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Hi!
>>And, I am sticking to the 2 error rule—there’s no leeway with this little monkey!>>
This 2 failure rule has made things much easier in training – far fewer challenges as we train and far more successes 😁 Keep me posted!
Tracy
Hi!
>>Sorry for all these notes!

No apologies needed, I think notes are great!
>>We didn’t attempt backsides since we don’t know those yet.You can take out the bar and treat it like a wing wrap where you want him to go to the outside the wing: BIG connection and motion towards it will get him there.
Looking at the reps here, your lines and motion were all good! So why did he have questions on the bars? Because you were looking at the obstacles, and not at his cute face. So he as behind you trying to see the info without connection, so he read the lines but took down bars.
The RC was the most connected sequence and he did turn the correct way! Super!! You can drive the line to the center of the RC bar even sooner, and as soon as he is getting close to takeoff, you can turn and move the new direction.
>>– What do you think is up with his jumping on that last rep (second jump going the other direction)? Youngster carelessness? >>
I think what was happening here was that there was a lot of motion and speed but not enough connection, so he struggled with processing the motion and processing his jumping mechanics. So, no need to go as fast, but you can ramp up the connection and that will smooth things out nicely.
>>I included his favorite reward at the end, just for fun.
OMG! It is so cool that you have the swimming right there! I wonder if he was heading for a swim swim in the previous video – adorable!!!!
Great job here!
TracyHi!
This went really well! It is a super hard game and he was very smooth, nailing just about all of the reps. The sequence you did at 1:37 – 1:45 was great!! And so were the race tracks in both directions.
He only had 2 questions, in the same spots: On her 2nd rep and at 1:10, he pinged away to the wing closer to the camera. It was hard to see why: possibly your position was blocking the wing, or there was something out there that was catching his eye? He was pretty sure of himself on those reps LOL!
His other question was at :51 and 1:20 – as you exited the FC, there was no connection so it looked like a pin and he was correct to go to the your left side. Reward that! He only saw your back so he had to take a guess and he was not wrong.
Compare to 1:27 when you made connection and he got it 🙂Great job 🙂
Tracy
Hi!
The wing-tunnel proofing looked great! Very clean starts to each rep and he nailed it! The mini sequences were no problem. Super! You can add in 2 more challenges to this:
– do a mini sequence of tunnel then the tunnel again then the wing wrap. This will get a little bit of layering started and also get him really pumped up: can he still get the wing wrap?
– after the tunnel, you can meet him at the tunnel exit and move forward as you are cuing the wrap: can he drive ahead to it and wrap, even with forward motion?
On the 2nd video:
– The two set point reps looked good. I think the distance is a little wide *for now* so shorten it up by maybe 6 inches, and I am sure we will expand it again as he grows. He was a rockstar with his stay and focusing on his toy!!– The pill bug games are going well! You did a lot of inside turns, where he is between you and the tunnel. Those went well, but it is hard to add speed to those. You can stick with having him on the outside of you so you can run more while staying connected. The blinds looked great!!
Tunnel exits: super nice line ups, and lovely connection on the exit of the wraps!!
At :54 he saw the acceleration for the exit. The GO can come sooner but the most important element is your connection on the tunnel exit: point at his eyes and look at his eyes, to turn your shoulders to the line. At :55 you were pointing forward and looking forward, which rotated your shoulders away from the line. It is super important that you reward him anyway, even if the sequence does not to according to your plan: he read your physical cues perfectly, and “go” just means “go straight on the line I am showing”. He was correct and it will be confusing and stressful if you withhold reward. Bringing it back to fix it does not help with what caused the error (handler disconnection) so it is better to reward him and then look at the video if you don’t know why he didn’t go to the wing.
You were pointing ahead at 1:09 as well, so he looked at you but you were further ahead so he did find the wing. Looking at him more will help him drive forward without looking out you, especially when you are not that far ahead.
Nice shoulder turn at 1:18 and 1:29 and 1:37 for the left turn! Be sure to add the verbal coming before he gets into the tunnel (he won’t hear it that well if he is in the tunnel). The right turns looked good too – he is reading the lack of motion to help with the turns, which is fine for now – adding the verbal sooner (about 6 feet before he enters the tunnel) will help for when you are running harder into the sequences.
