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Hi!
Thanks for your kind words about Crusher – we all miss her huge personality. And I am glad you are bouncing back from Covid – it really zaps our energy for weeks. Bleh!!Lap turns – You sorted out the timing on these really well – you were too early on rep 1, but then 2nd rep on the reps after that you had correct timing of letting him get about 2 inches from your hand, then move arm and leg back.
The tandem turn timing is similar – he has to get relatively close to your hands before you flip him away, like you did at :36 and :42 (:31 was too early). I don’t think bending is a problem, it was more about how early you moved. Later is better!
When you switched back to lap turns at :47 – you were too early on the first rep and pointed at the wing (so it looked like a throwback) then your right leg stayed back so that also indicated throwback. So keep everything stationary (arm extended, feet together, it is like a dance class hahaha) until he is about 2 inches from your hand, then arm and leg move back to draw him past the wing. It has to be even clearer on the left turns, which are harder.
You were too early on the very last rep so, since he had just been told that the throwback was incorrect, he hilariously offered the set up between your feet. CLEVER!!!!! HA! So yes, letting him get to your hand (2 inches or closer) should smooth that out.
For the serps: he was reading all of the cues really well, which is great! You can start closer to the jumps (about an arm’s length away) and maintain your line of motion & serp cues with the upper body til he looks at and goes to jump 2. Try not to close your shoulders forward or step to jump 2, that converge changes the serp line info and he was reading that (good boy!)
Angling the jumps helped you stay on the line and he found it really well! Keeping the serp shoulders open to him helps him turn to the next line and find the correct side of the jump. A great example is at :24 where your serp shoulders and connection and line were all great. Check out how he turns himself away to jump 2! Yay!
If you close your shoulder too early, it changes the info and that is when it might either push him to the backside if you step to the jump (1:06 for example)or cause him to consider running past it (:58 for example, where he found the jump at the very last minute 🙂 )
The tunnel exits were great!
Collecting to get into the tunnel was hard at first! I guess his main tunnel experience was mainly straight on, going fast :)Good job showing it to him – once he sorted out the turning, he was great!The timing of the left and right cues were spot on! Definitely before he entered and also a different tone – all very helpful for him and he had really nice turns! You can stay more connected when he exits (have your dog side arm pointing back to him and more eye contact, especially on the left turn exits) to help him continue to the wing.
The RUN exit cues were also good – I think they can come earlier in terms of the verbal cues (you were saying run jut before he entered which is a little late because he was probably n the tunnel before he heard anything) To convince him to keep running straight and not look back at you, you can throw the reward straight ahead before he exits.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Hi!
He did really well finding the board from all the angles here! Super!!!>>I realized the teeter was too wobbly on the grass.>>
Yes, he said it was too wobbly so even when he knew there were cookies up there, he was not that sure about the side-to-side movement of the board. The tunnel bags probably kept it super stable.
You can also build drive to the top of the board regardless of board movement by doing one-hit-wonder sessions: one rep for the most incredibly high value reward (high value plus big quantity) then the session is over 🙂 That way he is wild to do the teeter and won’t think about the movement as much – then won’t have time to start thinking about it because there will be no more reps (he started thinking about it here and was not as excited about doing it). A big dollop of cream cheese or something can do the trick (high value plus it won’t fall off :)) If you do it at mealtime, he can get a giant reward for running up the board then the rest of his meal next to the board. It will be like winning the lottery 🙂
Looks like you blocked it off at the end – perfect 🙂 That way he can’t go running up it without you LOL!
Nice work here!
Tracy
Hi! Yeah, it is a bummer 🙁 We will make it up to you and Sprite when she is back to playing!! It sounds like she is doing well!!!
Tracy
Hi!
I was following your Nationals adventures through the posted results! Congrats on a great runs! Synnie was AWESOME especially since this is her first big event – you must be beaming with pride!! It seemed like a super fun event. I will go look for the runs on Facebook.
The course work looked really good. I have small suggestions for you:
Bearing in mind how long it takes sound to travel, you can start the come verbal for 3-4 when she is still a stride before takeoff, so she hears it at takeoff and can adjust for the threadle. You were late on the first run there and she was wider. That is something I consider a lot: when the dog is 40 or 50 feet away, the verbals have to be earlier because sound travels slowly compared to how fast the dog is traveling!
