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He was such a good boy in these!!!! Yay!!! The Grounders runs were definitely easier for him- the value for the hoops, barrels, tunnels are high so he found the lines really well. I’m impressed with how he found the long lines to the end! Wow!!
He’s young still, so the value for jumps is not quite ready for trials yet, which is why he had more trouble in Jumpers. No worries, we can bring up the value for the jumps as he gets more experienced, and he can keep doing Grounders (and maybe Tunnelers 😀 ) for now.
We can also work on a start line stay more – right now it looks like he takes off as soon as the leash is off. He’s already speedy and going to get even faster, so we can definitely get him to stay so you can have a head start. For now it can be as simple as he stays next to you when the leash comes off (check out the new Leash Off Engagement On game from yesterday) so you are not behind him at the start, you can start with him.
Great job!
TracyGood morning! Congrats on a wonderful debut! The videos are marked as private – can you make them unlisted so Youtube will let me see them?
>>It was a double (or quadruple) challenge as I was the trial secretary and decorations chair. I ran my PWD, my trainers dog on Friday, debuted Wayne , and I don’t think I told you about my new puppy ( I may have officially lost my mind!)>>
OMG! That is busy! And yes, I want to hear about your new puppy and no, you have not lost your mind LOL!!!!
>> Since he is only 15 months we haven’t done much jump work and I don’t (yet) have jumps at home.>>
That would explain why jumpers was harder 🙂 Age plus lack of experience. No worries! You can stick to things like grounders or tunnelers which are easier for youngsters and also insanely fun fun fun!!! That will make jumper much easier when he is more ready for it.
Tracy
Good morning!
>>So how long does this “teenage/my brain parts don’t talk/things are super hard for me” stage last again?>>
For smaller dogs/herding breeds/females, maybe til they are 2 or so? There is no black and white line of course so you will see more and more maturity as she approaches 2. I feel like we need a support group.
>– Tug & agility is super hard – tug-1 rep of something easy – tug – stop (and decompress)>
Yes – it is hard, it might not be all that reinforcing or motivating all the time for her, and also it is not all that important 🙂 What is important is using a high value motivator and being really engaging with it. It doesn’t matter if it is a toy or not – many of the highest level dogs are doing it for food 🙂
>– Food & agility is hard but not as hard as tug rewards – volume dial (with barking & movement to amp her up) – up to 3 reps – stop (and decompress) – >>
I don’t think food and agility is hard – I think arousal regulation is hard, and food is always motivating for her (I can relate, it is always motivating for me too 🤣😂). So a less-is-more approach is great – 30 seconds, then be done, and mix in decompression.
>If I lose her behind me, try to keep going since it was no doubt caused by me disconneting. Lotus tug (with food) is between the two so maybe one or 2 reps with that?>
And you can also mix in a ton of simple take-what-is-in-front-of-you-lines (revisiting the lazy game :)) so that the balance of value can shift out to getting on lines and less on handler focus. That plus throwing rewards in a variable way on the lines will really help her stay on the line even if connection gets softer. Plus, experience will help too!
>– The more that we can do with getting her arousal up, doing a thing (or two/three) and then decompressing down again without any leaping lizard episodes, the better and eventually this will help build her resilience.
Yes, and arousal regulation so that resilience is not really needed. But you can do this less in agility and more in shaping games, tricks, etc. Get her physiology rehearsing it before adding things that can be frustrating (handler error for example). Agility is inherently unpredictable for dogs, so rehearsing the physiology resilience “flex” while doing unpredictable agility might be “lumping” when I bet she does better if we split out that rehearsal from agility sequences.
>> (and when her brains do finally start talking to each other again, that framework will be in place to do more stuff eventually)>>
100% yes 🙂
>– Lots more neutral pattern games/ general decompression (bully stick chewing, shredding cardboad, sniffy walks where nothing exciting happens (like dogs lunging at her or bikes flying by out of nowhere), napping, playing with Kaladin (usually), and snuffle mats/treat scatters all work for her)>Yes – adolescence is definitely a less-is-more time of life for dogs. And that is hard, because that is when we are supposed to be ramping up all of their training to debut them at 18 months, right?!?!?! LOL!!! Nope. I have had a MUCH easier time with the last 4 dogs by just waiting to ramp it up and not debuting them til they were older than 2. It was soooooo much easier than when I was trying to debut closer to 18 months. Those 6-8 months make a huge difference in their development.
