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Good 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!
TracyHi! The goat games are looking good!!!
On the first video – nice tugging to start and as brain breaks (while you got the pod out of there so she wasn’t confused about what you wanted). And also great patience to let her offer interacting with the pod. She was definitely figuring out how that you were wanting her to touch the pod, so she offering feet on it and also a down on it – adorable! Since the pod is so small, you can get her to put more feet on it by putting another pod next to it, so she has a bigger playing field. You can also toss the reward off to the side more, so she is more likely to remain standing in expectation of the treat being off to the side.
On the 2nd video (donut!) she interacted immediately! Wow! And also wow, she got right up on it – the donuts takes some good balance and core strength, and she nailed it. You can see how hard it was by the wobbling as she was trying to keep her balance. The only hard part was when you added speed by moving fast ack and forth (she couldn’t quite maintain her balance to get back on it) so for now, you can be relatively stationary so she can work her balance.
On the 3rd video – tugging on the wobble board went really well – she was VERY happy to tug the toy and didn’t seem to have any concerns about the movement. So onwards to the next steps: when tugging on the wobble board, you can slow down the movement of the tug and let her pull back on it more, so she is shifting her weight into her rear and getting lower. That will simulate what she will be doing on the teeter. And, you can also use this with cookies: every time she moves the board, you can toss a treat off to the side. That will help her learn that she can control the movement of the board.
Great job on these!!
TracyGood morning!! It was indeed a fun and relaxing Christmas 🙂 Hope yours was good too!!
her tunnel value is definitely coming up – she was fast and happy to run through it even when it was longer. The next step for the tunnel itself would be to gently curve one end of it, so it is still mostly straight but we are progressing towards curving it. That will be easy! So before starting that, a few ideas about going back and forth between treats & toys:
>>>>The last 2 reps with the long fleece toy were after a short break where she sniffed around and then did the up& down pattern game.>>
She was super engaged with the thrown toy there!! Yay! Was there any food in the picture before the first rep with the toy there? I didn’t see any so maybe the toy needs to be separate from the good cookies for now, because she gave the toy a thumbs down in the early portion of the session that had food mixed in too.
She seems to really like the chase element that starts the toy play, so when food was in the picture, she *did* chase the thrown toy but went back into foodie mode when it was dead. With that in mind, I wonder what she would think if we maintained the chase element: does she like a ball? Or a hollee roller? Or a frizzer? Or a flirt pole with a crazy furry toy on it? And a ball or hollee roller can be attached to a line/flirt pole to stay in motion too. We can keep the toy moving for her to chase, and then begin to reel her in for tugging (rather than have it go ‘dead’ before you arrive for tugging – it is in that moment that her food love takes over).
For the RDW work, it was a little hard for her to not watch your motion at first. She did start hitting the mat really well but I think she was pacing herself off of you a bit (thus the trotting). This trotting at this stage is fine because it is so much better than leaping LOL!, but we can make it more independent of your motion. There are two different ways to structure this:
You can have the bowl-mat-bowl setup and you can be sitting in a nce comfy chair or on the ground, and let her work the game the same way she figured out the wing wrap foundation.
Or, you can get the MM involved so we can set up a nat to MM version of it, with a barrel wrap or cookie toss to get it started.
>>I realized when watching this that I probably should have put the food dishes on the line of the arc when I was sending her out away from me a bit.>>
I think the setup was good! We do eventually add arc work but in these early stages, straight exits will establish the behavior really well.
>>For the Remote marker word, is this the word that you eventually use after you leash up and run out of the ring to get the meatballs? That’s “happy hour” for Kaladin>>
Yes, ideally it is the same word because that is exactly what this builds to 🙂
Great job here!
TracyHi! Hope you enjoyed the holiday weekend! She did really well here!
Great job with the connection, that seemed very clear here and she knew where to be on the exit of each barrel. Super! The value of the toy is definitely coming up – her hesitations here (or turning to the left on the first rep) seemed to be about the challenge of ignoring the toy in your hand. She did work through it and was super successful on the last rep! To help that happen sooner, you can do a warm up rep with empty hands. When she is successful with that and the skill is fresh in her mind, then you can add the toy scrunched up in your hand like you had it here. Part of the goal of the rocking horse game is to get the pups focused on the ‘work’ (barrels) and not on our hands even when we have something enticing in them 🙂 You had the marker (“chase”) added so as the marker gets stronger and stronger, she will ignore the toy more and more. It is a matter of a little more practice as the value of the toy continues to rise (and high value toys are great!)
Nice work here!
TracyGood tugging at the beginning! It got him nicely engaged! And it was fine to put it away once the cheese came out – cheese is very high value s the toy was not as motivatnig, but he was not thinking about rabbit poop so it is still a big win.
And he is interacting with his prop really well (and not grabbing it!) but I totally see what you mean about him being super focused on your hands.
For getting him to focus on the prop and not on your hands, a couple of ideas:
– warm up close to the prop so you can refresh the value a little bit before adding the parallel path and the backwards sending.
– add reward markers, which will go a long way to direct his focus as to where the cheese reward will come. When you are silent or use a ‘yes’, he is more likely to default to looking at your hands (because cheese is life!)
So the 2 markers I would add for the food are a ‘get it’ marker which means “the cookie is being tossed out ahead” and a “snacks” (or any word you prefer 🙂 ) marker which means come get the cookie from my hand. Both of these will basically get him looking at his work (the prop in this case) and not at your hand, because watching your hand will not elicit the marker. And the clarity of placement will also getting him looking more at the work.
Add these to the parallel path game – ideally you would say “get it” and then throw the cookie. And the timing of that would be as soon as he looks at the prop (or the jump) and before he arrives at it, so he is still lokoing ahead when you throw it. I think you will have an easier time isolating that moment of looking ahead if you move ahead to the parallel path concept transfer on a jump (with a jump bump or rolled up towel as the bar). He *is* doing the look ahead on the prop, but it is all happening so fast that it is really hard to isolate. So try it with the jump and as soon as he looks at the jump, say ‘get it’ and throw the reward as far as possible.
The concept transfer game is here:
Let me know what you think! Nice work here!
TracyHi!
She is doing really well!!!She was very happy to commit to the barrel with you rotated – YAY! And you did a great job of shifting your connection back behind you to help her commit.
Since she was so happy to commit, we can make it easier for you 🙂 On the rotated sends, you can run forward to the next barrel for a few steps. Then before she catches up to you (probably as she is exiting the previous barrel), you can decelerate then as she is catching up to you – rotate and send her backwards to the barrel. That should be easier than running backwards.
She really only had one other question – we see it on the first video here and we saw it on the previous video. From Mingo: “mom, when exactly do I start the wrapping??”
Since she seems to think any movement towards the barrel is a start cue, we don’t want to frustrate her by stopping her… she isn’t entirely wrong, but she isn’t entirely right LOL! So we can avoid making it an issue entirely AND build up the strength of your verbals by adding this:
– line her up with a cookie
– Gently take her collar in your hand
– Say the verbals a few times
– Then let go of her collar and rep to the first barrel 🙂
That strengthens the verbals even more before she is hearing the new cue (verbal) separately and before the motion, so it will come to indicate what is coming next, therefore becoming the cue to wrap even without the motion 🙂Great job here! Happy holidays!
Tracy
Hi!
This is looking really good, from all the different angles! She is starting to turn before the bar which is great! Nice job maintaining the shoulder position so she would see the full serp cue and I loved her stay at the end.
So the next rep would be to add a toy in the reward hand instead of a treat, and then the reward eventually gets put on the ground (becomes a really great impulse control game too :))Great job here!
Tracy
