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Good morning!
>A bit of context, she is afraid of thunderstorms. >
Poor girl! It has been a hard summer with all of these storms!
>Her first round of the either/or sequences was filled with lots of visiting and looking super stressy, and 2 super slow runs.>
When dealing with fear, you will want to have a plan to get her pumped up and excited on simple stuff, or you will see the stress behaviors come up like happened here. And if you can’t get her pumped and excited to eat, do tricks, and run – then don’t run her so she doesn’t find herself in a state of stress or fear on course.
>Tried 1-2-3 as we went to startline, it didn’t help. Tried the acolyte dial tricks at startline, that didn’t help. >
Was she eating treats with excitement? That is usually the starting point: seeing if she can get really into a reward.
You might have to bring out incredibly high value reinforcement – it can be stuff she never gets (such as chunks of rotisserie chicken, or steak, or something from a classmate that is totally different from what she normally gets as a treat) or a tennis ball or something – and if she is still too worried to happily eat and do patterns and tricks, then that is when I would skip the run and figure something else out. We don’t want fear associated with agility!
>The second round (the one I am sharing here), while I do think she was still a bit stressy, we (my classmates and I) decided to do full on cheer leading while she was running. >
Yes, she was still stressy here especially at the start. Was she able to eat? That tells us a lot about the state of her nervous system in that moment. She did like the cheering and also I think getting her running released some feel-good endorphins so she was able to run.
One thing to consider is if she is stressed out about something: simplify the sequence so that there is no possibility of failure 🙂 Make it easy so she can just go fast fast fast – that will help break out of stress too!
She had an error here (your shoulders turned to the front side :51 when you wanted the backside) on the video and you were good about continuing – you don’t even need to mark it or tell her nice try, you can just keep going as if it was totally correct (because she was a good girl there, responding to cues).
So if you get into a stress situation again where she is showing fear, you will want to see if you can get her eating (with mind-glowingly yummy treats) and get her moving (a ready set go start is great for this), so she doesn’t carry any fear into the course.
Nice work here!
TracyHi!
>I love that video you shared! It is exactly what Scholar does. I am working on that and it is going good.>
Great! Keep me posted! It is pretty normal BC behavior 🙂 and I figured you could relate to it 🙂
>For some reason I was thinking these videos were going to be posted every 2 weeks like the first class so we were taking our time >We have some ‘easy’ weeks built on and extra time at the end, so no worries about getting it all done 🙂
I am super proud of his stay when you put the toy on the ground! He was like GAME ON but held the stay like a super good boy for the first two. He broke the 3rd stay, but we can blame it on the cat who was nearby haha. Reminding him to wait really helped.
When you play with this again, lead out a little further because we are going to add to it:
>I’m not sure if he is using his front feet to lift off.>
This grid is soooo easy for him right now – he is balanced and powerful, with good head position. The spacing looked good too. So with that in mind, we can make it harder and add some challenge for him.
I think he is 9-10 months old at this point? That means we can give him a bar to jump on jump 2. Start at 6” or 8” and see how it goes (being sure to lead out a little more so he has more room to land after the bar). We can see what he does and add more and more challenge, bit by bit 🙂The smiley face wraps after the tunnel went well! Because he is young and inexperienced, try to do it in smaller bits: wrap to tunnel, then reward. Then you can add wrap-tunnel-wrap then reward. That will help keep building up the value for finding the obstacles – right now the value is mainly on watching you, so more frequent rewards will help shift that. Also, with fewer obstacles, you will be able to maintain connection better – when the connection was not clear here, he was not sure what to do and you can see a bit of frustration behavior (jumping up on you). Keeping the sequences to 2 or 3 or 4 in a row then reward will help him look for the obstacles more and more. You were had 13 in a row here, which was too hard for him in these early stages 🙂
As he continues to build up his speed, you will want to use tunnel bags to keep the tunnel from moving 🙂 If you don’t have tunnel bags, you can buy them or you can save a lot of money and make them: I have used water jugs in plastic bags with the bags tied together to create tunnel bags, and I have also gotten bags of sand from Home Depot, covered them in garbage bags and tied them together (more garbage bags haha) for at-home tunnel bags 🙂
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi – this is an interesting series of videos, thanks for posting it! She is finding the lines really well and super fast, so the handling needs to be early and clear.
