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Good morning!
>>She really wants to be right. Repetitions make her slow down & start to be sticky.>
I think ALL dogs want to be right, they just respond differently when they are not sure or not getting it right. Some dogs fling themselves into it and get a little frantic – some dogs slow themselves down and get careful. And yes, repetitions of the same thing can cause the dog to question the behavior (“I did it 3 times, but we are doing it again, is it supposed to be something else?”). So limit yourself to doing it twice, if she gets it right, then move on to something else. And this includes if she gets it right but you do not get it right. She won’t know that doing more reps is about you wanting to change something you are doing, and you will see her start to get concerned about it.
>> That seems like it could be the latency issue or is it her being thoughtful? >>
I think it is just too many reps! As in, “why are we doing this again exactly the same way”. Frame it differently in your mind: you are at an agility seminar, you run a sequence, I give you a reward, and have you do it again with no changes and no real reason for doing it again. And again. And again. You would pretty quickly start to change your behavior and get frustrated – how you change your behavior would depend on who you are an individual. You might slow down and get careful, or you might get frantic and try to go faster, or you might try changing things because you are no longer sure of what is supposed to happen. So, the answer is: if she gets it right twice? Move on to something else, don’t keep repeating the exact same thing.
>>I have always trained tricks by repetitions and the dogs are thrilled to repeat. >>
They might not be thrilled… they might be a bit frantic about it all, and the motivation of the food overrides any potential frustration about the repetition. And Liz says she is not thrilled with it, so we can definitely limit the reps.
>>I need to get past the thought that things need to be repeated ‘X’ times for the dog to learn. >>
This is correct! They do not learn by repetition – they learn by first doing a bit of training, a couple of reps, then the actual learning occurs during sleep! So they are doing stuff in a training session but not really learning it til they sleep on it. Tons of interesting science about it!
>>I also expect the dogs to do everything very quickly. We have talked about this all through Lizzie’s training and I understand now that starting skills slow is good – she is plenty fast enough when she has learned a thing and her brain is still engaged. I really like that now I understand it. But I default to my old thought patterns.>>
You need to set a timer or a number of reps limit, if old habits pop up. 30 seconds on the timer if using a toy, or bring 3 cookies and that is it. Put a post it note on your camera to remind you to limit the reps and let her move at her pace 🙂
Looking at the videos:
The back and forth pattern game looks really good – she was very quick to re-engage. That is what we are looking forth! Same with the up and down game – really strong! You can definitely take this on the road! And yes, doing them in a new location without other dogs present is a perfect middle step.
Looking at the tricks – you might be looking at them as tricks, but she does not look at them the same way here 🙂 Bearing in mind that the volume dial game is a pressure-free dance party, I think you can change what you are asking for here and get different results.
The hand touches out to the side can be a trick, but you would need to change the placement of reward so the game is less stationary and more movement. When she touches one hand, you praise then you can run away a few steps so she chases you, then hand her the next cookie. Remember that this is not intended to be hand touch training, it is a high action trick so movement is important.
The cookies-from-heaven touches to target also would need more movement, and I think she does not like the pressure of you leaning over (more below on that). So while yes, it is a contact training game, I don’t think she perceives it as a trick so you can take it out of the list of tricks. -it is just a behavior, nut not a stimulating action trick so you don’t need to use it as a trick.
Based on her body language, she most definitely does not think of the ‘shake’ cue as a fun action trick. The part of the cue with you bending over/reaching towards her/touching her foot is a lot of pressure – you can see her get sticky, her body gets tense when you reach for her foot, her mouth gets tight, tail stops wagging, and she turns her head away sometimes. She is basically saying “ewww, no thanks” especially when you are doing the right foot where you are lifting it. So, take this out of the tricks toolbox too, as she doesn’t think it is a trick.
You can tweak it to be a wave where she lifts a foot without you bending over or touching her foot and then you can move away to let her move and chase a cookie or toy.
Movement will be key in the volume dial game, so any place you can get her moving to chase you for the reward, you will see her light up like a dance party. And if she gets sticky about any of it, watch the video and look at her body language to see if she is communicating that she is not comfortable with it.
Other moving tricks can be spins (hand/cookie lure is fine for that!), leg weaves, waving, etc.
