Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Hi! Both videos looked really strong here.
The tunnel-wing game went really well!
She gets a gold star for ignoring the toy and going into the tunnel at :09!! You didn’t tell her that she could have the toy, so she kept working. GOOD GIRLIE!!She gave you a little barking/grumbling throughout the session – I think she was very excited by your ‘ready ready’ and was feeling talkative.
You can connect more directly to her as she exits the tunnel – look back to her eyes and point your arm back to her. I think you could see her peripherally, but she had questions about the connection. When she exited the tunnel she was looking at you and did a little zig zag towards you then back to the wing. If you are directly connected, she will have a nice smooth line.
That connection on the tunnel exit should be the same as the gorgeous connection on the exit of the spin at :41 and again at :55!!! And also on 1:34 & 1:46 on the other side – you were really emphasizing connection by looking back at her and pointing back to her, and that helped her see the line perfectly.
Tandem turn video:
She is reading the hand cues really well! You were turning your feet torwards her on the first couple but I think it worked better when you kept your feet straight. She was coming in to the correct side really well!
To smooth out the turn aways, try slowing down the cues: decelerate and then do the hand movements slowly. At 1:16 and several of the reps after it, the hand cues were a slower movement and she read that really well! The tandem turns are decelerated turns anyway, so slowing down to show her the info works well for when you use it on course in the future.
Great job with these!
Tracy
Hi!
Yes, she is a large lady but she is gorgeous! Hopefully she has stopped growing 🙂
>. She also has giant toes, so her toe doesn’t look swollen at all to me>
Great!
> I still erred on the side of caution, and we used the manners minder.>
Yes, caution is always a good thing if there is *any* question or concern.
She did great here! I don’t think she was super pumped up by the MM but that is fine – we will easily get more excitement when you bring the toy in.
What I do suggest for this stage is to click the MM sooner. You were marking arrival at the jump – but she was looking at you a bit. So now you can shift that timing to mark the instant she looks at the jump and click the MM. That will mark forward focus on the line and should keep her looking forward because the MM will be spitting out treats 🙂
>The jump is about 15-16 ft from the wrap.>
She seemed to have no questions about finding the jump, so you can add more distance if you like 🙂
>I am trying to be good and keep my hair pulled back and remember to work on connection/commitment.>
You were great! And you had different positions so she found the jump with you near her, ahead, etc. You can play with staying right at the wing til she exits then run forward, so she practices driving way ahead.
Lovely work here!
Tracy
Excellent question!
For blinds, your motion will support the line a lot to get commitment. In theory, you should be cueing the next line already as he lands from the previous jump, then within a step or two – starting the blind. If you are connected directly to his eyes, you will see him looking at the line.
So as long as you keep moving, he should commit. We will see more of that in week 2 and in week 3, when we look at timing. And if he has any commitment questions, we will use placement of rewards to help him commit so you have an easy time on the blinds.T
Hi!
>I had the same issue at my first trial some weeks ago. He jumped up at me and made crazy jumps between the obstacles. Now I know why!>
Yes! He might have been saying “Bitte mehr Verbindung.” 🤣😂 Have you ever tried keeping your arms down by running with a drink in your hand, so you know when your arm is moving too much:
>I am wondering whether you are going to repeat your “connection course” in near future? You would have your first student already:-)>
That would be fun! We have our summer CAMP class coming up which will have a lot of emphasis on connection!
T
Hi!
I think this session was pretty awesome 🙂>Trying to turn correctly in these games has been painful for me as I am directionally challenged.>
Yes – turning away for the blinds is hard on the brain at first because we all want to turn towards the dogs. You nailed it here though!
You got your blinds started before he entered the tunnel – my favorites were at :35 and 1:02 where you really trusted him to commit to the tunnel and did the blind with great timing and mechanics.
Then when you added the reps crossing through the tunnel exit death zone: excellent! The timing of your rotation and your position were both spot on and he got it perfectly. Hopefully it felt easy, because you made it look easy.
Great job! Onwards to week 2 games!
Tracy
Hi!
> Not sure why that happened as I have been trying to be super conscientious about making sure the “public” option is checked. Clearly got by me!>
YouTuve loves to randomly change their settings as they change their privacy rules.
About rules…
I am glad you sent the video: Based on what she did here, I think she has made up toy rules LOL
She was like : THAT FRIZ IS ONLY FOR THROWING NOT FOR WORKING lol!
She was all into the friz throwing portion of the video at the beginning – fast, fun, freeeeee!
