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Hi!
>giving me a heads up on what’s coming up – age wise – and what to do in this stage of life. >
I think that all puppy owners need a heads up about adolescence as well as a support group LOL!!
> We have company coming soon from Germany, my niece, her husband and 7 y/o daughter. >
FUN!!! That sounds wonderful!
The get out is going well!
>I feel like I was mushing every thing together. Moving, tossing and saying Get out all at once smh!>
It does have a lot of different things to do with arms/feet/ etc! It will feel less weird if when cueing the get out, you can start ahead of her which makes it easier for her to see the cues (starting with her makes the cue a little late). So having her in a stay or throwing a cookie pretty far from you can give you a nice head start.
You can let her hit the prop then throw the treat after she hits it. That will mean watching her more as you cue the get out – the connection very directly to her really helps turn your shoulders to the prop. Staying in motion as you threw the reward was really good because it helped you keep your feet straight rather than stepping to the prop.
She was SO CUTE at :52 on the first balance rep when she went to the prop but you didn’t use the get out. The look on her face said that she didn’t even know NOT going to it was an option LOL!! You used a release on the next reps and she did well coming with you on the balance reps after that.
Great job!
Tracy
Hi!
These sessions went really well 🙂
The first video was handling combos:
The hardest part was getting him to find the start cookie so you could get away to do the blind! He was so tuned into you that on the first few reps, he drove to you as soon as you started running for the blind. Then the rep at :58-1:04 and the last rep were both gorgeous! He actually found the cookie and you snuck away 🙂 which gave you plenty of time do the blind. Nice job decelerating to get the pivot – and he was great about driving ahead to the thrown toy. You’ll see that this game gets added to a cone/barrel wrap so if he is happy to wrap, you can move ahead to that.Looking at the prop video:
Wow, what a huge improvemen with his prop commitment! He was hitting it brilliantly from a distance and outdoors. Super!! He was also really hilarious too – he was starting without you when you were trying to take a moment to get ready for the next rep LOL!! Ha! Good boy 🙂But he did really well with the cues and was lovely with the prop hits. By 1:48 and also on the last rep, you were already able to be moving the other direction while he continued to the prop. Yay!
He really wants to turn to his right on these even when that means turning away from you. To help him turn to his left, you can be a little further from the prop in terms of lateral distance. It will be kind of a triangle where the prop is in line with him but you are a few feet off to the side. That way it will be easier for him to turn to his left as well as his right.
He looks ready for the parallel path game and the other prop games if you haven’t tried them yet 🙂
>On a side note, do you have any suggestions on him wanting to chase every single car he sees? He’s driving me crazy with this! Or a good place to get information on it?>
Yes, a baby BC wanting to chase cars… they are very tuned into motion! A couple of ideas to start with – but first a question: will he eat treats on walks or when there is a car nearby? You can try amazing treats, like chicken or meatballs. If he will eat – I recommend the pattern games that are here:
You might need to be further from the cars, as far away as possible, to get him to eat and start this.
If he won’t eat, you can try using 2 toys and make a pattern game with toys! Here is a clip of this:
There are other resources if these don’t help. Let me know how he does.
Great job here!Tracy
Good morning!
> Yes this was the 1st time he wrapped those cones.
What a good boy!!!
> Do you think I am good to move outside and further apart?>
Yes – if you go outside, keep them close for a rep or two in case the environment radically changes things. But if it goes well, add the distance.
Have fun!
Tracy
I am excited to get him going here!!! The very first games coming tomorrow work on forward focus (not momma focus 🙂 ) These boys do love their momma but we really need them to take the jumps!
Tracy
It sounds like he did great!!! And it makes sense that finding the tunnel when you run was hard… I don’t think we’ve shown him that yet. It was really cool that you got to work on it!!
And he is NOT naughty 🙂 he is spicy and joyous and brings a smile every time. What a good boy and a successful day!
Tracy
Hi!
>Am I moving my hand too fast and surprising them? Sorry about the loud chicken noises>
The chicken noises were great 🙂 They were cheerleaders!
Yes, I think your hands moved a little too fast so she was surprised. You can let her get almost all the way to your hands, then start the turn away. Think of the turn away as a slow motion move as she follows your hands. The deceleration tips her off that it is coming, and slow hand movement gets the turn. It gets easier as they get more experienced but she is a youngster so needs the cues to be very obvious for now 🙂
Great job on these!
Tracy
Hello!
Looking at the sequence:
The turn of your shoulders/feet at :20 to set up the turn away for the next jump was SPOT ON! Great timing! You started it as she was taking off for the previous jump – click/treat for you!She came in to the correct side of the jump really well. To set up the turn away, you can let her see the outside arm a little more visibly (even using both arms to catch her eyes to ready for the turn away) to turn her away. But definitely keep that timing of setting the line, you absolutely nailed it!!
