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I am glad it was fun! I think the first thing to do is to see how he feels about tugging on different toys in other places – which toy(s) will work best for this? Don’t worry about the patterns until we have the reinforcement strategy.
T
Hi –
> He also doesn’t feel the need to eat after he’s had meals. So if he’s had breakfast he’s done. Ya know how some people are content eating once a day? That’s chase.>
His nervous system goes into rest-and-digest mode. So if you want to use food, it has to be valuable and it has to be at a time of day when it is not after he has eaten. The treats can be considered part of his meal.
>1- Chase has a very clear down time between 8:30-11. He can do stuff but this is his nap time. I know he will at some point need to do things at any time but should I avoid working patterns such at that time?>
What time of day does he eat? 8:30-11am is prime time for dog sports, so you might need to change his meal time or his downtime. That way you can do things like work patterns. But you will be using toys more than food, which should be more activating anyway.
2- Chase tugs his best at Ff. Think of FF as home and his home as a new place to visit. We don’t train at home much at all bc i don’t have space and the other dogs are jerks and even if I put tj in the car they bark so training home base is FF… where should I work the toy game ?>
You should work the toy game at home and at FF. You don’t want to be limited to only FF, and you don’t want to abandon home training, so let the other dogs bark in a different room in the house so he can have some training at home too.
T
Hi!
>We had an issue at the beginning with Kat not coming in for the backside (I ran it as a German), but I realized I needed to show her the line better and to give her a turn cue before 2.>
Yes, there is a bit of a jump-jump discrimination there and the verbal turn cue at 2 really helped.
For both the German here and the circle wraps at 14, she often does not automatically jump the bar after getting to the backside. For both of these, you will want to keep moving through and look back to the landing spot but most importantly – drop the reward on the landing spot as you move through to help make it all more automatic.
Also, clarifying the verbals will help –
is push your verbal for both a slice and a wrap on the backside? Or back for the slice? (4:43) or back for wrap (5:08 at 5:15)? I think being consistent will also help a lot, some of her questions might be about which line it is and she is waiting for more info from the physical cues.>She also struggled with the weaves when I tried to layer the jump. I will work on that separately and decided to just get rid of the layer after a couple of failed attempts.>
2 ideas for you on that:
From the handling perspective, you were too far ahead for the layering at 1:03 and 3:17. That caused you to decelerate and turn to get around the jump… but it actually pulled her to the jump. Sticking closer to the teeter exit and releasing, then driving forward will send her past you to the weave entry, which makes the layering a lot easier.
From the training perspective – the whole jump is a big distraction, so you can work on her weaving with you just layering a wing. Then you can work up to adding 2 wings, then the whole jump.
The 6-7-8 section looked good! I think you were wanting a RC on 9 (RC on the landing side?) but you were standing still then accelerated, so she read it as a left turn. You can decel into it to flip her away, or do a blind 8-9 and keep her on your left for the tunnel. The RC before the 10 tunnel was beginning to cue too tight of a turn on the exit, making it harder to find 11.
When she got 11, the RC on 12 and line to 13 looked great! And be sure to decelerate into the wrap on 14, and look at landing as you move through (but definitely more training with rewards thrown to the landing side as you move through will help).
To wrap 15, be sure to decelerate as soon as she exits 14, You were accelerating on the first run in that section so she went really wide. You were earlier on the 2nd run through there and had a much nicer turn 🙂 When you got too far behind at the end, watch your feet – they totally turned to the backside so that is where she went. Good girl!!
And the ending line went really well, no worries when you ran out of gas on the very last run and she found her toy 🙂
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi!
>. This was also the first trial back up to 24 inch jumps since returning from rehab. It had been 3 months since jumping 24 in a trial although he had done it in training beforehand. Additionally, it does seem that he finds indoor trial environments more stimulating than outdoor.>
It could have been a combo of all the things – taller height, challenging courses, dirt, etc.
>I was considering some NFC for Aelfraed for the purpose of having fun in the trial environment.>
If he has a toy that he will definitely want to play with if you throw it or drag it, you can have some fun! Tunnels, jumps, maybe a short stay, anything super fun.
> So, even if I enter him select he would need to jump 12. I am unsure if I can enter him in a height other than what he measures for if I plan to only run NFC.>
For UKI NFC, you can run him at any height. You would need to contact the trial secretary to adjust the height but he wouldn’t have to run 12″. Even if he is good with 12″ in practice, I would still run 8″ for his first NFC experiences so the jumping effort is easy because other things will be harder.
