Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Good morning!
>I do want to keep diving and I never mind showing struggles. It doesn’t help to hide them>
So true!!
> my connection I’m not even sure I can be better. I will try but I’m watching him. I even made sure th reps I sent were good from me lol!>
You sure can be better! LOL! And you were on many of the reps. Watching him and being connected are two entirely different things. We can watch and see a dog without being connected. It is what the dog sees, not what we see. I could tell you were not fully connected because on a bunch of reps you were cueing GO GO GO and he had never gotten to the side you wanted. So he stayed on his line, as cued. If you were really connected, you would have called his name or opened up more to get him to the side you wanted before cueing the Go line.
So with that in mind: use the exit line connection to train your body to consistently connect with your eyes on his eyes and your dog-side arm back & out of the way. This is the missing element:
>As far as errors go: I may have taken one skil and that one time you said something about not rewarding and employed to all. Oops!! Generally I reward everything then I get the “why did you reward that” ( not saying just from you.>
I think it has to do with dog-training skill versus handling skill. So let’s say I am training wrap versus tunnel in the proofing game, and I am standing still, hand on collar, said wrap 6 times then let go… and he flies into the tunnel – I won’t reward it. I will reset with a cookie, while I mentally check that I did it right and try again. Those are sessions where it is easy to be ‘clean’ and we can show criteria to the dog.
For handling – it is entirely possible that I was late/early/disconnected/running the wrong way/all of the above and we see common errors from all dogs when handling is wrong. An example is ending up on the ‘wrong’ side of me on a cross – well, that is either disconnection or really late connection, so I keep going, reward something else, try again with amped up connection. Or if I think I was on time and connected, I will watch the video… the video always tells me that I am disconnected and/or late.
> And with that, at some point I’m gonna be wrong in handling training trialing, >
Yes – but that is with an adult dog who has far more tools both on how to cope with handler errors, and tools about how to read lines. And if there is a handler error, handlers should just keep going at a trial and own that it was a handler error. Stopping to fix or blaming the dog is going to cause issues.
And in theory you won’t make that many mistakes, maybe one error. But as I am sure you have seen – if the handler is wrong a lot in trials AND blames the dog… you will get the same low rate of success and high rate of frustration.
So it is not about making a mistake here or there… it is about punishment paired with handler error that drops the rate of success below 85%. An error or withholding reward 10% or15% of the time? Not great, but not likely to have the same fallout if the rate of success gets to 50% or lower.
>As far as food rewards, they are there with food. He doesn’t like to eat but I am giving him food for every “middle” leg set up. You may not notice them all because it’s more cookie in his face vs him like ooh can I have that Cookie mom.>
What type of treats are you using? Also, you can (and should, at this stage) build up his food drive so he *can* eat in training. Make eating the behavior, sandwiched between tugging and other work he likes. Tug- treat – wrap or tunnel – tug for example. Or wrap – treat – tug- wrap-treat-tug.
Here is a video of how quickly this can change the dog’s food value: at hte beginning, this pup just wanted to tug or wrap. So we wuickly built food as the behavior: eat then tug. Then it was wrap – eat -tug.
> That said he got the first rep right. That almost never happens.>
Consistent failure on the first rep might be bringing frustration into the session before it even begins. It might be happening because you are working out your mechanics at the same time as you are training him – and it takes you a few reps, but he is frustrated by then. So work the mechanics without him (video it!) then work it with an adult dog… if that goes well, do a few reps with him. That will result in fewer reps for him overall but they will be great reps!
> we’ve been working mostly dog on right for the past couple weeks and when I switched over to the left there a minor moment. Mechanics, clarity ,
or him going wait a minute we don’t do this routine. Which is fine.>What happened in the minor moment? It might have nothing to do with changes in arousal and might be asking him to do something he didn’t recognize.
>The only thing I just can’t wrap around is being perfect all the time. It’s not real life, So I’ll focus on the concept of rate
of reward to help me work through that.>Dog sport training is not real life 🙂 so there is an emphasis on being close to perfect with young dogs! Rate is the absolute key – I aim for 90% rate of success. And if there is a failure or two, then something needs to change to avoid that rate dropping. The rate dropping causes frustration to rise.
