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Good morning!
>Air conditioning for the win! We finally did a session of Turn & Burn in the house and he was WILD!>
Yes! He was very engaged and those were really high quality reps! Yay!
My only suggestion on those is to line him up and connect before the send even when he is wild – getting him to your side will help you make that eye contact. This is important on the right side in particular when he wanted to face you then self-barreled 😂 😆 You can even try a boring cookie to help with the lining up
>Then we switched to food in my hands and it was clearly less fun than the toy.I agree, the food reps were good but not as spicy as toy reps – were they right after the toy session? You might get more excitement with food if you use it first or in completely different sessions (different times of day, or different days).
For indoor a/c sessions, you can do multiple reps with the toy – 5 or 6 reps will be plenty! For outdoors, even if it doesn’t feel hot… it is hot. So maybe go for 1 toy rep then switch to cold food for a few more reps. His heat tolerance will build more but so will the heat, so we will be careful when training outside. I think the humidity also plays a role, so that might be part of why he gets hot even when the temperature don’t seem hot.
>Should I do a session of the handling combos inside next?>
Yes – FUN! And rocking horses (see below).
For the stays:
He is making very good progress with the stays here! And he seemed very happy to offer sits and stays 🙂To keep getting more duration, you can click later – move away a couple more steps, then click and throw the cookie. You can also replace. The click with the ‘catch’ word – they basically serve the same function except that ‘catch’ is more specific about where the cookie will be.
>to say catch before I throw the treat.>
Yes – you can say it at any point as you move away then toss the cookie.
>I feel like I need to do more of week 4. What do you think?>
You can mix things up a bit – since turn and burn is going really well, yo can look at the rocking horses in week 6. And all the handling games and prop games build on each other, so you can pick and choose based on what feels like fun 🙂 He is doing well with everything!
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
>Is there a shortcut to get to the end of the videos when posting the most recent one? Needless to say, each time it takes longer to scroll through all of the ones I have posted.>
The number of videos do make it a little longer to load – I will ask the tech folks if there is a way to reverse the order. The other option is to create a new “Rusty Part 2” thread for the 2nd half of the class 🙂
Excellent job with the get out game!
On the 2nd side (starting dog on left) you held the cue longer, keeping the arm in position and maintaining the eye contact. He was very confident with his responses on those reps! When you had him on your right for the first part of the session, you gave the cue then lowered the get out arm – on those reps, he went near the prop but didn’t interact with it as well and was looking at you more. So the arm cue staying visible longer really helped.
One suggestion: Since he did well with the ‘stay with me’ reps at the end, you can mix in a lot more of these balance reps throughout the session. That will challenge him to really watch and listen for the cues.
For the next steps:
>I think I need to take it into the garage where I can get more lateral distance and where my thrown treats don’t end up under stuff at the edge of the room like they were doing in my bigger room which is why I moved here.>
Yes – a bigger space will give you more room, and if the weather is cooperating you can take it outside. Adding more room makes thrown treats harder to see, so that is where you can use a lotus ball to deliver the thrown treats. It will add a little more time between reps but that is fine because the easy reward delivery will make up for it.
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
The ‘out’ game went really well! He responded brilliantly to the difference between the out and the not-out 🙂
Only one suggestion:
When you cue the out, look very directly at this eyes: the super direct eye contact will turn your shoulders to the line which ends up being a powerful and natural cue. Looking at the prop is not quite as strong as looking at him.He also did well with the serps! And the toy play added a nice element of fun and challenge – he had to ignore the to in order to get it 🙂 Super!
One suggestion: Try to get the serp hand in position separately from the release – you can extend it then quietly praise or wait a few heartbeats, then use your release verbal. I think you were saying ‘go’ but your normal release word will be more effective because ‘go’ means to go straight and we are turning him here.