Great job here!
TracyGood morning!
>>the weight shift has been THE big focus.>>
Yes – the last minute, super confident weight shift at the top of the board is key! The tip it device actually does get the weight shift, but there are also 10,000 different teeter games to play that get it too 😁
>>I can post some work on the real teeter tomorrow>>
Yes please! I love teeter training!>>Right now it is a 2 on 2 off but it may end up as a 4 on.>>
How much does he weight? I am 99.99% sure he should be doing a 4on at the end of the board because he is too light to do a fast 2o2o. To do a 2o2o, he will have to slow down a whole lot, and even then he might get tipped off a board if it has a lot of bounce to it. About weights: usually 18 lbs is the lightest the dog should be to have a great 2o2o position. My Export was 19 lbs in his prime and his 2o2o was great. Hot Sauce is about 20 lbs with a 2o2o. Elektra is about 13.5 lbs right now and she does a 4on (13.5 lbs is just too light to push down on the board if it bounces up under her, and it will bounce up under her). I believe Pesto is even lighter than Elektra! So he will definitely be 4on. And you should start that criteria right away to get weight shift at the end of the board (there are also 10,000 ways to train it 🤣😂😁)
He was a good boy with the Cato plank! Nice and confident! And this was a terrific session for working on holding position until released.
Seeing the 2o2o position here: I vote for a 4on ( have given myself a vote LOL!!!) and that criteria needs a head position as well. Structurally,2o2o is uncomfortable with his whippety length of forelimb and the high head position. He is stopping, then stepping into position (weight forward when he does that, a good example of that is at :18), then shifting back a bit. It inverts his spine right behind the shoulders and it is not the weight shift we want (I will get photos of what we are looking for). So ultimately, we can get him to do the 2o2o on the real teeter but it will be slow. The Cato plank is deceptive because it doesn’t have the weight or whip of a real teeter.
Let me know what you think and I can give you lots of ways to get a great, fast, 4o on the board 🙂
The straight lines 4-ways went well!
Go reps: I think you will find it easier to throw the toy is you run up the line, rather than send or walk (the game is about handler motion, so definitely run run run!). You can throw sooner or even place the reward out ahead. The more motion you had, the better he read it. Yes, he could do it if you stood still and threw the toy early but we want him to see the difference in motion cues, not just verbals.Wraps looked really strong! You had excellent wrap timing of the verbal on these reps! You can run more here too – run up the line until he is over the jump after the tunnel, then you can show the transition into decel when he is landing from the jump. As you start the verbal, try to be quieter – that will help get the turn too (loud verbals tend to propel the dogs away in extension).
Looking at the RCs: – correct, no physical cue on the first one, all he got was the verbal a bit late but the physical cues said to turn towards you. When there is a handler error, the two option are to either reward or keep going: he did exactly what your body told him to do and the swing verbal is too new to override that. Plus, if there are conflicting indicators (body says one thing, voice says another) he should be paid for his efforts to sort it out. His reward should not be contingent on whether it goes according to your plan or if you get it right. There is a 99% chance he is reading the physical cue correctly, so reward him then watch the video immediately to see what happened.
The other RC reps had much better info and he read the RCs really well! Yay! You can accelerate up the line more on all of them, as long as you are on the RC line (to the center of the bar) and not pushing him off the line (he will end up on the backside if you turn your feet too early.
Also, because he is moving so fast: Don’t praise him unless you are going to reward. Keep delivering the info so he can fly to the next line 🙂
Great job here!!!
TracyGood morning!
>>Again I wish i had instant replay in my head so that I could work on these things immediately. >>
So true!!!! That is why I stop and look at the video a lot during each session – I learned to do this from flyball training, where the dogs are doing things in the hundredth of a second, nearly impossible to see with the naked eye: so I watch each rep on video right after I do it. And doing that in agility is a complete game changer! We agility folks have a habit of training then looking at the video hours (days?) later which diminishes the value of the ue of video in the moment.
And by reviewing the video in the moment, I am training my eye for each dog, so I do begin to develop that instant replay in my head and then I don’t need to watch the video as much.
