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Hi! !
The intermediate game is a pure shaping exercise – you can shape him to pick up anything including random objects that are not toys. That is great for obedience! Or for teaching him to bring you the TV remote haha!Tracy
Good morning!
Quill sure loved his formal introduction to the tunnel, with his human sister helping!! The angles were a little more challenging so definitely keep working around the clock angles. You can even toss a toy into the tunnel so he gets it pretty immediately after getting into the tunnel! A big piece of cookie or any toy he will bring back is great for that, so you don’t have to crawl into the tunnel LOL!!Great job!
Tracy
Good morning!
He did super well with the barrel wraps then driving to the toy. He was really excited by the toy but did his wrap., and you were clear about which side you wanted him on. You can use food in the in-between moments because he is aroused and food (like a pattern game) can help with arousal regulation and help him walk back to the start without grabbing for the toy.
Pivoting without going to the toy might have been extra hard because he had done a bunch of wrap-then-toy and so when he exited the wrap if you were still moving and facing the line to the toy… off he went, good boy!
Separating the pivot from the wrap helped! He did GREAT pivoting on the flat with the toy right there 🙂
And on the last rep, you finished the wrap and made sure to be stationary and clearly indicate the pivot – and he pivoted. YAY!! So for future games with this, you can send him to the barrel from a little further away, so when he exits the wrap you are stationary and indicating the come-to-my-hand. That way he never sees even a tiny bit of run-to-toy cue (motion or facing it).
He was slipping a bit on the floor, so he is probably reaching the speed level where you will want to do this outside or on mats, or get long yoga mats to cover the wood – we don’t want him to splay or hurt himself going fast!
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Hi!
This went really well!! She didn’t really understand how to play with it when food was present, but when you start to approach it as shaping the retrieve with food as a shaping game and not a tugging game things really got rolling! Yay! She *does* like the toy, so keep rewarding small bits of grabbing/pulling on in the presence of the food (that was hard!) You were making it harder very quickly, so be sure to watch to see if she gets frustrated at all which might mean it is too hard.You can keep moving forward with this – putting a toy on the ground for her to pick up for treats, and building up to throwing a toy for her to pick up and get treats for picking up and eventually bringing back!
Nice work!
Tracy
Hi!
The barrel as the RC creates a different type of RC – more of a tandem turn where you arms cue the behavior (you can see her looking at your arms) rather than the traditional rear cross of you cutting behind her path. Tandem turns are more of a pull to the correct side and then a turn away, like a rear cross on the flat. Tandems are super useful, so definitely keep doing them!At :47 and :54 when she went to the other side of the barrel, she was correct – your footwork and line created that and pushed her away from the tandem turn line. So if there are errors in handling games, assume they are human errors 🙂 And reset with a cookie 🙂
To help her read the traditional rear cross of you driving up the line and putting pressure on the RC line to cue behind her before takeoff, keep trying the prop game!
>(the prop she doesn’t always hit it turns before hitting the prop).>
That is fine for now, she can be near it, as long as she turns the correct direction.
And you can try the alternative RC game posted yesterday – that one will also help her read the traditional RCs.
Nice work here!!
Tracy
Good morning!
She did well here! Yes, food is her favorite thing 🙂
The food in the bowl might be the hardest challenge for here, so being close to it was very hard. Yo can have it on a chair in a corner of the room so it is present, but less challenging and she will try to grab for it less. And be sure that the food you are tossing is MUCH better than whatever is in the bowl, to help with the challenge.Nice work!!
Tracy
Good morning!
I think the difference between the stationary send near the prop (which looked great!) and the big distance/running to the prop blew her mind 🙂 When you started that far back and starting running, all of that took the prop entirely out of the picture.
So split the difference. Start by progressing with the sending and doing the parallel path game (so she can see motion) from gradually further and further back and when you hit the 15 or 20 range, you can start to move forward after the send and cut behind to the new side so she can drive forward and read the RC. For now, don’t run and don’t be too exciting because that draws her to you and of the prop.
>I started out with cheese in my hand but even after I put it away—–>
Start with cheese in the opposite arm. And I think it was more that you were running (fun fun!) and less that you were holding cheese.