Looking at Axel’s video:
>>this is Axel who will be in the next puppy class. Is this what decompression looks like? We had been working on wraps for about three minutes, then I introduced a much newer skill. It was too much.>>
Well it is not decompression the way we want to use it – it is a stress response so while it is his body attempting to return to homeostasis, it is because he got overaroused in the training session and doesn’t have the tools to self-regulate (he is a baby puppy, so he is not expected to have those tools yet :))
3 minutes is a long time for a puppy especially if there is movement and pressure, so set a 30 second timer for him and after the 30 seconds, be finished with the session whether you like what happened in the session or not. And then don’t go on to a new skill – let him percolate and sleep on what he just learned. Repetition in his case get the stress/overarousal in the frantic realm, and we don’t want his body learning that zoomies and cone grabbing is how to relieve the stress of it all. He is really young, so it is also possible that the game is too hard (wing-tunnel-wing), so make things easier so he can be more successful for a short session.
On the last video – look at her taking both jumps! YAY!! Super job with the connection and line! Love it!!!
So now you can keep your handling line moving over to 3 and not moving towards the bar of 2 (you can see yourself getting more and more between the uprights of 2 as she is landing from 2. Put a line on the ground on the outer edge of the wing of 2 (between 2 and 3) and keep yourself on the jump 3 side of the line, so you continue to set the line to 3 and not move towards 2.Great job here!! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>>I have been doing a little herding with her and my instructor mentioned that she is very sensitive to noise (not as in a bad thing but that she really notices) she knows her breeding and her parents (all from Wales) and said that the Welsh specifically breed for noise sensitivity since the collies have to pay attention to the shephard from long distances over rugged ground.>>
This is really interesting! The genetic component of selecting for noise sensitivity can drift over into making it hard to handle the noises of household living or the weird things they encounter in regular life & sport (the Welsh herding BCs are unlikely to live in houses or go places like our sport BCs do :)) so she likely will need extra support to handle that sensitivity in different environments. One thing to consider that has been highly effective is to incorporate meds/supplements into her routine for now, to give her brain more of a ‘blank slate’ platform to be learning how to handle the noises and weird things. See how the other tests pan out and we can go from there!Looking at the sequencing: She did do a lot of nice things! Your motion was pushing her past the jump when you were trying to set up the RC, so be fully facing forward on jumps for now.
>>is it more her teenage brain just not processing things quickly enough. I will try more with the lazy game but my aim or timing seemed off on this.>>
Yes, it could be a processing thing: your motion inspires more motion in her, and motion at a distance (BCs…. LOL!) so we can shift that will less motion from you for now. Have the bulk of the session be the light jogging lazy game. No worries if your aim or timing isn’t perfect – as long as you have 2 handfuls of treats, you are great!
I think the fast running needs to get to the tunnel exit is pushing her past the jump. So for that stuff, live by the 1 failure rule – if you move fast and she misses once, dial it back to you being ahead (sending to the tunnel from further away so you can get into a decent position for the next obstacle). We want her to have over 90% success in taking the jumps, so you will do more walking/jogging than running so she takes jumps more. The rear crosses have a lot of handling pressure that she needs to drive towards, so take them out for now as she is learning to find jumps as you move. You can try them walking and still rewarding for taking jumps (doesn’t matter if she turns the correct direction or not for now, we will just keep rewarding as she is taking the jumps) so there are no more running past the obstacles.
>>you also mentioned decompression in between. Would a snuffle mat be something that you would have her use?>>
Yes – pattern games and snuffle mat before each run, tugging as reward then snuffle mat after each run 🙂
For the volume dial with food – the tricks were very engaging and your body language & voice were very engaging! Yay! And she seemed to ignore the barking dog in the background too. Don’t worry about it looking or feeling clumsy – it is more of a mosh pit game and definitely not ballet LOL!! When using food, you can have her chase your hand for a few steps then give her the treat, rather than feed it to her in a stationary position.
She was definitely more aroused with the toy (note how it too longer to let go of the toy) so you can balance that a bit by trading the toy for a treat). But also use the game of getting her really aroused then doing the lazy game – can she find the jump through the haze of arousal? That will be a very good challenge for her!
Find my face – yep, she liked this one LOL! “All I have to do is look for momma? COOL!” Easy peasy. I think this game will also help her gravitate towards you in handling rather than stay out away and run past things. Note how she was finding the jumps really well when you added the sequence!
So with this in mind, a tweak of the game for Caper:
Do find my face on the flat (no jumps at first) with you run run running back and forth 🙂 That will help her learn to deal with motion and come in tighter to you! And if she can do that – we can add jumps. But get that game going without jumps and then after a few sessions, we can add the jumps. Keep me posted on how she does.
