[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
Hope you had a good Easter! Looks like Spring is arriving! This is his first spring, yes? So he might get hot more quickly than the other dogs, which means shorter sessions until he builds up some heat tolerance.

BC video – super nice connection on the exit of the wraps at the beginning and great job with your verbals! They were FCs (not blinds) so when you add the tunnel to this, remind yourself to turn away from him (blind) rather than towards him (FC).

One small detail to make it even smoother: Try to leave the toy in the hand you will reward from – he is getting better and better about ignoring it while working. When you switch the toy from hand-to-hand, it draws his focus to your hands and a little away from the wing.

He had a question on the tunnel entry at 1:55 – that entry was more of a threadle (turn away) entry, so you can use your tunnel threadle verbal there and move directly towards it.

I think we see him a bit fatigued at 2:20, probably a little warm – you were smart to not insist on more. As temperatures rise, you can do 90 second sessions then take a break, then do more later throughout the day like you did with these sessions.

RC video – be sure to add arm up and reps of driving ahed on a straight line. You got the RC on the first rep with a lot of arm help but he wasn’t really driving ahead on the 2nd & 4th rep so he didn’t get it (and the rep after the left turns)
3rd rep (and 2:11) was better when you stuck closer to the wing so he drove ahead a little more and you can show the info sooner

On the left turn reps, you stuck closer to the wrap wing on all of them, so you were able to get him driving ahead better and setting the line sooner, o he got them all. Yay!

Another thing that could have been in play was the visual of the tunnel: the right turns all had him turning away from the tunnel, which might have been harder for him to process because of all the value of the tunnel (but this might have helped the left turns!)

Looking at the serp video: he is reading the handling cues well! 2 suggestions for you:

– be closer to the serp jump, close enough to reach out and touch it with a relaxed arm 🙂 That way he will make the turn on the takeoff and be set up better for the next jump (when we add movement and more jumps to it). Plus it will et him used to driving into the handler pressure that is part of serps and threadles. When you changed sides, you were definitely closer (yay!) He had a question at 2:56 – I think you were not connected enough with your arm back like you were on the other reps. You added more connection on the next rep and he nailed it 🙂 When you add the threadle, you will also want to be close to the wing of the jump (the entry wing)

– 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 he thinks the motion is the release and the verbal is not that important. So get to your position, put your arm into the cue position, connect… praise him for a couple of seconds, then release without *any* movement. You can move after he moves 🙂

I would think he is going to leave the stay when your arm goes into position, and I don’t want to stress him out because he is not necessarily incorrect (that is what has been paired) so 2 ideas for you: start this on the flat and away from jumps. And if/when he breaks on arm movement, tell him he is cute and reset him back into the stay with a cookie. That way we can shift the release to not being paired with motion (we definitely don’t want it to be paired with arm movement for example!) without frustrating him or stressing him.

Great job here!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
He is reading the physical cues really well for the 3 different challenges on these videos!! The serp and tunnel went very smoothly. He had some questions about the threadle in video 2 – he came to the correct side but did not take the jump automatically.

That had to do with your position when you released him. To get the automatic commitment to the jump, be close to the entry wing – that is threadle position (it would be the gap between the 2 jumps on a threadle line). This will also help him find the threadle side when he is at different angles.
You were across the bar in what would be serp position, which is why you needed to show him the jump. Being in threadle position will naturally set up the line to the jump so you don’t have to show it to him (we want the jump to be automatic rather than cued).

His other question was about the releases from the stays 🙂 This falls into the category of “what we think we are training versus what the dog is actually learning”. Yes, you were emphasizing the verbals – but the verbals (release, tunnel, in in, and catch) all came with some type of motion: re-connection, arm movement, shoulder movement etc.

So – he sometimes moved before you said the verbal because the motion was shown before the verbal… and the motion of the arm/head/shoulder/ etc is what he thinks the verbal is. And we don’t want to stress him by letting him fail too much, giving stronger stay cues, or telling him he is wrong (because, turns out, the motion *is* what is reliably paired with reinforcement). He is showing a little stress about it (head shake on the first rep of video 1, and one twitchiness on the other moments) so we really want to clarify it for him.

