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Good morning! It is so fun to see her running!!!
Wind in your hair is looking good – one suggestion is to start the wrap as a half circle instead of a full circle around it, so you can do a FC around the outside then be ahead of her as she exits. That way you can move up the line ahead of her to the jump (and she can blast past you). That will definitely help the rear crosses!)
Very fun to see her get to run in the Find The Jump game! You did a great job with your connection and verbal and motion on the line so she found it perfectly without needing to look at you or ask questions.
The way you sent around the first wing here (to the tunnel) is also a way you can send around the wing before the jump in the Wind In Your Hair game – she exits facing the obstacle and you are moving towards it.
Looking at the blooper video – you were near the wing but facing the tunnel… so even the barest hint of motion forward sent her past the wing to the tunnel. Good girl! Compare back to :31 on the previous video: your cues were facing the wing and then turned to the tunnel. That was perfect!
Great job here!!
TracyGood morning!
Lots of good work here!!
Looking at the left/right minny pinny videos – there was too much motion into it at the beginning of the first video, so he wasn’t able to get the mechanics. Things went much better when you started up close! He sorted out the turn aways with physical help (he was really working hard to process that!). So next time, do less physical help on the turn aways – you can use a tiny bit of it, or you can have him turn away to a placed toy. The toy can be between jumps 1 and 2 at first and when he is happy with that, you can move it to between 2 and 3… then fade it out entirely.
Tunnel exits: he does really well when you maintain the connection and motion to the tunnel until he is really locked on. That is a hard angle of entry, so you can move. The wings out more so when he exits the wing, he sees a straighter line into the entry. When you turn away too soon, he jumps at the toy. I think that is more of a frustration behavior than a lack of impulse control – he only really does it when he is not being connection or the skill is really hard.
When finding the exit wing, he is having a little trouble with the countermotion when you are standing still and a bit rotated, so you can move forward a bit more. You had more motion forward on the left turn lines and he did a lot better there – nice and tight to the wing!
One suggestion to differentiate the left/right exits from the RUN exits is to use a different volume and pitch for the left/right. They can be softer and more drawn out which will change the pitch too. Then the run verbal can be LOUD which will help propel him.
For the straight exits, you can throw the reward sooner but also to handle to the wing after it, you will need to be a little ahead of him for now so you can make connection and show the handling too. That requires a more independent tunnel entry, so you can focus on that first – send to the tunnel entry from different angles and reward straight out of it. That will make the go exits really easy 🙂
Well done on the pillbug ! On the outside turns when he was on your left (turning to his right) you generally stayed connected and didn’t run into the tunnel 🙂 and he stayed on your side. Nice!
Turning to his left was harder – he had a toy leap (probably a product of having a little trouble with the mechanics when you were moving fast). At :38 and after that, you were not as connected so he changed sides and then I think at the end he was trying to change sides to be able to turn right. So when he is turning to his left (on your right) you can use food and slow things down so he can process the mechanics of staying on that lead.
On the serps – you inverted the line to the jump so it was more a FC drill where you had to push him away to the jump and not a a serp. I agree, he did really well finding the jump – the extra connection and movement towards it helped and he also did really well when you did the post turn to put him on your other side and *not* take the jump. Yay!
To make it the serp, send him to the start wing the other direction around it so he exits facing the jump (you will be on the landing side of the jump). And if he runs past it, you can angle the jump so the bar is more visible and he has an easier time taking it while you move along the serp line.
The ladder grid definitely needs a stay or holder LOL! He was thinking of them more as a cavaletti and trying to trot through. To do it without a stay, you can line him up at the first jump, click the MM, then send him through the grid. The value of your movement is higher than the value of the MM, which is good to know because that means you will want to either use higher value food in the MM, or a placed toy so he looks at you less.
Great job! Fingers crossed for no more snow!!
Tracy
OMG this looks terrific! He was able to shift his leads in both directions pretty darned easily. SUPER!!!!
>> in case I’ve introduced a bad habit getting him to do it. >>
No bad habits! You were using your upper body and it looked great.
So for the next steps: Go back to 2 cones but move them closer together – try 5 feet. If that goes well, go to 3 cones 5 feet apart, then 4 cones with 5 feet between them.