>– She needs at least day off between hard things>Yes – a weekly/monthly calendar is a real godsend at this stage (see below)
>1) Does it make sense to do very many in-person classes at this point? Or do I keep adding them in (maybe every other week?) but plan on using treat rewards for a while until I can get more consistent good results with a toy at home?>
I think getting her into classes and letting her have a super grand fun time is GREAT! Yes, you can do a bit of tugging if she wants to but you can also use super high value food and food carrier toys and she will do great!
About toy play: if we take the pressure off toy play, you will see it blossom. She doesn’t need to play with toys to be one of the fastest dogs in the ring! She needs understanding and love of the game, which can be accomplished with food (many high level things have been won by foodie dogs in agility, and I found out yesterday that one of the fastest flyball times ever run by a 4 dog team was done with 3 of those dogs running for food! So you if you keep the toy as a “hey let’s party!” And build value and understanding with food, then the 2 motivators will meld together in a way that works super well for you both.
>2) Where do things like her RDW foundations (going nowhere very fast and soon to be slower since I have a week before I leave for the Open and then we’ll probably have snow when I get back) or short teeter sessions fit in? Is that more like a harder agility sequence so should alternate with those? 3) Does it make sense to substitute in a jump grid session (dragging the lotus tug) instead of a short sequence session?>
A calendar will help! Yes, you can do a jump grid session mixed in once a week, or run her through a grid 5 times, take a break, do a 2 minute sequence session, be done. Then a couple of days off from jumping and focus on a RDW session. Or do a one-hit-wonder teeter moment for her entire meal. For a while, I was doing a morning single teeter rep for an entire breakfast every day or so with Elektra (who was afraid of the teeter) and that might have bene her entire training for the day, depending on the insanity of life 🙂 Maturity is our friend, so we don’t need to push too hard right now.
>4) Thoughts on whether I should try 1 rep with a toy and then do a treat scatter and switch to another rep with food? (after getting success with 1 rep with toy & quit)>
I think that puts too much pressure on the toy. You can toss it around as a goofy game before a session then put it away and do a food session. Keep the toy compartmentalized as the party and not the work 🙂 and the food can remain as the work for now, because it is incredibly motivating for her.
>5) Does it make any sense to consider an NFC run before I have a more solid toy (not lotus tug) reward behavior in place? >>She will let us know and absolutely yes, you can do NFC without toys. There are many dogs who don’t find toys interesting at all, so we focus more on the remote reinforcement games and less on toy play. Does Lift like to play with a ball or frisbee? It would be fun to play with those separately (dead ball retrieves, or frisbee rollers) because that might be fun and you can use those in the ring.
>Sure I could probably have her ready to do the food reward box sooner, but not sure I want to do that and then try to introduce the toy in the ring after that. >
I think that would be fine – running for food, then running for a toy later on, totally can work! It would rely on her understanding of remote reinforcement (she is doing well with that!) and how motivating the toy is (or not).
>6) Can I use pattern games to help get her back if she’s lost her puppy marbles? >>Absolutely! You can use them in training (ideally before she loses her marbles LOL!) and you can use them in life also ideally if you see something that is really hard for her, or if something surprising happens and you need to help her out.
>I kept moving her further away and when she finally glanced sort of at me, I tossed a treat and moved into a pattern game.>
You don’t need to wait for her to look at you to start the pattern game – sometimes she will be unable to do this because the challenge is too difficult. It is perfectly great for you to recognize the moment and start the game (you can put a meatball on her nose to be like “pattern game time!”).
>> Her latency sucked at first even with moving further away, but then she got into it and eventually I was able to walk her past the playing dogs at a distance and got some good responses to trick cues)>
Great! The high latency at first is normal and then responses get faster as the arousal gets regulated. You don’t even need to ask for tricks (as those can increase arousal again), you can do the patterns then just decompress and end the session.
>She was such a trooper around my young nephews too. Made the 6yr old’s day when she agreed to sit on his lap next to me (with cheese as a reward).>That is so great!!!
