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Hi!
I think she finds this game easy in terms of doing things without the toy in your hand. She didn’t want to be finished at the end LOL!You can give a hand cue to help the left versus right spins, she might be predicting that you do right then left all the time LOL!
To be able to get further from the toy, you can use multiple rooms: the toy remains in one room, you go into the next room, do a few things, then use your marker to run back to the original room. And you can add in the power pattern using the 2 stations (simulating entry and exit of the ring) and a jump.
> I was going to add in a bucket or something next so I could add putting the leash on too.>
Yes! Totally do that. I don’t think she will have any questions. It appears that while the toy and treats are valuable, playing with you and running sequences are equally valuable to her, so that might make for a really easy transition into the trial ring! YAY!!
Nice work here!
Tracy
Hi!
I don’t think this was a fail at all! It was really useful info. She is reading your cues pretty perfectly, and it gives us info about when and how she needs the see/hear cues.
When you were moving to the serp, she didn’t find 3 because you were cuing an extension exit on the tunnel (running hard towards the extension line) and no verbal turn cues before she went in). So the last info she had before entry was go straight on the exit… and the angle of the tunnel here sends her past the the 3 jump. You called her when she exited the tunnel (:20, :55, 1:12 for example) but it was too late – by the time her brain processed it, the decision on how to take the line was already made and your motion supported it.
So call her at least 6 feet before she enters the tunnel (call her hard!) and let her see you turn to move to the serp line.
She reads tunnel exit cues well when she sees/hears them before she gets into the tunnel! When you went to pick her up on your left side at the tunnel exit, she saw the FC before she entered at 2:10 and 3:05 and after that so found the 3 jump easily each time.
Looking at the serp:
The serp cue of moving across the upright with feet pointing to 5, right arm back, shoulders facing 4, eye contact, etc) should be visible to her no later than landing of the 3 jump. Then maintain the eye contact as you move to 5 so she knows where to be as she lands.
On the first run at :21. yuou were showing straight line cues so she took off straight over 4 -the serp cue came as she was landing at 4 so it was too late to adjust.
At :58 you were standing still but not serping – the serp cue started just after takeoff for 4 she made the turn (yay!) But then you discconnected and looked forward so she thought it was a blind and changed sides – maintaining eye contact until after she lands and makes the side change will make a big difference there.At 1:13 you had a full rotation like a FC as she was jumping 4, so she responded with the straight line.
I made photos! They are here so you can see those exact moments:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1nVDRsR65b0sa5y4iQKVe484KP5zI5Kp4uCVFqFrql-E/edit?usp=sharingTrying it from the other side can definitely work! The FC on the tunnel exit set a great line for 3! Then you have to set up the RC with decel, brake arm (yes, I said what I said haha) – you were turning hard and moving fast, which was harder to maintain connection and definitely cued too much extension. Decel, connect, brake arm… I think if we obsess on that skill you will see soooooooo many of the things that are hard get much easier 🙂
So for the next session: do it without her from the dog-on-left tunnel exit. And do it with a beverage in your left hand. Run that line and decel/brake arm/rear cross without spilling your drink! And get it on video so you can see what it looks like 🙂 I think the instant we lock that in, you will find so many things easier 🙂
Nice work
here!Tracy
Hi!
>I am very slow doing Max‘s blind crosses, I also tried it outside. It was no better. He gets the game and then he’s really fast. my Manchester terriers are much slower and I can blind cross them all day>
I read this before watching the video so I was expecting bloopers… but actually you were really good!!!! The trick to blinds with your little speedster is that you will do them nice and early: as soon as he is moving towards you in this game, do the blind. The first couple of reps, for example, we nice and early so he read them well.
You were a little late at :45 but you had excellent mechanics so he could make the side change immediately. And you were very timely on the last rep.
Was he unable to get the side change outside? I think this was a good session and you will get more and more comfy with his speed 🙂
Nice work here!!
TracyHi! Tiva is looking really strong here!!
She is doing well with her prop sends! She is hitting it hard enough that it is sliding a bit so you might need some duct tape 🙂
With this game, remember that you don’t want to loop her around into the next rep after the reward. You will want to call her back to you, get engaged and get her stimulated with a bit of ready dance… then send her. That works on getting her into handler focuus and then into obstacle focus. Plus it adds a bit of arousal to the game. which is good because we will want her to be thoughtful even when she is in higher arousal 🙂
I think she is ready for the sideways sending and backwards sending too!
Nice work with the cone here! She immediately got into the game and was zipping around the cone. She had a small hesitation at about 1:20 when she went most of the way around the cone then stopped… I think she was chewing and lsot her train of thought LOL! So you can reward it to get her back on track.
