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I agree! She was brilliant! The hardest thing for baby dogs is to go to a brand new place and run basically the same as at home… and she did it. YAY!!!!!
I also agree that she was a tiny bit more thoughtful on the jumping run… but that might have just been processing the footing and big new ring. It was pretty noisy in there! But she did great and absolutely rocked the snooker run.
She did well at the beginning (stays) and end of both run. I’m so excited by all of it!!
Next steps are to start running with empty hands (in class first, then in trials) as we progress to running for real 🙂 What is next on Lift’s calendar?
Great job!
TracyShe did great here! Yay!! She found her entries really well and ignored all the distractions. Good girlie!!!!
In this environment, I think you can add the 2nd set of poles. And when you are at home in your backyard, maybe start with a session on just the entries like here to generalize the behavior. Then you can very quickly add the next base to get 4 poles going, and add lots of your motion 🙂 She looks like she is absorbing this like a sponge!
Great job!
TracyHi! I could see from his expression on the start line that it was a hard environment, but he did well! The missed tunnel at the beginning of FAST was mainly that it was a weird line and the tunnel was offset so he didn’t really see it as on the line.
He definitely thought this teeter was weird! In the Premier run, he was running straight towards the judge who was waving his arms around… that might have been a little distracting. Plus the general layout of an indoor turf ring is different from what he is used to, like with the weaves right up against the ring fence. But he did well!
Outside the ring, is he able to play pattern games and do tricks? Both of these can help the distractions in the environment melt away. And on the way to the line (and after the leash comes off) you can ask him to do something fast and fun like a favorite trick – that can also help get him pumped up and ready to run!Nice work here! Keep me posted!
Tracy
Hi!
Out of curiosity, were you getting glitches on an Apple device? Ipads/Iphones/MACs don’t love to talk to wordpress or google (youtube). I never see the glitches on a PC.Thanks for the grid video! She was quite smooth on most of this! She took of a little early on the last one but that might be a product of changing the distance and of the toy placement (can be further away when working the big distances). This had you stationary, so adding your motion is definitely on the priority list.
I am gathering a list of body work people in your area! I will PM it to you. She doesn’t need to sit still for them, they can work magic LOL!!
Tracy
Hi!
>first video actually end last week was working on extending her run on- decided the first jump after tunnel wasnt issue more the later jumps so did the exercise with jump 2 and 3 close together and then moving three further out not that these two show very well in video. Definitely helped.>
She did well driving ahead here! 2 ways to build on this exercise:
Using both jumps, you can lead out less so you are not as far ahead of her when she exits the tunnel. That will get her driving further and further ahead.Use just one jump after the tunnel, and move it further and further away from the tunnel exit until it is 10 meters away! And you can be further away, either behind her or lateral from her to add distance.
Weaves are going much better with the channel and the toy! Start adding your movement so she gets used to it. And also, you can throw the toy sooner so it lands before she looks back at you. Or you can place it on the line so she can target it to, which will allow you to add all sorts of independent movement.
Back chaining the dog walk is good but like with the waves – we don’t want her immediately coming back to you after she goes down the ramp. A target or placed toy will help.
>all of these would like to place toy or havesomebody else throw it but neither possible.>
Why is a placed toy not possible? It is a good thing for her to learn how to deal with. You can also use a target on the ground that the toy is then thrown to.
>. wondering whether if placed a jump a little on it would give me time to toss forward more as dont want to toss while she is doing dogwalk or weaves. >
A jump might cause her to lift her head and leap over the contact, so a target or thrown toy is more ideal.
It is worthwhile to work out the reinforcement for the weaves and DW at this stage – that will speed up the learning and get the end results even better!
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Hi!
>I have a UKI trial – Speedstakes (2 runs) only Friday night so I can do the cookie chase to see if that gets him moving outside the ring. Since we know the issue do you think for these 2 runs just go into the ring and do a couple spins for me, etc inside the ring and maybe do a couple figure 8 over a jump and out the ring we go. Your thoughts.>
If you can get him to do some spins or silly tricks inside the ring as you come in and before you start to run? GREAT!!!! You can also try a ‘ready set go’ start where you gently hold his collar and say ‘ready…. set……’ then let go and say GO and start to run. I don’t know if he will like it or not, but it is something to try!
>On Sunday will be Speedway RUN THROUGHS. Since I can take treats in, planning on throwing food as we go through the gate and see if that helps. Once in, my plan is to do pattern games and tricks and see if he goes through tunnels and/or hoops, etc. My main objective doing these 4 runs Knight being happy. Any ideas greatly appreciated.>
Yes – enter with pattern games and when he is looking excited and engaged, ask for a spin then toss a treat… and if he can do that? Then you can try sending him through a tunnel and run, and see what he does.
