Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Good morning!
He did great here with the tunnel threadles!
The first side was smooth and he read the cues really well. You can be a shade earlier with the cue to threadle here at the beginning – it was happening as he exited the wing, but you can start the threadle cues (arm/shoulder/verbal) just before he arrives at the wing.
On the other side, your cues were later (which is why he was wider) – at 1:12, for example, he was a stride or two past the wing exit when you did the threadle arm and shoulder turn. The later your were the wider he went like at 1:33 and 2:10 (and 1:45 on the original side too).
But when you the cue was in progress when he was arriving at the wing (2:21) he was nice and tight! Super! So definitely keep going with that early timing.
And you can spread things out and start to add more running! The added motion will require the earlier timing or he might end up off course 🙂 And depending on how he reads the line and cues, you might even add a turn verbal on the wing (coming from the wing before it) followed by the threadle info.
The lap turns are going really well – nice timing and mechanics! He was happy to propel around the wings without you needing to run which was great because you didn’t have run backwards at all 🙂
Since this went super well, you can spread the wings out and add more running – but I think your time will be better spent doing the tandem turns. It is the same structure as the lap turns but you are moving a little more and facing the line (instead of facing him). I suggest moving to the tandems because they are used a lot more than lap turns are nowadays, and also they move us really nicely into the threadle wraps!
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
>I’ll try to remember that it’s probably me doing something not quite right – even when I start to think “why isn’t Skizzle doing x ?”>
Yes! I do the same. Thing: when the dog is not ‘getting it’, I try to connect more and if the dog still isn’t getting it, I look at my video 🙂 Dogs, especially young ones, are like mirrors of the clarity of our cues.
The jump grid went well! I agree that the distance was good and also agree that he was a little too far from the first jump. On those reps, he had a good jumping arc but he landed a little short to the bump. When he was a little closer, he was more centered (like at :35). You can line him up with his front feet about one hands-width away from the jump and that should be the sweet spot.
>I was entertained by the last rep – that I thought it was past due to reward the stay – and then he definitely broke it right after.>
That was so funny! On all the other reps he was working so hard to hold the stay after the toy was on the grand until you released. He was great! Then on the last one, he released as soon as the toy went down. Maybe because you were not as connected? Or maybe he was anticipating? Either way, you can get the toy on the ground and then throw a reward back to him so he gets more practice *not* moving when the toy is on the ground/before the release.
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning! The Go line and the RC at the beginning looked really good!
The backsides were harder for sure!
Two suggestions:As you are cueing the backside, make sure you are moving to where the wing and bar meet so she can see the wing (and keep giving her the big connection so she knows not to look for the bar). You were blocking the wing on the first backside which is why she went right past it. The same happened at 2:07 and 2:53 – she never saw the wing. It was good to have a laugh and reward her when she did find it on the way back!
On the reward where she could see the wing, she got it right every time. Yay!
The second suggestion is to reward on the landing side as you keep moving – when she did find the jump, the countermotion of you moving forward made her question what to do on the exit.
At 1:41 you asked if you should have rewarded there or not – the answer is yes! Reward there to help her see he line and then also to commit to the jump bar as you are continuing to move forward. You can also shift your gaze to the landing side, which helps her take the jump.
Since the backside wrap concept is new to her, you can also take out the jump bar and just work it on a wing: that can help her recognize the wrap element then it is easy o pu the bar back in.
Nice work here!!
TracyGood morning! Sounds like he had a fun weekend!!
He is doing well with his waits here! Resist the temptation to feed from your hand at all – that will put too much focus on your hand as you move it away. You can add in lining him up at you are side and walking away forward (instead of backing away) so it starts to look like a real agility lead out 🙂
For the handling combo with the toy behind him: wow, he was explosively fast here!!! I love it!
Next step: we will work more on the impulse control in this game which means no more collar grabbing 🙂 and no more picking him up 🙂 Put the toy down and give him treats for walking away from the toy, then lining up to send around the barrel.
When you were holding him or reaching for him, he was getting faster at not getting caught on some reps 😂 so you can really focus in on the getting him to move with you for rewards and ignore the toy on the ground until you drive to it.
Strike a pose:
>I did do the serp work with toy on ground instead food in hand, a toy is hearder ond on ground even harder . >
He did well ignoring the toy on the strike a post game here!! Very nice!!!!!
>I did forget about getting him to wait or food toss first will add that in next>
Don’t worry about the wait here for now, but definitely try it with the food toss start. That will be a little harder but a good challenge!
