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Good morning!
She is doing a great job with her lines here! Yay!
You were late on the FC wrap cues at :12 (you felt it in the moment). BIG click/treat to you for the adjustment in your timing at :33. What worked so well there was as she was landing from the middle pinwheel jump, you started to decelerate (which is a hugely important part of the cue) then started the wrap verbals. Super!!!
At :50 on the other side: late on that cue – the decel and verbals started as she was gathering for liftoff, so she landed long and had a big slip on the landing. Since they pups might slip and tweak a shoulder if you are late, you can spray her feet with any sticky spray you use (I am pretty sure Tina has some) or I can show you how to wrap part of the foot to add grip 🙂
You asked if you were late there: the way to tell in the moment is to note where she took off or landed (you were connected so I know you saw it :)) If she takes off really close to the jump and looks like she is crunching up before takeoff: collection! You were on time.
If she takes off relatively straight and then has to take a stride or two to get back to the wing: that means you were late and accidentally cued extension.
The wrap at 1:14 was better because your cues were earlier. My favorite rep was at :33 – that is where the good timing was really helpful!
There was a bar blooper at 1:06 – you disconnected and turned away so she was surprised, tried to adjust, landed on the bar, looked at you. Compare to 1:18 where you were connected and running straight to the tunnel: no questions from her!
Nice work here!
Tracy
Good morning!
Thanks for putting all this in the video: he seems to completely understand the concept of finding the lines but I see what you are saying about the bars!
>I really do not like the way he jumps. >
What I am seeing is that he is completely engaged and motivated to work! But what he is doing is holding his hind end together: back feet very close together almost like bunny hopping.
So that changes his form and he is trying to pull from the front rather than push from the rear. We can see it clearly like at :31 but we can also see it when he is running over bars on the ground.
>I have worked on the Linda M. Jump foundations but he just gets so ramped up and focused on me. He is not as able to bark and still work as all my other guys.>
The Linda jump stuff really requires hind end engagement. It is entirely possible that the arousal and barking at you is a result of frustration because he is not able to use his hind end in a way the jumping work requires him to. We are not seeing the barking at you in the lazy game here because it is doesn’t require a much hind end.
So 3 ideas for you:
– for the handling, keep the ‘easy’ bars low for now (more on why below). The easy bars are the ones after the tunnel. Take out the hard bars entirely – this is the middle jump of the pinwheel and the wrap jumps when you move to the wrap sequences. Let him work this skills without a bar for now. And if he does drop a bar, keep going and reward the next thing he does correctly.
You can move into the sequences where you get to run with him, which will support his lines better which also supports jumping 🙂
– to see if we can get more hind end engagement, take the set point and the accordion grid outside on grass, with the moving target. And get video from the side so we can see what he is doing in slow motion. All of his jump stuff was done inside in the winter, so let’s look at how he does outside on grass and we can give him bigger distances to look at.
– and this is what I recommend as a higher priority over the handling for now: let’s find out why he is bunny hopping in the rear! I know you probably have your hands on him all the time, but you can get a 2nd opinion on if he has any pain/tightness/soreness/ROM restrictions in the hind end. Has he had his preliminary hip/spine radiographs? And a patella exam when he is laying on his side and not standing up? Let’s see what’s restricting the movement and get lots and lots of video on it 🙂
You can also video cavalettis and trots on the flat to see if we see anything when we slow it way down to watch.
He understands the skills for the handling, so now we just need to sort out the movement. We will figure it out!
Tracy
Good morning!
3 of these reps were spot on perfect in term of making connection at the tunnel exit and staying connected through the send. On those, your eyes and leg did most of the work, and your hand followed her nose (and the verbals were strong too!). So definitely keep doing that 🙂
On the ‘tooth hug’ rep – the connection and arm actually moved forward ahead of her, which blocked her view of it and turned your shoulder away from the line. It was subtle! She was not entirely sure of where to be and the chomp moment was a bit of frustration.
Two thoughts on that:
– be as connected all the time as you were on the other three reps 🙂
– but since we humans are not perfect and sometimes we are a shade early or sometimes disconnected, you can revisit the ‘find my face’ game from MaxPup 1. Now that she is doing more grown up stuff, you can play find my face during the actual session and reward her for self-regulation when you are not entirely perfect. Find my face is in week 10 if MaxPup 1.Nice work here!
