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Hi!
He did well here!
I think part of his question at the beginning might have been the toy in your hand: is it toy time, or turn away time? You took the toy out at :22 and he got it there! At :30, you gave a big YES! So he turned towards you 🙂 On the last rep, he turned away nicely! Just call him sooner so he turns before the tunnel exit (your call was when he entered and it needs to be more like 6 feet before entry).>>we still struggled with the left turns. I put a jump wing out there as a barrier, and that helped.>>
Yes! One thing to do is a walk-jog-run progression to help introduce more and more motion. Can he master the challenge with you walking? If so, do it at a jog. If he is highly successful, try it at a jog. If he is highly successful with you jogging? Go to a run. This will happen over the course of several sessions and get him used to finding the tight lines even with you running.
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi! I am glad the weather cooperated!!
>>He is so wild in public but at least doing well training with me alone
He is doing great! And I know he will do well in public soon too, with more practice 🙂

>>Question about camp for older dogs this summer – is there an option for second working dog slot? – I am considering who I would want to do class with…>>There is a TON of content, so CAMP has options for 2 dogs alternating working in one working spot… this is from CAMP 2023 but it will be basically the same this year too:
Multiple Dogs
If you have multiple dogs, you can give them each a turn! Throughout the summer, you’ll see 3, 4, 5 or even 6 demo dogs on the videos! Each dog can have a turn, within the guidelines of the Video Submissions and Recommendations above. For example:
* Fluffy can do Round 1 and Muffy can do Round 2
* Fluffy can do Rounds 1 and 2 of the Raise Your Game Challenges and Muffy can do Rounds 1 and 2 of the Live Class Sequences and Full Courses
* Fluffy can do one sequence and Muffy can do the other sequence or course.Or you can do 2 full working spots (15% discount on the 2nd working spot) but alternating dogs works great 🙂
Looking at the video:
>>It was hard to keep him off the jump with the fc wrap in the beginning- bad camera view but I was making eye contact
It looks like your connection as clear but your motion took him towards the jump – he looked at you for confirmation then took the jump pat :02 and :24 and :28 (you had leg stepping back on those last 2 . It was harder to see on the other reps but you might have been too close to the jump, so he had some confusion. Being more in the gap can help
Since it is handling, you can assume it is handler error and reward (so he doesn’t jump on your back :))
For the serps, I think there was too much speed so he was staying parallel to you on a lot of the reps. He did come in and get the serp jump on some too, but y toucan help him out and get a higher success rate. To do this, you can slow down your motion (send to the wing from further away so you are visible between the uprights of the jump before he exits the wing wrap) and also angle the jump towards him a bit, so he can see the bump more. That will allow you to start to ad more and more motion too!
And, since the MM is a very obvious target (and he loves it :)) you can move it more to the landing side of the jump so it helps encourage him to take the jump.
Nice work here!
Tracy
Perfect! And I hear good things about the other instructors too – you have lots of good options for classes and seminars 🙂
Tracy
Good morning!
He did well with the zig zags – things happen very fast 🙂 The toy can be in your hand for the zig zags at this stage, so he can see the cues better. And is a little less locked onto the toy 🙂 The cues are quick but also the more he sees this game, the more he will recognize it and be ready to respond to the cues (rather than running straight). It was a great start though!!
I think it was easier when you were a bit closer to the middle wing, so you can start each session there and then move back to the 3rd wing step by step rather than all at once. The next step is to add bars, so you can add them in (one end on the jump, one end on the ground) and start at wing 2 to gradually introduce them.
Lap turns are going well! Facing him for longer (before stepping back) like at :26 and :35 and :46 is most effective. Ideally, we far them and don’t move the hand or leg until the dog is about 2 inches from it. If you step back too soon, like at :28, it looks like a throwback to the other side of the wing (or they spin towards us like at :43 and :57).
Your timing of that as better when he was coming to your left hand. You were too early when he was coming to your right hand for the mot part, but you had great timing at 1:03 and he nailed it!
The tandems went well when he was coming to your left side and you were sending to the wing too early when he was coming to your right side (either by turning your hand too soon, or at the end you were moving towards it too soon. I sense a theme of you being more comfy with him coming to your left 🙂 Same here! So for the tandems, it will be easier if you put the toy in your pocket (or use food) – he was ignoring it really well, but holding it made it harder to use both hands. And both hands are very helpful for tandems, because you can turn your shoulder better away from the wing, and show both hands. The reward doesn’t have to be super precise in terms of timing or placement, so you can do it empty handed (or with food).
