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Good morning!
I think it is great that you and Paul are training Kishka and Chitlin together!!! So fun! Bummer about the roof leak 🙁
The serps are going well! Looking at the 2nd video first:
You started her on the outside arm (so you were between her and the jump) and you were moving as you did the serp. That is spot on!On the first video, she was between you and the jump, and you were not moving as much – so the mechanics on the 2nd video are more of what we want for the next steps:
– send her on the outside of you and start walking to the manners minder, with your upper body rotated back to her but you feet facing the MM as you walk.And if she continues to do the serp while you walk, you can add jogging when you take it outside! If she runs past the jump when you add motion, you can angle the jump to face her more so you can keep showing motion and she still comes in for the serp.
The Wrap for balance was good too – super use of verbals to help tell her the difference between the serp and the wrap!
>>Yes, we had a bit of a glitch on the second side as she was trying to go between my legs. She likes that and it’s kind of her “go to” thing. >
Yes! She wasn’t sure, so she went to line up position. Adding eye contact/connection as you send will help her know where to be 🙂 And a verbal for the line up cue will help too.
Great job here!!
TracyHi!
This game os all about maintaining connection and not running into the tunnel or falling over 😁. Yes, it teaches the dogs to stay on our side as well especially as we add the crosses. I think you did really well! The next step would be to have the toy more crunched up in your hand, so he doesn’t get it as soon as he gets to you. That way you can keep moving around the curve of the tunnel.
If you have a 2nd tunnel, you can add the advanced game too – but if you do’t have a 2nd tunnel, you can totally use a barrel to replace it and that way you can add the blinds too!
One thing worth pointing out is how well he went from the food throw back to the toy! Getting the toy back was hard so you can present the cookie you are about to throw right after you cue the ‘give’ and then he will let go more easily.
Great job here!
TracyHi!
Super great job here on all the games! Looks like he was very successful AND had fun. YAY!!!!! Having a great stay *really* makes all of this easier – well done teaching him the stay! He seemed very happy to hold the stay as needed!!
>> I never would have thought we could do all of these skills so soon and yet, you advise advancing speed and distance in a few of our critiques. My stomach tightens. Is he really ready?>>
Sometimes we are guessing that the pup is ready… but also that is why I live by the 2-Failure Rule: if pup fails twice in the session (not even in a row – twice, total, for the session) then it is too hard and I dial it back immediately to get success. That, plus using reset reinforcement AND not blaming any handler errors on the pups… we get a whole lot of success!
>>. The only real issues on our 1st rep is ME (my timing, etc), then he’s got it by the 3rd rep and we move on. No drilling, no overtraining.>>
Yes – the hardest part of it all is OUR mechanics LOL!!! But when the rate of success is so high and the pups are getting a lot of reinforcement, they are very happy to let us sort out our mechanics 🙂
Looking at the video:
>>This is first attempt at Find the Jump. I love the way he found it on the left turn rep 1!!
Yes! It was terrific! And the jump was a little offset on the left turn side, so he really had to find it (your motion supported it better on the other reps). You can throw the reward sooner: when he exits the tunnel and looks at the jump, throw the reward so it is visible before he gets ot the jump, and before he looks back at you. You can add a little more of the lateral distance, just make sure that the jump is on the line.
>>SERP went well once I remembered that we did this before and had all the instructions.
Yes – looked strong! It was so lovely to see a BC come right in to the handler rather than staying out on a parallel line! The wraps looked strong too, no questions at all. Next step: the toy goes out on the line so he doesn’t look at you and you don’t need to time the toy delivery… plus it is an added self-control challenge for him!
The minny pinny looked good!
>> I used a toy target for the turn-away reps, is that ok?