And as she is doing the layering, you can be moving away to deal with the 6-7 line rather than being stationary. It is a verbals-on-the-run moment 🙂 It looks like she almost took 13 because that is the jump you were closer to.
You handled the middle section with conviction and connection but I think it was 9–10-11-12-13-14-15 from course 2 then back to course 1 for 15-21. I liked your variation better than my design, though, it looked really good each time and also when you did it in course 2!!
One detail here and in course 2 as well: Be sure to maintain criteria on the contacts and reward them, especially after a big event. You were releasing a little early on the a-frame plus she was slowing down on the DW. She will speed up again when you are consistent with the releases and rewards.
Course 2 also went really well! One small detail is that you can set her up on a bit more of a slice at 1 so she has a straighter line to 2. The rest that you ran (through 15) looked great!
>>As you can see, we can get the backside with a shifted jump IF there isn’t a lot of motion. >>
No worries, she has significantly improved with it! Working the distance backside push was helpful. She is doing really well with her distance and layering, so it was cool to see her also being able to get the backside with you a mile away! YAY! Good job timing that cue. She dropped the bar on one of the early reps when you praised so delay the praise til she has landed.
>>Once we add 2-3 obstacles before the backside, we get the front side of the jump.>>
Give it time to percolate and solidify, it will come together quite nicely 🙂
>>(we have both become frustrated with the dogwalk layering to the backside to the point that Syn doesn’t even want to go over there).>>
Remember not to drill these things – a lot of repetition doesn’t actually solidify learning. Learning is best solidified by getting a few good reps in then letting her sleep on it. And live by the 2 failure rule: if she fails twice with the skill (doesn’t even have to be twice in a row), then it is too hard and you can make it easier or end the session. Living by that rule will eliminate frustration.
Great job here!
TracyHi!
Yay for rain but EWWW for muggy heat. Bleh! The teeter games are a great idea!!>>does the teeter need to be at max height and then propped up for a short bang or can I just lower it and then brace the lowered teeter?>>
The teeter can be at whatever height is most convenient 🙂 I am a lazy trainer so if is it full height? I will leave it there and prop it to get the end of the board where I want it. If it is lowered? Cool! Leave it low and prop it so the bang end is where you want it.
Have fun! Stay cool and keep me posted!
Tracy
Hi!
She did really well with the wobbly plank, definitely getting more confident! Love it!!!!!
When she was running down the board, she didn’t quite know how to stop herself in 2o2o at the target, so you did the right thing to just work the end of the board. She really wants to look up at your hands – I am VERY happy that she is enjoying the food! You can convince her to look at the target by leaving your hands up high and dropping a treat onto the target when she look down at it. Don’t move your hands down at all. Yes, the treat might bounce off but that is OK for now. If bouncing treats are a problem 🙂 then you can put the target in a small bowl, so the treat doesn’t go bouncing away. That should help her look at the target and not up at you.
Great job here!
TracyHi! These are looking really strong – great job with your markers!
Looking at the connection sequences – the exit line connection was allowing your to really drop your dog-side shoulder down and back after a cross, and I think she could see the connection really well. The turns were super!
FC warm ups looked good!
The BC warm ups also good, you were quicker on the 2nd rep to get the connection which produced a tighter line.You had really good timing of starting the FC before the tunnel on the first run – and better position on the 2nd run but ELC not as good so she was wider. The exit line connection at 1:09 and 1:25 was really good, so her line was better on those even though the timing was not as good. Clear connection will often override late timing!
>>On the last one she did not go into the tunnel because of the closed shoulder etc.>>
Yes – it was the Decel at 2 followed by turning away from the tunnel at 1:03 is what pulled her off the tunnel . To set the line, you can stick closer to jump 1 so you don’t end up too far ahead.
She was hitting the mat nicely here in the banana line game! Yay! You can mark and throw the reward now – we really want to shift the emphasis to thrown rewards so she doesn’t anticipate the reward coming from your hand and look at you. It means fewer reps, sure, but totally worth it so she is looking ahead on the exit of the mat as well as the approach.
Great job!!
Tracy
Good morning!
Great job practicing the walk throughs! I think we can see one element to add here which should make a massive difference!
>>I don’t remember getting so tired from walking a course – too much thinking and getting lost I guess.>>
Yes, plus adding the speed to the walk throughs is tiring! But worth it 🙂 the more you can practice a sequence as if running him, the easier it is to run him. Your handling choices were all really good! You had your verbals and added speed. The only thing missing was connection. Rehearsing connecting to where he actually will be is going to make a big difference in your runs!