Decompression – she was definitely stimulated with the volume dial and then was easily able to snuffle. Perfect! It doesn’t look like much in these practice sessions, but it has helpful long term ramifications that will help her out!
>>Is this practice designed to help them understand how to bring themselves back to a calmer frame of mind after being very aroused?>>
It is not a frame of mind in terms of thoughtfulness or engagement, it is change in physiological state of returning to baseline with body chemistry. It is not operant but it will change what is happening ‘under the hood’, which is course can change how they respond operantly.
>>You mentioned that you would give me some ideas on novel places to practice the just like home games and if you have a chance I would love to hear them.>>
Any place where dogs are allowed is good! You can bring a jump and play the pattern games, volume dial, a bit of ‘find the jump’ (maybe embedded into the find my face game or lazy game) then decompression. Rehearsing in different places will help! And also, every time you go someplace new or use the games around agility (even at home), you are pairing these games with arousal – so be sure to neutralize the games by playing them at home with zero arousal associations. The neutralizations are part of what keeps them effective. If we only play them in highly arousing scenarios, then just starting the games will immediately bring the dog up to the overarousal state.
>>Finally, I am reading a cool book about animal minds and they talk about how by looking at areas of the brain that light up in sleeping rats that have been taught to go through mazes, they see that the brain activity patterns when dreaming match the patterns when they were doing the maze. In effect they think they are practicing the mazes in their sleep – Maybe this is how latent learning happens.>>
Yes, such cool stuff! What book is it? I would love to read it! And what they are describing with the rats (who are brilliant creatures) is what we know about sleep consolidating learning. So basically you can ‘teach’ something to the dog, but they have not learned it until they get a good sleep on it. The rehearsal they see in the sleep states is probably the brain cementing the new neural pathways. SO COOL!!! So yes, definitely let her get great sleep between training 🙂
Tracy
This is volume dial with the toy – if he was tired, this went extra super well! He was quick to respond and excellent about blocking out the noise and activity around him. This might also be something that you do as you go to the start line for your FEO runs to help get him focused and engaged in the more challenging trial ring environment. And of course the snuffle mat was BEST THING EVER, he said LOL!
Try adding these games to his upcoming FEO opportunities and let me know how he does – video al the things!!
Great job on these :)
Tracy
The volume dial with food here looked good – this is probably what you will be doing right before you enter the ring at a trial, using the last couple of cookies. And of course he was VERY happy to eat all the food from the snuffle mat LOL!!! AS you start to do FEO stuff, you can try a bit of snuffle mat before the run, and a bit after the run, and see how he does! It takes some experimenting to see what will work best for him.
He did well with the remote reinforcement with the toy here too. His only question was when you were standing still – he was not sure where to look or if he should be offering behaviors for the toy.
If you are standing still, he is fine to also stand still and look at you. So, try to keep moving away from the reward. Like with the food, you can put the toy up on something like a chair or table, to simulate what he will see at a trial. I bring my own folding chair and put all of my stuff on it, so the dogs recognize their reward station 🙂This was remote reinforcement – yes, doing it after a class is a little harder – tired brain!
You can make it more structured by putting the treat up on a chair or something, so he begins to understand the concept of a reward station. The naked cookie on the ground was a little too hard so he was focusing on it a lot. He was able to move away from it, so using a chair or something, as well as a bag of treats will begin to look more like what he will see in a trial. And, be sure there is something ing you pockets – it makes the game different if there is a bag of cookies in your hoodie because there will be no cookies there in a trial 🙂Nice work!
TracyGood morning! Thank you for the update, this is GREAT!!!!! Yay Team Levy!!!!! Great job!
>>Another lucky circumstance is that in the agility environment he will easily go back and forth between tug and food. >>
I don’t think it is luck 🙂 I think it is a combination of training and arousal level. And being able to go back and forth food to toy to for is great!
>>I built in a few catches and find its into the 2 toy game and he loved it. >>
Terrific! As the environment gets more stimulating, the food might be come more of a ‘behavior to do’ and less of a yummy delicious reinforcement but that is still fine! Keep mixing it into the 2 toy game. If you find he starts to struggle with the food, you can move further from the action to find the threshold for where he can still eat. Or, if you need to keep getting closer to the ring because you are going in for your turn, you can skip the food and use the two toy pattern game (this is what I did with brother Contraband when he was learning to be civilized around flyball LOL!)
