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Good morning!
>>Session 2 we went out with chunks of grilled chicken – total winner!! Big guns but this is a make or break skill.>>
Chicken for the win!! I have a rotisserie chicken in my fridge specifically to be used as dog treat – $5.99 for a huge amount of treats LOL!!! ($4.99 at Costco hahaha). And I agree – because food is an easy, fast, efficient way to train this skill, it is worthwhile to go to the super high value food because it is such an important skill.
More of that “drive ahead” posted yesterday in the NextLevel Pup games. A toy is great too, so maybe use a ball and trade for chicken?
>>I also remembered that this was exactly the issue I had with Skipper – she was not head checking she just didn’t carry out to the second jump. I spent weeks just on the one exercise with her but it paid off for sure.>>
Yes! I think the small dogs need twice as much forward focus – they run the same huge courses and have to take twice as many strides as the bigs. My goal with Pesto is to put sooooo much value on driving big lines that he starts to go off course because he is SO committed that your turn cues are late LOL!!!! That is no problem – as soon as that happens, we start to balance things to get the turns too. He is great with turns so we can put a lot of emphasis on huge lines for now.
Keep me posted!
TracyGood morning!
I am glad the mountain climbers are going so well!! She sounds really confident 🙂 And yes – something like squeeze cheese is the magic that gets the pups driving to the end without any concern about where we are of if the board moves LOL!!>>so she was driving down the board and then naturally re-setting herself for the next rep. Hope that’s okay?>>
It will depend on eventual end criteria… I’d say as soon as the board starts to move, we add end criteria (I am guessing yours will be a 4on position at the end of the board) so n the way down, the board will be moving – which means we will want her to stop.
I use a really simple way to get the 4on, in the form of a strip of duct tape at the end of the plank, with the food on it 🙂 I do some targeting to the duct tape strip on a plank, then it is really say to transfer to the teeter.
Have fun!
TracyHi!
>> sorry about that. It’s nearly impossible to not have some type of animal distraction at our ranch. Whether it’s a horse, cow, barn cat, or dog (sometimes her dad too). I do my best but sometimes they squeak in! Thankfully Kashia is able to work pretty well through all those distractions the majority of the time!>>
No worries, it is great! I love seeing the horses come watch 🙂 And a perfect distraction for dogs to train through.
>> I hadn’t really decided what was best to do with Kashia.
For the contacts, you can have different behavior for different contacts, like a running a-frame and a stopped teeter & dog walk. The key is going to be very clear criteria that she knows how to do – and I like to teach a LOT of criteria so that is something slides or deteriorates a little, then we still have a ton of great behavior.
Usually, a 2on-2off is best for that. It is the clearest criteria of all the options (2 front feet on the ground, 2 back feet on the obstacle), the dogs can do it fast (run to the end and hit position), it is easy to train and maintain. I train it with a target at the end where the dog does a head bob to the target with their feet on either side of it.
Here is an example of what it looks like in a training session:
>>Don’t speak too soon! She started to get this way with the Wingin’ It game. I practiced it twice between chores, 3 mins each time. The first session she was animated and excited. The second session she was willing to participate but much less animated in her gait through the tunnel>>
Ha! Actually, I don’t think she was bored. I think she was thinking REALLY hard!
On the first couple of reps where it was just sends to the wing, she was great. You were sending her with the opposite leg, but you were sending with the dogside leg when you added the tunnel (the dog side leg is clearer for the dogs). She was fast and happy on these because I think it was easy for her 🙂
When you added more distance – it was much harder because she had to pass you (and pass the cookies LOL!)
Your connection was good though, and you were patient so she did find the wing (and you didn’t add extra steps, it was all good!) Because this was really hard for her, you can throw the reward to the wing when she passes you to go to it, kind of like saying “yes, that is correct, you need to pass the reward in order to get the reward” 🙂 We will keep showing this to her and she will get faster and faster!
The teeter looked great! Cream cheese for the win! Even the cat looked excited LOL! And it was really great to see her driving up to the top of the board. The clip at the end with her sitting there waiting for you was SO FUNNY – she is VERY serious about it LOL!!!
