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>>She likes to smash herself in between the wall and me.>
OMG she is hilarious! Border Collies do create their own interesting versions of this game LOL!!! Too funny!
She is super chill and hangs out by the ring really well. That is a rare treasure LOL especially because she is so driven to work. It would be lovely if she remains like this – but definitely practice the other games where she is doing the slowed down patterns, in case one day she decides that agility is SO EXCITING and needs help chilling by the ring. If that happens, you will already have the game ready to go.
Great job on all of these! She has SO MANY important skills in place and that is why I think doing some NFC with her will be great. The connection and the timing is the hardest part, so you will likely need to overhandle the connection, beyond almost overcorrected and I bet that smooths out the lines a lot.
Tracy
Leash off, engagement on looked great! Her immediate response was to look at you – that is fabulous. You can now start to reward with a leash tug moment or a toy tug moment, as that is more likely to be what you do at a trial or in training scenarios with sequencing.
She was pretty funny – “wait, why are you putting the leash back on?” LOL!! But she did great and was even more excited about it when you brought her into the ring the 2nd time. By the 3rd time, she was not jut looking at you, she as turning to face you. That is great!
This is a game where you can play it as part of anything that involves the leash: leash comes off, party begins 🙂
Great job!!
Tracy
She did an awesome job of working without focusing on the toy and leash on the ground! YAY!!! It is possible that her brain was processing it so she had a few questions, but I mainly think her questions were handling questions here and had nothing to do with the leash/toy.
If you are training with friends or other people around, ask them to pick up the leash and toy, and walk away like a leash runner. That can be mind blowing for young dogs so I want to make sure she sees it happening 🙂
She had two handling questions here:
On the jump after the tunnel, she ran past the jump on the first rep. That was because you were far ahead, running fast, and your arm was high and parallel to you: which blocks connection. So from the blindness of the tunnel, she had no side info when she exited so she just came to you.Compare to the 2nd run where you were not as far ahead and had much better connection, so she got the jump. Super! My only suggestion is to drop your arm further back, pointing to her nose, so she really sees your connection and shoulders.
I grabbed screenshots to show you the difference in the cues (and you can see her head at the tunnel exit on the first one, looking at you for more info);
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1r2szUIQU1PYC4Rwq44bbAwkWOdl0QOPz7yq29bNDALc/edit?usp=sharingThe 3rd rep looked like the first rep, but she took the jump – because she had learned the sequence 🙂 So go for maximum clarity of connection on that first rep of each sequence, so she can give you honest feedback without saving you 🙂
Her other question was at 1:46, where she took the backside of 1 instead of the front. I think you had her lined up facing the backside and stepped to it when you let her go, plus her position a little too close to the frontside so that would have been a hard takeoff spot for such a fast dog. No need to stop for that – when that happens, assumed you pushed the line there and keep going (double check the video to confirm :))
Great job here!
TracyHi! Moving slowly when a speeding beast is coming at us is HARD for sure! You might have to change your self-talk in the moment. Something like: FAST! Sloooooowwwwwwww rotate. Or run carrying an open water bottle – being splashed (on top of my head) cured me of moving too fast and got me to slow down :)) Give yourself permission to be a little late, and a little behind, because the decel and connection major for her 🙂
T
Good morning!
>>this was probably a result of 1 rep too many. He does let me know when he’s getting bored, so I keep mixing it up.>>
That might be the case for sure – arousal level drops when there are too many reps of the same thing, causing errors. So you can do something different on each rep to keep him pumped up.
Very clever set up with the cavalettis to maximize your space!!! He did great and the MM at the end was very helpful. Sine he did pretty perfectly here, a few ideas to mix it up and add challenge in this setup:
– if there is room, add a wing wrap with your starting right next to him before the Go line so you are even further behind him (you can take out a cavaletti to give the wing a bit of room, if needded).