>The flight home was hard for her. She had puppy Xanax before both flights and was very calm/napping the whole time on the way out. Started out that way on the way back, but had a bit of a puppy panic attack when the engines revved for takeoff (it was especially noisy and vibrated alot). >
Poor girlie! I can relate to this too – flying is scary even with Xanax on board! But I am glad she was able to settle down and have a good flight after that. The neuroscience vet people say the it can take 72 hours or longer (up to 3 weeks EEK!) for the body to return to baseline after a trip like that, so having a chill few days will definitely help 🙂
Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
The lazy games are going well! One thing to add when you revisit these are the errors that you commonly make. I commonly disconnect and fling my arms around, so I show all of that while playing the lazy game 🙂 Be a sucky handler LOL!! You were good here in terms of not helping too much, but you can help less and even deliberately flinging arms or disconnecting. Just stay close enough to the jumps so that he has an easy choice to take them.
And since he is young, you can revisit this regularly to maintain the balance of line focus and handler focus (because that shifts a lot at this stage).
He did well with the leash game – you made the loop nice and big so it was super easy to get it on him – and he very quickly started shoving his own head through. I love it! You can keep luring it to start in different environment (and in daily life) so you will see him doing it easily everywhere.
When you made it a lot smaller, he was not as sure, so going back to the big loop was perfect. That loop can stay super big for as long as needed (or forever :))
>>I think this might be our best thing to teach for end of run since I don’t want him to come down from that competition high instantly just because he doesn’t enjoy being leashed. Or worse, have him feel like it’s a punishment!>>
I agree! Making the end of the run as fun as possible is really key for youngsters, so the entire ring experience is really positive for them.
Great job here!Tracy
Good morning!
Poor Taq, I hope the hives are gone!!!
>>I was pretty disappointed that she did not want to run here.
I read this before watching the video, so I was prepared to see her not running or being super duper slow, or worried, or maybe hormonal, or……. And we were going to make a plan to work through, not worry about it, etc.
Nope! It was actually really good and you made good decisions. What you saw was just her brain processing. She wanted to run, she stuck with the games nicely, but the environment offered some big challenges that her brain needed to process. It probably did not feel great in the moment but as an independent eye watching it, I can tell you that she did great 🙂 Nothing disappointing here, and nothing to worry about.
>I tried to pivot to easier things but still felt like she was dragging.>
The easier stuff was brilliant dog training. She wasn’t dragging – what you were seeing were just responses with slightly higher latency because of the environment, plus because of the environment (more on that below) she needed BIG obvious handling cues – if you were too subtle, she couldn’t quite filter it through the other things her brain was filtering.
Video 1 – this environment is actually a lot harder than it might look: other dog smells, much more enclosed than she is used to in the agility context, trees, plants, etc. Plus, it didn’t have the excitement of an agility trial to help raise her arousla (and higher arousal states help filter out distractions).
She did fine sorting it out, and I think what we are mainly seeing a reward hierarchy: ball – food – tug toy, in that order in this moment (although higher value food might override the tug toy.
The handling went pretty well – her brain is processing a lot of different things so you can be really big with the cue and hold them longer, because commitment is not as strong when the brain is occupied sorting out other distractions too.
Right as I was typing that you can use pattern games to help her acclimate to the new environment – the 2nd video was pattern games and she looked great! You can take her on a pattern game tour of a new environment to help the brain process more of it too.
Video 3 was some play mixed in with the sequence and that went great!
The handling blooper moments were mainly when you were being subtle with the cues or move away sooner. Try to hold your positions longer (even if you are late in the handling) to really support commitment in new places.
Video 4 started with a bit of turn and burn on a jump for a toy: super fun!!
Then there were some banging noises in the background and she did great – I am sure her brain had to process that but she stuck with the game really well. She needed bigger more obvious connection here to break through the banging noise distraction – she didn’t seem worried, it is more like her brain was trying to multitask and brains are not good at multitasking 🙂
In the moment you might not have noticed the banging (adult human brains are probably experienced with not having to devote energy to processing that) but if you listen to the video, you can hear it nice and loud! And sawing noises or something like that.
And teenage Farmdog brains are NOT used to that so I am sure her brain was devoting bandwidth to processing it along with the other new things in the environment. So that meant the sequence work was not quite as brilliant as it is at home – but she still did really well!The last video was wings and the tunnel and that was great! You can hear a loud BANG as she wrapped the first wing, then sawing then sawing AND banging LOL That requires a lot of brain bandwidth so having the easier agility skills gave her brain room to deal with both very successfully 🙂
So overall – I think the challenge you had hear was more about the new environment and then as she settled into that – the banging/sawing were dividing her attention a bit. That is probably why she felt a little sticky, a little draggy – divided attentional state as her brain processed the experience of the noises. But she worked through it brilliantly and I am sure latent learning is cementing the experience as a positive one.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Good morning and welcome!!! DSFDs are SO COOL!! They are dogs that can truly do *anything* – I was watching one do amazing things yesterday in flyball! Is Skizzle one of the puppies from Dannika?