When he is in a stay, try this to separate the verbal releases from any motion. For stationary releases where you are not going to move:
– get to your position (ideally with connection)
– put your hands/feet/connection etc into the position (threadle arm back, for example, or arm pointing to tunnel).
– freeze in that position
– praise him and count to 3 in your had
– say the release (but don’t move til after he moves)

You might get some broken stays when he sees you put yourself into position, so try it without the jump at first and if he does break, tell him he is a good boy and reset with a treat.

For releases when you will be moving: be in motion the whole time, with your upper body showing the cue and feet moving for multiple steps before the release. And after the release, stay in that same steady motion until after he moves rather than explode forward when you say the word.

Of all the behaviors here (stay/releae, tunnel, serp, threadle) I think the stay is the most important 🙂 so we can really focus on making it clear for him so he is very successful with it too!

Nice work here!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

>>That’s the same for chiropractic adjustments! Especially in horses. A good head shake shows signs of relief during an adjustment>>

Yes! And the dog chiro vets look for a nose-to-tail shake with dogs.

The serp session went pretty well, you are NOT a bad momma LOL!!!
When you are running a serp line, try to keep moving forward rather than pull away or rotate your feet to pull her in over the first jump then push back out to the 2nd one. The pull-then-push was fine when you were doing the 2 jump serps at the beginning, but that pull-then-push is what made it hard when you added the tunnel:

When she was coming from the tunnel exit, you were pulling her in and rotating your feet, so if you pushed back to jump 2 and you were in the gap a bit, she correctly ended up on the backside. That is the line we would run if you wanted the backside.

Angling the jumps did help! So with the slightly angled jumps you can run a totally straight line, about an arm’s length from the jumps. Your upper body turns to face her as she exits the tunnel but your feet keep moving forward (not rotating or pulling away). This is hard for us human, so feel free to lay a leash on the ground so you can see the line.

And to help the timing so you don’t feel like you are waiting for her, you can run a couple of steps closer to the tunnel so you can stay in motion as she is exiting (this will also speed up her send to the tunnel :))

>>I just felt like I had to kind of pull her to me before taking off for the second one or she’d miss the first one all together.>>

That is where angling that jump can really help: make it easy enough to find the jump s you don’t need to pull her to you.

Let me know if that makes sense! I think that change of line will make all the difference.

Nice work!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

The FEO opportunities in CPE sound good – they let you take a toy in the ring? AKC has some opportunities but not as many as other venues. USDAA and UKI have amazing FEO opportunities! And the whole goal of the first 6 months or more of trialing is to get her very very happy in the ring and to oh-so-gradually introduce the harder obstacles.

Video 1: Lookin at the straight line exits – be sure to connect to her eyes at the tunnel exit, especially if you are not that far ahead. When you are looking forward and pointing forward, it turns your shoulders away from the line you want (like at :05) and it ends up looking almost like a threadle wrap cue. You got her to the wing by being further ahead on the last rep but she still had a question and curled into you. Compare to lower arm and a little more connection on the other side, so she went to the wing more smoothly. Yay!

“”but the video I got was where something was happening in the back of the building and JJ got very concerned about it.”

Turn up the volume and you will hear a series of high frequency noises in the background at :14, :17, :35, :37, :40 and :55 (and right as the video ended). I don’t know what the noises were, but she definitely found them aversive/scary and stopped working. My dogs all popped their heads up from a sleep when I played the video. And the noise must have been even more prominent to her young ears, because my old ears found it a little irritating.

Looking at the tunnel car crosses:

>>I could not get to the end of the tunnel fast enough to direct JJ. I tried backing it up a bit, but did not ever get to where I needed to be to support her. Maybe a shortened tunnel, or a better send to the tunnel would have worked. I look forward to your input.