Looking at the flyball recall video:
>>I think the second try is what I am trying for??>>
Yes! That is on the right track for sure! And she is really cute 🙂 You can see she was able to grab the toy without cranking her neck or spine. The only thing I would add is deceleration when he is maybe halfway to you, and reeling in the toy a little… both of those will help him know the front cross is coming, so he will be prepared for it and be ready to turn (she was surprised here :))
Great job here!!
Tracy
Hi!
I think the tunnel threadles had a bit of a Goldilocks element in terms of the handling: too much, too little, just right 😁
Ideally, you would turn to face the threadle entry before she arrives at the wing, and then proceed directly to the threadle entry – when you did that, it was a thing of beauty! At :34, for example, you had the good turn and good line, and you can keep moving forward even more (to the threadle entry).
If you didn’t turn away to face the correct entry soon enough/early enough, you got the straight ahead tunnel entry (like at :20 and :59).
On some reps you turned too much away, almost facing the other wing, which made it harder for her to directly find the tunnel threadle entry without spinning or looking at you. You can see that at :13 and 1:49, for example.
So as you keep turning and moving directly to the correct tunnel entry, you can also use the threadle arm and keep it up – on some reps it was not rally clear, and on others you were also using it as a second cue to turn her away. If you are moving towards the correct tunnel entry, you won’t need a 2nd cue with that arm 🙂 and that will create more independence! That way she won’t wait for a 2nd cue and can just drive to the correct tunnel entry.
This is a hard skill for both dog and handler so If there is an error, reset with a cookie, line up at your side, and take a moment to plan the next rep rather than just resend. Or watch the video before the next rep, so you can see what she saw. There were a couple of reps where you sent her back around without an adjustment, so there was another failure. That stressed her a bit, so after 1:06 you can see she had some trotting around, offering other things, slowing down. Resetting with a cookie or stopping to check the video will help keep things successful.
Looking at the accordion video:
>>I wasn’t sure what her spacing should be now since the last suggestion you gave for the ladder was to go to 4.5 feet, but she’s grown taller and gotten more strength since then. I tried her at 5 feet, but I’m wondering if that’s a good starting place. >>
I think 5 feet looked good – she was moving into the 1st interval (the set point) really well! Organized and powerful – really good for a youngster!
>>There is a food bowl with a pre-placed cookie at the end of the line; it’s a bit out of the frame on some of the reps.>>
The reward placement is where we can change things to get her powering between jumps 2 and 3 the same way. She didn’t do anything wrong… but having a stationary reward relatively close was causing her to think about slowing down (lifting her head, decelerating) rather than powering through. The 2nd to last rep had the reward furthest away from what it looked like, and that had her head the lowest and more power (and she as a little forward and her hind end was a little higher, but she will sort that out).
So, using the same accordion as you had here – either go to a moving target (starting 10-12 feet past jump 3 and moving it forward so it is pretty far away as she is jumping), or use the stationary target but have it 18 feet away from jump 3 🙂 The goal is that she doesn’t have to think about slowing down for the reward until she has a full extended stride after landing from 3. That will produce some amazing form!
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
He is doing well on the backside pushes! The most successes came when you were moving up the line directly and making the big connection. You can make connection and start the cue sooner, as soon as he exits the wing so he doesn’t look at you.
When he lost it a bit at about 1:20, part of that was because there was not quite enough connection, and also you were sending and a bit rotated (which pulled him to the front) rather than moving. When you got back to the connection and moving up the line, he did great!
Doing the countermotion separately worked really well at the end! Yay! When you add it together with the backside push, you can still drop the reward in on the landing spot as you move through to the countermotion exit. That way he learns to look for the bar behind you and not follow your motion. And, as you move through the countermotion, you can shift your connection to the landing spot as you throw the toy there to help support commitment.
Great job here!
TracyHi!
>>so far, he has shown he is not a fan of thinking when it’s hot out. >>
That is totally normal – he has not been alive yet for a hot summer 🙂 so he will take some time to adjust to heat and humidity. Short short short sessions with lots of breaks will help build up his heat tolerance.
This session went well – he got all of the tandem turns, and yes – I agree that the tunnel threadle at the end was awesome!!
>>I was surprised at the trouble we had with the tunnel in the warm up.
I don’t think you put the warm up reps in the video? He didn’t have any trouble 🙂 Was he missing the tunnel when you moved fast? You were careful on the early reps 🙂
>>That made for some quite ugly turns. I think I need to adjust my timing and tidy up my cue so that he wraps tighter there. >>
I think it is just a matter of calling him sooner (before he enters the tunnel to get a tighter turn on the exit of the tunnel) and a bit of decel on the tandem turns. I prefer young dogs go fast and a little wide because it is easy to tighten them up by adding in a little decel 🙂
>>All the passes around the wings felt a bit like racetrack.>>
That was probably a combination of the bigger distances and your acceleration – no worries at all, he did great and those lines will all get tighter as jumps start getting added in.
