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Good morning!
Seeing you outside standing shows how small she is! I love it! I want to meet her in Florida!!!!
>>I did notice with her what you had mentioned about the pups not wanting their collar grabbed and tried to just orient to her like you said. >>
Perfect! And adding all of the goofy line up games, gentle collar touches, and quick releases to a toy or treat will really help too.
>I just started teaching her to target her neck/collar/harness to my hand on cue for this (more for emergency recapture when hiking off leash, but would work for this as well), but it’s not quite ready for this scenario yet. >>
This is great! I think the targeting to your hand and the line up games will come together pretty quickly so that you will see her offering her collar and harness a lot more. I also teach my dogs to line up for other people – and can use that in emergency situations too. I can call them to line up for me (fun fun!) and send them to line up for others (more fun! And less running for me LOL!)
On the video – her driving to the toy is really strong. Yay! She turned to her right on all of these reps, even when you started with her on your right side which should indicate a left turn to you. So when she starts on your right, throw the toy more directly in front of her so when you let go, you are a little further away from her laterally. And you can stay on that parallel line to her (rather than running towards the toy) – that way as she is arriving to the toy, you can peel away to your left more dramatically to really encourage the left turn. If you are too close to her when driving to the toy, the pressure on the line might be supporting the right turn and it is also possible that she can see you behind her, almost like a rear cross cue. So we can exaggerate the movement to encourage her to turn left.
If she turns to her right, keep rewarding her (no need to frustrate her or use a neg punishment on a behavior she probably doesn’t even know she is doing) and we can change the game a little more to get the left turn.
For the collar grabby stuff, you make really nice adjustments here. Great job reading the situation immediately.
You started with moving her into you by the collar on the first rep. On the second rep you got a bit of the backing away. It could be the higher arousal level (dogs tend to want to be touched less as the arousal level increases) or she she is backing away to look at your more (expanding her field of vision, not surprising for a sighthound mix). At 1:03 you lined yourself up more as opposed to moving her around and she seemed happy with that! And a cookie line up works really well at 1:29! Super!!!
>>Got a little more keep away with the toy than I’d like, she’s usually not bad about it, but this was a brand new toy she’d never had before, so of COURSE it was super high value!>
Yes! High value, and also I think she was doing a big of environmental exploration while she was romping with the toy (she was looking around). It is also possible she was taking a decompression moment, which is totally fine because there is a bit of pressure in this game.
A couple of ideas:
Have a big huge long party when she does bring it back – you had a short party 😁 and got calm pretty quickly by getting low and not tugging as much then getting the toy back. So you can get low to help her come back, then get back up and play and let her chase your and tug and get a bit wild again 🙂 And if she doesn’t take the toy on a romp like at 1:40, yo can make an even bigger party out of it! And if she does go on a quick romp, you can reward with a 2nd toy for when she gets back to you – a big surprise party like that will make an impact for sure! I like to pull out the 2nd toy just as the pup is arriving at me, rather than pulling it out during the romp.
You can also help guide the decompression by sending her to it: I use a ‘go for a run’ cue with the toy to let the dogs have a release from the session to decompress. Sometimes they don’t need to decompress and won’t go for the run, and that is great info!
>I tried to do some decel coming into the handler work, but got mixed up which hand you wanted us to reward with (from the blind cross exercise) and it was super sloppy.>
Ah yes, the mechanics of the blind cross stuff are probably weird feeling at first, but are great for opening up the connection. For the decel, it is mainly dog-side hand 🙂
>> Also tried some work with the prop game but she’s never played that outside and it blew her mind. >>
I bet you that it was just a typical sighthoundy session and that if she sleeps on it for a day or two, she will come back knowing the behavior. Let me know if you have a chance to try it again!
>Will see if we get a chance to do anything at the Open or if we will just have to catch up after we get back. Sigh. So much to do with a puppy!>
That is the TRUTH!!! You might be able to squeeze in a thing or two, but if not, no worries, plenty of time when you get bcack.
Great job here! Safe travels!
Tracy
Good morning!
