[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
Great job getting her past the tunnel entry to the wing behind it, then sending her to the tunnel entry, on all 3 videos! Excellent connection got it done and she looked lovely on that skill! I don’t think she looked at the tunnel at all (looking at you a little when the tunnel bag tried to grab your foot on the last video, great job remaining upright!!)

On the 3rd video –

>>You can see her wraps are really wide here. I am not thinking about the wraps rather I am thinking about the yes/no/go actions, but I need to get better at thinking about everything.>>

Yes – on the wraps here on the 3rd video, there were not enough wrap cues to get the collection. You were accelerating forward then rotated, so reemmber to add in the decel as soon as (or even before) she exits the tunnel. That transition plus the connection and wrap verbals will tighten up the turns for sure!

The other thing I was thinking about was that she is working for a thrown ball, which she really loves. But balls tend to get dogs scoping out wider lines (because they have to drive away to get the ball). So the ball reward brings a lot of forwardness and speed to the lines which I really like! But also you can balance the rewards for tight turns with a tug toy or treat delivered from your hand after you rotate the new direction, to help promote the collection back to you. I like to use a ball and treats in the same session to keep the forwardness on the lines balanced with the tight turns. Let me know if that makes sense!

Great job here!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning! These are really good sessions! Your position on the jump was spot on and her commitment was strong. Yes, the left turn wraps are harder for sure but she got better and better (you can see that in video 1, where each rep got tighter and tighter. I think the main thing is going to be practicing the simple decel games to strengthen the decel cue, especially as we add more and more motion before the decel.

The 2nd video had right turn wraps and they looked great, even better than the session at the club. Super!!!

You had more left turn wraps on the 3rd video: you were a tiny bit late getting into the decel at :03 (for this game – eventually that timing will NOT be late when she reads decel better) and she was a little wide. Compare to the rep at :27 where you were perfect and her wrap looked wonderful!!
And the rep at :43 was SUPER!!! She is getting the idea of the mechanics for the left turn wraps!

Video 4: these are right turns, and they are looking good. You can add a little more connection so she doesn’t widen out to look for the connection before coming into the turn. It can just be a bit of a head turn in her direction so she can drive directly into the decel and collection.

Video 5 – this one added more speed with the jump before the tunnel – the first rep was hard as she was turning left and looking forward at the blue jump out ahead… but then she got the collection and turned. It was after landing but we will take it 🙂 She will continue to get better and better in this direction.
The right turn reps here are looking really good!

Video 6 (sends):

>>With send. I struggled with this. From a passive position she did not want to send out. I cut the distance down and she did better.>>

She did best when you added your leg into the send cue, taking one big step forward. When you did that like at :17 and 1:06 and 1:43, her send was great AND she had excellent collection. When you did not use your leg (or used it before she could see it moving) like on the first rep, :49, and 1:20, she did not send past you on just the hand cue. So the leg can totally be used as part of the send cue, especially when you are further and further from the tunnel.

As you add more and more motion, you can also add more connection on all the decels – looking very directly at her, even as you are standing still, will encourage her to collect more. And then we can start adding in the transitions so you can be moving into the decels and still get the nice tight turns 🙂

Great job!!!!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

>>Sometimes I think it’s from too many failures. >>

Yes, that is a true possibility. And that adds up if there are multiple failures every session, and builds frustration into training in general. And we want to avoid that, of course! The 2 failure rule is the life saver here – just enough failure to deliver feedback about what is right versus what is wrong. But not enough failure to get frustration.

>>Sometimes though I think Mason is just very intense about things and he can’t handle the anticipation.>>

It might be about junk own or uncertain things in what is happening next, which can contribute to arousal state changes. So making things as completely predictable as possible will help a whole lot too. That can be stuff like more reinforcement for smaller pieces of the behavior, using pattern games before starting any type of training, using a station for him to hang out on when getting ready, for example. Those are all high rate of reinforcement behaviors that lend a lot of predictability to the environment.

>> An example could be at the start line of rally class yesterday when he wouldn’t stop frantically grabbing at the leash. He wasn’t tugging in a playful way. Instead he seemed overwhelmed to the point of wanting to destroy something. >>

That is important feedback! Was he faced with entering a ring to do a series of rally behaviors, like a rally course? That leash tugging is often a self-soothing behavior as well as possibility an avoidance behavior. All of it indicates that he is feeling over-faced so it is our job to dial it back n terms of what we are asking for, asking for smaller pieces with higher value reinforcement. Trading the leash for a toy or a great treat can help. And pattern games too! And then for the rally behavior – lots and lots of reinforcement each step of the way and not trying to sequence it all together yet.

