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Hi!
Hope you are having a great weekend!>. I was at a seminar recently where she should only do the push, not the wrap and I have to say that the push is easier for us as a team mid-course ie I can be sure she will do it. Sass could not remember the threadle wrap at all!>
That is really interesting – the session went well here and she always went to the correct side of the jump. Your line was really good for the threadle wraps. It is possible that when you were at the seminar with more speed coming into the threadle wraps, that you did not show the line as well as you did here. Maybe you were stepping to the front of the jump by accident, or the cues were late. Do you have video? We can look at see what happened!
On the video:
Your line was good here! She always knew which side of the jump to be on. Super!
>This session she yelled a bit at the beginning so maybe I was slow with my cues or out of position?>
I think she is relying too much on your arm movement to turn her away, which was not perfect so she was mad LOL Since it is nearly impossible to perfect timing the hand cues to turn her away, you can keep your arms in the threadle wrap position and let her turn herself away to the jump (then you can throw the reward to the landing spot).
>Tried to do a sequence but stopped when she started hitting jump#4. She was probably tired but it was only a 4 minute session all up.>
I think that was more of a timing question than fatigue –
With the jumps relatively close, you probably didn’t need the ‘go’ at :36. It made the right cue late at :37 (she was already over the bar) so she tried to turn in the air and dropped the bar. On the last rep, you started your right verbal at the previous jump (:52) but didn’t quite get turned in time (you were facing straight) so she hit the bar trying to turn when you did turn after she was in the air. You can keep the timing of the right verbal here, and add in the brake arm (cueing with 2 hands) and turning sooner. That should help!
Great job!
TracyHi! It is great to see you back to training!
>Well, I am a bit slow with my motion but any motion is going to help, I guess. Interesting that distance work is a focus this summer because
(1) it is almost all that I can do and
(2) both of my dogs are surprisingly bad at it.>All course design in all flavors of agility is moving towards distance skills being super important… so we are cranking it up here!
>I have demonstrated to myself on various occasions that Enzo really needs handling to do these discriminations. I haven’t worked on it too hard since
(1) we do mostly AKC and don’t need it and>I am starting to see it more and more in regular AKC and in Premier – subtle discriminations and especially with distance work. The dog walk in AKC has started to migrate off the edge of the ring and more towards the center of the ring, so we definitely need these skills.
>(2) in order to become truly fluent in verbal discriminations you need to put more work into it than I have wanted to.>
I can totally relate – I do NOT want to put in a zillion reps, so I am taking the ‘work smarter not harder’ approach. This is why we use a bit of motion right from the very beginning because the number 1 complaint about verbals is that motion will override them (and I agree with this). So we expose the dog to the concepts and context, while separately working on the handling skills… and then bring it all together. At that point, the dogs are actually really responsive to verbals without having done a ton of training.
>Well, surprise! This summer is almost half gone with nothing done and I might as well spend the rest working on things I think I can do.>
Perfect! And with the way the weather has been going, I bet we have summer weather for a few more months… not sure if this is good or bad LOL
> Enzo and I have played verbal discrimination games and, without almost content upkeep, it falls out of his head.>
I think with Enzo’s generation, we didn’t add motion early enough in the training. And we didn’t add arousal in early enough either. Oops! Now we know more about processing and state dependent memory, so motion and arousal goes in pretty early. The results are much better, of course, when we use science to train 🙂
> Except weaves, he can find weaves on a verbal with almost no other help.
> He does have amazingly inspiring weave skills!!
>So, since Enzo is still on injured reserve (so am I for the most part), here is Casper giving this a try. Since he had an 8 week “vacation”, my big hope for him was: please don’t revert to the catch-me-if-you-can game. I feel sort-of bad for him, since tug is one of his big rewards for agility and I can’t really play tug at all right now. We did a bit of fetch with me sitting in a chair on the front porch starting a couple of weeks ago. Casper was pretty good at it. Enzo appeared to have the “if you won’t play tug, I won’t fetch it more than once” attitude.>
Bummer about Enzo 🙁 and I am glad Casper thinks fetch is also fun!
