation, just clear cues and great line. She did a great job!
You had really good timing of the “left” verbals there, and also on the reps where you where you didn’t want the tunnel at all (no problem, she never looked at the tunnel on those). She read your shoulders and feet great especially at 2:59 – great position and great job with the left verbal there!! I am using the word “great” a lot here but it is true LOL!!!!
I love how she did all the cues at 4:04, getting the correct obstacle each time through with no questions. Well done!
And yay for you for the blind on the last rep! You used your position on sending into the pinwheel very effectively so you didn’t have to sprint to it, and she could see the turn was coming. Then you were able to get the blind finished and re-connected as she was in the air and your line was very clear, so she had a lovely turn.
Her only question on the bigger sequences was when you were sending her straight to the tunnel again – she checked in a little “ARE YOU SURE?!?!” Haha!! But that was likely due to not being able to fully accelerate yet and relying on verbals to override your steady pace. That question will go away when your knee is cleared for full running.
One thought on this sequence you can try: You can also wrap her to her left on 1 – it is a sweeter line to 2, and adds challenge to ignore the off course jump.
I realize if you have AKC in your future with Roux, you will want to practice this skill (all the skills, really) at a 2 stride distance (21 feet approximately between the tunnel exit and the jumps, and center-to-center on the jump). She is doing 4 strides here and it is fast and fun, but I don’t want either of you to be surprised at how quickly the obstacles will appear on the line when the distances are shorter because it changes your timing and her mechanics for jumping.
I am always too lazy to move the tunnel, so you can move the jumps in closer to it!
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning and welcome!!! Feel free to ask as many questions as you like 🙂
I am excited that you are here and I am looking forward to seeing Sadie Mae! She sounds adorable and super fun too! I am a big fan of mixes too, and you will see several mixes as the demo dogs here 🙂
I am glad the pre-games are going well! because she is young and small, you can do them sitting on the ground or on something low to make it easier. She doesn’t have to be perfect – we are looking for “pretty good” and “roughly right” for now 🙂
>>How often (times per day) should we be working on training/games?>>
Once, maybe twice a day, for about 2 minutes each time. Training is mentally tiring for baby dogs so we don’t want to overdo it. And, you can do different things each session to keep the variety in the training (which keeps it fun!) One thing you will notice here is that latent learning is powerful. What I mean by that is your session might go well, or it might be bad (it happens, I try to show all my bloopers LOL!) and it is fine – but the real learning happens when they sleep. So we give the pups a day or two before repeating a game, and the learning really blossoms. It is like they practice it in their dreams LOL! But it is really their brain doing all the work during sleep 🙂
Have fun!
Tracy
Good morning and welcome!! I am excited to see him now that he is all ready to roll! And I am sure we can add teenager twists for him too, to spice things up 🙂 His pre-games look awesome! When he was a baby puppy, these were much harder. I bet he is going to fly through the Baby Level of the games and we can really focus on the Advanced levels.
Have fun!
TracyHello and welcome back!!! It has been way too long – I miss the New England agility community!!! I’m excited to see your baby Cocker – sounds like her name is appropriate and she’s going to be FUN!
Tracy
Good morning!
> I thought he did such great stuff, I wanted you to see as much as possible.>
You can go over 5 minutes to get all the great stuff in 🙂 He looked fabulous!
>> After the video cuts off my teacher asked about a collection cue for the jump he kept taking.>>
Perfect!
>I have a collection cue, Choo choo choo! I forget all my new words since this is the first dog I’m actually using them with.>
He does know a lot of words! When you walk the courses, remind yourself to use them (and ask your instructor to remind you too LOL!)
>> He did much better when I actually communicated with him. What a novel idea!>>
Ha! It is weird when that happens LOL!!!
>I love that he’s not running around the entire arena once I take the leash off which is what he did when we first started going to class. We have a long way to go but we’ve come a long way already! It’s fun to see.>
I agree! It was so fun to watch him!
>We have another local trial this weekend so he will get some more pattern game work.>
Perfect! Keep me posted!
Tracy
Good morning!
>Too much emphasis on weaves??? Me??? NEVER!!! 🤣🤣🤣 Yes I am obsessed with them.>>
Do you know the movie Field Of Dreams with this famous quote: “If you build it, he will come”. ? I remember that when I am bringing young dogs into the trial ring: If I build it (the love for being in the ring, happy relaxed confidence in that environment), then everything else will come (hard behaviors like weaves :))
So don’t worry about the weaves: they will come! They are already there. It is the confidence in the trial ring, being completely comfy there, that we will build. When you build that, the weaves will come!
>Thanks for the referral to Pawsitive Steps. It’s still a long way but probably better than the drive to Annapolis.>
It is about 3 hour from me, but she is one of the best diagnosticians I have ever met. I also highly recommend Skylos but I don’t think they are any closer 🙂
>> On a better note glad to hear that the only thing tougher is the startline. At least that one is going well for now. I will try to pay more attention to his behavior there too though.>>
He is doing well there for sure! And we can look at it and see if there is anything else we can do to help him out even more.
The ring entry and start line in FAST looked great. He was focused, engaged, and explosive on the release.
>>there was a lot of bouncing but at least you can see our warmup. Not a ton of focus in the ring but it was our first run.>
Actually, he was incredibly focused 🙂 All of the jumping up or coming off lines were due to connection breaks 🙂 When you were connected with low arms and looking at him as you moved? Perfection! You can see that from jump 1 to the teeter. Lovely!
When he comes off lines or jumps up, that is because you were looking forward and pointing ahead with an arm, while the rest of your body turns away. So the info is no longer clear and he doesn’t know what to do. You can see it at :46 off the teeter, :51 on the send, :55, etc. Then he starts to get frustrated and he jumped up at you at 1:06, for example.