>>>>If we had been outdoors this would have probably been expressed as grass pulling. >>

Is that something you have seen in training? I have not seen it in the videos, which is why unedited videos are always better 🙂

>>Other times the frustration may come from a lack of clarity on my part.>

Absolutely! We humans are sometimes not as clear as we think we are 🙂 That is why rewarding anyway even if we think we were correct (video shows us that we are often *not* correct LOL!) and using reset rewards, as well as stopping a session to watch the video if something is going wrong more than twice.

>> I can’t say though that he looks like he is actually enjoying it and I really do want training to be fun for him.>>

His arousal state will often tell us if they are enjoying it, or doing it because of intrinsic motivation to work. Sometimes it is hard to tell with BCs.

>>What I can’t tell is whether I’m making all of this harder than it needs to be for him by asking him to do it when he’s not really ready … or if he actually is ready and the best thing to do would be to work through any issues now.>>

I have found over the years that if we are asking this question: then yes, we are making it too hard. That can mean the sessions are too long, or criteria getting increased too quickly, or too many failures, or changing environments while expecting the same behaviors as home, or all of the above. The rate of success and arousal state provides. The answer too: high rate of success? Optimized arousal state? Then you are good to go! Low rate of success (below 80%), changes in arousal state? Then it is too hard.

>>Let’s see what we find out with the videos. I might pick the easiest game and the hardest game from next week and see if there are any differences in how he handles the two sessions.>>

I am looking forward to that! And it will help us really sort out what he needs!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi! Great job here with the tunnel threadles!

The GO tunnel and wing wraps all looked good. She had one question at 1:34, where you turned away from the tunnel before she had looked forward, so she came off the line. Compare to the other reps like at 1:39 where you had great connection and forward motion. Your cue to the tunnel at 1:53 was perfection, in terms of connection and line of motion!

She had zero errors on the tunnel threadle cues – super!!! Your collection cues at the wing before the tunnel threadle were clear and that really helped set up success.

You don’t need to pull away from the line quite as much – by pulling way to the other wing, she thought it was a post turn to the next wing and was looking at you a lot more than needed. You can see it most clearly on the reps coming towards the camera.

You can turn her on the wing like you did, then move directly to the tunnel entry you want rather than pull her then flip her back. Showing her the threadle arm more clearly towards her will help with the connection there, and also I think she can independently head to the correct tunnel entry (rather than relying on your to flip her back to it with your arm and motion). That way she can just drive to the correct entry without needing you to help out as much 🙂

The 2 spots where you had a more direct line of motion to the tunnel threadle entry were at 1:11 and 1:29 – as you exited the wing wrap, your feet were heading to the tunnel entry you wanted. She had a tighter line there and no questions. YAY!!!!

Great job!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!

>>I was wondering if you have a ballpark estimate for when the MaxPup3 live class will be offered again after this summer? >>

Looking at the calendar, MaxPup 3 will run late June through the end of August, and then not again until next spring (following the next cohort of MP 1 and MP 2).

>>I see glimmers of greatness in Mason, but I’m also seeing a lot of frustration. It takes us 4 or 5 sessions to split each game into manageable parts and then put it all together.>>

Frustration in terms of too much failure then frustration behavior? Or, let me know what you are seeing. Slicing the behavior into tiny tiny pieces and taking several sessions to put it together is fine! The 2 failure rule is the key to reducing and avoiding frustration.

>> This has me wondering if he would find all of this a lot easier if he took the summer off and picked it back up in the Fall after he’s had more time to mature a bit. He’s almost 13 months old now.>>

Adolescence is a hard time for sure! Training session structure is key to dealing with it though, so we can look at the structure of the sessions to see what we can tweak.

>> I’m open to other ideas as well for Mason. >>

For your next sessions: turn the camera on, do the session of about 2 or 3 minutes, shut the camera off, don’t edit it: just upload and post 🙂 The edited videos don’t let us think about session structure, which is more important than the actual skill if you are seeing frustration behavior. That can gives us ides to move forward without the frustration.

Keep me posted!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
I agree – he seemed to like the games and he was FAST!! So fun to see!!

The find-the-jump game from the tunnel went really well. Great job adding the different positions and more motion!

