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Hi!
>>What is so interesting to me is that when I look at the video just 24 hours later it seems so much simpler than what I was making it.>>
That is the thing about connection – when you watch it, it looks so simple! But when you are doing it? Not nearly as simple feeling 🙂 But keep practicing like you are and it will all start to get really natural feeling! It is looking terrific!
The reps on the video looked great here! Connection was really strong on each element so her turns were tight and she seemed to have no questions about commitment. Super! The only other thing to add to the set up would me more distance (not sure if you can set it diagonally in this ring so you can add another 5 or 6 feet between the jump and wing on each side?)
More distance means you’re running faster so it will challenge you to maintain the connection like you did here 🙂
And I am glad you like the break week! The goal is that people don’t feel rushed and can have fun, even when the weather is bad or life commitments make thing busy 🙂
Great job here!
TracyGood morning!
She gives really good feedback bout what she sees 🙂
>>In the beginning, she was really confident & even took jump #2.
Yes – the first several reps had great connection but also forward motion to the jump in the form of several steps towards it, so she very clearly had a cue to go to the jump.
>>Then later I tried to move across from jump 1 to 2 (like a serp) and something about my movement or body position pushed her off jump 2.>
That was :37 and after that – what was happening was you were running parallel to the bar with a closed shoulder, so she was staying out on her line. She would need you to open up your shoulders towards her with your dog-side arm back so she sees the cue to come in (or turn your shoulders towards the house to cue a 180).
Then I think you were thinking about getting that 2nd jump so you were not cuing the first jump as clearly. For example, at :47 – you immediately turned away after the wing wrap and that is what was happening on the next reps too. That might be why you felt bent over a bit – trying to turn quickly to get the next jump.
So be sure to make the big connection and take one big huge step to the jump. That will get the commitment cue look more clear and she should propel away to the jump (this is more of what you did at 1:27 and she got it nicely!) As you do that big send step and connection, watch her face: when she is locked on the line to the jump, take that as your cue to slide away to the next jump. Don’t slide away until you see her tell you she has it by driving towards it 🙂
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! This went really well!
The warm up reps with the wing-to-jump looked good – it was easier to rotate earlier to add the countermotion to the jump when you had more of the sequence happening (like at :24). As you rotate earlier (before he even fully passes you) you can exaggerate the shift of your connection even more with your eyes and your ‘new’ arm doing a big pointing motion to the landing spot. This will make it part of the cue, and that will help override motion as you move the other direction. So at :24, as you rotated, the right arm would be the ‘new’ arm and pointing to the landing spot to help support the connection shift. You were tending to follow her with your connection through the line the whole time which is really good – so now we can pump it up a little more by having you look at her and then deliberately lear her eyes to let her see you look back at the landing side.The same can be done with the circle wraps – shift your connection sooner to cue it as you move forward right on her tail 🙂
You are following her around (like at :45 and 1:01) the line which does support the commitment. At :51 you shifted to the landing side as more of the cue and that went really well! Shifting earlier to cue it will give you even more independent commitment 🙂As you focus on the shifting connections, remember to keep the other connections going too:
Use more regular connection on the release – at :35 the side of your face is visible but you were not looking at her (so she comes towards you first then back out to the wing). And remember to not connect and release quickly together (or the connection becomes the release).The exit line connections at the beginning were very clear so she was nice and tight -as you focused more on the shifting connection, the exit line connection got less clear so you can see she was wider on the turns at the end (looking for more info). So, in a nutshell – all the connections, all the time LOL!! It is really hard on short drills like this because they happen in rapid succession.
>>P.s. what’s the distance of the wings to the jump for the serp exercise?>>
Depending on how much room you have at least 12 feet would be good! 15 or 18 feet will be even better if you have enough space.
Great job here!
TracyHi!
He did great with the tugging at the seminar!>>I haven’t tried tugging at trials yet because I don’t feel like we have proficiency in the skill yet and I don’t want to fail. >>
Don’t think of it as a skill. Weave poles are a skill! Tugging is a game 🙂 Can’t fail at a game! So bring the most exciting toy you have, tie it to something even longer so you can swing it around, and starting in a relatively less distracting area… start swinging it around and letting him chase it and tug. No contingencies required, no ‘work’ – just play 🙂
Let me know how it goes!
TracyGood morning!
Yes, latent learning can totally help and he did well with his rotated sends! Remember to reward by dropping the reward back by the landing spot when he takes his first step towards it – you were dropping the rewards in near you when he finished the wrap. Getting the rewards back towards the landing spot will help you be able to add countermotion and start moving away (because he will look at you less and at the barrel more :))
Looking at the rear crosses: Smart to use the plank as the “wall” here! Love it!!!!!
The left turn rear crosses looked great. You had a good cookie toss and then did a great job appearing on the new side early enough that he could make the turn the new direction.
