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Hi!
>The wait at the side was much harder. I couldnt quite go forward so went sideways. I fed from hand oops but then corrected myself and did a toss.>
Yes, feeding him at your side builds value for being at your side… which can ultimately make getting a wait while you are moving away a lot harder.
You can move forward more by letting him offer the sit, then you step forward while you mark and throw the reward behind you. That will build in moving forward right away, making it easier to build up duration.
You can also add in using a toy between cookie reps here so he remains excited and does go off sniffing. Eventually the toy can also be the reward for the stay!
>Here is our food toss. my chucking wasnt great but we haveplayed this quite alot.>
He was happy to go back and forth here but he didn’t engage with you a lot – he was looking more towards where he thought the next cookie through would be. So for the next session, wait longer before you throw the next cookie. Let him look towards you for a second or two, then throw it. The engagement doesn’t have to be eye contact as long as it is towards you and not looking out into the environment.
Looking at the retrieve video:
>he wasnt super convinced about toy wondered whether it was because a restricted space. will try with a difffernt toy>
Agreed, I think part of it was that the space was small and he ight have been feeling blocked in. Also, he backed off when you were tapping him on the ribs, so you can take that out. He was most engaged when you were sliding the toy around on the floor away from him, that is when he was grabbing it more but I am not sure he really thinks of this as a tug toy. Two ideas to build on this:
For this type of toy, you can have 2 or 3 toys: when he brings the first one towards you, reward him by throwing the 2nd one, and so on. If he doesn’t consider these tugging toys, you can still reward bringing it back by throwing a different toy.
Yo can use tugs toys for this – attach a fun tug toy to another toy to create a toy that is about a meter long. Then throw one end and when he takes a step back towards you with it, you can pick up the other end and get the whole toy wiggling around for him to tug on. That can help shape getting him to bring more and more steps of bringing the toy back while keeping it fun to tug on.>ps tried getting him tro walk away from toy using food but difference in vale too much, will look at usaing a more boring toy if can find. toys are way better than food so need to keep working on jim working for both when both present. perhaps need to work on the animate the food more to make more fun I keep forgetting this.>
Yes, you can use a more boring toy and you can also use higher value, more animated food. You can also introduce the concept by using a food bowl instead of a toy at first: the food bowl is the reward target a you give him fun treats for walking away from it. At first the bowl can be empty then it can have a treat in it! When he understands that, I think it will be easier to add the toy back in.
Nice work here!
Tracy
Good morning!
His little toy pounce on the first rep was HILARIOUS. The toy was very enticing when you threw it so you can add in placing it down then rewarding with treats for walking away from it without you holding him. That will be a good challenge! Wrapping the barrel then driving to the toy was pretty straightforward, it was ignoring the toy at the beginning of each rep 🙂
>He was into it but then got hot (I think) so we ended the session. >
It was hard to see his face but it did look like his mouth was open so he might have gotten too hot. For the high energy toy games, you might only get 3 reps in the heat then need to take an a/c break 🙂 He will develop more heat tolerance as he grows up, but also as a brachy we will still eb super careful about the heat.
He was also processing how to ignore the toy (he kept looking at it). One way to keep him cooler is to have a lighter harness or just a very light neck collar on him for training? The harness is a bit heavy for a small due so it might contribute to getting hot faster – working him as ‘naked’ as possible can keep him cooler.
Strike a Pose:
>I think my Madonna is broken!! >
Funniest mention of this game ever! I do sometimes wonder if other generations get the joke here or sing the song 😂
You are not broken – you are working a tiny dog 🙂 That is why it feels weird. You can try separating your feet and also leaning the target hand downwards (dipping your shoulder down) instead of bending your knees.
You can also move to the next level which is where we fade out the actual touching of the target – on a real serp or threadle, the pups don’t touch our hands. And it is maintaining the criteria of hitting the target that is making you feel contorted. So you can have your hand less low, and reward for coming near it without actually touching it. That should feel a lot less contorted!
Using the toy was harder for sure, so start it with a food reward and then add the toy back when you don’t feel as contorted 🙂
The lap turns went great here! Yay! Your mechanics were spot on – great timing of moving your arm & leg back then turning him away. Easy peasy! You can go to the advanced level here and also get started with the tandems.
Great job!!