>I really appreciate the insight about “appearing” ready to train but really not in the right brain space for it- soooo important for me to remember.>
Yes – being present in the moment with us does not mean the baby dog brain will be receptive to learning or working in that moment 🙂
He did great with the 2 bowls. Note how he moves better towards your left side and his questions were more about moving towards your right side. This could be indicating his side preference, or that you’ve got a lot of value on your left side and not as much on your right side. Or both 🙂 So we will keep balancing that to see what his actual side preference is (and use that in training while also balancing things so he can work equally well in both directions).
>>He stares at my hands, a LOT.>
Yes, maybe because cookies are LIFE! LOL!!! So you can add the next step of this game: in the next session, do a quick refresher of plopping the treats in the bowl to re-establish the rhythm and pattern. Then slow things down and let him start offering going back to the next bowl. That will require taking his eyes off of your hands, which will be very helpful!
>>Checkers reminded me that he’s a vermin hunting dog and he REALLY LIKES FUR LOL. Anyways he was really able to go to that toy much easier. You’ll see I also got right down on the ground with him to make it super exciting LOL.>
That was GREAT!!!!!!! He is a murderer at heart, like my whippets and lurchers LOL!! I can hook you up with the long furry whippet toys – I think he will love those as much as he loves food 🙂
On the prop game:
>I really should’ve stopped sooner- I feel like his best reps were in the first half.>
This was a very informative session and that is why we do these games with the random prop at first – to sort out the needs of the dog in training and get our mechanics going 🙂
Great job getting engagement with the ready game at the beginning!!! He really engaged!
The first few sends after that were really strong. Yes, he was looking at your hand a bit but that is part of this game – he also had plenty of reps where he looked directly at the prop and smacked it 🙂
To get more of that – start a little closer to the prop. Maybe 3 feet away for now, maximum. You started a little far away so he went to the prop but didn’t always touch it.
About halfway through, you changed from the ready dance game to a smack-da-baby game…
I am not sure that he loves the hand play or being tapped while working – he backed off a whole lot between :47 :58 when you did that and then was tentative when you tried the sending again. Then he did well when you reset the prop but didn’t touch him.
That is FABULOUS info – he likes the hands-free ready dance. But does not like to be touched or patted in that moment. And that is fine – you can stick with the ready dance and not touch him 🙂
To play and praise, you can use the toy after every couple of treats to replace the smack da baby moment. That is very engaging for him!
>>In hindsight I wonder if I should’ve used a reset cookie on the reps I didn’t reward to try to limit frustration/confusion?>>
I think it is OK to not reward every single thing because the non-reward moments can be just as information-filled as the reward moments. But there is a line to balance, because too many failures/non-rewards can have fallout in terms of frustration/stress.
Try to live by the 2 failure rule: if you do not reward a behavior, that is a caution light that maybe it is too hard. But you don’t need to change anything yet (unless the dog looks stressed, which was not the case here). If you don’t reward twice? Then time to change something and make it easier to get success (or end the session so there are no more failures). And this is not twice in a row – it is twice, total for the session. That will help create a high ate of reinforcement while also making sure we continue to make progress towards the goal behavior.
>>he’s SO DANG HAPPY ALL THE TIME, I love watching his videos back, it makes me happy. I love this puppy>>
I agree! He is amazing and fun and brilliant!!! You’re doing a great job!
Tracy
Good morning!
The stealth self-control game looked good!
>>I tried 3 objects yesterday and all of them ended up just off the camera! He behaved the same way he did today. If he checked them out at all, he came right to me when I said his name. >>
I think his quick inspection of the object was mainly because you were tossing the treat right at it. That might have caused him to think you wanted him to expose or offer behavior on the object. Since we are going for ‘ignore it completely’ you can have the stimulus off to the side and toss the cookie past it -I think that will help clarify things for him. It is not a bad thing that he sniffed it, I just think he was considering interaction based on placement of the initial the cookie throw 🙂
You can introduce a novel-neutral object in the environment for any game you feel he is already comfortable with. He is looking great with the blinds, so you can add it to the environment (somewhere off to the side). The more we teach his brain to process these things, the easier it will be to teach his brain to process harder challenges too.