So the next step is to figure out a way to move the teeter away from the wall, so she is running up the teeter like she would be on course… but with it still really stable and not moving (yet). Do you have a saw horse or something you can use to prop it up so it doesn’t move when she gets to the end of it?Great job here!
TracyHi!
>> I never thought the tunnel would come out at home in February.>>
For real! I think of that every time I see one of your outdoor videos, but I haven’t mentioned it because I didn’t want to jinx you and have you end up with a blizzard LOL!!
On the first video, I think that was an effortless 10 mile lazy send to the middle jump LOL!!! Terrific!! That will serve you really well on courses because you can send and leave to wherever you need to be. Super!!! And we can apply this to the new handling games coming tomorrow 🙂
Video 2 with the sending looked terrific too! You can start the FC on the wing sooner, to get her knowing she was going to wrap before she arrived. For example, the FC at 1:26 was great timing, you were fully finished with the FC before she even arrived at the wing. Perfect! On some of the others, you were later or facing the wing as she came around, so she was not as sure if she should come back around to you or stay out on the line. I think 1:31-1:34 had a little uncertainty from you about what you wanted to do, but then the rest looked super good.
3rd video – On the first rep, it was not as clear if you were doing a threadle rear on the middle wing? It looked like a FC on the middle wing was the intention, but you were a little too early at :07 with the FC because it was a full rotation kind of lie when you would want her to go back to the tunnel – you were fully rotated before she got to the first wing so she wasn’t sure if she should go to the middle wing.
At :12 it definitely looked like a threadle rear – your position was great! You can start the rotation sooner so she sees it before she arrives at the wing after the tunnel. Nice job with the turn away on the middle wing!
At :18 she didn’t commit, that was the only time on any of these videos she didn’t commit – it looked like you dropped the send arm a little early and not connected enough? At :26, the arm stayed up til she got to the wing and she nailed it.
Great job here!!! More games coming tomorrow!!
Tracy
Good morning! He did well with both games here!
One thing for both games is that we are going to really emphasize getting him to look forward and not at you. This will include some handling ideas (see below) but mainly placement of reinforcement. The reward placement needs to be out on the line (not from your hand) and thrown there before he looks back at you. Here are more ideas:
Looking at the lazy game, it was interesting that we got the freeze response here. Do I remember correctly that you have seen that elsewhere when he wasn’t sure? It is GREAT that we are seeing it here and can work him through it, because the goal is that we will need him to be able to make decisions out on course and not need 100% input from you all the time (that requires perfect handing which is so impossible LOL!!)
Things went best for the lazy game when you used a start cookie by tossing a cookie away from jump 1 for him to get moving away so you can be a little ahead of him and strolling to jump 1. You also had some behind-the-back starts which worked beautifully 🙂
The food rewards are perfect for this but if he loses value for food quickly…. do shorter sessions. Do 30 seconds then he has to take a break and Skipper can have a turn LOL!!! And with the food, use huge chunks and a ‘get it’ marker so he knows that it is ahead on the line. The sessions with food might be shorter but they will be incredibly effectiveand efficient because you can throw it so easily and so often 🙂
You can use a toy, but only if you throw it! Having it behind your back and rewarding from your hand is drawing him to you and draws his focus away from the line. Our main goal is to get him to look at the line more, so throw the toy if you use it. You can use balls, those are even easier to throw. Now, if you throw a toy/ball and he won’t bring it back – we can work on that by trading. But throwing toys for this game is less efficient than food unless you have a very efficient and fast retrieve.
Now, for the next session, you can spread the jumps out a bit more. Two important things to remember:
– I want you to reward jumps 1 and 2 just as much as jump 3… you were rewarding jump 3 a lot more but the overall goal is that he looks at and drives to all/any of the jumps. He was looking at you a lot for jump 2, so it needs more reinforcement to help get his eyes of you 🙂
– when rewarding, don’t wait for him to be at the jump when you throw it (because he is looking at you by that point. So, mark the moment he looks at the jump with your ‘get it’ marker then throw the reward – all before he even arrives at the jump and definitely before he looks back at you 🙂
And if he misses a jump? No worries! No need to stop or fix – you just keep moving. No rewards for the missed jump, of course, but you keep moving so you can reward the next jump.