– you can be moving up the line walking so he gets used to you driving ahead with motion. You can do this fro behind him like yo were here, and you can also use that wing wrap to get more of a head start and see if he will drive past you
– you can add distance by using fewer cavalettis to build up as much distance as possible.
– you can begin fading the MM in two ways: leaving it where it is as a visual aid, but throwing a toy (lotus ball) as the reward while he is still looking forward. Or you can start to move it further and further back (hide it in the landscaping LOL!) so it is a lot less visible and click it when he is driving ahead (or throw the lotus ball).
Great job here!!
Tracy
Got it! If my memory is correct: he is the former Einstein, and a son of Camper and Munchkin.
My Elektra (the small black and white demo dog in the videos here) is also a Camper pup, so Max and Elektra are half siblings. And my Hot Sauce (the black terrier mix who shows up in some of the videos) is also from Julie Tune. She is not related to Camper but might be related to Munchkin!
Have fun!
TracyGood morning!
>>I love that he is starting off working for both food and toys and able to switch between the two – both ways. I try to continue to use and offer both with some changes during training sessions. So far, so good!>
I agree – it is fabulous to see him working for food and toys in the same session!!!! You might see some shifting balance for that as he grows up, but we can increase the value of the food or toy if one or the other becomes more exciting.
On the prop game: remember to add your ready dance to help get him ready for each rep – that helps to get the arousal level high so he is ready for the cue and snappy responses.
On the first couple of sends, you were pretty close to the prop and sending him with the sideways send to a right turn. Lovely! Very strong prop hits! Stay close to the prop and now add the backwards sending to the right turn.
When you changed sides, you were further away (might have been too far) and when he did touch the prop… he turned to his right even though your position would indicate a left turn. Aha! We might be seeing that he is a righty! That is good to know.
So on the harder side (left turn side), start really close and give a big ready dance moment – then send and see if he can turn to his left. If he turns to his right – reward him anyway, because he doesn’t know we want a left turn and he might not even really know how to set up the left turn yet 🙂 So rather than withhold reward, we can change your position – send him to the left turn and then peel away in the direction of the left turn, on of 90 degree angle so you are almost moving on an L shaped line. That can help him sort it out.
Let me know how he does with the left turns! Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
>>I forgot how much fun it is to train a dog who is actually nuts about food. AND, I’ve never had one who so easily took to switching back and forth from food to toys. >
I agree – she is so fun! And what a gem to be able to go back and forth between food and toys so easily, that is an unusual skill and SO LOVELY!!!
She did great with offering behavior on the thing here! One suggestion for the mechanics: have the cookies ready before the object goes to the ground – you can tuck the toy into an armpit, grab treats from the pocket, then plop the object down. That way can reward the very first interaction.
Feel free to create a pile of things for her to get on and offer behavior on. That will mean you can’t carry them, so you can set it up then bring her into the area with the toy, then switch to food for the quick rewards.
>Our tug and toy skills still need a lot of work – just getting back to it now that all the baby teeth are gone.>
I think you are doing great with the toy stuff! You are both happy and relaxed while playing.
Since she goes back and forth from food to toys so easily, you can reward the “out” of the toy with a tossed treat – partially to reward the out, and partially to give her something to do other than jump up for the toy when you are moving it away.
You can also tie a couple of toys together to make one long toy – that will allow her to tug on it more easily because you can keep the end of the toy on the ground more. And that way you don’t have to bend over as much 🙂
Great job there!!
Tracy
Good morning!
Seeing you outside standing shows how small she is! I love it! I want to meet her in Florida!!!!
>>I did notice with her what you had mentioned about the pups not wanting their collar grabbed and tried to just orient to her like you said. >>
Perfect! And adding all of the goofy line up games, gentle collar touches, and quick releases to a toy or treat will really help too.