The hardest part was the first rep on each side (and also at :46):
The tunnel exit does point past the jump, so the parallel path took him to the backside of the jump (you can see he had to turn to find the jump after exiting the tunnel on the successful reps). Ao be sure he doesn’t need to turn too much (like at 1:14 and 1:34) and more importantly: don’t mark the error with a verbal because he body slams you each time you do that. I don’t think you need to mark it because he already knew it was not correct (no thrown toy). Instead, bring him back to you for a cookie at your side or tossed near you to immediately rest for the next rep – that way he still has the awareness of “that is not quite right” but without frustration, and the immediate reset can line up for the next rep without the body slam.

He did well when he figured out the turn and on the reps where the tunnel exit was straighter, so you can use a “get it” marker to keep him looking ahead for the toy. And you can add even more distance here so both of you get to move more 🙂

The smiley face game went well, and you both had great hustle! YAY!!! One suggestion: connect on the tunnel exits as you cue the wrap. When you did not connect at 1:56 (you were looking and pointing forward), based on the shoulder position he was correct to come into the other side of the wing. And this is a place where you also don’t want to mark it as wrong: keep going because it is likely a handler error on this set up and also he leapt at you when you marked it as wrong. So you can finish the cross and send him back to the tunnel, reward, then adjust to the next rep. You added a lot more connection at 2:08, 2:12, and the last sequence and he had no questions there. Yay!!!

Great job!!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
The RCs are going really well!!

>>I kept a funny blooper at the beginning just because she’s cute and makes me laugh, haha.>>

It was funny LOL!! And also going to the leash on the first rep was totally valid – you tossed it there and then you stepped to it (you were blocking the line to the wing)! So…. Off she went. And it is a toy toy 🙂 I use leashes for tugging all the time!

The most successful RCs were when you started right next to the wrap wing and stayed there til she almost exited then you moved up the RC line. She read that as a RC every time. When you started further away (halfway between the jump and the wing) or moved away from the wrap wing too quickly, the RC info was late (because you were too far ahead to show the pressure line without potentially pushing her off the line) so she did not know it was a RC on those.

For example, at 1:22 you started too far ahead as she exited the wing so had to wait to show the RC line – it started at 1:24 as she was making a takeoff decision, so she turned left when you wanted a right turn. That also happened at 2:01 and 2:12 – you started too far ahead and move up the line before setting the RC so she turned the other way (RC info was late on those). Compare to the successful reps like at 1:38 where you were in a better position to set the line and she got it brilliantly!

And remember to make a BIG connection on all of these – at :55 she didn’t see a connection so ended up on your other side exiting the wing wrap, and looked at you at 2:02 when you were looking ahead (she looked up to see more info about where she should go).

To make it even easier to show the RC lines with this game, you can add more room between the wing and jump so you can start near the wing and then have plenty of time to drive the RC line 🙂 Try it at 25 feet apart and see how it goes!

She did really well with the serp versus threadle versus tunnel! Yay!

Two suggestions, especially as you add more motion now:
You can exaggerate the cues a bit more, so the serp cue has more rotation of your upper body back to her, so the center of your chest is pointing to the center of the bar which will let her see more of the connection. And for the tunnel cues, you can ‘close’ the shoulder forward more which will help her not serp. And for the threadles, the arm can swing back and stay back to see if she will come in then find the jump on her own without any extra handling needed. And keep the connection strong on all of it before the release: if you are not looking at her when you release, you will see she is looking at you a lot which can draw her to the wrong side of the jump.

Also, be careful about her start position 🙂 Doing the threadle then tunnel at :58 and 1:14 when you cued the tunnel was legit and correct, because that was the line she was on in her sit and your arm as back like a threadle cue. The ‘tunnel’ cue does not mean she needs to find a layer, it just means “find the line to the tunnel” and that is what she did (so it is definitely correct and rewardable). Compare to 1:23 when you set her up on the other side of the jump and she did not threadle and found the line to the tunnel 🙂

Great job here!!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

These sessions looked great! I think she really really enjoys these giddy up lines 🙂 Wheeeee!!! And that allows her to bring the joyful tugging to the game as well. And adding in the surprise reward drops by the wing wrap at :43, 2:30, 3:20 were great: she seemed surprised indeed and that is good (the ‘surprise’ element of the reward appearing is where the most learning takes place, per the dopamine science, which also leads to more motivation to do-the-thing 🙂 )

She is looking ahead on the lines to the jump which is great – and you can mix in being miles ahead on the Go reps, leaving her in the dust and seeing if she can still find the jump while chasing your line (I bet she can).