Then after that… back to 2 cones with 4 feet between them 🙂 No need do try to get it all done soon, but shortening the distances will require you to handle faster and him to change leads more quickly too!Great job 🙂
TracyHi!
Good job with the 3 wings! Your connection as you were cuing the entry to the circles looked great!
I think you will find it even easier to get all 3 smoothly when you add in the countermotion of moving up the line behind him but looking back too the ‘landing spot’ – that will allow you to be earlier on the blind cross exits and also cue the next wing sooner.2nd video – on the first couple of reps, I think you were figuring out what you wanted to do so he stayed on the line to the outside of the wing (that is what I thought you wanted too!) So reward him when that happens 🙂
>>change sides and realized I was trying to do what I think were tantum turns. >>
I think it ended up being threadle wraps on the first wing after the tunnel, so be sure to show him very clear arm cues to pull him into the side you want, On the other wings, you were doing double wraps (around twice) on that first rep. When you add in the tandem turns and threadle wraps, you can work it on one wing first – no need to do it on 3 wings in a row til he totally gets it on one wing 🙂 The very clear hand cues and connection will help pull him to the correct side so he can turn away.
Nice work here!
TracyHi!
CB sends his thanks for the love and support! He is feeling much better.
Bazinga seemed to love the lazy contacts game LOL!!! She was fast and also FLAT to the board, it was cracking me up! I think she is ready to see the bang game, and when she is happy with that we can merge the two games together 🙂
>>I needed to get my mechanics of holding her worked out. We have not been working on that. I want to teach her to stand between my legs to help me get her aligned without having to move her with my hands. I’ll start on that.>>
You can lure her into position and feed her there – that will make it really easy to get her into a line up without moving her around with your hands. Does she have a harness? That can make it easier to hold her.
The crate versus tunnel went really well!!! I could see the steam coming out of her ears when she ws processing!
Note how she was amazing and perfect for the first 40 seconds of the video, then she kind of had a zoom then was not as precise with her responses. I think she had the mental bandwidth until about :40 seconds then she got mentally fatigued because it is such a hard game. So you can do maybe 3 or 4 reps total then give her a brain break so she doesn’t have to get brain tired 🙂
With the wire crate, you can use duct tape or a piece of pool noodle along the bottom edge of the door so she doesn’t potentially smack or catch a little foot on it as she goes flying in 🙂
The serp video looked great – that is smoke in the background?!?!? She was great with ignoring the crazy distractions!!! Only one barking explosion at the end. She is finding the serp lines well, so you can either add the tunnel (but keep the jumps angled) or using just the 2 jumps, start to flatten them out a little bit. I don’t think it matters which one you do first – both will be fun!
Great job here!!
TracyHi!
The serp session looked really good! She read the serp Iines really well. Running in closer to the tunnel helped you stay in motion and set the lines so you all got a lot of speed throughout the session. To get them really perfect, remember to rotate your upper body back towards her so your upper body is facing the jump bar – but keep your feet running forward like you were here, that was perfect! The upper body rotation will cue the turns on all of the different types of serps 🙂
Looking at the teeter session: the skill is similar to the motion override game where we want the dogs to hold a poition while we move. That was where she was having trouble. She is used to you stopping and using an arm cue. So to clarify it:
For the target position, she can sit if you want her to, but also she can top in a standing 1on, 2off position (that is easier for the dogs on the teeter). The target is what helps guide that position – it is a focal point and a place to help them know where to put their feet.So to get this independent:
Start right at the end for the bang game, and move soooooo slowlllllllllyyyyyyyy as she is getting into target position – you should be barely moving at all for now. If you want her to sit, you can use the sit verbal. I use a ‘target’ cue to indicate the 2on 2off position. Then as you keep moving, you can add in throwing the reward back to her – but start with the barest hint of movement so she can be successful. Otherwise you will end up stopping your motion, so ideally you would be barely moving and then over time we work it up to being able to run past 🙂 In this session, you were moving a bit too fast so she was unsure of what to do, because she is used to you stopping with her at the end.Super nice job with the tunnel exits!!!!