Have you tried a snuffle mat with him, before a turn and also after it, at a distance far from the action? The snuffling does not have to be close to the ring.
>>Now I am not sure if this will be the case at a real agility trial but I am very happy with his progression with these games in practice while other dogs were running.>>
You can do field trips to local trials to bring these games into the trial environment – without the pressure of entering. That would be fun for you both!
Great job here 🙂
TracyGood morning!
>So, Sprite’s eyes were as wide as saucers in class last night. She’s moved into a new class on Wed night that’s a higher level. I was able to have her out while the dog before her ran. We did pattern games and I did use the back and forth game with a treat toss to get her out to the first jump. No grass grabbing last night. Yay! >>
This is HUGE!! Doubly huge in a new place, where the change of environment can really shift the dog into overarousal. I am so excited that she did really well!!!
>>I left in a hackberry snacking clip at the end. >>
As long as a couple of hackberries won’t upset her GI, you can always incorporate them into brain breaks/decompression. As in – good girl, let’s go eat some hackberries! That might have been what you were doing at the end. I like to incorporate natural decompression into the ‘work’. And hackberries in the grass are basically a real life snuffle mat 🙂
I liked the tug-sit-jump work! Her sitting was in a good spot (relatively at your side) and she sat pretty quickly. She struggled to sit while still holding the toy, which is fine because she does not have to hold the toy while sitting 🙂 So it might be a tiny bit harder to get the toy back (because of the arousal state) but that is GREAT because then we are getting feedback from her biologically that she is indeed in that higher arousal state (similar to what a trial would produce). So the toy release might have a higher latency for now but no worries – that will get easier for her and also serve as an indicator or where she is in terms of state.
You were ping ponging quick releases with some slightly longer stays – perfect! They were all pretty quick and you were super good about criteria maintenance (no accidental releases before she sat :)) So keep going with that variable schedule of releases, gradually adding more of a lead out – moving quickly enough to get things rolling but not so quickly that she breaks because we definitely want to incorporate the “work” of the release to the jump as part of the reward. You can also add the leash back in, but when the leash is in the picture be sure to use quick releases. The general order of festivities can be – approach jump while tugging, leash off while tugging, release the toy, offer sit, release. You can also see if she can offer a sit before the leash comes off, but I find there is more failure because the dogs often move again when we try to take the leash off (because we really haven’t trained them to hold a stay while the leash comes off).
And if you have time to get to the park this weekend- bring this game of tugging – offered sit – release to jump. I am curious to see how she does in other locations that are stimulating but where she has a long history of huge success.
Great job! Keep me posted!!
Tracy
I am glad you are enjoying the games – they will be really helpful when he brings his agility skills to new places 🙂
TracyHi!
The last day here is November 22.
>>What is the next class in the series and when is that scheduled to open?
The next class is MaxPup 3, which is actually a big class with sequencing and contacts foundations that requires big space… but the problem is everyone is going into winter! The series is supposed to run from November to November of the following year, but starting in the spring for this group puts MaxPup 3 in the dead of winter. Hmmm.
So my plan is to do a Max Pup 2.1, which will have small space handling stuff, contact foundations, and some small space weave foundations (most of the pups are still a little young for real weave training, despite what you might see on Facebook LOL!!) Then we will do a real MaxPup 3 in the spring and the 2.1 folks will get a discount to make up for any overlap in some of the contacts foundation stuff.
It will be posted later in November when I figure it out 🙂 and will start in December so we can make it through the US Open and Thanksgiving insanity LOL!! You will hear about it before it goes public.
I will keep you posted!
Tracy
Hi!
I think the tunnel threadle session went really well and also she gave you good feedback 🙂
When you were connected and moving the right direction (like towards the tunnel entry you wanted) – she was perfect every time throughout the video. YAY!!!
When you were moving the right way, but not connected? She had questions, like when you went from the tunnel to the wing at 1:54 and 1:58 and she didn’t know which side of the wing to be on. Watch it in slow motion and you will see that your arm was high and you were looking forward, so she didn’t see connection – and connection provides the info as to which side to be on.
Compare it to 2:13 with MUCH clearer connection and she nailed it!When you were connected by pulling up too short in your motion and not driving to where you wanted her to be? That was harder for her to read, so she would stop short too. For example, that is when she stopped going into the tunnel like at 2:48 and 2:59 – you were stopping short so she was not sure if she should keep moving.
