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Hi!
Wooohoo! Congrats!!! Baby dog heading to Open!!! QQQs are hard to come by at any level!
And it looks like a new location too? The weird visuals played a role in some of his questions – He had a hard time ignoring the front of the ring in FAST and a tiny question about it in Standard in 2 spots. And then the weave entry in standard was hard because it was in a visually hard place. Doing the harder obstacles (a-frame, tire, etc) was harder with the new visuals he was processing. Great job staying connected and helping him out!
But he worked through it and JWW was GREAT. Your blinds were fabulous! I loved the big cheer from the crowd and his time was awesome!
I think all of the hiccups were mainly from the visuals of the environment – ring gates, all the people all around the ring, etc. The more he gets the opportunity to run in different places, the less you will see him having these hiccups. Everything else looks great!! YAY!!
Great job 🙂
TracyHi!
The set point also looked great – a big click/treat to YOU for really excellent training mechanics and also making it fun for her. She has really good form already for an 8 month old pup!!>The jumps were set 5 feet apart. I think I maybe could’ve placed them further apart.>
I think the distance is good for now, but you will get more power if you move the reward target further away. I think moving the MM to about 15 feet away will be ideal for now, so she can land from jump 3 in extension and take one more full stride. You can also use a toy – the toy you used in the moving target game is perfect! The toy should also be about 15 feet away from jump 2, and it can help her coordinate herself even when she is excited 🙂
Great job on these!!
TracyThe wrap verbal pre-game went well too – nice job with your mechanics here!
>In theory she should be able to turn the correct direction even if I’m not on the inside of the turn (ex. if I was rear crossing and wanted a tight turn on the jump). I think that she still perceives them as positional cues. I have tried to be on the non-obvious side and she just ends up getting frustrated.>
Totally agree that in theory she should be able to do that – and also totally agree that for now, it is likely positional cue that assists with the behavior. No worries, we will add in turning away as well as turning towards you with the verbals – stay tuned!
Since she did so well here, you can definitely try the wing wrap proofing game with the tunnel added. Have fun!!
Tracy
Good morning!
The first pre-game video where you introduced the moving target went really well – she was SUPER CUTE with how joyously she played after being so great with holding the stay til released.
She seemed to be looking at the toy as it was moving and that is great! Ideally, she looks at it rather than up at you so try to release before she looks back at you.Adding the jump went really well – her stays look SUPER and she was looking at the toy and driving to it perfectly. Well done!!!
Tracy
Hi!
The set point is going really well –
Her stay is looking great as long as you don’t make her wait for too long after the toy is on the ground 🙂 And her head position is good which really helps with jumping form!
I liked the tiny noodle as the start here – Was the distance from the noodle to the jump shorter than the previous session’s distance? It looked like she needed more room here, but the height of the bar might have caused her to have to compress more. So with this setup, maybe add a tiny bit more distance between the bump and jump? Maybe 3 fingers worth of distance?Wind In Your Hair –
Looking strong too! She seems to really like driving the jump 🙂 You can definitely add more of your running now, she had no trouble with finding the jump. And you can add more distance between the wing and the jump so she gets to drive further and further ahead of you 🙂>not sure why I thought a pre-placed reward was a good idea…>
Ha! Yes, the thrown toy was better here – and you and throw it as soon as you see her exit the wing wrap and look at the jump. That can get her driving ahead of you even more!
Great job here!
TracyHi!
Great job with the barrel wraps! She is definitely doing well with wrapping and responding to the verbals. Remember to hold her collar to start this – so she hears the verbal a few times and also so the release of the collar helps her start moving. She only had oe question here, on the first rep where I think you wanted her to turn away from you. All of the other reps had her turning towards you which is great!The set point is off to a great start! She is doing well with her stays – great job rewarding them.
As you put both jumps together, you will want the reward target (manners minder here) to be further away. When it is really close, the pups tend. To move more slowly through the set point and we want to build up more power 🙂 That is why she was trotting on the 2nd jump in some reps. Moving the MM so I is 12 feet or more away fro jump 2 will help!
And when adding the toy target, you can take the MM out of the picture entirely – so she knows where to look.
>About midway through the exercise I moved the jumps closer together so she had to land and take off again.>
I think the original distance was good! When the reward target is further away, she will be able to bounce through it more easily 🙂
Nice work here!!
TracyHi!