On the left tun videos: Your timing was much later so when he picked up his head after eating the treat, he could see you on his right side so that is where he turned. Compare to the first video when you were past his shoulder and a lot by his head by the time he lifted his head, so he easily turned. On these 2 videos, you were still behind him by his butt, so he turned back towards you to his right.
To get the left turns here, you will need to get past hi shoulder like you did in video 1: throwing the treat a little further and maybe throwing 2 treats o he doesn’t pick his head up that fast :)) – then run to get past his shoulder before he finishes eating the treats (you can probably start moving at the same time he takes his first step to the treat so you are definitely at his shoulder before he finishes eating.
Nice work here! Let me know how the left turn RCs go!
Tracy
Hi! It I great to see her working again!!! And I know you will work through feeling one-sided. You looked pretty balanced here!
The threadles are going well! Watching the videos, one suggestion is to make your position a little more obvious for the threadles and that will make the serps look very different:
For the threadles – stand with your stomach at the entry wing so she sees a full half of your body outside the wing.
For the serps – stand with your stomach at the exit wing, so she sees you with the bar visible between you and her.You had just your hand visible here and your torso visible across the bar, which might make it harder for her to differentiate serps versus threadles (which is the next step of the game :))
One thing that you added later in the videos was a start cookie after the MM reward – that was very effective tp help her start each rep! When you had her start after the MM reward like in video 1, she was a little confused. But then by the 3rd video, you had a quick start cookie after the MM reward which set her up really nicely for the threadle, even on hard angles! SUPER!!!
She didn’t have many bloopers at all with the quick start cookies. At :56 on the 3rd video from the angle she came in on, she saw most of the physical cue in serp position so she came over the bar. She fixed it on the next rep but that is an example of how the clearer positions can be very helpful.
Tight turns – she is off to a good start here! You were working this with the opposite arm doing the turn cues on each side – it think it will feel smoother and also let you isolate the head turns more if you use your dog-side arm. You can start her at your side with the dog-side arm doing all the work. So you start her on your left, for example: the left hand sends her to the wing and then she goes around once – then the left hand meets her as she finishes the turn and turn her away (and the right hand tosses the treat :))
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>It’s so interesting how the first couple times at agility locations, the toy seemed to cut through all the distraction and now she isn’t able to engage with it much.>>
I think there was less distraction in the environment, she was further from the crowd in some of the places, and sometimes on her own. That is all good! Toy versus food value does seem to fluctuate, so bring out food and toys she does not see at home so there is also a novelty about it all. She probably doesn’t need the bunny tugs at home, so that can be saved for other places.
The newer places are a little closer to the distractions in terms of maybe being smaller or having more people around. I think she just needs exposure to those environments but doesn’t actually need to ‘work’ – just go in, maybe play with a toy and you run around, or eat some treats outside the ring or in the ring. No contingencies, no pressure, just basically having a fun time. She might need to come to Lazlo’s class o hang out around the crowd at the front so he can learn about what they are and how to ignore them (smoked cheese sounds magical LOL!!)Looking at the rocking horses:
I think this was the first session with wings instead of her barrels? If so, it would make sense that she was a little more sticky.
>>What can I do to help her be less sticky with the first wing? >>
It looks like 2 things are going on:
I think that throwing the cookie away and having you be stationary is cuing her to go into collection next to you instead of drive ahead of you to the wing. I think getting more excitement before the first send is best done with that gentle collar hold – you can gently hold her collar, do a little ‘ready ready’ while you make a connection to her – then after about 2 seconds, let her go and step to the wing. It builds some nice explosiveness and also is useful for other games. She hasn’t really seen this yet, so start on just one wing.
Also, try it with less arm movement – when you move your arm ahead of her, t changes the info and hides connection so she is less sure about what you want. A good example is at 1:16 – she is move nicely and then before she catches up, you are pointing ahead to the wing – that actually changes the line of your shoulders so she stops to look at you.
When you took the hand out of the picture there at 1:19 and made it more about connection, she went to the wing nicely!
So be connected and let your hand follow her nose – have it pointed back to her but don’t move it ahead of her. It can move as she passes you to support the send, but the send cue is more about your foot and your connection 🙂
>>Did you hear back from any flyball connections? No worries if not!>>
I heard that one close to you doe hold practices and is whippet-friendly 🙂 so I sent a message and am waiting to hear back.
Good work here!
TracyHi!
Hi!
The mat work is looking good -right now she thinks it is ALL feet and that is fine. The bowl and MM can be further away (8 to 10 feet) for now so she can get more strides in a she heads to the mat.Circle wraps look good! You can give this one a rest, we add onto it soon!