My mechanics (connection primarily, and timing too) are generally what causes failure on these games but this is critical:
just because the dog didn’t do what I intended doesn’t mean I withhold reward. End up on the wrong side of me and go to the backside of the jump? Reward! And up on the wrong side of me and find the front of the jump? Reward! Something goes sideways and the dog is entirely off the line? Keep moving in flow and try again then reward.And it goes wrong more than once? Time for video watching.
My failure in communication does not automatically mean that I withhold reward – in fact, I tend to pay extra when the dog somehow tries to save me and find a line. That actually builds more resilience when there is no line to find.
> For example. Yes I usually start a rep at x seconds. sometimes a girl forgets her word and needs an Extra second. LOL! He can’t lose his mind every time that happens.>
Right! And he won’t lose his mind if he is already working at 85-90% rate of success. If he is at 33% or 50%? Yep, expect some frustration behavior for little things like that.
> I do need to be able to be human with life tho. If that makes sense.>
Yes, but also nope LOL!! You are the only one with the course map, he doesn’t have it 🙂 The dog doing something unintended is feedback about what/when he is seeing/hearing cues. If you could have in any way messed up the handling and the dog is still working and trying to find the line but does something unexpected – find a way to get reward to him as if he was correct because the video will show you that he was.
On the RC video: he ate his food really well here! And you had real connection on the exit of all the wraps, I don’t think he ended up on an unintended side of you at all.
This is a good example of rewarding anyway if the handling might not be correct. The RCs were late except for 2:15 – on the late ones, he always turned the unintended way, but good job rewarding anyway because he was doing a good job of processing what he saw. 2:15 was on time and he read it well!
I think you need a bit more room between the wing and jump to get on the RC line, and also put the start wing closer to the RC line. That will make it easier for you to be running to the center of the bar earlier, which will create the RCs. It is also a good place to stop and watch the video to see why he kept turning the ‘wrong’ way (actually correct way based on the cues. You can delay the toy throw until after you have changed sides, rather than use the toy throw to try to get the side change.
It was definitely a higher rate of success session and you can see it in the lack of frustration behavior especially when something was happening that was giving him the ick: at 3:21 and 3:39 you lined him up then pulled him to a new spot by the neck. Definite ick! Much easier to give a cookie then just line him up again where you want him.
But he tolerated it without big frustration responses like avoiding lining up or getting grabby or trying to wrap the wing – the only spot where I saw an inkling of frustration was at 4:13 where he really did not want to move when you were pulling him by his neck. It is a good example of how an overall high rate of success can keep any frustration behaviors from appearing but also – don’t pull him by the neck, it gives him the ick 🤣😂
For the serp proofing:
He had a good question about finding the tunnel here at first – the angle of the jump relative to the tunnel is incorrect: it should be rotated 90 degrees from where it was here, so he is sitting on a line facing straight into the tunnel entry and the bar is perpendicular to the tunnel entry (it was parallel to it here). The setup here makes the serp a little too easy and the tunnel a little too hard – he needed a lot more physical support which is why it was hard to get him to do it. Try flipping the angle of the jump and I bet it is much easier!
But overall it was a higher rate of success session: lots of effort rewards and helping him find it, even though I am pretty sure he knew something was not quite right – but no frustration behavior, because he was doing the best he could with the info, and you were affirming that. Yay!!
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Good morning! She is doing well with all the games!
Zig zags:
Very nice start here! Having Christine hold her wasa great way to set her up for success. She seemed very good at switching her leads, no problem at all!The next step would be to move the wings a little closer together, so you both have to do it faster 🙂
Ladder grid – the stay is looking strong here even with the cookie placed in the bowl! And she has the concept of bouncing each distance – the angled jumps were also easy for her.
So now we add more power! Switch the stationary bowl to a moving target (you slowly dragging a toy as you release her). That will get her pushing off her rear all the way through. With the stationary reward, she steps in nicely but then is decelerating to be ready to stop at the bowl. The moving target will ask for power the whole way through til a stride or two after landing, plus it begins to add in the small distraction of handler motion.I think this distance will end up being too short for her when there is more power – if this was 4 feet, try her at 5 feet and see how she does! If it was 5 feet, try 6 feet 🙂
Looking at the rear crosses: These went well! She was a little distracted by something in the environment before the wraps (a dog making noise perhaps?) but then when you sent her to the wrap, she was all business. YAY! Good job doing lots of GO reps to keep her driving forward – that made it easier to add the RC reps.