For the next cone steps, you can start to move the bowls a bit more out of the picture by having them back by your heels. That way she will have a longer distance to travel and we can start fading them out. We build on this game tonight!!
Great job here!
TracyHi!
She also did well with the wing wraps: she got the idea of the 2 bowls nicely!
>She was starting to tire a bit, and she finds the go slow and think activities harder than the run fast ones.>
I don’t think she was tired or finding it uninteresting, I think it was just a lot of repetition for cookies. You can keep things exciting if you break it off and play tug more frequently, and keep the session shorter.
When adding the upright, make the bowls a bit more visible at first. No need to add distance between you and the upright too quickly – let her get really good at zipping back and forth around it (as well as around a bigger barrel too).
For the next step, we are going to get you standing up! You can repeat this process (first with the 2 bowls, then with an upright or barrel) but with you sitting in a chair. And if that goes well, try it standing up because that will flow nicely into the new games 🙂 And after every 4 or 5 cookies, break things up and have a toy party to keep things exciting.
Nice work here!
TracyHi!
The forward focus is looking good! You can add more distance now, throwing it really far so you can also add your movement and build up to the toy races. As you set her up for the toy throws: rather than move her by her collar, hold her and adjust your position to wherever she is (most puppies don’t love to be moved by the collar and we want to keep collar holding fun for her).The drive to handler is also looking strong! Nice job with the low hand so she could drive right into position!
You can add more motion here too now – jogging then building up to running before you decelerate. That will allow you to show her a bigger difference between moving forward and decelerating. Because she is going to be moving fast, you will want to show her the big deceleration no later than when she is halfway to you, so she can adjust into collection.
And as you do this, be sure to reward the stays and also stay connected as you lead out. If you disconnect then re-connect and release, she is going to think the reconnection is the release and move before the word 🙂 As you add more running, you can also use cookie-toss starts so you don’t have to worry about the stay at all 🙂Great job!
TracyHi!
> I realised I need to get better at keeping my sessions short – I need to set myself a timer I think. >
Yes, a timer is great, especially if you are going to do multiple games. To keep things fun, set a timer for 90 seconds. Also, with the food games, things can get repetitive very quickly with a lot of food, so you can break off and play tug after every 5 or 6 treats. That will keep her arousal pretty high and make things less repetitive.
She did well sorting out how to touch the prop! At the beginning, you can build value up quickly by placing the treat right on the prop, then when she is interacting with it a lot, you can move to tossing the treat away.
You can replace the ‘yes’ marker with a ‘get it’ marker to indicate the thrown reward – it is a fun and easy way to get that marker established (and ‘yes’ can indicate something else, like cookie from the hand.)
She looks ready to move to the next step, getting the sends started!!
Nice work!
Tracy
Hi!
Wow, he did so so well turning both directions on just a verbal!!! He did well on the narrow plank too – I think the hardest times keep him feet on where when you had exciting praise, so you can praise quietly instead 🙂 He did step off here and there on the narrow plank but overall he was very impressive!!!Thinking ahead, a couple of ideas for using this game:
– add tugging before it and after every few treats, so he can do this when he is more stimulated
– you can elevate the planks a bit, putting something stable under them so they are maybe a foot high
– revisit this every week or so as he grows, so he doesn’t lose this ability as his body gets bigger.Lovely work here!
TracyHi!
Yes, the goat tricks should feel just like this! We want the arousal and excitement from the tugging to carry over into the offering, to see if he can think about his foot placement and balance when he is more stimulated. That will work nicely for the ‘real world’ when he is learning the fancy things!He couldn’t quite do the down on the big blue disc, so you can try the down on the things that move a little less. And if that is fine, you can take ouf some of the inflation of the blue disc and try it. I think changing the equipment set up made it spicy and interesting! The only piece of equipment he had to think about was the pink mini teeter at the very end – that was hard but the rest was easy. I am sure the mini teeter will be easy next time!
My only suggestion here is to place the food rewards lower, so he is not reaching upwards to get them. Reaching upwards changes his balance, so you can deliver them by placing them at mouth level so his chin stays parallel to the ground, or by putting them down on the equipment so he reaches down for them (also a good balance challenge!)
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
>My follow up to the Stealth exercise – this time we were a little more coordinated! >
You are doing great! These games do kind of need 3 arms 🙂
Super nice session here! He did really well with the bowl challenge and the added distance. No problem!
> It was hard to see if he was actually looking at his line, rather than the bowl – but I think he was.>
He was! I was watching the white on his nose 🙂 and you can see it pointing to the dish, then he would point it to the correct side of the wing. Yay!!!
The only thing to tweak a little is when you line him up, you can lure him into position with a treat then once he is in position, don’t move him. He was a little wiggly/tooth huggy when you were moving him around, so you can play this from wherever he is lined up.