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
>I’ve been doing CPE the longest and just added NADAC in the last year, so those are where I’m most comfortable. For Macklynn I haven’t quite decided what venues I want to pursue. Definitely open to learning more of the internationals and AKC to expand MY knowledge base.>
The best thing about agility here in the US is that we have soooooo many options – that way you can really pick and choose your favorite flavors! AKC regular classes will most closely align with CPE and NADAC, and you can add the skills that make it easier to navigate the ISC and UKI courses too! And those skills are mainly distance and independence, which you will also find on a lot of NADAC courses too 🙂
z.Hoping to have sketches for the turn verbals in the next few days for your comment/correction, since some still aren’t registering for me.>Sounds good!! If sketches don’t post here, you can email them to me at agilityuniversity@gmail.com and we can discuss 🙂
>I don’t have a video of our ‘stay’ progress yet, but it may be the slowest progressing game for us so far. We’re still rocking the ‘sit,’ one step, ‘catch’ combo. Anything beyond a step and a half away results in a broken stay.>
Stays are hard!!! Feel free to post a video so we can sort out what we can help her with. You can try a few different things:
– for my dog that had the HARDEST time learning to stay, the clicker was very clarifying so you can add a clicker if you are not already using it. She would sit, I would start walking away, then I would click and throw the reward back behind her as I continued moving away. No stopping or anything, I stayed in motion to get more distance and duration.
It starts off pretty rapid but they pick it up quickly. This is the first clicker session for the baby Whippet. He is not the dog that had the big struggle with it as a puppy but you can see how quickly he was deciding to hold position 🙂
– we can also give her a place to stay on, like a station or bed. That can be clarifying too by providing a very specific place to be.
All of the training sessions are looking great!!!! Very exciting!
Handling combos:
I agree, most dogs have a very clear preferred side. She made it clear here LOL I think she also had trouble able going past the hand holding a cookie, so you can try it with am empty hand to see if that makes it easier to go to the barrel. You can reward her with treats for leaving the toy on the ground behind her, but then use an e pty hand t cue the barrel wrap.
She did a good job of wrapping the barrel with the toy behind her! There were multiple brilliant reps espcially to her easier side and with empty hands.
To build on this, you can add a few things:
Have the toy further away so you both get to run more after the barrel wrap. And you can add a “Go” cue as you run towards the toy, to name the behavior of driving ahead of you.
When you get to the barrel, let go of her collar then send her. There was a couple of times when you were sending her and holding the collar, and she thought it was weird that you were pushing her forward 🙂 I think trying the whole game without touching her would be a good challenge: place the toy, give her cookies for walk with you back to the barrel, then line her up and send without holding the collar at all. She seems ready for that!
Lap turns with the prop – I really like how easily she goes from cookies to the toy! Nice!!!! That is hard for many young dogs and she is great about that.
The extended hand at 1:04 with you leaning over a bit to make it obvious was perfect – that helped her see that you wanted her to come to your hand. The reps after that were quite brilliant!
When she was turning back towards the prop, she was not sure if she should keep looking at your hand or not – you made an excellent adjustment at 2:50 when, after the turn away, you took the cue hand out of the picture and moved forward. She totally knew what you wanted then, and hit the prop perfectly. Surer!!!
At 3:30 you were too exciting (moved fast and said go) so she missed the prop but that last rep with the connection and taking out the hand cue after the turn away worked GREAT. Yay!
Tandem turns: Lovely! She seemed to have no questions.
You were sorting out which hand to use in. The first couple of reps: dog-side arm or opposite arm you might end up liking using both hands LOL with the opposite arm visible and turning her away, but the dog-side arm also helping her come in towards you to help begin the turn cues.Since this went great – you can move to the advanced level and add in the prop!
Strike a pose:
Ah yes, the clouds were lovely – gorgeous weather! I am jealous!Even with the camera pointing a bit upwards, we can see plenty of Macklynn here and the session went great too! Your mechanics were excellent and she drove in nicely to the target hand.
You can shift your connection to the target hand/serp hand as she comes back towards you (instead of looking at her) to help guide her to the hand when the reward is more visible. She was not struggling with self-control at all, but looking at the serp hand will clarify exactly where you want her to go.
Since she did so well with the toy in your hand, you can keep building on that – let it dangle more as a distraction 🙂 And then you can go to the next steps of getting the reward target to the ground. You can start with an empty food bowl to drop treats into and if she is happy with that, you can move to having the toy on the ground.