He is adorable and the session went really well! Great job with your early clicks to build value quickly for touching the prop, then you were great about delaying til she touched it with a foot.
He was looking around in the environment a little, so it was a great decision to get the toy involved (and I love how she got into the toy after the treats – that is terrific!)
You had lots of really good clicks at the end of the session, and there ws a great impulse control moment happening too right at the end: Skizzle had the new prop to think about… and she also had to think about ignoring the bowl of treats on the table. And he did! SUPER!!!!
>>I give away some cookies to try to keep him engaged,>
That was great – reset cookies to keep him moving and so you can get more treats. You can add a ‘get it’ marker t help him know where to look when you toss it way (I think you might have said it but it was hard to hear)
>> and it feels more like mat-work than foot target. >>
Do you mean mat work where he gets on a mat to relax? If it looks similar to that, we can change the prop for this game to something totally different looking (like a shoe LOL) so he easily tells the difference between the 2 behaviors he is learning.
>He’s still learning about training – which probably means I need to try shorter sessions with higher reinforcement rate (and better treats).>
This is absolutely true – these early sessions are mainly about him learning about training and us figuring out how to set things up for him. It went really well! I think he had a high rate of reinforcement here. And you were making really great decisions about what to click.
You can use softer treats that are high value, so he doesn’t have to chew them 🙂 2 other things that can help set up the training environment: if there are distracting noises he was listening to because things were quiet, you can play some music so the distractions aren’t as obvious 🙂
Also, you can get a cheap rubber-backed rug or something to cover the wood floors, so he has really good grip for moving around and tugging without slipping. That will help get quicker responses too!Great job here! I am excited to see more!
Tracy
Good morning (or maybe afternoon for you :)) and welcome!! It is great seeing you here – it has been WAY TOO LONG since I have been to NZ!
Arti is an absolutely stunning puppy, wowza!!! I am so excited to see more!
Have fun!
TracyGood morning!
The videos are looking great!On the foot targeting:
>The foot targeting looks a little more like “walk across an object”, but I was thrilled that she was landing feet ON it instead of jumping over or any number of other funny things she tries when presented with a new object with which to interact.>
She was terrific! She was most definitely targeting the object, and trotting across it is fine for now (what she does specifically will vary based on which game it is).
Because she has the super quick Spaniel feet, one thing that will really help is a marker that tells her that she is correct and where to look for the treat. Since you were tossing it here (which was perfect), you can use a ‘get it’ marker rather than a ‘yes’ marker. ‘Get it’ can tell her where to look for the reward (tossed ahead) while with the ‘yes’ marker the dogs often look at us and then track the reward, which can make it harder to get forward focus on lines. And since forward focus on massive lines is the hot trend nowadays 🙂 we are going to install it early with the pups 🙂
The hand target game looked great too – really clear, strong hits!!! Wow! You used “yes” here which could mean “cookie from hand” or you could use a “cookie from hand” marker (I know, so many words LOL!! My goal is to have only as many as needed so we don’t have to remember 10,000 words 🙂 )
Out of curiosity, how does she feel about toys? Also, is she a “Wocker”, as in the working field bred Cockers? I want to get my terminology right 🙂
Great job here! I am looking forward to the official start tomorrow!
Tracy
Good morning and welcome to you and Luna!!
Where in NY are you located? I am a native New Yorker and lived in Central NY for about 11 years 🙂
Tracy
Good morning!
And welcome to you and Zora – she is adorable!!! Her hop onto the prop is the cutest thing ever!!!The foot targeting to the prop looked great! She was definitely saying “I PUT MY FEET HERE!” LOL!! Love it!! And great job getting the tugging before and even more fabulous – tugging after the cookies and while you were grabbing more cookies. Fantastic!!! Really great session!