Tracy
Good morning!
He VERY QUICKLY figured out that sitting was getting the click LOL! Smart dude 🙂
Good job delaying the click at 1:45 – and click/treat for you, for ending the session! I am sure it would have been tempting to continue since he did so well.
For the next session, do a reminder rep or two of clicking/throwing the reward for the sit, then start to delay the click/add movement so he gets back into the stay he was doing at the end here. Remember to ping pong duration: some short stays, some instant clicks for the sit, and some longer ones all mixed in.Having the leash in the picture was a pain but it was a good pain 🙂 Getting the leash involved with training will make it easier to take the skills on the road, where the leash will be on him.
Handling combos: He did a good job ignoring the toy when you sent to the barrel! Watching you throw it was hard, because the throw really drew his attention to the toy and you had to hold his collar.
So the next steps would be to place the toy down and then reward him with cookies for moving with you back to the barrel without holding him.
You can add in the FC on the barrel and the decel/pivot too, he did great here! But you were being a good trainer and kept the session short and successful, another click/treat for you 🙂
>For the Game Predictability Part 3. I am confused on how it is different than what I was doing with the novel items.>
There are some similarities but a little different in that a lot of the Novel-Neutral games are not used with pattern games. They are using cued games like cookie recalls, and the pattern games take the cues out of it. Plus, this is the in-between step to taking the pattern games on the road 🙂
Nice job here!!
Tracy
Good morning!
This was a perfect setup for this game: just enough room to bring it back to you and also enough room for you to slide back to add more distance. Perfect! And he was GREAT! He was super engaged with the toy you were throwing (you were a lot of fun!) and it looks like he was also tugging with you when he brought it back.
He also really liked the ball and brought it back brilliantly. Rolling it towards you was really cute OMG! As he gets bigger, you’ll want to get a bigger ball so he doesn’t swallow it but you can definitely keep the balls involved! I bet the balls will still be exciting even when food is in the picture.
One thing I do to be able to use balls in agility is get a big hollee roller, cut through one of the little rubber branches, and stuff a tennis ball or rubber ball in it. That gives us a super fun toy to use with more control over where it lands and bounces.
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
Strike a pose is going really well! You can reward across your body after he targets to your serp arm, then toss another treat as the start cookie (he won’t be sad about 2 treats haha!). That way you can get the in-then-out motion we want on the serp, and then the start cookie throw can reset him from different angles.
You can also add the next steps to this game: reward with a toy instead of treats, then we start to get the reward to the ground: can he come in and target the serp arm even with an empty food bowl on the ground near the reward hand? Then you can drop the reward into the bowl. And if that goes well, you can replace the bowl with a toy on the ground.
Lap turn turn aways (facing him): The reps where you had your feet together (like at :25) were smoother than the reps where your feet were apart. When your feet were together, stepping back as you moved your hand really helps draw him back towards you to set up the turn away. The reps where your feet were already apart might have felt a bit sticky because the hand movement had to do all the work and the leg position being stationary was giving him less room to move. So having your feet together until he reaches your hand, then stepping back as you move your hand will make them all feel smooth.
Adding the prop to the lap turns: he sure does love his prop 🙂 but he drove brilliantly to your left hand when it was stretched towards him and you were leaning over a bit to really show it to him (like at :19 for example). When the hand was not as outstretched (:30) he didn’t really see it and went to the prop.
He had a little more trouble finding your right hand so you can shake it and give him a cookie for coming to it before you turn him away. A little more room on that side will help too, so you can take this to a bigger space.
Once he does the turn away, you can get upright and let him find the prop (rather than lead him to it with your hand) before you throw the reward. I bet he will have no trouble finding it!
Tandem turns – these are going well too! Because he is so small, you might find it easier to have your dog-side arm involved too so basically both arms are turning him away. Using the opposite are was drawing him a little in front of you rather than keeping him at your side, because you had to lean over a bit due to his size. So feel free to experiment with what feels most natural to you that he can see as well.
Adding the prop to the tandems: he did really well here on the right side! The space was a little too small when you switched to your left side so he was still correct to go to the prop until you were right up against the wall. You can push the prop further over to give yourself more room because sometimes your line was drawing him right over it – adding more space definitely helped!