Great job here!!!
Tracy
Good morning! Hope you had a great weekend!
>I do have an iphone and it won’t load my thread. I think my thread is too long. I can only get on from my computer. Is it possible to start a new thread?
This is the error I get. “A problem repeatedly occurred on “https://agility-u.com/topic/colleen-and-roulette/>
Yes, it sounds like an iOs versus YouTube argument that we see sporadically. This morning, my Mac is not wanting to load YouTube videos in the threads that have a lot of videos but my PC and Android are perfectly fine.
So, also yes – you can start a new thread so you don’t have to wrestle with the issue 🙂
Tracy
Good morning!
Really lovely work here! Smooth-sailing so we can keep adding to these skills.Strike a pose game:
He did really well doing his hand target even with a cookie-filled lotus ball on the ground! It is pretty impressive self-control for such a young dog 🙂For the next steps: you can add in having him start further from you so he has to drive to your target hand. This can be using a cookie toss start, or his stay 🙂
Lap and tandem turns both went great. He is very responsive to the cues here, even with empty hands, which means we can now move to the next step:
Have the prop 3 feet away from you, off to the side. That will create a straight line to your hands for the lap and tandem turns (past the prop instead of over it). Then after you turn him away: keep moving forward towards the prop, stay connected, but don’t reward yet: as you move forward towards the prop, let him hit it and then you throw the reward. That adds in a distance element and teaches him to look for lines after the lap & tandem turns rather than for the immediate rewards. I think he is ready for it!
Great job on these! He is flying through these games!
Tracy
Good morning!
>A MESS is an understatement! I haven’t seen that much snow and ice and multiple days of sub-freezing temps in over a decade! >
Yep – and now we are transitioning into record highs. I guess this is the new normal? Ewwww.
>Karen was great to work with! During her introduction, she noted the increasing trend of dogs as young as five months old doing full courses and she set the expectation that the workshop would focus on puppy foundation flatwork. >
Good for her!!! I agree with her completely.
>Tribute was wonderful throughout! Karen did attempt to move the toy so that Tribute would target it better. However, he seemed a little confused. >
He is giving us good feedback 🙂 Maybe he needs a big toy that can roll, like a giant hollee roller with a ball shoved in it – that way you can roll it really far and it will keep rolling as you let him go to move to it. So it will be a semi-dead toy 🙂
He started off well wrapping to the bowls, but was not sure about it when you stepped back away from the barrel (was going between you and the barrel).
That is a skill where you can get a little more distance by tarting with the 2 bowls and instead of you moving away (which might draw his focus to you), you slide the barrel away but a tiny bit. You can toss a treat off to the side and slide the barrel away while he is racing to get it, then resume the game when he gets back to you.>I am not quite sure how to convert the Vito game into a send followed by the wrap.>
This went well so far! Two suggestions for you to keep building up the skill:
Start very very close to the barrel for now, so the option of coming between you and the barrel (instead of around it) is not as viable. Line hi up at your side before you send, then when he is lined up: send him with an arm, leg, and connection. Then be patient and let him get most of the way around the barrel before you take off and run. You were doing well with that and he really liked the toy reward 🙂
Also, start him on your left side at the beginning of the session, so he turns to his right. That seems to be his easier side and he was gravitating there when he was not sure. When he has a few good reps, you can switch to starting him on your right side to work on the left turns. Definitely be nice and close on that side and super patient to let him get almost all the way around before you run.
After a few good reps on both sides, you can start doing the FC and running with the reward earlier and earlier – putting a line on the ground as a marker for you will help tell you when to do the FC and run, based on when he reaches the marker.
Great job!
Tracy
Good morning!
It took him a moment to realize the MM was IN the tunnel – the look on his face was priceless (so surprised!) I think he was having a BIG MAD at first because he was expecting a cue to start. But then when he realized that HE controlled the game…. Excellent! Lots of good reps without him yelling at you.
Yes, this first session is about shaping because of how it builds value for the tunnel differently than having him do a recall through it (generally shaping builds more value and it doesn’t require us to fade out the person doing the recall :)) Speed is not that important, it is more about the independent decision to go to the tunnel.
By the end he had it and he was PUMPED UP for that toy and to run into it. That means you can move to the next set which adds the verbal cue: holding him, saying ‘tunnel’ 3 r 4 times, then letting him go to run through it. I think the only hard part will be figuring out how to hold him to let him hear there verbal before he starts to move. It can be a gentle collar or harness hold if he doesn’t mind you leaning over a bit here!