>Setting up the course is not a fluent skill for me right now, so I pushed stuff around and called it good enough. My plan is to try to do some of the specific skills and maybe some of the pop-outs.>
Sounds good! Don’t worry about the exact setup – you can make your handling choices based on what it looks like in your yard. And we can do lots of walking agility to get Casper really committed and turning and responding!
>I was ***surprised*** that you didn’t reverse the position of the runnel and jump (so the jump was further away) before you added the weaves. >
I verbally recommended it somewhere in the discussion part of the video. Mixing up the obstacle positions as much as possible is really effective.
>I’m not sure I’ll get to add the weaves any time soon. Also, although I KNOW that most super-trainers have no problem with a short set of weaves, I have never been comfortable with fewer than 12. My personal quirk, I guess.>
Using 4 or 6 weaves is partially about rewarding fast for finding the weaves, and partially for folks who have space limitations. You can totally do 12 – and they can even be slightly open or use aids to help him stay in, nce he is in. And also limit the # of reps because it adds up very quickly when using all 12 poles.
>I am comforting myself with something you said recently (or at least, as I recall it): “I am not an athlete, my dogs are athletes”.>
Ah yes, that sounds like me LOL!! My dogs are amazing athletes. I was in the band in high school and college, providing music for the athletes 🙂 So my goal is to provide useful info so the athletes can feel supported and do their work.
Looking at the video:
I think part of this session was simply introducing Casper to the concept that yes, it is entirely legal to pass the jump to go to the tunnel. He was going towards it, looking at it as if saying “are you sure?!?!?!” The last rep was so funny: he was going to the tunnel but looking at you as if saying ‘really? seriously? This is correct?’ Too funny! But I like that he was thinking and processing rather than just flinging himself at whatever.
The middle section where you were out of frame but looks like you were just working on the verbals was good too – you can sit in a chair to do this as well.
He did lots of looking at you here as is really making sure he was getting it right – that is fine and it will go away as he sees more of the game.
>• I have added a “go” or “out” to a verbal to try to aid the discrimination. So “out-tunnel” when the tunnel is further away. It seems to me that this aligns with the louder, more energetic pronunciation that you are using for tunnel.>
Adding a directional is great, and I definitely recommend using it when you are handling the sequence for real. I would resist using it for now, because we are trying to name the obstacles without any extra cues. Yes, that makes it harder for now, but when you bring in more movement and the directionals, it will be soooooo much easier.
>• I have used “left” and “right” to help when the obstacle has two sides (weaves and tunnels, mostly) and we are at 90 degrees to them.>
Great! That also really helps! I also use directionals on the jump or obstacle before a threadle line, as that helps too. Add these in the real handling moments but not in t he name-the-obstacles game 🙂
>I did pull out all the best treats but food is pretty far down on Casper’s list of reinforcements.>
He looked super happy with the toy throws. It was not a really high rate of reinforcement session, but he was still really motivated to solve the puzzle. This type of processing must tickle his brain in a good way, because he was persistent without getting frustrated. That is a big win!
>If you tell me that I am using subtle (unconscious) cues to tell him which one, I’ll believe you!>
Yes, a little, we all do – the agility-version of the Clever Hans effect 🙂 But you did not do so much that it was super obvious to him and he still had to work out the options. And even with the motion, he was still surprised that he could pass an obstacle on the way to the tunnel!
You can change sides on the next session, with the tunnel being closer to you. See how it goes and let me know (don’t worry if it is still at 50% accuracy or less).
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi! This went GREAT!
Rear crosses are actually a hard skill… but you made it look easy 🙂 The first bunch of reps with the RC on the 2nd jump after the tunnel and the 1st jump after the tunnel all looked good. And he was perfect when you did the balance reps and did NOT rear cross! Yay!