As with the lap turn and the prop – after the turn away, you can take your hands out of just move along a parallel path to the prop so he hits it (then throw the reward). I am very sure he will hit it 🙂
>I also have Bandit working on some of the MaxPup 2 exercises – tunnel smiley face and sit/stay with set point jumps. Since that is self-paced, I assume you don’t want videos of these. He is doing great with them!>
I am glad he is doing well! He is still a little too young for the jumping stuff so resist temptation to show him any of the jumping games. Ignore all the people on social media who are doing jumping stuff with pups his age, that is too much for their baby bodies and also his joints/muscles/etc are not developed enough to have proper striding so waiting til he is in more of an adult body is a good thing.
>I am learning that Bandit is a big sniffer, so went off several times to explore the world.>
It might have been a bit of find the cookie crumbs 🙂 so you can use toys or balls for this too! And working the pattern games regularly and in new places will help a ton as well, because they teach the pups to filter out distractions.
Great job here!Tracy
Good morning! He did so great with the placed toy on the ground – it was almost like he saw it as the context cue that ‘work’ was coming so he was extra happy to go wrap the barrel while ignoring the toy on the ground.
His gravitation back to the barrel after he has the toy likely indicates the value of the barrel and the game/work. Yes, you sometimes faced it and sometimes not, but I think it had more to do with value than accidental cues. And we like the value!!!
We also want to balance that value with other things that are not out away as ‘work’ 🙂 Using the mat was a great way to indicate other options besides the barrel. I am caffeinating and thinking of ways we can add in a balance of value for driving to you after he has the toy (rather than the magnetic pull back to the barrel or mat). A couple of things come to mind:
– in this game, you can add in decel & pivot with you after he exits the barrel wrap. Then either you can drive to the toy, or you can send him back to the barrel (because that does seem to be an intrinsic reward on many levels).
– after sending him to the toy, you can also have him bring the toy to you and the instant he brings it to you and engages with you (rather than migrates to the barrel) – boom! You send him back to the barrel then back to the toy. Basically, we are rewarding the barrel wrap a bit but mainly we are rewarding driving to you with the reward instead of migrating back to the barrel.
Now, that will only be of a couple of reps because if we do a lot of instant sends to work after he brings the toy, he might understandably think it is a chain and send himself. So we would build in more before he gets sent again: sometimes you tug on the toy with him then send, sometimes you line up at your side, sometimes hand touch, sometimes line up between your feet, sometimes instant send, sometimes taking the toy for a run about. You can use food for this too, since teething adds to the challenge a bit.
I am doing something similar right now with my Malinois-mix youngster who is also incredibly driven to work (shocking, I know, in a Mal-mix haha) and it has resulted in a dog who is spot on with equal balance of loving all the elements of work which includes retrieving the toy back to me and playing before the next rep. I can grab video if it ever stops raining!
>Anything else you would suggest so we can keep training and playing while we’re on the road?>
Your list is pretty comprehensive! Are the jumps all going to have wings, or are there any wingless uprights? A single wingless will be useful for some things coming up. Do you have an under-inflated disc you can bring, or a fit bone? That is probably all you need.
>Are you going to be in Chicago for the Invitational?>
I am skipping it this year, just too much family stuff to get back and forth from VA to NY to Chicago.
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Good morning!
He did great here with the tunnel threadles!
The first side was smooth and he read the cues really well. You can be a shade earlier with the cue to threadle here at the beginning – it was happening as he exited the wing, but you can start the threadle cues (arm/shoulder/verbal) just before he arrives at the wing.
On the other side, your cues were later (which is why he was wider) – at 1:12, for example, he was a stride or two past the wing exit when you did the threadle arm and shoulder turn. The later your were the wider he went like at 1:33 and 2:10 (and 1:45 on the original side too).
But when you the cue was in progress when he was arriving at the wing (2:21) he was nice and tight! Super! So definitely keep going with that early timing.
And you can spread things out and start to add more running! The added motion will require the earlier timing or he might end up off course 🙂 And depending on how he reads the line and cues, you might even add a turn verbal on the wing (coming from the wing before it) followed by the threadle info.