Try to have the toy already in the hand you are throwing it with – switching it was causing her to watch your hands and also delaying your line on the RCs, like at 2:01 where you were a little late.
She will also give you better feedback about the handling if you don’t throw the toy until *after* she takes the jump 🙂 Try to throw early was creating the turn on some of the RCs, but we want to be sure that your line was creating the turn not the toy throw 🙂 So run the RC pressure line and throw after you have changed sides rather than before. If you are late, she will let you know by turning the other way before finding the new side. If you are on time, she will confirm that by turning the correct direction 🙂
The Diamond: very nice connection after the blinds! You can hear her digging in to make the turn on the first one!
The BC at :52 & 1:28 were really well-timed. She was not as fast because you were not running on those. If you are moving slowly, she will think you are cueing decel so she will decel too! You can spread out the wings a lot more so you can’t walk, you have to run 🙂 When you ran more on the race track at the end, she definitely saw the acceleration cue and ran faster. So you can spread things out even more to get both of you accelerating more 🙂
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
>Realized we had skipped the Week 5 games (Oops!) so played with the layering game this morning.>
Fun!!!!
> Noticed a couple of things with my handling. 1.) Lack of connection after the wrap brought her to me so she bypassed the jump. Connection, with the “Go” and she was focused and driving forward.>
Connection is really magic! When you were connected she found the jump really well!! Layering is hard for small dogs because they have to take so many more strides, but I think this session went great! Lots of good rewards for staying out on the line and it looked super fun.
> 2) When layering the tunnel if I wasn’t in the right lane and had to step around the tunnel it pulled her off the line and off the jump. Was much better if I was further away and could show more of a straight line. >
Yes – that goes back to all those parallel path games we played: if we can set a parallel path to a line for her to stay on, we can easily build distance and layering. That is a hot course trend right now anway as I am sure you have seen with Jack!
When adding the layering you can reward ‘close enough’ and try to toss the reward past the jump when she is working at a distance even if she doesn’t perfectly get the obstacles.
>Would also help if I didn’t fall over the tunnel.>
Ha! Falling is too much decel haha
>At UKI trials I can take it in the ring with me and give it to the leash runner with his leash. >
I love this about UKI!!
>. When she caught sight of Jack’s ball she was totally focused and responsive! I’m not sure if you can see the difference in her intensity and focus on the last “run” of our layering game. >
YESSS I totally saw it 🙂 I am a big fan of using balls and hollee rollers and all that stuff in training. Somewhere in agility, people started to think BALLS ARE BAD but they are actually super high value rewards.
> Challenge is that she doesn’t bring the ball (or any of her rubber toys) back. Which is why I really need to get her retrieve down. The ball for all my poodles has much more value than any tug toy or bait bag and I really would like to use it but won’t until I get a reliable retrieve with her.>
Controversial opinion: you should play with these toys before you have a retrieve. The toys bring the joy which brings the teamwork… which brings the retrieve 🙂 More joy, less control 🙂
So how do you keep training after the first thrown ball/hollee roller/rubber toy which she is zooming around with? You cheer her on for a moment then without asking for the toy back, you whip out another ball and head back to the tunnel or wing or jump to start a new rep. It will be wildly inefficient at first 🤣😂because it will take her a moment to realize that there are plenty of balls/hollee rollers available and that you don’t want the first one back, you just want to continue playing. Then once it locks in… you can trade for treats or another ball, and she will bring it back faster and faster.The joy is more important than the efficiency 🙂 so definitely bring the balls into the game right away and the retrieve will follow 🙂 You just need several balls/hollee rollers. I also use frisbees a lot because my dogs are NUTS for them.
Nice work here! Keep me posted on how things go today!
Tracy
Good morning!
Hopefully YouTube has recovered itself – I am not seeing any errors or delays anywhere this morning. Let me know if you are still seeing the errors.
>Rou did great with the toy races and bringing the toy back (although a tad slower which is to be expected).>
Super! What a good girl!!!!
>This is as close as we are allowed to get to the ring and warm up dogs/train. She did pretty darn good with all the distractions.>
I am super proud of how well she did!! Lots of exposure to other people and dogs and noises… and she was amazing. I give YOU a big click/treat for keeping her leash loose and not trying to control her with it – a great example of that was at :37 when she was a little bit away from you and a person with a big Lab exited the building. You let her process the moment and she was able to engage with you again. SUPER!!! And then she worked really well in the last part of the video when there were all sorts of people and dogs. Yay!
