Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Good morning!
>We didn’t feel as in sync and connected as our last session. I think that partly may be due to doing this at 5 this evening. I felt pretty “sloppy” with my cues, not as sharp as in the am, and I think she is thinking about her dinner (feed them between 5 and 6).>
It is entirely possible that time of day played a role: dogs have a circadian rhythm like we do, and both of you might have felt differently training at that time of day! I personally am much better at 8am than 5pm 🙂 But it is good to work at different times of day!
I think what was happening was that the serp arm was getting ‘lost’ in the visual because it was tucked in against your side rather than fully extended out away from you. And that was causing your shoulders be facing the reward more and the jump less.
To help make the hand cue more visible, you can turn your shoulders to face her more, with the center of your chest facing the center of the bar. Then extend your serp arm away (elbow locked and a 90 degree angle of shoulder to arm in your armpit area :))
When she is on the way back to you, this picture will help her drive to the jump! You were shaking the target hand which was great – you can keep shaking it and add in looking at it too. Then when she comes over the jump, drop the treat into the bowl with the other hand without turning your shoulders (I know, it is like a fancy dance move LOL!!)She might still go directly to the bowl on some of the trees because it has value, but if that happens you can just toss a reset cookie and start the next rep.
Nice work here! Let me know how if goes with a more ‘open’ upper body!
Tracy
Good morning!
>Haha, not left handed, but I was trying to focus more on rewarding from left hand recently as I had been tending to feed too much from right hand. Perhaps tipped the balance too far.>
That is funny! He is very good at locking on to the location of the predicted reinforcement. We can try to stay a step ahead and vary the reward hands more.
Looking at the parallel path video: Overall this went well! He did have more questions about whether to follow you or find the jump – these could have been because you were a little ahead, or because there was more ‘clutter’ in the environment: different place, all the obstacles, wind noise, the visibility of the toy, you had a hood and hat on which might have blocked connection (he was looking up at you) etc. You can point back to him a little more to open up your dog-side shoulder to show more connection when you have other things that might be obscuring your face.
No worries at all, though! He was able to get lots of rewards and the exposure to doing this in a different environment as great! I believe the next time he sees it, he will have no questions 🙂
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
>On the rocking horse do you start with the easier side or harder side when you do two in a row?>
I start on the harder side, because the mechanics are likely to be clearer. The 2nd barrel can be to the easier side where motion might ‘muddy’ the mechanics.
>She just not too interested in tugging these days. I keep trying. >
She is teething, so it is better to reduce the pressure on it and give her some time. She can play with toys in many different ways, but it doesn’t have to be tugging. Tossing toys and running around work just fine 🙂
>Plus, retrieve is slow. I can only get it in the kitchen. >
Give this one time too! It is coming along. Plus, if she is teething and not into tugging and the reward for retrieving is tugging… then you won’t get an increase in retrieving. You can trade for treats or toss another toy, and also give it time to develop.
She is doing well with the stay behavior! She was doing a great job of holding position when you were moving away!!!! When she is more stimulated with the toy, there is a delay with the offered sit. So you can use food too, which might elicit the sit more quickly. And mix in lots of instant rewards for offering the sit, with your ‘pitch’ marker or even the release and running away to start a party.
>Dot does NOT understand a release.>
>I wasn’t sure with “ok” as I knew she wouldn’t leave. So, I said ok and then get it. What’s the correct order?>Yes, you can say ok then get it (new cue then old cue) or you can say ok then offer the reward thrown out ahead. Also, you can say ‘ok’ then take off and run with the toy or food. That will help build the release word but be super careful to separate the verbal release from any running or offering of the reward – be completely stationary when you release and then after a second, takeoff or throw the reward. She will figure out the release soon enough and then we will have to use a lot of reinforcement to help her hold position LOL 😂😝
>She’s the only puppy I’ve owned who won’t leap out of the crate. I’ve had to drag her out, try to lure her out, stand and wait several minutes for her to decide to leave. Sometimes she’ll chase the treat and others she just stares at it. It’s very unusual.>
Interesting! Is this happening when you play crate games, or in regular life? Does she stay in the crate when she has to potty, like first thing next the morning?