Yes, that was perfect, nice work placing the toy to help him understand turning away – that is a HARD skill for a baby pup!! That placed toy jump started the behavior and then it will be easy to fade out, but just moving it around the setup til it is back in your hand 🙂
>>He doesn’t know his verbals L/R. Maybe a few more reps will do the trick>>
It will come with practice of the verbal coming before the motion. My only suggestion is to start him with your hand on his collar and say the verbals a few times before either of you move (same as you did on the serp game). That way the verbal predicts the motion, which will make it more solid (otherwise it is all about the physical cue and motion, which is fine but we are going to want really great verbals with him :))
>> I have a question about the end. Post Turn or FX? And how do I keep him from banging my leg on the FX?>>
Front cross! And presenting the toy with the arm opposite of the arm he exits on (in the same hand as the side he started on), with it across your body, will help him be tight on the new line and not hit you. Presenting the reward with the dog sidearm and coming towards you can result in him hitting your legs as he drives to the toy.
I agree, the lead changes looked great! The stay was sooooo helpful here and he looked balanced in both directions! So…. move the barrels a little closer together to see if you can cue the lead changes sooner, and see if he can do them quicker. A little closer can be maybe 6 inches because puppies are not that coordinated and his body is still growing and we don’t want to over-do it LOL!
>>No drilling, no overtraining>>
Exactly! There is no need for it! And honestly, the session doesn’t even need to be great – the pups learn even if we don’t see it in the session and then cement the learning when they sleep (latent learning). That is why the less-is-more approach works so well for the pups – lots of learning without frustration or stressy stuff 🙂
Great job here!!!!
Tracy
Hi!
> I have to use my right hand to signal my dog to turn left! And vice versa!>>
Do you mean you are saying “right” when you want the dog to turn left, because it is your right hand? That is actually fine and might be easier to remember!
And other options include a ‘towards’ and ‘away’ verbal rather than right or left – totally depends on what feels best for you!
TracyGood morning!
>.Obi is 11 months now!
Baby dog is growing up! Large breed, boy dog – I would say 11 months is a good time to start showing him wrist-height bars. In the next couple of months, go up to elbow height but take your time – the big pups take a little longer to develop.
>>I’m not sure where to get jump bumps, but I can make some out of pvc + pool noodles (DIY ftw!). Already ordered the noodles >>
Pool noodles are perfect!!!! I have also gotten PVC plumbing supplies at Lowes or Home Depot (and the staff there has cut them into 5 foot sections for me).
>>that’s not the reason for my lack of coordination. Lots of things happening at once/quickly and I think I just need to go run circles by myself before involving Obi >The pillbug game is pretty easy for the dogs but I find them super hard for ME! LOL!!! We have to connect to the dog, do handling and not fall over the tunnel. LOL! Wearing a hood probably limited your peripheral vision, so the rain was a factor here too! Darned rain!
Looking at the video: you did GREAT!!! If you hadn’t mentioned that it felt weird, I would not have known – you looked very connected and you did not run into anything LOL! At the end, as you both added more speed, it was a little harder but still went really well! You did well showing him the connections and he got a TON of reinforcement – so he thought it was a fun game 🙂
>>More specifically I see myself hesitating to make sure he is on one side of me and somehow try to observe as he switches over as I make the cross.>>
It looks like you were connecting to be sure of where he would be – and that might have felt like you were hesitation, but it looked like connection and he was reading it beautifully!
You might find it less awkward-feeling if you had a 2nd ‘tunnel’ so you can do the blind between the 2 tunnels. If you don’t have another tunnel, you can use a barrel or jump wing instead. That way you can run more, get the blind in between the 2 obstacles, and not feel as hesitant.

Great job here!!
TracyGood morning! I hope your migraine went away!!!!
The 3 foot spacing challenged her footwork and coordination… and she had no trouble! Good girl! So if you are still indoors, you can add a 4th wing to this 🙂 and also give your cues sooner – it will feel like fast dance moves LOL!!!!
Fingers crossed for nicer weather ahead!!!
Tracy
Good morning! Hopefully the snow isn’t too bad!!!