Then when you were like “now we wrap wings for the toy” she was like “wait, what? That toy is only for THE THROWING. We don’t earn the toy, we just chase it. The toy is STOOOOOPID now.” As a contrast, the cavalettis are clearly only for food so she was perfect with that.It is actually pretty hilarious to watch, but in the moment I bet it was not hilarious AT ALL.
Also, it is pretty common for clever dogs like Jazz to make up rules like this, without consulting with us first. Thanks, Jazz!
She did really well with the food! Yes, it doesn’t get as much speed as the friz would, but her current food rule seems to be “do the thing, eat the treat, it is a chill kind of thing”. Her questions were mainly about connection – when it was not clear, she was getting a little careful. And the countermotion is HARD! So you can really emphasize the connection, massive eye contact and then pitching the treat behind you back to the wing during the countermotion element as you move forward.
We can have a fun time trying to get her to change her toy rules. You can take the friz (or, ideally, 2 frizzers) and turn it into a puzzle: using a wing or barrel, get her amped up, tease her with the frix, then stand there and let her solve the puzzle (she loves this). When she goes around the wing: throw the friz as far as you can.
Basically, we are going to change her self-imposed toy rules by letting her think that she is training you to throw it! No real warm up needed – you can just get her really wanting the friz and let her figure out how to get you to throw it. I bet she solves the puzzle and then we can use the toys for more things.
> so probably won’t have any additional posts till I get back in May (do you believe it’s May already!!!)>
For a moment I was like, “May is a long time away!” but nope… May is in 2 days LOL What happened to April??! And good to know about the upcoming sessions with Bobbie! Side note: don’t get overwhelmed if she gives you a zillion exercises to do every day 🙂
Keep me posted! Safe travels tomorrow!
Tracy
Hi!
> I will try the manners minder, if I can find it’s clicker, in my next session.>
Ha! I can relate to never knowing where the darned remote is. The MM can still be a huge target for him to run to.
Looking at the video:
He is really locking into the line! Yay! Massive improvements!!
Cueing the turns was a good addition for sure. I think he was surprised by the first wrap rep and did better on the 2nd one – you can cue the wrap sooner by decelerating while he is over the jump after the tunnel.
For the rear crosses, you don’t need to straighten up to show the line then get onto the RC diagonal to the center of the bar – he is too fast 🙂 You can get directly on the RC diagonal as you pass the wing of the jump before it. At 3:44 and 4:29, for example, he saw cues to go straight (and he did – SUPER!) and the RC info happened after he gathered for takeoff.
You can throw the reward to the correct line anyway, because it rewards him even if the info is late, and it will help him learn to read late info and try to adjust 🙂
The rep at 4:43 was definitely on the diagonal to the center of the bar and he got it. Yay! Because he is fast, you can get on the diagonal even a bit sooner, not waiting til he passes you. He will see your acceleration and power past you into the RC 🙂
One overall thing since we are still convincing him to work tight and take those straight lines:
Start each rep from a more controlled line up and stay, just to take a moment to set him up and settle into the rep (and so he stops offering big lines away from you :). He was wanting to start without you by moving away to the line – and I don’t think he was waiting to see which line LOL!
An example of that is at 3:11 when you get the toy back and he heads to the tunnel. In that moment, you can call him back, ask for a sit in front of the jump, lead out to where you want to be – then release and go, rather than move into the sequence when he starts without you. The trouble he was having with finding the lines was that he was staying out away from the line too much, so we can build in lots of reinforcement for not sending himself out on the line.
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi!
He did really well here! It is a hard game and this was a terrific first session!!!
He had a couple of commitment questions – one thing that will help commitment is to look at the ‘landing’ side (behind you) rather than at him or follow him with your eyes – it is almost like you are looking at him then when you cue the wing, you look fully away from him and behind you (like you did at 3:34 for example). Those were the smoothest reps to the wing, even with the toy really visible.
One thing I see here that will help with him finding the straight lines and not running past stuff: he wanted to keep moving out on the line (starting without you while you were trying to plan the verbals :)) and didn’t always wrap (in favor of going to the next wing) especially at the beginning. He wants to run run run and stay on a wider line. So you can shift him into handler focus more (and less run run run focus) by having him stay (sit or down or stand, as long as he doesn’t move) as you get ready for the start of each rep. That might be hard for him but it will help him really lock onto the lines you want with no bonus lines 🙂 You were already rewarding from your hand, which was perfect here!
Since this went well, you can add in doing multiple wings in a row and the race track around the outside.
Nice work!
Tracy
Hi!
This video is the same as the one you posted on Sunday, let me know if it is supposed to be a different one?
>There was a lot going on during this training session yesterday. Dog barking in their crate and Tina coming and going with Chase (that was planned).>
It is good to expose her to different things!