>>Had some opinions about ending the first session.>>

Yes! There was some sassy barking – seems like she was not done with the session, I think maybe she wanted to do the tunnel-jump-giddy up stuff rather than turn her back on the tunnel? She was seemingly in a great mood for it but was having an opinion on wanting to face the tunnel? She needs an interpreter so we can be sure LOL!!

She is reading the RCs well (and maybe waiting for more physical info to confirm the verbal). The RC at 2:39 was a tiny bit late, you were just beginning to show the info as she made a takeoff decision, so she was jumping straight/left then turned on landing. It is possible that the left verbal had something to do with it 🙂 but I agree with your assessment that the physical cues are stronger in her mind. The RC at 2:57 was earlier in terms of showing the pressure into the RC line a stride or two sooner (she turned before takeoff) but you can try for it being even sooner by setting the turn from further back: run all the way into the tunnel then accelerate up the line to the center of the bar of the jump just as she exits. That can cue her to go past you as well as get you to her other side even sooner!

>I’m using my “larger” jump bump which is a 4in diameter (2in tall) one. >>

She did great with the big bump here. Since she is excelling with the skill and is 10 months old, I think maybe a low bar is a good thing to add for now – as low as it can go, because she is so little 🙂

Great job here!!!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi! He did super well on both videos here, finding the correct entry of the tunnel each time, yay! You can spread out the wings so you are moving more on all of it , to challenge him to see if can he differentiate the cues at a higher speed (and to challenge you to deliver the cues at a higher speed too 🙂 )

When things are going faster, 2 things to consider:

Tuba and tunnel might sound too similar, with the strong “T” sound at the beginning being the first thing he has to process. There is an easy fix: take the T off Tuba so it is Uba and it will be completely different sounding when you are on course. And, you can use the threadle verbal and not his name or here – he was fine with that on the reps where you only used the threadle verbal.

The other thing to consider is to try to not use a hand or foot cue to flip him away to the tunnel because we want him to send himself to the correct tunnel entry when he hears/sees the cue, rather than needing you to give a second cue or be visible near the tunnel entry. To get him to do that, you can keep your threadle arm up and walk toward the threadle entry, a you repeat the verbal – then reward when he flips himself away into the tunnel entry.

Great job here!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning! Congrats on the new titles!!! She is a talented girl!

The videos all looked great 🙂

For the banana line: she did well here with the targeting! And you had a really strong straight line of motion, so she really had to leave you to go find the target. Yay!
You can add more angles to her approach by tossing the reward more towards you (rather than straight) so she comes to get the reward then has to arc back out to the target.

When marking the behavior, you don’t need the ‘yes’ – the ‘get it’ marker delivers the info of “that was correct” that the ‘yes’ delivers, as well as simultaneously delivers “move forward to the reward”. That will help her continue to look ahead and not up at you when she gets to the target.

Decel: This went really well! She jumped a bit long on the first rep but then on each rep she got better and better bout sorting out how to turn tight while maintaining speed: LOVE IT! You can work the other side now as well. And when she is strong with that (my guess is she only needs one short session) you can add in the mission:transition game from where you shift into decel when she is exciting the previous obstacle.

Only one suggestion: You can be a shade closer to the jump, ideally close enough to touch it with a relaxed arm (not stretching to reach for it.

I am so glad you tried the drink-in-hand game! It is fun and also, it give us intent feedback about when we are smooth and connected… and when we are NOT 🤣. So now you can take a simple sequence and add JJ to it: can you run her smoothly without spilling your drink? Have fun!

Great job here!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi! I hope his foot/leg is feeling better!!!!!

On the video:
Go timing was great! You can throw the reward as early as possible so it lands before he exits the tunnel.

The left & right turns went well! The Left verbal can be one stride sooner so he is still about 6 feet away from the tunnel entry, but it sounded really different and that was great!! The Right verbal seemed timely (it was hard to see but it definitely happened before you could hear him in the tunnel LOL!) – you can let him see you turn to the new line sooner as well, so he knows where you are when he exits.

The RC (to his right) at :27 was timely and he read it well! Did all of the right turn RCs go this well? The RCs to his left were harder:

The RC at :34 was one stride late, he was already getting into the tunnel. He was wider coming into the line between the wing and tunnel so you were more lateral and couldn’t start it as early.