The lap turns are going really well – nice timing and mechanics! He was happy to propel around the wings without you needing to run which was great because you didn’t have run backwards at all 🙂
Since this went super well, you can spread the wings out and add more running – but I think your time will be better spent doing the tandem turns. It is the same structure as the lap turns but you are moving a little more and facing the line (instead of facing him). I suggest moving to the tandems because they are used a lot more than lap turns are nowadays, and also they move us really nicely into the threadle wraps!
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
>I’ll try to remember that it’s probably me doing something not quite right – even when I start to think “why isn’t Skizzle doing x ?”>
Yes! I do the same. Thing: when the dog is not ‘getting it’, I try to connect more and if the dog still isn’t getting it, I look at my video 🙂 Dogs, especially young ones, are like mirrors of the clarity of our cues.
The jump grid went well! I agree that the distance was good and also agree that he was a little too far from the first jump. On those reps, he had a good jumping arc but he landed a little short to the bump. When he was a little closer, he was more centered (like at :35). You can line him up with his front feet about one hands-width away from the jump and that should be the sweet spot.
>I was entertained by the last rep – that I thought it was past due to reward the stay – and then he definitely broke it right after.>
That was so funny! On all the other reps he was working so hard to hold the stay after the toy was on the grand until you released. He was great! Then on the last one, he released as soon as the toy went down. Maybe because you were not as connected? Or maybe he was anticipating? Either way, you can get the toy on the ground and then throw a reward back to him so he gets more practice *not* moving when the toy is on the ground/before the release.
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning! The Go line and the RC at the beginning looked really good!
The backsides were harder for sure!
Two suggestions:As you are cueing the backside, make sure you are moving to where the wing and bar meet so she can see the wing (and keep giving her the big connection so she knows not to look for the bar). You were blocking the wing on the first backside which is why she went right past it. The same happened at 2:07 and 2:53 – she never saw the wing. It was good to have a laugh and reward her when she did find it on the way back!
On the reward where she could see the wing, she got it right every time. Yay!
The second suggestion is to reward on the landing side as you keep moving – when she did find the jump, the countermotion of you moving forward made her question what to do on the exit.
At 1:41 you asked if you should have rewarded there or not – the answer is yes! Reward there to help her see he line and then also to commit to the jump bar as you are continuing to move forward. You can also shift your gaze to the landing side, which helps her take the jump.
Since the backside wrap concept is new to her, you can also take out the jump bar and just work it on a wing: that can help her recognize the wrap element then it is easy o pu the bar back in.
Nice work here!!
TracyGood morning! Sounds like he had a fun weekend!!
He is doing well with his waits here! Resist the temptation to feed from your hand at all – that will put too much focus on your hand as you move it away. You can add in lining him up at you are side and walking away forward (instead of backing away) so it starts to look like a real agility lead out 🙂
For the handling combo with the toy behind him: wow, he was explosively fast here!!! I love it!
Next step: we will work more on the impulse control in this game which means no more collar grabbing 🙂 and no more picking him up 🙂 Put the toy down and give him treats for walking away from the toy, then lining up to send around the barrel.
When you were holding him or reaching for him, he was getting faster at not getting caught on some reps 😂 so you can really focus in on the getting him to move with you for rewards and ignore the toy on the ground until you drive to it.
Strike a pose:
>I did do the serp work with toy on ground instead food in hand, a toy is hearder ond on ground even harder . >
He did well ignoring the toy on the strike a post game here!! Very nice!!!!!
>I did forget about getting him to wait or food toss first will add that in next>
Don’t worry about the wait here for now, but definitely try it with the food toss start. That will be a little harder but a good challenge!
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
>I’ve been doing CPE the longest and just added NADAC in the last year, so those are where I’m most comfortable. For Macklynn I haven’t quite decided what venues I want to pursue. Definitely open to learning more of the internationals and AKC to expand MY knowledge base.>
The best thing about agility here in the US is that we have soooooo many options – that way you can really pick and choose your favorite flavors! AKC regular classes will most closely align with CPE and NADAC, and you can add the skills that make it easier to navigate the ISC and UKI courses too! And those skills are mainly distance and independence, which you will also find on a lot of NADAC courses too 🙂
z.Hoping to have sketches for the turn verbals in the next few days for your comment/correction, since some still aren’t registering for me.>Sounds good!! If sketches don’t post here, you can email them to me at agilityuniversity@gmail.com and we can discuss 🙂
>I don’t have a video of our ‘stay’ progress yet, but it may be the slowest progressing game for us so far. We’re still rocking the ‘sit,’ one step, ‘catch’ combo. Anything beyond a step and a half away results in a broken stay.>
Stays are hard!!! Feel free to post a video so we can sort out what we can help her with. You can try a few different things:
– for my dog that had the HARDEST time learning to stay, the clicker was very clarifying so you can add a clicker if you are not already using it. She would sit, I would start walking away, then I would click and throw the reward back behind her as I continued moving away. No stopping or anything, I stayed in motion to get more distance and duration.