One thing to consider – when tossing the treats, use a marker that tells her that she was correct and where to find the treats. I use ‘get it’ for that – so rather than say yes (which often causes them to look up at us), you can mark her foot hit with the ‘get it’ and toss the treat. This will help maintain forward focus to the prop more easily.
The other thing is that if this might be the same type of mat you might use for running dog walk training, we should use something else for this game – the use for the prop here is a front foot hit and the RDW training is usually rear feet.
The hand targeting went well too! You are doing a fabulous job keeping that toy nice and low so she could really grab it! Zora did really well with the hand target! She is super quick so you might need to toss the treats away on this one too, to get you a heartbeat of time to reset the next rep 🙂
I also loved that t he play session in the middle here was really long and fun for her, so it was not all about work work work – you made it really fun!
Since she was driving to the target so nicely, you start to hold it flat in your hand so it is in front of your palm.
One other cool thing here was by the end, she was not distracted by her dad’s barking! Yay!!!
Great job here!!!! I am excited to see more!
Tracy
Hi!
>>Everyone keeps telling me I have to be prepared for her to act like a BC, and I’m like, yeah, I don’t see it yet.>>
Ha! Nope, you’ll see the whippet shine through and that’s a great thing too! There are some amazing things that BWs can do in terms of powering out of turns which come from the whippet.
>> If she winds up in the middle of her parents’ ranges for weight, she will weigh pretty much the same as the terriers though (mine are 23-27 lb).>>
Yes, she’s likely to not weigh a lot. One of my whippet mixes is 15 inches tall and 13.5 lbs. And my male BorderWhippet is about 21 inches tall and weighs 32 lbs. My full whippet is 22 inches tall and weighs a whopping 28 pounds LOL!! So she might end up being a good height and very light.
>>I’ve done Rachel Pearson’s stimulus control stuff,
Super!!!!
>>(and why I kinda dislike the idea, but see that it’s useful) >>
Omg I totally relate. I have found that having a few powerful markers that I can use consistently helps for training. And in many of the other moments in life, the dogs read context so brilliantly that I don’t worry about it as much 🙂
>> I would use “good” as the marker if I wanted her to stay in position to be fed. >>
Excellent marker to have!
>>I guess I do have a “get it” cue for a thrown cookie, but I think I mostly use it when they are already looking at me?>>
That’s something to consider as you work out your marker system with her. I have a get it that means “that’s correct, focus forward because the reward will be out ahead” and it’s been great for getting the dogs to *not* look at me when I want forward moving behavior.
>>For the nose marker, I’ve been working on a chin target behavior with a Tupperware lid (to be able to teach a head flat on the floor trick) recently and wanted this to look different which is why I held it that way.>>
Smart!!! To make it look different – when you do the chin target, is the target in your palm and palm facing up (back of hand facing down)? If so, based on where this hand target builds to, we can turn your hand so the palm is perpendicular to the ground and extended away from you. If that’s still too similar looking to the chin target, let me know and we will take a different approach.
Tracy
Good morning! I love this video!!!
In terms of what you did:
Excellent pattern games to bring her arousal level and attentional state into the higher zone… then she was great with the volume dial, even with Misia in the ring running and tugging. Then back to patterns and into the snuffle mat, to bring the arousal level back down and decompress a bit (because she was going to get to work, so she didn’t need to stay in that high arousal level). Lu was fabulous!>There was some excitement in the middle of it all 😳🤣 but Lu handled it really well. I thought that would have terrified her but she was fine. >
That was GREAT and it is exactly why we do all of this resilience work: something very unexpected happened. Lu definitely noticed, but basically said “that was unexpected” and never lost engagement with you, didn’t get concerned about anything even with the loud crash or the very direct BC stalking LOL! None of the humans freaked out (good job humans) and so neither dog freaked out. You just carried on as if it was all completely normal.
That kind of experience will go a long way to helping her trial career because she can shrug off unexpected things, even if they might be startling. Love it!
It was also hilarious and Jen’s face made me laugh out loud LOL!!!!!!
Great job here!!
Tracy
Good morning!
>>I’m still working on a reliable “out” so we’ll see how that goes in the ring! There may just be 1 play session – lol. >>
That sounds pretty perfect, though!! And you can bring in 2 toys to help get the first one back 🙂
>I think I’m going to put her leash in my pocket when we start so I can leash her up and let her walk out on her own 4 feets at the end and I don’t have to pick her up. >
I like that better than trying to carry her out.