Nice work!
Tracy
Holy WOW for both dogs!!!
MACH6… that didn’t take long at all! Yay Benni!!!!!! Congrats!!!!
7 points for a puppy at a Specialty? WOW!!! Good job Brioche! He is definitely a special dog and I am glad the judges see it too 🙂
Thanks for the update! You must be on cloud 9! Keep me posted!
T
Hi!
Backing up is going really well! Having your hands centered definitely helped! The next step is to keep both hands like that, but just below your knee level (with apologies to your back for having to bend over :)) That way he will keep a lower head position for more backing up, and you can also toss the treat between his front feet to get even more backing up!
>my cookie tosses were not consistent so there were times when Tribute needed to dive under the chair to get the treat>
He seemed perfectly happy with that LOL!!
The cone shaping is off to a good start! Luring is fine to get it going but for the next session, let him ‘work’ the bowls by going back and forth between them before adding the cone. That way he can offer the wrapping which will lead to you being able to use a bigger thing to wrap (barrel or tall cone), then you can be standing up!
Great job!
Tracy
Hi! Lots of good stuff here!!
Strike a pose:
I think she is doing well overall – driving in really nicely over the jump!!We can get her targeting your hand a little better – I think she might have been driving directly to the toy on a lot of the reps LOL! As she is coming back to you, be sure to look at your hand and not at her so she is always locked onto the serp hand. When you looked at your hand, it was perfect!
You can be closer to the jump so she has to start turning before she goes over the jump. And, stay perfectly still until she gets to the toy. Moving results in you closing your shoulder too early, which will dilute the ‘go back out’ element of the serp and future threadle 🙂 When she gets to your target hand, give her your toy-in-hand marker. Is it “yes”? You were praising with yes mixed in but it was a little unclear as to if it was a marker or general happiness 🙂
Rocking horses: On both videos, the first wrap looks great on each rep and she has a ton of value! But I think you have added distance and speed too soon – she is doing a lot of jumping up at you. What was happening is that after the first wrap, you were taking off with a lot of speed. That was breaking connection and the 2nd barrel was far away, so she didn’t know what to do.
So let’s help her not jump/grab so we don’t have to undo that later in training 🙂 To smooooooth these out so she doesn’t jump up at you at all: move them closer and work on the FCs and then sending, with only one step of each and clear connection. I think 8 feet apart might be the sweet spot for the barrels for now? When she can do 2 or 3 in a row without jumping up, you can move to 10 feet apart. If she does jump up, take it as a sign that you are not connected enough and use more eye contact and less arm & running.
The parallel path game was just about perfect when she was on your right side! Yay! Nice timing of the rewards! And she did well on your left side but came past the jump a few times – I think that was happening because your left shoulder was pretty far back, which rotated you towards her and pulled her towards you… kind of like a threadle. When you were connected but your shoulder was not as pulled away, she was great on the left side too.
Nice work here!!
Tracy
Hi!
Strike a pose went really well too! She was driving in to the target hand pretty perfectly (when she could find the start cookie haha) – be sure to look at the target hand to help support her line to it. You can reward directly from your other hand rather than throw it, to get the smooth turn after she hits the target.
Because this went so well, you can use a toy in your reward hand, and also progress to having the reward on the ground (toy or food bowl to plop the treat into).
Looking at the tunnel video:
>had to leave in the bloopers portion of the game>
Ha! Bloopers are the best part! I give her bonus points for being super clever to just go get it then run back and forth through the tunnel LOL!! She is hilarious! The rest was great, and she had no trouble with the harder angles (even though it would have been easier to just go grab the toy LOL!) You can move to the next step, which is starting with easier angles but with her between you and the tunnel, so you can start working on the threadle entries 🙂
Great job!