>I just started teaching her to target her neck/collar/harness to my hand on cue for this (more for emergency recapture when hiking off leash, but would work for this as well), but it’s not quite ready for this scenario yet. >>
This is great! I think the targeting to your hand and the line up games will come together pretty quickly so that you will see her offering her collar and harness a lot more. I also teach my dogs to line up for other people – and can use that in emergency situations too. I can call them to line up for me (fun fun!) and send them to line up for others (more fun! And less running for me LOL!)
On the video – her driving to the toy is really strong. Yay! She turned to her right on all of these reps, even when you started with her on your right side which should indicate a left turn to you. So when she starts on your right, throw the toy more directly in front of her so when you let go, you are a little further away from her laterally. And you can stay on that parallel line to her (rather than running towards the toy) – that way as she is arriving to the toy, you can peel away to your left more dramatically to really encourage the left turn. If you are too close to her when driving to the toy, the pressure on the line might be supporting the right turn and it is also possible that she can see you behind her, almost like a rear cross cue. So we can exaggerate the movement to encourage her to turn left.
If she turns to her right, keep rewarding her (no need to frustrate her or use a neg punishment on a behavior she probably doesn’t even know she is doing) and we can change the game a little more to get the left turn.
For the collar grabby stuff, you make really nice adjustments here. Great job reading the situation immediately.
You started with moving her into you by the collar on the first rep. On the second rep you got a bit of the backing away. It could be the higher arousal level (dogs tend to want to be touched less as the arousal level increases) or she she is backing away to look at your more (expanding her field of vision, not surprising for a sighthound mix). At 1:03 you lined yourself up more as opposed to moving her around and she seemed happy with that! And a cookie line up works really well at 1:29! Super!!!
>>Got a little more keep away with the toy than I’d like, she’s usually not bad about it, but this was a brand new toy she’d never had before, so of COURSE it was super high value!>
Yes! High value, and also I think she was doing a big of environmental exploration while she was romping with the toy (she was looking around). It is also possible she was taking a decompression moment, which is totally fine because there is a bit of pressure in this game.
A couple of ideas:
Have a big huge long party when she does bring it back – you had a short party 😁 and got calm pretty quickly by getting low and not tugging as much then getting the toy back. So you can get low to help her come back, then get back up and play and let her chase your and tug and get a bit wild again 🙂 And if she doesn’t take the toy on a romp like at 1:40, yo can make an even bigger party out of it! And if she does go on a quick romp, you can reward with a 2nd toy for when she gets back to you – a big surprise party like that will make an impact for sure! I like to pull out the 2nd toy just as the pup is arriving at me, rather than pulling it out during the romp.
You can also help guide the decompression by sending her to it: I use a ‘go for a run’ cue with the toy to let the dogs have a release from the session to decompress. Sometimes they don’t need to decompress and won’t go for the run, and that is great info!
>I tried to do some decel coming into the handler work, but got mixed up which hand you wanted us to reward with (from the blind cross exercise) and it was super sloppy.>
Ah yes, the mechanics of the blind cross stuff are probably weird feeling at first, but are great for opening up the connection. For the decel, it is mainly dog-side hand 🙂
>> Also tried some work with the prop game but she’s never played that outside and it blew her mind. >>
I bet you that it was just a typical sighthoundy session and that if she sleeps on it for a day or two, she will come back knowing the behavior. Let me know if you have a chance to try it again!
>Will see if we get a chance to do anything at the Open or if we will just have to catch up after we get back. Sigh. So much to do with a puppy!>
That is the TRUTH!!! You might be able to squeeze in a thing or two, but if not, no worries, plenty of time when you get bcack.
Great job here! Safe travels!
Tracy
Good morning!
>I really appreciate the insight about “appearing” ready to train but really not in the right brain space for it- soooo important for me to remember.>
Yes – being present in the moment with us does not mean the baby dog brain will be receptive to learning or working in that moment 🙂
He did great with the 2 bowls. Note how he moves better towards your left side and his questions were more about moving towards your right side. This could be indicating his side preference, or that you’ve got a lot of value on your left side and not as much on your right side. Or both 🙂 So we will keep balancing that to see what his actual side preference is (and use that in training while also balancing things so he can work equally well in both directions).