>He has been becoming more willing again to work with the toy in the agility ring. Usually he will do a toy for a bit right at the beginning of a session. Tonight he was perfectly happy to keep going with the toy>
That is great! I am sure your no-pressure approach to the toy play is a major part of that. Yay!
>still seemed to want to look at me when I wanted him to go ahead with the toy out there, so switched for some treats at the end and, despite a brief annoyance that we didn’t have a croissant today, that got him going ahead for the last jump.>
Yes, switching to food for that was smart but HOW DARE YOU NOT HAVE A CROISSANT 😂🤣😂🤣😂 Poor Aelfraed LOL!!! Just kidding of course 🙂
On the video:
Don’t run as close to 2, it sends him wider – he was hading to the center of the bar as if goinbg straight, based on your motion 1-2.
You were not as close to 2 at :11 and he had a better linethe 3-4-5-6 line loked good! He had a little question when he exited the 5 tunnel but I think it was because he could see the teeter
See if you can converge less to the backside – run towards where the wing and bar meet on the line parallel to what you want his path to be. He was finding the backside really well, so we can start moving you over more and more. And if you need to help him, you can angle the jump a little so the entry wing is closer to the 8 jump, making the backside easier to see and the front side harder to see.
On the ending line – he was good about getting the toy on the ground, but definitely looking at you there. The food made a big difference even thugh he was angry about the lack of proper bread items. You can have a helper stationed out there to be dragging the food so he really accelerates past you – the helper and food can be out there the whole time, and they start running and dragging the food as after you start your GO cues and as soon as he looks ahead on the line.
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi –
Yes, this is perfect weather for hiding indoors. I believe Minneapolis currently has the worst air quality in the world 🙁I think both dogs did really well! I would not have even thought there was a challenge in the environment because both were so good! And Lift seemed to like doing a little leg weave into a lineup, which could be a fun thing to add to her toolbox.
You can make the challenge more challenging – maybe an open bag of treats and train before dinner?
> I did notice that Lift flicked her eyes at the rabbit ears around 1:50-2 and again around 2:10 when I was removing Kaladin from her session.>
That is fine, she was great about ignoring it all along and ignoring him too LOL!! Having them self-release is another type of novel-exciting distraction (ok, maybe not novel but definitely exciting :))
Great job! Fingers crossed that the weather and air quality improves!
Tracy
Hi! These went well!
On pop out 1 – this ran really well. 2 small details: Be sure that he can see the wing of the backside wrap (jump 2) – you were blocking it so he was a little wide. On the backside wraps, your running destination is where the wing and bar meet. And remember to make a big connection to his eyes when he exits the tunnel – he slowed down a lot at :10 because he could not see the connection.
Pop out 2: As you get more comfy running these crazy lines 🙂 you will find that doing more blind crosses will be easier like on the exit of 3, which will be faster than the rear cross on 4. The threadle wrap on 9 worked really well! You can leave it even sooner (as soonas he starts to turn away to the jump) to get the BC on 10-11 – yuo can head directly towards 11 for the blind, rather than getting across the bar on 10, to get the tightest line there.
Pop out 3 – nice opening! He had a question on the exit of the tunnel at :55, where you were pointing at the jump but not connected. He lets you know when he doesn’t see connection by hesitating.
The 6-7-8 line is definnitely hard – staying on the landing side was not as clear because he did not know where 8 was. But going to the takeoff side of 7 like at 1:23 was much clearer And from takeoff side, the BC on 7 at 1:56 to get him on your right to send to 8 kept the momentum up really well.>I feel I also could have done a spin from 8-9.>
A spin is a possibility, but since you wanted the backside on 9 the post turn set up a really good line to it and a spin might have set up a line to the front side.
For the turn on 10 – he was turning to his right because the RC info was happening after he was gathering for takeoff, so he thought you wanted the right turn. Great job continuing there – it might not have gone according to plan, but it was still a clean run! The RC info was much earlier at 2:03 so he got it really well. A blind cross on the exit of 9 would have gotten the left turn immediately 🙂 so you can send to 9 then hop right into the blind to get him on your right arm there.