>I was delaying giving him the toy so he had time to swallow the cookie toss. Otherwise he was coming back and hacking or spitting out the cookie.>
Ah! That makes sense 🙂 Swallowing the cookie is pretty important LOL!!
The blinds looked fabulous!!
>I did not realize that the toy should be much more visible to him and not just a reward>
The toy placement opens up your shoulder more and that is actually the cue for the blind – he read it beautifully. As he gets more experienced, he will read it sooner but for now, the toy placement helps get that super snappy response. He was lovely!! And he ran through the toy really well, no impact on his neck or spine there. How quickly did he bring the toy back after you let it go?
You can add more distance if you want – you can do it from a stay if he can let you lead out a lot, or someone can hold him.
Great job here!!!
Tracy
Hello and welcome! Max sounds like a lot of fun! What type of dog is he? I am excited to hear more!
Tracy
I love your training area here!
Am I remembering correctly that it is Matrix who is the chill dog on the left side of the screen? That is a great way to have the other dogs in the room. Yowza is more of a close talker 😁🤣 so I think she needs to either be up on the bed or in a different room. The Border Collie stare adds pressure in subtle ways (like delayed responses, not moving into the space where she is as freely, etc) which we don’t want him to rehearse.
He did really well with the wrap foundation and the cookies! I love the tippy tap of his little feet 🙂 If the cone wrap is not tight yet, let’s work it through from here – it is possible that he is just working out the mechanics because he is so young 🙂 You can put the upright in between the 2 bowls now and see how he does!
Separately, you can work up to standing for the cookie game (he is probably too small to do it with toys and you standing :))
The toys do make the game exciting… he was a good boy t go back and forth! It is a great game to toy exchanges so you can keep revisiting it here and there.
I am glad you like the goat tricks in arousal – and yes, it is great for teaching body mechanics in the aroused state, which is what they will be in when they need to use their bodies most!
Plus it teaches some arousal regulation: go wild, then do “calm” things 🙂 Also very important!
He did a great job here! Since he got his front feet in so easily, you can reward with a tossed treat and see if he can then run back and get his feet right back in. If you want hind feet too – you might need a bigger object or 2 objects so it is easier to offer then he is stimulated.
Feel free to make piles of random stuff for him to climb around when he is stimulated – the more, the better!
Was that him barking at :31 and then towards the end? What an adorable bark!
Great job!
TracyHi!
>>Arrow’s Daddy is Roxane Pardiac’s “Chit Chat” from Canada>
Ah! Chit Chat is so fun, what an awesome breeding!!
Looking at the videos:
Arrow did well with the driving ahead, he is so fun!!! But I think Yowza gets voted off the island in terms of being allowed to watch LOL!!!
It was too much pressure for him to run towards another dog who is staring at him and pouncing or chasing, especially his mother, so while he did get the toy, he moved away from you with it and was a little reluctant to bring it back. Since we don’t want that rehearsal, Yowza can be hanging out in the house during his sessions 🙂 She was also a little too involved with the decel game so you’ll definitely want to give him his one on one time with you for training. It might not look like he is distracted by it, but he is having to split his attention and we want him to be fully focused on your cues and not on what she doing.He did well in the drive to handler too – you can add more decel so he can collect into his hind end. As he is eating the cookie, you can move fast away from him – but as soon as he turns to move towards you, change your speed to a walk so he can collect. You will see him get nice and tight to your leg for bth the food and the toy rewards!
Great job here 🙂
Tracy
Thanks! He did great here!! It looks like he focused forward (great job with your connection to his eyes) then he drove ahead of you! You can keep adding distance – it is limited only by how far you can throw the toy 🙂
>>We are still working on returning the toy.>>
You were quick to grab it here – he lifted it and looked at you, deciding if he should bring it back or take it on a romp LOL!! You can help encourage him to bring it back by turning and running the other direction and calling him, as soon as he gets to the toy. Then if he brings the toy even a couple of steps to you, whip out another toy and reward him. That can help develop a nice retrieve by convincing him first to not take the toy on victory laps 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi!