On the discrimination video:
Yes, the wraps are definitely easier for him! Partially it is value, but also proximity and lack of motion helps 😁
For the tunnels – Motion to the tunnel totally helps! He has too many failures happening though, and was getting frustrated (leaping/grabbing for the toy). So, time to build up the tunnel value & understanding! To do that, you can straighten the tunnel out and have it closer to the wing so it is easier to see and go through. Or take the wing out entirely until he can find that tunnel 100% of the time. And add in a lot of connection – with the curved tunnel, you were disconnecting a bit and moving away, so he was following your body cues and not always going into the tunnel. If something goes awry, no need to mark it as being wrong like at :24 – you can call him back, reset with a cookie, then make it easier on the next rep.>>FAS helping out (she likes that she has her own acronym, by the way).>>
Ha! She is very helpful – holding him but not getting him jazzed up and leaning forward. Yay! He did well here – you probably don’t need both the release work and the chase it marker, because the toy placement and the release implies that he can have the toy (I cannot think of a time when we would drag a toy, let him look at it, release him and NOT want him to take it LOL!!) Because he is not in a stay, the chase it might be technically more correct than a release but either way, you can go with one verbal rather than trying to use both 🙂
He did better when you were walking and not running, so you can revisit this maybe once a week, with you walking for now. As he develops his mechanics, you can add more running – because he is young, his body & mechanics change every day so there is no rush to add more challenge to the game yet.
>>I also moved the bumps a little closer – set them at 4 ft, I think I had them at 5 ft last time.>>
This will continue to change has he grows (not even 7 months old yet?). He will probably end up at a 6 foot set point distance but we have plenty of time to sort that out 🙂
>>we did some find the jump work. This was pretty easy for him, at least the finding the jump part. Still working on tunnel commitment.>>
He was great about finding the jump! Yay! You can throw the reward even sooner: use your marker and throw it as soon as he looks at the jump, which will be basically right after he exits the tunnel. That way he looks forward the whole time and not at you. On most reps, you were throwing as he was arriving at the jump, so he was looking at you.
You can also mix in rewards for taking the tunnel, thrown at the tunnel exit. For now, stretch the tunnel out so there is less curve and more light in it, making it easier to go to and go through 🙂 He committed nicely when you supported with connection and motion to it! When you pulled away too soon (right after the wing wrap) and disconnected like at :31, he followed your motion (good boy!) so be sure to reset with a reward and support more like you did on the next rep.
Great job here!! Fingers crossed for clear weather ahead!!
Tracy
Good morning!
He did really well with the tunnels here! Great job using motion to help him out! He had a little trouble going to the wing wraps after a tunnel rep, so you can do two things to help him out:
– the line ups are looking really good, so you can hold him a little longer so he hears the wrap verbal 3 or 4 times.
– After he hears it a few times, let him go to the wing and use your other arm to present the reward in the gap between the wing and tunnel (rather than move away, which could look similar to movement to the tunnel)Hearing the verbal first then having it be followed by the hand cue will help him predict that the wrap verbal is followed by coming around the wing, so he will anticipate the reward and come around the wing 🙂
Great job making the verbals sound different in the minny pinny! And you were holding him til he heard the verbals a few times which goes a long way to helping him process them. I think the placed reward helped him turn away, which is definitely the harder skill here! When you revisit this game (every few days, or once a week – it doesn’t need to be a daily game) you can fade out the placed reward and replace it with a thrown reward when he turns away.
The more exaggerated handling on the zig zags really helped him! He did super well here!!! So keeping the exaggerated handling, you can move the wings a little closer together 🙂 If they were about 6 feet apart here, you can try moving them to about 5 feet apart and see how he does.
Great job here!
TracyGood morning!
I do think that dogs are brilliant and can learn the same word being used in different contexts. So the Go as a release without meaning acceleration (delivered more quietly) and the Go Go Go on a big line to mean big extension is a possibility and the dogs can figure it out 🙂 but it might be easier to have a separate cue like RUN RUN RUN for the big lines 🙂
T
Good morning!
I am glad you didn’t get too much snow!
This was a good session! On the first rep, she pulled in from her front more than she pushed in off her rear, but she adjusted after than and pushed from the rear on the other reps.
>> After a couple of reps, I moved the bar to 12″. Not sure if I should have done this. Coincidently (?) that’s the only rep where she breaks her stay.>>
I think it was fine, but you can leave it there for now for a few sessions. Did you move it up from 8 inches, or 10 inches? The more gradual approximations are easier for the dogs. The stay break might have been partially the processing of the higher height, and partially that the toy had a big movement and she might have anticipated the release.
