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Hi!
>>Sorry the camera is a little lopsided – I broke a leg off the tripod :( I feel this pain, I break tripods all the time. I buy them in pairs now, fully expecting to break them LOL!
On the first video – the backsides looked good! It was a little hard to see your rear cross lines. He read it going to his left, but I think the rear cross pressure going to the right was a little late. Try not to say “go”, on the rear crosses, you can use your left or right cue to help him read it as a turn.
On the second video:
>>In the second video I had a hard time getting him off me. >>
When this happened, you got too far ahead then pressured into his line, so he (correctly) did not continue forward because he would have had to go through you LOL! If you watch it in slow motion, you will see that you were turning your feet towards the camera and away from the jump before he past you, like at 2:33, so he pushed off the jump. Compare to 2:57, where you ran to the center of the bar til he was past you then you cut in behind him and he got it (and on the last rep too). So to set the RC line, stick closer to the wing til he is just about done with the wrap, then you can start driving up the line, keeping your feet to the center of the bar until he is past you.
Great camera angle on the tunnel-to jump rear crosses! The first rep was late, so he didn’t turn away. The second rep was much more timely, so he read it (3rd rep too !and the last rep too! Yay!)
The push rep was all good on the first rep til you said “yay!” and presented the toy so be more patient there, and drop the toy in the landing side so he can learn to take the jump as you continue to move forward.
You were using “push” then “around” on those backside wraps – try to choose one to mean circle wrap, so he can get that info as he exits the tunnel rather than when he arrives at the backside. And the RCs can be left or right instead of go (because go implies no turn, only straight).
4th video – the RCs are going well here too! He was getting them nicely, but he was a little confused about the go directional (note that he would look towards you/straight every time you said go, which is correct) so definitely add the left or right instead of the Go on the rear crosses.
>>I need to work some more on backside pushes to get him a little more independent since I’m going all the way up to the wing to have him complete it.>>
Moving to the wing to show him the backside is normal and fine – make sure you don’t block the wing though! Your line should be to where the wing and the bar meet so he can see the whole wing 🙂 Otherwise, he committed really nicely to these!!! You can throw the toy behind you to the landing spot as you run forward, to help him commit as you move forward.
Great job!!
TracyHi!
>>I was questioning whether my arms/hands were doing the right thing on sending and leaving the wings, and also on racetrack, but sounds like that was ok? I was really trying to focus on looking back and connecting. So happy that connection and timing was good! Yay!>>
Yes! It all looked lovely!
>>Do you have a verbal cue for serp?
Nope – the verbals will either be the directionals for the line, or a name call, depending on exactly what the context is.
>>In the super advanced game around the clock game you were giving a cue on the threadle, was it “close”? Is that a threadle cue that you use?>>
yes and yes – that is the threadle slice verbal I use.
>>You suggested the word “back” but will that be confusing to her since “back” already means back up? Although I can’t quite envision her coming to a complete stop at a jump and backing up if I say that.>>
She probably won’t be confused but it is always better to keep it different. What about ‘push’ or ‘digdigdig’ or ‘wrap’ or something?
>>I’d like to see a thread in the forum on suggested words or your words for all the different turns. That might help me to use some of yours or give me ideas at least.>>
We can totally do that! I will start it after I watch the videos tonight!
Tracy
Good morning!
The diamond is looking great! It is really hard game (all the wing-tunnel games from now on are really hard) because of all the speed and how quick we handlers need to be :)) You were great!
>>She was wide on some turns because I was so slow in showing her what was coming next.>>
Yes, you can turn sooner on the middle racetrack jump – you had a lot of go go go but didn’t turn so she was like “go where, mom?” You got earlier and earlier each time so she got tighter and tighter 🙂
You also added more distance on the middle wing as well, which was great! You don’t need the arm up to support it, just stay connected like you did.
The blinds are also looking good! Keep trying to get them started sooner: trust her commitment more. As soon as you see her exit the tunnel, start the verbal and start the blind. No worries about the occasional spin, that was probably because your brain finds those easier to do when you are also doing all of the other things (motion, connection, reward mechanics, verbals, lions, tigers, bears, oh my LOL!). She is reading those tight blinds really well!!!
You can add in the combos here: do a racetrack then the tight crosses then a racetrack, as one big course 🙂
Serps –
It cracked me up at :06 when she exits the tunnel and jumped on you: “mom, I nailed it!” LOL!Some sessions just don’t go as planned, and this was one of them – she was definitely feeling the tunnel love! It was hard to ignore it!