>And just want to say THANK YOU FOR ALL YOU HELP THESE LAST FEW MONTHS. SO APPRECIATED.>
Happy to help! I feel like we are getting closer to figuring out what he needs! Keep me posted on how the weekend goes 🙂
Tracy
Hi!
Yes, you would gradually expand it to normal distances, and work it with more and more speed 🙂
T
Sorry for the delay – I kept getting an error message trying to load the video!!! Finally got it to work. Fake spring looks lovely, hopefully it turns into real spring!
> I will say I do think in the past she had a hard time on this grid so definitely looks improved.>
She definitely improved even in this session! Do you have any video of this grid from previous attempts? She had questions on the 1st, 2nd and last rep, and sorted it out really well on all the other reps!
She did best when you were not that far ahead and kind of parallel to her as she was at the last bar – that is where we see the most balanced stride into the last jump (on any of the distances). When you were further ahead as she landed from 3, she would throw in a bit of check stride then almost throw herself over the jump (:04, :26, 1:49 and the slow motion counterparts).
So you can play with getting ahead of her and keeping the bar low (16″) and see what she does when you are running AND ahead of her (passing the last jump as she is over jump 3). BTW – her stay looked great!!
And you can do the last bar at 20″ but see if you can stay parallel to her or even a little behind her, for now.
Since she was measuring up her jumping in a way I hadn’t really seen her do: do you get her seen by trigger point massage people? Between the icky ice and cold of winter and running on mats (where she has to run tight), she might have a trigger point or something restricting her a bit – and resolving that would make everything else very easy!!
Great job!
TracyHi!
Ah yes, horse snacks and the ear infection all probably contributed. I don’t think it is an issue, it just seemed outside of the norm for him.
His sequence work with the remote reinforcement looked great here – he has come a long way with that!!!! I can see the head shakes here too (from the ear infection, I am guessing) but it did not seem to cause any issue with his performance. He was fast and accurate, and didn’t head to the leash or treats until you cued him. Super!
So we need to combine this with the people in the ring. I think you can do a 2-pronged approach: maybe on his first turn in class, you can have treats with you and a LOT of people in the ring, people moving, etc. Then maybe in his seond turn: you do the first part of the course as remote reinforcement but with less pressure from the people. Then after he gets the first reward, the rest of that run can have the treats with you. When he is proficient with those, we flip it: the first run then becomes the remote reinforcement run. Let me know if that makes sense 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi!
>Knight at first did not want to go into the tunnel at all. I started doing the pattern game.>
Aha!! I think we have found the pressure point for him – the pressure of the people. Now the goal is to get him relaxed sooner so he is not concerned on those first runs. I am glad the pattern game helped. You can bring him into the ring with the pattern game before asking for an obstacle. As he gets more relaxed, yoyu can ask for a trick or something simple in between pattern game treats… then when he looks REALLY comfy: into the tunnel!
You can also do cookie-chase- recalls through crowds of people: there are people standing around (no obstacles involved) – you toss a good cookie one direction, away from you. Then you run away and call him so he recalls to you past other people. It is a fast & fun game to help get him running and more comfy ignoring people. Agility is one giant recall with obstacles in the way 🙂 so this is a good way to build in the other people.
> Saw the issue in class and was able to resolve it. Know we still have a ways to go but there is light at the other end of the tunnel!!!>
So true! Being able to re-create the issue is a big deal! And having him work through it is fantastic!
Tracy
Hi!
>USDAA this weekend – My plan is FEO with her favorite furry lotus tug. Short sequence, toss toy, leash, out to party. There’s no food box and I don’t want to dilute the “toy is a predictor of treat coming up” bit by asking for a 2nd short sequence after tossing the toy just yet (esp not at OTR which is newish to her).
This sounds perfect!
>Lift’s countermotion was as good as or better than Kaladin’s yesterday! >
Go baby dog go!!! She was showing off some strong skills!
>Lead out/leash stuff –
She is not comfortable with me slipping the leash off (or unclipping it) when she is in a sit so she will pop up out of it. I’m not sure I want to ask her for a sit and then have her pop up as I take the leash off and then ask for a sit again after her shake. Or did you mean cue her more or less into position without asking for the sit until after the leash is off?>Yes – I was thinking bring her to the line and to her general line up spot, taking the leash off, letting her shake it off… then cue a sit. I am curious to know what she thinks of my idea hahaha!
> So many options!
This is true! And for now, the correct option is important to her… but I don’t think it will be important forever as she learns more about the trial environment.
>Khamsin, Kristin and I are sharing ring time on Friday. I should have entered Lift on Sunday instead of Saturday but Saturday had a better class schedule for her. The weather should be nice and the backyard is drying up so she can decompress zooming around with Kaladin in the afternoon.>
FUN! I think a bit of ring time on Friday will not exhaust her for Saturday 🙂 Keep me posted!