Having clean starts makes a HUGE difference. Having her sit and stay, even if you are working a small piece, is really important. Bring her in on a leash like you would at a trial, and line her up facing the jump you want her to take. Be SUPER consistent with this. A messy start where you fling her into a sequence makes the handling unclear so things go sideways very quickly.
She is definitely bitey when you are in her landing spot after backside, and I think I have figured out why it is happening MORE (not less) based on these videos.
In those spots, you have stopped moving and you are reaching your hands towards her (like at :06 on the 2nd video and some of the other backsides). This is coming from all the of times you were reaching for her and picking her up throughout the trainings here.
There is a pattern developing where after a handler error where she goes someplace you didn’t intend but accidentally cued: you stop, reach for her, pick her up. This is punishing to her, based on the behavior it builds: she was getting more and more frustrated, harder to catch, and more and more jumpy and bitey.
For example, on the 2nd video at :15 you picked her up. It was after it looked like you cued a few more obstacles after the backside. She allowed it but seemed confused. Then you picked her up again at :25 (after handler error) and also after handler error (sending her at the tunnel at :40 and :51) so she jumped up at you. She is allowing you to pick her up and pet her but I think that will ultimately backfire and create frustration/avoidance/biting in higher arousal situations.
Then you were in her way when she did get the backside, praised, put your hands there… she bit you. You reached for her and got some avoidance there
After 1:28 – now there is a toy involved and you were not stopping and reaching for her, so she was much better about not jumping up at you (or biting). The handling was unclear on the wrap jump at 1:58 ad 2:02 but she was much more willing to keep working because you were not stopping and petting her or reaching for her. The presence of the toy was a context cue that reinforcement was still available, which is good and also needs to be faded for trials.
3rd video: this is where we really see the fallout from your reaching for her to pick her up after a handler error.
She jumped up, you picked her up (:04)
You sent her off course, she came back to you and you picked her up again.
You sent her off course, she came back to you, you reached for her to pick her up again at :28 – she is now really frustrated and jumping up more and looks to be biting and refusing to be caught.The same happened at :45 – big jumping/biting and barking.
It was MUCH better to keep going :55-1:10! Much smoother and fast, no biting or jumping. She is doing her best to respond but can’t be correct without correct handling.
For example at 1:21, all of the physical cues said front of the jump and the verbal happened after she had committed to the front of the jump, so she took the front side. You stopped and reached for her (which she perceives as punishment) so she jumped up at you and bit at you repeatedly for 15 seconds until you brought the toy out
When you were trying to get the backside but did NOT try to pick her up, she kept working and trying (1:46 – 1:53). No jumping up or biting!
And look at the rest of the video: even when the starts were not clean, you kept going, did not reach for her or pick her up, and she kept trying and did not bite you.
So what is In Synch telling us? A bunch of important info!
For the harder skills, break it down and give her big connection. And if she fails – assume it was handler error and keep going to reward something.
You can also angle the jumps for the backside lines, making the backsides easier to find and the front sides harder to find. And adding wings to the backsides will help too!
If something goes wrong: do not reach for her to pick her up. It is punishing to her and it is resulting in more frustrating and biting, not less.
Instead of stopping or reaching for her, keep going and reward something else. Then look at the video to see why she went to the wrong line so you can make an adjustment for the next rep.
Keep super clean starts and line ups when you are starting a run or a sequence really helps! Be very consistent with these.
And separately, keep working on the remote reinforcement so she doesn’t rely on the context cue of a toy in your hand to help regulate arousal.
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Good morning! Lots of good stuff here!
Pop out 1 with Lift:
When she took the backside of the first jump: it look like it was because she was facing you in the stay then when she turned back to look at the jump, the change in position and your motion set her to the backside. Surprising? Yes! But keep going – stopping can be confusing for her because from her perspective that was the correct choice.
When you got going, the run looked really good!
>then the wheels fell off after so we free-styled to the leash.>
The freestyle moment was also really good LOL! You were saying tunnel, yes – but you had already turned to the backside of the jump at :37 when you started it so she was correct to follow the physical cue to find which tunnel you were talking about.
The tunnel cue was earlier at 1:06 (starting on the jump before the tunnel) but I think you can actually start a ‘go tunnel’ verbal and acceleration as soon as she exits the wrap/spin. She doesn’t need a jump cue there (that might actually promote a bit of collection) and starting a big GO TUNNEL can get her powering up the line to the tunnel even sooner.>Experimenting with her jumping into my arms since she has been getting good about that in contexts outside of agility and I’d like her to be comfortable with it after a run as an option to get to our treats quickly incase it’s very busy outside the ring. >
I do like the jumping-in-arms end of run thing!