So, stay connected, keep moving 🙂
>> I am thinking maybe I was crowding her on the way to the tunnel for the threadles on the later reps. >>
Yes- on those last couple, like at 3:15, you were rear crossing her line before she was committed to the tunnel so she turned.
One thing to do on these is to keep moving and watching her head – and when you see her head to turn the tunnel entry, that is your cue to also turn and go to the next spot 🙂
The tight blinds are super connected and worked really well! You can start to do the blind sooner – when she is about a foot away from the wing an looking at it/driving to it, you can start the blind so you are finished and reconnected before she exits the wing.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>With my other dogs, for an offside tunnel, I use my dog side arm and tap my leg
to pull and push. >>Something to consider- that will be effective when you are pretty ahead of the dog, but not as effective when you are behind or when the judge puts an off course jump or another tunnel there (which is currently the course design trend). So it is worthwhile to consider driving the line directly to th ecorrect obstacle because a pull or push could open up off courses obstacles as things get more complex.
>>For the running more, I don’t have much space with 18ft to run. So should I meet her at the exit of the tunnel? Or/and move the jumps out farther? Or/and use my longer tunnel?>>
You can meet her more at the tunnel exit, use as much space between jumps as possible, and use a short tunnel too!
>> If I say Left etc before a jump they are likely to turn Left before the jump.>>
Try it with them in a training session and see what they do! Maybe if you are moving to the jump they will take it and not turn in front of it?
>>So my timing for Mochi’s Verbals is new to me. But we are enthusiastic to have that kind of commitment from her. 😎>>
You will love the commitment!!!!!!
>>Will reward when I stop. She does get that Hard Angry voice. In the moment, My intuition says reward. But I must admit I’m guilty of trying to Save Time during the video…giving her the tug and getting it back for a treat takes precious seconds of our 2 min time.>>
No worries, you don’t have to be exactly 2 minutes. If you spend a few extra seconds rewarding each time? You’ll end up with a few extra seconds in the session but it is time well spent for sure.
>>Yes, she sees tunnel bags in class. Never had a need for them at home. I put the wings behind the tunnel for her because she doesn’t like it when it rolls.>>
Perfect! I just didn’t want her to be surprised by the giant tunnel bags 🙂
>Weirdly in my private today, I asked her to take a tunnel and she went to the side a few times before going in. Once she went in, however, she was fine with it, and did it multiple times. It was shorter than at home, bright blue, and brand new, practically just out of the box. She’s taken other tunnels in different class. Weird.>>
New tunnel, new smell, new color. Weird so she needed a moment. Totally normal and fine 🙂
>>On another note. I believe you once said for dogs that bark a lot, you can put the bark On Comand and then Stop on Command. Well, I finally discovered a specific noise I can make that will trigger her to bark on that noise. So can you please tell me how to cultivate that into Bark On Command and Stop on Command. And, oddly enough, it when I say
‘Achoo’. 🤪>>Oh! HAHA! I said that it is an old wive’s tale that putting barking on cue and the never cuing it will get the dog to NOT bark (it doesn’t work) and also bark – then -shut up as cues doesn’t really work either. Barking is soooo joyous for the dog that if you teach a bark on cue… you will get more barking and yes, you will say “shut up!” more but they won’t shut up LOL!! I still teach the dogs to bark on cue because it is SO great for engagement, then I tune out the extra barking LOL!!
>>Also, I’m not finding how much longer we can submit videos?
I can’t find it either! I know it is here somewhere. On my main calendar, the date is November 22 so that gives us plenty of time 🙂
Tracy
Hi!
These all look really good!He thought the first game was really easy and fun – tug like mad, eat a treat scatter. Heaven!
On the 2nd video, can you see his body relaxing as he was snuffling? High fast tail wagging to start, then his body really relaxed and he had a different (very chill) body language.
So definitely keep playing this game to ‘teach’ his body how to do this, and bring the snuffle mat with you as you go to new places to help with decompression!He was great with find my face! He thought it was super weird at first but then caught on fast and was happy to find you when you disconnected.
Good job adding the little sequence. You were rewarding him for taking the jump, but remember that you can disconnect as he is on a sequence and reward him for finding your face 🙂Great job here! You can use the decompression as part of every day training life! And keep practicing find my face so he in prepared in case you disconnect on a real course 🙂
Tracy