>>I haven’t done any of the games with toys yet. My dogs are all 99% food drive and 1% toy drive. I’m working on building toy play but as soon as they realize we’re training the toy becomes meaningless. I’m open to suggestions there!>>
No problem! Food-driven dogs achieve at the highest levels in dog sports! And you can keep building the toy play separately and Kiva might end up really enjoying it as part of sports 🙂
Two ideas for you:
– incorporate food-carrier toys as part of the reinforcement system. Lotus balls are awesome because they can be attached to a long toy and thrown around like a toy… but they are food and we get the same excitement from them as we do from tugging. I have a fur-covered lotus ball attached to a tug bungee that my foodie dog is wild for 🙂
-keep using your different markers to tell her where to find the food reward. You had “yes” and “get it” happening in the send session and that will be very helpful for her! We might add a few more, like a ‘run-to-bowl’ marker to get her driving ahead when we start those games.On the sends – she is hitting her prop really nicely! I think her questions have to do with *not* looking at the food and she can kind of look at the food AND hit the target (talented girl LOL!!) So you can challenge her a bit more by raising the target. Can you attach it to something low so she has to step up onto it to hit it, maybe have it be half an inch tall? That will take more of an effort and she will look at it more (which makes it easy for you to see). I totally agree that the nose part of it is a throwback and it is fine that she sometimes does it.
You can play with the sideways sends and backwards sends now too! Stick a little closer to the prop so she doesn’t have to work distance into it yet.
She did well with the bowls at the end of the video – you can now put an upright in between the bowls so she is wrapping something.
Separately from adding an upright, you can start to change your position: try the 2 bowl game with you sitting in a chair. And if that is easy for her, you can move to standing! That will set you up nicely for upcoming games.
Great job here!
TracyHi!
>he was actually going out ahead of me and beating me to the toy every time.>
That is awesome! Even from this angle, I could see him outrunning you. Super! We want him to leave you in the dust, like he is chasing a bunny to murder LOL!
And doing a few extra warm up reps is great – he had fun and the skill is looking strong.
And he got ahead of you even on the line after the tunnel. That is great!
You can start to mix in thrown rewards sometimes instead of the placed reward – throw pretty early, like when he lands from the first jump after the tunnel. And you can still have a placed reward out there on some reps – start to move it further and further back, to begin fading it out. He dropped the bar on the last jump of the last sequence, probably because the reward ws a little too close with all that speeeeeed!
He got the RC on the first try! Super!
That was at 2:18 – you were late getting on the RC line (he was looking straight and adjusted over the bar) – to set it sooner, as he is landing from the jump after th tunnel you can be facing the center of the bar of the RC jump to drive to it, rather than running straight then cutting over.
The last sequence looked great! Nice job showing him the backside then he drove ahead on the ending line again. Super!!
You can alternate the straight line then the RC then the straight line again without a break, just to keep him on his toes and make sure you are cuing it correctly. This will be most effective when you are throwing the reward, so the placed reward doesn’t tip him off.
Great job!
Tracy
Hi! He is on fire with his course work!!
First sequence looks great – starting with the jump made it really fun and you were really connected throughout. Lovely! And making up sequences added spice to it!!
It was hard to see the one jump off screen (the Choo Choo jump 🤣😂) but he had a great line to the teeter and the teeter performance looks great! I love how he drove to the end of it even when you were behind him!
And I loved his big jump send at 1:45! I definitely think you can consider giving him a spot in the league if there is one – there is a level that should be novice-level, right? He looks like he is ready for more 🙂
And you can definitely move to the driving ahead lines on the next set of sequences – that will get him driving to the end of the line for the end of the courses.
The running dog walk is looking great! It looks like he is running deep through the yellow. The more he experiences it, the more he will open up his stride and really gallop over it. One of the ways I get the dogs to really open up in the running dog walk is by doing one single repetition, for incredibly high value reinforcement (like an entire meal 🙂 or a frisbee). That made things very exciting so I got them really driving. And then I started raising the height, so they could adjust the striding to the higher heights.