>I think if I do that, the leash runner may try & come get the leash, so I’ll pocket it like a hoarder.>
Right! And if she has not yet experienced leash runners getting in her space, then definitely hoard that leash LOL And at league, ask someone to act like a leash runner and judge and ring crew 🙂
On the video – great job with the tricks before starting! She was pumped up!
The way the pinwheel was set put the tunnel slightly off the line from the jump, so you got a little too close to 5 at :24 and 3:13 then pulled her off the tunnel when moving to your right to avoid running into the jump 🙂 Good job rewarding her, she was trying to sort out if you wanted the turn or straight line to the tunnel. Building in a small space is definitely hard, so you can use weave poles as jump bars to make it all fit easily!
She seemed to like killing the toy there! Fun reward LOL!! The out is not great yet, but the toy looked really rewarding so that is great (and the 2 toy option might work best, I am pretty sure it is legal in AKC :))
You didn’t get caught behind 5 as much on the 2nd run (1:55) so got the tunnel – the turn on 4 (pinwheel jump) was a little late, so she dropped the bar trying to adjust. I don’t think she needs you to go all the way o 4 with her, so you can send to 4 by hanging back closer to the landing of 3, which will also put you on a better lateral/parallel line to the 5 jump and tunnel, making the blind even easier at the end.
At 4:26 you had the best line past 5 (didn’t get caught deep there and have to pull away from it) so her line to the tunnel was spot on! Then you had excellent hustle to do the blind and get big connection to show her the last 2 jumps. YAY!!!!!
The RC at the end went well in terms of getting her to turn to her left – isn’t that her harder direction? Super!!! And on the very last one, you had much better connection to her after the RC so she found the jump. Yay! When you get behind her, you don’t need an arm pointing forward at all – just run towards the next jump and look at her, which all turns your shoulders to the line you want.
>>I’ll keep you posted tomorrow and will send video!!!>
Yes please! I will be clutching my phone all day to check on how it goes!!
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
What a great update!!!! He looked awesome working through those challenges! A lot of the lines on this sequence (like sending to jump 1 and into the pinwheel) had him having to completely ignore the distractions in front of him, and I was super proud of him because he was excellent!
I can hear the other dogs in the video and at the beginning, we can see how it was a little hard for him… but you got out the water sprayer and BOOM! Volume dial!! He was ready to roll. You can add tricks there – ask him to do something easy and fun there to get the spray 🙂
Jumping towards the other dogs was harder so you can use your motion by sending him away over the jump then you immediately start running towards the next line.
On the 2nd run starting at about 2:00, you sent to the jump and moved away sooner so he really drove the line with you. The RC at the end worked great because he was flying so getting ahead for the BC was not going to happen 🙂 You mentioned paying too much attention to him rather than drive for the blind – but at this point, I think you were giving him great connection on course and so which cross you use is less important. He thrives with your connection!
At 4:15 you sent more to the pinwheel jump so you were more laterally away from the tunnel at the end – which made the blind easy to get to. You nailed it and showed great connection at the end! You also got the FC there at the very end, but I think the BC is a better option because it keeps you moving further ahead without having to rotate your feet.
One thing to do for the next session: you can put your magic reward box and the water sprayer together (so he can also have the spray reward) and place them so they are not always at the last jump. He is very smart and I don’t want him to think he should drive the line towards where the reward is, simply because he sees it 🙂
Then if he can ignore the magic treat box and sprayer being placed outside the ring and not on the line? Pick a simple easy sequence and do it without any treats in your hands or pockets 🙂 It should be a really short sequence, 3 or 4 obstacles at most, because working with all of the reward outside the ring is HARD!!! But he seems ready for that challenge 🙂
>>Today was Scent Work. He was amazing. >>
This fantastic! I love how you supported him with the pattern games and how he was able to relax and get to work in the environment. The Q is a nice bonus, but the lovely rehearsals and smooth transitions into the search area will set you up for many more successes and Qs in the future. Great job here!!!
Tracy
Good morning!
>>I definitely see now that you pointed it out that he was reading blind cross yet again. Doh!!>
Yes, young dogs are SO HONEST about trying to read every single thing we do, good pups. For the youngsters, we don’t want to run fast, we want to run connected as the top priority. If I need to cue extension but I run fast and drop connection? The dogs can’t read the cues. So running closer to the lines (so I don’t have to decel) but with big connection really helps.
