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Good morning!
The rocking horses looked great! Yay! Lovely connection and verbals from you, and she did a GREAT job of running past the toy in your hand (it was hard at first, she had a little hesitation, but then she had no questions) SUPER!
So… onwards to the advanced level where you start to decelerate and rotate earlier, so she is basically being sent backwards to the barrels. With her speed, you will probably need to spread the barrels out a little more so you have room to run forward, decel, then rotate. Remember on the backwards sending to look back at where you want her to go (to the barrel behind you)
If the weather is cooperating, you can also take this outside! Begin by re-creating what you did here, then try the advanced level outside too.
>>And at the end I let her take the toy and she brought it back! Woohoo!>>
That was super!! It is fun to see her asking to do more – and as far as we can tell, these games are not mentally “expensive” for her in the home environment so she wants more more more 🙂 Yay!
Great job here!!!
TracyGood morning!
>>Been practicing, just behind on videos. I’m sure these are all out of order and random, but by the time I organized them, i’ll be 3 more weeks behind!>>
I am glad you posted them! Practicing is more important than video editing so feel free to when you can and not worry about which order they are in 🙂 And it was fun to see the progression of skills.
She was a goat trick rock star! Love how she is able to be fast and focused, but also really specific about where she is putting her body. Yay!
I think you were waiting for hind end engagement on the fit bone, but it is a little over-inflated so she is less comfy about standing on it freely. She did get her hind end on it when you got her going back and forth and did stand on it – note how she was holding her hind end there, not full balanced into all 4 feet
So to get her to stand fully balanced on the fit bone, take out some of the inflation and even under-inflate it a bit. That will get her happy to have all 4 feet on it. Then, over time, you can gradually add more inflation to it and maintain the balanced stance.
She was offering some pivoting on the fit bone – so you can jump ahead to the perch work/pivoting game posted on Tuesday. Since she was offering it, might as well add it in!
Plankrobatics looked super easy for her. Nice reward placement from you to encourage her to get all 4 feet on at the beginning. To get her to turn around on it without jumping off to turn around on the flat, try a slow moving cookie lure to jumpstart the behavior. If she still finds it easier to jump off, turn around, then jump back on (clever LOL!) you can add another plank next to it, so it creates a double-wide playing space for her to turn around on. If you don’t have another plank, you can add pretty much anything to create a wider playing field – the fit bone could totally work for that!
Wing wrap foundations with the toy went really well – she loves the toys and did a great job going back and forth especially when the barrel was a little further from you. There was one moment when she went behind you but that was the direction she s facing, so it was more efficient to go behind you LOL! On the other reps, you had her a little more turned to face the barrel.
Bummer about the doorbell interrupting the session! But since it went so well, you can go to the next step with the toy which is to see if she will offer going around the barrel without you tapping the toy first: get her tugging like you did here, then keep both toys stationary until she takes a step or two around the barrel – then the other toy can come alive for tugging 🙂 How is she doing with cookies with this game?
Strike a post is looking great too. When you said yes I don’t think she quite knew where to look for the treat at first, so moving the cookie clarified that for her really well. Her target hits looked good and your reward timing & placement looked lovely, so onwards to the next step: getting you closer and closer to standing up. Because she is little, the best next step would be to have you sitting on a couch or chair – at that stage, she might not be able to really hit the target without jumping up, so you can start fading out the target hit in favor or her using it as a visual aid to slide through the serp (we have to fade out the hit eventually, so with the smaller dogs we fade it sooner).
You can also add a reward target (like a food bowl or manners minder) so as you get change your position, she doesn’t start looking up and she keeps looking at her line.
If she is happy with you sitting, you can move to standing 🙂
The front cross around the Home Depot barrel looks good! As you send her too it, add a little more eye contact so she knows to stay on your send she (and not possibly come in front of you to wrap the other direction).
Since she really loved the toys in your other wrapping video, you can totally use a toy with this game: tie one of her favorites to a longer toy so you can drag it for her to chase when you reward 🙂
Nice job on the wing and the blind crosses here! You can see that the extra connection on your send to the wing (especially when she is turning to her right, which might be the harder side for her and on the previous video) really helps: at :28 and :34 you looked forward a little too soon and that turned your shoulders a little away from the wing. Compare that to :38 where you had more direct connection and maintained it longer, so she got the commitment to the wing really nicely!!!