The go lines are looking good – you can throw the toy sooner on the go, so she sees the reward flying ahead before she exits and doesn’t look at you – the timing at :38 was great!The turns are looking good! You can probably cue the left/right even earlier, when she is about 5 or 6 feet before the tunnel entry. You were about 3 feet before the tunnel entry at :48 and she had no trouble at all. The earlier you cue the turn, the easier you can leave for the next one and still get a tight turn 🙂
I am super excited about the rear crosses! It seems like the RCs to the right are very easy for her. And the RCs to the left went well – she had the one turn to the right at 1:12, but that was when the RC info started after she was already in the tunnel. On the other reps, like at 1:29 and 1:41, you started the RC info before she went in and she turned left easily. Super!!! So if there were any more misses on the RCs, I bet it was just that she needed to see the info before she got into the tunnel.
Great job here!!!!
Tracy
Hi!
This is another case of him reading you correctly, and the bloopers were not because he was wrong 🙂 The main issue was that after the blinds (which were really nice!!) you were blocking the line to the next wing. So if you blocked the line and moved forward, he went to the 3rd wing (correctly).Or if you blocked the line near the BC wing and stopped moving as you made connection: that turned your body to the tunnel so that is where he went at :36 and :41 and :53. Good boy!
You did start getting him to the center wing at 1:08 and 1:18 – you can see you blocking the wing but the you stopped next to it so he got it (he starts barking on the reps where you are blocking then stopping).
Compare to the reps at 1:45, 1:57 2:08 – you were on a great line to the center wing, and he got it brilliantly! Nice!!
He also read you correctly at 1:20 where he went into the other side of the tunnel from what I think you wanted 🙂 After the wrap on the middle wing there, you never made connection on your left side to change his line so when you said tunnel, he stayed on his line and went to the tunnel he saw out ahead. Compare to 1:28 with lovely clear connection and he read it perfectly. Great adjustment from you!!!
Nice work here! He reads you really well, so rewarding him for it (even if it is not your plan 🙂 ) will help him *not* bite you and also watching the video more frequently in the session if things are not working that well.
Tracy
Hi!
Threadle wraps are similar to tandems – you had more connection on the successful reps here too! So definitely keep adding connection and big obvious hands cue on these too and don’t converge towards the wing – just go straight or even pull away a little to set the line. Using the name on the tunnel exit to get his attention is a big help! So be sure that he hears his name and sees your hands move into threadle wrap position all before he moves into the tunnel – that will really set him up for success on the wing after it.He had really strong commitment the wing as you kept moving forward – super!!!! Nice work!
Hi!
It is fine to submit them all together!
One thing in common for all of these videos: he reads your cues super well, even when they don’t match what you want him to do 🙂 But if your cues tells him to do something and he does it (even if it was not the plan) then be absolutely sure to reward him or just keep going.When he was reading you correctly but you were marking him as wrong, he was getting frustrated and bitey, or just running to the other obstacles. So to avoid the frustration behavior, a couple of ideas:
– assume an error is your error, and reward or keep going. Then watch the video to see why he did something other than what you were trying to cue– live by the 2 failure rule: if something goes wrong twice (total in the session, not necessarily twice in a row), he is not seeing the correct info so you will want to make it easier or look at the video to see what he is seeing.
Either way, he should still be getting reinforcement because there is a 99.99% chance that he is reading the cues correctly 🙂
Here on this video:
The cues that he reads the best were letting him see both of your hands extended back to him and big connection too! You can see it at :16 for example, and :43 and the las 2 reps! Yay!
When you were releasing from the stay without the very clear cues already visible, or he was coming out of the tunnel and not seeing them – then he was correct to stay on his line particularly with the motion moving forward. So if he ends up on the other side of the wing, you will want to keep going or reward then watch the video to see if the info was clear enough and/or early enough.
The reps where is was clear and timely were lovely!!!!
Hi!
I am sorry to hear that the workshop was deflating!!! Yo are doing a great job with Seren and I have seen plenty of excellent blinds from you!The videos here are looking good! You were emphasizing connection, motion, verbals… yay!
He had a couple of small questions that were all related to one thing on the videos: countermotion on the circle wraps. Picture a bar there on the backside circle wraps: when you stayed visible on the landing side until he also was arriving at the landing side… perfect each time. When you moved forward as he passed you so you were both on the takeoff side? That is where he had a question. You can see it at 1:11 and 1:50 on video 1, and at :20 on video 3.
