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Hi! I hope his foot/leg is feeling better!!!!!
On the video:
Go timing was great! You can throw the reward as early as possible so it lands before he exits the tunnel.The left & right turns went well! The Left verbal can be one stride sooner so he is still about 6 feet away from the tunnel entry, but it sounded really different and that was great!! The Right verbal seemed timely (it was hard to see but it definitely happened before you could hear him in the tunnel LOL!) – you can let him see you turn to the new line sooner as well, so he knows where you are when he exits.
The RC (to his right) at :27 was timely and he read it well! Did all of the right turn RCs go this well? The RCs to his left were harder:
The RC at :34 was one stride late, he was already getting into the tunnel. He was wider coming into the line between the wing and tunnel so you were more lateral and couldn’t start it as early.
I thought :39 was much better timing but it is probably his slightly weaker side (he is a righty!) so he needs to see it sooner. You can move the wing before the tunnel further away, so you have more room to show the RC and get to the new side of him before he gets into the tunnel. That can help!
>>I tried pre-placing the toy to the left of the tunnel, but then he just bypassed the tunnel to get it – lol.>>
Smart! LOL! You might need to tuck it in to the tunnel a little so it is not as visible til he exits.
Nice work here!!
Tracy
Hi!
This session went great! She did a great job finding the tunnel entries from the front side and from the back side! You had very clear connection to get her past the tunnel when you wanted her to do that plus you had strong, patient connection to send her and let her find the backside tunnel entry.
>>It’s amazing how just one day can cement so much learning and the second attempt, several days later, she comes out a total rock star! >>
It is the craziest thing, right?!?! But so helpful!!
>>She only had one blooper where she ran into the tunnel and couldn’t find the opening right away. Ironically enough, my other dog did the exact same thing but only on that side. >>
Yes, that was odd! Maybe the combo of the dark tunnel bags on the light tunnel and add in maybe the light was hitting it a certain way so it looked like it was the entry? Plus your other pup was walking by and that was a visual distraction. Did your older dog have any visual distraction when she did the same thing? I don’t think you set it up weirdly, so it is entirely possible that the light made it look like the entry.
>>Speaking of position, I purposely put it on the opposite side of the yard to see if it would look different and make a difference to her performance. I don’t think she noticed in the slightest. Such a good girl!>>
Yes! She seemed to have zero questions with it in a new place. Yay!!!
Great job here 🙂
TracyHi!
>>I suspect that I was not making enough connection on the failures>
There were a couple of things in play, but the connection was good!
Mainly, he was asking a question about your line of motion and which side of the tunnel it indicated (motion is the strongest cue). Be careful to have your lower body be clear not only on the threadle reps (turning clearly before he exits the wing before it to the threadle side of the tunnel), but also on the ‘go tunnel’ reps – facing the tunnel on the line very directly til he is heading to it.
What was happening here was that when you added the ‘go tunnel’ reps, your lower body on those had one step towards it then was pulling away, so you never moved directly to the tunnel for more than that one footstep. That means the physical cue he saw was basically the same as the cue for the tunnel threadle line and he got rewarded for going straight. You can see it at :11 and 2:12 for example. You were probably heading to the tunnel exit to reward him, but doing it too soon so it looked like the same line of motion as the threadle cue.
So, since it is the first tunnel entry is more visible, he was cuing off of that first motion – one little step then pulling away. At :51 and :57 that is what happened and it is even more visible at 1:25 (the turning to the threadle side was a little late and the physical cues looked the same as the straight line reps. And the more you tried to connect, the more you ended up accidentally facing the straight line to the tunnel entry.
In the next session, be sure to make the physical cues look very different in terms of the line of motion: for the ‘go tunnel’ reps, move directly to the tunnel entry til he is locked on and maybe a stride away from it. For the tunnel threadle, turn sooner and move away to get him to not look at the go tunnel entry.