There was one hard part where she took a bit of time to re-engage and I can relate: she and I both got distracted by the woman and Sheltie going into the porta-potty. I am with you, Rou – that was weird hahahahahahaha but once again, she re-engaged brilliantly.
At the beginning, you waited for her to engage to start the game. That worked well! You might sometimes encounter harder environments where she can’t engage right away. In those moments, it is perfectly good for you to start the game by showing her the treat then toss it to the side. That can help her process the really hard distractions or environments.
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
One thing to tell you – did you know that Cheetos makes mini cheese balls? Perfect for highly visible thrown rewards! Shout out to Cindi for telling me. Looks like they are widely available:
And super useful for throwing treats in grass! Figured I would pass it along.
>I’ll play more with the toy keeping it in one hand. I was trying to not have it in the send hand. Dot tries to steal it out of my pocket if I stuff it in there.>
You can start close and have it scrunched up in the send hand, to work on a bit of the impulse control with the toy! And you an use it as a stealth self-control exciting object by having it in your pocket but playing other games – so she learns to ignore it in your pocket 🙂
>I have a question on the out lecture. What marker are you using when they go out and hit the prop? I thought you said “yes”, but then you were tossing a cookie towards the prop. >
In that video, the pup was maybe 13-14 weeks old and it was her first sessions, so I was using ‘yes’ which was the only powerful marker at the time (others were still too new and at that age I don’t want to train 2 concepts at once). With more experienced pups like Dot, I would use ‘get it’ for the thrown rewards because she has an understanding of what that means. When the demo pup had a couple of sessions under her belt, I switched to the ‘get it’ marker which I think is ‘find it’ for you.
Concept transfer is looking great! And a bonus outdoor pee LOL!!! She was very committed to finding the jump and also was pretty brilliant at reading your cues. When you were turned to the jump and moving? Perfection. You can throw the reward even sooner, to mark & reward commitment to the line before she even arrives at the jump (the reward still gets thrown to the landing side of the jump).
She had two misses but when I slowed them down… I think she was actually reading handling info! Slow motion tells a different story from what I see in real time:
One miss was I think just because she was going FAST and when she started the next rep after getting the treat (:40) you were facing her, which is absolutely a cue to just come to you and *not* take the jump. By the time you rotated to face the line an started moving (:41) she was already just about at your side. Watching it in slow motion is interesting to see how well she read the cues there, coming to you even if that was not what you intended.
She had a miss at :57 but that looked to be a combo of losing her train of thought for a heartbeat at :56, then you were standing still pretty far from the jump, so she came to you.
I am happy with her choices on both of those – the subtleties of the handling asked her to engage with you and not the jump, so she did. Just because the jump if there, we don’t want her to ignore everything and take it no matter what you are doing. Good girl! The misses were both on your left side, which might have more value for coming to you than the other side – but there were no unintended ‘come to me’ cues on the other side.
You handled the misses really well – didn’t mark anything, just kept going. For the next session, you can move sooner/faster by moving up the line before she gets to the treat. That will help be sure she sees the cues sooner and also challenges her to fin the jump from behind you.
Great job!
Tracy
OMG MINI CHEESE BALLS I NEED TO FIND THOSE!!!!! Maybe Costco has them, I am a big Costco fan!
Look at that gorgeous field a the trial! Fun!!! What a luxury for the dogs – puppy and trial pro getting to enjoy free running!!
Super nice sessions here! Great use of the walk through time to play all these games.
Tugging, pattern games, chilling a bit at the trial, wraps, etc – all looked great. I could hear the wrap verbals and markers – all super! His is beautifully engaged. At the end he could see the person approaching but it did not distract his engagement. Good boy!
Send to mat was adorable – he collected to get on and not slide across it (brilliant) then rolled on his hip to look relaxed but his tail gave away his excitement LOL! Wag wag wag! Perfect 🙂
Since trials are a great opportunity to work with crowds of people, you can add in playing pattern games with you holding the leash and navigating past groups of people – a good time for that is when people congregate outside the ring before a walk through. That is a nice mental game for him eventually navigating through crowds before entering the trial ring.