However, we *do* want you to be moving forward just behind him like you did on those reps, so we can shift your connection to the landing spot as you move forward (and throw the reward there). And, you can use the arm closer to the wing to point back behind you to where you want him to go – rather than the arm across the body. All of that will support his commitment even more. That will make it easier and earlier to show him the blind cross exits , and also keep you further ahead of him on course 🙂
So as he is passing you, step right behind him but look at the landing spot, point at it, and throw reward to it. Do it at a walk at first to get him used to it, then you can go faster and faster : )
Only one other thing to consider: Anything that is a full circle can be the back cue for backside circle wraps. If it is a FC, you can use a FC verbal (I think tight is your front side wrap verbal?) or treat it like a front cross on the backside, and use your back cue 🙂
Great job here! Everything else looked lovely!
Tracy
Hi! Nice work on these!!! These skills are going well and I have small adjustments to make that will smooth out when he has questions. One thing to do is get more bags for the tunnel – it moved a lot LOL!
The verbals did not come through on the video (I am not sure why) but I could see you talking to him, so I will assume the verbals were great 🙂
A couple of connection tweaks will sort out the questions he had here. Your connection was mainly very strong! When you are doing countermotion, shift your connection from his eyes to the landing spot (as if there were jump bars on the wings) or where you want him to go.
So on the countermotion FCs/spins to the tunnel, you were correct in trying to decelerate and rotate sooner – but you were looking at him pretty directly so he did not go the wing (like at :24) unless you were facing forward or waiting really close to the wing. So to get the commitment as you rotate away, go from connecting to his eyes to looking at the wing/landing spot (and you can use the arm closer to the wing to support it by pointing at it too).
The same goes for the circle wraps. He did really well when you sent him past you (good job making the wings visible and not blocking them!) and he committed when you stayed where the landing side would be. Ideally, you would move forward sooner so you would be passing the ‘takeoff’ side as he was arriving at the bar, so you can be timely for the next cues especially if there is a blind cross exit.
You tried that earlier at 1:32 and 1:44, for example, which is great! You looked ahead at the next wing, so he did not take the circle wing. This is also a spot where as you move forward in the countermotion, you can look back behind you (and point to the anding spot area with the arm closer to the wing). The connection shift will go a long way to getting great countermotion commitment 🙂
Start adding that connection shift with you just walking, so extra motion is not a distraction (and throw the reward behind you). When you are both comfy with it, add more and more speed 🙂
Great job!!
Tracy
Hi!
Great question. On a game like the RC game, the physical cues might be competing with the verbal cues (perhaps my physical cues are late so they are cuing a right turn even though my mouth is cuing a left turn :))So don’t use left/right until he can read it on physical cues, then add the verbal back in. We don’t want to dilute the verbal by having him need to choose between a physical cue and a verbal. The physical cue is generally stronger at this age so he is more likely to not be able to process the verbal.
Tracy
Good morning!
>Sorry to hear that you and CB had a tough weekend.>>
Thanks, sometimes things just go sideways. He seems to be feeling better each day.
Minny pinny: This is actually going pretty well!! Left is NOT a disaster at all!
I think your start position on the left side is on his line on that very first rep plus you were leaning in and upper body rotated to him when saying left at :07 which actually cued the backside 🙂 That was the only time you did that, the rest were all clearly front side cues 🙂
>>Is there a particular way that my shoulders should be facing or that I should be looking?>>
Facing the front of the bar and softly looking at him.Turning away is definitely harder and the pups often present turning to the easy side (right) before turning to the harder side. His progression here is pretty normal – one side is really strong and easy (right side for him) and the other side is a lot harder (left side for him). So on the left turns, help him out with a visual target: drop a toy or treat bowl between the first 2 bars while you are holding him, then say left left left, then release him to turn away, That will help him sort out the mechanics of turning away to his left (which are harder than turning towards you to his left). And then you will see him have a better time processing the verbals too.
Looking at the zig zags:
>>Mason is actually really good at this game if I have someone hold him at the start and I stand directly behind the farthest wing.>>
Great!
>>When we’ve played this before we had the wings much farther apart so it was really hard for me to cue the lead change soon enough with the wings this close.>>
Yes – having the wings closer makes it harder for us to cue quickly and harder for him to change leads quickly.