Tracy
Hi!
He was great about getting on the bowl and immediately pivoting! Good boy!!! The rest of the pivoting went great – I think he is ready for the next steps here.
There are 2 next steps you can use:– put low bumps or pool noodles on the ground for him to step over as he pivots. Start with one thing and if he is happy with that, add a second thing to step over.
– you can challenge him to pivot by himself without you moving. You can stand squared up to the bowl and toss treats to the side and slightly behind you. He will run to get them, then pivot back around to face you (hopefully :))
Strike a pose also went really well! You can add next steps here too: you can toss your start cookies to different angles so he can come to the target hand from different directions. And you can put the reward on the floor under your reward hand here so you don’t have to turn to it: he can come in and touch the target hand then go directly to the reward.
>I continue to struggle with getting Tribute to switch between food and a toy. If I start with a toy, he is much better. However, as soon as I introduce food, it gets messy.>
This is definitely the hard part! You can do food-only sessions where you use a start cookie and the reward target is a food bowl that you drop a treat into. And you can try to include the toy in other sessions: tug like crazy then toss a boring treat, then drop the toy on the ground as the reward target. It might be awkward and you ight need 3 hands 🙂 but it can help get him pumped up for the toy even when food is present.
Looking at the teeter: I agree, he was pretty confident here! Yay!
The tip of the teeter seemed to be pretty minimal here when he was coming down, but it was still a bit big when he got on it at the end in the unplanned last rep, so you probably need to hold him as you turn the camera off so he doesn’t do anything crazy LOL!And separately from the teeter, you can teach him his end position so you don’t need to be next to him. You can use a cato plank with a target taped to the end of it so he goes to the end of the board and moves into a down on the target. Then it will be really easy to teach the teeter position independently!
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi!
Very fun to be able to get some training time in with him! I have been following the Invitational from afar and the courses seem, um, challenging LOL!Wow, he did great with all the stuff on the overhang! You got about a zillion short blasts of different games and he was great with all of them. He seemed totally at home in hat loud, weird environment. Out of curiosity, did you feel any difference in how he was taking the treats – harder? Or normal? On there exterior and baed on his responses, he was unbothered by it all LOL!
All of the flatwork looked great – the patterns, the turn aways, I think I saw a bit of strike a pose, backing up – all going well! Pretty much same-as-home, which is fantastic!
Fun to have the rear view of the backing up. He was splaying his back feet a bit, possibly because you were low so he was getting low too. You can try being more upright, maybe bending over to deliver the treats You can also add a target for him to back up onto to he has a destination for the feets – it can even be a low dog bed, something easy to put out there.
I loved his Parkour moment on the weird wobble board that Galican has! I wish the vendor area was not so slippery for the dogs but it was smart to use Galican’s stuff 🙂 He was hilarious, pulling you back to it after a little break 🙂 The pattern game looked strong too! He just really seems so at home in that environment. Yay!
He seemed very comfy down on the competition floor too. How convenient that they set up the trap barrels for the rocking horse game 😂 😆 As soon as he recognized the barrels: GAME ON! And all the people wandering around/talking to you provided a fantastic distraction. It always cracks me up when people are working their puppy and someone starts talking to them LOL! And a nearby puppy blasting into a recall – he totally stayed engaged through it all. Did you see the puppy doing recalls while he was doing rocking horses towards the end? Good boy Vibe!
If there is a quiet time tomorrow on the turf… try a long crazy toy with small parts that he can fit in his mouth 🙂 Maybe someone can hold him for a recall, if he is comfy with that? It would be fun to see if he can chase a toy. And if he says “no” you can go back to food.
Great job here! Hope your runs are going great! I saw one yesterday and Ripley showed so many amazing skills!!!
Tracy
Good morning!
>I really loved your lecture on Resilience Game: Decompression & Completing the Stress Cycle. During our training session I’ll end an exercise with a scatter and often give Sunnie a break to just wander in the room. Sometimes we play a little fetch or personal play and then lately I have been ending the training session with a snuffle ball.>
I am so glad you liked it and that you are already incorporating so much!! Another thing to consider as she enters adolescence is that if you have a particularly intense period of training or activity in general, giving her a day or two off of anything formal or structured is great for resilience. Wandering and sniffing, romping in the yard… all of that is a great way for her nervous system to regulate and reset. My 2 year old dog is going to have an intense training weekend today and tomorrow, so Monday and Tuesday will be recovery days where he can go on walks with me, sniff, chew, etc.
Sunnie did a GREAT job working outside in these sessions!