Is reviewing video after each rep a total pain? Yes. But is it incredibly valuable? HECK YEAH! 😁
The first clip went well, she did really well with finding the correct side of the wing! You didn’t have a lot of connection, so looking at her more will help rehearse what the cue will need when she exits the tunnel so she knows the difference between the threadle wrap and the push to the other side of the wing.
As she sees more of these, you can start to eliminate using your hands to turn her back to the wing: as you walk past, keep the cue going and see if she can turn herself back to the wing. That is ideally what we want her to do, otherwise we humans have to time the come in AND go out elements of the cue – it is much easier if the dogs do it automatically.
Clip 2: When adding the tunnel on this clip and the others with the tunnel, be sure to call her before she goes in – that way she comes out in handler focus and not focusing on the line to the other side of the wing. You were calling after she was in the tunnel.
As you mentioned, you can add more connection to your threadle cue – think of it as turning back slightly to her and showing her both of your low hands. The low hands really help and a touch more connection will really make it smooooooth!!!
Clip 3 – on this clip you were giving a bit less hand cue and that was great! Keep dialing up the connection and giving less of a cue to flip back to the wing so it becomes more automatic.
It is definitely time to add the threadle wrap verbal.
The verbal cue will help with this because it will help her anticipate what is going to happen so she will not need the handling cues as much. Her name can mean a lot of different things, so it is not as helpful as the threadle wrap verbal.Clip 4 and clip 5 –
>>I still need to keep moving on so many of these clips. >You might notice that she was getting wider as you added more motion – actually, you can add a little decel! There is an element of decel on this cue as there is with every type of wrap – you can decel while cuing the behavior, then as soon as she turns her head to the wing, you can move fast to the next line. Moving fast past the wing plus not using a specific verbal and with the hand cues a bit late drew her wide – she didn’t know if it was the wrap or a bypass so she had to wait for the hand cues.
That bit of decel til she turns her head away to the wing will tighten up the wraps on clip 6 and 7. You are decelerating to let her get past you for the push to the circle wraps, and those are nice and tight (also on video 8!)
Video 8 – had a little blooper at :35, where the cue was not clear so she was correct to go to the backside (when in doubt, commitment to an obstacle is a good thing). That is a good place to remember to look back more and show her your hands, and I think the threadle wrap verbal all help smooth that out too.
Nice work! Fingers crossed for no more rain 🙂
Tracy
Hi!
Hooray for hubby taking great care of the agility field! It looks lovely. The sound is no problem at all!The first rear cross went really well! You can get on the RC line even sooner, no need to wait for him to pass you while you are still facing straight (:16) as he is taking off for the jump before the RC jump, you can already have your feet pointing to the center of the bar of the RC jump and be moving on that line. That will give him the info sooner without any conflicting info about physical cues saying ‘go straight’ and verbal cues saying ‘turn away’.
It was that conflicting indicator that caused him to turn left at :43. You ran straight until he took off, so he was correct to turn left. He turned right as soon as he saw/heard the cue, which was after landing.
>>I am in trouble as it does not look like a rewarded him after the first try. >
Yes – lack of reinforcement and turning and walking away from him there is actually a punishment for him reading the cues correctly. That is confusing to the dog and can be stressful! The dogs start using questions and slowing down. So before each run, remind yourself that he will be rewarded even if it does not go according to your plan. And after a reward, watch the video so you can see what happened before doing the next rep.
The last rep was earlier info and that really helped!
To help him differentiate the rear crosses from the straight lines, you can get moving to the center of the bar no later than when he lands from the jump before the RC jump, and keep moving forward until he has passed you and he is approaching takeoff for the RC jump.
On these reps and on the next videos, you were running straight til just before takeoff and then cutting in for the RC, which is a little late – so on the 2nd video at :12, he was able to get it but at :13 on the last video, it looked like a FC on the flat so he was confused (nice reward there!) And also good rewarding at :16 on the 2nd video – you never said tunnel and when he landed from the jump you had turned and were facing away from the tunnel entry, so he was correct there.
On the other reps like on the 3rd video, he had figured out that the game was to turn right 🙂 so he was getting it even with info coming right before takeoff (like at :31). This can dilute the FC wraps, because we want him to not think that last minute pressure is a RC. So you can get on the RC line earlier and also mix in from FC wraps to keep the cues looking very different.