I think this game was hard because the tunnel has a lot of value and is a HUGE visual for her (compared to your hand and the toy). Even after she serped, she wanted to go into the tunnel. So don’t beat yourself up – it is not a handler energy issue, it was not a handler error issue, it is just a young dog learning to do something hard in the face of a big huge delicious distraction 🙂
So for the next try at this, make the tunnel less exciting by turning the entry and exit down to the ground, so there is a tunnel there but there is not entry or exit (turn down both ends so she doesn’t try to get into the other end and run into a closed off tunnel).
And you can shake your serp hand or even put the target in it that we used in the strike a pose game. You can even replace it with a barrel so it is serving on a jump and ignoring a barrel, not a tunnel. All of this can help balance the value.
Hooray for grass! Bye bye now!!
The ladder grid is looking good.
For the moving target, you’ll have clearer forward motion if you have the toy in the dog side arm and not across you body.The first reps were teaching her the framework, and she did well, no questions. Her form looked nicely balanced on the front views. On the side view at :38 and after looked good too! Yay!
>>I forgot to let go of the toy when she grabbed it but will try to remember in the future.>>
Yes, let her run through the toy 🙂 She will bring it back (eventually LOL!)
>>We will also put the other dogs in the house next time so that she isn’t distracted by the barking.>>
Definitely!! She might appear distracted, but what we are learning from the neuroscientists is that at this age, a dog’s brain will tend to prioritize social information (what the other dogs are doing) and that takes bandwidth away from what we are trying to teach them. And with the other dogs barking frantically, her brain was definitely processing that. When I had the sound on, my dogs all jumped up and started barking/racing around, looking for who was stressed – and they listen to barking dogs on videos all day LOL!! When I watched with the sound off, my dogs all went back to sleep 🙂
So it gives you insight into how the barking sounds to other dogs, which is why we want our adult dogs to not be nearby when the pups are training (even if they are quiet, BCs are big staring dogs and the pups feel that pressure :))
Great job on these! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
I love how you added a LOT of energy and arousal to this session, without having to move much at all 🙂 Perfect! The ultimate goal of this game is that the dogs can process the verbals in higher states of arousal 🙂 So doing it without motion is great! And now… add in ‘neutral’ motion. What I mean by that is when you are doing the tunnel first then either another tunnel or wrap after she exits, you can meet her at the tunnel exit and just move forward towards the wing but don’t handle. Just go forward (walking at first, then jogging then running) and start the verbal as soon as she is out of the tunnel. That is also very challenging because now we add arousal AND motion (and keep going with the high energy verbals, those are GREAT!)
The double wrap reps were probably because she had to process the tunnel cue after all the wrap cues, plus if she has any history of doing double wraps with you standing still there, she might offer it. It was almost like you could hear her saying “oh f*&%ck she said TUNNEL!” hahaha So mix in the tunnel cues sooner so she doesn’t get into a groove of doing the wrap 🙂
She is definitely doing better with the serps! Leave them be for now, don’t obsess 🙂 We come back to them and I am sure when we re-visit them, she will have read the book and watched the videos and will have them down pat LOL!! You can totally move to the proofing game with the serp and tunnel (without movement at first) because that will help solidify the understanding of the serps.
>>Tried to do a few more exercises today, but her brain had melted.>>
One or two high energy, mentally challenging games per day is about right… in these games, she was processing a LOT and running hard. So it makes sense that she was not able to do more. Be sure to mix in a ton of decompression into each session and between sessions. That can look like running around with the toy, sniffing for treats in the grass, sniffy walks, etc. That helps her physiology reset and be ready for more 🙂
Great job on these!
TracyGood morning!
>>Two things: 1. Can you recommend someone online to help me retrain River’s weaves?>>
I will take a look and see who it teaching weaves… most classes are independent study. I hear great things about Ninja Weaves at Clean Run! I will poke around and see who has good classes 🙂
>>2. Is it possible to start to show the ‘final product’ or set up concept before the “how-to” part of the videos? Ex: the serp set-up (wing, jump, reward placement) was so much easier to understand when you explained the full serp set up. >>
Great idea, I can start to add in maps and videos to demo it). The final product is something I don’t like to put first because people then skip ahead to the final product and the dog fails and fails and fails. That is why the final product is not seen in a lot of the demo videos LOL! I can find other ways to add them in without encouraging people people to skip to them, like putting it in the middle somewhere (check out the primacy and recency memory forms to see why people remember the final product and skip to it, rather than the training steps)
>>I can work more effectively at home when I get the idea of how the final behaviour would look, beyond the scope of the exercise.