>>I also cheated a little by leading out through the wings to show him the path.>>
This is NOT cheating 🙂
The main think here is the stay. The lead change work is going great! So let’s focus on getting a stay going because he is FAST and powerful… you will need a good stay behavior 🙂
He seems to think that the release is the reconnection as you lead out or the hand motion. And I don’t think he is incorrect about that LOL! Every release here was paired with one or both of those, so he does not seem to know that the release is a verbal (unless you want the release to be a physical cue?)
You are in good company – as the games get harder, people are releasing a lot with arm or leg motion or reconnection, and so the understanding of the release has shifted to be motion-based and not a verbal. So everyone is basically getting the same homework 🙂
When you lead out: go to position, stop moving, look at him, raise your hand/move it into position, smile, praise him, count to 3, then be completely still while you say a release verbal. It can be a release forward or obstacle name or a marker to throw back the reward – but do not move while you say it. Then when he moves…. You can move.
Take this away from the obstacles at first, then do it next to a jump wing (do it with the platform at first then we need to fade the platform pretty quickly).
He is very likely to break the stay (because he thinks the arm/leg/eyes are the release) so in all fairness, start off really close to him. And, if he does break: tell him he is cute (not verbal corrections or oops markers or mad faces LOL), reset him with a cookie and try again. Yes, he gets a cookie on the reset because we are changing something significant that has been rewarded differently (he leaves the stay on the arm cue for example and gets to run or gets rewarded). If we *don’t* reward him on the reset, he is going to get frustrated/stressed/over-aroused which we absolutely do not want.
Sends and serps are going great! Super!
>>I’m dropping my arm to call Mason over the jump. Is this ok or should I work to fade it? It isn’t technically part of the pose, but I didn’t think he would take the jump without it.>>
The arm back/dropped arm is totally part of the pose. You can do it sooner! When he is exiting the wing, you can drop the arm and rotate your shoulders to face the bar (but not your feet :)) and that will get great serping as you add more and more motion.
When you changed side and added more motion, he had a couple of misses. But when you exaggerated the upper body rotation by using your arm back/dropped more, he got it every time. YAY!!
>>included video of the frustration-free setup I’ve been working on. We have a long way to go, but I will say that there was less grass pulling overall this weekend so I’m calling that progress.>>
Fantastic!! The grass pulling might just be him regulating his arousal levels (sooooo many dogs do this with grass!) so adding in a smooth, clear start really helps a whole lot. Good for you for thinking about his arousal state and not just the skill!!!
>>I was too lazy to set up the tunnel this week.>
This is completely relatable LOL!!!!
>>For today’s videos the jump bars are locked in at 6″. On April 1st (next session) I’m going to raise them to 8″ and then go up 2″ every month. This would put Mason jumping 12″ (elbow height) in June (age 14 mos) and 20″ in Oct (18 mos). What do you think?
This is a good general plan!! I would follow this plan for the easy stuff, like straight lines, wraps, etc. As we add crazier stuff like backsides, threadle wraps, etc – start anything new and crazy on a lower bar so he can process the next skill without worrying about jump height.
>>Will he develop a flat jumping style if I raise the heights this slowly?
Just the opposite! He will develop a deeper understanding of handling while separately you let him grow up ore physically and mentally – that way he is not “learning” how to jump with a baby body 🙂 He will do the real jump work with a more adult body which will produce better jumping. But get off of Facebook where you will see young dogs doing full height at a year old – that messes with your mind!
>>He may end up in the 24″ height group, but I don’t know if I would actually jump him that high.
I am personally not a big fan of the 24” height especially here in the USA. The distances are a little too small at 24” for the big dogs to cram themselves into, and I don’t like what it does to their bodies. So even if he measures into 24”, I still recommend competing at 20” because you will have an incredible amount of competition available in a variety of different venues. If you ever wanted to take him to Europe to compete at 24”, then we can do a directed conditioning program to build up to that (when he is more like 2 or 3 years old) and also restrict his competition to ISC or UKI with the bigger distances that fit 24” better. If you have no interest in going to Europe? Then no need for 24” 🙂
Great job here!
TracyGood morning!