Nice connection on the exit 🙂 You were really working to get that clear connection on the exit! She really lit up when the toy came out so you can definitely use a toy for this game too! Even though it was a long toy, you can make to longer for her by attaching it to another long toy so you can drag it around for her to chase and grab.
Since her wrapping skills are looking really strong… have you decided what you would like to do for your wrap verbals? She is ready for you to add them. Do you have wrap verbals with your adult agility dog? If so, I recommend using the same ones (for the sake of trying to remember them LOL!) Or, you can add new ones for her – because she is going to be really fast, I recommend a wrap verbal that indicates a wrap to the left, and a different one that indicates a wrap to the right. A short, fast word like “check” or “dig” are popular choices (and very easy to say when you are running :))
The turn aways are looking really good too – super nice job using a low and slow arm movement. One suggestion here is to get your leg more involved: keep your feet together until she just about arrives at your turn hand, then have your leg and hand move back together to help create the turn. Your leg was back a bit too early on most of these so getting the tun was a little harder.
The most perfect use of your leg here was at 1:22-1:24 after you added the prop: note how your feet were together until she got about got to your hand, then you did a big step back as you started the turn. Lovely!!
When adding the prop – she loves her prop! Yay!! And it cracked me up to see the cat supervising 🙂
She did really well ignoring the prop to come to your hand – that is HARD because the prop has so much value! You can shake the cookie hand a bit to make it more obvious (the motion will catch her eye more) and using the toy to get her ramped up really got great a snappy response! Love it!!
She looks ready for the advanced level with the tandem turns.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>>How do you take your adolescent male dog on a resilience conditioning walk without him lifting his leg on everything?>>
This is a fantastic question!!!!
>>I want to let Mason explore and sniff things, but he pees on everything he sniffs. This causes me to pull him away from things and tell him to leave it, taking away his agency. Should I only do these walks in open spaces and not let him approach/sniff anything except trees and shrubs?>>
You are correct – trying to manage where he urinates does take away his agency, so the walk becomes more about pee habits and management and less about world-watching and resilience.
It seems like leg-lifting is part of his world exploration and that is pretty normal. I personally don’t mind if my boys lift their legs to pee on pee-appropriate things like trees or a fire hydrant 🙂 so yes, I suggest limiting the resilience walks where he has a lot of agency to places there you don’t mind if he pees on things. So, that can be along a tree-line, or at a park, etc.
And when you are closer to man-made objects where he might be interested in lifting his leg, you can do the resilience walk from further away. And if you are close enough that he can possibly lift his leg, then yes – it is not a resilience walk so you can work on a pattern game, or doing little tricks, etc, so he is learning what to do (engage with you!) instead of leg-lifting.
Bear in mind that for many dogs, male and female, urinating is a sign of arousal/stress in that environment. So we don’t want to add to it by telling him is wrong for expressing how he is feeling. But we can help him with the pattern games, tricks, play, etc and that will help eliminate his interest in eliminating LOL!! And it will give him alternate behaviors in those environments (engage with you rather than engage with the environment).
Let me know if that makes sense 🙂
Tracy
Good morning!
I love that you trained along with the class – so cool! She did great!!!
She did really well with her backside rep on the first video! She zipped right to the backside!
On the 2nd video I think she got mad because you were not ready at light speed so she grabbed the jump ‘bar’ LOL!! She is so smart and ready to do things that she doesn’t want to give you the extra half second to be ready (See below about ‘patience cookies’ 🙂 )
Nice adjustment on the 3rd video to have something that was not as much fun to grab so that rep was great and her tugging was great too. And good to know that the pool noodle can also be used as a tug toy 🙂
Because she is so quick to start, you can add patience cookies to help her understand that the start is cued and not offered. On this skill, you can line her up on your outside arm (in this case, it would be your right arm) so she has a straight line to the backside of the barrel (rather than coming across your front a bit to get to it then turning away). That will allow you to also do the advanced versions, where you move to position 2 and position 3 (further and further across the bar and away from the barrel). Ideally, you can use a cookie to line her up at your side, then the toy as the reward – it will let us know how she feels about going back and forth between food and toys! And if her belly is still a bit touchy about treats, low value bland treats can help or you can use tugging to line her up.