Tracy
Hi!
>the fact that she’s fast and I’m getting slower.>
I think it is more that the courses are including the darned dog walk in the center and all sorts of handler obstructions and layering, so we need to be able to cue at a pretty significant distance and without physical cues in some cases.
She definitely has value for the TnT now! Super! You can make it easier (as you add angles) by putting the TnT inside the tunnel – just inside the entry then progressively moving it further and further down. You can also do this with a toy!
>I figured since she’s a lefty that turning left into the tunnel would be her preferred side… not sure why but that wasn’t the case today>
It might have been that the tunnel was really dark, so she was not sure about going in? You can shorten the tunnel and also having the reward inside it can help too 🙂
>Also really doesn’t like being restrained for the send. We’ve been doing collar/harness grabs and touches with lots of rewards. She’s been doing well except when we are lining up for an exercise. Not sure why that is.>
I can see where she didn’t want to be held! The lineups were edited out – how you line her up might be where we can help her get happier with being held, combined with letting her go sooner (I am not sure if she is going to look forward to the tunnel at this stage, and that is perfectly fine).
You can also change up the line up by teaching it between your feet, pr having her at your side with a cookie lure followed by a quick hold and immediate release on an easy angle.
Let me know what you think! Nice work here with the tunnel!
Tracy
Hi!
>First video should have been my crap show of lap turns again>
Where is there a crap show? I only see a good session here!!!
Basically:
Turning away to his left (when he is on your right side) was hard – your hand cues are not that clear when he is asking questions but when you were clear (like on the last rep) zero questions! Looked great! The good reps to his left had him clearly following your hand (I think there was a cookie in it) with a palm-up to draw him in and start the turn, then you turned the palm down to complete the turn (like at :10).
Compare to the rep at :20 where you fell over 😂 and watch your right hand: it was palm up the whole time as you tried to turn him, which made no sense to him.
All of the turn aways on your left side were palm-up to palm-down during the hand cue!
When you went back to the lap turns on your right – at 1:35, it was all palm up. But then on the last one which worked great – palm-up to palm-down. Aha! That is the key to fixing the mechanics 🙂
So try to just work turning away on your right side more, separately from the prop, etc. with the palm-up to draw him back then palm-down to turn him away.
Turning away to his right (when he is on your left side) was easy! Lovely! Is he a righty? Or are you both more comfy turning away on that side, so the mechanics are better? Either way, that looked good!
Definitely not a crap show – just needed a bit better hand mechanics on your right side 🙂
Nice work!
Tracy
Good morning!
The tunnel game looked great!
It sounds like the auntie was giving the tunnel verbal a few times before releasing him. Thanks, auntie!!! Perfect! He was lovely here and really driving to the tunnel.
Turning away to the tunnel (when he was on the inside/threadle side) was a little harder at first – nice job with the first reward even when he ran past the tunnel – he turned away, I the correct direction so the reward built the confidence to try it again and get the tunnel too 🙂When he is turning away with no questions, you can add the tunnel threadle verbal to replace the regular tunnel verbal. It sounds like she was saying something there too, but I think it was the tunnel verbal which was a good way to get it started.
He did really well backing up on the incline! He started off straight then was curling a bit – he was tending to curl when you were rewarding from your left hand but was pretty straight when rewarding from your right hand. Good job breaking him out of the curling then resetting to get a whole bunch of straight reps with your right hand doing the rewarding. You were definitely alternating, so keep doing that – mostly with right hand with some left hand rewards mixed in. Are you left-handed? It was interesting to see him so locked onto the left hand! I don’t think the curling had anything to do with a strength-imbalance for him – he seems pretty balanced here and was just choosing which hand to back away from, based on the cookies 🙂
Great job!
Tracy
Good morning!!
>Since she’s a poodle we also have to work a lot on acclimating to grooming. Not as fun as agility. Gerber’s baby food is our friend for that.>
Yes, I bet the baby food is helping her enjoy the process!