For the next step, you can put the toy on the ground right below the reward hand – he will have to come in to the serp hand then go back out to the toy on the ground when you say ‘get it’. If the toy on the ground is really hard, you can start just by dangling it 🙂
>I was going to try removing the hand target when I realized how long we went. >
Good call, he was a little tired by the end. You will see the target fade itself out when the reward goes on the ground. He will start to side swipe the target as he does the serp in-then-out motion and that is GREAT! It is exactly what we will want as we start adding more motion.
>I know the toy play adds time and does make it longer but need to make sure I don’t over do it with him.>
If you are not recording, you can put on a pop song that you like and end the session when the song ends. Most pop songs are 3 minutes so it is perfect! It is hard to record with a song though because YouTube strips the sound out. Boooo! But that is when I set a timer on my phone.
>Question for retrieving. Dublin loves to retrieve his tugs but the harder items all of a sudden he is having trouble. I question if it is his teeth since he is losing more. Is it common for the to retrieve one type of toy but not others. Might be something I am doing.>
Yes, it is normal for dogs his age to retrieve certain objects and not others. I think you are seeing him in a sensitive stage where his mouth is ouchy. So you can skip the harder objects for now and come back to them later. If we put too much pressure on him now, he might lose his love for the harder objects which we definitely don’t want to do 🙂
Great job here!
Tracy
Yes – even one new place a week is good! And when his arousal level was higher, it was higher in a good way. His engagement and focus were sharpened! He didn’t look worried about the environment at all 🙂
Have fun!
Tracy
Welcome back! It was fun seeing you on Sunday!!!
I think Sól REALLY liked this course!! Wow! She is locking onto the lines brilliantly! When you tackle the lazy game, feel free to spread the distances out more and more 🙂 I am excited to see more!Tracy
Hello and welcome! It is really fun to see Copper playing these games!
Lazy game 2 and 3: He is finding the jumps indeed! Yay! Note how he is looking at you here, so we want to get him looking forward at the jumps and using only peripheral vision to watch you – ideally, he never turns his turn to look at you. When the dogs look forward at the jumps, they are faster, jump better, turn better, and don’t get mad at us LOL!!
So to do that, you can reward sooner: when he is committing to any part of the line, throw the cookie while he is looking forward and before he even gets to the jump, Spread out when you throw the cookie: sometimes for the last part of the line, sometimes for the beginning, sometimes the middle, etc – always trying for when he is looking forward.
And it is worth re-visiting the Part 1 game, to get him looking forward there too. That is a great setup to reward early so he is looking forward for all of it.
He seemed to really like the lazy game adding the tunnel! Fun!! We can get him looking at you less here too and barking less -the barking is generally a signal from the dogs that they are mad about something. I think he was saying that the connection was not clear enough here. So while he did stay on the line, he was also giving feedback, good boy!
A couple of examples where you can increase connection by looking at him more:
– on the sequence from :22 -:25, you were looking forward and pointing at the line but not looking at him. He was barking and he also hit the wing of the middle jump.
– At :35 he exited the tunnel and stopped for a heartbeat to look at you before proceeding (you were looking ahead and pointing ahead) He got the line but was watching you instead of the line.So with this lazy game setup, try moving along the line (rather than sending) and don’t say anything or point at anything… just look at his eyes. It will feel weird and you will be cursing me hahaha If you are connected to his eyes and moving, he will actually look at the jumps better (and you can throw the reward while he is looking ahead). And I bet he barks less!
The contact setup looks good! He was doing a 2o2o here on the dog walk… but looking at you 🙂 That is going to be a big Copper goal: getting him to understand things so independently that he doesn’t need to look at you (and it will be built into Bandit’s training :))
Since he was doing the 2o2o here – have you decided on a 2o2o on the dog walk? Or do you want to do the running dog walk?
The 2o2o on the dog walk is easier to train and easier on their body. But the running dog walk is a thrill, for human and canine! And we can set up the training so it is not hard on him (only hard on the humans LOL!) And it is definitely possible to have a running a-frame and a 2o2o on the dog walk and teeter. Let me know and we will be ready to start!Great job here!