We can also place something on the target to help her look forward when you are moving (like a bowl) and that will help! And check out the alternate RC game added yesterday – that helps too!
>Markers- food from hand – snack thrown or placed food- search multiples of thrown food- scatter toy from hand- take thrown or placed toy – get it>
Great! And you might hate me for this… it is possible that snack, search, scatter all sound similar to her so she isn’t really processing them. Try to emphasize the vowels: ACKs, EARCH, CATTER to make them sound pretty different.
Nice work here!
TracyGood morning!
Parallel path -the prop does have value! She can hit the prop really well! She just can’t do it with a lot of speed yet. That’s normal 🙂 The first couple of reps and the last one or two looked good! On rep she, you had a big increase in your speed and so did she, so she missed. You can still reward if she goes over the prop – but for now, you can still be moving nice and slooowwwwww 🙂 She can speed up if she likes!
Lap turn – the prop had good value here too! Yay! Your high hand with a cookie in it was a conflicting indicator after the lap turn and on the tandem turn too (hand was lower on the tandem) so she was not sure if she should move forward to the prop or look at the cookie hand. So she offered both LOL! She did offer a super cute leap-and-hit LOL!!!
>She got leaping thoughts with the turns. I’m assuming I need to slow down.>
The leaping was caused by the conflicting indicator and she was sorting out how to offer 2 behaviors: leap and prop hit. Clever! I don’t think you need to slow yourself down on these – we just need to clarify the cues and she will know where to look.
2 options:
You can feed her the cookie in your hand after the turn away then just walk to the prop, natural hands like on the parallel path (then reward from the other hand)You can cue the lap/tandem with no cookie in the cue hand, then after the turn away, move forward to the prop with the natural hand position like the parallel path game, rewarding from the other hand.
So mostly the prop value is where we want it, we are just sorting out mechanics (which is exactly why we use the silly prop at this stage :))
For the forward/sideways/backwards sending to the prop, if that is still hard – You can end with empty hands and put a more obvious enhancement on the prop: put the cookie on the prop before you send 🙂 Many pups find a session of cookie-on-prop lure to be really enlightening 🙂 And then we start the next session with it, then fade it.
For the wing wraps – it is possible that the barrel is too big for now, so try a smaller thing to wrap that she can see around better. Do you have a wingless upright? Or a tall/relatively thin cone? And you can enhance the line a bit with a long toy: hold her on your left side. Place part of the toy on the ground about 1/3rd of the way around the barrel (you are holding the other part of the toy) – then start to drag it, and let her go to follow it as you keep dragging it all the way around.
Then repeat the process, but with the toy half way around, then 2/3rds, then 3/4th, then on the ground at the exit, etc – that can help her really drive around the object (especially if it is smaller) and fades the toy out pretty fast while keeping it fun fun fun 🙂
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Good morning!!
>Challenge for me is a bad back and a small dog (haha).
You can try it with you sitting on something like one of those inflatable balls or a chair it that will help with your back!
On the video:
She was so cute, still letting you drag her around by the toy!!The questions here mostly had to do with mechanics and if we smooth those out, she will turn to the prop better and also not take off with it 🙂
About taking off with the prop:
The first one was at the 2 minute mark – most young pups have a little less than 2 minute of doing the same thing in them, then they get bored and start doing other things (like running around with the prop :)) It is also possible that she saw you bring the toy out and so she figured it was break time.
To help avoid that, you can do 2 things:
Take toy breaks more frequently, like after every 2 or 3 reps for now, so she doesn’t feel like it is too repetitive. And, pick up the prop before taking the toy out to direct her to what you’d like her to grab 🙂And when starting the game back up – try not to let her see you toss the prop down as part of re-starting because that pulls her focus to it a lot. You can be tugging and just place it then keep tugging for a bit.
>although she can complete the turn she doesn’t drive on to the prop. >
What was happening was on those reps, you were turning her and stepping to the prop at the same time, so it was not as clear about what to do as the reps where you turned her and then stepped to the prop. So turn her away fully as if the prop was not there – and then instead of throwing a reward, you step forward to the prop then reward her.