Threadles – you are a little too far from the jump which is why she didn’t always go over the jump – you need to be close enough to touch it with a bent, relaxed arm. That will help her automatically turn to the bar.
You can add showing the moving cue before the release here, moving really slowly, and keeping your shoulders open until she reaches the MM (don’t turn forward too early).Good job shaping her into the crate! Do you have a bigger crate? She knew it was something about something but a bigger crate will help her fly right into it. And, starting closer (and staying closer) to it will help – you started a little further away and then after one rep with al 4 feet in, you moved really far away. Moving away so quickly changed the picture too much so she got frustrated (jumped on you then lots of offered behavior but most of it did not involve the crate). So stay closer until you get repeated, quick reps of all 4 feet in the crate, then you can move a little further away.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
Good job letting her work through the leaping up at the beginning. Since she is learning to work with toys instead of food, you can reward for small pieces (like when she went to the cone but didn’t go around it – you can play when that happens because it was still an approximation)
>>She also stops to stare up to where the cheese cotainer is on the counter so I’m not sure if trading the toy for a treat would work better to release the toy as then she is thinking harder about switching between toys and treats.>>
I think for now, food is better off out of the picture (not in the room :)) because then it can just be play and not training or trading.
>>but things fell apart when I tried to trade for a toy with a reverse retrieve.>>
I think her favorite toy is the one she has in her possession at the moment. So trading for a stationary toy? It was meh compared to chewing on the one she had. So you can try throwing it because then she can grab it and possess it again. She did really well about not moving away when your hand went towards the toy, so you can also split the end of the retrieve behavior into tapping your hand on the ground for a bit and if she doesn’t move away, gently tug on the toy she has. If she moves away, try tapping on the ground a bit further or throw the other toy to kind of reset the game.
Nice work here! Keep me posted on how she is doing with the toy!
TracyHi!
I think going into these environments to figure out reward strategies and get her exposed to it is all really important. Don’t think of it as functional attention, think of it as finding out how she likes to play in this environment. The agility skills are really unimportant 🙂 This environment was harder for her but that is not necessarily a bad thing.On this video, I think there was a lot of pressure towards her as you were trying to engage: bending over, kneeling towards her. Try standing up and moving away and getting chasing going. Hand her to the instructor for a quick recall! Speeding up the pattern helped at the end – less pressure, more movement. Having the toy on a longer attachment will help too so you can swing it around like a flirt pole. You were tending to swirl it around near her, but throwing it or having you take off and run for a big recall, etc – that will all make it more stimulating.
>>Based on her behavior here, would you say we should keep coming to class or is it too hard for her?>>
I don’t know enough about the class environment to make a real judgement but I do think she should be starting to get into play situations with you in different environments. The agility training element will come later.
>>I see a couple of her littermates doing flyball recalls with other dogs and I’m like how?! >>
They probably started those recalls at 8 weeks old in that environment 🙂 and it is run run run running so it is so much fun for whippets! That is why I suggest recalls for her so she enters the ring and she is like “THIS IS THE MOST FUN PLACE, I GET TO RUN!”
Keep me posted!
TracyGood morning!
The parallel path game went really well! And I think he had fun – very bouncy and cute!!!!
For the next session, 2 ways to move forward:
– replace the clicker with a ‘get it’ marker: you would say ‘get it’ and throw the reward straight ahead
– change the timing of the get it marker: say it and throw the reward as he is approaching the jump (before he gets to it). That way the reward will be sailing out ahead of him as he goes over it, so he doesn’t look at you.Both of these suggestions are intended to get his eyes off of you and onto the work 🙂
He is doing well with his rotated sends! One suggestion: split the behavior more. Rather than wait for him to get all the way around , you can mark with a ‘gt it’ and throw the reward as soon as he starts to move towards the barrel. Throw it where the landing spot would be if there was a jump bar he was going over, and throw it as soon as he start to go over an invisible jump bar.
He had plenty of good movement towards the barrel that was rewardable but then he was not quite sure about completing the wrap – throwing the reward sooner will help him get more comfortable going around the whole thing.Nice job here! Hoping for better weather ahead so you can take this outside!
Tracy
Hi!
These sequences are hard indeed, even though there are only 2 jumps.
One thing that will make it much easier is to spread the jumps out more. They were a little too close here, so by the time you showed the cue (FC or spin or BC), she was already taking off for the 2nd jump. So sometimes she kept the bar up, sometimes she hit the bar trying to adjust (especially when you stopped to reward). So putting them at least 5 meters apart will give your more time to her land from 1 and start the decel then rotation for the FC or spin on 2.Or, for the blind, be connected when she lands from 1 and make sure she looks at 2… then tart the blind. I think what happened on the rep where she did not take the jump was that you disconnected to start the blind before she landed from 1, which basically tells her to *not* take 2 and to turn run away.