He is totally ready for two next-level challenges:
– using the setup you had here, move the bowl so it is halfway between you and the cone. Do everything else the same… but now he will have to go past the bowl to get to the cone. Start the session with a warm up with the bowl in an easier position before making it super hard, though, just to refresh the skill 🙂– do this with a toy 🙂 Start with the easy steps, though, because the toy might be more stimulating which makes it all harder.
Great job hre!!
Tracy
Hi! I am glad she is feeling better! Hopefully she will decide not to beat herself up as much during play!
Backwards sends – these went well! Only two suggestions:
When you first start, don’t have the prop already on the floor as you bring her into it because it fades into the background a bit and she didn’t really see it on the first rep. You will have a better first rep if you bring her in, put the hat down, then start the game.The rest looked great and you were adding a bit of countermotion by moving forward a bit. Nice!
Also, it is important to remember that this game is not a loop – so rather than toss the reward then send again immediately, you can call her back to you and play the ready dance game. This game brings her into handler focus (so we can work on switching from handler focus to obstacle focus) and also gets her into higher arousal (which is good for learning all the things!)
The wing wraps are going well! You can now add something bigger to go around (like a barrel or laundry basket or huge cone) and also move the bowls back, so they are behind your heels a bit 🙂 That gives her more room to turn around and begins the fading process for the bowls.
She did really well going back and forth from food to toys! Super! She also did well bringing the toy back!
You don’t need to use the toy remotely for now – it can be stuffed into your vest so you can pull it out and not have to run back and forth 🙂 That will also provide some nice impulse control because the toy is right there and has to be ignored 🙂The next step to this involves getting a barrel or something big so we can build on it tonight. She is ready!!!
Great job here!
TracyWelcome home and congrats on all your successes at the Open!!!!! You are having a really fantastic dog sports year!!!
It must be nice to have the puppy back 🙂 These games are looking good and all of them can go to the next steps 🙂
Wing wraps – you can jumpstart the game in each session by placing a cookie in the bowl to establish the back and forth, kind of like saying “let’s begin now” rather than waiting for him to offer. It looks like moving to his right shoulder was harder than moving to his left, so he might be a bit of a lefty – good to note as we start doing the harder stuff in coming weeks.
In the next session, start by establishing the back and forth with the bowls like you ended with here. Once he can go back and forth, add the upright between the bowls and right in front of you so we can get a bit of wrapping going 🙂
Prop pre-game: he did well offering some foot smacking! Yay!
We can get you standing up right away on this one, so the prop is more distinctly away from the cookies and hands and clicker. He was able to foot target it and watch the hands 🙂 So by having you now be standing, he will really lock into the foot target – which can then quickly turn into the sending game.
The decel game is also going well! He seems more fluid moving to his left here too and tends to offer it more when the side is not super clear. So when coming to the right turn (your left side) be super obvious with your hand in position nice and early.
He is ready for the next step – using a bigger distance so you can run more and show a more obvious decel. We build even more crazy stuff into this one today 🙂
Blind cross foundations – he is reading your side changes, and you will get a quicker response by opening up your connection back to him more. Rather than having him target to your dog side hand at your side on the exit of the blind, you can point that hand back to his nose and even have your outside arm come across to rest on your dog side hip. This makes the connection really obvious and snappy, so he will have super quick responses to the blinds.
For both the decel game and blind game, you can take them outside and get more running going 🙂 As well as toy play before & after – and you can use a toy as the reward for the blind 🙂
Great job here!!
TracyHi!
Looking at the toy races:
>We did 4 toy races. 3 with him on my right and 1 on my left. Interesting that he head checks each time on the right, but doesn’t do it in my left. And I mixed the left side rep in between.>
He did it on your left too – not quite as much, but it was there. It is possible that the “get it” is a stimulating marker and is predicting movement, so he looks at you. A couple of ideas:
– let go of him a little sooner to go get the toy – you can let him go just before it lands rather than waiting a few seconds after it lands. The toy motion should help him continue to look forward
– quiet the marker a bit – as you you throw it, you can quietly say “get it” then let him go to it
– quiet your motion a bit for now too – let him go anddon’t move until after he takes the first couple of steps. Then you can jog forward 🙂 You aren’t going to win the race, so we might as well get him looking forward first LOL! Then we can add more and more handler pressure and keep him looking forward 🙂Also, instead of turning to run back to the starting point, peel away on a 90 degree angle like the letter L. On reps 1 and 2, he turned right when the handling should have indicated a left turn. So peeling away more strongly to your left can help him get the turn the correct direction. He did do a left turn on rep 4 (couldn’t see the turn for sure on rep 3).
