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Hi!
> I am currently not emotionally committed enough to agility to justify buying a teeter. I have lost some of my passion for agility over the last couple of years. Trying to find my joy and motivation again.>
That makes total sense! Ellie is a fantastic dog, so I am sure you two will excel in whichever sport you choose! Hopefully agility will come back to a joyous place for you but also there are so many fun sports to do with a versatile and talented dog like Ellie 🙂
Looking at the video:
This was a lovely session! I agree that she had no questions. In fact, by moving that middle jump out and sending, she had fantastic turns in both directions there. Yay! And you were beautifully connected on both your left and right side, so she had no questions. That was great to see especially on your right side – those reps looked super!We build on this with the next games on Tuesday, so you can add more distance and more running too if you wanted to do another session with it.
Great job!
Tracy
Hi!
He definitely liked this one more – running AND frisbee! Yay!He did really well with the commitments here. Your connection looked great, both on the sending and on the exits of the FCs. When doing the baby level and sending to the single wing, you can try it from even closer to the tunnel exit, we well as move the wing even further away. When you are using the 2 wings before the FC, you don’t need the big send to the first wing – you can support it with connection and motion, doing the send to the 2nd wing as part of getting the FC started.
You can add more distance between the wings and tunnel to challenge his commitment more. And you can add your verbals! I heard the tunnel verbals, but you can also add the wrap verbals as well as the soft turn verbals for when you are doing the FC on the middle wing.
Great job!
TracyHi!
Nice job spreading this out! The sending looked good, no problem. Yay! He really has strong commitment. And he was also super when you added running – he stayed on his line AND went faster too 🙂 I am loving how well he is driving out the middle jump!We build on this setup a lot on Tuesday. If you want to play with it again before then, you can spread it out to bigger distances. That will be a great challenge for the little guy 🙂
Great work here!
TracyHi! He is doing really well here too 🙂 Having the food at the end on the target for a LOT of drive the end of the board. He seems very confident!
When wrapping the wing before the teeter, make sure the wing exits to a pretty straight line to the teeter – some of the angles looked like you wanted a different line 🙂
For this game, keep gradually add more drop to the board. It looks like he has no problem with you running past the board. Super! Have you been able to run past and do a FC or BC while he is on it? If not, you can definitely try that. You can also start very close to the wrap wing and do a rear cross between the wing and teeter.
How is he doing with the bang game? We add that game later in this class, but I figured I’d ask to see if you have started it already.
Great job!
TracyHi! This went great!
Starting with food was good because it really solidified his independence. Then adding the toy got both the independence and the speed 🙂 Yay!You can add more distance between the jumps here to challenge him more – how far apart can the jumps be and he still takes them. You can work up to 28 feet or more!
Great job!
TracyGood morning (or is it afternoon there?)
The pinwheel worked looked fabulous, he is looking at his line and driving around with speed! He seems to have no questions at all. So you can move to the 2nd and 3rd levels which have more sending so you don’t move into the pinwheel as much. And, you can mix up the distances: some longer, some shorter. That way he is challenged to regulate his stride a bit too.
He did great with the plank work. Back and forth with straight entries was no problem. Yay! With the plank still on the ground, you can add in tossing the cookies out to the side so he enters from all sorts of different angles. Think of all the terrible angles we never want to see on a dog walk or teeter… and show them to him here so he learns how to balance 🙂 You can also do that with the board slightly elevated, so he has to get on it and balance before moving across it.
He did well turning around on the board, no problem! You can add 2 challenges:
– have him hop off in the middle of the board, so he is moving across it then you call him off of it from the middle. That will help him balance if he ever needs to jump off rather than fall– in the center of the board, you can ask for position changes such as down to stand to sit to stand to down 🙂 That requires a lot of balance! A cookie lure is fine to help him with that, so he doesn’t try to jump off to change positions 🙂
Great job here!
Tracy
Hello and welcome back!
Let me just say that it is GREAT that you post the places where things are harder – that way we can sort that out and everything gets easier.
I see what you mean about the food being NOT motivating in this game. It is not unusual for a Border Collie to think food is not a motivator or reward during work.
He was finding the jumps, and he did see you throw the food (but it was not worth the effort to find it when jumps, your motion, and a toy were in play). It seemed like he was able to think about what he needed to do… but the food was not a motivator or reward at all. This is pretty normal LOL
Two ideas for you:
We can use this framework to be able to get more food value going: throw a BIG GIANT VISIBLE chunk of something, like a piece of string cheese. Then when he gets it and eats it (stop the game til he does) – you can have a ginormous party with the toy then back into the work on the jumps.
So mainly eating food becomes part of the ‘work’, as we build it up into a motivator.