I would like to add dogs to the crowd he navigates through BUT I want him to be able to do it easily first with only people, and I don’t trust other dogs at a trial to be sure that he is 100000% safe. So you can set up navigating through a dog crowd with friends who have dogs that are safe and will ignore him, or with your own dogs – maybe they can be on cots at home, or Ripley on a cot and the Swissy on the other side of a gate, and Vibe patterns past them.
Great job here!!
Tracy
Good morning!
She definitely loves smacking the prop!! She was fast and adorable!!!
Both sessions went really well!!!
>The 2nd video I realized I wasn’t looking at her, once I started to make eye contact before I send it seemed to really help. >
Yes – excellent adjustment and adding the connection to her eyes did help!!
>I was struggling when she kept trying to get the treat from my hand instead of looking at her prop. >
Part of the challenge is ignoring the treats, and she did really well. One thing I see here is a side preference – this is totally normal with puppies and good to see as we start the training! What I mean by that is she was really good at turning to her right: sending to the prop from your left sides then turning right to get back to you. Those were very smooth sends and not a lot of wanting to stay with the cookie 🙂
The harder side for her was when you were sending from your right side and she needed to turn to her left – she would either not send as smoothly because she needed to think about it (because it is like trying to write your name with your non-dominant hand). Or, she would turn to her right, away from you.
So she is a righty 🙂 And that is good to know! When you add challenge to the games, start with right turns for her. And to get her smoother with left turns, you can start her closer to the prop and also you can be a little further away to the side so it is easier to turn to her left.
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
He did really well here! What a good boy!
>Dublin was a little more distracted but did well.>
The visuals of the contacts were distracting at the beginning then when you went back to the prop later in the session. That is good to know – they are pretty big and probably smell lie cookies 😂 He was distracted in a good way – he seemed interested in getting on them! Not yet, Dublin, not yet 🙂
>I think I need to add maybe the pattern game or something for focus at start of my session. >
You can totally start with a pattern game new the contacts! It can help. And playing the prop game further from the contacts will help too. The prop is tiny compared to the contacts (the barrel is a much bigger visual and he had no trouble with that).
Looking at the prop game – with the visual of the contacts, you were probably too far ahead on the back and forth with the prop at the beginning. He was hitting it well when you were closer but running to you when you were really far ahead. I think the contacts were simply a big visual draw.
So when the prop is in between big visual distractions, you can start closer to the prop to make it more obvious – that is when he was most successful and was able tp do the parallel path game and the RCs.
The RCs went well! He turned really well in both directions!!!Turn and burn went well too! He turned beautifully in both directions (fast and tight!) and by the end of that session, you were starting the FC pretty early – right as he arrived at the barrel. SUPER!
The hardest part was the one up – he was very interested in the toy 🙂 You can line him up with a cookie then reward him for coming to your side – he seemed to have no trouble going from a cookie to that great toy. The good line ups like at 4:47 and 5:28 really helped, those were perfect reps!
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Good morning!
Backing up is going really well!! You’ve got her backing up pretty far and straight – the platform really helps. She is ‘looking’ for it with her back right foot. Verbal is added, you are standing.. perfect timing to add the next steps which are getting posted soon!
Lateral distance game is also going really well – by the end of the session you were 4 or 5 feet away, I think. Nice! When you had a little more speed, it took her a moment to remember to hit the prop but she had a great one on the last rep! Super!
For this game, we are going to start working rear crosses – to get her ready for that, you can add more distance away from the prop to start but not lateral distance: start right next to her so you move forward together. She should leave you behind to get to the prop. When she is driving ahead, we will add the rears where you change sides behind her and throw the reward the new direction.
Great job with your connection on the blinds! She is very responsive to the side changes – your timing was super on most of them, starting the blind when she took a step or two towards you after the cookie start. There as only one late rep (:22) where. The blind came just before she got to you so she had a delay finding the new side. But your connection was super so she was able to get it! And the pivots were all lovely because you had clear decel. Yay!
You can add more distance to this game so you are both running more 🙂 And you can also add a toy as the reward to see if she will switch back and forth from food (start cookie) to toy.
Lovely job with the pattern game! She is doing really well – this game can totally go on the road (you might have already taken it places :)) Using high value food, you can take her to agility locations or any place there are good distractions, and play this game to get engagement. She will be on leash in those places, so be sure to practice it on leash if you haven’t done so alredy.