The markers and reward placement will also greatly help solidify the verbals and the skill – on these reps, the markers and placement were all the same (yes or yay and from your hand) So you can help him see/hear the difference by using a get it marker and throw reward to the tunnel exit (I have also placed rewards inside the tunnel entry for this game to help the dog). And of the go tunnel, you can reward from your hand.
2 other details to get more success:
On some of the errors, you kept going and that will work if you can make the instant adjustment and not get another failure. Otherwise, use a reset cookie or tugging to reset him to buy some time before the next rep to make an adjustment.And once you get past those 2 failures (total) – stop and watch your video so you can see what is happening. There were a lot of reps here (19 cued behaviors) and there were 7 failures (responses to the cue where reward was withheld) so he was working at about 65% rate of success. (Yes, I do count reps and do the math because I am a nut LOL!!) Ideally he is closer to 90%, so shorter sessions will help keep him there. And the lower rate of success was getting some fallout – he was getting wider on the line and was not running as much.
>>Anyway, I’ll let the latent learning do its job and come back to it later today.>>
Latent learning will work best after a couple nights’ sleep, so come back to it later this week and focus on the line of motion to help him out.
Nice work here!
Tracy
Hi!
>>I forgot to include this question in my original post: Should I shift my focus from the dog to the tunnel entry when I want him to turn his head for the threadle entry?>>
I don’t think you need to shift your connection. The connection shift would present a conflicting indicator because your hand won’t follow the connection, so he might look at you even more. Plus, you won’t necessarily see him look at and move to the tunnel – and that moment is your cue to move the next direction.
>>I did it accidentally a couple times and it seemed to help. It may be too much for me to remember and get the timing right to do it on a real course though.>>
It was coinciding with your foot movement 🙂 and he also went to the tunnel on the foot movement when you didn’t shift connection 🙂
>>Also, way back in MaxPup1 Mason was hitting the Strike A Pose target with his teeth. He still does this with hand touches. He doesn’t bite down on my hand, but I feel teeth on my palm or my hand gets licked. At the time you said this was actually really easy to fix. Do you remember how to get the dog to change to a nose touch instead of a tooth/tongue touch?>>
Ah yes! 2 options:
Hold your hand a little higher and angled so your palm is pointed to the ground more, so he has to reach up a bit to hand touch – that will get more nose and less teeth/tongueAlso, you can reward sooner: mark and reward just before his nose arrives at your hand, an ‘almost’ touch 🙂 That will lighten up his approach and then you can shift the timing back to when you get a tiny bit of touch and not teeth/tongue.
Let me know how it goes!
Tracy
Happy birthday Obi!!!!!! One year old already – time is flying!
The sit games are perfect now – great for all the good things his hind end has to do. And you are officially hooked on agility when you drive 100 miles for fitness for sports. I would totally do the same thing LOL!
Looking at his proofing videos here: he did great! He was 100% on finding the tunnel when cued… and not taking it unless you cued it. That is SUPER!!!! And well done with all of the good stay rewards 🙂
A couple of suggestions for the serps and threadles:
– As you move into position for the serp or threadle, have your arm out the whole time (yes, it will feel weird hahahaha) so you don’t release and move your arm into position at the same time. That will cause him to release on the arm movement and will look like a broken stay, but it will not be (from his perspective) if the arm movement gets paired into the release.
– The serp versus threadle went best when you had a clear difference between the serp position (center on the bar or near the exit wing) versus threadle position (near the entry wing). In the 2nd video, your threadle position at :08 and :31 was too center of the bar (looked like serp position) but he was on the threadle side so he threadled. At :21 he was on the serp side so serped ( you were in the same position at the center of the bump at 1:11 where you wanted the serp). Compare to your threadle position near the entry wing at :45 and :57 and also on the 3rd video, and he was consistently getting it right that way 🙂For example, on the 3rd video – lovely clear difference between the serp on rep 1 and threadle on rep 2! Then he had no trouble with the moving serp and also nailed the tunnel cue. Yay!!!