>>Djinn is in an “attack everything in sight” phase, and also seems to have built value in “if the person puts something on the ground, I should interact with it” >>
She has a lot of motivation to offer behavior which is great! That is why a cookie to line her up can help teach her that sometimes she lines up before offering behavior and sometimes she has to wait for the human even though humans do not do things at light speed LOL!
And, where possible, you can put the item to offer behavior on down after she is position to start. That works better with the prop, for example, but won’t work as well with the barrel – that is why the ‘patience cookie’ can help.
>> I wanted to share the blooper because it shows her “parkour” behavior too – yes she seems to thing that’s what I want but she also does this all the time off the bed/couch/stairs/anything. Great for the future but right now I’m trying to discourage jumping on things and launching off them to protect her joints – open to your suggestions!>>
Yes, I can TOTALLY relate, I spend a lot of time each day making sure my teenage whippet doesn’t break himself LOL!! Any time I have a puppy or teenager in the house, I add protective measures to their world like extra portable gates (so they can’t go flying off the stairs, or leap on and off the couch) and I have so many yoga mats on the floor to prevent sliding into things as he goes zipping around the house (I have wood floors so they get covered). So you can ‘bubble wrap’ her a bit by adding gates or blockers (I have also used those tri-fold cardboard presentation boards you can get in the office supplies aisle at Walmart for 50 cents 🙂 ) It is annoying and ugly for a while, but I keep reminding myself that annoying/ugly is better than the puppy breaking himself LOL!
And of course try to direct her into better activities in the house like chewing on bones rather than parkouring, but active pups also need some bubble wrap for a while because more appropriate activities don’t seem as fun as parkour LOL!
Her head turning is going well: I think this might be a better cookie game for her because you can sit on the floor and use a cookie in your hand to turn her away, eventually just using a hand ‘flick’ to get her to turn away rather than the full hand movement. That will eliminate the need to find a shorter pole 🙂
You can practice that little hand movement without the pole but sitting on the floor and just using cookies to get her to turn away in a circle on a hand cue. I think she will like that! And then you can add the pole back in 🙂
>>about the winter camp that was advertised – if I bought one spot, could I try it with my older dog and if she’s not ready yet (we’ve only been working on herding competitions, no formal agility training) would it be ok if I switched back to Djinn for the videos?>>
Absolutely! And for your older dog, you can do the ‘puppy’ track which would be a good foundation for future agility 🙂 And Djinn will love the energy and movement of the games (and might tire her out enough that she doesn’t parkour around your house LOL!! I love that your dogs are so versatile!!!
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Good morning!
>>He is less interested in the toy lately especially if we are using food & the higher the value, the less interested he is. I am running across the room with the toy so that helps.>>
I see what you mean on the first video where the possibility of food on the plank outweighed the tugging. He did get right back on the toy when you took a tug break, which is great! Running to a toy spot totally helped 🙂 You can keep using those long toys (further away from anything associated with good if needed to get engagement) and you can also do lower value treats when training at home.
He was happy to get on the plank and easily turned around on it, even when it was a little elevated! You can elevate it a little more as the next step too, with both ends off the ground – it might bounce a little but I think he will be fine with that.
Serp on the jump looked really good, he really smacks that target LOL! And he was driving directly to it. Keep your shoulders totally still until after he gets the reward (because when running serps, your shoulders would remain in serp position).
Two next-steps for this game:
– add a reward target on the ground, so he can go directly to it after serving (rather than deliver from your hand). It can be an empty food bowl that you plop a treat into, or a MM, or a toy – whichever he will like but will also be able to ignore in order to do the serp over the bar first
– when he is happy with the reward target on the ground, you can start fading out the actual hit of the target. You can have your hand start to be a little higher and also use your reward marker/present the reward right before he actually touches it.On the get out video – he does indeed love his prop and that it great! He did well here! Because he is so small, the hand cues are harder to see so he was cuing off your motion/proximity to the prop. Adding more distance will make it easier for him to tell the difference: put a line on the ground about 8 feet away and stay on the line for both the get out and the stay on the line reps – that way proximity to the prop will not be the main cue.