She was reading the RC really well here in both directions! What was causing her to miss the wing after it was that you were too far behind as you mentioned. What was causing you to be a little too far behind was that you were standing at the tunnel for the RC, so you couldn’t move to the next line til she was past you… which made you late getting there. If you start at the wing and are showing the RC line (to the center of the tunnel) as you are both moving towards the tunnel, you can cut behind her sooner and then be on the other side of the tunnel sooner to show her the line to the next wing.

You don’t have to fix the direction wing wrap before rewarding her – she was correct based on the line of motion and verbal. So getting you further up the line (by starting nearer to the wrap wing and not at the tunnel) will help a lot. You can see how handler position makes a big difference: At :17 and :24 (on the last video) when you were more visible when she exited, your line showed the wing easily. But by being close to the tunnel to start you set a very slicing rear cross line and ended p further behind. Being near the wing will allow you to see a more extended RC and also put you closer to her line.

Great job here!

Have a happy Easter!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
Thanks for the kind words about CB, he is getting plenty of love today although I know he would prefer to run the courses LOL

Looking at the 2 videos here:
The go lines are looking good on the first video! You can mix in a lot more go lines throughout both sessions, as a a nice balance to the harder stuff.

The RCs on the first video are looking strong – the first one went well and the timing on the next 2 reps was earlier and so the turns were really nice!!!

The backside pushes are going well on both videos – you used a push verbal on the first rep at 2:06 and a back verbal on the others, so be sure to have the correct verbal planned.
Having your arm back and making connection was GREAT for helping him see the backside line! There was only one rep where he had a question about if it was the front side or not… and that was the rep where you broke connection and looked ahead of him. The rest looked great!

The countermotion commitment on the circle wraps is hard – he does well when you look at the landing spot as you move forward. Great job tossing the reward to the landing spot!

If you are still on the landing side as he gets to the takeoff spot, it is no problem for him to take the jump. When you are passing the wing and moving to the takeoff side when he is approaching takeoff, though, he has trouble taking the jump. So for now you can be walking forward rather than running to keep supporting the commitment on the circle wraps when you are getting further ahead, plus looking back behind you to the landing spot (and continuing to drop the reward there) will help build up the commitment too.

Great job!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
The straight line grid is going really well! The angled bumps were harder, so you can overlap the wings by about 6 inches so he has a little less distance between the bumps center-to-center (for now) to help him get a more balanced jumping effort there.

Looking at the tight blinds game:

Really nice exit line connection on the blinds when you were going from your left to your right! You can see it really clearly at :29 and 1:09, for example. Those were really good timing – you started the BC when he was maybe halfway between the tunnel exit and the barrel so the BC was almost fully don before he arrived at the barrel.

When you switched sides (going from your right to your left), the timing was late at :41 and :48. He didn’t see the next connection in time and your motion supported him to the next wing on the original side. Good boy!! Your timing was earlier at 54 and the exit line connection was a lot clearer, so he got it 🙂

When he was on your left going to your right, you were in motion the whole time and that made it easier to start the blinds sooner. When he was on your right going to your left side, you were decelerating at the wing then accelerating through the blind – the acceleration sends him wider and makes it harder to get the connection and timing.

Since he is speedy – one thing to help execute the blinds even more quickly is to keep your arms in tighter. Rather than have them fully extended, you can bend your elbows and keep them tucked in a little. That makes it super quick to do the blinds and you can still show great connection.

That will also make the race tracks even easier, rather than pointing forward – connect and run more like you did at 1:02. And prep the verbals before each rep so it is easy to spit them out – on one rep you said out-left-right LOL!! I can relate so I practice without the dog before each rep 🙂

And yes – using the verbals really helps, mainly because you are also connecting to him as you say them and matching your motion to the verbals. This will help him commit really well like you are seeing, and also learn the verbals really well 🙂

Serps – fantastic job releasing while in motion!!! Yay!!! These reps looked good – for the serps you can show him a little more rotation back to him as you move into position – a slightly more exaggerated turn at the waist with your arm back and eye contact will make it even easier as you add more motion. The tunnel cue looked perfect!