On the last 2 reps, I think you got a little ahead of him on the RC line (:53 and 1:09) which actually can put you further behind him after the rear cross, because it delays you being able to get to his new side. When you are able to get ahead but are planning a RC, you can get a little closer to the previous line, or decelerate a little at the jump before the RC jump. That will actually allow you to get further ahead because as he is catching up to you, you an really accelerate up the line for the RC – which both drives him ahead and cues the turn, allowing you to cut behind him sooner – and therefore get ahead of him again 🙂
So in this case, you can get in closer to the jump after the tunnel, decel for a moment til he is about catching up to you… then accelerate up the RC line to the center of the bar of the RC jump. I bet he reads it perfectly and you will be ahead of him when he lands after the RC.
Let me know what you think! Great job here!!
Tracy
Hi! It has some overlap, probably about 15% of it. It focuses more on the neuroscience stuff we can do with the dogs to prepare their brain for sports – it doesn’t have a lot of sports-specific games (that is in MaxPup 1 :))
T
Hi!
Great job warming up the send and the blind to the tunnel! At :21 he didn’t take the jump before the blind because you started the blind before the release, so he never got a commitment cue to the jump. Adding the jump before it to get some momentum worked great!
When you ran the full sequence:
For most of it, you ran with your arms low and with big connection and he did GREAT ! That also allowed you to easily get to the blind before the tunnel. Super!Remember the sends should also have a low arm and a lot of connection. He didn’t send to the middle jump at 1:13 because you disconnected and pointed ahead at the jump, which turned your shoulders away fro he middle jump. You were more connected at 1:28 before you arm came up and he was able to see the line a lot better. Ideally, on the send you would keep your eyes on his eyes and a low arm would point to the takeoff spot.
Nice work here!
Tracy
Hi!
>I do have the jumps spread out so lots of running. >
The distances looked good here – similar to what he will see at a trial.
>Max was running out of gas at the end (it is still hot and humid in the evenings).>
He started to slow himself down about halfway through, so when it is hot and humid like this, you might only get 5 or 6 reps then need to be done so he can cool off.
> I find it difficult to keep my eye on him and look where I am going. Wearing glasses doesn’t help. Looking to the “side” with my eyes, there is no glasses there so just blurry.>
I think the key to your connection will be to either just run (pumping your arms rather than pointing to the line) or using low arms where your hands don’t do higher than your knees.
That will allow you both to see each other a lot better (plus it is a lot easier to keep up with a fast dog if your arms are not high).
When your arms got high here, they were blocking his view of your face. And high arms also turn your shoulders a bit too far forward, which is probably why it felt hard to maintain connection and really see him.
For example, at :32 – :36 you didn’t use your arms out to support the line – you just ran and it was perfect.
Same at 100- 1:03: you just ran and the connection was perfect! So you can do the whole sequence like that – very minimal arm pointing 🙂He did well reading the BCs and FCs. On the BCs, try not to get past the middle jump as it causes you to have to push him back to the jump after the blind. When you did that, at :16 and :44-he turned the wrong way on the next jump there on both. At 1:12 you pushed back to the jump and then stepped backwards a bit, which read like a RC so he turned away from the line you wanted.
Even with those little bobbles, keep going because it is a clean run and is good practice for future trials if there is a bobble 🙂
When you did not go past the middle jump (like at :27) – much better connection and position, and no questions on the jump after the cross!
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi!
This session went REALLY well! He was very confident driving up the board with you facing him, and he definitely seemed to like the tugging in between each rep! It looks like you only did 2 reps – PERFECT! They were high quality, super fun, and you ended before he could start to over-think things. Do you have access to other teeters, so you can show him this game in different places?
Great job 🙂
TracyHi! These are the best tunnel exits I have ever seen her do. SUPER!! I am so proud of her! 🤩😭
You were very intense with the verbal and hands and it worked well! The next step on her tunnel exit turn adventures is do 2 things:
Add in balance with going straight on the tunnel exit to a jump out ahead.Maintain the intensity of verbals, use your two hands like you did – but fade out the rotation towards her. Your upper body and still rotate towards her with both hands, but we want your feet to rotate less and less so you can eventually keep running forward.