Pop out 4 – leading out to near the tunnel on 2 then pushing him to the other side of 3 set up a really long distance. When you handled it with him on your right 1-2 then the wrap on 3, the distance was shorter and it was definitely faster. As with the first pop out, don’t block the wing of 3 – run to where the wing and bar meet, so he can go directly to the backside and not wide.
I agree that the spin on 7 was smoother! Really nice! He had a question (bar tick) on 7 at 2:24 because the post turn pointed him at the wrong jump for a moment and he was trying to adjust in the air.
The spin was defniitely the better option at 2:45 – it got the tighter turn because it rotated your feet to the new line sooner than the post turn. Yay!Great job here!
Tracy
Hi!
The wind is a great distraction but also a big pain in the butt LOL She was doing well but I would like to see snappier responses – it is possible that super bowls where you are relatively stationary is not the best choice of a pattern game for her. Based on this session and the up and over session, I think she needs more action (and higher value food that doesn’t need to be chewed, but more action might take care of that too)! So you can place the bowls further apart (8 to 10 feet) so after she gets one cookie and re-engages, you both move briskly to the next bowl. And using more than two bowls will add more action too 🙂
She liked the action of the up-and-over game! Much snappier responses here, which affirms that she likes the movement a lot. This is normal for adolescent sport dogs – they gotta move as part of their arousal regulation and learning about the environment. And it helped her tune out the distractions in the environment in general and the obvious one like the fan.
And when she moves more, she chews less and looks around less. Cool! So definitely add more movement to the pattern games – and keep looking for food rewards she doesn’t have to chew LOL!
Nice work here!
TracyRather than think about what to do with the setup or course design, just pull out 2 wings from the jumps and do some wing wraps: wrap a wing, chase a momma, get a great reward (does he still love the flirt pole?) And in your turn in class, he can watch you do it with another dog (someone holds him on leash), then he has a turn. If he leaves during his turn, you go back to the other dog and reward and play. Someone else goes to quietly get him. And with easy stuff like wing wraps, you can have him do it at the same time as the other dog – both dogs wrap, both get cookies. If he doesn’t wrap, only the other dog gets cookies. Social learning is powerful: he is learning to work in that environment AND to ignore the other dog.
Hi, thanks for the videos!
Even at home, he is doing it but it is still relatively high latency and he is not that excited about doing it (note the body language and a bit of glancing around rather than snapping engagement back up to you). I would like to see a change of state as he gets excited about engaging: tail gets higher and wagging, responses are very fast, ears come up, we see an increase in muscle tone/tension. You can see some of it in the ihop video but still not a lot of excitement for the game. He is playing the game, sure, but the response to the game is more of a “oh, this again, meh” when we really want a “YAY BEST GAME EVER” response.
Building that will help enormously when you take him to different environments! So we need to build it at home first.
In my opinion, it is a reinforcement issue. Patterns are traditionally taught with food-only. He is eating but it is not a motivating thing for him, so the pattern games are not helping the way we want them to.
2 things that will help:
Keep trying a food reward that is high value and soft, so he immediately slurps it down & swallows it, and looks for more more more! Salmon? Ice cream? Strawberries? He eats the food but is really not all that excited and chews them kind of slowly, so keep searching for best treats to use but also, this might need to be put on the backburner in favor of trying this:
Since food rewards in general are not his favorite thing, we might be beating our heads against the wall by trying to build value for something with a reinforcement that is not that motivating (and therefore not that reinforcing). Been doing these games for a while and not making the progress we want to make, so let’s take a look at the reinforcement in order to get some breakthroughs.
For example, ask me to do something with broccoli as a reward? Sure, I will do it because you asked, and I kinda like broccoli, it is fine – but it is definitely not intrinsically motivating and I will get tired of it pretty quickly.
Ask me to do something for ICE CREAM? Oh heck YEAH I will do it, and I will do it fast, and I will be very focused on what I need to do to get the ice cream. GIMME!
I feel like we have been asking him to do hard things for the equivalent of broccoli rewards. We need to find the ice cream equivalent for him, and it is not food.
Or from the dog perspective – if you are trying to train weave poles with a tug toy but the dog doesn’t like to tug, you will have a very hard time training weave poles and progress will be limited. But if you switch to food for a dog that loves food… it is a quick, easy training progression. Chaser is the opposite: Food is ok, kinda meh, not great. So trying to use only food is actually adding pressure to situations with a ton of pressure already.