Sequence 1: The shape of your plan was really clear and you added speed really well – – you can see it was pretty compelling because he joined you LOL! One thing I look for is if I can see where the dog is in the walk through, based on where the handler is looking.
One thing I notice here is that in the walk through, you cue something then almost immediately look ahead of where he would actually be especially on exits of sends, crosses, and tunnels. That makes things harder in the run because you would need to be looking back at him in those spots (not ahead). By looking ahead, you end up rehearsing disconnection or late timing (or both :))
And even if you do maintain the connection during the run, your brain & body are doing it for the first time… and that is hard for us humans to do at a zillion miles per hour aka Bacon speed! So rehearsing it in the walk through will make it much easier to do in the run, plus you can plan your timing better that way.
On the first run, you were working to maintain the connection and mostly had it! Yay! But that made it harder to keep moving and time the cues, so there were a lot of bars down. The 2nd run had a change of plan (Blind cross 5-6 instead of a FC) but it was late so things came off the rails a bit there.
Add more connection to the invisible dog in the walk through will really help. You can ‘see’ him landing from and exiting the send at 1, so when he is at 2 you are turning your shoulders and starting to tell him about the tunnel. Then when he exits the tunnel, you can start the cross Then connect back to him at the exit of the cross, which he is over 5 – that gives you the timing to start the cues for 6, for example.
2nd sequence – this one had you looking ahead of him in the walk through as well (but the handling plan has him behind you for most of it) So on the first run, it was harder to connect with him AND show the lines. The 2nd run was much better (because connection had been rehearsed in the first run, so it was easier to connect and deliver the cues).
Something fun to try would be to run silently – he drops bars when you talk over the bar but seems to keep them up better when you are quieter.
3rd sequence – the shape of the plan here was good too! It was easy to see what you wanted him to do and the handling for it. With this sequence, the connection will really help too: for example, when you release him from the start line, stay connected so you can ‘see’ him land from 1 and look at 2, then do the blind. On the walk through, you connected on the lead out then released and immediately did the blind – which is what happened on the runs and he correctly did not take 2. Adding connection in the walk through back to where he would be will help give the feel of the timing on the 1-2-3 line there.
You were emphasizing connection in the walk through at the send to the backside and at the exit of the last tunnel – those spots went well in the first run! The backside was not as clear in the 2nd run because the timing of the cue on the tunnel exit was a little late.
The next thing to do with the walk through skills is to take the handling plan then walk it looking at where he would be the whole time. Try to ‘see’ him taking the jumps, exiting the tunnel, changing sides behind you on the FCs and BCs. That will also have you ready for the timing, like cuing the next thing as soon as he is exiting the tunnel.
One other idea: Since he has a lot of send skills, the other thing to consider in the walk through here (and the previous sequences too) is that you might not be as close to the line or need to run as much to the line. That is part of the timing element and ‘seeing’ your invisible dog will really help you know where you will be on the line.
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>It is so hard for me to run that way. >>It is hard to run with as much connection as a young dog needs, but it does get easier as they learn more about the game.
A dog training detail that will help the handling:
The toy is very valuable, which is great! However, she is not entirely sure of when it is in play or not, so she is watching it a lot. That reduces the focus on the line or commitment. If there is the slightest blip in handling like a soft connection break… she looks at the toy. Or if you decelerate and transfer the toy from hand to hand… she might come off the jump and back to the toy.Since she is not sure when it is available AND since we want to maintain the toy as a high value reward, you will want to help her know where to look by being clearer with your markers for the toy. When rewarding her, use a ‘toy in hand is available now’ marker (I use ‘bite’). You are moving it then praising – so she is not sure if the movement of the toy means it is available? Or the praise? And sometimes she jumps up at the toy in frustration. The marker being consistently used will make all the difference and she will learn to keep looking at the jump or wing til she hears a marker.
So have the toy scrunched up small in your hand as you run, handle the line, and then say the marker before presenting it. I think it will make a huge difference!
It will also make a huge difference in her mat work. By having the reward in your hand, she was hitting the mat but at the same time looking at you. And since we don’t want looking at you, you’ll want to have a different marker for a thrown reward, or a wing to go around after it then the reward in your hand. Looking straight will be helpful for RDW!