Great job on these! Stay tuned for more games coming today!
TracyGood morning!
Thanks for posting this! There are a couple of things that can help a lot – all of it is human training 🙂 Chase is doing great and providing fantastic feedback 🙂>I don’t want to obsess on it unless we need to deal with it if that makes sense.>
We need to deal with it 🙂 He is indicating he is frustrated and after some analysis of the video, I can see why! That also affirms that video is soooo helpful because without it, I don’t know if we would understand what was happening.
>It’s fairly minor now and of course you can’t “feel” the energy in the video. He hits harder he grabs the toy when not asked and he mainly doesn’t want to wait.>
I understand the energy and he gives really good feedback. This is frustration behavior that comes from two things:
– too much punishment
– Lack of clarity on the line up and start, especially if he is already frustrated>This happens when I first get him out. Usually we have 3-4 fails before we succeed. >
He is probably very excited, which is good! And you are not clear with your mechanics – so you are marking a lot of behavior as him being incorrect when really, he was doing the best he could with the info you were showing. Then if things improve, it is likely that your info is improving because that is what happened on these 2 videos.
>This can be skills he knows too. If I ask for tricks he’s wild about them too.>
Tricks probably come with really super clear cues without motion that could imply different answers to the cue. For handling, he can only respond to what he sees – so he was correctly wrapping that start wing every time. What was being marked as wrong was which side of you to go to… that was all handler error (connection). To get connected as you move, you needed the dog-side arm back and to be looking at his eyes very directly as he exited the wing.
When you did that? Gorgeous!! When you did not do that? He often ended up on the other side of you when you were moving. Those all got marked as him being wrong but actually… handler error.
Here are screenshots:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1GdKcWvrHGSz3OGTdI5sUwbNUORDCBtJDs1-2TyJcQRU/edit?usp=sharingMy philosophy is this: if the dog is told he is wrong about something in handling but then the handler fixes it by changing something with handling in the next rep… I don’t think the dog was the one who was wrong! Reward the dog!
And if the dog does the same behavior more than once and it is not the behavior we want… handling adjustments need to be made and watch the video. You did try to adjust by slowing your movement down at the wing, but then when you added the movement back you got the same behavior.
When a dog ends up on the ‘wrong’ side, it is super important to crank up the connection with the dog-side arm way back and BIG eye contact so the dog could see the new line.
On the first video, on the first 9 reps, he was marked as wrong 6 times (33% rate of success). And I don’t think there were reset cookies or anything, but even then the rate of success was low enough that it might not have helped.
All of the errors were connection bloopers (yours, not his :)) so you got frustration behavior: At :13 he jumped up for the toy likely because of your response to the error on the first rep – at :06 you turned away from the jump and disconnected to throw the toy, so he went past the jump. Even though he got the toy, the physical response indicated it was wrong (then video was edited so I can’t see what was next).
At :54 – the connection at the wing exit was not clear to show the side you wanted, but you said GO and he got the jump anyway, saving your butt – REWARD! You did not reward (that was the 6th indicator that he was wrong) so in that moment I predicted that he was going to bite you and sure enough, he jumped up at you at :59.
After that you did 5 quick reps that all got rewarded so that brought the session rate of success up to about 57% (as opposed to 33& when he jumped up) – it was better to end that way but overall we want closer to 90% rate of success.
On the 2nd video we can also see the connection versus lack of connection on the 2nd video (where we only see the wing) – at 1:37 your connection was not clear (he was marked as wrong). Compare to your adjustment at 1:48 where he saw much better connection and got to the sided you wanted. See above about my philosophy of handlers fixing things to get the correct behavior 🙂
On both videos, there is more clarity we can get on the line up and toy transitions. It is especially important to be very clear if he might already be frustrated (not that we plan to frustrate him).
He lines up well between your feet! You can use food rewards for that and use that a lot.
He doesn’t fully understand the line up at your side so you can do more of that with lots of rewards – and yes, when you were trying to get that he was trying to go to the wing but that is all frustration behavior from the low rate of success. He was frustrated because of the errors in handling and also in the 2nd video at :54 he was expecting the release (he was in that ‘ready’ collar hold for a bit) probably because it was the timing you normally release on, and everything in that moment said it was coming. If that happens, just line him up again between your feet, give a reset reward, then try again and and don’t make him wait so long LOL!