So if he comes off a line: keep going, don’t fix (the stopping reads as a punisher to him which increases frustration because he already didn’t quite know what to do). But – use that as a cue to you to connect more! Keep your hands low, make big eye contact to him especially on sends, and slow down the handling a little so you can prioritize connection. It sounds weird to say ‘slow down’ 🙂 but we all tend to be less connected when we are trying to go fast. You are already plenty fast, so making connection the number 1 thing will make the runs MUCH smoother.
On the 2nd run: I loved this!!
Nice job with the patterns he did really well outside the ring! Crowded trial!
At the entry gate: this is where the volume dial game would go. Tricks for toy or treats! And then again at the start line – it looked like he was leaping for the toy, which might be an attempt to decompress, so you can totally play with him there especially on an FEO run. And I am a big fan of tug leashes!The 1-2-3-4-5 line had a LOT of connection and he did great 🙂
It looks like he needed a turn cue before the first tunnel – he exited wide and couldn’t get back to the 6 jump on time (turf is not grippy enough to make adjustments on the flat in time).
Massive click/treat to you for continuing though, and making lovely connection – look at how well he got back on the line! And then your connection was gorgeous on the next line too! Excellent line of motion, low arms, clear connection. He was relaxed and not frustrated, so he did great in the weaves, got his reward.
Then I about died of happiness when you did that lovely reset to set up the ending line. GORGEOUS! The handling to the last jump was not totally clear to him (he was flying and you were a little behind) but because connection was clear, he continued to work the line and did not jump up at you.
A big HIGH FIVE for this entire run – you were building the field of dreams on this one!!! And he felt great after the run too, fully engaged and playing with you <3
Compare your handling on this run to your handling on the FAST run and I think you will see how the low arms, big connection, smooth motion works wonderfully for him 🙂
>>This week we’ve been catching up on Tricks and the Volume Dial.>
Perfect! You can also add in the Find My Face game (package 2) because it will help teach him what to do when you break connection. Yes, I will bug you to always be perfectly connected but we are human so sometimes we are not connected 🙂 The Find My Face game builds up to the dogs understanding to keep working the line and not jump up at us when we disconnect 🙂
>> I did some Volume Dial video. I do see varying degrees of excitement in the tricks we do. I did these with food. Toys will definitely turn the volume to up to 11. I know we’re going to want that but to get there I’ve got to figure out how to teach a toy release. >>
Yes, we want the volume to go to 11!! For now, trade the toy for a cookie. Tug tug tug, say your out cue, and then put a cookie on his nose. It is the easiest way to begin getting the toy release and there is no conflict. Then it is easy to fade the cookie lure and it becomes a powerful cue (sometimes I give the toy back after getting the release too) There are other ways to do it but the cookie trade is the fastest and also produces long-lasting results.
>We have some serious work on Remote Reinforcement ahead too. I’ll be watching that video tonight!>
Perfect! I think he will do great with that 🙂
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Good morning! All the West Coast folks were talking about the wind!
I think this session went super well – lots of success with the leash and remote reinforcement and the mini sequences. And I think it was great to use food too – it is high value for her and also, leash-then-food is exactly what she will see at the end of an agility run at a trial.
Yes, leashing and unleashing in high arousal is part of the puzzle for a lot of dogs. I am happy to find a competition leash that works for them in terms of their preferences for getting it on and off. I had one made for the whippet so it can unclip and fall away at the beginning, then at the end of the run he could slide his pointy head through. He now loves his leash, so there is an added toy in the ring.
She did well with the leash tugging! It opens up a whole new world of shopping!!! And she was fantastic about engaging when the leash comes off. I love how easily that is going to become a cue for her to look at you and be ready to work when that leash comes off.
It also opens up a whole new world of remote reinforcement – so continue to be sure that the leash is laying around a lot and you don’t always cue her to go to it, so she doesn’t anticipate going it 🙂 I thought you were really good about sometimes marking to go to the leash, sometimes praising and not sending her to it immediately, etc. That way it does not become a target, but it can remain a strong motivator.
She was highly successful and I do think it was providing a little challenge as a toy behind her, which is also great for her remote reinforcement understanding. At 2:44 you can see her take a moment to do the full body shake, which as you know if often a reset or small stress response. Nothing to worry about because she did great, but interesting to observe that it was a little hard!
While I am thinking of it – are there any classes or seminars you can take her too? The goal would be to create more positive experiences in different places. It is hard to find appropriate young dog seminars because so many of them are “triple spinning backside layer layer threadle threadle wrap wrap wrap” which really is NOT what I want the baby dogs to be doing. When I go to seminars, I put my youngsters in a level or two below what I think they can actually do, so they can enjoy fast & fun sequences while working through the challenges of being in a new environment.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Good morning!
I hear the winds were BAD!!! I am glad he was unaffected by it!
He looked great in this little sequence, good boy!!!! Yes, there is more speed there but he was thinking A LOT – I prefer the thoughtful approach with these youngsters. As he get more experienced, his speed will really blossom.
Using the magic box 😁 in training is great! It adds a predictability to reinforcement that will help at trials. And to help build speed – you can say your marker to go back to the magic box at varying points in the run. A variable schedule is a powerful motivator and can maximize speed throughout the run! So you can do it after 2 obstacles, 10 obstacles, 3 obstacles, 12 obstacles, etc – at any point (especially over jumps because we humans don’t reward them enough), say the marker and run to the magic box 🙂
How did he do with the games before & after the sequences?
Great job here!
Tracy