>>Your notes had a good reminder not to do too many reps of this. I deleted the last rep where she showed disinterest.>>
Yes, I like to do 5 or fewer reps. This is mentally challenging for the dog (moving target is HARD!) and also the plyometrics of pushing in off the rear is definitely physically hard too! So a couple of reps then letting her go do something else will help keep her from getting depleting or losing interest.
Great job!!
TracyGood morning!
>> But I was most proud of how happy she was! That just made me so excited! She was so dang proud of herself afterward. You should have seen it. It was so cute!>>
I love that! She felt good about it all!!!!
>>After reviewing my video later, I’m a little embarrassed at my poor handling in areas but oh well! >>
There is ZERO to be embarrassed about! Look for the good points and remind yourself of those (like the strong connection even when her speed surprised you). And if there was something you can do differently next time? Note it and practice it. But don’t pick on yourself – the run was incredibly successful!!!
>>For both of my dogs I wanted to make it super clear that they were to jump and immediately come back to me. What a weird way to start but I didn’t want there to be any temptations for that other jump that was super close to the start jump. >>
It is a good one to practice, because it is a trend we are seeing more and more: taking the first jump away from the course then coming back. It started in Europe, now we see it all the time in UKI, and that means we will be seeing it in AKC soon too (although AKC does have a lot of starts from a tunnel, which is fun :))
>> I’m still kicking myself at my poor handling right there where I had to call Kashia off the tunnel and turn right. I’d practice a front and a blind right there and in the moment, I did a sloppy rear which didn’t show Kashia I wanted to turn right so she went towards the tunnel. If I’d done my plan, we could have saved a second or two. It was so sloppy of me! >>
Another way to look at it: you were surprised by her speed but still showed her the line. Next time you can either show it to her sooner or dive into the original plan more aggressively (that is something to practice – going for it without breaking connection).
>>Isn’t it amazing to see how much she likes tunnels now!? Thanks to your class they have so much more value! Yay! Loving the tunnel makes agility SO much easier!
>>But after that, I’ve thought about doing it for Kashia or at the very least, exaggerating my deceleration better.As she gains speed in trials, more deceleration will be useful! You might not need it in practice but it is worthwhile to practice anyway, so that you have it at your fingertips at trials.
>>Granted this is only her second trial competing and she’s only done one course per day. >>
I personally think this is the correct way to begin a young dog’s trial career: one day here and there, and one SUPER FUN class only 🙂 Build it up as something really fun and then slowly add in the other classes.
>> always go into the ring with the mindset you taught me, just run and have fun! No fixing things or putting pressure on any of it.>>
This is a career goal in agility, whether it is at novice level or a big event: focus on your handling and connection, have fun, and everything else falls into place.
>>Just let Kashia run and have fun! I don’t declare NFC because I don’t think she needs that. At least not in Speedstakes. She doesn’t like toys enough to make that worth it for her. >>
I agree – because she won’t be jazzed up by a toy in that environment, it is possible that stopping to ‘reward’ is not actually a reward and could be frustrating or stressful. Getting to run run run? Yes, that might be the best reward 🙂
>>Now I know next time I need to mentally prepare for her to activate the turbos once we get going! Ha ha ha I don’t want her to go flying and leave me in the dust!>>
Yes! On the speedstakes courses, be ready for speed. And take the risk to do the crazy blinds – you have terrific foot speed! And if something goes wrong? NO worries at all, just keep going. And a few NQs would actually be good because she is going to move up to the higher levels pretty quickly and a little more time on the lower levels is a good thing 🙂
Have fun!
TracyGood morning!
>>I think she wanted to offer her backup behavior to encourage me to give her the treat but she had no room to move & offered the down instead. >>
That was so kind of her to encourage you to give her the treat! LOL!!! And if that is how she offers the down… cool! We will take it AND give her the treats 😁
I am glad you posted the RC video – you can get on the rear cross line even sooner 🙂 What was happening was you were running the straight line parallel to her line until she was committed to a takeoff spot, then cutting into the RC line – that was too late for her to change the striding to turn away, so she didn’t read the RC. It is possible that you were waiting for her to get past you or get closer to the jump before showing it? But by then, her decision has been made.