One last detail as you start to add motion to the threadle: Keep your upper body open on the threadle by holding the position til he turns himself away to find the bump so he doesn’t need a second cue to go to it. That will create even more independence.
>>What was the rationale for timing the length of the sessions with dopamine release? I’m vaguely aware that the patterns of dopamine expression are different for classical and operant conditioning (where motivation plays a role), but I’m curious to hear more.>>
Dopamine is totally our frenemy when it comes to life and to dog training. LOL!!! We know dopamine is important for motivation. And yes, dopamine does a lot of different things in our brain but what we are going for in operant conditioning is to be able to work with the reward prediction errors that produce the dopamine we are basically trying to exploit in terms of learning. And not all reps in training have a reward prediction error and therefore many reps are just ‘rehearsal’ and not actually ‘learning’ – that is important as rehearsal is useful but might not be motivating (because of the dopamine release or lack thereof, as well as depletion issues).
Back to reward prediction errors: if we can plan the RPE and the “surprise!” element that brings the desired dopamine release – then step away and leave the dog wanting more, we have a solid chance of creating more intrinsic motivation. The reasoning behind this is that dopamine is like a wave pool and can work as a motivator when it recedes because our brain will be like MORE MORE MORE! So we are motivated to do the thing *again* that got the dopamine release (“ahhhhhhh feels so good” followed by the “MORE MORE MORE” 🤣😂). Rehearsal does not accomplish that the way a RPE can. Rehearsal is valuable in many many ways (mechanics, neuronal memory, etc etc) but might not build the intrinsic motivation the way a super short session or one-rep session can.
Someday, I hope this all gets studied for dog sports! For now, we are can see it anecdotally in dog sports and tie it to the dopamine science.
Nice work here! Let me know if the dopamine ideas make sense 🙂
Tracy
Hi!
>>Thank you for the reminder of pressure/stress. >>
And remember that pressure and stress are not the same thing – we can have pressure without stress, and can tip over into stress is there is too much pressure or lack of clarity/failure.
>> I didn’t really know how to read the difference between doing the thing and doing the thing but struggling a bit. If that makes sense??>>
Totally makes sense! It looks different for every dog.
>>Also, I was struggling with “jump left” vs just “left” because I did it with Mo beforehand and pulled her off the jump. So I had decided that she needed the jump cue, but I bet it’s my timing/pressure…>>
It might have been that you slammed on the brakes and rotated too soon, so be sure to video her sessions too so you can see what happened.
>>We revisited our go-outs. I feel like I was better about not stepping in (but maybe not perfect) and I definitely remembered to use the outside arm, and he read it way better!>>
Yes, the get out went well! And you did a good job staying straight on all the reps – that is HARD to twist the upper body but not turn your feet. The connection and outside arm seemed super clear to him and he did great! Because it was easier to see him commit (and he was perfect with the balance reps), you can now add the advanced level with the crosses 🙂
Looking at the ladder video: thanks, FAS!!!!
His set up spot in front of jump 1 was a little too far away from the bump on the first rep and last rep, so he landed a little short near that jump. His start position on the 2nd rep and the middle reps are better and he was more centered between the jumps. He was a little short between bumps 2 and 3 but I don’t think it was distance – I think it is. That he is young and has not developed his hind end strength get. So you can keep the distance shorter, and start come puppy strengthening such as tight sits on a small square plank. We can’t do a lot of conditioning because of his age, so the shorter distance to help him find his balance will be perfect for now!He did well with the first time on the zig zag with bumps!! You can move the wings in closer together now so there is less room between them – that means he has to zig and zag after which also means you have to cue sooner & faster 🙂 With that in mind:
>>He did kind of whack the jump bumps, not sure how concerned I need to be about that at this point?>>
That was where you can cue sooner – at :20, for example, he whacked the bump because your cue to take it came when he was almost past it. So you can cue sooner: as soon as he looks at the first bump, cue the 2nd one, then when he looks at the 2nd one, cue the 3rd one. You will feel like you are playing the world’s fastest game of ping pong 🙂 but the earlier info will help him go over the jumps cleanly.