You can also add the advanced level which is the lazy sends to the middle jump 🙂
One step sends are going well too!!! he has good commitment on the sends so you can move the wings further from the tunnel. As the sequences get bigger, you can move more so the wing you want is clearer to him (sometimes you were far away and there were two visible wings, so he wasn’t sure (like at 3:29).
Plan your verbals so you don’t call everything a tunnel like on the 1st rep and at 2:41 LOL!
One handling detail to think about: getting your dog-side leg to be a consistent part of the send cue. When he is on the left side, your left leg should be a main element of the send. Sometimes you did that, but also sometimes you sent with the opposite leg and he had questions. You can see that at 2:53 and 2:57 and 3:20 and 3:34 – it is dog side hand and opposite leg, so he is not always and he has a big question on the sends because the lower body is inconsistent. He will find the wing when it is close, but I think as we add distance the dog-side leg will be super critical. So before you handle him through the sequences, you can walk it without him and do a leg check to be sure you are sending with the dog sside leg 🙂 Or, do a lazy version of it and don’t use your hands at all on the sends, only legs 🙂 the wings can be nice and close if you on;y use your legs because that will be hard!
Great job here!
TracyGood morning! He is doing really well with the lazy game!!
>>. Most of these videos are a little longer because Zyp had to search for the cheese I was tossing when it blended in with the snow.>>
Food is a little easier to use for this game (because you can throw it on the line after any of the jumps then keep going) – to make it easier to find the food, you can use a ‘get it’ and throw the cookie ahead on his line before he gets to the jump, so he sees it landing on his line. This will also keep him looking forward on the line more and not glancing at you 🙂
You can use a toy for this game, but throw it out on the line (like you would with a treat) instead of handing it to him after the last jump. Handing it to him causes him to watch you and not the lines – we want the rewards to appear out on the lines so he is not watching you as much. If you throw it and he might not bring it back, we can work on that by trading the toy for a treat.
>>He missed the center jump a couple of times in this video and I paid him after the first miss but I didn’t pay him after the second and I don’t think he missed it after that. I was trying to determine if maybe I was turning a little to early and that is why he missed it but I also noticed I swing my arms a lot when I walk so I don’t know if that affects him.>>
Because it is a shaping game and not a handling game, you don’t have to worry too much about timing 🙂 Just be connected enough for him to know which side of you to be on 🙂 And as you stroll around the pinwheel, you can reward him for any jumps he takes. But if he misses a jump – no need to stop or fix… just keep going towards the next jump and no reward. So that is why food is so useful, because it is easy to reward multiple times in the same rep 🙂
On the next round, you can spread the jumps out even more, as well as check out the advanced level with the lazy sends.
Great job!
TracyGood morning! The plank confidence video looks great 😀
Moving mack and forth across the board looked easy for him and he was looking ahead and not at you – that’s exactly what we want.
You had some good angles on the cookie tosses to change up the angle if his approach to the board, so you can keep going with that and add even more angles by tossing the treats on a curve back towards you, working up to almost being behind you 🙂He was turning around really well too. His feet were stepping off but I think that was because it was so easy for him that he didn’t really perceive a “boundary” between the board and the grass. So with that in mind, for both of these games, you can put something under the plank to elevate it. It can be something like a block under each end and maybe the center too, so it is maybe 6 inches off the ground. That will definitely make it a little harder!
Great job here!
TracyGood morning!
>>Can’t say I’ve ever see a Mal mixed with a Whippet! Sounds like a dog that will need definitely need a job or else it’ll be high maintenance! Mals are amazing working dogs but my goodness they don’t always have an off switch. At least police ones, that is.>>
I think that was part of the original premise behind the Mal/Whippet mixes: the extra ‘push’ in the work ethic of a Mal… with the explosive speed and and excellent off switch of a whippet. So far, they are really impressive dogs!
The videos are looking good! It is great to be able to work outside and it was fun seeing the horse audience behind you on the plank game LOL!