>I mixed some smelly hamburger bits into the kibble in the manners minder and he could tell for sure. He did not run really fast to the MM but he did go to it and eat the boring treats.>
Yay! It is OK if he thinks of the MM as a medium level reward for now – we can use it for ‘thinking’ games like shaping where we don’t want him to be deranged for it LOL!!! He did well with it here!
Great job 🙂 Tracy
Good morning!
On the serps – you can get her to come in more to the jump while you move if your upper body is more in strike a pose mode 🙂 That means you can swing the dog-side arm back and extend it away, which open your shoulder up and rotate your upper body to face her and the jump. You were ‘closing’ your shoulder forward towards the MM which kind of cues her to go past the jump.When you switched sides at 1:28, your upper body position was much more of a serp! Yay! Because adding motion is hard for her too (especially with the manners minder) you can help her by rotating the jump towards her so she can see the bar more easily. Plus you can use a less enticing reward target, like an empty food bowl. She was getting it by the end but we would like more success in the beginning too 🙂
And in all of these handling games, if something is going wrong: you can totally use reset rewards because of the possibility that there are handler errors happening 🙂 That would be praise and a cookie for lining up with you again. That will help keep her in the game as you sort out mechanics. Note how she left to go sniffing in the first half of the session – there were a lot of failures and very few rewards, so she was getting stressed about not knowing what to do. Reset cookies really help that, and turning the cup to make it more visible will help too.
The proofing game went well! Your serp position was really good esepcially at the beginning – you can have your serp arm even further back to rotate your shoulders towards the jump (and towards her) even more. And keep it back 🙂 as the session went along, you were not as open as you were at the beginning:
Compare the last serp (1:24) where your shoulders were pointing to the tunnel, and your dog-side arm was down by your leg) versus the first serps where your shoulders were pointed back to the jump and your arm was further back. To really clarify the serps when moving, have your arm at a 90 degree angle away from your body, so it extends away with your elbow locked. This will also help when you add in the threadle where the arm swings back even more.
She found the tunnels really well here!!
The layering also went really well! There was not a lot of room behind you to give her a big acceleration to the line, but she was more than happy to accelerate any to find the jump. Great job with the thrown rewards, that really helped her look onto the line! When you revisit this, y can set up the mirror image and see if she can do ti on the otehr side as well. And you can go to the advanced game which adds the tunnel into it 🙂
Backside wraps – nice job! She had lovely commitment to the backside of the jump even as you moved forward past it: click/treat for you BOTH! The verbals when repeated for the wraps do sound funny but they are very effective 🙂 And I love how she adjusted to the GO line at the end even after all the backside wraps. Super! You can use a toy on this game more – that will help keep her more engaged and less interested in cookie-hunting on the floor.
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
>Switched to food and things went so/so. >
There were a couple of food reps here that went well!
>Still seeing hesitation for the “Go”. I know that I was late with the cue on some of them so tried to get better on that. >
She had small questions based on handling info for the Go lines. On the Go lines, you were really connecting (yay!). On some of the reps, you were also decelerating and putting pressure on the line towards the jump, so she was hesitating to sort out what you wanted her to do.
A good example of that is at :21 – she saw you starting to pressure in toward the jump, so she was trying to figure out if you wanted straight or RC or even backside.
Compare to the go at :45 – your line was straighter with no pressure in towards the jump, plus the ball was in play. Nice rep there!
So to keep the Go lines straighter – keep accelerating with connection straight past the jump. A placed reward can help too, if throwing the rewards is hard to do without accidentally putting too much pressure on the line.
>Gave her a break and ran Jack rewarding with the balls. Then tried the more advanced with Jazz and ball for the reward. More drive and also more laps >
She definitely liked the ball! Very motivating! No worries about the laps for now – it is far more important to get the motivating rewards into the game and work on getting the toy back faster in different sessions (like in the house) and with lots of trading for really good stuff.
>Since she isn’t driving forward it’s challenging to get the line for the rear crosses set up. >
The rear crosses went really well, she was able to find the correct line here! Finding the wing after the RC was a little harder, you had to get up there to show it to her, but that was mainly because it was new to her.
> Realized I wasn’t sure of the handling/verbals for the advanced sequences – >
You were using left/right which is a good choice, but might actually be cueing a turn that is too tight for what she needed here – she can turn nice and tight!