>>He stares at my hands, a LOT.>
Yes, maybe because cookies are LIFE! LOL!!! So you can add the next step of this game: in the next session, do a quick refresher of plopping the treats in the bowl to re-establish the rhythm and pattern. Then slow things down and let him start offering going back to the next bowl. That will require taking his eyes off of your hands, which will be very helpful!
>>Checkers reminded me that he’s a vermin hunting dog and he REALLY LIKES FUR LOL. Anyways he was really able to go to that toy much easier. You’ll see I also got right down on the ground with him to make it super exciting LOL.>
That was GREAT!!!!!!! He is a murderer at heart, like my whippets and lurchers LOL!! I can hook you up with the long furry whippet toys – I think he will love those as much as he loves food 🙂
On the prop game:
>I really should’ve stopped sooner- I feel like his best reps were in the first half.>
This was a very informative session and that is why we do these games with the random prop at first – to sort out the needs of the dog in training and get our mechanics going 🙂
Great job getting engagement with the ready game at the beginning!!! He really engaged!
The first few sends after that were really strong. Yes, he was looking at your hand a bit but that is part of this game – he also had plenty of reps where he looked directly at the prop and smacked it 🙂
To get more of that – start a little closer to the prop. Maybe 3 feet away for now, maximum. You started a little far away so he went to the prop but didn’t always touch it.
About halfway through, you changed from the ready dance game to a smack-da-baby game…
I am not sure that he loves the hand play or being tapped while working – he backed off a whole lot between :47 :58 when you did that and then was tentative when you tried the sending again. Then he did well when you reset the prop but didn’t touch him.
That is FABULOUS info – he likes the hands-free ready dance. But does not like to be touched or patted in that moment. And that is fine – you can stick with the ready dance and not touch him 🙂
To play and praise, you can use the toy after every couple of treats to replace the smack da baby moment. That is very engaging for him!
>>In hindsight I wonder if I should’ve used a reset cookie on the reps I didn’t reward to try to limit frustration/confusion?>>
I think it is OK to not reward every single thing because the non-reward moments can be just as information-filled as the reward moments. But there is a line to balance, because too many failures/non-rewards can have fallout in terms of frustration/stress.
Try to live by the 2 failure rule: if you do not reward a behavior, that is a caution light that maybe it is too hard. But you don’t need to change anything yet (unless the dog looks stressed, which was not the case here). If you don’t reward twice? Then time to change something and make it easier to get success (or end the session so there are no more failures). And this is not twice in a row – it is twice, total for the session. That will help create a high ate of reinforcement while also making sure we continue to make progress towards the goal behavior.
>>he’s SO DANG HAPPY ALL THE TIME, I love watching his videos back, it makes me happy. I love this puppy>>
I agree! He is amazing and fun and brilliant!!! You’re doing a great job!
Tracy
Good morning!
The stealth self-control game looked good!
>>I tried 3 objects yesterday and all of them ended up just off the camera! He behaved the same way he did today. If he checked them out at all, he came right to me when I said his name. >>
I think his quick inspection of the object was mainly because you were tossing the treat right at it. That might have caused him to think you wanted him to expose or offer behavior on the object. Since we are going for ‘ignore it completely’ you can have the stimulus off to the side and toss the cookie past it -I think that will help clarify things for him. It is not a bad thing that he sniffed it, I just think he was considering interaction based on placement of the initial the cookie throw 🙂
You can introduce a novel-neutral object in the environment for any game you feel he is already comfortable with. He is looking great with the blinds, so you can add it to the environment (somewhere off to the side). The more we teach his brain to process these things, the easier it will be to teach his brain to process harder challenges too.
>I was delaying giving him the toy so he had time to swallow the cookie toss. Otherwise he was coming back and hacking or spitting out the cookie.>
Ah! That makes sense 🙂 Swallowing the cookie is pretty important LOL!!