>>I probably started the elevation a little too much in the beginning as you’ll see her just jump over it several times.>>
I don’t think you had too much elevation – I think it was a little harder so she was offering the easier “hop over it” behavior first 🙂 She figured it out in less than 10 seconds and then she did great. There was a moment or two where she offered some heeling (when she is on your left and your hand if on your stomach, she might automatically go into seeing mode) so you can have your hand at your side with the treats or treats in the opposite hand so there is nothing that looks like a heel cue in terms of hand position.
>>This was just an uneven plank attempt. So the side closest to the camera was higher than the other side but both had something underneath them. >>
Perfect! We don’t need things to be perfect and even all the time.
>>I’ve never even heard of those conditioning inflatables. I’ll see what I can find at Walmart. I’m a bargain shopper.>>
There are a bunch of companies that make conditioning inflatables specifically for dogs… and your wallet will be very very sad afterwards LOL!!!!! I think I have one or two things (one purchase, one was a gift) and other than that I either go the bargain shopper route or make it myself 🙂 At Walmart, you can probably find inexpensive balance discs or yoga blocks, and you really don’t need anything else for now.
>>Anyway, what do you think about her getting off the plank before she was at the end? Should I have allowed her to do that and rewarded it?>>
Perfectly fine to do that in this game. You can use a ‘get it’ marker to toss the treat which is also a release to jump off the plank. Are you training an end position separately, like stopping in a 2on, 2off position? We do eventually put it all together.
The lazy game also looked great! Her brain probably did stew on it overnight 😁 I agree: easy for us humans, hard for the dogs LOL!!! She did well on both sides. The little oopsie moments seemed like a little bit of leftover heeling – your hand position might be part of a heeling cue, so when your hands are in front of you she might be thinking about heeling on your left side. So when she is on your left, you can have the treats in your right hand and dangle your left at your side so it doesn’t look like a heel cue at all (and your right hand can toss the treat).
It looks like she is is ready for you to add more distance between the jumps! You can move them apart another 3 or 4 feet and see how she does.
>>This is especially nice for Kashia so I don’t have to deal with boredom issues right off the bat!>>
Yes! This is especially great: when I first ‘met’ her, she would get a little bored if you were not running fast. But now you are strolling and not handling much at all… and she is happy to go find the jumps independently. This is GREAT because we want her to propel herself to the lines rather than rely on your foot speed!!!
Great job here :)
TracyThe plank work is going well too! The slower turn hand and lower cookie helps a lot! The sloppy moments when her back feet come off the plank are when she is turning to her left and had to keep her feet in a small space, including her back feet. Turning to her right? Easy! Turning to her left in a small space? Definitely harder. So for the left turns, you can reward after each turn so she can eat the treat then re-set for the next turn. And move the hand even more slowly when she is turning to her left so she can really balance on the harder side. If you have a wider plank (or put two planks next to each other) that can help too!
The 2o2o behavior is looking good to0 – for her it is mostly a front end behavior (where to put her front feet while she looks up at you). The hind end is involved of course, but you play with getting even more hind end balance by having her back up into the 2o2o position as a game 🙂 Then she will have to ‘look’ for the board with her back feet and that can really help her sort out where to put each foot in the smaller space of a plank.
Great job here!!
TracyGood morning!
>>She seemed to understand this even with the greater distance, but hated when she thought she should get a treat and either she did not see it get dropped or it was when I was not tossing one that time.>>
She did great here! That middle jump is a significant distance away and she solved the puzzle pretty quickly 🙂 She is a little stronger and smoother turning to her right, but that is normal and her left turns were looking strong by the end too!
And yes, the dogs do give us a little side eye when we do not throw a treat for every jump (or if they can’t see it immediately) – the marker for the cookie toss will clarify that. A ‘get it’ marker means look for the treat. No marker/quiet momma means keep going 🙂 That will help make things even clearer for her.
Great job here!
TracyHi!
>>What are the steps for progression? After they drive to the end from a wing wrap,mso you start lowering it gradually?>>
Yes – very very slowly start adding movement of the board. But, training an independent end position is super important (we do add that later in this class). Has she ever done a 2on, 2off at the end of a board using a target? That will be super useful for the teeter.
>>And we would need to stop doing the teeter while we retrain?>>
I would recommend that, because you’ll be practicing two different behaviors and that can end up being confusing as to what specifically she is supposed to do.