He did really well with the Empty Hands concept!
>>I really thought I was staying connected this time without accidentally cueing a blind cross and he still missed the pinwheel jump. >>
This is where revisiting the fast moving lazy game will help. Placement of reinforcement is going to be key to help get this commitment – getting rewards thrown to the landing side of the jump as you move away. Yes, I will bug you to be perfect with your connection. But also yes – it is nearly impossible to be perfect, so revisiting the lazy game of jogging around and tossing rewards will bridge the gap between perfect connection and getting commitment to the jump when we are not so perfect 🙂
For example – at :34, you were connected for a few steps into the pinwheel then you arm came up and you turned away too early (slight disconnection). Getting closer and jogging past it and throwing a reward will help pump up the commitment.
But also what you do after a blooper like that can help pump up commitment: since he has the level of handler focus that he can pull off a jump even when he is within a couple of feet of it (probably due to a lot of reward coming from your hand or near you lately) – don’t stop and reward, keep going by cueing the next jump and continuing, then throwing the reward somewhere on the line. At :35 you saw him pass the jump, then in that moment stopped and delivered a reward from your hand. So while we are not going to punish him or ‘fix’ it by going back… it is entirely possible that stopping right then to reward can also reward missing the jump.
I try to get everyone to keep going and reward somewhere else on the line (unless something has gone so wrong there is no way to keep going, then yes, reward for effort LOL!!) So in this case, you can give a bigger cue to the next jump and reward that, so almost all reward are paired with taking the jump.
You kept going better at 2:22 ad he took it at 2:29 – you dd reward it, but it was from your hands and for coming into you, because the toy was in your pocket.
So for game plan: he did really well with empty hands, so you can use it in spots where the handling is simple and it is ok to pull it out and reward near you. For anything he has trouble with in terms of commitment (darned pinwheels!) then you wil want to run with a toy in your hand so you can reward him really quickly by throwing the reward ahead of him on the line with a get it marker.
Using the snuffle mat worked great here! He was able to work for a really nice long session and he finished successfully and with great engagement!
>>I did the weaves because I know he uses his brain a bit more for that and wanted to see how he’d fare after working, decompressing, then trying them. >>
I thought he did great!!
>>So for the first part with the tunnel where I was trying Empty Hands, I had thrown a treat twice two different times as a distraction while I sneakily loaded the ball back into my jacket. >>
You don’t need to sneak it into your jacket, he can see you do it – he can smell it in your jacket so he knows it is there even if he didn’t see it 🙂 Th empty hands visual is a small step between reward in your hand and reward outside the ring.
>It was a big non-crumbly treat so there should not have been any left but he sure seems to think there was. Maybe I should NOT do that in the future (throwing a treat directly on the ground there)? What do you think?>
There probably was a pool of scent there, or maybe a little crumble from when he chewed it. At this stage, I trust the dogs because they are near wrong when they insist there is a treat on the ground LOL!! So you can help him find it or help him ignore it by being like “DUDE I HAVE A BETTER ONE!”. You can totally throw treats sometimes, because it will also help him run past pools of scent on the ground which is something he will encounter in classes and trials.
>>He seemed a little confused by it but figured me out and got snacks so it ended okay. But was that too weird? Should I not have done it there?>>
I think maybe he got confused because you were so far away? He might have been wondering if you were still working or if you were resetting for something and he was on his own time? So it is fine to do and he got snacks, but you can stick closer to see if that makes it clearer to him.
>>so was thinking about trying to make putting the leash over his head into a rewarding game.>>
I totally love getting them to shove their heads through a leash! I have a video somewhere but can’t find it… maybe more caffeine will help me find it 🙂
But the easiest thing to do it get a leash that is like a French martingale (expandable but with a limited slip like what we use with the pointy headed sighthounds LOL). You can make a huge expanded opening and basically start by holding it open in front of him and luring his head through it a few times: follow the cookie through the loops, feeding him, then jackpot when the loop lands around his neck. It is pretty easy to go from luring to start it, to getting him to offering putting his nose through for the cookie, then offering more and more of his head until he shoves his head into it.
I do this as a lifestyle game daily with the youngsters and even single time they are getting the leash on. so when the dogs are adult, I just hold it open and they shove their heads through without needing to see the cookie 🙂
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