The rocking horses are going great!!! Excellent connection on the FCs between the barrels. As things got going faster, she would jump up a little bit on the way to the 2nd barrel – I think what was happening was that your hand as moving a little too high and too soon ahead of her, which broke connection a tiny bit. You can see it at :27 and :36
Compare to the reps where she did not pop up at all, and your hand was nice and low the whole time. It won’t matter as much when she has more experience, but for now you can keep your hand really low and following her nose so you don’t accidentally point ahead of her too early.One thing to consider: you were using ‘wrap’ as your verbal in both directions. Consider having a separate verbal for wrapping to the left and wrapping to the right, for those big courses where you might not be close to her. That can help her find the direction you want without you needing to be close enough for her to fully see you 🙂 Course design evolution has caused us to build in a few extra verbals 🙂
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning! The videos all came through with no problem – lots of good work here!
Collection sandwich videos: she is reading everything really well!
>I was so late on one of these blinds. Four months old and saving my ass already >
Ha! Yes, that is why we use so much reinforcement: so they are motivated to save our asses hahahaha
Yes, you can give her the cues even sooner, starting with moving away while she is getting the start cookie – then do the blind as soon as she moves towards you, which then gives you time to show the decel. The blind was a little late on the first clip which made the decel late. The 2nd clip was earlier so it was easier for her to read, plus on that 2nd clip you were able to keep your arms down which made the blind more visible too.
Turn and burn: click/treat to you and (Kathy) for having the line on the ground and the smaller cone to run towards! That set up great mechanics so Ember was able to do a great job. You get another click/treat for moving the line to a slightly harder spot but still being totally patient and letting her get to the line before doing the FC. Excellent!!!
The next steps on this game are to keep moving the line around, inch by inch, so that you can keep doing the FC earlier and earlier.
And you can add the cone to the handling games with the handling combos!
>Novel exciting was interesting. She only noticed the object going in one direction.>
This falls into the category of “dogs see everything” 🙂 If you watch your feet when she was on your right like at :12 and :32, you will see that you stepped directly towards the object. That made it look like you were indicating she should go towards it, like going towards the prop. Good girl!
When she was on your left, watch your feet – you never stepped towards it, you only moved past it, and she never went to it.So I don’t think she was making any impulse control errors: I think she was following the handling! So definitely stay further from the object so you don’t accidentally cue her to go to it 🙂
Rear crosses are definitely the hardest handling we have started with the puppies so far! She has a ton of value for the prop and is driving ahead really well!!! So then it was a matter of timing:
The first couple of reps at :04 , :13, and :26, were just a step late, so she didn’t see you on the new side to make the turn to the new direction.
The rep at :36 was on time and she got it! You were visible on the new side before she turned at the prop.
:45 a little late but she did get it
The last rep at :58 was fantastic – you were the very visible on the new side so she had no problem with the rear cross. YAY!! So definitely keep hustling to the new side like you did on that rep (and mix in some straight line reps so that she keeps driving ahead and not expecting a turn).Great job!
Tracy
Good morning!
It is really fun that you all have puppies at the same time!!! Overall, I think she did GREAT in a new environment with a ton of challenges!
>She’s at the Aussie phase where she wants to leave and check things out.>
Early adolescence! Plus, it is a really challenging environment there: so much visual clutter, smells, people, dogs, etc.
The pattern games are an excellent go-to in the new environments. You can see she was definitely attending to the things she could see and hear, which is totally normal. I am not sure she was ready to ‘work’ when the video cut to the barrel wrap – she was still looking around a lot, which means she still had questions about the environment.
When you started the barrel wrap, bear in mind the giant visual distraction of the jump on the other side of it and the people nearby – so try to limit the distractions by moving the blue jump there away from the barrel.