On the handling elements – the connection on the yes tunnel/no tunnel looked really good! She found the tunnel entry on the backside of it with no problem. Super! She had questions right at the beginning, but that was more about the toy – you move it from hand to hand which pulled her off the line, then it was hard for her to go past it. The marker will clear that up pretty quickly.
Great job sorting out the decel on the wrap jumps! It is a bit like goldilocks: At
:41, there was too much cue – you decelerated and turned at the same time like hitting the brakes and turning the wheel all at once so she came off the line.At :54, it was a bit of a ‘not enough’ moment: better deceleration but not enough clear connection – your arm is forward and turning your shoulders away/blocking connection (plus toy distraction). So she came off the line.
The next 2 reps were just right! 1:23 and 1:35 were great – clear connection and clear decel until she was almost at the jump, then you rotated for the FC.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Good morning!
>>I hate to be “that student” who needs extra just to understand but it was brilliant.>>
I didn’t consider it to be extra! I think we humans like visuals and video doesn’t always isolate the moment. So freeze frame moments can often help, and it was worth it to try the 2 hands lower and earlier timing (I mean, it might not have worked because every dog is different).
I was very happy to see that the cue immediately produced the collection before takeoff to 2. YAY!! Did Casper, as a young dog, know entirely what to do with all of that collection and power LOL! He was ‘fishtailing’ a bit in the jumping and couldn’t quite get the right turn over the next jump. But that will come with experience – I think he is more used to turning on the flat rather than turning before takeoff, but he will sort that out.
>>As you can see, I belong to the “prove it wasn’t a fluke” school of dog training.>>
Haha! I belong to that school too 🙂 It was very cool to see him repeat the behavior! Yay!
>>Even the dread BC.>>
Yes! That was great to see him reading the BC – your timing of starting it was good. You can be moving more laterally to 4 on the BC reps, so that there is really no forward motion on the line to the tunnel (1:21). The earlier you start that blind, the easier it is. You did the blind right after liftoff to 2… since he has AKC in his future, try the BC starting when you would bet $5 that he is going to take the #2 jump (well before takeoff). It is a low wager bet so that you won’t worry if it is too early 🙂
1:02 – don’t say ‘go on’ before the tunnel cue. A name call (and brake arm!) would help him get the turn
>>naturally, I moved on to the backside discrimination. And I clearly need more backside work: he is clipping the wings and doesn’t really understand the difference between “push” (wrap) and “around” (s-shaped slice). Plus he is dropping the bars when the cueing isn’t perfect and sometimes when it is. grin>>
I think that he needs some of the jumping skills work on that more than more handling – he didn’t really know where to look (looking at you a lot) or where to put his hind end (his butt ended up over his head a few times there). Have you done the zig zag grid with him? He can start on 2 jumps, low bars, with a placed reward to keep him looking forward and not at you.
And the fitness games that Stefanie presented are specific for the slice jumping, so you can definitely try those!
And do you remember the sit-before-backside-wrap game (we did it with Enzo when he was a youngster) – Casper can use that game to sort out the wrap jumping. Let me know if you need me to find the visuals of those – I will grab them after more coffee is on board 🙂
>>I see in the user guide that the last day for Video Review is 9/18. I’m guessing that is the “hot summer extended date”; correct?>>
Yes, hopefully the weather behaves for the next few weeks!
>>I try to correctly praise/reward the bit we are working on, although sometimes a different mistake happens or I get greedy and try to get a bunch more stuff. But I am aware and do try. However, when I get too concerned I remember that we don’t teach children in a logical manner. If a child says “Daddy just come home” we only correct it if, in fact, it wasn’t Daddy but Uncle Carl. So we say either “Yes, Daddy came home” or “No, that’s Uncle Carl” and the bad grammar is ignored. And yet, most kids grow up with grammar as good as their parents’. An interesting analogy, don’t you think?>>
SUPER interesting! Back a million years ago in college, I took a psych class that had a lot of info on language acquisition and there is a lot of science about how repeating the ‘correct’ grammar will result in a child’s brain consolidating the learning of correct grammar (more than telling the child the grammar is wrong).
The science of learning in animals doesn’t really look at language acquisition the same way (except maybe in primates) but what we do have some good science on is a couple of related things that keep me sane:
– Just like parents don’t need to hear correct grammar to know that the child is learning correct grammar, we don’t have to actually see the correct behavior to know that the dog is learning the correct behavior. This made my head fall off when I first learned about it.