This is good to know – most of the exercises are worked in sweeping general concepts that then get narrowed in scope as we go along or if we have to problem solve.
>>I am envisioning like, a map example and then the obstacles disappear to leave the actual exercise set up.
I can finagle some ways to show this for sure. It will probably start in a couple of weeks – the 2 games this week are basically the same as the look in the demos 🙂 and I can add in some visuals of what it looks like on course.
>>I love that you have started to change your filming angle within one session so that we can see what the dog sees and what the handler sees. It makes a big difference!!
As the handling gets more complex, you will see more angles starting. Good to know that the visuals really help! And I can certainly add more visuals in terms of where the game is heading and convincing ways to start at the beginning and not skip to the end 🙂
Tracy
Hi!
She did a great job of coming in for the jump on the first rep where you had less turn of shoulder, and had a harder time coming on on the second rep (other side) where you had more turn of shoulder LOL!!
It might have been a question of side preference for her (moving to her left might be harder for her than moving to her right) and also the reward placement – on the first rep, the reward was easier to see when coming in over the jump, and on the 2nd rep it was easy to see going past the jump 🙂
You got it on the 3rd rep by changing your motion. You can also angle the jump a little towards her especially on the harder side, so she can see the bar more clearly and so you can keep moving.
>>I really thought I dropped my shoulder back until I watched the video

Ideally, your shoulders line up with each wing and center of the chest points to center of the bar… all while staying in motion of course LOL!!!! I remind myself to look back at my serp hand, which helps me open up my shoulders.Great job on these! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
The 6 foot distance looks good here too. And the reward target seemed further away so she powered over jump 2 more. Yay! So thinking about next steps… I think the 6 foot distance will end up being her “sweet spot” so let’s stick here at 6 feet. Add in the moving target for a session and see how it goes. I am guessing she will be GREAT! And so if that is great, you can then move to the ladder grid (adds the 3rd jump) starting with the stationary target to show the grid to her and then going to the moving target. When you do add the 3rd jump, show it to her first at 8 inches – the 3rd jump adds a new level of difficulty so when one thing gets harder, we make another thing (jump height) easier to get started.Great job on both of these!
TracyGood morning!
These reps looked really good! It looks like she is in the sweet spot for spacing right now and for the height of the 2nd jump. I see you did 6 feet in the next video, so we can compare 🙂The next step here (whichever spacing she looks better in) is adding the moving target. It looks like she was going to a stationary reward target, so she was powering down over jump 2 to be able to stop. She was very organized, so you can now add in the moving target so she can stay powered up over jump 2 and for a few strides after it. If you were using the moving target (it was off screen), then you can lead out further so she has more room after jump 2 (her stay looks great!)
Good morning!
Flyball foundations sure do come in handy for agility jump grids! I am guessing she is bouncing her 7” flyball jumps at the 10 foot distance?
This session went really well. What was the distance here, so we can keep track and build up? She was really consistently in the middle of jumps 1 and 2, and then consistently a little ‘short’ on jump 2 landing closer to it and not as much in the middle. This is just info, nothing to change, good to know (experience and structure and age and conditioning of the dog all play a role in where they land in the grid). So leave it here at this distance and show her the game one or two more times. She did a great job of staying organized in her movement even as you ran and dragged the toy (thanks, flyball!). After another session or two, the next level of this will be posted and she will be ready!
The only thing to add right now is more stay reinforcement thrown back to her. She was wanting to anticipate and move a little early (like in rep 2) so more rewards will help her be super solid in the stays.
Great job here!!!!
TracyGood morning! Lots of good work here!
Looking at the crosses at the beginning:
All reps had great reward mechanics!!! Lovely connection!
For the first part, you were doing spins (the FC/BC combo) where you rotated towards her. They were good spins, but ideally they would be the true blinds you started doing at 1:40 🙂 My guess is that as you were emphasizing connection and reward mechanics, your muscle memory took over.You switched to the true blinds at 1:40 – very nice!!!! Great connection and reward mechanics from your and great commitment from Hola! Also really good timing – it is hard to get the timing and you nailed it. Yay!
The giant racetracks looked great – speaking from experience, it is SO HARD to stay connected and get commitment with the youngsters but you nailed it! Yay!!!
You can do the combo of the crosses at the beginning then into the big racetrack then back to the crosses. And for even more excitement, spread it out for more distance challenge 🙂
Strike a pose also looks great! My only suggestion on the serp is to get your right shoulder pointing towards the first wing a little more, if it won’t be painful to twist a little more.