>Our weather is going bad – rain turning to ice to snow, so I may lose the yard for a couple of days. Hopefully it misses you in Chicago (glad I’m not needing to travel tomorrow back to MN). I hate this time of year – it was 70 on Friday- SO CLOSE to Spring. Then back to winter gear.>
UGH!!! I spoke to the weather people and asked them for good weather in MN, but they ignored me 🙂
>The second jump was locked at 6″. He saw his conditioning person this week and he said I could safely do up to 10″ at his age, so next time I do set point, I’ll do 8″ and then move to 10″ after that. >
Perfect! We have time for a gradual progression to tall bars.
>We also are thinking he may be a 20″ dog, so we’ll see what the wicket says, when I can get one to use.>.
It would be fun to see him in 20”!
Wind In Your Hair: He did a great job finding the jump! This height can start to go up too, gradually.
A couple of ideas for you:
The start wing can be more centered so he is on more of a straight line to the jump on both sides, rather than pushing back in to get to the jump.
>My toys throws felt awkward – like it would have been better if the toy was on the ground. >
They didn’t look awkward… but they were late 🙂 That is why you might have noticed him looking at you and collecting – nothing left to look at 🙂 As you exit the wing wrap, look at his eyes: when he looks at the jump, throw the reward. That will feel a lot earlier, and will also get extension over the jump.
A placed reward is sometimes fine for when we expand the distance (which he is ready for) and also when you stay at the start wing til he exits, so he can drive ahead of you. But we don’t want to always have the placed reward, because the more we use it, the more if becomes the context cue for the behavior and the harder it is to fade. So I use it rarely but at this point we mostly throw it as soon as the dog looks at the jump after the wrap.
And you can definitely expand the distance and add more of your running too 🙂
>And I don’t know why I keep saying his wrap cue for soooo long after he has taken the jump. Yikes when I saw that on the video.>
Ha! Yes, there was a lot of wrap verbal happening LOL!! The wrap verbal should stop as he arrives at the wing – then watch his head and as he exits, switch to your go verbal and throw the reward.
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi! She did well here!
One thing I notice is that her speed is looking really good (fast fast fast!) so as you are exiting the wraps, try to keep moving: don’t wait for her then step her back to the tunnel because it puts you behind on the next line. Try to rotate sooner (before she arrives at the wing) then be moving on a line parallel to the tunnel entry so she goes to it and you are further ahead on the next line.
>after some initial confusion about the tunnel being under the a frame (just where it happened to be).>
The a-frame over the tunnel is great to introduce (she is definitely going to see that a lot in her career!) and also it is another example of having to devote bandwidth to processing. Breaking it down to show the tunnel before the wraps get added is definitely the way to go. She missed it on the first one but her adolescent brain might not even have realized she missed it (adolescent brains are weird like that LOL!!) so you can totally reward it as if she took it – her effort was really good and it helps with arousal regulation, particularly if her brain was saying “nailed it”!
>But it’s the first training session I’ve done where I really noticed the stays being a bit of an issue and also setting up had her sort of wandering and offering obstacles (hate to say it, but like a BC, terriers don’t do that!) I think there were two more reps at the end of this that I cut out that were very similar: trouble setting up, a few breaks, me rewarding the stay a few times before finally getting to do the sequence. Guess I’d like to prevent this from spiraling any further?>
I think the line up cues can be clearer, and the release can be separated from motion. On the video, motion and the release verbal were simultaneous, so she was not entirely sure when to move. If you give a distinct line up/sit cue, then praise, then slowly point your foot and hand to the wing, praise… then release – I think that will be very clear and she will get it. Her main questions were about if your movement to the wing or tunnel (even if it as unintentional) was the cue to go or not.
You can even lead out one step so it is a mini lead out! And mix in reps where you start from a collar hold.
An example of this would be starting at 2:50-ish: It was hard to know if she was cued to sit? Then your right leg stepped to the wing so off she went to the wing. She came around, looked at you… and your left arm and leg stepped sideways to the tunnel. Tunnel cue! Then she was confused – it is possible the left arm/leg were line up cues? But right now the physical is overriding the verbal because they are simultaneous, so separating them will help. And a hand touch line up or a between-the-feet line up can also help clarify things.
So I think the key will be super ultra clarity on what the release is. She is super keen to play so we want to clarify so there is no confusion or withheld reinforcement.
>Oh and there is another tunnel under the dog walk about 15’ out of view to the right, plainly visible to her past the jump wing on that side and she didn’t try to take that even once, so a tiny bit like the discrimination exercise.>
That is great!! Any offering of obstacles seemed to be because she legit thought you cued them. She was being very watchful (and eager :))
>Couldn’t really do the gentle turn on the jump wing to other jump wing on this set up as the dog walk was in the way.>
Yes, that can wait til you have it setup with more free space.
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi!