For the hand/arm cues: when cuing the get out, use a lower arm (waist-height) so he sees it better and point it at the prop. The get out arm was above your shoulders and pointing out ahead, so I am not sure if she saw it. And for the stay-on-the-line reps, don’t use an opposite arm 🙂 That can get confusing in this game as to if it is a get out cue or a threadle. So you can use your dog-side arm for those., which will help make things look really different. And a lure in that hand is totally fine but I think the added distance will help.
>>I wasn’t sure how to proceed after a mistake other than a restart cookie.>>
Yes, a reset cookie is fine there – he didn’t have a lot of questions and was overall very successful!
Great job 🙂
TracyGood morning! Happy holidays!
There was a lot happening here but a lot of it was super good!!!He did really well with the tunnel!!!
Tunnels are hard for Berners because they have to squish down to get in and go through, so it is a collection behavior for him (as compared to a dog half his size, where the tunnel is an extension behavior). So when working tunnels, you can move the MM further away (about 10 feet away) so he can run more when he exits, since running is a great reward after collection.He did a great job ignoring the MM too, because that is HARD! The cookies in your hand can be higher value than the MM cookies, to help him come right back and line up after getting the MM cookies.
The threadle side looked good too when he was close to the entry. When he took the wrong side when you were a little further back/closer to the exit, you can still reward that because he wasn’t necessarily incorrect – then make your position easier so he has more of an idea of which side you want. Adding the tunnel threadle verbal will really help him differentiate
The cookie line up and cues on the first rep were perfect.>>1. The session made me realize Obi is not a fan of being held by the collar and positioned (before the video starts). So I switched to asking for a line up next to me and rewarding with a cookie for that. >>
I think you made an excellent adjustment to use the cookie to line him up – that first rep on the video was perfect! Most dogs prefer to line up *then* have us take their collar. They really don’t love being moved around by the collar, which might be what you experienced. So keep using the cookie to line him up.
>>I’m planning on working on collar asks and having him move while I hold the collar with two fingers (we haven’t done much of that). What do you think?>>
Yes! You can reward him for coming to an empty hand next to you, then reward him for letting you put a hand on his collar. Then when you hand is on his collar, you can reward him for walking with you as you hold his collar. He LOVES cookies, so I am thinking he will love this approach. And, always do a hands-free approach to moving him to position, so he doesn’t get any icky feelings from the collar holding.
>>2. For toy reward he far prefers and really leans into tugging with a toy that has food in it. I would like to have him be excited to tug with anything eventually. Any advice on how to transition to toy only tugging in exciting places? >>
He was *awesome* with his tugging here! Two ideas for you:
I think there was food in the lotus ball that he was tugging on, so you can flu the script a little and have him tug on it and *then* put the cookies into it. That way he is tugging on an empty lotus ball to get the cookie.
You can also get the craziest hairiest furriest toy and attach it to the lotus ball tug you have here – that can help transfer the value of the lotus ball to a ‘regular’ tuggie 🙂
And you can also attach a regular tuggie to a flirt pole or long line and slide it around on the ground for him to chase – he might love that too!
And since his tugging on the lotus ball toy was so good, you can definitely keep using it! It doesn’t really matter what toy he tugs on, as long as it is motivating and reinforcing for him 🙂
>>3. Obi’s arousal/excitement is all jumping up (you can see him trying to take me out). >>
Yes, I felt your pain when he body slammed you at 1:08. I literally said “OOF!” and my dogs started barking LOL!!!
>>Any ideas on how to channel this? He at least shows self restraint and doesn’t bite into me (we got there by me stopping play and leaving the room/going behind a barrier when he grabbed me).>>
Good for you for setting the boundary of “no tooth hugs, sir”. It seems like he has learned the arousal regulation on that, thanks to the ‘game over’ approach.
To help eliminate the body slamming, a couple of ideas for you:
– give him a ‘bridge’ from the shaping or whatever you are training, into the higher arousal tugging moment. What I mean by that is you can use a bit of decompression from the arousal of the training moment by tossing treats in the grass, or using a snuffle mat – then casually bring the toy out and start the tugging. It seems like if he is already in higher arousal AND then you get exciting and bring the toy out like at 1:06… BOOM! Body slam. So that bridge moment will help him regulate himself and NOT slam into you. You can also do the bridge at the start of a session if he slams you in those moments: rather than whip out the tug and just start, you can begin with a snuffle mat or cookies tossed into grass… then bring out the tugging. That helps us gradually bring up the arousal rather than have it come up all at once.