>>I keep saying Yes then Ok instead of saying Ok then Yes.
That’s totally relatable! “Yes” slips out all the time for all of us 🙂 Try to tell him what to do next, maybe add a jump for him to continue to – then you can give him info and the ‘yes’ will fade away LOL!
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi!
>>We need help on the backside handling. I worked on it earlier in the day with just a single bar and we both did great. But I struggled here to get the information to her.>
What was happening on the backsides was that your rotation for the FC was a little early – you sent then hit the brakes hard and rotated before she was committed so she came off the jump. Commitment is generally when the dog is getting pretty close to the backside entry wing – when you did the FC after that, she got it perfectly!
The key will be to add deceleration into it so you are still supporting the line but ready for the FC when she arrives at the backside commitment line (just before the wing). You had the decel at 1:39 and 1:54, and she committed really well, setting up a great FC!
At 2:44 you got the front of the backside jump – a little disconnect and arm turning your shoulders in a curve which showed the front. That was the only time it happened – the other reps had great connection and parallel line motion to the path you wanted her to take.
You had good connection again at 3:23 but hit the brakes and rotated too early. When she jumps up on you, you were already rotated and she was not past you yet. At 3:50, your rotation starting was more subtle but it was too soon and she saw it and came off the line.
Another way to think of it: keep facing foward/moving forward as you decelerate – but she will give you permission to rotate by arriving at the entry wing of the backside. It will get a little sooner as she gets more experienced, but the transition into deceleration before the rotation will make a big difference.
The other thing to remember is to let her see the wing – don’t block it. On the 2nd part of the video, you were blocking the line to the wing so while she got it at 2:08 and 2:26, it will put you on her line in other contexts or potentially send her past the backside.
One other section here that we can smooth out:
She was a bit wide on the exit of the tunnel at 2:12 and 2:28 which set up a zig zaggy line at the end. You can tighten the tunnel exit with more decel before the rotation to cue her there is a turn coming, and a turn verbal too. Then get closer to the tunnel exit line to make a big connection and set the line to 5, which will make the ending line smoother. You took off in acceleration after the tunnel, which widened the line of exit a bit.>>I just read the cartoon mash up. Can we take bets on which way Taq needs me to leave her?>>
$100 dollars says you will need to leave calmly LOL!!!!
>> One question about this. would you use different methods depending on dogs mood or is the idea to know which one works and always be consistent?>>
I put them both in my toolbox and use them according to the dog’s needs in the moment and what I want on the opening line. So if the dog is feeling very wild and the course is technical? Yes, a calm lead out. If the dog is feeling less excited? Cartoon time? If the dog has a great stay and I am trying to win a speed class? Cartoon mashup!
>My excuse for not giving the stay command is that my previous 4 dogs (not farmdogs) all were trained that sit meant sit until release. Taq has never believed that any position of her body should be still and unmoving so of course there is no cross over. >>
I agree that sit should also mean stay… but Taq disagrees LOL! And since she is the one who has to do it, we can defer to her choice there, so remember your stay word 😂
>I do want to make sure I am clear about this since she has such dancing thoughts. She is like me listening to ACDC without bobbing my head or Abba without belting out sining to join them. Impossible.>
I love it! And of course we have to sing along. The best thing to do is make sure the release never comes at the exact same time as sudden movement. So you can be moving for a bit and release while moving. Or be stationary and release…. Then move. It is when we accidentally pair the release with suddenly moving forward that the release will become the movement.
And LOTS of rewards for the stay are always good (you mix them in, which is great) because we humans often pair the release with movement so continued reinforcement will help her not get mad at us 🙂
Great job here!
TracyHi! Didn’t miss you 🙂 Just waiting for halfway decent internet on the way to Florida for the Open. It should post any moment now!
T
Hi! He did really well with all the games here!!!
