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Good morning and welcome to class! Thank you for getting my morning off to a great start with these terrific videos!
And OMG she is SO CUTE and CHARMING and SMART!!! The pre-games look great 🙂
On the foot target video – she was really figuring out the foot targeting and we can see the value being built up here. Yay!
Nice tugging between the treat eating! That is great (and really hard for puppies sometimes)!!! You helped the transition by making the tug the most interesting and obvious thing in the environment – excellent training. And great job with your markers!
And she did really well in a relatively distracting environment. What a terrific start!!
Because she is so small, you can try it sitting in a chair or on the ground – that can help get quick reps and quick reinforcement. And you can have multiple treats in your hands – because she is so quick, the heartbeat it takes to reach for a treat is building in a bit of looking at you, so having 2 or 3 treats in each hand can get her looking at her target more because the rewards will be delivered so quickly.
She is offering a lot of downs (probably because you have shaped it and she loves it LOL!) so you can move to your “get it” markers more than the reward in position marker – that way she remains in motion and will be less tempted to offer the down.
We build on this game tonight!
Great start to the hand target – as you presented it in both mini-sessions here, you also looked at it and that made a big difference for her.
I think the ‘get it’ marker will be helpful here too – when you had a lot of rewards for standing still near the target, you got some down behavior and other behavior such as the cutest bows on the planet. If you use a ‘get it’ marker and toss the reward, then she can come driving back to the hand target. I think she will like the movement and will be less likely to offer the down or offer looking around.
Great job here. I am particularly excited about her level of engagement in a distracting environment, her ability to offer a lot of behavior, and her ability to go back and forth between food and tugging!!!!! YAY!
Tracy
Hi!
Using this setup adds a bit of proofing element, but she did really well!
Backsides are looking terrific! She is finding the entry really easily. She does best finding the bar when you shift your connection to the landing spot with the countermotion, and that is fine!
Over the course of multiple sessions, you can very gradually fade out the upper body rotation to look at the landing spot by just looking at the landing spot and pointing to it. And you can also use a placed reinforcement – leaving the frizzer or a MM on the landing side tucked in near the exit wing. Then eventually, the placed reward rotates out away from the landing spot, getting further and further up the exit line. That way it is both a reward for taking the jump and a bit of a distraction/proofing moment 🙂
This can be very gradual, no rush, because we want to maintain the high success rate you had here!
Threadles are harder, of course! With the main plan being that you can cue the threadle as an in-then-out behavior chain and not have to cue the jump at all: Try not to cue the jump at all by keeping your shoulders/arm/eyes frozen in threadle position so that she comes in to the correct side and then takes the jump without any additional movement from you. Staying connected – yes! Turning your shoulders to the jump or relaxing your threadle cue – nope!
So the threadle position of the upper body should not move until she lifts off for the jump – otherwise we accidentally build in a 2nd cue for the jump which we don’t want to do.
On the first rep at :47, you looked forward ever so slightly to the jump and moved your shoulders forward so she read it as a blind cross (which is actually correct). You can use a reset reward for that, because it was a legit response to what she saw.
On the other reps, your connection was better but your shoulders were moving to the jump, so she found the correct side. Your position relative to the jump was great, so keep that position but freeze your shoulders so you don’t accidentally turn to the jump. I recommend holding a cup of coffee or a glass of wine in your threadle hand, so your hand/arm/shoulders won’t move because you won’t want to spill it LOL!!! Then it is a double reward: she gets the frizz, you get the beverage. Winning!
If she has trouble finding the jump without you moving your shoulders, use a placed reward out on the landing line to help her. I think she will find the jump well, though, because she really seems to love jumping!
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Good morning!
Accordion grid – looking really nice!!! Lovely session.
I love how her head is down and she is looking forward here – it really promotes lovely form, so keep going with the reward as far away as you put it. And I would also want her to see this with the moving target reward (toy being dragged, can be the frizzer on a long leash LOL!). That will get even more power and maintain form in higher arousal, which will translate really well to trials.
She is in a down-stay in front of first jump on these. I am guessing that it is the most stable & happy position on the longer lead outs, which is great – a happy lead out is more important than what position it is. Normally we want the pup’s feet to be close enough to the first jump that there are no extra footfalls before jump 1, but that assumes it is a sit. After watching these reps, from the down, it looks like the one step into the grid gets the best results for her, when starting from the down.
When she is close enough to get into the gap without an extra step before jump 1, she really has to ‘reach’ with her front to get the striding done. And she gets it done, but is a little short to the bars (reps 1, 2, 3, and 5)
On rep 4 (the release is at :21), she was little further back and put in one step before the first bar… and that was her best rep in terms of power, striding, balance, and landing pretty centered between the bars. LOVE it!
Compare to rep 2 which is the same distance – but she was closer to the bar on the release and was not as powerful and organized over the bars.
My guess is that coming out of a down, she needs the one stride to get her booty organized to power into the grid. And we want to support her power booty plans 🙂
So, for the down as the start position put her just far enough away from jump 1 that she can put one little stride in like she did on rep 4, and see how it goes. If you ever decide to switch to a sit in front of the jump, you can move her closer to the jump. (Side note: since the down is so solid and her form is lovely, I see no reason to switch to a sit if that might cause her to lean forward or break).
The only distance she had a question about was rep 3 – she had 2 balanced strides between 2 and 3 then kind of flung herself over 3 LOL!! It was her just trying to solve the puzzle of the distance. It was not too bad, but not as good as her form over the other jumps. Next time you try this, ask the same question in terms of the distance, but do 2 things differently: her line up position a little further away, and the moving target reward. If she still has a question, then you can shorten the distance by a foot and see if that helps.
Great job here!!!
TracyHello and welcome! It is going to be so fun to watch Yuzu work here!!!! His canine teammates are very excited about it too 🙂
The pre-games are looking good!
On the foot targets, he was happy to put his front feet on basically everything. Yay! For the purposes of the games coming up, I think the book is the best choice to use but you might need to put something non-slip under it because he will be moving pretty fast to touch it on some of the games. The other two items will end up being useful for body awareness/conditioning stuff, so let’s go with the book as the main “prop” for the crazy games ahead 🙂
The hand touch target also went really well. You don’t need to say the touch word, I bet he can offer it perfectly 🙂 We will come back to this game in a couple of weeks!
The next step for the foot target pre-game is to have you stand up and see if he can still touch it with his feet (I bet he can :))
>>Is this the correct way to post working spot videos? We don’t create a new topic every time we post, correct?>>
Correct! Dropping a YouTube link into the forum here is perfect, and keeping it all in one thread will make it easier to find everything.
Great job!
TracyHi Linda! This is your thread for you and Kishka 🙂 I am looking forward to seeing more baby whippet action!!
Tracy
Hi Linda!! Great to see you here! Whippets are SO FUN!!! My whippet youngster will make some guest appearances in the demos 🙂
I have started a separate thread for you (titled “Linda and Kishka” :)) so you can put all of your questions/videos/etc in that thread by replying to it! You will see it in the thread list, let the know if you have trouble funding it.
Have fun!
TracyHi Jen, great to see you here! Things have changed a bit in foundations in the last 11 years 🙂 so I bet you will have fun with Mason!! Enjoy!
Tracy
Hello and welcome! I love her name!!! I am looking forward to following her adventures 🙂
Have fun!
TracyHi! She sounds like a blast! The MaxPup class has some new parts to it since Kaladin’s generation, so it will be fun to see her play the games 🙂
Have fun!
Tracy