You did one of those bridge moments at about 4:05 – a sit, he had a little sniff moment (not sure if you tossed a treat or not, but you can definitely toss the treat to get the sniff because the sniff helps settle the arousal) – then you did a strike marker and onwards to great play without slamming.
– Practice the up and down arousal regulation with the volume dial game posted last night – perfect timing for our teenage puppies LOL!!! And you can maintain the same boundary as you created with the biting: if he slams you, game over/ He can jump near your… but body slamming causes you to walk away like you did with the biting. That is a last resort, though – the bridge moment between the training and the tugging (or before the tugging at the start of a session) should really help!
And as he gets more mature and less adolescent, you will see him get better and better at arousal regulation so he will have an easier time not slamming you 🙂
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
Great session here! It is a bit outside-the-box to do pattern games with toys, but she has good arousal regulation and the toys are more motivating for now.
You can also do a bit of disc-modification to make it easier to tug on: make a hole in each disc (somewhere just below and outer edge) and loop a tug toy through it so you can have handles on the discs for tugging.
>>Started with back and forth with discs, since it’s a toy I have 2 of. I’ve introduced “alright” as my “I’m gonna let go, you’re free to take the toy and run around” cue. And she chose to bring it back!!! Omg! So cool!>>
That was awesome! She did really well and it was VERY cool to see her bring it back!
>>Then we moved onto retrieves with her wubba. For whatever reason, she gives the most reliable retrieve with this toy. No idea why.>>
She totally loves the wubba! It is a favorite! You can get all different sizes and tie a longer toy to it, so she can chase it and tug more easily too.
>>I’ve also had a couple sessions in the last few days where I’ve used “alright” with a long furry tug and she’s brought it back to me after a short run!>>
Awesome!!! The permission to go for a run with the toy is both a decompression moment and a reward moment (because running around with toys is SO FUN :)) and it will serve you well in training. Bringing it back is all an indicator that she is ready to do more and is feeling good about the session.
>>We also practiced serps but I forgot to hit record though. She was perfect with both the RT machine and her new giant fluffy tug toy sitting on the ground. We’ll add in some threadle sessions here and there.>>
Perfect! We added the threadle game tonight in class, so you can add that in and balance the 2 games.
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
>>I wrote a long thing and then it bliped when I went to post and I lost it all. >>
Argh, so frustrating! The internet was having a bad night last night – bad weather across the country definitely affects the internet!
On the first video, you cracked me up when you said something like “that was the worst tugging I have ever seen out of a Dutch Shepherd” LOL!!! He was definitely having trouble getting on the toy – it looked like there was food in the picture somewhere that he wanted. I don’t think it was in your hands? But if it was in your hoodie pocket or nearby, that might have been the source of the tug question because the food smell was *right there* and more enticing than the toy.
Then when you went back to tugging after a few treats, he definitely made it clear: I AM STARVING, HUMAN. LOL!!! He even went and sniffed the Cato board, which was the last known source of food.
You switched to a ball on a rope and he engaged! Super! So you can go for a longer tug break with it, or throw it around a bit for more chasing. Or tie it to another toy so it is really long for swinging it around.
Since his food value was higher here, you can balance things a bit by using lower value food and highest value toys when food is very present in the session.
And you can also have the food NOT on your person during the tugging – it can be up on a table for now, so that when you want the toy play you can get it more easily. Yes, it makes for a slower transition into the shaping but that is fine for now because you will be able to get the toy play AND the food interaction. Then we can gradually bring the food back into the picture to make the transitions faster.
He was perfectly great about getting on the Cato boards 🙂 He was wanting the food and he was very happy to get on it. Because he has grown so much, he had to scrunch up to get on it. So you can sometimes use 2 Cato boards so can get all 4 feet on without scrunching and sometimes just use one Cato board so he has to scrunch up a bit (it is the goat tricks version of collection versus extension!). And if it is relatively stable, you can stack the Cato boards to add the challenge of height.
Wing wrap foundations look great! You are able to stand, he is going back and forth brilliantly in both directions with a bit of distance between you and the wing. And he figured out the bigger distance too – you made it a little more gradual to add the distance and he figured it out really well.
Based on this session: switch to a barrel or something bigger to go around than the wingless upright. Bring it in closer to you because it might be a big change for him!