Tracy
Wow! He did great! Those are fun sequences too – what a good boy!!!!
Have a great weekend at the trial!
Tracy
Hi!
>>Do you think it would be helpful to move that middle jump out farther so there is more time to show the transition or do I just need to do a better job?>>
Yes. And also yes 🙂 you can spread out the distances and also be ready to cue sooner 🙂
T
Good morning!
>It’s starting to feel like someday we’ll play agility for real >
You totally will! You two are coming together brilliantly as a team!
>We could both benefit if I would take a minute to practice what I’m going to do without the dog first…but I’m a little inpatient and running up against the end of daylight…but I’ve said it, so maybe I’ll try it now and again >
I approve this message LOL! The walk through is the magic that makes the runs work. In the advanced handling classes, I make everyone record the walk throughs because I am a pain in the butt like that haha but it really helps!
>All to say, I feel a bit discombobulated some of the time…like “oh, I’m in the wrong spot” – throw toy! Also having trouble cue word-finding in the moment – so a few random “go”s where directional cues are what my brain thinks I should be saying.>
The walk throughs do fix this! So adding them will make things feel very comfy as you get more rehearsals under your belt.
The session on the video went really well! Your connection was strong – overall, you can keep moving more. Think of it as slowing down rather than stopping. When you stop, he has questions (like one the first rep and at :50) he is not sure if he should continue past you. At :50, your dog-side leg got stuck back behind you so he was not sure if that meant to carry on or not. He did go the wing at :50 (yay!) but compare to the rep at 1;21 where you kept moving: he had no questions there! Yay!
On these handling games, you can challenge yourself to keep moving and keep the big connection… but don’t use your arms 🙂 Your hand can follow his nose but you don’t need to point at the obstacles or lines at all. This is especially important because arms can block connection.
Speaking of not needing hands that much: the first bunch of sends on the 2nd video had minimal hand movement and lots of connection and a clear step to the middle (blue) jump – and he did great! These were from the beginning to :17
At :21 you used a pointing arm to show the blue jump but that ended up turning your feet/shoulders and connection away from it… so he turns to the yellow. Good boy!
>makes me wonder if there’s something about the grass there (like it’s dirty where poop was) that he doesn’t like…>
It was more of a connection issue and probably his harder turn direction. When he as missing the yellow jump after the tunnel (:38, 1:17, 1:30) I think it was a moment of ‘you could see him but he couldn’t see the connection’ so he came off the line. What I mean by that is your arm was parallel to your body so from his height level, he couldn’t see your eyes and your shoulders were pulling him past the jump.
Compare to 1:36 where he was exiting the tunnel and your arm was back, pointing to his nose, and you made a clear eye contact. That set him directly on the line because he could see the connection, and he got the yellow jump. Yay!
So making the connection with your arm back to his nose and pretty direct eye contact makes a really big difference for him!
Great job here! The sequences are coming together really well!
Tracy
Good morning!
The timing and connection went really well! Timing was really good! Connection was 99% good 🙂 On the last rep, you used a high arm which blocked connection when you sent to the middle jump and she ended up hitting the bar there.
Setting up for the middle jump was hard for her on all the reps here and on the wrap video too (she ticks the bar a lot in both directions) – soft turns are hard! It might be that it is hard to get the hind end push in the dirt? We can give her a slightly taller bar to jump (2 inches higher) and you can add your opposite arm as a brake arm to help cue the collection to make the turn there. When you cue the middle jump, you will basically cue it with 2 hands up as a bit of a ‘whoa!’ That is a pretty natural cue to help with soft turns.
Wraps: Lovely connection throughout here!! The best reps in terms of timing were at :07 and :49 – the decel started when she was about halfway to the jump so she had really nice turns!!
The other reps (:23, :37, 1:00) and on the full runs at the end (1:18 and 1:40), the wrap cues can come sooner! She did most of the turning on the landing side of the jump, which meant the wrap info came after her takeoff decision was made.
So to get the earlier timing: When she lands from the middle jump, you can begin the decel and then when she is closer to takeoff of the wrap, do the FC. That might mean you don’t get all the way to the wrap wing but that is perfectly fine because she can do it independently 🙂 And that will help when she gets to full height, because the info being earlier gives her move time to adjust.