>I’m finding when she has a job to do, she does it. She has been doing a great job getting to work even with some pretty big distractions and her BFF Chase is probably the biggest positive distraction she has.>
This is also good, as long as she also knows how to handle things when there is no job to do.
>I’m also finding that she gets to places way sooner than I think she will LOL. I know she’s fast, but she’s not Josie fast and I feel like I have all this time and than bam she’s there. Oops.>
Ha! Yes, she has a ton of speed already 🙂 She moves differently than Josie and does not have the same singing voice 🤣😂 but I am not sure I would say she is slower 🙂
Tracy
Hi!
>so I trust I’ll come to really understand “in” and “dig” as well.>
You might find it easy to think of it as ‘circle the backside towards me’ (dig) versus ‘circle the backside away from me’ (in).
> the hands in the threadle wrap video seem like two parallel hands pointing at the ground (not that I did very well at copying that).>
Yes, they are ideally low but also a little back towards the dog – any lack of being back towards the dog is all about my current lack of flexibility haha
>“in in” (threadle wrap) and “dig dig”(backside wrap). At any rate – Skizzle hasn’t heard these words from me much previously (:>
Perfect!
>my position for the threadle wrap should be adjacent to the wing – because if I haven’t yet reached the wing, then really it would be a backside wrap.(?)>
The backside is more about his point of view, not your position. So if he has to go to the other side of the jump, then it is a backside to him. For now we start the humans relatively adjacent to the wing, but eventually the dogs learn to shoot past us to get to the backside or let us get way ahead while they still work their line. And it is a decelerated move because the decel helps get the collection.
Looking at the video – when working it on the flat, it will be easier if you get a head start on him, rather than moving with him. That way, from ahead, he can see you decelerate then make your hands visible.
Adding the tunnel really helped because you were ahead of him so he could see the cues clearly – he read the difference between the regular wrap and the threadle wrap really well! And you were making the hand cue more visible, like on the reps at 1:26 – 1:38. Super!
And when you added 2 wings at the end – you had deceleration on the rep at 2:14 which set up a really nice turn!
>Reviewing the video after the session – I feel like I rotate towards the jump a lot more than you were doing in the example video.>
You can pull away from the line a tiny bit, but you were not over-rotated towards the wing. If you were, he would have gone to the regular wrap side of it 🙂
> Seems like the idea is to toss the treat back there (close to the wing), but for the handler to stay moving in the direction of moving past the jump.>
Yes, but the decel element is important so you can be moving slowly while throwing the reward back.
>This exercise is one I should try again – to continue facing forward, use both hands, and arrive adjacent to the wing at least before the dog finishes wrapping.>
It is a fun challenge! You can keep making both hands more obvious, especially the outside arm – ideally he sees them both as he exits the tunnel. And your position was good relative to the wing, so you don’t need to make any changes there.
Great job!
Tracy
Hi!
>We tried the backsides again in my in person class last week and I think he is doing well. Sad no video. Can’t fire my volunteer who had tech difficulties.>
Definitely don’t fire the volunteer 🙂 And it is fun that you got to do them in class!!
>We tried to do some threadles with the toy yesterday. It didn’t go awesome and the video was messed up for that too. He was breaking stay and going right to toy when I had him in position 2. So today we tried again serps and threadles with food then a quick toy rep.>
I think today’s session went really well!!!! He seemed to be able to differentiate between the threadle and serp really well here.
For the stays – he might be thinking that the hand movement is part of the release, which might have contributed to his questions yesterday,
He was moving when your hand moved into position, just before the release (sometimes the hand movement came at the same time as the release which might be why he thinks it is part of the release). To help him not move when your hand moves, you can get to your position, place your hand in position bit don’t release right away: instead, you can , praise then release, or praise then throw a reward back to him.
He did really well with the toy rep here! He was definitely very excited to have the toy as the reward. To help keep him thinking more and the hand and cue, and less about the toy you can try putting the toy down on the ground, then line him up in the sit. That way the last thing he sees if you lining up, as opposed to the toy toss being the last thing he sees before the release. That can make it easier to focus on the cues and not on the toy 🙂
> I also included where we are at with the wobble board. No towels under it and smallest ball under it. I think he is looking good. I question next steps. Maybe add next larger ball and some towels again? Or ask for a few reps instead of one and reward?>
I love how he moved towards the wobble board as soon as you got it to the ground, and turned himself around on it! Wow! Yes and yes for the next steps: you can add the biggber balls and brace with towels again so he can get used to it. And you can ask for a few reps with the current board, using great treats and maybe even his toy!
Great job here!
Tracy
Hello!