>I do have two pieces of cheese in my hand – one to help with the turn and one to toss>
You can have a piece in each hand 🙂 One hand turns her away (and then you can feed her that cheese). Then start moving to the prop and reward from the other hand. Then you can fade out the cheese in the turn hand, using only the tossed cheese from the opposite hand to reward.
The other thing that will clarify things about turn versus prop is if, when she is eating the cheese from the mat, you are stationary, lean over a bit and fully extend your cookie hand (locked elbow instead of a bent elbow). That position will show her the turn cues more – I think sometime you had a bent arm and were moving backwards, which caused the cue to get a little lost and she would either go all the way to the prop or veer to it then come back to the hand. So making the cue more obvious will really help that.
At the end she had another run with the prop – probably a lot of reps by that point and the turns on that side were not as clear as they were on the other side so even though she was getting cookies, she was not as sure and directed her energy to the prop. On that side, you were turning and trying to indicate the prop at the same time so if you separate them into turn then indicate, I think it will be much smoother for her to read.
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Perfect! I am sure it will transfer to a regular tunnel – start with a small one. Maybe you can sneak her into a small, light-colored tunnel at Level Up?
T
Hi!
The videos came through, thanks!!!The toy races are looking strong! After you won the race on the 2nd video here – what happened on the next rep? Did she win by a mile? You can throw the toy even further to see how far ahead of you she will drive 🙂
I love that rainbow tunnel! And she seems to love it too 🙂 It was hilarious on the last tunnel video when you triggered the MM by accident and said “sorry” to her… she was NOT sorry about it at all hahahaha! But she did great! You can send her through the tunnel to the MM, the call her back past the tunnel to your hand on the opposite side of the tunnel (so she doesn’t think you want her to go into the tunnel again). She can have cookies for coming back and not taking the tunnel.
She seems to love the tunnel enough that you can add the next steps:Add the verbal cue by holding her, saying her tunnel 3 or 4 times, then letting her go to run through it.
Ask her to find the tunnel from the inside, meaning she is between you and the tunnel (which sets up the tunnel threadle skill).
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
What a fun setup with all the STUFF here for him! Love it!! And you had different configurations which was also super fun.
It was interesting that he didn’t want the treats in the first session! In those moments, you can ask him: is it the value of the treats, or is it the value of the treats in this context- is the context hard?
You can ask that question by moving him to a different spot, away from the setup, and offering the treats. If he takes them there but not on the setup, it is useful info about the value of the treats versus the challenge level of the setup! He did play wit the toy here but was also hopping up onto the couch which might have also his way of saying, ‘this is hard!’
So the food value for something hard and new might need to go to mind-blowing territory to help convince him to stay on a new setup and eat the treats 🙂
Was it the same treats on the 2nd session? He was definitely happy to eat them and stay on the ‘stuff’ there, so it is interesting communication about how he feels about the challenge and the treat value, which informs future training too. What I mean by that is if you are presenting something challenging, you can start right away with the toy or mind-blowing food, then move back to the normal treats after he has seen/used the set up a bit.
He was cracking me up with strike a pose: he provides very clear info about what the reward should be in each moment LOL!! I like that you tried to reward with the longer toy after he said no to the shorter toy (I am pretty sure I heard him say “THAT IS NOT A REWARD, HUMAN!” Haha) but yet – he would take the toy happily on the tug break for a moment then said nope. He might be teething which is why he started tugging then backed off of it a bit.
You can adjust things a little to use the toy as the reward by throwing it for him to chase – that way it is still exciting and fun, but he doesn’t need to worry about tugging as much if his teeth hurt.
But the strike a pose itself went great! He had no trouble driving in to the target hand and your rewarding was perfect. You can try an empty food bowl on the ground for the next step, to drop a cookie into it after he hits the hand target. You can also try a toy, but he might not be into the dead toy on the ground so the food bowl might be something he drives to independently.
I think he really liked the barrel wraps to the auntie chase!!! Great job adding more connection as he exited the barrel so he knew which side of you to be on.
You can also run and use your GO verbal when the auntie starts to run. And to add challenge… she can be running the whole time (ok, maybe start with walking haha): can he till wrap the barrel even with the excitement of the toy moving? That will add a little bit of impulse control challenge 🙂Great job!