>She wants to to drive to the leash first before jumping up >
You can isolate it from agility at first: in the house or anywhere she likes to jump in your arms, you can have the leash present on the floor. Then have her jump in your arms, give her a treat, then either put her down to go to the leash or put the leash on when you are holding her (then more cookies of course 🙂 ) Then it can be chained: jump into arms, then to the leash immediately, then cookies. Then extend the distance, add obstacles, and so on 🙂 I think if she realizes that jumping into your arms is basically an Uber that gets the leash and cookies faster, she will be very happy to jump into your arms 🙂
It was interesting to see her reaction to Dean wearing the hat in the video! She got over it pretty quickly because she was able to go over and assess that it was no big deal – so the rest of it went really well! You can enlist friends and family to appear at different parts of the course, especially after the final jump.
>Bit of Lift critique on my poor handling for 12-13 >
That is a good freestyle moment 🙂 At 1:09, you were facing the jump she took so the verbal did not override it. You did keep moving but the change in body language and verbal indicated that it was not quite right. So go full-on freestyle mode so that she thinks it was entirely correct (because she was :)) Any indication that it is a ‘fix’ makes it too hard to regulate arousal when you are also challenging her with environmental distractions we don’t want the rehearsal of jumping up.
>Kaladin did Jpg Popout #3 with me running closer in – got a bit more extension…I think – unfortunately I either didnt’ start the video or my older phone succumbed to gremlins. >
Yay for more extension, boo for not getting it on video!
>(old one mostly works except for not having enough space and being out of support as of a few months ago),>
It seems like there is a magical spell on phones that the issues begin when they go out of support LOL
>it’s stressing me out to compare phone plans & trade in offers even though I already know I want a newer Samsung Galaxy. >
Thanks to accidentally smashing my phone in a truck stop parking lot at 10pm on a Sunday night heading home from the US Open, I have the newest Samsung Galaxy and I can highly recommend it! The camera is awesome 🙂 and they gave me full trade in for my older smashed phone so the new one didn’t cost me anything.
>And we are debating getting Fiber to replace overpriced Xfinity/comcast. I>
I got fiber and it has been life changing!
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
You and Rex ran this really well!>Knocked bar at 5. Did a retry of the sequence with success. >
The wrap cues were a little late at :13 – you were moving to the wing for longer than you needed to, and then you can move forward as soon as he is past you (do the blind at some point after you move forward). Staying there kept you in his way when landing so he dropped his feet on the bar. He kept it up on the 2nd run, but you can still trust his commitment and move forward as soon as he passes you (but maintain connection by looking back behind you to guarantee commitment 🙂 )
Some small details:
Adding in calling him before he goes into tunnels when there is a turn after it, like at :15 and :35. You were calling after he was in the tunnel, which delays the response because he can’t really hear the cue and can’t see the handling cue. So doing all of that before he enters (when he is about 2 meters before entering) will get nice tight turns on the tunnel exits.>Because I cannot move too far away as he is weaving, I stayed to the right of 10 with a push to backside at 11.>
That worked well to get the 11 backside! You don’t need to do the blind on 11, you can do a RC on the landing side to show the line to 12. The bar was down there at :28 but he might have dropped it due to your position between. The uprights if he had to jump. And a rear cross here wouldn’t put you far behind on the next line (which looked really strong!)
Another option for the line after the weaves is to keep him on your left and do a threadle slice at 11. That is a strong skill for you and Rexx and can put you way ahead for the next line.
Wrapping to the right on 18 definitely set up a lot of speed to 19-20. For him, since he turns really well, you can stay more on the landing side of the 18 jump which shortens the yardage from 17 and still gets a great turn. You were on the takeoff side at :39, which adds yardage and shapes the turn – I don’t think he needs the turn shaped there so you can stay a little more on the landing side of 18 (many dogs struggle to make that turn so they would need the handler to be on takeoff side).
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi!
>She ran last and there was a long distance from the last jump to the leash so we were running for about 30ft with her jacked up from the run and were almost to the leash when the bar setter popped out of their chair in front of us and maybe 5ft off our line and sprinted past us to go set jumps to the next height. >
I can see that would be hard. And it is a hard thing to recreate at home other than convincing Dean to suddenly walk across the yard then eventually run across the yard. If you have access to a class or a couple of group ring rentals, maybe you can get other people involved as over-helpy ring crew?