Great job getting the BC in before the tunnel! That is hard coming from the rear cross! Your arms were nice and low, which really helps him see the connection on the new side. Yay!
Nice work here 🙂
Tracy
Good morning!
Wow, the pillbug game looked AWESOME! You were connected and fast and exciting… and he was perfection. He was fast but also turning really well, and didn’t get overaroused or jump up (many dogs struggle with arousal in this game). And he went from food to toys beautifully. Great job!!!!
The footing looked good! Hopefully your knee agrees with that assessment. And you can add in the next steps.
About the tunnel exits:
>>He was 100% solid on this. The instant he was in neutral (lined up centered between my legs in front of tunnel entry), he didn’t know which way to turn at the exit.>>
Don’t add this yet on the tunnel – we teach this first on wings/jumps next week! The tunnel is a harder obstacle to learn this on, so we will add it later, which will take out the errors and any frustration.
For the tunnel exit game, it is more about your handling and timing: can you say the directional and show the handling before he goes in? And his response will tell you if it was clear or not.
>>But if we want a true verbal, and he only understands left or right based on his position relative to me, then I think I need to do additional work to better prepare him for cued directional tunnel exits that aren’t reliant on which side he’s on relative to me>>
We totally do want a true verbal… but that takes time 🙂 So you can still use handling & verbals for the tunnel game (because that will also help teach the verbals) while we work the verbals separately as well.
>>especially prevent frustration, which he feels in a big way if things aren’t always smooth (like he does with any situation that doesn’t suit him).>>
Since he is an adolescent, his brain is still developing and he might not have the brain development yet at 7 months old to regulate arousal and frustration. So it is important to not dive into any frustrating sessions – I have a 2-failure rule: if the dog fails twice (either in a row, or in the entire session) then what I am doing is way too hard and I need to make it easier (especially for adolescent dogs).
We will very gradually build up the independent verbals but it takes months, so stay tuned for the process coming on Wednesday!
Tracy
Good morning!
>>But her outgoing brother was less outgoing today at an agility trial. So we may be in a stage.>>
It is great to be able to follow littermates! Yes, thanks to the neuroscientist behaviorist veterinarian who educates us on how to stay sane with adolescent dogs 🤣😂😁, it is entirely possible that she is having a period of brain development that does not lend itself to confidently running through tunnels, for whatever reason. The executive function required to tell the amygdala to be quiet and calm down is simply underdeveloped in our adolescent dogs, and it takes them 3x longer to bounce back to baseline than adult dogs. So much great science that tells us about brain development! And keeps me calm whenever my teenage dog does something weird.
The science tells us to just do something else for a few days and try again at some other time, because the teenage brain is different every single day. That is NOT easy for us humans but works really well for the dogs 🙂
The good news about the set point is that I have to watch it in slow motion now to see what she is doing 🙂 Her mechanics are coming along nicely! The reason we spend soooo much time on the framework before worrying about form is because form is easy when the framework is in place. I think she did well here!
>> She was ok setting close to the bar with no cookies but a few times she was watching me more than the moving toy.>>
I think on those reps she was in cookie-mode, looking up at you a bit more. If you are using a cookie for a set up, you can use a dragging food toy as the reward target. That way you get rehearsal of the mechanics we want and we can work on food & toys in the same session separately, when mechanics are not the main focus.
>>She seems o real less e gaged with toys and more interested in food. We are transitioning to eating with all the dogs so she is eating less. Also she is more integrated into the house so less alone time.>>
It is normal to see motivator values swing bak and forth between food and toys a bit. Plus there are pretty big life changes happening too, meaning she might have a bit of life stress that is showing up in training. It doesn’t mean it is a bad thing… stress from changes can produce this. And if she is eating less at meals, I can see why she would be more interested in food in general. So keep going with easier stuff for a few more days until the life changes are in place (I like 3 day buffers) and then you can do hard stuff.
Nice work here!!
TracyGood morning!
>>
Editing the whole week of videos on one day seems to work well for me >>Great! Editing can be a pain, I am glad this is working for you!
>>he’s probably still getting the target at about the same distance as before or maybe even sooner.>>
Correct – but the target is moving so he is not decelerating to get to it, he is staying in motion because he will be moving to get it. So it is working well for our purposes and will be even easier when his stay is stronger.