Strike a pose went really well! One of the goals of taking the games outdoors is to see if it looks the same as it does indoor, and it did! Yay!
She had one blooper of going directly to the reward hand so you made the target hand more obvious after that and she had no questions except for the rep where she released right before you released (1:29) and so it was not as smooth for you both.
You did just enough stay to get it going outside, then it was smart to move to the cookie tosses before her brain got tired of staying 🙂
The next step is to have the reward on the ground (empty for bowl to drop the treat into, or a Manners Minder, or a toy) so that you can keep your shoulders in strike a pose position and she goes to the next line without you turning your shoulders forward at all.
The rocking horses also went well – did you stuff uprights in them so they wouldn’t blow away? Clever!
Connection is key on these –
The single wraps went really well when you were connected before the send.In the moments when she didn’t zip right to the barrel, it was because she didn’t see the connection clearly. When you did a touch then sent to the barrel, the connection was not as clear so she was not sure of what to do (:32). One some of the reps where you sent to barrel #2, she needed to see more connection before the send. At 1:42, for example, you turned forward before connecting so she looked up at you for more info. When she found the barrels easily, you looked at her eyes as she caught up to you then sent her.
>At :40 sec I had cookies in my hand so I distracted her a little >
Some of this was a connection question, but some of her questions were about when the cookies were available for eating 🙂
I think clarifying markers will help her know where to look: you said ‘yes’ at :38 and the cookie hand was moving, so she thought it was cookie time. This is a good place to use your cookie markers (like ‘snacks’) which indicate that you are rewarding and not continuing.>About half way thru I used my verbal wrap cues – hope that was OK!>
Yes! That was great – it also added more connection and she knew it was the barrels not the cookie. Super!
She also did a great job with finding the jump on the parallel path game!!! Yay!
>However after watching my video I see why a clicker would have been better than me just tossing cheese for her Get It, along with my movement or non movememt! She looked at me alot, my mechanics need to be better- eeek!>
Now that she is fully focused outside, we can get her looking forward more. The click tends to get the pups looking at us a lot so keep going with the get it marker. But, you can now do it sooner: when she looks at the jump and begins moving towards it, say get it and throw the reward. That marks looking at the line and then the reward will land before she looks back at you.
The markers were happening here when she arrived at the jump, which is the way we start to get the pups knowing what we want. And since there is nothing else to look at when she gets to the jump, she looks at you 🙂 So since she is finding the jump easily now, we shift the timing to mark & throw when we see commitment to the jump (it will feel EARLY but that is correct :)) You can also throw something bigger like a toy or giant food chunk – fewer reps will happen but they will be super high quality because she can see the reward better.
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
Good boy, he got right into the wrapping of the new cones! Was this the first time he had wrapped them?>Sorry not the best video since missing my face.>
We can tell from his responses where you are looking. I think you had great connection in general, he had almost zero questions.
The only real question he had was at :30. We can’t see your face but we can see your shoulders & feet, which are turned away from the cone because you were looking forward at the cone and not at him.
Compare to 1:09, for example , and all of the successful reps- the connection was clear even though we couldn’t see your eyes – we could see your shoulders pointed clearly to the line.
>but then I lost him after he hit the cone.>
This moment at 1:38 was actually just as important as all the other reps, in terms of resilience and recovery from the unexpected! He slipped, hit his foot, the cone made a loud noise, it distracted him, then he found fun stuff in the garbage 🙂
The handler response in these moments is what makes or breaks the learning. You did a GREAT job whipping out the pattern game then getting back into the cone wraps, and playing tug as the reward. Then ending the session. SUPER! Smart training moments like that make a big difference and are more important than just wrapping the cones. High five to you!!
For the backing up – he does best when he starts on the object, then comes forward, then back up onto it. The first rep on the cato board was set up like that and he was great, only needing one step back up onto the board! Then when he was sorting out how high to lift his back feet, he was not on it & further away so he kind of lost the plan 🙂
To get more distance nd stepping a little higher added, a two-pronged approach:
– Since the Catos are a little higher, you can reward with his back feet on them then only lure him one step off. Keeping him closer to the taller object for now should make it easier for him to step back up onto it.. And sitting might also help, so the picture will be the same as he is used to and the only variable that changes will be the height of the target behind him.– For more distance, using the purple pads like you did at the end will be easier! You can keep moving your seat further and further away.
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
>The barrels are now 12 feet apart and I am standing more upright.>
He did really well with the added distance! And you being more upright hopefully felt easier for you too 🙂 You can add more distance, bit by bit, and send more (run to the barrels less).