Great job!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!

The rear crosses are coming along! Yay! They are hard for sure! There are a few things to help clarify them for him:

– Adding more distance between the barrel and the prop or jump will give you more space to set the line. They were pretty close together which didn’t give you a lot of time to show the line.

– Clarifying the reward markers will help a lot too – you were tending to use ‘yes’ a lot but then he was not sure where to look when you were throwing the rewards (they tend to look at us when we say ‘yes’ and that makes rear harder). So using ‘get it’ is great!!!

>>He got sticky at ‘wrap to RX’ before I added the toy (treats in hand has a lot to do with that).>>

That was probably because the marker was ‘yes’ so he was not sure where to look, so as looking at you 🙂

– Placing the toy is really helpful too… but be sure he is committing to the obstacle (prop or jump) and reading cues, not just going to the toy 🙂 Two options for that are to have the placed toy in the same spot for each rep, and mix in go lines where he gets a thrown toy and not the placed toy. And you can tuck the placed toy right in next to the landing side of the wing so it is not as visible between the uprights: that way you will cue it with motion and line (and a reward marker).
– And, do a lot of throwing the rewards on these too (especially the right turns which are easier) so that you can be sure that you are executing the cues. With the toy placed very visibly between the uprights, I think he is going to it regardless of the info so we do want to make sure the handling supports the line.

Great job here!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!

>>Rear cross: Wow! Yes he DID decide on the line as he was rounding the barrel. OMG.that’s early!!!

Early in a good way, also know as strong commitment 🙂

>>Do I hang back more to influence his barrel exit sooner?(pressure the line from the immediate exit with stronger connection?)>>

Yes – you don’t want to send to the barrel and leave because then you will be ahead and running a straight line. So, tay at the barrel to set the cross, then as he exits, you begin moving forward to the center of the bar.

>>Do I move faster?

Possibly yes, because he needs to see the motion on the line.

>>Do I look at him harder? Do I turn my body more? >>

Probably no on both of these.


>>SERP: I have many questions/doubts about the release and not poisoning with motion

Releases get poisoned with motion when we release-then-move almost simultaneously (or move-then-release almost simultaneously). And by move, it can be any body part: arm, feet, head turn, sudden acceleration. So keeping the releases distinctly separate will make a big difference.

If you are standing still on the release: get into position, get your arm in position, connect, praise, smile, breath….. then release.

If you are doing a moving release:

>>PUPSTAY-LEAVE WALKING-KEEP WALKING-RELEASE WHEN IN POSITION- KEEP MOVING->>

Yes – one steady motion with connection and then you release and maintain the steady motion.

>>tight space before running into the tunnel and if I release early- he’ll threadle.

The release moment on the serp when you are adding motion should come after you have passed the first wing and are close to the center of the bar.

>>I re-read your comments- and I want you to wish me luck.


Good luck LOL!!!! Watch your videos a LOT when you are training releases to make sure you are not pairing them with motion.

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!

80 degrees already! That is warm!!!! He did really well ignoring the heat 🙂

>>we need to do more forward work>>

Yes, he loves his wing wraps and yes, we can all do more forward work 🙂 The main thing here is going to be reward placement (for the go, RC, and also the backsides when you add them). The reward placement will also really pump up the verbals!

On the Go reps: the rewards here were from your hand (even with the toy out ahead). Being the super smart dog that he is… if the reward comes from your hand, he is going to make darned sure he is going to be very close to your hand when it is reward time. So if you are ahed – great, he will be flying! But if you want him to drive ahead? He is less likely to do that because he wants to go where the reward will be placed.

Easy fix – what does he love love love that we can throw? I know he loves food, so we can great creative with foodie rewards that he can find easily and that he doesn’t need human help with to be able to eat. Throwing treats might be hard for him to find, so you can try a lotus ball or treat hugger or even a kong toy with cream cheese in it 🙂

And that will really solidify the forward cues because any forward cue (physical and verbal) will be paired with a thrown reinforcement, so he will lock onto the line ahead.