TracyGood morning!
>Too many things to worry about and THEN think about hand and arm. WHEW!>
Yes – puppy training requires 5 arms sometimes LOL!
This session went well! He is great with his forward focus! I don’t know if he could see the dog-side arm as part of the cue, because it was harder to get it extended to really point the cone. Using the opposite arm in is setup might make it more obvious as a cue.
You can use the bowl for the more challenging parts of this, where it gets all the way around the cone. At :57 the bowl was there and you gave the bowl marker but then gave him the toy, so he was not sure where to look. The bowl might be slightly easier as it gets all the way around the cone – the toy was harder 🙂 At 2:13 and 3:00 when he was heading to the toy, he hadn’t looked away from it and at the cone so he went to the toy 🙂 He did have successful reps with the toy, but I think having him learn it with the bowl first in the really hard positions will make it easier to transfer to the toy in terms of still getting the forward forward to the one.
Nice work here!!
TracyGood morning!
That is so funny about the tunnel! She trained herself, makes it easier for all of us LOL!! She is so clever!!! And it sounds like the toy races went well too 🙂
The videos for the MM didn’t come through – can you repost?
Thanks!
TracyGood morning!
The handling combo went really well!
You started with regular blinds on the barrel – be sure to keep your hands in tight on the blinds – no airplane arms 🙂 – so he can see the connection on the new sides. You can see there is a bit of a delay because your arms blocked the connection and at 1:29 you didn’t show connection at all so didn’t change sides. The key is the eye contact, not the arms, so keep the arms out of the way 🙂You then moved to spins for a bunch of reps – he didn’t need to change sides but they still looked great!
He also did really well moving away from the toy – the cookie magnet helped. Now you can fade out the cookie a bit by rewarding every couple of steps rather than having the cookie in front of him.
>I got delusional thinking I could add the decel/pivot.>
Ha! But if you hadn’t written this, I would not have known you wanted the decel/pivot because you were running straight at the toy. So to get the decel and pivot: The decel starts the instant he exits the barrel, so he sees it and can adjust. If you run forward a few steps, he will (correctly) lock onto the toy.
Your expression when you dropped the cookie at the beginning of the stay session was hilarious LOL!!
He did well with the stays here but the next step is to make sure he doesn’t think the cookie hand is the cue and he doesn’t follow the cookie hand. One wya to do this is to not make the cookie hand so obvious as part of the cue or reward. It was very prominent and he was locked on to it.
Instead, can you let him offer, or just use a verbal sit cue? By having the food as the lure in your hand, he is completely locked into your hand and where the hand goes, he goes. And if you move the hand, he will move with it. You did you catch nice and early on a lot of the reps but you can see him leaning forward and getting ready to move when your cookie hand moves forward.
I think the twitchy-ness is because he thinks the hand position is part of the cue and he should follow it.
So to be able to add more distance – you can have a cookie ready in the other hand, but use a verbal as the cue or let him offer the sit (don’t worry if it is straight or not, that can be added later). And then use your hands naturally, not held up in front of him and then surprise him with the cookie toss from the other hand. You can also use a toy!
>His sit is very sloppy posture- wise…not a good tuck sit. Should I work on that?>
Yes! Separately from stays, you can start a tight sit on a small platform – it should be a small stable platform that is only big enough for him to do a nice tight sit 🙂
The retrieve is going well!! Keep working it in the small space, adding in you standing up too! I am pretty happy with his retrieves in your basement – he has a lot of room to take off with the toys so while he doesn’t bring it back immediately, he doesn’t run away with it and need to be tracked down LOL!! So I know the retrieve will keep getting better and better. In the basement, you can add more moving away and reverse retrieving (posted today!) to help him grab it and run back to you.
>He is going up to MA with his handler on Oct. 16 and coming home Oct 26. That will be right as week 6 starts. Will there be a catch up week before the next session begins?>
Sounds like a fun adventure for him!!
This course goes for 12 weeks 🙂 so you will have plenty of catch up time 🙂 And then a month or so between MaxPup 1 and MaxPup 2 (which will start in early January after MaxPup 1 ends in December).
Great job here!
Tracy