>it would have been hard for me to scoop up Lift, spin Kaladin out of the way and drop-kick the screaming thing all at the same time. I managed the first 2 as I was hustling to the other side of the street to get further away.>
OMG that sounds far more startling than any of us want to encounter!!
Looking at Kaladin’s pop outs:
>Option 3 (wrap then slice) ended up the fastest even when I tighted up the line 2 to 3. >
Yes, both lines looked good and the wrap-to-slice was definitely faster. Good to know!!
>Then did popout 3 with 2 options for 12-14 >
For this pop out, you can drive closer to the line at 1:16-1:20 & 1:40-1:46. By staying lateral where there is no place to go, you decelerate and he reads that and adds collection strides. So it would be interesting to see if there is a time difference if you drive closer to the wings of the jumps there so you are cueing extension.
>and interestingly the BC to an inside wrap was a bit faster for him.>
Shorter distance for the win? And also it will be even faster if you are a bit further across the bar for the jump before it – you were blocking his line a little on the way to the wrap so that added a little yardage there. Subtle differences but totally worth it because it all adds up on bigger courses.
Great job!!
TracyGood morning!
>I need to learn about and try the cookie-free patterns and experiment with the ready-set-go-start. >
It is free with this class, here are instructions for accessing it:
How To Register For Your FREE Access To The Agility Launch Sequence Webinar!
>This is where you can also give him the full length of the toy, especially at the start, to let him chase it and engage with it.
I was so proud that I brought a really-long toy! 😉 Yes – if I remember and get coordinated, I can try leaving him a much longer piece of the toy to play chase with! Pretty sure he will still bite it close to my hands>He might still want the part closer to your hands (dogs are weird like that 😂) but you’ll be more upright so there is less pressure and also it makes it easier to move the toy away from him to elicit tugging.
>When is the next FEO planned?
I’m not 100% sure when it will be. Possibly early October – probably not before then, unfortunately.>Great! Gives us plenty of time!
>I like this. I think Skizzle is making good progression with these…just need to work towards that eventual understanding that rewards are outside the ring at the end. >
Yes, this is probably the most important part of transitioning to competition – we can start it at home for sure. Are there any training opportunities locally you can take him to, to help him learn about new locations?
>Fortunately, I think he really enjoys the agility game, so the work itself is reinforcing. >
Yes – that is the ultimate goal: agility itself is reinforcing so the cues to do agility are super fun! That helps fade the food & toys out of the ring.
>I’ve also been thinking that I need to train the leash off – and tugging the leash after it’s picked up to exit.>
The leash off game is super fun and easy to train. Tugging on the leash at the end of the run might be more about how he is feeling: he might be ready for a food reward or decompression at that point and not want to tug. He will let you know!
Tracy
Hi!
>Todays video is fusion as In Synch didnt manage to focus in this session she was just driving and not listening at all. >
Fusion was also really ramped up at the beginning! There is a lot of barking in the background and maybe that is why In Synch had trouble processing the cues? You can break things down so they are simpler to see if it is environmental distractions drawing bandwidth away from her ability to follow cues.
Try not to turn towards her to get her to come in on jumps 2 and 3 (:07 – :11, :31-:33), that delays you from running forward to the next line and giving the next turn cue. You ran forwards more on the last rep and that made for a smoother line.
Also, remember that running backwards reads the same as running forwards to dogs, so they tend to stay on the line in extension. That is what she kept going in extension at :33 – you were rotated but moving backwards. When you were running forward on the last run, you were much more easily able to get the threadle without rotating or yelling at her.
Let her see you rotate into the FC before she goes into the tunnel at :16 (at least 2 meters before she enters the tunnel) and same timing for the verbal cue there. She didn’t know she was supposed to turn and didn’t see connection or motion, so things came off the rails.
You had more decel at :42 and I think you had a verbal before she went into the tunnel (hard to hear). That got a better turn plus you had better connection when she exited, so she saw the line better at :45. The last rep was the best where you definitely had the verbal and rotation going while she was still 2 meters away from the entry – nice timing there!!!
Great job!
Tracy
Hi!
Poor Casper! I am glad the nail is the only thing broken. I am sure it will heal quickly.