Leash off/engagement on is going well. To help override that initial distraction impulse, take the less off and just get the cookie to him immediately, especially in new places. No need to wait til he engaged with you at the beginning of this training progression. That will help condition him that the leash coming off means amazing things are happening! He was great after that so we can really focus on that first leash-off moment.
He did really well with the remote reinforcement game! Nice engagement when the leash came off and total focus in the sequence! It looks like you had a cookie with you as you moved to the line here – you can now fade out having the cookies with you (leaving them with his water sprayer) to make it closer to the real thing 🙂 (If you didn’t have a cookie with you, great!!) Nice job marking the moment you were going to run back to the water sprayer. Definitely bring that to trials!!!
He was also really fast and engaged with the reward on you. That is pretty normal – it is definitely harder when the reward is not out there on course! And it is fine to mix things up and sometimes have it with you in a pocket, sometimes have it outside the course. When you do have it with you, you can randomly reward him on course. Choose something that will surprise him, like a reward for a jump! The dogs generally expect we will reward contacts and weaves 🙂 so surprising him is good!
Great job here!
TracyHi!
I can totally relate to being nervous handling the young dog! I just expect it now…. It doesn’t matter how many years I’ve been doing agility, I still get totally nervous when I start the baby dogs LOL!!! I am more nervous for my baby dog’s NFC runs than I am for running an experienced dog at a big event.
It sounds like you made it a really good experience for her and it will get less nerve-wracking, I promise (then you will get your next puppy and be a nervous wreck all over again 🤣😂)
On the video, think of things differently: At this stage in training, only one team member gets to run fast into turns. And since Lu has elected herself into that role… you need to slow down and show the decel, and wait for her to give you permission to leave for the next line.
What do I mean by permission? You hold the cue and don’t run forward again until she is collected to take off in the correct direction. The bloopers here were mainly from you running too fast, so she didn’t get the full turn info.
You were moving to the next line too fast at :07, so she correctly read it as a rear cross.
At :36, 2:54, and the reps after that, you got the cross before it but then accelerated into the wrap, so she drove forward to the tunnel. That also happened at 1:15 with the wrap to the left. You got the toy involved at 1:52, which kept you there longer and showed more decel and that really helped!
But then look at 2:13 – you got decel into the wrap jump and she turned really well, then found the last jumps through the box brilliantly! Yay!
You started the crosses earlier on the jump after the tunnel after that, so she correctly did not go to the pinwheel jump.
So how to run more slowly so she gets the info? When she exits the tunnel, you are supporting the line to the pinwheel jump. When she lands from the jump after the tunnel, cue the pinwheel jump & the cross (the early ones were finished before she landed from that jump).
Then, as you exit the cross, wherever you are positionally: decelerate towards the wrap wing. You can set up the spin but the decel is the most important part: if you are moving fast through the whole thing, the details of the handling info get lost in the acceleration. So you will want to decelerate into the turn by the right turn wing of the wrap jump – then hold that position, don’t move, don’t run forward, til she gives you permission to go by collecting and turning her head to the correct direction. That is your cue to run to the next line.It might feel weird at first but it will make a big difference in the info she sees! The decel before the turns will get the collection and help prevent the off courses.
Nice work here!
TracyHi!
>>Did pattern games in various places at Obedience trial today ( but they are quiet and boring) she had no issues and ignored all dogs. >>
This is great! Quiet and boring is the perfect place to start 🙂
>>I don’t know a chill for her. I can pet her but if I want her to chill I have to down her and then pet her since I get worried with lots of dogs around. What else should I try for chill?>>
Bear in mind that the ‘chill’ outside an agility ring is not actually going to be relaxation 🙂 It is more of a ‘just hang out next to me without obsessing on the ring or other dogs/people, and without demanding non-stop cookies or tugging’.
I agree that down doesn’t seem like a great option in a crowd of dogs. If she will put her front feet on your and tay there to be petted, that might be useful. You can also play the engaged chill game where we teach the dogs to be chill while we slowly fade out the pattern game up and down cookies. The goal is that she is able to stand in front of you, basically look at you, without needing rapid-fire treats. That might be the most useful one for you.
Tracy