Looking at the RCs: TOTALLY making progress to the left! YAY! I think you had really good patience at the start wing in terms of setting the line and showing the RC line on both sides. Yay! There was only one early rep at 4:15 (your feet turned away from the jump too soon) but the others are looking really good! You can add more distance between the wing and the jump, so you have more time to accelerate up the line and show the RC info.

And for the reward placement, throwing the reward out ahead will help too on these. You had the toy out there on a couple of reps and on others you rewarded from your hand, so be super consistent with never rewarding from your hand on any line that needs him to drive ahead.

Thinking about verbals, especially because big distances and a ton of independence is the ‘new normal’ and not just for those really hard ASCA gambles!

>>In the past I’ve used hup-left and hup-right for rear crosses. Not sure that’s my best option for a verbal but he doesn’t know any verbal for this right now and clearly left/right isn’t strong enough to use it by itself right now. >>

I agree that the verbals are too new to stand alone for now! But the reward placement will really help – super consistency is the key. I personally don’t use a ‘hup’ cue before a directional, because the directional should mean “take the jump and turn left” for example. So a hup or jump cue is a general: stay on your line in kinda extension. But left and right are bigger turns, so saying a jump cue before them will make them late. So setting up sessions to use the left & right cues with the reward placement t support them will really help!

>>Switch or the ancient “back” command is not direction specific

TOTALLY agree – it is not give enough info, nowadays. I use ‘switch’ now to mean ‘turn away and get on a MASSIVE layering line in extension’ (often followed by the name of he first obstacle on the line, such as “switch weaves” or “switch tunnel”. Basically switch means to turn away and ignore my position LOL!!! PERFECT for gambles and all of the crazy layering we see now. And if I use a directional on a rear cross and not switch? It is just a rear cross and the dog should continue paying attention to my handling position and line of motion. This has been really helpful!

All of that is created with reward placement, so getting rewards that you can easily throw will really help him solidify the lines and verbals.

Great job here! Let me know what you think!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

>>got a bit worried about Contraband — is he ok? >>

Thanks for asking, he is doing better today! He had a massive crash in the tunnel and tried to get on the dog walk using only 3 legs (the judge was running in to stop him as well). A Chiro vet put him back together and he had some trigger point massage done. I’ll get him checked again today – no signs of lameness but I am sure he is sore, so no more runs for him.

Hope you are enjoying watching the event! You all enjoy the courses when Obi is ready – soooo much space for the big dogs to run run run! And you are a fast runner, which makes the courses a lot easier too.

The tunnel games are going well! One of the things I think about with the dogs that are taller than the tunnel is that they have to slow down to duck to get into them. So the turns are easier, as long as you are on time (which you were). The GO lines are harder because they cannot go that fast while in the tunnel, so we need to reward a lot of acceleration on the exit with the GO lines. With that in mind:

>.that he still peeks towards me after the tunnel on the “Go”.

For the Go tunnel exits, you can throw the reward really long and straight after it, so he blasts past you and doesn’t look at you. You were rewarding after the wing wrap, so he might have been glancing at you for the next handling. So adding in a lot of reps of just go go go with a reward thrown straight ahead will help him look forward more.

The timing of the Go cues were really good, especially when you got louder and accelerated! That can accompany the toy being thrown out ahead. You can accelerate sooner as long as you maintain the connection you had here. That connection will also help you babysit the tunnels less 🙂

>>I’m repeating right/left too much after he already has turned and I need to be giving him info about the next thing,>>

I think the timing of your verbal & physical left & right cues were really good!!! His turns looked great. And also yes, when he exits the tunnel, you should already be giving the wrap verbal for the next wing. His wrap commitment looked really strong!

>>I ended up doing a toy race game in the end, and will do wind in your hair tomorrow before coming back to this tunnel exit handling game.>>

Smart! It is always good to revisit those games when we are wanting more acceleration on the straight Iines.