And thank you for the ‘hors de combat’ phrase! I have never heard it before but it most certainly fits life with whippets who are frequently showing up with some new wound earned when the wind blows extra hard or they do something ridiculous 😂
Enzo stepped in beautifully. The threadle on jump 3 looked great and was VERY independent!
The teeter was indeed a bit weird for him. Maybe you were too quiet, or he saw you looking ahead, so he questioned if he was correct to be there? Definitely not his normal teeter.
The threadle before the a-frame looked great and so did the line to the weaves.
You can send to the 9 tunnel from the weave exit so you don’t go past 10 at all, making it even easier to get the threadle on takeoff side of 10 (which worked great and put you in a good spot for 12-13). You worked kinda hard to get there and I don’t think you need to do anything more than hang back on the send to the tunnel.
To get the threadle wrap at 13 – turning him before he took off for 12 helped a lot! You don’t need to rotate towards him as much: You can turn him on 12 and turn parallel to the intended line to the threadle wrap, then flick him away. That will get you facing the next direction (RDW!) even sooner. These threadle wraps are happening before the dog walk a LOT lately and the earlier you can face the correct direction, the faster you can get across the field and support the DW exit so he gets more than a toe nail in 🙂
To tighten up the line on the serp on 18 at :53 – you can open up your shoulders to face the jump with the trailing arm (left arm here) hanging back to see if you can keep moving to 19 so he can adjust his takeoff to be turning over 18. You stayed at 18 til he took off straight towards you so he landed long and had to adjust on the flat after landing. Ideally you would be past 18 (but showing serp cues) as he is adjusting to turn to 19 before takeoff.
And don’t forget 21-22 at the end 🙂
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi!
>Maybe the course is too high level for what I actually need & want.>
You can take what sounds good and will work for you, and don’t do the things that don’t suit your needs. There might be good stuff!
>I was hoping there might be something in the course that would help me address his feelings about waiting his turn.>
Hopefully! I don’t know anything about the course but you can ask the instructor and see what she says.
Found the videos! You can see the general idea and there is some hilarity along the way because… Nacho. LOL!
I have always found it easier to teach herding dogs and some sporting breeds to be calm on a station, because there is some genetic wiring in place for that. Teaching a Papillon or whippety creature to mind their own business and stay on a station? Well that was harder for me LOL
>If he is angry, he won’t eat, but maybe I can ease him into it. Maybe I can approach this whole thing differently.>
The goal is not not have him be angry… reframe that as anxiety. It kicks his nervous system into a different state (fight or flight) and suppresses the ability to eat. We want him to eat, not only so we can use it as a reward, but also because it helps us understand what his nervous system is doing.
>He gets crated with Bazinga now if he comes to spectate a trial and that keeps him happy. He fusses when I take her out to run and he has a very loud bark for such a tiny guy.>
You can work the games with bringing Bazinga into another room (out of site) eventually, and he can hang out with the Manners Minder as social support. A note about the Manners Minder – tape it closed if you are going to leave it with a dog, so they can’t open it and eat all the treats. Ask me how I know 😂
Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Good morning! This is really exciting!!
The environment definitely looks different than anywhere he’d been asked to do agility. He did great! And good for you for getting so much on video.
>Enjoy one of Arizona’s “rugged” trial sites. >
Love it! That is what agility was like when I started, back before in the Stone Ages LOL!!
>Fortunately, the cows cleared out of the adjacent field before the start.>
OMG that would have been a challenging distraction LOL!
Patterns and tricks – he was definitely into the rewards: super motivating to help overcome the challenges of the environment! And there were good challenges too: wide open spaces, people & dogs in the area, and a dog barking in the background. He was very quick to engage here, which is fantastic because the environment is definitely hard.
>I left my treats on a table, but was a little worried he may not engage with me with the toy because we had just had the treats. Fortunately, he was able to engage with me pretty well.>
SUPER! He was really into the toy and that as a HARD environment under the tent with all those people around, the ring nearby, etc. Remember to keep the toy low and not moving away as fast, so he can grab it – you can hold one end of it rather than the middle, giving him full access to it.
Looking at the run: look at him recognizing the agility in this brand new environment! YEAH!!! It is more common to see young dogs running by stuff in these early stages, but he was great with finding lines, playing with the toy: what a fantastic first experience!