>>Not submitting another video yet but we did a couple sessions today with loaded food bowl and he was close to 100% left and right today. When he wasn’t naughty and skipped the wrap to just go scarf up the treat in the bowl. He’s been quite wild today.>>
Good boy! And he might be having a bit of adolescent wild running urges LOL!!! Too bad you don’t live closer, we could have your Ven and my Ramen just run run run run run run run to deal with being adolescent boys 🙂
Looking at the 2 ladder videos: overall, I think these are going really well! His stays are looking great – only one broken stay (there was a blast of motorcycle or engine noise that caused him to move to you as you were walking away). And he pretty much held the stay while the wing almost blew over on his head LOL!! Good boy. Great job mixing in a TON of reinforcement for the stay.
I watched the baby version to compare to the advanced version and have ideas for you! There is a LOT of processing happening here and so that is what produced some of his questions. 2 things will help him with the more challenging advanced version (and the baby version too)
– a reinforcement target that he drives to without you bending down or facing him
– sightly easier angles of the jumps on th advanced level, for the visual processing.Here is what I mean:
You were really emphasizing the the low reward target which is great! That meant you were sometimes rotated towards him and it is possible that the pressure of you down low and facing him a bit was being processed as a collection cue. Add in the angles of the bumps/wings in the advanced level and his brain was processing a LOT so he didn’t quite have the bounce mechanics (trotting more). No worries at all! Will he focus down to his manners minder more than a loaded bowl? Or a food-stuffed toy? Those might be better options as a target because then you can be upright and not facing him as much.
Because the advanced level has a lot more processing (the wind plus the jump angles take up a lot of mental bandwidth in a teenage brain), you can soften up the angles a tiny bit and even shorten the distance a little.
Those 2 small adjustments plus letting him sleep on it and having latent learning work its magic will help too 🙂 So I don’t think you moved to advanced too soon, I just think you were seeing his brain work the puzzle.
Nice work here!
TracyHi! She definitely seemed all in with the ball reinforcement!!!
>>I thought you would get a kick out of her ability to back jump at a slice and take the tunnel-
The athleticism is impressive!!! She has quick feet!
>>I can use a shorter bar next time too!>
No need for a shorter bar, you cued it by accident. You said ‘yay’ and stepped into her path/leaned in before she as past you. That pinged her back to the bar. Still rewardable, because it is not particularly incorrect – remember to reward if there is *any* chance that the error as handler induced (which is always a possibility in agility!) So a reward marker will help her and hold the serp position until you deliver the reward – you started doing this at :37ish and afterwards and she did not consider a back jump to the tunnel because the line and reinforcement was so clear! The only think I would add is a marker other that praise to are it super clear.
>>I missed that she was breaking on the second side. Oops better watch that.>>
That is a common theme this week with most of the pups! It is because the handlers are very focused on the game, and pairing the release word with arm movement and reconnecting after the lead out. So in this context, the pups believe that the release is the arm movement and not the verbal. So everyone is getting the same stay homework LOL!!
When releasing from the stay, separate the connection & motion from the verbal. Right now the verbal and the arm movement/connection are coming almost simultaneously so it is entirely possible that she thinks the motion is the release and the verbal is not that important, as you can see when she was on your left here. So get to your position, put your arm into the cue position, connect… praise her for a couple of seconds, then release without *any* movement. You can move after she moves 🙂
Now, we also don’t want to set the pups up for failure or stress because it is human error that they think the release is based on arm movement (we humans need a support group for this LOL!!!). So start this on the flat and away from the jump and tunnel. And if she does break before the verbal (based on what has been rewarded in previous sessions), just tell her she is super cute (which is totally true) and reset her with a cookie. The reset cookie does not reinforcement the early movement, it just helps keep the stress and frustration level low as we try to change what she thinks the release is. I think of it as an apology cookie: “Sorry that I have been unclear, I am going to be clear now, have a cookie to stay happy as I adjust the info”. That helps the dogs stick with us 🙂
The reps of the smiley face here looked great! You can give her the ‘right’ verbal earlier – as soon as she exits the tunnel y toucan be saying it and showing the line. That will tighten up the turn on the wing. You were earlier on the left verbal on the next rep (she was about halfway between the tunnel and the wing) and her turn was already tighter! Super! She is moving really fast, so you can start the verbals early and say them often – my philosophy is that we cannot be late with verbals if we start them early (even before she exits the tunnel) and say them multiple times. We will hit perfect timing with that LOL!!
Great job!
Tracy