And on the tunnel cue, be sure to turn your feet and step to the tunnel, otherwise you have a conflicting cue of upper body versus lower body. For example, at 1:16, you had your feet facing the jump and upper body facing the tunnel and when you relaxed your arm too soon, she didn’t take the tunnel (it was a good question from her). Turning to face the tunnel with upper body AND lower body will get even more commitment.
And she was super about coming right in for the serp after the tunnel reps. SUPER!!!
So you can add a little more motion, and also add in the threadle from the advanced level 🙂
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
Lots more distractions here, getting to do his Minny Pinny around other people and dogs! Someone there was REALLY LOUD lol and there were a lot of people and dogs and noises.
It was a good insight into the teenage brain: he had to work extra hard to ignore the distractions (steam coming out of his ears!). For the first minute, he was able to execute the MP but was moving more slowly because it was SO HARD! Good boy!!!
Then you saw some interesting behaviors where he was struggling – a big frustration leap at the head of the person nearby at :59, then climbing on you a little bit at 1:19, then hitting the wing and the bars after that, then he did a few more reps pretty well but left at 2:46 and again at 3:01. He slowed way down and finished the session but I have some ideas for you to be able to train in this environment without him presenting these other behaviors.
Using the Minny Pinny, for example:
– stick to only the easy reps when the distraction level is soooo much higher (turning towards you is easy, turning away was so hard!)– use reset reward like a cookie at your side if something is not quite right in the rep.
– bring him into the session with a pattern game like we did in MaxPup 1, so he can assess the environment and offer engagement.
– add in decompression after every couple of reps. This can be running around with the toy (might be hard to do this in a busy training environment) or scattering a fistful of treats on the floor so he can sniff and breath. This decompression is HUGELY important for helping young dogs in challenging environments.
– set a timer for 1 minute then give him a break. He generally works in short bursts (and that is great) and he was great for the first minute here… then he started to struggle because the dog brain does indeed get tired by the intensity of focus required in this scenario.
Overall he was such a good boy! The Minny Pinny was not hard, the environment was hard, so it allows us to help him get comfortable working in that busy environment.
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
>>hanks much. I didn’t realize until I watched the video of how much correcting I did. BAD JERRI.>>
You’re not bad, you are just programmed to fix (like the rest of us!) We had an interesting discussion about that over the weekend at a webinar, and several years ago I would have urged you to stop and fix. But now we see how punishing and confusing it can be for the dog, and the neuroscientist/veterinarian has enlightened me on al the reasons why the dog’s brain would be confused…. so we don’t fix any more and everything goes better LOL!
>>I am very happy with her sit in a distracting environment. I think that is her first public off leash sit stay!>>
Yeah! She was GREAT!!! And she gave you instant and clear feedback when she was frustrated by barking at people, then ignoring them when you were clear with info. Love it!
>>My trial was cancelled this weekend (not NADAC), so i’ll get some training in. We just got 4 inches of SNOW!>>
Bummer about more snow! I am ready for the weather to calm down!
>>PS I’m moving. Where should I go?>>
Ooh! I mean, selfishly, I recommend the Virginia/North Carolina area. There is a TON of great dogs sports and great weather. The best weather (4 seasons without a horrible winter) and lovely mountains and great dog sporting is in the corridor between Charlottesville, VA and Richmond, VA. North Carolina has SO MUCH amazing stuff but it is a little hot & humid, unless you like hot and humid. And the North Carolina dog sport stuff is an easy drive from the C-ville-to-Richmond corridor. I am further west in Virginia (near Roanoke) and the weather is stunning, the area is amazing, but not a lot of dog sporty stuff nearby.
The West Coast is also super nice as you know, and I love a whole lot of other parts of the country too but I personally prefer a climate that is not too hot and not too cold. And the housing costs and cost of living here in central/SW Virginia and in North Carolina is relatively low which is always a bonus!!
Tracy
Good morning!
>>The videos that you last responded on re the set point jumps he had eaten dinner the night before and breakfast that morning so yes, food in his belly and a great training session.
Good to know! Keep tracking! I am betting there will be a correlation. So if he has not eaten… don’t try to train anything that requires a lot of energy. Maybe do some simple session for treats to get some calories into him!
>>Also, since I brought this up temps have been much cooler and very rainy. I also thought about temp changes and I’ll have to keep notes on whether he eats or refuses his meals when the temperatures are higher.>>
Also good to know! He is too young to have experienced real heat yet, so there will be some acclimation for sure.