Separately from using food, when we are working on getting bigger commitment from him: use the toy 🙂 He definitely finds it motivating and rewarding, so for now you can throw the toy out on the line. For efficiency, you can have a 2nd toy with you to help convince hm to come right back with the first toy, for the next rep 🙂
One other thing to consider – at the end you did a nose touch hold then the toy. I’ve talked to a bunch of behavior vets about the sustained nose touches and chin rests, and what we are all seeing is that while the intention is to calm the dog, it has the opposite effect: there is muscle tension when they do this and they either are not breathing or they are breathing fast through their noses… all of which can increase the heart rate which increases arousal 🙂 So a quick hand touch is great so he can open his mouth, move, and breath more will be better for a quick behavior to get him the toy.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Good morning!
She brings a lot of joy to the lazy game! She is DEFINITELY not lazy in her approach to this LOL and was very happy to go over the jumps to eat the treat. Best game ever according to Millie!! Super fun to watch her.
And when you asked for more than one jump? No problem, she said. She ended up driving to all 3 jumps with speed and independence, not needing much help from you. SUPER!
Since this went perfectly, you can spread the distances out, and you can also proceed to games 2 and 3!
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi!
>I did notice her zig zag on that tunnel approach and she did it more than once. I’m a little concerned we are also developing some weakness with “dog on right.” >
It might be that you are a little more naturally connected with her on your left, thanks to the value of the obedience work. So when she is on your right, you can really emphasize the connection to her eyes (and tell your arms to stay out of the picture :)) and I bet the connection on your right clicks into place there too.
>What do you suggest if we don’t have a way to start with one end on the ground and one in the air? I know this would be the ideal way to get a fast, confident teeter. So maybe I need to invest in the teeter trainer? I don’t own a teeter but have access to one.>
If you have access to one, you can play this game when you are able to go train on the one you have access to. You can of course invest in a teeter trainer, but it seems like it would cost too much for the amount of time you would need it (not a lot of time). You could invest in a teeter, which would make more sense because it gets used a lot, but you can also train a fantastic teeter without owning one.
Another way to begin the mountain climber game is to use a normal plank so she can run up it and get rewarded at the top – it doesn’t need to move at the early stages, so a regular plank would be fine for now.
>On the plank exercise, what if we have already introduced the 2o2o end behavior?>
For the angled entries, you can have her start on the angled entry and end in the 2o2o on the other side of the plank. She would be getting on in one direction only (no back and forth) but that will still help her find the angles of entry. And for the turning around in the middle, you can have her hop on in the middle, turn around, hop off – this is all to prepare her for if she ever loses her balance and needs to jump off rather than fall off.
Keep me posted!
Tracy
Good morning!
She did well here! The cot stationing might have helped, hard to know, but she did seem less bouncy/barky on t he way to the first jump at the beginning.
Run 1 – this went well! One thing to try is a spin on 4 after the blind, instead of a post turn. The spin turns your feet the new direction sooner (she had a nice turn but you can get more speed out of it if she chases you rather than follows a post turn. That can also get you a few steps further ahead so you can then send to 5 and get to the blind on the tunnel exit sooner. The blind was a little late so she had a question there (but didn’t get mad! Yay!)
Run 2 – this also went well! I don’t think she needs an arm send or step to the backside on 3 – I believe she will get it with parallel path motion and verbals. Sending (and toy hand switching) made the FC a little late at 1:07. Or you can do a blind because that will get you up the line even better and then she won’t have a question on the tunnel exit.
Run 3 –
Great focus forward to 1 at 1:40! Her line up and the step out of it read RC to her, so more of an angle on her start position will help so she is facing the left turn.
Great job on the last line and layering the tree AND driving ahead! She is getting really good at the distance lines!!!
>I can try to rotate treats more but she’s still not into non food-stuffed toys for agility so kinda hard to mix up toys very much. >
Keep rotating treats, and you can also rotate the food toys – food stuffed frizz, lotus ball, treat hugger, etc.
>Lately I’ve felt like the agility training has been going well, but her general house manners have regressed.>
Could be a burst of adolescence brain development happening, could be less activity due to heat, or anything. You can give her indoor puzzles to solve, like indoor scent work in the form of hiding food or hiding a kong toy or something to give her a brain workout 🙂
Sounds like a great weekend ahead! Have fun hiking and at the trial, fingers crossed for great weather!
Tracy
Hi!
> I never REALLY know where he’s going and handling becomes reactive instead of proactive. >
This is a HUGE point! On the runs you posted, the handling was 95% proactive and looked fabulous! It was the 5% where it was a little reactive where you had the one darned error. (That is probably frustrating – I would be frustrated! Argh!)