Great job here!
TracyGood morning!
I think there are a few things that cause the sticky behavior on the wings: an error, a session that is too long when there is a lot of collection being cued, and too much reward near you/away from the wings. Here I what I mean:
Errors: We have seen the sticky behavior start after an error in a couple of sessions. Even if you do a spin for a cookie after it, there is a stop in the action and I am sure the dogs perceive it as an error marker. The session started off nice and zippy! Then you had a moment to sort out the next handling (she started sniffing) then a late cue leading to an error at :46. She did the next rep and got a cookie next to you (more on that below) then she was air sniffing and sticky after that. So if there is an error: freestyle it and keep going as if it is was totally correct (because it probably was in these handling game that depend on our timing :))
About rewards: she was getting rewarded after the single wing wraps plenty and that is good! We can change the placement to help get more drive away from you. The rewards were coming near you or coming running away fro the wing, so mix in throwing more reward to the ‘landing’ side of the wing, opposite of where you are or where you are moving to. That can help shift the value to the wing more and reduce her interest in being next to you as much (where she gravitates to in the sticky moments).
And, shorter sessions will definitely work, with more emphasis on going fast (race tracks!) and less emphasis on the collected turns. This was a long session and collection takes up a lot of bandwidth! You can do a one minute session of the collection game then take a break or do something else that is all about zipping around and going fast 🙂 She did get engaged nicely with the toy after all the food!
>>I also dont’ do tandem turns very often. Do they end up having the same or a different verbal than a threadle wrap?>>
I use the same verbal as a threadle wrap because they are very very similar in terms of what the dog needs to do. The handling of the exit is different but the dog behavior is pretty much the same on most of them 🙂 so the threadle wrap verbal will help her come to the correct side of the jump and get the collection too.
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Good morning!
>We had a much easier time turning left into the tunnel even though Mason usually has a strong preference for turning right. I’m really not sure what the difference was, but on the right he kept jumping at my threadle arm.>>
It could have been a couple of elements (like if the turn away to the right video was done after a lot of reps of the first video and other stuff in training, then he might have used up all his bandwidth). But mainly I think the turn away to the left had subtle cues that the turn away to the right did not have:
He did well when you did it without the wing in both directions and you walked in a relatively straight line towards the threadle tunnel entry. Yay!
When you added the wings, we started to see a subtle difference:
On the first video, you were turning away from the line more on most of the reps, then doing a subtle rear cross on the flat foot work before he got to you to turn him to the tunnel.
At :09 – :12 (also at :27) watch your feet versus rep towards the tunnel entry before he got to you, so he turned away). Compare that to :04 and :42 on the 2nd video where you did not do that – your feet were facing the tunnel entry you wanted the whole time. And that is correct! But he needed a bit more back chaining to be able to turn himself away from you without seeing a foot cue like he saw on the first video. And since there was no foot cue and you were relatively far from the tunnel, he turned towards you and bopped up at the hand. So, on both sides, keep your feet going straight at the tunnel entry so he can turn himself away – and back chain it more gradually so you start close to the tunnel and as he is successful, move back just one or 2 steps at a time so he has more experience seeing the cue between the wing and the tunnel entry. Then it will be easy to add the wing wrapping back in.
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Good morning!
The Reunion sounds fun!!! She still had plenty of spark and did well here.Good job starting with a wing wrap warm up, then the tunnel by itself, then building up from three (especially if it was the first time with 20 foot tunnel). The tunnel threadle went really well – nice job tarting at a walk so it was all very clear (nice line of motion directly to the tunnel entry!) You can add more speed to it on that line of motion, I think she is ready for that 🙂
She started to get sticky on the wing wrap – I think part of it was when you were a bit too abrupt with the transition at 1:19 (deceleration needed to commit her then rotate) and then you fixed it in the moment… that caused her to start to think hard about it on the next reps, so if you pull her off a wing just keep going as if you totally meant it to happen LOL then add decel into it on the next rep.