This is where you can also give him the full length of the toy, especially at the start, to let him chase it and engage with it. He did great with the hand touches at the start line! The spin cues were a little quick and right next to the jump, so he didn’t really process them – that will get easier as he gets more experienced.
>I forgot to NOT ask for a start-line stay (even after our pre-planning and even after he broke the first one).>
He actually held the stay for a while – it took a long time (in dog years) to get rid of the leash. 15 seconds is a long time, he was probably wondering what was going on LOL He is not used to that, so at home you can bring him in on leash, take it off, and just toss it off to the side.
>I can see he was a little distracted at the start line – I should maybe aim for taking 2 deep breaths to give him time to check things out and then check in with me…instead of rushing him.>
You can also experiment with what works best: it can be asking for the cookie-free patterns with hand touches, or a ready-set-go start (no stay) or a short stay. Try different things and see what works best!
>At 1:00, I had planned to have him wrap that jump before the tunnel. My handling wasn’t great for that (plus, why was I making it anything mildly complicated?) – Skizzle took the backside instead.>
He was definitely on the parallel path to the backside there, so he took it and you kept going: perfect 🙂
>Would love to hear your feedback and thoughts for planning for the next FEO run based on this one.>
When is the next FEO planned?
I think doing what you did outside the ring should happen again, you had a lot of success there.
And we can play with different elements as you move to the start line: leash off, engagement on game, cookie-free patterns, ready-set-go starts, etc. Have you had a chance to look at the Launch webinar? There are some games in there we can add in and see what he likes 🙂 And a few more reps of doing the FEO in the ‘just like home’ mode with the visible toy is good – and at home you can be doing the ‘empty hands’ mode with the reward in your pocket while separately working on the remote reinforcement games.
Great job!!
Tracy
Hi!
>how do I start teaching how to collect properly?>
She already has a lot of education on this… but also bear in mind that she is very young and super inexperienced and wants to go really fast, so her questions might have to do more with processing delays (trying to figure out what the cues mean while running) and less about collection.
> I was doing a sequence with her where she was doing an inside threadle where she had to come toward me on the inside of the jump and collect to go to a tunnel right behind me. She really struggled to collect properly to get there.>
That is a complex skill – do you have video? It is possible that the cues needed to be earlier and clearer for her age/experience level. And sometimes my young dogs remind me that while I think I am giving the correct cue… I am not giving the correct cue 😂 😆 and they are correctly doing what I am showing them. Youngsters are VERY literal like that 🙂
And for complex skill work at one year old: break it way down first to get the turn (even if it is on one jump) before adding it to sequences or adding speed. Then let her sleep on it 🙂 so her brain can really ‘learn’ it 🙂
If you have a video of the session, feel free to post it and we can sort out what was happening!
Tracy
Good morning!
The pillbug session looked good here! He did really well on the right side too along with the left side. The next session can be where you do outside turns – putting yourself next to the tunnel and he is on the other side of you. I think these will be very easy for him, so you can wait until the weather cooperates and is not so brutally humid.
Looking at the set point:
I am happy with what he is doing so far! The main goal with an adolescent male large dog is to get coordination and NOT have him be reckless 🙂 He is hitting those goals easily!
>Rusty strikes me as one of those dogs that needs to be taught to jump.>
He is off to a good start – he is not really powering through the set point yet (mainly because of how it is set up, see below) but he is coordinated and balanced which is great!
>I hope to go outside tomorrow to work in the yard. >
Perfect, that is part of what I was going to suggest: moving the set point to grass so he can really dig into the footing (he is being careful on the mats because he doesn’t want to slip, good boy!)
Other things to add to the outdoor session:
Add one more foot between the jumps – if it was a 4 foot distance here, try a 5 foot distance. If it was 5 feet, try 6 feet 🙂 Eventually I believe he will be working at a 6 foot distance.
For the moving target: tie the toy you were using here to a long toy or a leash, so you can drag it without having to lean over. The leaning over can cue a bit of collection, and we want him to really propel.
And as you are using the moving target: lead out further so you are 10 feet past jump 2 when you release him.
These elements will let us really see his jumping form 🙂 You can keep the bar height as you had it here and jump bumps in for now.
>He is 10 and a half months and 20 inches at the withers. What should I be working toward in terms of jump height at this point?>
Eventually, he will be doing the set point at 6 feet between jumps and with a 20” bar on jump 2. But that is much further down the road. He is still very young, so the 2nd bar being 6 inches is perfect! (Just ignore anyone who has their 10 or 11 month old dogs jumping any real height, that is against veterinary advice and can do more harm than it can help). As he approaches a year old, that bar can go up. Then as he is in the 14-15-16 month range, it can go up again a little bit.