And you can also work on toy transitions: rewarding him for letting you lift the toy without him trying to grab it. That can be a cookie reward tossed to the side as you lift the toy, then call him into lineup position to make a clean transition into the next rep. That also means there will be 2 rewards that help offset any frustration (not that we want to frustrate him at all!)
And remember the 2 failure rule in handling: if the pup does something that is not according to your plan? Adjust the handling immediately to clarify the cues. If he does it twice? Watch the video. Freeze it in the moment of error: are you connected? Are you on time? Without stopping to sort it out, you might end up in a low rate of success which builds frustration behavior.
Let me know what you think! I am grateful that you posted it because analyzing the sessions that are harder gives us a lot more insight into what is happening and how we can help!
Tracy
What error are you seeing? It looks like YouTube was having a hard day yesterday – I saw errors on the YouTube site itself, and it took longer than usual for videos to load on this site. The first thing that came up was a YouTube error message, followed about 10 seconds later by the video. Hopefully that all goes away but let me know if you are still seeing weird things.
T
Good morning!
>They have two beautiful enclosed areas. >
Wow, what a cool thing to have access to and fantastic opportunity for young dogs!!
The pattern game went great here – new area, distractions audible in the background… she did really well! You can see the slightest delay in her engagement as the sound distractions amped up (sounds lime a dog was running in the trial ring) – that is an indicator of her brain processing it. Good girl!!!
You can bring her closer to the ring area and play this game. Since she will need to be on leash, you cookie tosses can be shorter (not as far from you) but it is a really valuable opportunity to get her closer to the ring environment.
The blind cross game looked great! As with the pattern game, she was exposed to trial noises and good smells, and earned lots of reinforcement for engaging and playing. Love it!
>Not taped we worked on toy races, and bringing her toy back.>
How did these go? She looked fantastic in the videos here!
Great job 🙂
Tracy
Good morning!
>Morning sessions are always after breakfast. I just hold back some of her meal for training >
Good! I don’t like training hungry pups, they get a little frantic. I mean, I get hangry, so I can relate 😂
Because she is really young, we might need to experiment with you long after breakfast you train with toys. It is possible that her nervous system is in ‘rest and digest’ mode for a certain time after a meal, so food sessions make more sense to her brain and body. Toy play is in the more stimulated nervous system mode, so you can try it at different times of day that are further from meal times.
>I have 2 wrap cues: one to wrap to the right, one to wrap the left
Can I use 1 word for either direction? or does it have to be 2 different words?>Yes and no :). It really depends on what your agility ‘tastes’ are and where you think the future will take you in agility. What I mean by that is if your favorite parts of agility are the local flavors that we find in AKC and CPE, for example, then 1 wrap cue meaning “wrap towards me” is great – that course design almost always has the handler visible so a cue that says ‘wrap towards me’ will work great!
If you think your agility tastes will take you more into the UKI, ISC, or International styles, or NADAC with the big distances – then wrap directionals (each direction gets its own verbal) are highly recommended. Those flavors of agility have more distance where the dog will need to work independently so we use more independent verbals too 🙂
We are very fortunate here that we can pick and choose what flavors we like, just like ice cream LOL!!!
She did really well with the pattern game in the new location! I think part of what you saw was investigating the new area where she was finding all sorts of interesting things. She was able to return her attention to you pretty quickly though, making the session super successful!
>I used kibble that’s why there is a bit of a scatter while she is looking for the pieces. >
Were you throwing more than one piece? It was hard to see 🙂 She might have been looking for all the pieces, so throwing one piece will help her grab one then engage again. Yo can also keep the treats a tiny bit closer so they are easier to find. And a big visible treat will help too.
>Is this a bad habit that I am creating? Should I just keep it to visible treats? I>
I don’t think it is a bad habit, it is just a little inefficient 🙂 So one treat (especially visible ones) will really help.
The SSC game went really well!
>Looking back at this, my observations – started with the toys & jar too close to the prop? >
Based on her value for the prop and her responses here, I don’t think they were too close. And she was very successful!!!
>I should have preplaced the Novel object prior to? Not while we are in the session?> Does it matter if she sees me from confinement (crate or xpen) placing the Novel object?>
Yes, I think placing it without her seeing will make a difference. When she sees you put it down, that actually enhances the object and encourages her interact with it. So that made it a little harder to ignore at this stage.