And you can keep spicing things up by mixing in more running stuff like you did at the end: straight lines into the tunnel, tunnel exits, and you can also do race tracks around the wings rather than wraps and crosses.
Nice work here!
Tracy
Good morning!
She gets faster every time I see her work! Yay! She was not out of control… just fast fast fast and very motivated 🙂 It might have felt like having a rocket ship coming at you. So a few ideas for you to be able to get the info to her in time (when the info is late or not clear, she defaults to coming to you which is fine 🙂 ):
>>It would also be beneficial if I was more left/right savvy.>>
For now, don’t worry about them! Motion and connection are more important, so you can say ‘wrap’ or something for now, and focus more on motion and connection. Verbals can be added later on, no problem at all.
So to focus on the motion: you can move the wings in a little closer to each other. When you send around the wing and into the tunnel, take a few steps towards the tunnel. That way, when she exits the tunnel, you can be moving forward along the line towards the next wing. That forward motion will help her lock onto the wing. If you are not moving or rotated, she will drive to you.
And as you move forward, look her right in the eyes (your hand can point to her eyes too) and tell her to wrap the wing. This is critically important as she exits the tunnel: being ‘blind’ in the tunnel will cause her to need the info just before she exits, so she will be looking at you. And the connection will help show her the line.
Any word coming out of your mouth is fine for now, as long as you say it to her 😁 and keep moving forward while looking at her until she gets to the wing. The connection is super important because it turns your shoulders to the line you want her to be on. It might feel *intense* but she is going to love it (and it will also help her stay out on the line).
Adding the connection and the motion? It will feel sooooo much easier and smoother 🙂
>>Yesterday we had the club run thrus, a tiny group, so we got a decent amount of ring time. We worked some stays, two super low jumps, and big tunnel. She was solid with treats and hard on her tug, the one I save just for in public, need extra focus, one. >>
Do you mean hard on the tug, as in she was tugging really well? Sounds like she did great!!!
>>A minor run off, but considering the setting, good attention to her work. >>
No worries, she is very inexperienced in that environment and sounds like she was fantastic!
>>Better than today here with minimal distractions other than being outside in the cool air.>>
On the 2 clips here, she was really fast & driven – which is admittedly a little challenging for us humans when we are trying to move, connect, say the correct word, etc. If something goes wrong, just keep going or reward her – if she gets frustrated, she might take off for a zoom. But the motion plus connection without worrying about directionals should help smooth it out.
Nice work here! Let me know how she does with more motion and connection!
Tracy
Good morning!
OMG! Poor Frankie!!!! I hope she is feeling much better. That must have been so scary!
On the bang game: This went well! And the bowl was in a good spot too. She seems to be really getting the idea of the end position!!!
She had some trouble with running around the board or jumping on too high up on the board, so you can start her at your side for each rep, right at the end of the board (a collar hold if she is happy with that will help, or you can use a cookie lure) That way you can cue her to hop on when you are ready, and she will hop on right at the end and go into position.The only thing to add is a release from the board to go to the bowl – you can reward in position, say her release word while being stationary… then a heartbeat later you can move to the bowl. She will ideally move on the release word, but that is not as important as you not moving before the release word (for now).
Since it is a repetitive behavior, you don’t need to do a many reps. I think 3 or 4 reps on each side and then moving on to something else is perfect.
On the sequencing video:
>>I was terrible at keeping connection. I can see it when I watch the video but couldn’t see it when it was happening. I feel like my yard is a teeny bit small for the setup and I’m squishing it and making it awkward. Or maybe I just need to work on my connection!>>
The setup was good (not squished) and your connection was generally very good… but the moments when it was not as clear were when the errors happened.