I thought :39 was much better timing but it is probably his slightly weaker side (he is a righty!) so he needs to see it sooner. You can move the wing before the tunnel further away, so you have more room to show the RC and get to the new side of him before he gets into the tunnel. That can help!

>>I tried pre-placing the toy to the left of the tunnel, but then he just bypassed the tunnel to get it – lol.>>

Smart! LOL! You might need to tuck it in to the tunnel a little so it is not as visible til he exits.

Nice work here!!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!

This session went great! She did a great job finding the tunnel entries from the front side and from the back side! You had very clear connection to get her past the tunnel when you wanted her to do that plus you had strong, patient connection to send her and let her find the backside tunnel entry.

>>It’s amazing how just one day can cement so much learning and the second attempt, several days later, she comes out a total rock star! >>

It is the craziest thing, right?!?! But so helpful!!

>>She only had one blooper where she ran into the tunnel and couldn’t find the opening right away. Ironically enough, my other dog did the exact same thing but only on that side. >>

Yes, that was odd! Maybe the combo of the dark tunnel bags on the light tunnel and add in maybe the light was hitting it a certain way so it looked like it was the entry? Plus your other pup was walking by and that was a visual distraction. Did your older dog have any visual distraction when she did the same thing? I don’t think you set it up weirdly, so it is entirely possible that the light made it look like the entry.

>>Speaking of position, I purposely put it on the opposite side of the yard to see if it would look different and make a difference to her performance. I don’t think she noticed in the slightest. Such a good girl!>>

Yes! She seemed to have zero questions with it in a new place. Yay!!!

Great job here 🙂

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!

>>I suspect that I was not making enough connection on the failures>

There were a couple of things in play, but the connection was good!

Mainly, he was asking a question about your line of motion and which side of the tunnel it indicated (motion is the strongest cue). Be careful to have your lower body be clear not only on the threadle reps (turning clearly before he exits the wing before it to the threadle side of the tunnel), but also on the ‘go tunnel’ reps – facing the tunnel on the line very directly til he is heading to it.

What was happening here was that when you added the ‘go tunnel’ reps, your lower body on those had one step towards it then was pulling away, so you never moved directly to the tunnel for more than that one footstep. That means the physical cue he saw was basically the same as the cue for the tunnel threadle line and he got rewarded for going straight. You can see it at :11 and 2:12 for example. You were probably heading to the tunnel exit to reward him, but doing it too soon so it looked like the same line of motion as the threadle cue.

So, since it is the first tunnel entry is more visible, he was cuing off of that first motion – one little step then pulling away. At :51 and :57 that is what happened and it is even more visible at 1:25 (the turning to the threadle side was a little late and the physical cues looked the same as the straight line reps. And the more you tried to connect, the more you ended up accidentally facing the straight line to the tunnel entry.

In the next session, be sure to make the physical cues look very different in terms of the line of motion: for the ‘go tunnel’ reps, move directly to the tunnel entry til he is locked on and maybe a stride away from it. For the tunnel threadle, turn sooner and move away to get him to not look at the go tunnel entry.

The markers and reward placement will also greatly help solidify the verbals and the skill – on these reps, the markers and placement were all the same (yes or yay and from your hand) So you can help him see/hear the difference by using a get it marker and throw reward to the tunnel exit (I have also placed rewards inside the tunnel entry for this game to help the dog). And of the go tunnel, you can reward from your hand.

2 other details to get more success:
On some of the errors, you kept going and that will work if you can make the instant adjustment and not get another failure. Otherwise, use a reset cookie or tugging to reset him to buy some time before the next rep to make an adjustment.

And once you get past those 2 failures (total) – stop and watch your video so you can see what is happening. There were a lot of reps here (19 cued behaviors) and there were 7 failures (responses to the cue where reward was withheld) so he was working at about 65% rate of success. (Yes, I do count reps and do the math because I am a nut LOL!!) Ideally he is closer to 90%, so shorter sessions will help keep him there. And the lower rate of success was getting some fallout – he was getting wider on the line and was not running as much.

>>Anyway, I’ll let the latent learning do its job and come back to it later today.>>

Latent learning will work best after a couple nights’ sleep, so come back to it later this week and focus on the line of motion to help him out.

Nice work here!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!