The other thing to consider with young dogs working on mechanics is that having another dog in the environment draws ‘bandwidth’ from the processing needed for clean mechanics (multi-sensory integration and all that fancy stuff 😁 ) So if there is something easy that she is good at like barrel wraps… then yes! You can introduce the other dogs into the environment. As she learns to use her body for finding jumps and jump mechanics, I think we should wait on having the other dogs around so her brain can be fully devoted to jumping mechanics.
Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>On your last comment you told me to reward his stay. I do do that, but I cut it out of the videos so they’re shorter for you to look at.>
Sounds good! You don’t need to worry about editing too much, the length of your videos is good!
Wind In Your Hair went really well! You can see the power of connection – when you were strongly connected at :35 and after that, he found the jump brilliantly each time. Yay!
He was not always sure if he should go to the wing to start – when you gave a strong arm cue, like on the right turns, it was easier. When the arm cue was not clear and your lower body was rotated, the verbal cue alone was not strong enough so definitely keep supporting the verbal with the arm cue and even a step to the wing.
For the next wind in your hair session: add more space between the wing and jump 🙂 And you can keep mixing up the reps when you were way ahead versus the reps where you stuck closer to the start wing so he could get way ahead.
Great job!!
TracyHi! Welcome back! I am very excited to see her!!
> Sometimes she’ll just wipe out going around a wing or getting her toy off the ground lol.>
Oh dear! Gotta love puppies LOL!
> We haven’t worked much on any of the exercises/games that concern tunnels. Right off the bat I knew that she REALLY liked tunnels, to the point where it would become a problem (and it was starting to). I decided to just cut off reinforcement to the tunnel by putting it away or blocking off access. I feel like it may be something we could start reintegrating now that she’s had more reinforcement history for other things and we’ve done some pattern games near the tunnel. >
The wrap proofing game will be perfect for this! And if you think the tunnel will be a huge factor for her, you can start with the wing further from the tunnel so she is successful. And use GREAT rewards for the wing and kinda boring rewards for the tunnel 🙂
>I was really surprised how difficult it was for her to go back and forth eating treats between two bowls that were set somewhat close to the tunnel, especially considering we really haven’t worked on the tunnel that much outside of making sure she’s comfortable with it.>
The excitement of running through the tunnels probably releases dopamine, endorphins etc so she will be motivated to keep doing it. We will definitely work to balance things so she continues to love the tunnel but also so she loves to do everything else too 🙂
Have fun!
Tracy
Hi!
>Question firstly about the set point – would it be better to put the reward on top of one of those low witches hats instead of the ground?>
We are going to be getting the reward moving pretty soon, so no need to lift it for the stationary position reps 🙂 A big toy that he an scoop up will be best 🙂
>it’s still hopefully within the time limits.>
I am pretty lax about time limits, as long as the session is not too long and the pup is having a grand time 🙂
He did a GREAT job with the wrap versus tunnel game! This game is definitely hard because the pups are turning towards the tunnel… but sometimes are asked to wrap. He seemed to think it was super easy 🙂
He only had one question:
At 1:02, you started the verbal and let him go at basically the same time o he wrapped. Turning to the tunnel on the next reps helped, but also you can hold his collar til he hears the ‘get it’ 3 or 4 times, then let go and see if he can do it without motion help 🙂Compare to the first rep to the tunnel at the very beginning where you held him til after you started the cue. I think that gives him an extra couple of heartbeats to process the cue before moving, which can help pump up the verbal skills.
He was great on the last rep, doing the wrap after exiting the tunnel! YAY!!
You can add in the super advanced rep where you do 2 tunnels in a row, then try to cue the wrap!
Great job here 🙂
TracyHi! She did really well here! Was the 1:55 video done before the 3:06 video? It started off with a wider distance but then you moved it closer and she named it! And she did well with the distance in the 3 minute video too. Nice!!!!
I think the only hard part was the width of the jump bump – is there a way to cut them in have so you have long strips but they are half as wide? That can help her even more!
It was hard to see where the toy was – it looks like it might have been a little close on the 1:55 video, based on how she was landing? Even though she is little 🙂 you can have it far away (3 or 4 meters) for her to drive to.
Great job!
Tracy
Hi!
Set point is also going well!
My only suggestion is when you are standing still on the release, try to connect back to him without facing him at all. Being rotated cues a bit of collection cue and we want him getting extension cues.For the heights, you can have a bump or put the bar one notch lower than it was here. And you can move the 2nd bar up by 2 inches!
For the next session:
Let’s replace the MM with a toy, and have it another 6 to 8 feet further from jump 2. If he is comfy with that, you can add the moving target to this game too.
Great job on all of these!!
Tracy