So to get her seeing it sooner: as soon as you pass the jump after the tunnel, your running line should be to the center of the bar of the RC jump. That way, as she is making her takeoff decision for that jump, she will see the motion and pressure, and set up the RC.
The tricky part is starting that motion line (and verbal, but the motion is more important) as soon as you pass the jump – but not being too far ahead that you push her off the line, or too far behind that it becomes late. Ideally you are a little ahead, or parallel to her. And keep moving forward to the center of the RC jump until she is very close to it, then you can finish the RC (if she ends up on the backside, you were too early 🙂 )
Circle wraps are going well!!! You were really emphasizing the connection shift (and using a bit of turn at the waist and arm movement to help support that). The session was highly successful – one little blooper where the connection was not strong enough but you quickly fixed it and the rest were lovely! You can probably keep your hands in lower and tighter to you – that can help with the quickness required to make the blinds & reconnections. She is soooo quick that less arm motion will let your rotation be quicker and also, she will see the connection even more.
Speaking of arms staying closer and tighter to you – keeping your arms in tight will help with the tight blinds too! I have found that the further my “wings” are from my torso, the longer it takes me to bring them in, changes sides on the blind, and stretch them out again. That probably seems like hours to speedy dogs LOL!!! And the quicker we can show the clear re-connection like you had at :16, the better the blind cross lines will be 🙂
>>. I didn’t like our timing, so I ended the session there.>>
I think trying to get the timing from the stay was a bit hard because there was not enough time to show the line and start the blind.
When you added the tunnel, your motion supported the line so your timing at :24- :26 was really strong!!! You started the blind when she was about halfway between the tunnel and wing, and you were reconnected just as she arrived at the wing. NICE! (Having your wing in tighter to you will help you be even quicker :))
The timing at :37 was also good! The other reps from the tunnel were strong but not as great as the timing at :24-:26. There is a lot of trust involved in blinds, so trust your motion to commit her to the line so you can start the upper body rotation.
Tandems are going well too! I think the best reps were when you were not that far ahead of her, so you were moving together (that is why they are called tandem turns :)). At :20 you were a step early on the rotation (stepping into her so she turned away on the flat) but then you nailed it on the next rep! Yay!
>>Now I need to pick my Threadle Wrap verbal. I’m thinking maybe “round, round” (short for around). I think my brain will “see” that and help me communicate it.>>
I like ‘round round’ – it describes the behavior and I think it sounds different from any of your other cues. And it brings up a cool 80s song in my head (you spin me right round baby right round hahahahahahah)
>>Also, I saw this term and never considered this before – what is a Weave Threadle?>>Yeah, the world has gone MAD. Bearing in mind that threadles are all when the dog needs to squeeze in between us and the obstacle then turn away to get into the non-obvious side of it. Just like we have a verbal for the other side/non-obvious side of a tunnel and a verbal (or two haha) for the threadle other side of a jump… you can train a verbal that cues the dog to go to the threadle side of the weaves.
Basically, if the course heads towards an obvious entry (pole 1), the threadle entry would be pole 12!
The reasoning behind this is that with all of the discriminations involving the weaves and tunnels and jumps nearby, you can’t use the same verbal for all the threadles because the dog won’t understand the discrimination. This is a valid argument!
But in reality… even though I have dabbled in the training of it with my youngsters, I have NOT seen it on course at all. Anywhere. I mean, maybe we will run into it on a poorly designed ISC course somewhere? But I have not seen the weave threadle challenge anywhere and it is really hard on the dog’s body. The current trends seem to be more towards really independent weaves so we can focus on that. And if the trend of weave threadles appears, we can add in the training.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
Supporting with the physical cues leads to better connection and that was super clear here (so he was very successful). And we have a great camera angle to see it! For example, look at the first rep (:05 and :07) as well as the last rep: as he is working the circle wrap, you can see your connection shift to the ‘landing’ spot rather than looking forward so he got those really well!On the 2nd rep, you did not have the clear connection like the other reps so he didn’t get the middle wing (:16) – compare to :23 and 34 on that middle wing as you ramped up the connection, looked behind you, and he got the commitment. Super!!!