For example, you cued a left turn at 1:06 and she produced a beautiful turn . The wing was just a little too far away for such a nice turn, so she didn’t take the wing. Good job rewarding anyway. On the right turn cues, you accelerated ore and got closer to the wing so she took it.
Because of her ability to turn tight, you probably not need verbal cue for the line to the wing after the RC – you can let physical cues do the work there 🙂 Eventually that line can be obstacle names.
>I tried not to repeat things – even though I was changing the end part, the start wrap was always the same. Didn’t seem to cause any sticky behavior although I didn’t ask for a sit/stay before starting as that seems to be a sticking point. >
That was great! Tons of rewards even if things didn’t go entirely to plan, no repeating the same things, and nothing that indicated she was wrong. No freezing! She has frozen up before even without a stay, so this was a big win!
>No hesitation for the tunnel – made sure there was light coming through as I think some of the hesitation could be from dark tunnel entries.
Yes, that worked really well. Plus you were supported the line to the entry with motion and not peeing away, so she had no questions.
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
>That too high dog-side arm totally bit me this morning at the USDAA trial in Jumpers. Super simple jump on his line out of a curved tunnel followed by another jump and then a BC to get a slight turn to the left for the jump after that.>
Oh no! Darned arm! I have been watching some of the EOTT and that high arm is leading to the same errors (coming off lines). The dogs just can’t see the connection and line that well, leading to errors. It is really easy to see from my armchair quarterback view 🙂
Congrats on a 59 point snooker run! That course was HUGE! It is like they took a normal course and spread it out because the opening distances were just ginormous LOL The wraps looked good – I could see the brakes and exit line arm keeping it really clear for him!
>The exit arm totally saved me around 0:30 after the late FC on 7a when we were heading across the ring to #2 (yellow jump). Did a backside slice on 7a (purple jump between the 2 tunnels) because he’d already done a backside wrap for me at 5. I was out of his way and going past the exit standard as he was landing, but forgot the exit arm so my back was to him as I was running to the last tunnel so he was drifting out to the off-course jump >
Yes! He had a great backside slice then you took off running, neglecting to mention what the next line was… so he was drifting to try to figure out the line. That was when you squeaked but more importantly: dropped your left arm back and opened up connection. The camera view didn’t show the opposite arm there but it certainly was a good place for it!
Watching the EOTT – there are a lot of wide turns/errors on cross exits on the crazy blinds needed for those courses because the dog-side arm is high and the exit line arm is not visible. Being the Armchair Quarterback is fun LOL!!
Tracy
OMG! Sounds like a vacation is ahead!
>One question the send round a barrel. I use “nananana” which is my backside push cue, rather than “dig dig” which is my wrap jump cue. > My rationale for using na-na is it teaches take the “wing” then the bar, with the bar being added later. But should i be using my ‘take the bar and wrap the wing” cue – of dig dig.>
This is one of the places where it your choice – whatever makes the most sense to your brain 🙂 Using your backside circle wrap verbal is great here! You can also use the front side wrap verbals, but it sounds like it makes more sense to use your backside verbal and that is great! We add bars soon so then it will be even easier to decide which verbal you want to use.
Have a great camping trip! Are you taking the dogs with you?
Tracy
(I had to buy a new “barrel” cos my one blew away in the storm, despite having a sand bag in it)>
Good morning!
>The availability of the training center (and my yard) were hit or miss in February due to ice and snow. However, it looks like we are turning the corner and I will finally get back on schedule.>
This winter has been a MESS in your area! I hope you get some good spring weather ASAP because there hs been too much snow/ice/cold. Ick!!
It looked like a ton of fun to work with Karen! The first flatwork games are definitely similar to MaxPup games so it was fun to see him do them – he looked lovely. You can add in a bit of deceleration so he can collect before arriving at your side.
>Tribute is still not overly thrilled with driving to a dead toy but I can see he is starting to get the idea.>
For this game, when you are working with other people – do you think he would drive to it better if someone was dragging it a little? That way it is not entirely dead 🙂 and he will drive ahead of you.
> While waiting my turn, I practiced short stays and he did really well considering that two rings were going at once and there were a lot of distractions. >
Good boy!!! That can be a busy environment and he did great!
>We still had to use collar grabs for some of the activities but he was much better about it. >
On one of the reps, someone was standing behind him & holding a leash – that worked really well because you were able to get to where you needed to be and no one else had to hold his collar. It sounds like he is doing well when you hold his collar too. Keep giving him treats for it and he will continue to like it more and more 🙂
Great job! Thanks for the update!
Tracy