We are not likely to see it after the dog has slept on it (learning is consolidated in sleep). I have seen this to varying degrees in all of the dogs I’ve trained over the years, but the whippets are the most spectacular examples of this – I often do NOT see the fully correct behavior *at all* in a session, but reward the pieces I like without adding pressure (or freaking out haha). It seems like zero progress is made (they are still saying “Daddy come home”) at the end of the session but then when I revisit it a few days later: they are saying “Daddy came home and he brought a pizza for Uncle Carl as well as crab rangoons for the rest of us.” It is wild!
– as long as we get the element of “surprise!!” when delivering a toy or treat, we are getting learning via the dopamine coding of a reward prediction error. So that first moment when you rewarded the collection on the brake arm? It was a big moment!
On this video, you were basically throwing a PARTY when Casper got it right. That big happy response and toy delivery is highly likely to spike his dopamine. When we deliver and it is not a surprise to the dog? That is fine, it is rehearsal, which is also valuable (but no change in dopamine levels so no ‘learning’ the way we think of it).
When we do NOT deliver a reward, and it is also not a surprise to the dog (“yes, I broke my stay, sorry not sorry human”) – no shift in dopamine, just a rehearsal, no worries. But when we surprise the dog and do NOT deliver? There is a dopamine dropout and that causes arousal shifts, frustration, etc. That is why it is so important to either keep going or reward the dog when there is a possibility of handler error – the dog brain is likely predicting they were correct (and they were probably correct!) so being told they are wrong is very surprising in all the wrong ways, when learning is involved 🙂 This is hard for us adult humans.
I believe the human language acquisition studies show this too: the child or adolescent brain might totally think they are correct with “Daddy just come home” and the brain will be surprised if it is corrected/told it is wrong. But the rehearsal of “yes, came home” continues the language acquisition via social learning (lots of forms of that) without the dopamine drop out. Of course, they are not slicing open human brains or putting electrodes in so it is all built off of primate studies and other mammals, but it is really cool stuff. Learning theory is wildly complex once we humans get past operant conditioning.OK, enough geekery 🙂 and back to dog training! Ha! Let me know if you want me to dig up the jumping videos. Great job here with Casper!!!
Tracy
Good morning!
I agree, this went really well!!! She is showing a lot more experience with the crazy layering challenges and is also able to nail tight turns mixed in with all the extension. Love it! And I think the physical cues were generally very clear – my only question was at 15 but I think you clarified it on the 2nd run 🙂 Good job continuing if things didn’t go as planned there – she was reading you correctly and you kept going as if you meant for it to happen (click/treat for you :))About the turns – she is beginning to set her own turns up really really well. What I mean by that is she is getting the info and using it to turn as much as needed (nice and tight) without bleeding off speed by collecting too much. That is exactly what we want 🙂 As much acceleration as possible while still turning directly to the next line when cued.
Opening line – the angle of 2-3 (dog walk) is hard here, so you can send and stay moving away sooner, so she lines herself up. That is a good skill for RDWs so you don’t have to manage the entries. In theory she will only ever see straight line entries to the DW but the reality is that she will see turns to get on.
The circle wrap at 4 worked really well – excellent cues from you, excellent commitment from her!
When she is more experienced with the RDW, you can hang back more at 1, send to 2, and do a blind cross to a threadle wrap on the exit of the DW to 4 🙂 It is not really important on this course, but it could be super useful on one of the gigantic UKI or FCI courses.
The line from the teeter to the weaves worked well (she got off balance in the 2nd set of weaves, no worries) – you did the more collected route. I am curious to see the time difference if you took her to the other side of 7 (the backside closer to 10), keeping her on your right then either doing a FC to a RC on the weave entry or do a spin to get her back on your right for the weave entry. It might be a shade more yardage but it is fewer turns/more extension so might be fastest.
Nice turns 9-10-11! And great job getting 12-13-14!!!!
I thought you wanted the right turn on 15 on the first run, and needed more decel. But on the 2nd video, you had a much clearer left turn cue and she got it really nicely!!
And she almost got the backside of 17 in flow. That is HARD and she is getting the idea to layer AND expect that layering is not all about the front side – super!! And on the 2nd run, you showed the font of 19 more clearly and she had no questions.
Really well done here! It is it still up, you can try from 4 to 11 two different ways and we can time it 🙂
Tracy