On the lead out itself, if you disconnect while walking away (that is fine) it is really important that you reconnect, take a pause or praise and then release. If you reconnect and release at the same time, the reconnection will become the release and she might leave the stay sooner than you expect. You can see that release & reconnect happening simultaneously at :07 for example.
Looking at the other connection spots:
Looking at the right turn wraps (dog on left at the start): At :08, you looked forward/broke connection so she went past the jump – you marked it as wrong and didn’t reward until after you marked and turned away, but when a youngster runs past a jump, you can assume it is handler error and keep going then reward (rather than stop and not reward). Even if you think it was doggie error, keep going, reward, then watch the video 🙂
The same thing happened at :31 – you did not reward that rep (and mentioned you had your eye on her) which brings up an important point: you could see her, but she couldn’t see the connection. So it is possible to break connection and still see the dog (peripherally) so always just keep going and reward the next part of the sequence. I have broken connection plenty of times where I could still see the dog LOL! And my adults save my butt but the youngsters do the same things that Bazinga did here.
You were much clearer at :43! And she got it perfectly.
That is also why you sometimes got blind crosses:
At :17 you connected on your right side after the FC then looked forward – that looks like the beginning of a BC cue so she correctly changed side to your left side. The same happened at :58 – she was on your left on the release, then you looked forward so she correctly blind crossed to your right to the jump.
You were much clearer at :26, maintaining connection all the way through! And the other dog-on-right reps to the left turn wrap looked good when you moved forward directly to the wing – you can decel and start the spin sooner (starting the rotation before she arrives at the wing) so she sees the BC element of it sooner. That will help her keep the bar up (1:24).
So for now, keep the connection really exaggerated and maintain it all the way through (no peeking forward LOL!). It will get easier as she gets more experienced.
Nice work here!!
Tracy
Good morning!
>>She spent the day at a trial and did some nice sit stays, greeted lots of people and practiced being a perfect puppy.>>
Yay! She was born already perfect, so she doesn’t need a lot of practice to keep her skills fresh there 🙂
This session went really well! She has a great send to the ‘normal’ 😁 end of the tunnel and also was great about reading the cues to the other end. Yay!!!
2 small details:
When you want the regular end, be sure that you point your feet to it til she locks on. At :33 and :44, you said ‘tunnel’ but turned your feet away to the ‘other’ line, so she looked up at you with a question there.And since she is changing her line to the other end of the tunnel so well, you can totally move more directly to that tunnel entry. You were exaggerating the pull away then almost doing a rear cross on the flat to get her into the tunnel entry – she did it but we can get her to do it more independently without relying on additional cues. Plus, if your additional cue is early, she might end up in the original tunnel entry (which is what almost happened at :23 :))
So after you get the wrap on the wing, turn your feet and change your line and move to the outer edge of the tunnel entry you want her to take (and use your arm & verbal like you did here). And keep moving to it (slow jog at first) until she looks at it, then you can turn and reward her for it. That will get her to go to the correct tunnel entry on her own – but doing it slowly will help her see/hear the differences in the cues. Let me know how she does with that!
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
>>Also, there was a high pitched squealing noise in the background, and I am sure that was not helping his brain trying to process the hard mechanics on a rear cross.>> Ahhh, yes. My lovely neighbors who use their leaf-blower about 3x/day. So great. >>
It didn’t seem to be a bad thing for him, in term of being stressful. It seemed to add pressure to the environment, which takes bandwidth away from processing: and since RCs are hard, he didn’t quite process the cues and mechanics etc. Pressure is fine and it is different from stress – but with his age, if you see something is not quite working, you can check to see if there is pressure in the environment and either reduce the pressure if possible, or go to a skill that is more easily processed. You are habituated to the leaf-blower and your adult brain doesn’t need to devote any processing bandwidth to it. But a puppy brain sure needs to process it 🙂
And you can see that the RC was much easier when there was less pressure in the environment! Super!