Ignoring distractions is a HUGE impulse control challenge so you can do one or two reps of ‘work’ then just go to play and pattern games on leash. Trying to do sessions like you would at home base will be challenging in a hard environment but keeping them short and then breaking them off to play and do the pattern on leash will help her out.
She did great with the prop!
When you were doing the tandem turns, I don’t think she could see your hands that well, plus you might have been too close to the prop so your motion overrode the hand cues. When she could very clearly see your hands and you were a little further away (like at 3:38) things went great!
On the parallel path game – she did a lovely job finding the jump setup!
Bearing in mind how hard the environment is, I think the pile of toys on the ground and the leash near the parallel path setup makes things harder and not easier. She might not run to it, but she was looking at it an going around the jump a bit at the beginning. Once she got into the game, she did great! But you can clear the environment at the beginning. That will also make it easier to get back into tugging when you ask for it (because she was in ‘ignore it’ mode so it took a moment to get her back into tugging).Nice work here!
Tracy
Good morning!
>I had to go back to my journal from last year’s class to find my key for verbals. Am I right to assume it’s the left and right verbals?>
It might be 🙂 If you were using left & right to mean come all the way around the wing, then yes! But we work on left and right in a few weeks to mean “soft turn” of about 90 degrees, so your wraps might have been different and something like ‘dig’ or ‘check’.
He totally smoked you on the toy races here!, and you were hustling!! That is fantastic, especially with all of the distractions of the great big world 🙂 You can add a GO GO GO verbal to this game!
>I think I could have let Skizzle parade with the toy instead of grabbing it so quickly. But it seems much better in that Skizzle isn’t concerned with my being close.>
It depends on what his favorite version of the reward is: does he love to tug with you, or is the victory lap a preferred reward? You can mix in the victory lap with the tugging if that is what he loves – partially because it is fun 🙂 and partially because as you mentioned: we do want you to be close and driving hard without him being worried about that. He did NOT seem worried by it at all here, the game looked great!
Great job!
Tracy
Good morning!
>So, when you are rolling the treat between the front feet in backing up are you using any verbal marker?>
I was saying ‘yes’ to indicate the delivery would be from my hand, then the hand moved the cookie to where I wanted it to be.
>Also, with the diary do I put everything we do all day?>
Yes, just a general list or any observations. It does not have to be extensive.
> I’m terrible at notes and literally she’s entertained from 7 am until 7-8 pm. >
I use post its on the fridge, and I text stuff to myself – both are fast and easy, and don’t rely on me having to remember anything 🙂 Also, if she I entertained all day… build in times where she is not entertained and has stretches on her own even with you in the house. That can go a long way to helping at bed time.
>Each one brings new challenges!>
1000000% true!!!
Rocking horses:
It took a moment to get her to do the left turns but then things went really well! You were nice and precise with the mechanics and that helped her figure out how to do each cone, then 2 in a row. Yay!
>I think I was looking forward when she struggled with the left turn.>>
Possibly, and that is the harder side, but it could have also been simply because it was the harder side at the beginning. You got it going really well! The only spot I think you were looking ahead too soon was at 2:15 (she had a question there) when you were doing 2 in a row – you can keep your dog-side arm back longer, until she arrives at your side, then send forward.
You might have to leave the space between the cones to get the tugging going. Or, when she is regularly doing 2 in a row, play this with the toy and not with food as the reward.
She was adorable at the beginning, flying in to interact with the pile! Yay!
When she is in higher arousal (like right at the beginning) she seems to get her hind end on the stuff immediately. As soon as she gets more ‘thinky’ about it, you get a lot of front feet only. This might be partially because you have shaped 2 paws on stuff when you were not moving, and partially because it is easier & more comfortable for her.
> I needed to move around to get her to walk on stuff. I hope that was ok.>
Yes, moving around was good to do. Moving around definitely helped her get back feet on the stuff and you can also break things off more frequently to get her into higher arousal and keep her there. So after every 2 or 3 treats, break off to run around and play tug, then go back to the pile 🙂
Great job here!
Tracy
