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Good morning!
She did have to squeeze herself in for the wrap but she sorted it out LOL!
She did really well here! Her tunnel love is blossoming 🙂 and she was a tugging fiend! Love it! She gave you a connection workout too because she was hustling 🙂
One thing that will help her commitment in the early stages is more exaggeration on the connection – you can make BIG eye contact with her more obvious (as you keep moving like you did here) by having your arm more back to her nose and less forward to the obstacle. The arm forward was blocking connection (like at 1:26 when she didn’t take the tunnel) and because she is so inexperienced, she needs the over-emphasized connection 🙂
When she did see the connection, she was picking up the commitments really well!! So think of your fingertips as being magnetically drawn to her eyeballs 🙂 so when she exits the tunnel or finishes the wing wrap, you are pointing back to her which will make the connection super visible.
Great job here!!!
TracyGood morning!
The skills on both of these games here looked really good!!!! Super!! She had no trouble with the stationary countermotion on the serp exits – so you can add slowly moving forward as you are sending her behind you (still throwing the reward back to the barrel exit like you did here). Basically your feet will be moving forward but your arm will be pointing back and your eyes will shift to looking at the landing spot.
The sends to the barrel from the lead out also looked really good – she had zero questions 🙂 You can add more and more distance to send her to the barrel to help prepare for the bigger lead outs she will eventually see 🙂
About the stays – yes, this is the stage where the pups learn to manage their arousal about the various games and learn to hold the stay even when there is a beloved barrel or jump or eventually tunnel in front of them. You edited out the rewards, but keep doing a lot of throwing back of toys and treats to help maintain the value for the stay. You were also really good about separating the lead out/connection from the release, so she was definitely releasing on the word and not the motion.
The other thing to add to the stays is bringing her in on leash: that way she can learn how to do a line up and stay with the leash coming off. Adding it now will make it so much easier to get the line ups and focus at the start line when you start taking her to trials and stuff!!
Great job here 🙂
TracyGood morning!
Practicing at home is smart 🙂 Warm is GOOD lol!!>>Do you ever associate a verbal cue with a turn away or is it all just in the hands? >>
Yes – there are 3 different possibilities. I use “in in in” for the threadle wrap cue, which is when the dog goes to the other side of the jump then wrap. For the tandem turn, I use either the directional for which way I want the dog to turn (left, right, wrap, etc) depending on the course and how tight the turn is.
However, sometimes the tandem turns are followed by big layering moments when we want the dog to drive away from us in extension and find a line – so on those I say “switch” which basically says: turn away and get on a line (I usually say the obstacle name too, like ‘switch tunnel’ so the dog looks for a tunnel when he turns away.
>>I watched your competition track video again and I’m just amazed at how that hand motion automatically tells the dog to turn away from you. That feels like an impossible skill for us at this stage! >
Watch the MaxPup video and you will see that it is more awkward at the start LOL!!! The competition level dogs have been doing it for a few years so it is much smoother.
The video had a lot of a really strong moments! I think the skill is newer to her so you had to help a lot, but that is normal.
Your line if motion was really good here and that was why she came to the correct side of the wing pretty consistently!!! You were going straight past it on a line parallel to, so she was clear about which side to be on. If you edited out bloopers where she went to the other side (the FC) side then you were probably moving towards the wing and not past the wing.To help her turn away more fluently, you can make the hand cue more obvious (use both hands and close your hands like you are holding something as that will help automatically draw her to your hands). Then I think the only other detail is to keep your hands lower as you turn her away so she can follow your hands (you can do it without the wing just to get her more comfy to turn away)
I think you will see this skill get stronger and easier with a couple of short sessions – even if you don’t use the wings, you can do the hand movement and connection shift as you are walking around so she gets used to being turned away while in motion – then it will be really easy to get it while you are adding the wing too!
Nice work here!
TracyHi!
I think what was happening here was that when you started moving, the direction of your feet was overriding your hand cues and connection – feet were saying to take the jump, even when there was no bar there.For example at :20 & :29 as she came around the wing, your were moving and your feet were pointing at the jump, so that is where she went.
Ideally you would have your feet facing totally straight (towards the back wall here) and you are moving forward and not towards the jump at all. At :33, when you dropped the toy, you were facing straight and that was great! Facing straight and putting the hand cues and connection on top of that should really help – you might feel like you are pulling your shoulders away from the jump a bit and that would be correct 🙂
You can drop a toy, but be sure you are dropping it when she is on her way to you (rather than to get her to come to you) because if she is on her way to you, then you know the cue was clear 🙂
When she got it at the end, the cue was more of a lap turn (you were stationary and facing her) which totally works here too! The threadle wrap is for when you aren’t as far ahead, with the different line of motion/foot position to set it up.