Great job on these! He is looking great!!!
Tracy
Hi!
The accordion is going well too! He is young, so you will see increases in power and the striding will change a bit. What was the distance between 1 and 2? It might be a little too big, plus he can be a couple of inches closer to jump 1 to push into that first gap between jumps 1 and 2.Rep 1 – I think the reward was in you hand on rep 1 so he was looking at you over 2 and 3. The other reps had the toy on the ground and they all had much nicer form!
Rep 2 -he released when you dropped the toy, so hard to tell what the jumping was
Rep 3- yes, as you mentioned, the distance not comfy so he tried to bounce and didn’t quite get it done. I think a shorter set point distance and setting him up a little closer to 1 can help get more power into the gap between 2 and 3. He did add the stride between 2 and 3 on the next 2 reps, which was a good adjustment 🙂
And the last rep with the jumps back in the closest distances looked really balanced! Yay!
Nice work 🙂
TracyHi!
The zig zags are going well here! You can add a wing to the end of the last bar so it looks like a full jump. This eventually becomes a jump grid, so making it look like jumps for now is the next step 🙂
We are it fancier when he is a little over a year old, so he has more adult muscling to add to the bigger grid 🙂Tracy
Hi!
I agree that he really liked the bigger distances – more running for you, but he loved it!His tandems looks great! He got every single one of them perfectly! That means you were consistently clear and timely with the cues 🙂 Super!
He had a couple of questions here and there in the session, all of which were connection questions.
When he exited the tunnel on your left and you want him to go to the wing (:44, 1:05 and 1:25) you were pointing a little too far forward and decelerated, so he slowed down a lot too. You can go closer to the tunnel exit in that scenario, then make a big connection and run forward more as he exits to get more speed to the wing.
He had a little blooper on the ‘out’ at :29 – you used a high arm and pointed forward, which turned your shoulders past the wing so he went past it. Compare to :52 – you handled with great connection and he got it very easily!
The other small spot was after the FC on the out wing at 1:15. He didn’t see the connection so he didn’t read the side change. You said tunnel, so he went into the one he was looking at. Good boy 😁
Huge difference there on the last rep – big eye contact exiting the front cross and he knew exactly where to go 🙂 Perfect!
Great job here!
TracyHi!
The backside reps looked great! Her lightbulb was totally on – she never looked at the tunnel or at the front of the jump. Super!! And nice connection from you! The little tunnel was perfect to use – it is still plenty distracting 🙂Looking at the lead outs – yes, that stay is starting to look really solid. And starting her really close and having the wing you were next to pretty close was good for setting her up for success.
On the 2nd and 3rd video, you were further away (landing side on video 2, much more lateral on video 3) and she still had no questions. Yay! I don’t think you bent over too much – the handling looked good!>>I think in both games I could have had more distance. >>
Yes, both games are ready for more distance. On the backside game, you can move the start wing further away.
For the lead out games, there are 2 variables to change: her position relative to the jump, and the distance between the jump and the wing. To help maintain her success, change only 1 variable in each session: for example, you can start moving her further and further back from jump 1, but you stay with the wing pretty close to the jump. Or, you can leave her close to the jump, and the wing you are standing next to gets further and further away.
When she is successful with both, we can start combining the variables.
Great job here!
TracyHi! Great seeing you last week!! He worked through the bird egg really well!
Good start here on the accordion grid! There are a couple of things we can change in the structure of the session that will get better jumping form:
For the stay, line him up closer to jump 1 (that bar can be super low, like 2 inches or a jump bump). He should be about 6 inches from that jump, so he uses his hind end more. Being further from jump 1 causes him to come in from his front end more, so he was trying to figure out what to do with his front feet. Starting closer will get him pushing from his rear.
The other thing to tweak is to move the reward target so it is about 15 feet past jump 3 on all reps, so move it out when you move jump 3 out (and back a little when jump 3 moves back towards jump 2). And, use a reward target that he will look down for – he was jumping head up looking at you (plus you were moving) so that was inverting his jumping. If you can lead out to the target, stand still, and use something he will look at – he will practice better form throughout!
A manners minder is great for that – the stay might be harder (because you don’t want to be moving up the line, you want to be stationary at the target when you release) so that is a fun game to practice indoors: stay with a MM 15 feet away as you lead out to it.
Nice work here!! Tracy
Hi!