>>Switching to the toy did help with the upward hop though. >>
That is one of the reasons we move to the moving target 🙂
Rep 2 & 3appears to be the sweet spot for his set ups position but ticked 2nd bump on those – so keep him in that set up spot and shorten the distance between the 2 jumps by 6 inches and let’s see if that helps. I am guessing that he will be a 6 foot distance when he is adult, but now let’s look at 5.5 and see how he goes. And if he still ticks the 2nd bump, you can shorten to 5 feet and see what he does. We will continue to noodle around with distances as he develops physically into an adult.
>>In this session it happened to be when the toy was in my left hand, but I don’t know if that was a coincidence.>>
Excellent observation!!! We will watch to see if this is a pattern or not. Could be coincidence or could be he has a harder time on your left.
Pillbug game:
>>Even with the toy on the ground I edited out a bunch of reps with him jumping up and us crashing into each other.>>
Leave those in, so maybe I can see what was causing it: too much motion? Lack of connection? Timing? The video will reveal all 🙂
The toy on the ground worked nicely here! And U agree, a TON of potential! He is crazy fast and probably needed to figure out that it was a game where he didn’t need to use all his speed. Your connection was good on these reps too, and his impulse control was great with the toy on the ground! And your reps were short here, which is great because this is a hard game to do long reps on in the beginning stages as he learns it.
So if you still have some bloopers, feel free to post them so we can see the difference and figure out why it was happening.
>>Do we want our arms moving like we are running or do we want our hand out to the side? At the end I did some walking/slow jogging with my hands on my hips and then my arms moving to try to get some of the focus off of my hands.>>
I generally run for my life on these with my arms moving like running. A hand out to the side, pointing at the dog’s nose, is fine too. Both of these are secondary to connection, though, because the connection will make or break it 🙂
>>I picked out the best reps from each sequence to include here, so it looks like we had a lot more success than we did in the actual sessions>>
Leave in the bloopers – they are great info from the dog so we can compare when he doesn’t get it to when he does get it, and smooth out the info delivery. There was only one example of cutting in front of the wing (see below) so definitely add in more bloopers along with the highlights 🙂
Good timing of the left verbal at :15 and :48 and 1:11! Nice!!
The Right verbals were a little late at :26 and definitely late at :38 (he was in the tunnel) especially because the physical cue was accelerating forward. That will get easier when he is finding the left wrap on the wing more easily.SaySay cue is for the left turns, yes? I think the left turns might be harder for him in general so he needs more connection (like at :40) and line support. The right turns seem much easier.
He got the wings on the left soft turn (:49 – :52) but your arm was high & a little forward and there was a bit of disconnection.
Compare to the increased connection at :59 and 1:22 on the right turns and he had NO questions 🙂 And connection was strong on the left turns at 1:13 approx and he also found that line easily.>>That’s why he ends up so far away from the wings at times.>>
Don’t worry about that – that will ultimately be the fastest line when we add bars in 🙂
The ‘Go’ was late at :53 and 1:16 (he was in the tunnel) plus that wing is far away with you behind him plus it is a left turn… hard! So to help smooth that out, you need to be a little further ahead when he exits the tunnel to make connection and show the line to the wing (you can move the wing closer too). To be able to get to the tunnel exit before him, you can send to the wing before the tunnel and the tunnel from further way, hanging back a bit – that might look like you being approximately parallel to the middle of the tunnel when you send him to it, which should put you easily ahead of him for the exit.
Great job here!!
Tracy
Good morning!
She is doing well with the set point! 3 small details about the setup:
– she can be a little further away for her start point than most of her reps. I think where she was at :55 was the sweet spot, giving her enough room in front of the first bump that she could lift off without tapping it.
– when using a stationary target and stationary handler 🙂 you should be right out at the target, parallel to it, so she doesn’t have to sort out driving past a stationary position. That can dilute standing still as a potential turn cue, so you will want to be right next to the target and parallel to it.
– the MM can be another 6 feet away, so she is not decelerating over jump 2 to get to it.Since she has proven she has a great stay 😁 you can move to the moving target version of this posted in week 2!
The smiley face went well! Good job on putting the sequences together!!