Nice work here! Let me know if the line of motion idea makes sense!
Tracy
Hi! Nice work on these! The lotus ball is a really good choice – even if it was not always in the ‘correct’ hand, you were really working the exit line connection and that looked great!
On the BC video, one thing that will make it feel smoother is to keep your arms in tighter to you and lower. Tighter to you will allow you to rotate through the blinds sooner, and lower will give her a better view of the connection so she we will the new side even sooner! You were tending to have your arms up a little high, so that was blocking the connection a bit and slowing you down (because you had to reel in your arms before doing the side change).
Lower arms will also help on video 2 – when your arms were a little too high cuing jumps 1 and 2, she couldn’t see connection as well: she had a little zig zag line 1-2 at :13, and at :40 she ended up on the other side of you because as your arms were up you started to looked forward: which looked like a blind cross cue so she changed sides 🙂 Good girl! Compare to the next rep – your arms were definitely lower and you had much clearer connection so she fund the line 1-2 really well which set up a nice turn!
Your exit line connection on these looked lovely 🙂 Yay!! Her only other question was at the end when she dropped the bar at 1:13 – that was just a slightly late cue. You were facing forward til she took off then rotated, so she as surprised and tried to adjust unsuccessfully :)) in the air 🙂 The other reps had earlier timing and she did great!
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
I watched the reps here a few times to figure out why she was a little wide or slipped on landing on a couple even though you were not technically late in terms of timing the crosses. You were starting/finishing the crosses on time enough, so why was she not reading them?I believe was was causing her to go into the cross with more extension was that you were a little late getting out of the send to the middle wing (:17 & :29), or not sending to it enough (:05). So what was happening was she was seeing a burst of acceleration into the cross… so the acceleration forward got extension then she was surprised when you did the FC or BC and turned after landing.
Compare to the last rep where you left the send sooner, so you didn’t have to hurry into the BC as much – so she didn’t see the big acceleration and was able to decel into the turn.
Compare your timing at :29 and :40 – pretty identical! But the transition into it at :40 had more of you moving forward then slowing down, as opposed to :29 where you went from being a bit stationary until she was at the send wing, to big hustle to get to position. So if you send to the wing from the landing of the previous jump and accelerate to the FC/BC position sooner, you will have time to slow down into the collection turn and she will read it better. Let me know if that makes sense!
Nice work here!
TracyHi!
Wait – you are outdoors on grass without a big coat in January in MINNESOTA?? That is crazy!!! But I am glad you get to play!
The connection on the sends looked great! Because the connection was so strong, I think you can send with less motion to the jump – hang out near the start wing and as she exits, connection like you did and take one big step to the jump then move away.
You did this :47 – :51 and you can see how it immediately tighten up the turn. You can send even sooner: take the one step directly towards the jump and as soon as she passes you, move away while you maintain connection 🙂
For the jump-jump-wing-jump loops building to the bigger sequence:
She was reading the lines nicely! You were using a lot of motion to get to the middle wing, which is fine when it is just the loop but it will make it hard to get the FC or BC 🙂 So, you can play with staying near the jump before the wing and send away to the wing. -that way she leave you to take the wing and you are really close to the jump, so the FC or BC should be easy 🙂The more motion you used to run that line near the wing, the harder it was to keep connection – on some of the reps you were facing forward a little too much, so she was going wider to catch the connection peripherally (or just came to you rather than take the wing).
There was one rep towards the end where she did not take the last jump – I think it was because you were saying go go go and starting winding up to throw the toy, so she accelerated to chase the toy throw perhaps. She didn’t have that question on any other reps.
Nice work here!!!Terrific! It is possible that the Farm is just a harder facility, but she will get more and more comfy there as she gets more exposure (and fun!)
T
Hi!
>>I was so proud of how far her stay has come along in last night’s Live session since she basically didn’t have one at all when Max Pup started and her sit and down were not at all on cue.>>
Yes! She was terrific and her stay has come a long way!!!
>>then it hit me while watching this that if I tossed it more behind me as she first got to the perch she would probably have to pivot her hind end more to center to leave the perch to get the food so will try that next time.>
Yes! That can totally get more pivoting back to center too! She was starting to take more and more steps here back to center, so we are defining getting closer and closer to the goal of getting more pivoting as she get back on the perch.