Yum, yogurt!!! And good for the gut too 🙂 It helped her want to do the wobble board for sure! She was not too comfy yet keeping her hind end on the board – she would go over it then hop her bum off on most of the reps. To help her get more comfy, you can stuff things under it to minimize the tip – a bunch of towels or dogs beds can help! Then we gradually fade them out to get lots more slam.
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
The threadle wrap session went great! What really helped was when you decelerated for her to get to your hand – that set up the turn really well so she really had no questions. Deceleration is a huge part of teaching and handling the threadle wraps, so that really helped her. You can go to the next step where you decelerate but you don’t have to totally stop: can she still read the turn away cue when you are still slowly moving? That will be a good challenge. We build on this soon by adding the cones/barrel.
>however Sunnie wasn’t feeling the love for chasing her toy toy.>
Feel free to add video of that, so we can figure out ways to get the toy more enticing 🙂
Strike a pose went great too!
> I am super proud of this kid, so many little pieces that we’ve training all along are put together in this exercise! stay, impulse control, hand touch that morphed into a cue! >
Yes! And we add motion to it soon. It is really cool to watch the young dogs put it all together. The MaxPup level 3 dogs just started their course and Boom! They are running sequences, no problem at all. VERY cool!!! Good job to YOU for doing all the small pieces so it is easy for her to put together the big pieces!
She did really well finding the serp position from all the different starting points. She had the occasional crime of passion by gong to the bowl (1:43 for example) but she was super successful overall.
>Should I try this with cookies in the bowl now? >
Yes, cookies in the bowl would be a good next step – it works best when you put the cookies in the bowl before you set her up in the stay, so her attention is more on you and less on the bowl. If she is in the stay then you put the cookies in the bowl the game is MUCH harder because it really draws her eyes to the bowl, so we can add that later.
You can also try it with a toy on the ground, or a ball.
And if you have wings, add some wings to the uprights to give her exposure to a visual she will see If you don’t have wings, add the barrels or cones as wings 🙂 That way she can still find you for the serp even though the jump looks different.
>We did get a good game of chase with the toy toy after strike a pose!!>
Yay! Did you throw it or run around dragging it? We can keep track of what gets her excited for the toy after all the cookies 🙂
Great job!
Tracy
Good morning!
The threadle wrap foundation went great! He seemed to find it really easy to turn away in both directions/on both sides. So cool!
Since it was so easy, you can move to the advanced levels with your motion. I am confident that will be easy for him too 🙂When you are adding your movement, you might have to get your hands lower (at his nose level) to start this so he locks onto the hands and prepare to turn away, and doesn’t just follow your movement forward.
>Sorry about the cat but as you can see Rusty pays no attention.>
No worries, that cat is adorable! And it is good practice for Rusty to ignore his friends while he is training 🙂
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
OMG it was windy! Mother Nature was being very helpful LOL! But your pattern game warm up was lovely: Dublin was not interested in the environment and had great session.
And I am also excited that after all of those good cookies, he got into the tugging!! Yay!
He was getting faster on each rep and blasting past you, which allowed you to rotate and be moving the other way sooner. Yay!
Small blooper at 1:31 – that was the only spot where your connection shifted ahead of him so he didn’t see it – and that ended up turning your shoulders to the threadle part of the cone. So, he did a fancy threadle wrap 🙂 Good reward there! Handler errors should definitely lead to a reward for the dog 🙂
The rotated sends looked good too! You were actually doing them in flow earlier in the session, when he was driving past you to get to the cone and you were able to rotate sooner. When I freeze the video as he is getting to the cone in those moments, he is either seeing you in the sideways send position, or in the backwards send! Yay!
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi!
Really nice job with your connection and motion here! Being super connected really helped your timing and her commitment.On the first video:
>I’m so late with my verbals!>
First rep was good timing with most of the verbals! You had a few extra tunnel verbals (while she was in it and when she was exiting it LOL) which was funny 😆 but you still got your right verbals out and turned your shoulders. The left verbals on left verbals on the 2nd rep were good timing too!