>So in addition to tunnel exit challenges, will need teeter exit challenges (and even start line scenarios, since similar things happen off of start lines, like that opening from that first class course I posted of Roots).>
That is a great plan – and the plan only focuses on 2 things, making it much easier to execute and complete! I am not as concerned about the start line openings, because those are already in progress plus you are slapping on the verbals which will help enormously.
So for the tunnel exits and teeter exits: When you are training, grab the handling skills sequences or pop outs or parts of the big courses that have those 2 exits, and work them as written and also with an ‘either – or’ approach, showing him a variety of different exits. if you only show one exit, he will learn the sequence and then it won’t matter what the handling is after the second rep LOL!
Then for the ISC trial, maybe look at the courses from the perspective of working on those 3 things (start line exits, tunnel exits, teeter exits). It will mainly be tunnel exits because there will be several of those in each course, and tell him what the exit is (before he enters) on every tunnel whether you think he needs it or not :). Thankfully there is only one start line on each course, and only one teeter exit on each standard course, so that requires less focus at a trial.
Have a great weekend!!
Tracy
Good morning!
I love games where we can sit! Cricket added nice musical accompaniment too!
She did really well here – I think her success was a combination of processing the cues before she moved, and latent learning from the previous session. Super! It is still a hard processing game so she sometimes came directly to the toy (there is a self-control element in play here too). She had a stretch in the middle where she got several wrong – my guess is arousal came up more which made the processing harder. But you kept things in a very centered state and she worked through the puzzle, finishing super strong!
For the next session (in a couple of days, so latent learning has time to work its magic :)), try it standing then try it with adding that ‘neutral motion’ from coming around a wing. It is fun to sort see her sort it out.
Nice work!
TracyHi! It sounds like both boys are doing great, thanks for the update!! I bet you don’t have to support the 5-6 jumps for the blind cross that much – just keep moving and using verbals, and they will get it 🙂
Have fun and keep me updated on how they do with the rest of the sequences!
Tracy
Hi! I am glad Katniss did well on the course! The weave entry is really hard, so I am not surprised she had a BIG MAD there LOL
Looking at the opening with Nox: the layering is HARD, good job working through it!
When she came off the line in the layering on the first rep, she saw you pulling away as she was heading to 2 at :29 which set the line to the tunnel and not 3
By sending her from further away at :50 you were able to set a much better parallel line 2-3. She turned a little wide on 1 there which took her off the line to 3, so a wrap verbal would be better than a go jump verbal, perhaps?
She went back out and found 3 at 1:06 though! Yay! The parallel path of your motion really helped there! Good reward!
Starting at 3 worked well and you easily got the 6 backside.
On. the 6-7-8 line: I think you wanted a right turn away from you on 7 at 1:28 (based on your reaction) but Nox and I agree that the cues looked more like a left turn.
You can use your arms and shoulder turning to set the line for that – you did it with 2 hands and a bit of a shoulder pull later in the video and it worked really well 🙂Did she get the weave entry then go chase sheep? LOL She came back relatively fast LOL!!
For the backside at 2:05 on 13, drive towards it more (towards the center of the bar) to give her earlier info)
Looking at the tunnel exit to jump 15: At 2:12 on 15 she was not sure if it was a wrap or RC, so she abstained and took neither LOL More on this line below!
Driving more to the parallel line to the 16 backside (2:23), and also to 19 a 2:29 will smooth out both of those lines there.
On the very last jump, she had a big mad at 2:34, she just did not see the line to the last jump – looks like you were a bit lateral and your arm was parallel to your body – which blocks connection.
Evening run:
These runs went great! She was much smoother in the opening, she is figuring it out! Yay! And she nailed it on the last run!
And much better tandem turn cues 6-7-8: you had both arms involved and a clearer change of line with your motion.
Nice line 9-10-11-12 both times!
On the first run, I thought you were better about driving her to the 13 backside, but she disagreed. So push on that line even harder so she doesn’t consider the front at all. You handled it basically the same way on the last run and she went directly to it, so hopefully she is getting more comfortable with these parallel path backside sends.
To possibly get the BC after the tunnel, you can handle the exit of 13 as a German turn: pushing forward with countermotion after the backside and picking her up on your right side (rather than doing a FC on the landing side) – that can put you several steps further ahead on the net line. You were VERY close to getting the BC at 4:32 with the FC 13-14, s I bet you can get it using the German turn.
You had better connection on the exit of the 14 tunnel to the 15 jump at 3:21, so she took the jump! Yay! Nice rear cross on 15 at 4:33!
I thought you had a better line of motion to the backside of 16 at 3:35 (and to 19 at 3:41) but she also disagreed and barked at you. She definitely needs a lot of support to the backside, good job giving it to her here! She got mad when you said “yay” at 4:35 and didn’t reward her LOL
And your connection was SO much clearer cueing the last jump: eye contact, arm back, motion to the jump. Super!
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