T
Good morning!
>>That game was much harder than I expected. Not so much for me, obviously, but for the dog to figure it out. Even my older dog was having to use a lot of thinking and deciphering. Interesting how it looks so simple but it’s really not!>>
Yes, it is a shaping game while we are moving. And most dogs have played shaping games but we are standing still. So the movement makes it harder. Plus, we have stripped out a lot of the info we normal give to get them to take the jumps (speed, big connection, verbal, arms, etc) so they are being asked to find it more independently and that is soooo much harder! But it will save us a LOT on course because we cannot always be showing a lot of info – and the current trend in agility is that the dog just needs to stay on the line.
>>When I was practicing, I didn’t even consider the heeling being more valuable. I didn’t think of that until later when I watched my video. >>
Yes – it was a good catch to figure that out. When you mentioned it, it was easy to see when she was offering heeling, looking at you, good girl! But not on your right side where you probably haven’t done as much heeling. She still did really well on our left side, probably about 75% correct and that is still really good!
>>>This makes total sense!!! I would have never thought of that but it’s so simple! Thank you! Great suggestion! I obviously can’t have her afraid of the first rep since you only get 1 rep in AKC classes! >>
I learned that from one of my most successful agility dogs… who was terrified of the teeter as a baby dog. So we would do one single mind-blowing rep, like for his favorite toy that he would only get for the teeter, or for a HUGE amount of cookies like his whole meal. I remember clearly on session where I wanted to give him just one Vienna sausage from that little tin that they come in… but when I reached for it, I dropped the whole tin so he grabbed it, ran around with it, and ate about 10 Vienna sausages for one single rep. Best day ever, according to him haha!! But it ended up building to an incredible teeter performance.
>>Ha ha ha I should have known most of the dogs had some Border Collie in them!!! It seems like everybody super involved in agility has some sort of BC mixed into their dogs if not a purebred. >>
Yes, a lot of the mixes put BC in them for size and biddability. I think agility is built with BCs in mind, at this point. I do a ton of flyball too so a lot of the mixes have BC and whippet in them. The whippets bring speed and can turn a lot better 🙂 My next dog will be a whippet/malinois mix 🙂
>>You definitely can’t deny their amazing talent when it comes to agility. >>
Yes! And also they have so much intrinsic motivation that a lot of them will keep going even if the training is crappy LOL or if there is too much training. I prefer dogs that will keep me honest – the whippety dogs will roll their eyes at me and grab an Uber if I am being a bad trainer 🙂 When I am being a good trainer, the whippety dogs are faster and tighter than the BCs they run against .
>>I’ll stick to my Brittanys. I’m a runner. I love running but I also love that my Brittanys are slow enough to allow me to make mistakes and still recover from them. Ha ha they are more forgiving because of their lack of speediness in comparison. >>
I love Brittanys! They also keep us honest in our training and handling 🙂 They are also a fast breed – they just don’t have the same frantic movement that a lot of herding dogs have, so it might not feel as crazy.
Looking at the plank game: Kashia thought this was super cool LOL!!! No questions at all when you were stationary, and no questions when you were walking back and forth. The back and forth is similar to the lazy game – so this game on the board will also help the lazy game on the jumps! You can add in a little more distance away from it, especially when she is on your left, so she has to move further and further away from you to get on the plank.
Since she likes this so much, we ca use this plank to help her love the teeter movement by putting stuff under the plank to elevate it a bit – like a block on either end? You can elevate it by just a couple of inches on each side with whatever you have on hand.
Then, when she is happy with that (will probably take 3 seconds haha!) you can put stuff under the board that make it wobble and move a little. If you have any of those inflatable conditioning things, you can do that under the plank. Here is a video of one of your classmates with 2 of those inflatable bones under her plank:
I buy some cheap inflatable disc things at Walmart 🙂 or borrow from friends. No need to sped a fortune on it!
Or, you can put other things under it like small logs on each end – anything that will make the board a tiny bit less stable.
>>She kept repeating the exercise even when I was done practicing and cleaning up.>>
Ha! That is hilarious! I guess she likes her plank LOL!!
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