>>He refused his meal last night. The house was full of family and my granddaughters were here who he LOVES to play with. He couldn’t be bothered to eat his dinner. He ate breakfast this morning.>>
He was probably over-stimulated, in terms of his HPA Axis. So his body chemistry was in high arousal and he was not able to go into “rest and digest” mode. The best thing to do is some decompression, like a long sniffy walk (without friends and family haha) and a quiet place to sleep.
>>He is much better now about taking treats when we’re training at home but if we go out anywhere he can’t possibly eat a treat. The resilience games and the CU exercises are very hard to do with him because of that. >>
That is a definite goal, eventually, to get him to be able to eat a very small, SUPER high value treat (just a little so we don’t tip is belly into feel badly!) in new places. Will he tug or chase a toy? All of the resilience and CU games can be done with toys (I did them with toys initially with my whippet mixes because they couldn’t eat either).
Looking at the videos:
>>He doesn’t get the turning away from me. I feel like I have to take a step backwards and solidify the right and left verbals in the easier positions before I attempt these again. Am I correct?>>
Yes, he is great at indepedently doing the Minny Pinny without you… towards you 🙂 Turning away is a lot harder as you mentioned but you did 1000% the correct thing by throwing the toy out there and then having a BIG party! He also didn’t really hate being held while you did this, so the bonus is that it is building value for being held 🙂 At the end you tried it without the placed toy, but he was not quite ready for that. So with the toy, keep placing it and moving it around the Minny Pinny til it eventually ends up next to you, and in your hand. This will take a couple of sessions, so you can move it to a new spot (between jumps 1 and 2, then between 2 and 3, then after landing of 3, etc, every couple of reps.
Serp proofing is going well! If it seems like it is really challenging… that is because it is really challenging LOL! And yes his attitude was great! The most important rep of the serp was at the end – after 2 tunnel reps, he was able to do the serp. SUPER!!!
>>When I’m moving slowly he takes the tunnel. >>
First video:
You had a bit of movement here and he was great, jumping to his left.2nd video – jumping to his right – totally see what you mean about him having more trouble when you are moving. I know it has bene hard to tell if he is lefty or righty, but I think he is a lefty!
Keep building up the movement (it will of course be easier jumping to his left, so add motion first when he is jumping to his left and your left arm is the serp arm) – bear in mind that the thing he sees the most is your motion/feet, which is the same on the tunnel and serp cues.
So to help the serp become more visible to him, you can dip your serp arm down and shake your hand a bit – that can make the serp cue pop through even more when you are moving. We will eventually ad verbals to it – often it is just a name call – so you can try the release then his name while you are moving.
And it is entirely possible that one direction (jumping to his left) will proceed more quickly with the motion being added (pun intended haha) than the harder side – you might be able to jog through the turns to his left and be almost stationary to his right. And that is normal and also fine 🙂 The side preferences even out when they are in late adolescence.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning! Welcome!!
I love that you have access to a league where you can work little sequences and use cookies 🙂 That is GREAT!! And there were a TON of wonderful things happening here and also great info from Stacey Marie 🙂
Her start stay looked great – she didn’t really have a stay a few months ago, but now it looks great! Well done to you for making it a fun thing!
2 things that Stacey told us in this session:
– because she is inexperienced, you need to over-emphasize your connection and eye contact, much more than an experienced dog would need. Look at the difference between your opening the 1st time (connection was more as if she was super experienced, so it was a little soft) and the 2nd time (GREAT connection! You nailed it and so did she 🙂
And also towards the end – fabulous connection on that last sequence and it was absolutely beautiful.
So definitely crank up the connection more, especially in new places (like the upcoming NADAC trial).
The other thing she told us is that stopping to fix errors is stressful (that is what happened just before she took off to bark at people both times she did that, like at 1:16). She also jumps up on you when you stop (a bit of information seeking, a bit of frustration, which she does not do when you keep moving). And when you kept going… she was totally focused and engaged even though the distractions were still here.
An example of the ‘keep going’ thing was on the sequence that started at 1:32. Started off great! She missed a jump at 1:36 – late turn of shoulders caused it? Lots of visual clutter past the jump caused it? Both? Hard to know but I am pretty sure you saw it happen and you kept going as if it did not happen: and the rest of the run was freakin’ brilliant!!!! YES!!!
There are a lot of reasons why the ‘keep going’ motto helps our young dogs, but you can see it in action in this video 🙂
So no matter what happens… keep going as if it was perfection, then you can think on your feet and swing back around to get her back into whatever she missed (and increase your connection or get closer to help her out). That will get you the focus, engagement, commitment we can see from 1:32 to the end. So fun!!!
Great job 🙂 Let me know what you think!
Tracy