More distance between the jumps will help! And the other suggestion is to keep moving when you reward – if you do the handling then stop, she is more likely to hit the brakes hard and hit the bar. So do the turn and keep running until she catches up to you 🙂
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>>I find that this doesn’t frustrate her and I know that our dogs only have so many reps in them.
Brilliant! I am sure that those rehearsals contributed to your success here. I walk this a LOT without the dogs, then I run it without them to see if I can do it fast enough (with the video on, so I can watch it rather than just feel it)
Your sessions went really well! Super connection on all of them! And I think she liked this food-carrying-toy 🙂
She is doing well with the wrap shifting connection – you can use your ‘new’ dog-side arm to point to the landing spot too, which enhances the connection. What I mean by that is as you do the FC from your right arm to your left arm, connect like you did and rotate and use your left arm (new dog side arm) to point to the landing spot as you rotate and start moving the other way.
>>I need to drop the toy sooner.>>
You can drop it sooner, and if you want even more commitment – throw it to the landing side so she gets it when she lands 🙂
On the 2nd video – You totally got the countermotion! You were rotating sooner and sooner, and shifting connection – and she seemed to have no questions. YAY! Like with the previous set of sequences, you can use the arm after the FC to point to the landing spot here too (your fingers are an extension of your eyeballs in this case)
On the 3rd video – great job shifting your connection on the 360 wrap! And your new arm (right arm at the beginning, then left arm in the 2nd half) was pointing back as your were looking back. That really opened up your connection and made the toy throw earlier 🙂 You can exaggerate it even more as it helps turn your shoulders to the landing spot while your feet continued forward. She had no questions.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
Looking a the videos:
On 1275 (the first 2 videos are the same):
The commitment to jumping a jump in collection to wrap it is a hard skill for him! Part of it is getting the handling perfect for him, and part of it is getting the transitions more visible. Mainly, you can strengthen his commitment to a jump that is right in front of him by changing the placement of reinforcement: rather than reward him back on the takeoff side when he gets back towards you (which puts a lot of value on being near you), switch to tossing the reward to the landing side so he commits no matter what he sees in the handling.That way you can work the acceleration into the deceleration and rotate sooner – you were not really able to do that here because he would not take the jump. He would take it when you accelerated until he took off, then you would turn but that made the turns late and it was harder to work on the shifting connection. Changing where you throw the reward should make a big difference.
1277
His commitment to the circle wraps on the wing is looking good! Remember to shift your connection more so you can drive ahead of him even more.
On the sends here, you can place the reward on the landing side too – if you turned or decelerated before he took off, he would come off the jump. So you were waiting longer to rotate but that causes him to land hard – ideally he will commit with your early rotation, so you can be rotated before he take off. That will add more collection and a tighter turn plus it will get you further ahead.
1279
Reward can be on landing side of jumps here too 🙂 You are facing the jump and moving towards it until he takes off, but we can change that to help with the commitment but throwing the reward to the landing spot.With the circle wraps – shift the connection to the landing side of the circle wrap more so you don’t have to step sideways – as you started to go faster on these, you were leaning into the turn then stepping sideways to help him commit. If you can shift your connection to the landing spot, you will be able to keep running forward and not have to hang out and use motion to help him commit
1281
He was slowing down here – might be a bit too many reps of the same thing (lots of jump wrapping) even if they are spread out. It is a lot of turning so he was not driving the lines as well, which made the commitment even stickier. So, fewer reps of jump wrapping but all should have the reward on the landing side! That will help get him committing sooner.The line of motion at 1:08 was more like what I was describing above on the circle wraps, for you to keep moving forward. To create the connection shift so he commits better, switch hands: if he is on your right to send to the wing, you can shift to your left hand to point to the landing spot as you also shift your connection to the landing spot so you can move forward even more independently.
1283:
These were the Serps. He reads serpentines nicely!! Your connection shift can be sooner on the serps – you were doing it as he was taking off, but you can start it (arm back, arms on landing spot) as soon as he exits the wrap wing as long as you are past the entry wing of the serp. A long distance end to the tart wing should make that easy to get to serp position. And, for the start send, make sure he is lined up and you are connected before each sendNice work here! Stay warm!
TracyHello and welcome!
These all looked SUPER connected – he drove to the wing and drove the line over the jumps without looking back (at least until there were no more jumps). And it looks like there was a thrown toy not a placed toy, so he was looking forward because of connection. Super!!My only suggestion is that when you are way ahead, you can experiment with keeping the strong connection like you had here but pumping your arms to run (like you did when he was ahead on the last reps on each side). That way your dog-side shoulder won’t be as far back and you can move faster – so the plan would be to see if he can still see the connection with your shoulder dropped back to see him, but arms pumping to run instead of extending.
Great job here! Onwards to the exit line connection!
Tracy