At this point, I think we need to incorporate toys into his pattern games. It can be 2 frisbees, or 2 small tugs, whatever he really really likes. Doing it as back-and-forth is much easier – ask him to tug, tug for maybe 10 seconds, ask for an out. When he lets go of the toy and looks at you: offer the toy in the other hand for him to tug on (your marker words are critical here). After 5 to 10 seconds of tugging, ask for the out, then wait for engagement, then offer the first toy. Back and forth!
There is video of me doing this with Contraband in one of the videos. Contraband is fully functional in agility and flyball because I started his pattern games with toys, not food. Then I incorporated food as part of it, and now he happily works for food and toys.
You can do it with the bowls – cookie in the bowl, he eats it, he looks at you: TUG TUG TUG TUG. The out the toy, cookie in the next bowl, he eats it, he looks at you: TUG TUG TUG TUG.
You will need to work this at home first to sort out the mechanics of holding the toys, the leash, tugging, which toys, how to incorporate food, etc. But you will see much faster progress AND a nice by-product is that the food value will be raised because it is part of the work and paired with toys.
Will this be a little harder at first because of the mechanics? Yup. And I personally have not seen anyone else instruct pattern games using toys, everyone is soooooo food based. But the food is just not cutting it here so we have a choice – we either spend more time banging our heads against a wall to find The Perfect Cookie, or we do a quick re-teach of the games with toys and break through the ‘meh’ response he has to them.
>I went outside but the smoke is so bad he was showing right away concern so I didn’t bother.>
Yes, 95 degrees here and the outdoors smells like burning plastic. Horrible!
Let me know what you think.
Tracy
Hi!
>It was a lot today, but the first distractions were novel.>
Yes, that place is a LOT for dogs and for humans LOL! Probably too much to start with, although her turn here did not have the noise or weird human activity that Chase’s did. She was definitely challenged and had some trouble at first, either with needing to investigate the things in the environment or not engaging and just going bowl to bowl. If she doesn’t engage between bowls, just wait for the engagement before going to the next bowl.
When you enter the environment, be ready to start immediately. Ideally you can have a bowl already in place so you can go directly to it. Or, you can put down just the first bowl and put the cookie in it immediately – when she engages, move to where you want to put the 2nd bowl down and put the cookie in it. That way there are no missed opportunities for rewards.
She was also chewing a lot, which can interfere with the processing and latency – do you have high value treats that are soft and she can slurp down, no chewing needed? Chicken, cheese, meatballs, etc.
When she does get into the speedy engagement at the end of the first part of the video, you can do more reps of that. It is an indication that she is starting to relax in the environment, so you can stay there longer to harness that feeling.
>I’ll also grab a video of her baseline because I also need to commit to that as well.>
Yes, a baseline video will help us see how fast she normally does it and also what her body language is like – she started getting fast at the end of the first session on the video with the bowls, but her ears were still pinned and her posture was a little roached, so she might have still be uncomfortable.
>When we came back in to enter the store she was not bothered by the people at all. Because of the games?>
Possibly – do you have video to see the body language? Sometimes food drive is high enough that it appears that t the dogs don’t notice the people, but body language tells us that they do notice it (ears, lack of tail movement, muscle tension, roached spine, eye contact, etc).
>Honestly I thought it went really well but would love to know if you saw something I didn’t.>
I agree that she did well! I would prefer that she can enter the environment and not need to investigate anything, getting right into the games. This means starting further from the big challenges – there was a ton of literal ‘stuff’ bombarding her brain and right at nose & eye level, making it really hard to engage at first. We want to work towards the goal is immediate engagement without needing to check things out, so starting further away will get you to that goal faster because it doesn’t build in investigating stuff.