Do a session or two and when he is going back and forth like he did here… move to the turn and burn game with the bigger barrel to wrap around.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
I love how you train along with the class! That is one of the goals of the zoom class 🙂
He was great here on the backside slices! He got the idea really quickly and you did a great job with the reward placement. Yes, it will be easier when you are outside because you can be a little further ahead of him – but mainly because you can start moving to the advanced level of position 2 and eventually position 3. When you do take this outside, if he is doing as well as he did here (he was super!) you can add your backside slice verbal before moving to the advanced level.
He also did a great job with the head turns! His right turns at the beginning of the video were super strong, especially the 3rd rep (starting at :10) – that one was chef’s kiss gorgeous! Left turns were good too but definitely a little harder, so you can slow down the hand cue to help him manage is mechanics at first. Since both sides went so well, I am betting you will see them both get really gorgeous and then you can fade out some of the hand movement: rather than have the hand lead him all the way through the turn, you can dial back the turn hand movement so it becomes just a little ‘flick’ movement – then you will see him turn his head and move into the turn.
On the threadle video:
>>I’m not sure what I did but this seems to be in slow motion. Sorry about that.>>
Ha! It added a cinematic drama to it LOL!!! He did really well here too! On the next session, add a barrel or cone to the entry side – he will only ever see a threadle slice with a wing on it, so getting him to lock onto something big will make it even more obvious for him. Since he did so well, you can start adding in your threadle slice verbal.
You can also add in the reward target on the ground, so you can keep your shoulders frozen in position until he arrives at the reward. That will make it easier to add the different positions as well as your motion.
Great job here!!!
TracyGood morning!
>>BTW, this time around I put a 6lb weight in the prop (bag) to make it harder to pick up.>>
HA! Brilliant! It is hard to outsmart a smart puppy, but I think the 6lb weight did it 🙂
Nice job with the decel sandwich game!! With more room to run, he is showing you his speed – yay!!! So that means you will want to tart the blind sooner. Because he is driving back to you so fast, you will want to start running just before he gets to the start cookie. Then as soon as he takes one step towards you, do the blind. That will give him more time to read it and make the side change, and it will give you more time to connect and decel into the turns.
You were doing the blind after a stride or two on most of the reps, so he did read it really well but you can see he was committed to one side and had to change sides just before he got to you. On the last rep, though, you did the blind really early (at 1:24, just as he started to move to you). It was SUPER smooth which made the decel and turn even smoother. YAY! His pivot and driving ahead to the treat was looking good, but it looked GREAT with the earlier blind.
>>It is still difficult at times to keep him focused on the game rather than hunting for stuff on the ground.>>
You did a great job here: high value food and very quick reinforcement. He was very focused and engaged! And rabbit poop is a challenging distraction, but he did really well 🙂
>>I played a little tug before the exercise and then he played the keep away game with the tug toy. Once he knew I had cheese, he did not care about the tug toy anymore.>>
Because he is still building his love for the tug toy, you can allow him to enjoy a keep away game and a party of one. All of that builds the love for toys! And you can have a 2nd toy, so when he is partying with the first toy, you can start partying with the other toy and then he can have a grand time getting the 2nd toy from you. The love of the toy game is more important than the precision of bringing it back for now – I promise we will get the retrieve but for now, let him really enjoy the toys.
And also yes – when the food comes out (especially great stuff like cheese) it is fine to put the toy away. As he grows up, you will be able to use them both more and more, even if it is separately at first then we build them together.
Great job here!
TracyGood morning! Great job in class last night – she was hilarious about the toy.
>>Wow she was in quite the mood this morning – just couldn’t keep herself on the ground – leaping up at me and Kaladin and rather barky for her. >>
>>Is it possible that she’s going through a phase of “I’m absolutely crazy and my brains fall out of my head first thing in the morning”?>>
Yep! Totally possible!
I think this falls into teenager-ness, based on what the sciences-types tell us. The dog behavior scientists tell us to expect and up-tick in the youngsters being a bit restless and moving more. And, from what I understand about people & dogs, cortisol levels are naturally higher in the morning and lower at night as part of the normal daily cycle, so it makes sense that we would see different behavior at different times of day during adolescence.