On the serps:
This is a hard skill because we have to teach him to be confident to jump towards you with not a whole lot of room! I think that was playing a role here:

When he was ahead of you going to the jump, like at :02, :35, and a little at :42, he took the serp jump with no problem. When you were a little ahead of him? Much harder so he tended to go past the jump (like at :12, 1:12, 1:24 for example). If you rotated to veered away, he came in over the jump but ideally you can be in that slightly ahead position on the serp line.

So to help him feel comfortable driving into you, you can angle the jump even more, maybe 45 degrees to the bump is very visible. Your path from the wing send to the reward target is still tags very straight line, but now finding the jump is easier for him. And then we can rotate the jump back to the rally hard position as you stay on that serp line (rotating your shoulders back to him more will help, even with the jump angled).

Side note: I totally appreciate that he is being careful to NOT slam into you! Good boy!

One other detail on tis game is the start wing send: add more connection to his eyes on the send and he will commit better. Rather than looking forward (which actually turns your shoulders to the backside of the serp jump), you can look right at his cute face and send (which turns your shoulders to the send wing).

Great job here! Let me know what you think!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!
I couldn’t see the class distractions but I could totally hear them! She did GREAT!!! Yay!!

On the serps, a small adjustment to your shoulder position made a big difference:
You were facing forward (shoulders perpendicular to the bar) on the serps. Rotate your shoulders to face the bar and that will show the full serp cue. Towards the end of the video, the instructor gave good advice about opening up your upper body and being connected: perfect!!! Thanks, instructor!!

>>When there’s more space, she seems to have a harder time staying on the line and not cutting in.

That was after she came to the threadle side at :46 and 1:00. Part of what was happening there was that you were moving away fast without connection (so she was following you) and also, I think you were giving her a wrap verbal on the start wing – so she was correct! The left or right verbal is more appropriate there because it is a soft turn rather than a wrap.

You can also angle the jump to face her a bit more if she is having trouble finding the serps when you are going fast.

>>Then we did a little Find the Jump…I need to throw sooner argh! And then one small Smiley Face.>>

WOW!! I agree with your instructor: GORGEOUS!!!! The extension lines are bringing out her true whippet speed and her commitment looks fabulous. You can have an instructor throw the toy, maybe? It is hard to go faster than a whippet LOL!!!
The deceleration into the wrap (with connection and verbal) on the last rep was chef’s kiss 😍 fantastic. Check out her collection! People think that whippets cannot turn so I am on a mission to prove them wrong – and looks like Vesper is on that mission too! LOVELY turn and fantastic cues from you. Click/treat to you both, and it is so cool to see her being able to work in such a fun, supportive class atmosphere.

Great job!!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

>>Once again calling into question my early belief that we was a right turner!>>

I have found that because agility pups are trained with a lot of balance from the very beginning, it is a little harder to tell if they are lefty or righty for flyball!

The Go versus RC versus backside is going well!

The more connected you were on the ‘go’ lines, the less he looked towards you. So be super connected as you drive forward (your eyes following his eyes, even as he gets ahead of you) and you can also throw the reward even sooner (as soon as he exit the wing wrap and looks forward).

Be sure that your ‘go’ line motion is outside the edge of the wing and not towards the bar. At 1:05 (and almost at 1:16) – you had pressure in towards the bar on the go line and not enough clear connection so he pushed away to see more info and ended up on the backside line. Compare to the line at 1:09 which was outside the wing! Nice!

For the RCs – he is doing a great job reading the change of direction!!! You can totally show him the RC info sooner. What was happening here was that you were running an “L” shaped line: forward with your shoulders pointing forward (like a go line) until he was past you, then adding the RC info. So he was seeing it and making the adjustment in the air (except at :36 where he was correct to turn towards you).

So rather than run forward the outside of the wing for several strides like a Go then try for the RC, you can set the RC by staying close to the wing and as he exits, your line of motion is to the center of the bar. That will immediately tell him that a RC is coming and he will be able to make the change before takeoff.