Her threadle wrap at :44 was perfection!!! You nailed the timing and delivery of the cues and you were patient as she set herself up to do it. YAY!! Click/treat for you both!! And I love the big party you had with her there as the reward. Fantastic!!
Great job!
TracyHi!
Course 2 went great!!!! Just a couple of subtle details to get the maximum speed:You can Ddecel sooner into 5 to get a tighter turn at :12 – start to decel as she is landing from 4. It was closer to the halfway point between the 2 jumps when you started it so she was a little wide.
Good timing on the name call before the 7 tunnel! You can trust the cue and immediately move to cueing 8 and 9 with a GO TUNNEL! She had a slight hesitation when you got quiet as she exited the 7 tunnel. No quiet allowed! LOL!
The FC 10-11 worked well!
I don’t think you have time to praise her on course at 13 🙂 It delayed the cues to 14 so she had some questions there. The praise she likes on course is the cue to the next obstacle 🙂Nice send to the 16 tunnel and name call before she entered! You can trust the cue here too – start your GO TUNNEL cues for the next line immediately. She hesitated (by dialing back her speed) until you gave her the cue when she was almost at the next jump.
She also had to dial back her speed when you did the FC 18-19 (waiting for you to finish it). The blind will be very effective there and you can get to it sooner too: when sending to the tunnel after the weaves, layer both jumps there and use verbals to get the next line as you basically sprint (with some connection) to the blind. You will be there easily and she will be blazing fast with all of the acceleration 🙂
Great job!
Tracy
Hi!
This course went really well!!!My only question about it was on jump 3 (Muso shared the question LOL):
Did you want the wrap to the inside, or the slice?
Running backwards at 3 on rep 1 created some questions – it looked like you were setting up a lap turn to wrap? O n the 2nd run, she jumped 3 on the slice at 1:04 like a throwback but I am not sure that is what you intended?If you wanted the threadle wrap to the inside, I don’t think you needed to face her at all – you can turn parallel to her line and do the TW cues from your right without running backwards at all. For the slice, you can keep her on your right and do a FC to the tunnel.
Super nice 4-5-6-7 line and turn on the tunnel exit t get 8 both times! Nice timing on the tunnel exit cues!!!
On the first run, you can converge to 10 more on the threadle line at :24 – it was more of an ‘out’ than a ‘go’ for the jump after the threadle. You got it really well at 1:14 by moving more towards it – fast and smooth!
The Weaves to the tunnel layer looked great – really nice job measuring your speed to be able to send without getting too far ahead.
She committed nicely to the backside wraps here – you were able to keep moving through because you were not that far ahead (or ahead at all LOL) so you didn’t need to wait for her to pass you. For a better turn on the backside 14 at :24 and 1:24 , and on 16 at :40 and 1:31, you can look at her and lower your hands – point them to her not to the jump. You had both hands up which is great – but by pointing them to the jump they served as a bit more of an extension cue. Pointing them to her nose will get the collection on the commitment too.
The ending line was looking great til she ran past 21 both times – be aggressively turning your shoulder and calling there. You gave a quiet call on the 2nd run, but as she is lifting off for 20 let her see you turn your shoulders and call her and tell her to jump. That 19-20-21 line shouldn’t require anything like a threadle – just a “you need to take this jump!” cue should be great 🙂
Nice work!
Tracy
Hi!
I don’t think you need to go all the way back to the beginning on the threadles but we can clarify the cues which will really help.
It looks like you were trying to create the threadle line by pulling away (you ended up near the tunnel!) then pushing back to the jump, which is why he went to the backside of 3 at the beginning and 1:05. So the threadle lines of motion (threadle wrap and threadle slice) should both be parallel to his intended running line, without extra pulling away. And then the big differences are what you do with your arms and verbals.