On the 2nd video:
OK yes, you were late with your verbals on this one 🙂 The dig verbals for the wrap started just before takeoff – but she responded brilliantly to your decel so still had a really good turn! You might have actually decelerated too early 🙂 so she slowed down more than needed for the wrap.On the 2nd run – the verbals were still late and on this one, the decel was late too so she was a lot wider.
The ideal timing is to run in extension until she lands from the middle jump, then decelerate while facing forward. Then as she collects for takeoff, you can start to rotate for the FC. That will be the sweet spot!
Nice work here!
Tracy
Hi!
Side note: he seems to be very focused working outdoors now!!Good job working out the timing here!
On the first video:
You had a little too much “go” at :16, which made the right verbal late and the shoulder turn late. So at :18 you really pulled your shoulder which caused disconnection so he looked at you and almost came off the line.
Compare to the timing of the left verbal at :36 – spot on! Timing and connection were clear so he had no questions. You can be ore connected and drive more directly to the tunnel at :38 – he head checked towards you when you looked ahead of him and turned your shoulders away from the tunnel a bit.
The last rep was the best one! Clear connection all the way through, and the timing of your verbals and motion were all spot on. SUPER!! Try not to bend over when you are connecting, as that will slow you down and might cause him to slow down too.
Wraps: The connection looked good and the cues were clear here (decel, verbal, rotation) but they can all come sooner 🙂
For now, you can start the deceleration when the landing from the middle jump (continue facing forward to the wrap jump a you decelerate). Then as he approaches takeoff for the wrap jump, you can do the FC rotation. This will get a little earlier as he gets more experienced and as the bars get higher.
The takeoff decision gets made shortly after landing from the middle jump, so you will want to get the info to him before that.
On the video here, the verbal and decel for the wraps started when he was about a stride from takeoff at :45, 1:52, 2:59 so he was wide (turned after landing) and ticked the bar on a couple.
The decel cues at 2:25 and 3:22 were a stride earlier so he turned better (but you can still be earlier 🙂 )
He pulled off the jump at 3:07 – you were too early with the rotation as you noted, but what really pulled him off was that you didn’t decel. So the rotation was like hitting the brakes hard on a sports car 🙂
The rep at 2:30 (wrap on the jump after tunnel) had the earliest timing and the best wrap! You started your decel about a stride after he exited the tunnel and that allowed him to set up a lovely turn.
Great job here! Have a wonderful weekend at the trial!
Tracy
Hi!
Lazy game part 2 & 3:
He sent to the middle jump really well – you can spread the distances out even more so you can work in even more distance here. And the lazy game adding the tunnel went well too – he ws picking up speed without you needing to add your speed either – yay! We really want him to be able to drive these lines even if you are not perfect.
Then when you added more of your motion: easy peasy, he drove the lines beautifully! You had really nice connection and he did super well.
One small detail: Be careful of the hand signal for wait because he thought it was a nose touch at 1:04 and almost broke his stay moving to your hand 😂 I don’t think he needs a hand signal for the stay.
Looking at the one-step-sends: also went really well! Remember to add in the exit line connection of looking back at him across your body (getting the dog side arm out of the way) after the front crosses, so he can really see connection and have super tight turns. You were putting your dog side arm out, which actually widens the turns a bit because he will drift to wait for more info. On the exits where you did have the exit line connection visible to him (like at 1:57 and 2:20), his turns were really tight!
Nice work here!
Tracy
Hi!
I agree, this is going well!
Good job working the timing here! It really made you prioritize the connection (that was my secret agenda haha) and that all looked great! Verbals were good too (the first right was not the same as the 2nd right :))One thing to bug you about in terms of timing: You should turn your shoulders sooner for the pinwheel jump to get him to land facing the next jump. You were tending to be facing straight over the jump so he landed straight. Keep the shoulders turning so he can set up his collection even more.
You had one opposite moment, too early on the big shoulder turn (with a decel before it) at 1:32 pulled him off the middle jump. Good boy for listening! The rest of the motion (like at 1:54) all looked good.
He had a bar down at 2:30 – he was not quite ready for the big acceleration of the line so pulled the bar then came off the tunnel when you disconnected. I think you can show him the big acceleration again and I bet he sorts out the striding perfectly.
Great job here!
Tracy