Looking at the backsides:

>>I wasn’t happy with my mechanics on the backsides, so I am looking forward to your feedback before I try those again. I think I was over-helping. >

I thought your running line was very clear, heading to where the wing and bar meet (yay!) so he knew to go to the backside (the rep at 1:32 just needed more connection so he knew where to be but the rest was very strong!).

Getting commitment to the jump on the backside wrap as you moved forward was harder – you were trying to help with your hands, which is fine but it conflicted with the rest of your physical cue (and we don’t want you to have to rotate to face the jump more. So 2 ideas to help get that commitment:

– as he gets to the takeoff side of the jump, shift your connection to the landing spot behind you (rather than looking directly at him). Your hands can follow your eyes and point to the landing spot. Looking directly at him is part of what caused him to ask questions.

– change the placement and timing of reinforcement. Since there is soooo much countermotion pressure on backside circles, if you toss the toy to the landing spot behind you at th very instant he looks at the jump (while you keep moving forward), he will get a lot more value for the jump bar in that context even with the countermotion. The reward was coming after the exit of the jump and near you, which builds value for being near you 😁 so throwing it behind you to the landing spot will help get more independence.

Looking at the serp versus tunnel:

>>Our stays are still a work in progress.>>

As you build up the stays, be super sure to separate the re-connection from any release or reward. He holds the stay as you walk away without looking at him, but then you tend to re-connect and either release or reward within a heartbeat of the reconnection. That causes the re-connection to become part of the release (which is what happened on the broken stay at the beginning: you re-connected, he released). So either stay connected the whole time, no looking away at all. Or, re-connect when you arrive in position, set up your arm, praise, smile at him, and release a solid 3 to 5 seconds later. That way the only release is the verbal, not the re-connection or change of motion or arm movement. And that will help reduce any potential start line stress because the release will be soooooo clear.

I also think letting him see you in serp position for a few seconds before the release will help the serp a lot! At 2:06 you held the position longer before the release and he got it really well there.

>>When he was struggling with the jump, should I have made the angle of the jump easier for him? I am thinking so.

Yes, angling the jump will help or changing the angle of the tunnel entry so it is less delicious-looking. Live by the 2 failure rule (which in this session happened right at the beginning) – the first failure is a yellow light, take stock and see if anything needs to change. The second failure (2nd failure total, not necessarily in a row) is the red light: stop and change something so there are no more failures in that session. And then you can do the other side in a different session, so the learning can percolate and you don’t risk any more failures. The reasoning behind the 2 failure rule is to train the behavior with a lot of clarity (and not lumping too much) and avoiding the pitfalls of frustration when the pup gets it wrong too often).

So he was figuring it out here for sure, but for the next session try to keep it to 2 failures or less: start with the jump already angled, and he can be closer to the jump so he is coming in with less speed (making it easier to coordinate the serp mechanics). And if you have high rate of success sessions on the jump and he maintains his high tunnel value, then you can start angling the jump back to the original position 🙂

Nice work here!!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!

>>Haha! I was trying to decipher the notes about playing, and I was really struggling.>>

Yeah, my bad for not just typing things out the old-fashioned way LOL!!

>>I remember in one of the Max Pup 1 toy games, you specifically said not to trade for a cookie in the beginning and to just take the toy out of the dog’s mouth, >>

I will go back and look at where that was – it might have been in reference to the dogs that would lose value for the toy if we took out a cookie. She is really balanced so I think cookie trades will work really well!

>>And yes, she did bite me when I gave a verbal correction. She likes to reposition higher on the toy onto my hand. She bit me pretty hard a couple weeks ago, and bruised my hand and drew blood. I (reflexively) gave a pretty loud correction when she did that, and she immediately let go and tucked her nonexistent tail. Since then she has been better about it, but will sometimes still go for the part I’m holding.>>

When she bit you on the video here, it was during a moment that a lot of people call a transport. I call it a tug leash LOL where we are going from one spot to the other while the dog is tugging, but we are not really playing and not connected to the dog… so that is when they often grab a hand because the toy positioning is causing a higher head. So when there is tugging, be totally connected and engaged with her, with the toy low. And when you want to go from point a to point b, no tugging: you can use cookies to be engaged, but a tug leash often results in a bite.