I don’t ask my adolescent large male dogs to jump full height until they are over 18 months old and are looking good on lower heights. This is according to the advice of sports vets and has worked GREAT to keep them sound and develop great jumping form 🙂
Nice work here!
Tracy
Good morning! I am SO GLAD they let her play!
>Thank you for validating the difficulty level of these games in your last message, haha! That helped my sanity a bit >
Ha! Yes – they look so easy! But then you try them with a baby dog… NOT so easy LOL!!! But they all went really well.
I agree, Macklynn loved the smiley face game (and any game where she gets to run run run. She had a little trouble coordinating for the tunnel entry (the angle of it required a lot of collection when she was on your left ) but she figured it out pretty quickly! The angle on the other side (when she was on your right) was easier and she had no questions.
She found the wings brilliantly, both with the wraps and the soft turns wing-to-wing. Your connection was lovely and you got your verbals out. SUPER!
So the next steps are to spread things out more so both of you get to run more 🙂 Adding more of your motion might be harder for her but since you’ll be running a lot on course (she is FAST!) we will want to add the motion at this early stage.
Set point: rewarding out of frame was no problem, it was still easy to see her movement over the jumps. And the distance between the jumps was good!
She did really well! Each rep got better and better. She was generally really good about holding the stay with the toy dragging (and actually kind of adorable lining up backwards at one point haha).
The moving target definitely added challenge to her mechanics and that is good, we want her to sort it out! You can see it by watching her front feet as you released her – she was switching around which foot to lead with 🙂 No worries, she was sorting it out really well.The next step here is to lead out further before releasing her, so she can really power through the 2 jumps. You were close enough to jump 2 that she was holding back some power in order to not land on the toy. So you can lead out and release her when you are 10 feet or more past the 2nd jump, which gives her more room to push off and land with power.
Looking at the tunnel exit videos: That double out there does make for a big visual on the first video! But she was getting the idea that it was the wing and not the double when you were ahead of her.
For the GO – she naturally wants to look at you on the tunnel exits, so you can cue the GO before she goes into the tunnel (you were generally saying it after she entered). And to get her really exploding ahead, throw the reward as she is still in the tunnel so it lands before she exits (which helps her to not look for you when she exits).
On the first video, the timing of the left cues can be sooner – she was already in the tunnel. She naturally wants to turn to you, so the turns were still good but that might change as we add more value to the GO cues 🙂
On the 2nd video, your timing of the turn cues were really good! She definitely heard & saw the, before she got into the tunnel. The GO cues can still come sooner: start saying them when she is 10 feet before the tunnel entry, super early 🙂 which will give you time to throw the reward early too. You did that on the last rep and it helped a LOT!
To get the wing after the tunnel, getting more propulsion on the GO exits will help a lot! And then we can also play with getting you ahead to connect and show her the line to it. But no worries about that for now – getting her to exit straight without looking for you is more important.
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
I think she had a BLAST doing the tunnel exit game! It is very fun to see her turning on the speed and excitement for sequencing, while locking on the lines and NOT the toy. YAY!!!
The GO exits were strong: the ball helps that because the presence of the ball promotes running fast & straight. The turn exits got tighter as the session progressed: we don’t need them to be that much tighter than how the ended here, because getting them a lot tighter will bleed off a lot of her speed. And she has to duck down to get into the tunnel anyway, so acceleration on the exit is good!
But what you can do for the turn exits is to say the left/right verbals more quietly (kind of like how you did it when she was coming around the wing) so they sound different in terms of pitch/volume/rhythm than the louder GO GO GO verbals 🙂
Super nice session getting the ball to the ground! She might have cheated a little and released when you opened your mouth for the release on that 2nd-to-last rep 🙂 but the last rep was PERFECT. Yay! Since her motto is Ball Is Life, you can use 2 balls for this game: one to place on the ground, and one to sometimes throw back to her for holding the stay. That way she doesn’t anticipate the release forward when the ball goes to the ground. You can try it using both jumps and see how she does!
And separately from using the ball: you can try to fade the Cato plank and see how she does with her stays on the grass, using food rewards. The ball might be too hard without the Cato.
Great job here!
Tracy