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Hi! These went well! The goal is to get the handlers feeling off kilter here and being able to continue 🙂
>The first attempt at the Double with Sequence 1 was really typical of what happens when “things start to go wrong” – I can usually keep it together enough to get through but my timing and connection go to sh__ and the bars start to come down. I get in my head about OMG, what’s next and forget that poor Sly is there trying to figure out what the hell I’m doing>
The cure for this is… more double whammy work! it really steps us all right out of our comfort zone and gets us off balance. And if we don’t allow ourselves to stop, then we learn how to keep going even if things are off balance, late, or we are thinking on our feet. And then it gets easier 🙂
One thing you can do is try to run these without saying his name at all 🙂 When you get out of your comfort zone, using his name takes over and that is not as informational as directionals. The threadle is a good example: as you did the threadle on the first double whammy, you didn’t execute it the same way on the 2nd time through. The cue at 1:12 & 3:29 & 3:48 was arm back when things felt comfy. But at 1:32 right after something unexpected happened, you used the opposite arm and name call (bar down). So a fun challenge would be to NOT say his name at all 🙂
On other thing to consider is how to best get across the ring to the critical handling points (like the backside on the jump after the tunnel at the end of the sequence). Wrapping him to his right on the jump before the last tunnel causes you to have to stay there and step in to set the line to the tunnel, which makes getting the backside after it harder. Wrapping him away to his left should make for an easier line to the tunnel so you can be connected and give verbal cues while heading to the next jump sooner.
The 2nd pass at the double whammy was fast and smooth – it looks like it definitely felt more comfortable. You worked out the transition back to jump 1 really well, which set up the rest of it to be easy. So more double whammy practice will get the first pass feeling smoother too!
>Clearly, my plan for the transition from the first round to the 2nd wasn’t “walked enough” and that was the beginning of OMG…..where are we and what are we doing?!?!?>
For now, walk the double whammy so you have your transitions practiced and ready – the double whammy will still be uncomfortable LOL! But then when it feels pretty good, start to NOT walk the double whammys. Just go right into them! That will feel VERY uncomfortable but that is great because you can practice keeping it together and connected.
>Sequence 2 the next day was more like I’d like to run all the time>
I agree, this went really well! And it was interesting – you were pretty different in the handling between the first run (just the sequence) and the double whammy. The first run was smooth and connected, no name calls 🙂
The double whammy had an entirely different urgency right from the start (where you did a FC on 1 versus the serp lead out you did at :26) – it was not as connected in the beginning, you had his name a bit more, and slightly different handling in terms of timing and position.
Maybe something about knowing you are going to try to run 18 obstacles clean adds some pressure, making it more urgent? But that is great and definitely the arousal state we humans want to practice in!! So once again, the prescription for success is more double whammy work, no stopping, keep going no matter what. Then you will get more and more runs that look as strong as this one!
Great job here!
Tracy>.Yes, I’m willing to bet that when I get what I don’t expect with these that my arms are in sort of halfy-halfy land, not high, not low….just flingy>
SAME!!! I feel it now, though – that doesn’t mean I can always stop it from happening, but I instantly feel the flinging messing things up LOL!!
YIKES! Yes, definitely a time to stay indoors. The European Open is at risk of being cancelled because of fires very close to the site… the world is burning! And our heat index here in the Virginia mountains is currently 107 degrees. Ugh. Fingers crossed for better weather ahead!
T
Hi!
> Pop out 1, we used the spin on 5. Much smoother!>
The spin on 5 went really well and immediately tightened up that line! He reads deceleration really well, but a spin will get nice collection in spots where a post turn might send him wide.
> I’ve never used brake arms, so I watched quite a few videos on the subject. Definitely something I will need to learn more about.>
I also call it ‘driving with 2 hands on the wheel’ 🙂 Basically, the outside arm comes up to join the dog-side arm as you handle (visible enough that he can see both hands, so pointing towards him and not towards the jump). That naturally gets the dogs to add a little bit of collection, so it is super useful.
>Pop out 2… I tried layering 4, but we had some hiccups.>
Comparing the turn on 5 in pop out 1 versus pop out 2: to be able to layer, we actually do want him to go wider on 5 so a spin there is not as useful as it was in pop out 1. You can do a post turn there, which will send him wider to the line to 6.
Also, to set up the layer, send to 5 from further away. You got to the landing spot of 5 at :26 & :40, so when you layered your motion pulled you back towards the other side of the 4 jump. That caused him to come with you at :29 & :42
You were able to push him back out but by being at the landing side of 5, layering is much harder. Ideally you would stay several feet away from the takeoff side of 5, so as you sent him you could run on a parallel line to his path to the tunnel – staying parallel will keep him out to the tunnel and not pulling in to the jump.
>Pop out 3-did I do better driving the line 7-8-9?>
Yes! Super nice! Driving that line made it look really easy 🙂
Great job here!
Tracy