>Bottom line, I rushed the process. I will take this in smaller increments going forward 🙂>
If you take big leaps in the process and it works, we call it fast tracking not rushing 😂🤣 So it was worth it to try and overall it went really well!
>Girls have chiro tonight, so instead of video I’m going to ask a couple questions instead lol!>
Good for you for taking care of their bodies!!!
>When will the last game package roll out?
June 15th is Games Package 12.
> Will the end of the course be the 2 weeks following that date? When will Max Pup 2 start?
It will be 2 weeks to complete Games Package 12, a couple more weeks of catch up/break for the pups & people, so the next MaxPup 2 is looking to start mid July – either the 13th or 20th, depending on my travel schedule 🙂 I will have a date for you probably in mid-May 🙂
T
Hello!
>Good morning!>
This cracked me up that you posted at 9:42 PM but said good morning because you know I would see it early hahahahaha I couldn’t respond til after a vet appointment but it made me chuckle 🙂
The games are all looking really good!
Rocking horses: I wonder if having treats in your hands in causing him to have a question about whether you were throwing them or not at first? You can try the first few reps of a future session with empty hands. He sorted it out really well and the rest of the session went super! He only had one question (:55-ish) where I believe he was still chewing when you started the send, so he lost the side info and ended up wrapping the other way. So a couple more moments to let him finish chewing (priorities haha) before the send will smooth that out.
The full circles on the threadle wrap foundation went well! He seemed to have more challenge working on your right side: he wanted to go faster but that made some of the turning away harder. You can feed him the treats from the cookie hand sometimes when he drives to it, before turning him away, to help convince him to slow down to let you turn him away.
> I tried to take a break to play tug in the middle but he was allll about food tonight. It seems I kept offering him boring treats today during our day to day stuff – which he refused every time. When I pulled out better treats to play, he was all about it!>
Are the ‘boring’ treats stuff like kibble, etc? It would be really nice if he would take the boring treats so you can save the GREAT stuff for harder environments. Maybe you can convince him by throwing some of the dullsville treats into a bag with the good stuff, so they smell a little more exciting? And he is also more likely to tug if the food is less exciting, but for now you can try running into a different room for tugging. He might find it hard to tug when he is in the middle of all the good cookie smells, so moving to a different place can help get him excited for the tugging and out of cookie mode.
Remote reinforcement went really well! He was definitely engaged – almost like it was too easy so he was shocked by that hahaha! Since this went so well, there are a couple of things you can add to it:
– yes, you can change locations so he sees the game in a variety of places
– you can start to ask for tricks or fun behaviors when he has moved with you away from the treat station
– you can add in stuff like carrying him away from the treats, then putting him down: does he stay with you or run to the treats? You might eventually carry him to the start line at a trial, so it is a good thing to show him.
– you can add in doing this on leash too, so he doesn’t think the leash is WEIRD hahaThe stays are coming along REALLY nicely! He is holding the stay as you are moving away, and in fact I think he is scooting backwards on some of the reps in anticipation of the thrown reward LOL! Brilliant! In the 2nd half of the session, you were walking away from him (like a lead out) and he did great. YAY! So the next step here is to line him up at your side (you can totally do a cookie lure for this) as if lining him up in front of a jump, then keep working on stays & duration 🙂
Great job!
Tracy
Hello! The backsides went well!!!
Your mechanics were good – strong connection, you were moving for a few steps before the release. Nice!
She had a couple of questions and I think it was more about how far across the towel bar you were on your line. Compare the first rep at :11 versus the 2nd rep at :29 and you were pretty far away, so she checked in with you at :29 and :37. She got to the backside correctly but hit the barrel on those as she was sorting it out. On the other side, you started out heading to the middle of the towel bar (:54) and when you got a lot further away, she ended up on the front side of the bar.
So I think if you move further away more gradually, she will have a smoother line: start by moving up the line to where the barrel and towel meet. Then you can move over one step at a time, and I think that will help answer her questions and keep the line smooooooth 🙂
> If they hit the barrel, which she has inside & outside, how does she sort that out? Am I supposed to do something?>
Generally hitting the barrel is one of two things: either she has a question about it and needs to look at you, or she was driving to get the reward if it was thrown.
When she hit the barrel here (like at :29 and :37) it was her trying to figure out what to do with you really far away. She will sort that out when you move over to that spot more gradually and as she learns the skill more. If she continues to hit the barrel, you can make it easier for her to find the line.
There was one rep where she hit the barrel when you threw the reward (1:41) but no worries, she will sort that out as the games expand and she gets more experience with them.
> I have a bizillion questions,>
Lay ’em on me!
Great job here!
Tracy