2 smaller details:
If he isn’t targeting the MM, get it completely out of the picture so he doesn’t learn to ignore it 🙂
And I don’t think you need to say “jump left”. “Jump” actually means to take the jump gently towards us (that is how it ends up whether we like it or not LOL!!) and jump then left delays the info. So you can just say left or right rather than using jump before it, because left/right mean take the jump and turn left.
There was one little blooper exiting the wing wrap – you didn’t make connection at :16 so he had to guess at which side he needed to be one. The rest were super connected and great!
On a couple of the starts of the RCs but then when you stayed closer to the wing, the line was set better and he nailed it like at :23 and :40 for example.
I am glad that at the end you tried it without a placed toy and he still read the info. SUPER!! Yay!
On misson transition:
>I think that’s why I got some of the early pulls off of the jump with James –>
With him, two things were happening:
His question when he pulled off the jump was a good transition question. On those reps (:03, :27, :36) you decelerated and rotated basically at the same time, so the decel was sideways and that pulled him off.
Also, those were left turn and on your right side… I think part of it was that you were more comfy with him on your left because your handling was different on those reps:
When he was on your left, you were super clear about running fast forward, then slow forward, then rotating after a few steps of decel and when he was definitely collecting for takeoff. I loved :16 and :22, the were great! And it is possible that right turns for him and dog on left for you are the stronger side of you both 🙂
So keep doing that for when he is on your left, and match that when he is on your right: show distinct acceleration, then distinct decel and keep moving forward/facing forward until you see him collecting for takeoff… then you can rotate and run away 🙂
On the get out video:
>>I think I maybe helped too much by stepping in>>
Yes, those successful get out reps were because your feet stepped to the jump, so they were more like forward sends. The line of motion should be the same as your go reps (which looked great). You had that line of motion at :12 and :29! He didn’t read it as a get out because you were using dog-side arm, which looks very much the same as the go reps in terms of how it turns your shoulders. So you can keep that line of motion and connection, and try and opposite arm pointing to the exit wing of the jump. That can turn your shoulders more clearly to the jump and it looks a lot different than the go cues, so he should be able to read the differences.
>>he is keeping me honest (or trying to, anyway).>>
Yes! He is a mirror: he is great about reflecting the info back to you by doing exactly what you cue. Good boy! And good job rewarding him even if things didn’t go according to plan, because he is really being great reading the cues 🙂
Nice work here!
TracyGood morning!
>>The only time she has questioned a release is occasionally on a moving target situation. Doing it twice in the same session is unusual.>>
It is probably the back of the brain taking over the processing (as opposed to the front of the brain, which is still being installed at her age 😁) and the back of the brain was probably like “FREEZE THIS IS WEIRD” hahahahahaha. You can help out the front brain by adding focus forward releases from a stay to a treat a dropped toy, etc, just to get the neuronal memory paired up with releasing. That way the release will require less processing as opposed to doing a lot of it in front of a jump grid which requires a lot of processing at this age.
>>I almost never use lap turns since facing them cues so much collection. I am guessing that will be less obvious when I spread the wings further apart and have to run into the lap turn position so am not hanging out there for so long.>>I think her time is better spent with you doing tandem and then threadle wraps… even with more room, you rotating to her (which will appear potentially more sudden with more room) will be oodles more collection than she needs. Plus I simply cannot remember the last time I saw a lap turn opportunity on a UKI course. The lap turn is mainly to teach the turn away skill at this point, so now that she has it you can focus on the more useful skills 🙂
>>For the zig zag, do the bumps stay in a line? (vs being slightly angled)>>
Yes, they can be in a line if you are going to help with exaggerated handling. If you want to move up the line kind of like a serp, then angle them so she can see the line through them.
On the video: This went well!
>>She questioned the tunnel (which she didn’t in previous sessions. Did my shoulder closed too much?>>
I think there were some questions so she was waiting for more info: At :08 and 1:30 on the tunnel releases, your arm was back in serp position as you made a big connection, your body was in threadle position, and your verbal was definitely tunnel… so she questioned it til you swung your arm forward and got closer to the tunnel.