The blinds looked fabulous!!
>I did not realize that the toy should be much more visible to him and not just a reward>
The toy placement opens up your shoulder more and that is actually the cue for the blind – he read it beautifully. As he gets more experienced, he will read it sooner but for now, the toy placement helps get that super snappy response. He was lovely!! And he ran through the toy really well, no impact on his neck or spine there. How quickly did he bring the toy back after you let it go?
You can add more distance if you want – you can do it from a stay if he can let you lead out a lot, or someone can hold him.
Great job here!!!
Tracy
Hello and welcome! Max sounds like a lot of fun! What type of dog is he? I am excited to hear more!
Tracy
I love your training area here!
Am I remembering correctly that it is Matrix who is the chill dog on the left side of the screen? That is a great way to have the other dogs in the room. Yowza is more of a close talker 😁🤣 so I think she needs to either be up on the bed or in a different room. The Border Collie stare adds pressure in subtle ways (like delayed responses, not moving into the space where she is as freely, etc) which we don’t want him to rehearse.
He did really well with the wrap foundation and the cookies! I love the tippy tap of his little feet 🙂 If the cone wrap is not tight yet, let’s work it through from here – it is possible that he is just working out the mechanics because he is so young 🙂 You can put the upright in between the 2 bowls now and see how he does!
Separately, you can work up to standing for the cookie game (he is probably too small to do it with toys and you standing :))
The toys do make the game exciting… he was a good boy t go back and forth! It is a great game to toy exchanges so you can keep revisiting it here and there.
I am glad you like the goat tricks in arousal – and yes, it is great for teaching body mechanics in the aroused state, which is what they will be in when they need to use their bodies most!
Plus it teaches some arousal regulation: go wild, then do “calm” things 🙂 Also very important!
He did a great job here! Since he got his front feet in so easily, you can reward with a tossed treat and see if he can then run back and get his feet right back in. If you want hind feet too – you might need a bigger object or 2 objects so it is easier to offer then he is stimulated.
Feel free to make piles of random stuff for him to climb around when he is stimulated – the more, the better!
Was that him barking at :31 and then towards the end? What an adorable bark!
Great job!
TracyHi!
>>Arrow’s Daddy is Roxane Pardiac’s “Chit Chat” from Canada>
Ah! Chit Chat is so fun, what an awesome breeding!!
Looking at the videos:
Arrow did well with the driving ahead, he is so fun!!! But I think Yowza gets voted off the island in terms of being allowed to watch LOL!!!
It was too much pressure for him to run towards another dog who is staring at him and pouncing or chasing, especially his mother, so while he did get the toy, he moved away from you with it and was a little reluctant to bring it back. Since we don’t want that rehearsal, Yowza can be hanging out in the house during his sessions 🙂 She was also a little too involved with the decel game so you’ll definitely want to give him his one on one time with you for training. It might not look like he is distracted by it, but he is having to split his attention and we want him to be fully focused on your cues and not on what she doing.He did well in the drive to handler too – you can add more decel so he can collect into his hind end. As he is eating the cookie, you can move fast away from him – but as soon as he turns to move towards you, change your speed to a walk so he can collect. You will see him get nice and tight to your leg for bth the food and the toy rewards!
Great job here 🙂
Tracy
Thanks! He did great here!! It looks like he focused forward (great job with your connection to his eyes) then he drove ahead of you! You can keep adding distance – it is limited only by how far you can throw the toy 🙂
>>We are still working on returning the toy.>>
You were quick to grab it here – he lifted it and looked at you, deciding if he should bring it back or take it on a romp LOL!! You can help encourage him to bring it back by turning and running the other direction and calling him, as soon as he gets to the toy. Then if he brings the toy even a couple of steps to you, whip out another toy and reward him. That can help develop a nice retrieve by convincing him first to not take the toy on victory laps 🙂
Great job!
Tracy