So keep going with that connection and you will see the countermotion gets easier and easier for him.
Nice work!
TracyGood morning!
This was not painful at all! You broke it down and helped him out. Yes, there is a discrimination element here between the jump and tunnel, but also it is a huge connection game along with the timing of the motion. Backside circles are hard!When you were using a little less motion and more upper body (like on the last 3 reps), he more easily found the circle wrap. More upper body was making it look like you were shifting connection behind you to the ‘landing’ spot (looking at where you wanted him to go). That is also what you were doing on the more successful reps earlier in the session (even before the tunnel was blocked :))
When you were moving faster and not shifting the connection/using as much upper body, the cues pushed him off the line and into the tunnel. You did have the opposite arm in use there but everything else was cuing forward on a straight line (like at :08 and :14)
So connection is the key – feet moving forward and waist turned a bit (arms can help too) so he sees your connection move to the landing spot. Then make a quick connection on the line to get him to the tunnel or wing after that – he makes the decision based on what connection he sees (like at :22 and :37) so if he goes to the other side of a wing or tunnel, it was just a late connection when you were looking forward rather than at him.
Then when the physical cues are smooth, we add the verbals and it will be even easier.
Nice work here!
TracyGood morning! Lots of good work here!
Wing-tunnel discrimination:
Great job with the collar hold and verbals – you can add in motion support after you release him, to help build up the verbals (the verbal coming before the motion will predict which motion is coming, so he will start to do the thing based on the verbal :))For the tunnels, you can say the verbal a few times like you did, then release – then turn and step to the tunnel with the dog-side leg to affirm that yes, it is the tunnel 🙂
For the wraps you can help similarly – say the verbal release then – and then use a hand cue to help him come through the gap.
He had a few too many errors here and had some big mad moments, so you can totally help him out! As long as. The verbal cues before the motion, he will still learn the verbal very quickly. And if he has a miss, you can reset him with a line up cookie rather than handle through to the correct line – that way he can really focus on the verbal.
Set point is going well! You can add a little more distance between the bumps because he is powering through it even more (6 inches for now and we will see what he thinks) and you can also add the moving target.
Minny pinny – nice mechanics of the verbal then release here too! Yay! And great job adding the different angles. He was sometimes a little sideways on the line up, so to help get a straight line up you can lure with a cookie to your side, then take his collar, then give him another cookie. Lotsa cookies will make lining up at your side into a very happy place 🙂
As you add more challenge to these, we can make the verbals sound a little more different from each other. You can slow down and stretch the verbals out (as in, riiight riiiight riiiight and lehhft lehhht)so they are more different in sound and rhythm. That will help him understand the difference which helps as the challenges increase. If they are both short and fast, then it is harder to process the difference.
Turning away was hard as expected, it is normal to have trouble with the turning away at first.
He had a slightly harder time turning away to his left (he might be a righty, based on this game and the zig zags too), but had questions in both directions so you can help solidify the ‘turn away’ concept by holding him, tossing the toy to where you want him to turn to (to really enhance the line), starting the verbal – then let him go. That can help him understand that it he can turn away on these cues.
When he has the light bulb moment of “Oh! I can turn away!!!” Then you can fade out the reward placed on the line.Zig zags: The early reps of moving right then left went well! It was easy to get all the way out to the 3rd wing. As you mentioned, when you switched to
left then right – it was too hard with you out on wing 3 and serping (upper body cues without foot movement). Great job breaking it down and moving back to the 2nd wing to get that left turn! On the next session, start those left turns the way you ended here: facing him and turning your feet in a more exaggerated way, almost like a front cross. That can help support his lead changes to his left (the movement to the right after that is easy!). When he can do it smoothly, you can start to move your position further back, bit by bit.Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