It sounds like you did a good job of giving her things to do. Another possibility is that if her training times are predictable throughout the day, then her arousal level comes up in anticipation of training time so that is playing into what you are seeing. The fix to that is to be less predictable and don’t begin training when she is presenting the high arousal behaviors.
And training in shorter bursts through early adolescence will help prevent getting to the point when she gets jumpy. You might set a 30 second timer then take a break, them come back a few minutes later to do another 30 seconds. Ideally we never see the jumpy behavior because the arousal regulation is happening “under the hood” and she never gets to the point where the arousal level tips over sideways LOL!
The straight cavaletti work was quite lovely, especially for such a young dog! She looked very balanced to me and was able to do the whole thing pretty independently.
She was looking at you a tiny bit at the end… because there was nothing else to look at. LOL! So a small target on the ground about 6 feet past the last pole, or an empty bowl, can be a really good visual target to keep her looking ahead. And I think it will be a good challenge for her to look ahead without hopping or skipping ahead 🙂 You can start her at the end of the cavaletti then have her trot out to the target to get that started. The target can be empty to start with and then you can put the cookie in it – a cookie in it to start might be too hard for her to stay balanced in the cavaletti.
>>I reset the cavaletti into a curve. She wanted to drift out going to the left but I am not sure if that was me not turning my shoulders along the arc or actual difficulty at curving to the left.>>
I think that she was just adjusting to the visual difference, perhaps? She looked at it like “whoa, this is new”. She did really well, so give her another day to sleep on it and see what she thinks when you present it next time. I bet she nails it 🙂
Great job here!
TracyGood morning!
He did really well at the seminar! Good job to you both!!
>>He had a VERY hard time when we brought out the food for Casey to reward him with, but we worked through it.>>
I wouldn’t call it a very hard time, I would call it a normal response LOL!!!! I mean, he is a baby dog, he likes people, he likes food, and it was HARD. And he definitely worked through it really well. Super star!
Yes, remind yourself to use your dog-sided leg to step to the wing to wrap. Because you were so close, he didn’t have a lot of questions about it but when you add distance, the dog-side leg will be a valuable part of the cue.
The other suggestion is on the go lines – having him go from extension to a sudden stop for the toy is hard on his shoulders/back. You can see that his front end tries to stop but his back end keeps going, so he is having a lot of impact on his body trying to stop for the toy. You can see it on the video, especially in slow motion. So, a way to get the go line skill without the impact on his body is to have someone be dragging the toy til he gets to it. The instructor can be at the end of the line and start moving at the toy when he is moving to the first jump. Or, enlist a friend to do it (I am happy to do it!). You will get a faster/more extended go line and he can save his body as he scoops up the toy without having to come to a sudden halt.
He did really well with the retrieving! He was bringing it back really well and I think he was figuring out that if he wanted it thrown again or wanted to tug again, he had to bring it back to you. It was a little harder when the other frisbee was there on the ground – he was interested in it and migrating towards it, which made the retrieve to you a little slower.
>>There were a couple of lengthy “party of one” out-takes.>>
When you say lengthy, how long? What feels like a long time might only be 10 seconds LOL! For example, at the first edit, how long was he having a part without you?
You rewarded with cookies at 2:34 – he liked that! You can totally do that: when he brings the toy back, reward with food, then throw it again.
>>I’m probably talking too much as usual.>>
I think for the most part, the talking was during the tugging which is great! You were pretty chill and quiet while he was deciding to bring it back (or not :))
>>PS: Flyball class starts in January!
Super! Have fun with that! Because he is only about 9 months old, you will want to spend most of your class time doing puppy recall and puppy passing games and puppy ball-love games. He is going to learn the box turn stuff really quickly – but his brain will be more ready than his body so you will want to take your time learning it (goal age for a finished box turn is closer to 18 months in terms of physical development, but all of the other games are great for pups and then it all comes together easily!)
Great job here!!!
TracyGood morning! She did really well here too, note how she started without you LOL!!!
Getting on it and off it was super easy. Yay! When you have her turn around, keep your hand lower so she can keep her head lower. Her head was a little high here on the turn when so she lost her balance a bit.
Because she was so confident here, you can also do position changes on the plank: using a cookie as a reward and lure if needed, cue slow position changes from stand to sit, sit to stand, and stand to down. That will require a lot of balance and body awareness.
Great job!
Tracy