If you can have it already placed off to the side, or put her in a crate/xpen for a few minutes, you will see even better ignoring of the object.
If you do put her in the crate and she sees the exciting object get placed, you can then let her see you place the prop to hit *after* that. Placing the prop after it will enhance the prop and draw her focus away from the exciting object to ignore 🙂
>I’m not brave enough to use a BAG of treats LOL!>
I bet you can put it on a chair to start with and she will do great!!
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
Scholar is doing great with his games!!
I think he has the idea of the wraps – he was offering back and forth really well in both directions. Good boy!!!! And he didn’t seem to have questions when you moved the wrap object a little further away. The only delay was him chewing his treat LOL!!!
At 1:28 you moved it further away and when he was not quite correct you marked it… I think that actually distracted him a little and he had to take a moment for kisses LOL! So you can try being totally silent if he has a blooper (lack of reward will let him know it was not quite correct). And that will give him a moment to sort it out and wrap the object again.
Since this is going really well, you can add the next 2 steps:
– him wrapping a cone or a barrel or something a little bigger (I use a pop up laundry basket)
– you sitting on something a litle higher, like a low chair or inflatable ball or something. We are slowly but surely going to get you standing up, but because he is so small and young, we are going to do it very gradually.>For the hallway one I used a mini trash can as the neutral object and he could have cared less >
This is perfect! We want his brain to process and ignore a distraction, making it appear as if he doesn’t notice it. But we know his brain noticed it (he had t ago around it to get to you on a couple of the reps). He really likes the recall game and did well going from the start cookie to the tugging 🙂 You can take this game to different places with different novel-neutral items. And in a comfortable place, you can add in the next step of something a little more exciting to ignore.
Very nice transition from the tugging to the box shaping here! We can see him working his brain, I love it!! I cheered for him at 1:01 when you put the box back down and he got right into it!! Superstar!!!! And doubt cheer for when he got hs back end in towards the end of the session – good patience on your click to wait for him to offer!
And super nice job getting the toy play involved throughout the session. That is great for keeping engagement high and the shaping games exciting.You can see him responding to the reward placement here: you were delivering to his mouth, which he interpreted as “stay here”. Smart boy! Then at the end, you started tossing the reward and that was the ideal next step. It got him moving more in and out, which got more feet in the box ) Click/treat to you for remembering to add that!
So for the next session, start where you left off here with the tossed rewards. You can keep using the clicker if you like, or you can replace the click with a ‘get it’ marker then toss the reward.
>For the box, next time I will get things to make sure it doesn’t slip. I wasn’t thinking it would.>
If you have a big rug to play this on, it will allow you toss treats and he won’t slip and the box won’t move. I have a ton of cheap rugs and yoga mats in my house over wood floors, specifically for puppy shaping LOL.
You can also do a shaping session on a different object, like shaping him to get on a mat, or something low that is easy to interact with. And you can shape him to foot-smack (front feet) a random object too!
>I kinda feel like I combined two games into one with this.>
In a good way! You added the next steps and that is exactly what we want 🙂
>I am still trying to get down all of the first games before moving on.>
He is doing really well and the games build on each other, so you can totally add the next steps and new games 🙂
Great job!!
Tracy
Good morning!
I think we can clarify how you want to handle serps then it will be easier! The goal is to that you keep moving without rotating your feet: your feet are facing and moving towards the reward the whole time, and the upper body cues her to come in. That can be by swinging the dog side arm back, or using a cross arm – either will work as long as you keep moving forward.
Bella and I were surprised about the serp dance 💃 move on the very first rep and a :49 – it acted as a stop sign with both arms out so she didn’t think she was supposed to take the jump.
1:08 and 1:18 you used a cross arm which is fine and but more importantly, kept your feet moving forward to th reward. Yay! These reps were MUCH better about cueing the in-then-out of the serp and you kept moving – that made so much more sense to her.
I grabbed a few screenshots so you can see the differences:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1maGUCM5yLnxkS4MwsXEmmGYKmGqlK1GGO2ar5zZH2GI/edit?usp=sharing
She seemed to have no questions about finding the jump after the tunnel! Super! You can start adding motion where you are running ahead of her (can she still find the jump, or does she chase you?) and you can get in close to the tunnel exit and add more motion to see if she drives ahead too. And feel free to add verbals at this point.
Great job!
Tracy