Tracy
He did great here! The fantastic stay made it very very easy for him to be successful. YAY!!! You can keep stretching the limits of this: jog past the jump til you are on the takeoff side, getting further and further past it before releasing. Be sure to look back and point back to the landing side of the jump as you release (and toss the toy behind you to the landing spot to encourage him to drive to the jump with all the countermotion).
Great job!!!
TracyHi!
>Two words: Meat. Balls.>
MAGIC!! LOL!!!
>mixed up the rewards a bit for class this week and it was DA BOMB! Yes, he knew I had the food on me for most of the class but wow did that motivation come back with turkey meatballs in play.>
Variety is the spice of life! And also – surprises (which can come in the form of unexpected variety of foods) are known to create dopamine spikes. Those spikes create more than just learning… dopamine creates more motivation and more movement! (Like me moving fast to the coffee maker in the morning to get my morning dopamine spike. Thanks, coffee!) Dopamine is a very busy neurotransmitter LOL
So a lot of mixing things of will help – for my foodie dogs, I use a combination of string cheese, beef/pork meatballs from Walmart, scrambled eggs (sometimes with a tiny tiny bit of bacon rolled in), turkey meatballs, steak, and rotisserie chicken 🙂 It really depends on what I grab at the store (but rotisserie chicken is a MUST for competition, according to the dogs 🙂 )
The other thing that helps – other people’s food rewards. Doesn’t matter if it is the same darned string cheese, but it if comes from SOMEONE ELSE dogs can often be insane for it LOL!
He did really well in class – he was blasting through the weaves like you mentioned, so the effort rewards were good. We don’t want to deflate him when he is amped up! We might seem some accuracy errors as he adds in even more speed, so you can break the skill down by making the entry easier (or opening the weaves up if they are channels). Later in the video you supported his weaves by staying closer, which totally helped!
>The opening 1-3 was supposed to be a serpentine to threadle. He missed the serp but I just kept going because as I suspected (and I was right after watching the video) that I was possible not really cuing the serp and actually looked a lot more like my threadle cue. Yep, watched video and for sure that looked like my threadle.>
Yes, it looked threadley 🙂 And also because he is really small, that 2nd jump is a definitely backside push for him particularly when he is coming into it without movement from jump 1. A big dog will land out there facing the correct side of 2, but a small needs a backside push like you showed him later in the session.
>Then at the end I wanted to work on having no snacks on me and practice his GO GO GO so I gave the bag to the instructor. I was not very sneaky and he knew she had them for sure.>
I agree this is good practice, it is a version of remote reinforcement! And not being sneaky is fine… I am quite sure his nose knew exactly where the meatballs were at all times LOL!!!
>I think it was still good practice to have him work on that focus forward and that it’s rewarding to leave me behind. >
1000% agree! He worked through the challenge really well! And you can add the super high value foods to remote reinforcement games too, building up to meatballs waiting outside the ring and him working without any food in the ring… and even build up to working for the fur tug toy in the ring and meatballs outside of it.
>That trial I was going to enter in March turned out to be full, but I’m on the wait list. >
That’s a bummer! Now that the weather is improving, hopefully… any road trips you can take? AKC FEO is pretty similar to UKI except that you cannot throw the reward.
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi!
>I have now started back chaining it. I didnt want to do this until she was confident going on to the top. So have started at the top of the down ramp and then starting to move back along it. Only two run down per session.>
Yes, back chaining will definitely help. The other option is to take it apart and place the planks on lower supports – this is actually a really important step to build confidence even though it is a big pain to take it apart.
>Jumpers first jumpers had too many tunnels 7 in a row. she went into the wrong end of one my fault but then was convinced another tunnel didnt make sense. lots of dogs had this issue.>
7 tunnels in a row? Yes, my dogs also would be sure that I was making a mistake. That doesn’t make sense LOL!!
Run 1 – she is doing a great job of working ahead of you here! She is finding the line to the tunnels out ahead almost perfectly and only had one small questions going from the tunnel to the jump at the end.
Run 2:
>jumpers c meant to have 7 tunnels in a sequence>She actually did well with the tunnels! You sent her to the wrong end on one of them as you mentioned (your arm got too high and pointing ahead, which turned your shoulders and feet to where she went). And then for the next tunnel, your position on the line cued the jumps. She was listening! The rest looked good.
>2nd starters saturday very hot>
This is the same as the first video you posted, let me know if it is supposed to be a different one.
On all of the videos – she is ahead of you from the very beginning, so keep working the start line stay so you can be ahead on the early section of the course. And doing lots of training runs to add the stay and reward her – this will become especially important as she gets to the higher levels.
>what I need to work out is how to make collection ?weaves fun for my dogs so they enjoy the same way they enjoy running to a tunnel.>
Use channel weaves with the reward placed out at the end (or make your 2x2s into channels). Start the channels very wide so there is almost no collection, and it is all fun fun fun 🙂 Then very gradually close them to get the weaving but they are still really fun 🙂
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