>Rusty is still a bit too interested in the whereabouts of the food. >
I think there were a couple of things in play here when he was looking at your hands:
On the reps where there was a lot of connection in the form of eye contact as you were sending him, he went to the barrels really well, no stopping to look at your hands.
When you were not quite connected because you were looking ahead and pointing ahead to the barrel – that is when he was looking up at your hand more. On those reps, you could probably see him peripherally but because you were pointing ahead to the barrel, your shoulder was closed forward and blocking the connection (also subtly turns out shoulders away from the line we want). And that causes dogs to look up at us. Young dogs are really sensitive to that!
So to show connection more, you can handle with your eyes more than your hands 🙂 As you are sending him to a barrel, look pretty directly to his eyes and point your hands to his nose, letting your hand travel with his nose. That shows the line to the barrel and he will find the barrel on his own.
As you work out the connection (which gets easier as he gets more experienced):
– We don’t need precision rewards for this game, so you can handle with empty hands and pull out the reward after a good rep!
– When the food is in your hand, you can clarify when the reward is actually available with a marker specifically for that 🙂 If it is general praise, he might keep looking at the cookie because the delivery might happen at any moment 🙂 because the hand position looks similar. But if you have a marker such as “snacks!” then he will look at the ‘work’ better and not look at the food until he hears the magic marker word 🙂>I think the trial where I was saying ‘Go go go’ went more smoothly. I do think he responds well to verbal cues. What verbal cue should I be using most advantageously in this situation?>
The go go go rep also had more motion to the barrel, which helped support commitment. A wrap verbal will be a good choice there – it will help commit him and build up the wrap verbal understanding. The go verbal will mea straight line so we can save that for the parallel path games.
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi!
>Outside should be in quotes! Given the extended snow cover this winter (there are still two small piles in the driveway), this was Rusty’s intro to working outside. >
I think it was really brilliant that you split it into smaller pieces by starting kinda outside and not in the middle of a field 🙂 He did great with the inside the garage reps, and also did really well with the reps at the garage door!
He was not as crisp with his footwork on those reps – his back feet had a harder time precisely finding the cato board. Was it the new environment? Was it that the cato board did not have a wall behind it for the first time? This is a possibility too! But still it was a great session 🙂 and I bet next time he has more precision. When young dog brains are processing several things, their footwork might be less crisp the first time but then they sort it out with latent learning.
>I also inserted a Resilience Game (scatter) near the end. The two reps after that are notable!>
Yes! He loved the scatter and then was super pumped up for the last 2 reps. You can start the next outdoor session (for any game, not just backing up) with a quick pattern game/resilience game as that can set him into a great state of focus before going into the game.
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi!
>Me and Baz have a seminar this weekend. Eep>
Fun opportunity!!!
> instructor is a top nz handler and we’re in a group with someone who has made up a supreme champ and who is sequencing with their slightly older pup. Eeeep.>
No worries! The top handler is hopefully also a top instructor – and if not, you can set things up the way you want them to be 🙂 And Baby Baz is too young for real sequencing anyway – it is entirely possible that the other handler started waaaaay too soon! Letting your pup grow up and learn foundations about life, arousal, *retrieves*, etc are far more important than sequencing. The sequences will be EASY for him when we add them, no problem and no rush needed.
>I keep telling myself that comparison is the thief of joy and barry isn’t a borderpap.>
And the borderpap is not a poodle 🙂 If you wanted a borderpap, you would have gotten one LOL! And poodles are incredible agility dogs who often beat the borderpaps. Plus – Baz is too young for real sequencing, did I mention that already? So it will be fun to see the other dogs but you don’t need to be doing the same things.
I have an 11 month old puppy, and dogs his age are sequencing in agility AND also doing full flyball runs. But you know what? That is absolutely ludracris! Everything we know about their brains and bodies at this age tell us to slow down and they should not be doing anything ‘real’.
So any time those feelings of comparison creep into your head (because brains are annoying like that) just tell yourself that you are doing all the right things at the right life stages for your precious pup! And if anyone questions you about it, smile and tell them the exact same thing 🙂
> But you know how it is, my brain is dumb.>
Brains are so smart but also SO DUMB. I totally get it. Feel free to message me over the weekend if you need help telling your brain to behave itself LOL
>It is at club so a familiar environment and I’ll go down nice and early and do all the things you suggested from the videos with high arousal. Thank you for the reminders about pattern games..>
Perfect! And communicate with the instructor about his needs and what he knows/doesn’t know. If something feels like it will set him up for failure? Break it down. The main goal of the day is that he has a grand time in a challenging setting. All other things are less important than that! And if other really young dogs are running sequences already? I wish them well and hope their bodies and brains don’t burn out young. Bring his favorite toys, mind-blowing treats, and have fun!
T