>>I forgot to include this question in my original post: Should I shift my focus from the dog to the tunnel entry when I want him to turn his head for the threadle entry?>>

I don’t think you need to shift your connection. The connection shift would present a conflicting indicator because your hand won’t follow the connection, so he might look at you even more. Plus, you won’t necessarily see him look at and move to the tunnel – and that moment is your cue to move the next direction.

>>I did it accidentally a couple times and it seemed to help. It may be too much for me to remember and get the timing right to do it on a real course though.>>

It was coinciding with your foot movement 🙂 and he also went to the tunnel on the foot movement when you didn’t shift connection 🙂

>>Also, way back in MaxPup1 Mason was hitting the Strike A Pose target with his teeth. He still does this with hand touches. He doesn’t bite down on my hand, but I feel teeth on my palm or my hand gets licked. At the time you said this was actually really easy to fix. Do you remember how to get the dog to change to a nose touch instead of a tooth/tongue touch?>>

Ah yes! 2 options:
Hold your hand a little higher and angled so your palm is pointed to the ground more, so he has to reach up a bit to hand touch – that will get more nose and less teeth/tongue

Also, you can reward sooner: mark and reward just before his nose arrives at your hand, an ‘almost’ touch 🙂 That will lighten up his approach and then you can shift the timing back to when you get a tiny bit of touch and not teeth/tongue.

Let me know how it goes!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Happy birthday Obi!!!!!! One year old already – time is flying!

The sit games are perfect now – great for all the good things his hind end has to do. And you are officially hooked on agility when you drive 100 miles for fitness for sports. I would totally do the same thing LOL!

Looking at his proofing videos here: he did great! He was 100% on finding the tunnel when cued… and not taking it unless you cued it. That is SUPER!!!! And well done with all of the good stay rewards 🙂

A couple of suggestions for the serps and threadles:

– As you move into position for the serp or threadle, have your arm out the whole time (yes, it will feel weird hahahaha) so you don’t release and move your arm into position at the same time. That will cause him to release on the arm movement and will look like a broken stay, but it will not be (from his perspective) if the arm movement gets paired into the release.
– The serp versus threadle went best when you had a clear difference between the serp position (center on the bar or near the exit wing) versus threadle position (near the entry wing). In the 2nd video, your threadle position at :08 and :31 was too center of the bar (looked like serp position) but he was on the threadle side so he threadled. At :21 he was on the serp side so serped ( you were in the same position at the center of the bump at 1:11 where you wanted the serp). Compare to your threadle position near the entry wing at :45 and :57 and also on the 3rd video, and he was consistently getting it right that way 🙂

For example, on the 3rd video – lovely clear difference between the serp on rep 1 and threadle on rep 2! Then he had no trouble with the moving serp and also nailed the tunnel cue. Yay!!!

One last detail as you start to add motion to the threadle: Keep your upper body open on the threadle by holding the position til he turns himself away to find the bump so he doesn’t need a second cue to go to it. That will create even more independence.

>>What was the rationale for timing the length of the sessions with dopamine release? I’m vaguely aware that the patterns of dopamine expression are different for classical and operant conditioning (where motivation plays a role), but I’m curious to hear more.>>

Dopamine is totally our frenemy when it comes to life and to dog training. LOL!!! We know dopamine is important for motivation. And yes, dopamine does a lot of different things in our brain but what we are going for in operant conditioning is to be able to work with the reward prediction errors that produce the dopamine we are basically trying to exploit in terms of learning. And not all reps in training have a reward prediction error and therefore many reps are just ‘rehearsal’ and not actually ‘learning’ – that is important as rehearsal is useful but might not be motivating (because of the dopamine release or lack thereof, as well as depletion issues).

Back to reward prediction errors: if we can plan the RPE and the “surprise!” element that brings the desired dopamine release – then step away and leave the dog wanting more, we have a solid chance of creating more intrinsic motivation. The reasoning behind this is that dopamine is like a wave pool and can work as a motivator when it recedes because our brain will be like MORE MORE MORE! So we are motivated to do the thing *again* that got the dopamine release (“ahhhhhhh feels so good” followed by the “MORE MORE MORE” 🤣😂). Rehearsal does not accomplish that the way a RPE can. Rehearsal is valuable in many many ways (mechanics, neuronal memory, etc etc) but might not build the intrinsic motivation the way a super short session or one-rep session can.

Someday, I hope this all gets studied for dog sports! For now, we are can see it anecdotally in dog sports and tie it to the dopamine science.

Nice work here! Let me know if the dopamine ideas make sense 🙂

Tracy

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