>>The biggest issue we had was me not giving her the right amount of connection at points
Yes, that is the universal issue for all of us in agility LOL!!! That also means you have officially entered the “Assume It Was Handler Error And Reward Or Continue” Era. No stopping without a reward (and definitely don’t mark the moment as a dog error) and it is actually better to just keep going if possible. The reasoning behind this is that the dog either did exactly what the handling told them to do and were therefore not wrong, or they didn’t have enough info and had to take a guess.
For some of the reps, like at :04, the connection was turning forward and looked like a blind, so she was correct to consider coming to the other side (definitely rewardable!) Compare to :36, where your connection was super clear and she found the barrel really well.
Some of the reps (:22, 1:14, 1:31) had a bit too much lateral distance from the barrel on the wrap at this point and not enough connection so she didn’t get it. But when you gave more connection and a clearer step to the wing (1:27, for example, and the other successful moments) she got it really well! So because she is young, remember to really amplify the connection and step to the wing.
Soft turns also looking good! Excellent connection on those moments! You used “out” on the first one and then switch to left later on… I think this is more of a left/right context, than out, depending on what ‘out’ means specifically.
Wow, the big sequence at the end had all the elements! Connection, verbals, timing, and some fancy handling! Super!!!!
Well done!!!
Tracy
Hi!
It is hard helping dogs relax while their housemate is doing something fun! Is there a way they can go to separate classes, so Katniss is not stressed when Nox comes out of the crate? Can she safely stay in the car? And a MM in the crate or xpen is a possibility (tape the lid down so he doesn’t open it by herself LOL), or a stuffed kong or bully stick. The main goal is to bring her into those environments and through adolescence without building in stress or frustration or high levels of pressure.Tracy
I sure did miss it, sorry!
Yes, tandem turn is dog and handler moving the same direction, then they turn the same direction (dog turns away) and go back the way they came.
Lap turns have the handler facing the dog and not moving much.
T
Hi!
>Please keep reminding me if you see it. I’ve been trying to catch myself doing it and instead following through with the tunnel sends but obviously I’m missing it a lot.>>
Challenge accepted LOL!! And you can rehearse the post turn by slowing yourself down (I know that is your favorite thing to do 🤣😂🤣) and practicing stepping towards the tunnel and not rotating away from it.
>>This is one thing I don’t do during the session but need to start adding. I review after during editing and catch it then :-/
That is an agility thing: we video and then at 10 o’clock that night, we sit down to edit it and see that the errors were ours, not the dogs. That was a HUGE learning moment for me when I was getting frustrated with my youngster (now 11 years old) Voodoo for not turning tight… until I watched the Voodoo and his turns were incredible. Oops, bad me!
So I have adopted a flyball style of video review: in the moment, each rep, unless I am 10000% sure of what happened. Plus, it has really trained my eye to know what the dog is doing in terms of movement and commitment, which also helps!
Tracy
Hi!
The playlist worked like a charm!!! It is an easy way to get your videos on line without wasting time with all the editing.All of the clips looked good and he found the jump each and every time. Super! He did better when the motion (running) and the verbal (go go go!) matched. If you were walking and saying it, he had a valid question: mouth says go, but body does not!
So to get the physical and verbal cues to match, you can let him see you accelerate and start saying go go before he enters the tunnel. When you do that, it is important that you do a post turn on the tunnel entry, turning your feet fully to face the tunnel then your motion faces the curve of the tunnel before running up the line: that is a physical cue for a GO exit. On several of the reps, you did a spin on the tunnel entry (rotated like a FC then did a BC) – that is a strong turn cue, so that is why he was looking at you when he exited: are we turning mom? And we don’t want him to learn to ignore a turn cue on the tunnel exit by pairing it with extension.
He only really had one question, which was in the last clip – you were saying tunnel but facing the jump, so he correctly did not cut behind you to the tunnel (tunnel is a forward cue, not a go behind the momma cue LOL!)
For the next session, you can work more on getting him to drive ahead of you by deliberately going very close to the tunnel until just before he exits, then running up the line saying go go go. For those (and for any of these reps), you can throw the toy as soon as he look ahead rather than wait for him to get to the jump. Or you can have someone else throw it, that is easier, as long as they throw it as soon as he looks at the jump.
Great job here!!
Tracy