It starts off pretty rapid but they pick it up quickly. This is the first clicker session for the baby Whippet. He is not the dog that had the big struggle with it as a puppy but you can see how quickly he was deciding to hold position 🙂
– we can also give her a place to stay on, like a station or bed. That can be clarifying too by providing a very specific place to be.
All of the training sessions are looking great!!!! Very exciting!
Handling combos:
I agree, most dogs have a very clear preferred side. She made it clear here LOL I think she also had trouble able going past the hand holding a cookie, so you can try it with am empty hand to see if that makes it easier to go to the barrel. You can reward her with treats for leaving the toy on the ground behind her, but then use an e pty hand t cue the barrel wrap.
She did a good job of wrapping the barrel with the toy behind her! There were multiple brilliant reps espcially to her easier side and with empty hands.
To build on this, you can add a few things:
Have the toy further away so you both get to run more after the barrel wrap. And you can add a “Go” cue as you run towards the toy, to name the behavior of driving ahead of you.
When you get to the barrel, let go of her collar then send her. There was a couple of times when you were sending her and holding the collar, and she thought it was weird that you were pushing her forward 🙂 I think trying the whole game without touching her would be a good challenge: place the toy, give her cookies for walk with you back to the barrel, then line her up and send without holding the collar at all. She seems ready for that!
Lap turns with the prop – I really like how easily she goes from cookies to the toy! Nice!!!! That is hard for many young dogs and she is great about that.
The extended hand at 1:04 with you leaning over a bit to make it obvious was perfect – that helped her see that you wanted her to come to your hand. The reps after that were quite brilliant!
When she was turning back towards the prop, she was not sure if she should keep looking at your hand or not – you made an excellent adjustment at 2:50 when, after the turn away, you took the cue hand out of the picture and moved forward. She totally knew what you wanted then, and hit the prop perfectly. Surer!!!
At 3:30 you were too exciting (moved fast and said go) so she missed the prop but that last rep with the connection and taking out the hand cue after the turn away worked GREAT. Yay!
Tandem turns: Lovely! She seemed to have no questions.
You were sorting out which hand to use in. The first couple of reps: dog-side arm or opposite arm you might end up liking using both hands LOL with the opposite arm visible and turning her away, but the dog-side arm also helping her come in towards you to help begin the turn cues.Since this went great – you can move to the advanced level and add in the prop!
Strike a pose:
Ah yes, the clouds were lovely – gorgeous weather! I am jealous!Even with the camera pointing a bit upwards, we can see plenty of Macklynn here and the session went great too! Your mechanics were excellent and she drove in nicely to the target hand.
You can shift your connection to the target hand/serp hand as she comes back towards you (instead of looking at her) to help guide her to the hand when the reward is more visible. She was not struggling with self-control at all, but looking at the serp hand will clarify exactly where you want her to go.
Since she did so well with the toy in your hand, you can keep building on that – let it dangle more as a distraction 🙂 And then you can go to the next steps of getting the reward target to the ground. You can start with an empty food bowl to drop treats into and if she is happy with that, you can move to having the toy on the ground.
Great job here!!!
Tracy
Good morning! Hope you had a great weekend!
>I do have an iphone and it won’t load my thread. I think my thread is too long. I can only get on from my computer. Is it possible to start a new thread?
This is the error I get. “A problem repeatedly occurred on “https://agility-u.com/topic/colleen-and-roulette/>
Yes, it sounds like an iOs versus YouTube argument that we see sporadically. This morning, my Mac is not wanting to load YouTube videos in the threads that have a lot of videos but my PC and Android are perfectly fine.
So, also yes – you can start a new thread so you don’t have to wrestle with the issue 🙂
Tracy
Good morning!