For the threadle wrap on 3 (I don’t think you wanted the slice there?) – this move has deceleration and a low hand (or both hands) to draw him in and cue him to flip away to the wrap. The arm back is for the threadle slice, which is what you were doing at 1:39 – you can do that sooner, starting to get his focus on you when he is taking off for the previous jump so he is seeing and hearing the threadle cues no later than landing from the previous jump. In that spot, you started the threadle cues when he was about halfway to the jump, so he was already locked onto his line, good boy! You can stay closer to the line on the threadle slices too, so it is easier for him to see the arm swinging back.
On the discrimination video:
>He seems to really want the jump more than the tunnel, even goin so far as doing a backside push instead.>
It could never that the jump has more value, or that you were stopping your motion closer to the jump and trying to send him past it. Or, it could be that the tunnel was miles away 🙂 and it was easier to get the closer obstacle.
My guess is that it was not so much about not liking the tunnel as much, and it was more about running past another obstacle to get the one you were cueing. It would be interesting to switch things and have the tunnel closer and see if he grabs it or if he drives past it to the jump!
So you can approach it as training to find the further obstacle – and add a little more motion to it for now. You can stay in motion the whole time to help support him running past whichever obstacle is the furthest one 🙂 And the furthest obstacle is the one that gets the better rewards, so bring a couple of different types of treats with you 🙂 When he has the lightbulb moment of “I am allowed to go find the further obstacle” then it will be easier to fade out the motion and emphasize the verbals more.
Great job!! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>Hope the weather isnt too bad where you are.>
The weather has been gross here, regularly 37C with high humidity, like a rain forest LOL! So I take the dogs out as soon as the sun comes up – it is still too hot in the evenings to run them. But at least we don’t have any of the catastrophic flooding that is happening nearby.
>But what most impressed me with both my dogs is that inspite of strange place with lots of horse poo plus horses very close behind a single wire they both focused. >
That is great! Good dogs!!!!
>did manage to pursuade In synch to go over a strange dog walk and a frame. She had to think about it a little .>
Perfect – she is at the point in her training where she needs experience on different contacts.
>She tried hard- very obvious she didnt understand backsides or different side of jumps. same in popouts so need to go back and teach on its own.>
She always tries 1000% hard!
For the backsides, one thing I notice in the video below is that you sometimes run sideways to them (which cues the front) or your point forward (which also cues the front because it turns your shoulders to the front). So as you work the backsides, run forward and make a big connection (don’t point ahead) and that will help her find the backside more easily. You can see that at 3:13 – 3:18 where you were already rotated when cueing the backside and she had big questions until you got really close to it.
>we struggled she was not finding the linbes>
I was watching for what helped her find the lines versus what pulled her off lines:
When you had clear connection and some motion on the parallel line? She stayed on the line, no problem. You can see that at :10 and also at :27 where you were layering, as well as at 1:03.
Staying in motion even if it is not a lot of motion was also very effective – like at 2:30 – 2:38.
And using your opposite arm can work on the send and keeping her on the line (even if it is high like at like 2:04 – 2:07) but your motion and line have to support it – at 2:11 your opposite arm pointed at the tunnel but the rest of the physical cues were moving forward away the tunnel. She needed you to turn towards the tunnel there more like what you did at 3:25 – that worked really well!
Compare all that to when you were not moving enough or you were stationary at :46 and :54 and 1:06 for example, and she was not sure of what you wanted in those spots. So definitely keep moving to support the verbals1
One other thing to consider: When you were going from the tunnel exit to a backside push, make a bigger connection to her eyes so she know which side of you to be on – I think you wanted her on your left side but there was no enough connection so she ended up on your right side.
Nice work here! Let me know what you think !
Tracy
Hi! Hope you are not experiencing any of that flooding!!!!
I think overall you and Synnie are looking FABULOUS on course. It is fun to sort out the bloopers so you can get even smoother runs, but I am really impressed with the runs!
In the FAST run – I think when she sees RC info, she reads it as a RC (keep that in mind or the 2nd JWW video :))
On the jump in the send, I think you were trying to wrap left but didn’t decel and face the wrap wing – what happened what you ran fast then rotated, which reads like a RC cue because it puts pressure on the line the same way a RC cue does. So to get the turn to the left, add decel and be facing the left turn wing – then rotate after you decel and see her collecting to the left.