Versus the serp reps, where your shoulder was closed until after the release then you moved it open for the serp.
So showing more of the shoulder and positional cue before the release will help – and for the tunnel cue, it is ok to have a softer connection which should help it feel better to have your shoulder forward.
One other suggestion:
On the serps and threadles, in general you be closer to the jump so you can reach out and touch it 🙂 That way she will collect before takeoff on the serp, and find the jump on her own after the threadle cue without you needing to step to it (we want that default of in-then-out on the ‘come’ cue). Based on how well she did, I think this will be no trouble for her 🙂 And if she gets the tunnel after the jump on the threadle, that is fine but you can also reward just the jump element.
Great job here!!
Tracy
Good morning!
>>I’m quite impressed myself. She has so much more motivation overall. >>
You totally should be impressed – you’ve done the work and it is fun to see the results!
>>Very interesting observations on each direction of turn that I did not catch until I rewatched my video after your feedback. She didn’t turn as tight to the right but it definitely seemed more powerful and fluid, like you said.>>
When we time the turns with medium-sized dogs like Kashia, those powerful, slightly-wider turns are faster 🙂
>>She got 3 Qs in Open during her first trial at the Open level last weekend. If it weren’t for a knocked bar, she’d have 4 out of 4 Qs for a two-day trial!
Wow! Congrats!!!!!!
>> Like the decel exercise from yesterday. That was much harder for her than it was Kashia!>>
Yes, we learn how to create a better foundation for each generation of dog. For example, all of these decel games were developed because the older generation didn’t really understand it as a cue, so we struggled to get tight turns with them.
Looking at the layering video:
Layering is super popular (again 🤣) now – it was popular when I started agility back a zillion years ago LOL!!! The trick to the layering challenges nowadays is to start closer to the previous line and propel the dog away into the layering, while we run a parallel path.
And because of this, we are teaching the dogs to basically stay on their lines until otherwise notified 🙂 That is the part she had a bit of trouble with here: stay on your line until we tell you something else. Running towards the layering then pulling away can pull the dogs off the line, and I think that is part of what was happening here – then when she got locked onto the tunnel, it was hard to get the balance rep of NOT the tunnel.
>>Like I was doing something wrong to not paint a clear picture to the jump. >
It is not as much of a handling skill as it is a dog-training moment. The handling gets her on the layering line to start it, but then we need to teach/reward her for staying on that line and not wanting to take the obstacle nearer to you. She was starting to get it by the end and staying on her line! Yay!!!
Since her questions were almost all about coming off the line towards you, 2 suggestions to get her onto the parallel line more easily for the layering:
– from the handling perspective, start further from the further jump, or right near the barrel, she so she can see you accelerate and you won’t get too far ahead. That way you can show the line and run a parallel path, without getting too close to the lien then having to pull away to layer.– with the layering cues (like the big go go go verbals), throw all the rewards out on the line to keep her driving the line on the line parallel to yours. And yes, she might have a little trouble changing the line and NOT layering but that is where you can add more handling (which you totally did, and you changed the verbals and that was great too!) You can bring the jumps in closer so the distance is not as big, to get her started on it and then you can gradually spread out the distance.
She will totally get this with practice then the whole game will be much easier 🙂
Looking at the banana line game:
She was cracking me up with her pounce the target on the right side reps! Good girl!And I totally see what you mean about heel position on the left side – there is a lot of value for that behavior so we can change up the cues to help her. When you were running with her on your left, with your arms down, she was great! When you had your hands up in front of you or behind you, I think those hand positions were too associated with heeling so she reverted to that more. So for the left side work, you can stay a little closer to the target for now, but run run run with your hands down like you would on a course. The right side is going super well so you can add in more distance on that side too (the speed was really good).
Great job here!
Tracy