His barrel wrap commitment is going well! Super!!! As you send him to it, you are getting progressively more and more over onto his line 🙂 and blocking his line so he is getting wider due to having to go around you. So don’t let your position go past the edge of the barrel, keeping your belly button more on the center of the barrel.
We add more action to this game today!
Great job here!
TracyGood morning!
He did well with his goat tricks here! He is very happy to offer getting on the discs but it is hard to stay balanced with all 4 feet because they are small and he has to really scrunch up. So, two goat ideas for you: put all of your stuff together to widen the playing field 🙂 and take some of the inflation out of the disc you started with. The added inflation makes it harder to balance his hind end on. Those elements will allow him to get easily get all 4 feet on something and stand with good balance and posture.
His tugging with all the toys looked good – there is a nice variety of things he will play with and he did well eating cookies then going back to tugging! He really liked the green snake thing 🙂 and definitely loved the squeakers in the cow 🙂 The frisbee was not his favorite, but I bet it will come up in value if you get it rolling for him to chase!
You can combine these 2 games: get all of the fitness/goat trick toys lined up and pushed together here. Play tug then bring him over to the goat trick area and let him offer getting on while he is more stimulated! That can get really good balance and proprioception happening in a higher arousal state.
Great job here!
TracyHi! Sounds like he had a really exciting weekend! Hopefully the rain clears up ASAP!!!!
Looking at the videos:
Toy races are looking good here! He is learning to drive into the toy with handler pressure:
The race element was hard at first and he backed off the pressure. Staying engaged and teasing him helped him out run you on the next rep but then he was backing off and watching you after that. So to help support him passing you with the pressure of you running, you can throw the toy a lot further so that he has more room to out run you, and dial back the racing for it – be moving but not quite as fast and don’t try to grab for it for now, so he can experience the thrill of victory more 🙂
He is reading the decel really well! You don’t have to exaggerate the movement or decel as much with foot noises, you can just slow down like you did on the last rep and he will read it really well. As you add more distance, you can be moving away while he goes to get the treat then decel as he starts to move towards you, so you have more time to show him the decel because he will be moving even faster with more distance 🙂
On the Blind crosses – he was able to pick up the side change but you can see a slight tiny delay in the side change. That was because you were trying to reconnect with the dog side arm at your side, which tends to block connection a bit (thus the delay in response, because he can’t see the new side as quickly). So instead of emphasizing the dog side hand next to you, you can open up the connection on the new side more quickly by pointing the dog side arm back and downwards to his nose, and use the opposite arm resting on your dog side hip. That will make the new connection super obvious and he will be very quick to change sides.
On the stealth self-control game:
> I got greedy at first you’ll see,>
Yes, a little to hard at first but then he had a good string of successes!
I think the value of the treat in the bowl is so high that we can break it down differently to teach him to look away from it and at the ‘work’:
Start the self-control session with the easier line and an empty food bowl (this might mean a delay in getting the cookie into it because you don’t have 3 hands 🙂 but that is fine for now).
Give him a treat for when you hold his collar, then indicate looking forward… but don’t let go until he looks forward AND settles a tiny bit. He was flipping his head a bit, moving feet, twisting…. trying to get to the cookie in the bowl. Hopefully the less stimulating empty bowl will allow for a heartbeat of settling. This will go a long way to helping with impulse control so he can look at the line (not at the bowl) – and that will also help with his start line stay in the future!
>he did well until the end when I maybe tried to progress too quick?>
Yes, too hard for one session because the food value is so high, but it might be easier with the empty bowl because it will still have value but not a ton of value. Also, train him when he is not hungry 🙂 If he is hungry and we are using food, the impulse control is a lot harder. So try training him an hour after he has had a meal. Since he is small, the meal can be maybe half the meal so he is satiated but has room for training rewards.
> Also cookies in the pocket was a bit of a struggle he says FEED DA BABY!>
Clearly STARVING LOL!!!
The wrap game with the upright is going really well – you can add in standing now, and also moving the bowls back – put them just past your heels. Do you have a barrel or something bigger he can go around? We are going to use something bigger as we expand this game.
>Also really impressed with his desire to stay in the game even during disconnects/resets, hoping I don’t ruin that!!!! lol>
He was working at a really high rate of success, so he was really happy to stay in the game!! Super!!!
Prop sends are going super well to the left turn side! Still a little more challenging to the right, so I think the next session should be in a bigger space where you have more room to move away laterally and encourage the right turns.
And definitely send with an empty hand, because he struggles to leave the cookie for now. The cookie can be in the other hand, and that other hand then tosses the treat in the general direction of the prop. It is ok that the cookie toss is not super precise, as long as it lands in the general vicinity 🙂
Great job here!!
Tracy