Tracy
HAPPY BIRTHDAY BOKEH!!!!!!! 🎉🎂🍰🤩
Welcome back! I hope she is getting amazing treats and toys for her birthday (I am sure she is :)) I am excited to see her play these games!
Tracy
Hi!
He was a very good boy here! He did find the jumps -ideally he doesn’t look at you as much, but that will come easily in the future.
The lazy game is probably the only MaxPup 3 level game he can do – mainly because he is just too young in terms of brain development and physical development and there will be too much turning using joints and soft tissue that are not developed enough yet. You are going to be sooooo tempted to do them, especially the wing games or handling games, soooooo tempted! LOL!! He is so fun and fast and keen to play! But it is my job to remind you to resist and go very stepwise at this age and at this early stage of training so that when he is old enough for MP3 games, he will find them super easy 🙂 and will transition to running sequences & courses brilliantly 🙂T
Hi!
I am stomping my feet now: I wanna go to the beach in NZ!!! I am very jealous 🙂 He was so great here! The leash off engagement was fabulous. Sitting (and the stay was hard too) was a little harder because something caught his attention but he played with AND brought the toys back. What a good boy! He was super keen to play with you: his arousal was definitely higher, probably close to where it would be at an agility trial, but he was fully engaged.
Looking at the shpile video:
>He’s much more careful than my other two. I think they have more value for targeting all the things with their feet so felt more confident flinging themselves over things.>
The arousal level was nice and high from the tugging! I think he appeared careful here because the cookies were coming too quickly – you were throwing them before he offered behavior on the shpile, so it looks like he thought the behavior was ‘look at the pile and a cookie will appear from above’ 🙂 So for the next session: get him wild with the toy again, but then wait: let him offer behavior of getting on something in the pile then toss a treat. So he will make the first move on all the things in order to get the treat to come out 🙂
He was so cute in the beginning of the backing up video, trying to line up from behind you then smacking you with his foot LOL! When he got going, the session went really well! Your timing was good! If you can keep your cookie hands lower, you will get more backing up. Lifting his head up inhibits the backwards motion – but if you can keep your elbows n your legs and kind of dangle the cookie hands a bit, that might be the perfect head position for him (because he is going to look at the cookie hands :)) and will make for quick cookie tosses here too.
Great job!
Tracy
Hi!
>He seemed to be pretty much the same there as he has been other locations. No tells that he’s feeling unnecessary stress. Not taking the treats any differently, and>
Nice! I mean, we know that biologically his brain and body are processing all of this but wow, what a natural resilience (in terms of phsyiological balancing) and engagement. Love it!
> still working happily just for his puppy kibble that we use for most of his training.>
OMG working for his normal kibble in that environment… I love it!!!
>He also really enjoyed when we ended up on that overhang platform right over a set of weaves that dogs were blasting through. He thought that was super fun.>
Ha! Cool view from above!!!
>On the competition floor when we were wrapping the barrels, I definitely did clock the puppy doing the restrained recalls. And I noticed on the one barrel send that they were going to basically pass by each other. I wasn’t actually worried about it at all. When Vibe is focused on working, he doesn’t easily get distracted.>
Awesome! Vibe didn’t even bat an eyelash.
> I figured worst case the puppies might try to say hi to each other, but they are both very social so I wasn’t worried that it would be any kind of an issue.>
It was actually a great training moment for both puppies. Those opportunities are rare and t hey were great!
>I taped a tiny bit of hanging out and just doing some pattern games while they were doing one of the awards ceremonies on Saturday.>
Funny small world – the dog in the background at the very beginning of the video is my Elektra’s brother 🙂
He was such a good boy here! He was so focused that he was almost startled by the other dog walking behind him at 1:02-ish. But he also seemed very relaxed, as if award ceremonies happened all the time in at home in his living room 😂🤣 Great song in the background too!