The other option to try is to reward her on the perch but by delivering the treats so she has to tun her head even more. So if she is on your left side and coming back to the perch, you can reward her with your left hand so that her head turns more (away from you and to her right) which can help her butt pivot even more around the perch. Let me know if that makes sense 🙂
Nice work here!
TracyGood morning! Really lovely session here!! And yes, you were able to send to the wing from far away and leave sooner, which really helped get great lines (especially at the end).
On the first couple of reps, you were a little bit on the landing side of the serp as she was approaching the jump, so she was a little wide on landing (her jumping choice was based on your position).
The rep at :11 had you a little more on the takeoff side, and her turn was better!
The oops rep was at :23 – your running line and position were fantastic! Very clearly on the takeoff side of the jump. The oops was that as you ran by her (countermotion) you were looking at her cute face rather than shifting connection to the landing side so she was unsure if she should commit or not.
Compare that to the last 2 reps at :53 and 1:00 – these were GREAT! You had the line of motion directly past the takeoff side and you very clearly shifting connection to the landing spot. She committed perfectly and her turns were awesome!!! So keep driving to the takeoff side like you did and shifting connection back to the landing, that worked beautifully 🙂
Great job!!!
TracyGood morning!
>>I’m really enjoying our conversations! And learning so much!>>
Me too! It is a blast getting to know you and Kashia! This is what makes online training so fun 🙂
>> However, the week 3 lesson looks incredible difficult and new to us so I think I’m going to revert back to Max Pup. I think that’s how we will be most successful.
This is a great idea – the competition track relies on a level of fluency that the youngsters might not have yet! For example, the young whippet who does the MaxPup demos can probably also have done the Competition track games for weeks 1 and 2… but there is NO WAY he could do weeks 3 and 4 at that level 🙂 The MaxPup stuff was perfect for him! Same with Kashia – working the MaxPup stuff will be better for now, then at some point later in her training you can go back to the Competition track 🙂
Have fun! Stay warm!
TracyHi!
This went really well!!
>>I feel like I am leaning over too much when I give the cue. What do you think?
I think you were fine with the bit of leaning – the focal point shifts to your hands which are showing a line, so being lower is great (and more visible for her)
>>I am also shaking my arms a lot and not sure in running an actual course if that is very sustainable.>>
These turn away all have an element of deceleration into them, so you should be able to make the connection shift and shake your hands 🙂 Hand shaking makes them more visible so it is useful to do!
The left turn reps all looked good! On the beginning reps, you can turn her away sooner but then the timing sorted out as you added more obstacles to the sequence.
As you get more comfy with these, you can do it from further away and without as much of a rear cross motion line – you can be on the same line as when you are going straight and to get the turn away, the upper body/shifting connection turns her away without you needing to move in closer. (Plus it will prevent accidentally getting on her line and pushing her off, like at :25).
She had a little more trouble turning away to the right with the hand cues – she might need a bit more practice turning away on the flat to her right (or maybe more room, so moving the jump away from the wall?) but overall this went really well! You can also fade out the rear cross line motion and see if you can do it from all the way across the jump rather than stepping towards the RC line at all.
>>How are the physical cues different for the tandem turn vs the threadle wrap?>>
For me, I use both hands for both cues. But the positional cues are different relative to the jump (tandems facing the front of the jump, threadle wraps pulling away from the jump) and I use more shoulder pull away on the threadle wraps. There might be more decel on the threadle wraps but it depends on how tight of a tandem turn the course requires.
And, of course the verbals are different:
>>Do you use a verbal for the tandem turn or in this scenario, would you have used a wrap verbal?>>
It depends on the context: in this context, I would use a wrap verbal because it is a wrap. If the turn was wider, I would use a left or right verbal. If it was a turn away into layering, which is very common right now, I would use me ‘switch’ verbal.
>>I am a little worried about being able to clearly show her what behavior I am cueing. >>
You are doing great! The components of the cue are motion (change in motion or line of motion or both), position relative to the line, connection shift as needed, upper body cues like the hand movement, and the verbal too 🙂 It is complex!
>> sorry for so many questions.
No apologies needed! The questions are great!
Tracy
Hi!
>>So I need to get out of her way and down the line past the wing – that’s what you mean when you say I need to also be on the take off side?
Yes – to get the tight exit wraps on the serp, you will want to be moving right past the exit wing, perpendicular to the bar, all before she gets there. The send to the wing or jump before it is the most important part 🙂
>>the new lesson for the thread wrap – do you have a verbal you use for that?>>
Yes – I use “in in” for the threadle wrap. “Close” is my threadle slice verbal.
Have fun!
Tracy