Really lovely work here! Smooth-sailing so we can keep adding to these skills.Strike a pose game:
He did really well doing his hand target even with a cookie-filled lotus ball on the ground! It is pretty impressive self-control for such a young dog 🙂For the next steps: you can add in having him start further from you so he has to drive to your target hand. This can be using a cookie toss start, or his stay 🙂
Lap and tandem turns both went great. He is very responsive to the cues here, even with empty hands, which means we can now move to the next step:
Have the prop 3 feet away from you, off to the side. That will create a straight line to your hands for the lap and tandem turns (past the prop instead of over it). Then after you turn him away: keep moving forward towards the prop, stay connected, but don’t reward yet: as you move forward towards the prop, let him hit it and then you throw the reward. That adds in a distance element and teaches him to look for lines after the lap & tandem turns rather than for the immediate rewards. I think he is ready for it!
Great job on these! He is flying through these games!
Tracy
Good morning!
>A MESS is an understatement! I haven’t seen that much snow and ice and multiple days of sub-freezing temps in over a decade! >
Yep – and now we are transitioning into record highs. I guess this is the new normal? Ewwww.
>Karen was great to work with! During her introduction, she noted the increasing trend of dogs as young as five months old doing full courses and she set the expectation that the workshop would focus on puppy foundation flatwork. >
Good for her!!! I agree with her completely.
>Tribute was wonderful throughout! Karen did attempt to move the toy so that Tribute would target it better. However, he seemed a little confused. >
He is giving us good feedback 🙂 Maybe he needs a big toy that can roll, like a giant hollee roller with a ball shoved in it – that way you can roll it really far and it will keep rolling as you let him go to move to it. So it will be a semi-dead toy 🙂
He started off well wrapping to the bowls, but was not sure about it when you stepped back away from the barrel (was going between you and the barrel).
That is a skill where you can get a little more distance by tarting with the 2 bowls and instead of you moving away (which might draw his focus to you), you slide the barrel away but a tiny bit. You can toss a treat off to the side and slide the barrel away while he is racing to get it, then resume the game when he gets back to you.>I am not quite sure how to convert the Vito game into a send followed by the wrap.>
This went well so far! Two suggestions for you to keep building up the skill:
Start very very close to the barrel for now, so the option of coming between you and the barrel (instead of around it) is not as viable. Line hi up at your side before you send, then when he is lined up: send him with an arm, leg, and connection. Then be patient and let him get most of the way around the barrel before you take off and run. You were doing well with that and he really liked the toy reward 🙂
Also, start him on your left side at the beginning of the session, so he turns to his right. That seems to be his easier side and he was gravitating there when he was not sure. When he has a few good reps, you can switch to starting him on your right side to work on the left turns. Definitely be nice and close on that side and super patient to let him get almost all the way around before you run.
After a few good reps on both sides, you can start doing the FC and running with the reward earlier and earlier – putting a line on the ground as a marker for you will help tell you when to do the FC and run, based on when he reaches the marker.
Great job!
Tracy
Good morning!
It took him a moment to realize the MM was IN the tunnel – the look on his face was priceless (so surprised!) I think he was having a BIG MAD at first because he was expecting a cue to start. But then when he realized that HE controlled the game…. Excellent! Lots of good reps without him yelling at you.
Yes, this first session is about shaping because of how it builds value for the tunnel differently than having him do a recall through it (generally shaping builds more value and it doesn’t require us to fade out the person doing the recall :)) Speed is not that important, it is more about the independent decision to go to the tunnel.
By the end he had it and he was PUMPED UP for that toy and to run into it. That means you can move to the next set which adds the verbal cue: holding him, saying ‘tunnel’ 3 r 4 times, then letting him go to run through it. I think the only hard part will be figuring out how to hold him to let him hear there verbal before he starts to move. It can be a gentle collar or harness hold if he doesn’t mind you leaning over a bit here!
>I mixed some smelly hamburger bits into the kibble in the manners minder and he could tell for sure. He did not run really fast to the MM but he did go to it and eat the boring treats.>
Yay! It is OK if he thinks of the MM as a medium level reward for now – we can use it for ‘thinking’ games like shaping where we don’t want him to be deranged for it LOL!!! He did well with it here!
Great job 🙂 Tracy