>> It doesn’t seem to matter how I hold the toy or what toy I use; she is intentionally aiming for my hand. >>

>>It feels very much like a puppy pushing boundaries sort of thing.>>

It might be just the most fun way to tug, or an attention seeking behavior if you are not really engaged (it totally works to get attention LOL!) So during reward moments, the toy you choose should have a really enticing amazing thing at one end, and you hold the other end of it – a SUPER long (Flyball-style) toy really helps so you can swing it around and she will chase/tug the cool thing at the end.

Separately, here are two games for ya:

There are a TON of mechanics with tugging, so while you are getting the mechanics sorted, the crazy long toys and thrown toys without a lot of tugging are great, and no transports/tug leashes with toys.

Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

HI! Welcome back, great to see you and Djinn here!!!! She is so fun!!

>>First I wanted to show how we are having some extreme excitement when it comes to training time.

The good news is that she is on board with the training and has a lot of love for playing with you! The best way to handle the excitement is to go with it and not dampen it, just structure things differently so training is more efficient and you don’t feel like she is exploding 🙂 Some ideas:

>>One, I only approach, acknowledge her if she is calm (ish) and not barking. >>

Do you mean when she is waiting in her xpen? That is a hard setup, to see the training get set up, see you get the cookies, etc. One thing you can do is give her a chew bone while you set up, so she has an outlet for her excitement. And, have you ever played crate games? We have some simple crate games coming later in this class, but mainly it is about shaping her to sit before you open the door to release her into the training. And that can make it all much more guided and efficient: you get everything ready near the xpen door, then she sits before you open the door – then open the door and release her immediately into the work.

Some of her energy explosion is because she wants to work but doesn’t know what to do yet, so this will help! The other option is to have her hang out in another room, then when you are ready to train, bring her into the room and get to work.

>>Two, I’ve been working on her settling when I’m working with other dogs. We still have a ways to go haha – she came out of the playpen hot and even knocked me over when I tried to sit on my “chair”>>

Settling while others work at this age is really hard, and might end up using up all of her self-control. So after she is done settling, she is going to need to explode a bit. That is why I don’t do a ton of that at this age – it is better to have her relax somewhere else then be brought into the training when it is her turn and you are totally ready. That way you can get right to work, rather than try to calm her (which might make her wilder).

She did well with both of the sessions of the wrap practice! Great job starting the verbal before letting her start moving. You probably don’t need to have the toy visible on the other sided of the wing – I bet she can wrap it then the toy can come out after she finishes the wrap. By the end of the 2nd video, the toy was pretty much out of the picture and she was still wrapping brilliantly!

>>did NOT like me holding onto her collar.

She definitely made that clear LOL!! Since some of the games involve collar holding, you can line her up at your side with a cookie, then take her collar (another cookie for that) then start the game. That might reduce the toy drive in those games at first, but that is fine because we want her happy with the collar holds.

Great job here! She is ready for the week 1 games!!!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!

I think this went really really well! The go lines were great, of course. The backsides were fantastic! She was setting herself up really well – and she will get tighter and tighter as she gets more experienced with the backside wraps. Your cues were really good!

The RCs were harder but they are tricky – just a matter of sorting out the timing. The first one was a little late.The rep at :35 was actually a little early, which is why she spun on the flat before the jump. The reps at :18 and :45 were terrific! Super!!

>>we had some motivational issues. I tried different toys. Grass was cold and wet???>>

It could be weather-related! Was she just not all that into the toys? She could be having adolescent changes which would also lead to days of lower motivation – it looks like you had a lot of good toy options and she did well!

Great job here 🙂

Tracy

[Author]

Posts