He did well with the lap & tandems here and gave good feedback on timing and motion.His wraps on the wings and tunnel sends looked great! By the last several reps, he was hot and going a lot slower and wider… as the temperature heats up (his first real summer of working outdoors!) be sure to shorten up the sessions into one or two reps, then let him get into a baby pool or under a hose. And stop a session before he gets hot & fatigued. His heat tolerance will build up, but we can do ti carefully so he doesn’t run when hot/fatigued.
Back to the lap and tandem turns: You are going to chuckle! On the reps where he didn’t turn away or find the wing?
You were going too fast and/or you were too early. Usually we handlers are slow and late, so fast and early is a new adventure!
The lap turn and tandem turn (and eventually the threadle wraps) are decelerated moves, where we decel our motion and change the line (facing him on the lap turn, or puling away a bit on the tandems). Then we have to let them get almost to our hands, then we turn them away (the threadle wrap is a bit more independent but still a decelerated move).
The first few reps were too quick and too early, so he was confused.
Look at :56 – :59, where you were decelerated and waited til he got almost to your hand, then you were relatively slow (this is a good thing) as you drew your hand and leg back. Worked really well!
Compare to 1:06 – 1:08 – too early and quick so he did turn away but didn’t see the wing.
1:16 was better in terms of letting him get to your hand. But then your turn away was super quick so he didn’t turn away (he turned towards you there).
Driving into your hands for a cookie was good – he was happy to do it! You were at a hard angle relative to the tunnel exit on those, so he had to come back to you but definitely came back pretty quickly.
On the other side, at 1:25 he took some time to get to your hand because you accelerated straight as he was entering – you did call him, but the acceleration overrode that so he exited straight.
The cues were earlier at 1:31 for sure an he got it!The tandem at 1:42-1:43 was nicely decelerated and well-timed (letting him get almost to your hand) so he did really well there! He did not find the tunnel after it, probably because the tunnel was not really on his line (he would have had to turn really tight to get into it – I don’t think it was the toy throw anticipation). Changing the angle of the wing so he has a better line to the tunnel will fix that question.
He had questions on the last 2 reps at 1:55 and 2:08- your hand was up for a tandem but you were moving sideways towards the wing – so he looked at you (for clarification) then followed the motion and went to he other side of the wing. Good boy. So for a tandem, having your hands up and turning your shoulders away from the wing and away from him will help draw him to you before flipping him away. I let the dogs get pretty close to me on both the tandem (a foot or so away, or less) and the lap turns (2 inches from my hands 🙂 ) as that gives me the chance to show a really clear (and slow 🙂 ) turn away cue.
Let me know if that makes sense! Nice work here!
Tracy
Hi!
The smiley faces are looking good! After the very first rep where he had a question, you ramped up the connection then he had no more questions 🙂 He was very fast and also committed brilliantly, looking ahead. You can get a feel for his speed even more by spreading things out even more: you might find that you don’t need to hold up an arm to support the line; it might be easier to have low arms and lots of connection.
The accordion looked great! He was actually jumping for real 🙂 And he looked balanced. No worries about not bouncing the 11 foot distance – it didn’t look like a super comfy one-stride, he really had to shorten it up. So as he matures and gets confident with his power, we will start to bounce.
When you are feeling more secure with his stay (which looked good here), you can start moving the toy to help get even more power.
The very first wing send on the wind in your hair game (:51) was not that connected (from you) and he was thinking about the toy on the ground behind him 🙂 The next rep was great and so was 1:05 (we forgive him for scooting off for the toy at :59 LOL!)
The RCs are going really well!!! He committed to the jump and turned correctly on all of them, which is impressive because that means you got all of the info to him before he turned the wrong way. That is HARD to do! Yay!!!! So now keep trying to get on that RC line sooner so he drives forward and you can cut behind him before he takes off – you can get on it as soon as he exits the wing wrap, even before he passes you. While running forward to the center of the bar so you don’t push him off the jump by accident. That will help tighten up the turn, and experience will help too, so he can read it sooner.
The backsides are also going really well!!
>>I felt I needed to be over near his wing to keep him off frontside but then I don’t know how he could see wing>>
Yes, we want him to see the wing as much as possible – so try to run to where the wing and the bar meet. That way he sees the wing but doesn’t have an easy line to the front. On the successful reps, you were a little too far over but he still knew it was the wing (and yes, don’t get too excited like on the last rep LOL!).
On the rep at 1:51 where he went to the front side, you were running the correct line but closed your shoulder a little too early to maybe try to send him past you – and that shoulder rotation showed the front of the bar. So keep your arm back and eyes on his eyes until he is going around the entry wing to the backside.
Great job here!!!!!
Tracy