Turning right actually worked brilliantly there!
When she turned left to the dog walk at :20, it looks like you did rear cross the jump before she had a chance to land and commit to the tunnel.
So even though your verbals might have been correct, the physical cues said something different so she went with the strong physical cues.
JWW – I think she pulled out because you were hanging back (which is not normally an issue) and the pressure of the judge moving into position then standing there staring at her caused her to lose her footwork. You can watch his path across the ring and she lost her footwork right when he stopped moving and looked directly at her. So you can support her more by driving ahead (if you see the judge will be close and staring) and in training you can also enlist friends and family to put pressure on the weaves like a judge coming in close to watch.
The rest looked AWESOME.I grabbed a screenshot of the moment she lost her footwork and you can see the pressure of the judge’s position. It is here, along with 3 screenshots to the RC-that-wasn’t on the next run:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1cHWYB9zllaoyJO8CZ3PQiY5biuNQLUlc1o7phA7RVtc/edit?usp=sharing
On the 2nd JWW run – the first part looks awesome! That ending line was awkward in terms of where to put a RC. No good spot for it! And a BC would be hard to get to (it would be late) with a fast dog like Syn.
I think 2 things happened to cause the off course:
– yes, the timing was late 🙂 Screenshot 1: As she was landing from the jump before the RC jump, you were still running straight. There was no RC info until she took off for the RC jump at :39 (screenshot 2) – you started pressing in on the RC line and you said switch but she was in the air already and looking straight. She didn’t see the full RC physical cue until she was halfway to the off course jump (screenshot 3).So ideally the timing would be earlier and she would see you already on the RC diagonal line and turning her when she is landing from the jump before the RC jump. When you get behind, you can think of grabbing her attention almost like a tandem turn, perhaps, to avoid the straight line
– I bet if this was the middle of the course, she might have saved you and turned. But there was an off course jump straight ahead and more importantly… all the context cues said “this is the end, go straight!” What I mean by that is she saw the timing lights, the exit gate, she’d already run a long course, and you were accelerating up the line. The ‘switch’ verbal was really loud so easy to mistake for a ‘Go’ verbal based on intensity.
In other words… she thought it was the ending line based on the info and context. So you can TOTALLY set that up in training – make it look like the end, have your leash visible, maybe some treats… and give her HUGE rewards for turning when cued (and of course sometimes go straight too :))But overall… WOW! You two are running brilliantly!!!
Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Hi!
> I’ve always wondered why I was given permission to point on these forward sends, considering my entire agility life has been about avoiding pointing! >
Good point! Pun intended LOL!! The arm raise aka pointing is the cue to acknowledge the jump, by looking at it (glancing at it). The release and body facing the jump are the actual cues to take the jump (not the pointing). Eventually it will be MUCH easier but young dogs help us make sure everything is super clear 🙂
> Even though I got frustrated, I spent 3x as much time rewarding her. I just edited out the throws since I figured even you might get bored with that. >
I never get bored with reinforcement! And even one moment of “argh!” can be hard on an adolescent – their brains are wired to be super sensitive to that.
>So I have a pointing reminder to help me. If I point for either dog it needs to be at their little *ssholes and nothing else. >
Ha! Yes! We call it the 3rd Eye. LOL!! Or, if you are behind the dog, just run, no pointing needed.
> Think rectal exam Danika.
HA!!!!!! That will make the dogs run faster to get away from us LOL
>I used to have a prof in vet school who said the rectal exam is the most underdone and important exam you can perform. You can’t know unless you stick your finger in there.>
I guess this it true – it provides very clear info! My veterinary learning this week is that microchips can now also tell us the dog’s temperature. Cool!!!!!
>Today is a scorcher so we may not be training today.>
I can relate – I had to get out there as soon as the sun was up, but everything is soaking wet because it has been so humid.
Stay cool!!
Tracy