What tricks does he know? We can add all sorts of tricks to his repertoire so he has more stuff to do in different environments. After all, agility is really a series of crazy tricks 🙂
>Yesterday, as Challengers was ending, and before the finals ring was in use, we also played on the turf with a drag toy. He was happy to interact with it and chase it and tug on it. I didn’t have anyone available right then to do any restrained recalls, and there was a bit much going on to try and do that. But he did enjoy playing with the toy there.>
Fantastic! He is really such a dream in these different environments!!!!
Keep me posted on your drive home!
Tracy
Hi!
Yes, he was really focused here, good boy! I was distracted by the water behind you, looks lovely!
The wrapping went really well.
He was confused on the first rep where he wrapped the barrel then you said YES! He thought you were rewarding 🙂 But then things got very smooth and he did realyl well! My only suggestion is to make connection and look at him longer as he is finishing each wrap. You can look at him til he just about gets to you, then send him (and shift your gaze to the barrels).You can add a bit more distance between the barrels (2 or 3 feet) and then add more of your motion. That challenges you to stay connected and challenges him to continue to commit to the barrel.
The get out went great! He had no questions about the balance reps versus the ‘get out’ cues. Really super!!! You can use ‘get out’ as the release verbal so the info comes even earlier. And your line of motion was spot on! You can add more distance between you and the prop, maybe another 3 on 4 feet, to see how far away he will send to it. You’ll need ery direct eye contact as you do the get out cue for that, so remember to make a big connection there too.
Great job with these!
Tracy
Hi!
The pattern game at the beginning was a great way to help him work throughall of the delightful smells! The wind was probably causing the cookie smells to swirl around which might bave been catching his nose You can also add in playing with a toy: that will sharpen his focus even more outdoors because it increases arousal in a good way.
Once he got moving, he did great! Lovely commitment! And that is why toys can help sharpen focus: they get the pups moving and pumped up to work. When you went back to the cones after tugging, he was going faster than ever even though the cones were further apart and we wouldn’t blame him if he was tired by that point in the session.
> I believe my lack of connection with him/looking at the cone is the cause for the miss.>
Yes, in only 2 spots. It is subtle: you looked forward a step too early, so he had a question at 1:56 and 4:13. Compare to the next reps at 2:11 and 4:30 where you adjusted to connect to him for a step or two longer, and he had no questions on those reps. Yay! You had clear connection on the other reps, so he did really well.
You can add in more distance so you are working on running more 🙂 He will love that!
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi!
>Scotch is out for a couple weeks due to a nasty fall off the dog walk. Ugh!>
Oh no 🙁 That darned dog walk!!!!! Ugh. I hope he feels better asap.
Phire was very happy to go back and forth on the mat 🙂 The first few reps put her into a bit of a zen food zone so I am glad you got her on the toy! Since she is hitting the mat with no problem, let’s spice thing up and get her running more while keeping the skill independent of your motion:
Instead of being near the mat, let’s change your position so you are about 10 feet from the mat, in line with it: it will be you then the mat then the MM which can be further away too. Start each rep with tugging on the toy. Then send her away from you to the mat – and when she hits it, click the MM like you did here. After she gets her cookies, you can call her back to you and the toy by being a bit off to the side so she doesn’t have to go back over the mat (no worries if she chooses the mat anyway :)) Then tug again, then send, etc. That will get her super pumped up and even more independent. Because there will be more tugging and running, she might tire out more quickly so you can keep the sessions shorter.
The parallel path went really well too – going towards the MM was super easy of course, but she was equally as perfect moving away from it for the thrown reward! Super! You had good lateral distance here, so another step to play with is getting close to her while she is getting the reward and waiting – then start moving when she finishes the treat, she should drive ahead of you to the jump. You can also use a throw toy as the reward.
Great job!
Tracy
