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Good morning!
As your knee. continues to feel better, we can adjust things so you are training but not twisting š
>>I tend to be old school and use the opposite arm approach to bring them in for serps. Think just the verbal is all he needs?
The upper body can rotate to face the jump with the dog side arm back, which tends to help us move faster than using the cross arm.
>>Fingers crossed that I might be able to get in to the orthopedic surgeon tomorrow.
I will be crossing all my fingers and toes that everything is fine!
TracyHi!
Wow, look at her go on this big course! And at full height!! Speedy!!!
At :20, and 1:07 you can use a switch cue to turn her away and layer the tunnel line!
>>The weave entrance with the RC is beyond her pay grade. She hasnāt seen 12 poles in several months. ā
She tried so hard! She was SO CLOSE to nailing it! Good girl š
>>Also, in the corner after the blue tunnel I thought I cued a RC to turn left. But, she wrapped.>>
Do you mean at :47? You gave a big pull to the right wrap side, then as she was gathering for takeoff, you moved to the rear cross line, so it was too late for her to get it. You would need to decelerate at the jump before it to set the line, and then drive the rear cross line rather than accelerate to the jump then try to cut behind her. Great choice to continue on and then next part looked great!
This type of rear cross has even popping up a LOT lately and people are struggling with it, so I was actually thinking of doing a short class on rear crosses LOL! Now that the rain is maybe hopefully finally stopping, that might be a fun class!
Nice blind and connection at 1:01!!! WOW!
At the end, she had trouble finding the tunnel miles ahead with the jump right there – you can do a blind instead of a front to get more acceleration ahead and really support that line.
Overall, she looks fabulous!!!! This is going to be a fun spring and summer of running courses!!
TracyHi!
>>Do you suggest that I do one or two reps and check the video?>>
Yes, as much as possible! That will help set up a lot of success.
Serp games:
Starting on your left, she is definitely more comfy coming in for the serp jump. She is not really driving to that reward target, so you can definitely replace it with a toy. And since the toy is a lot more stimulating ā¦ angle the jump so she is very successful. And, as you move through the serp line – remember to move parallel to the jump bar. You were tending to pull back from it, which is more of a 180 cue and not as much of a serp cue. We want her to come in on the pressure of you being very close to the jump, so angling the jump will help at first while you establish the line.On the other side, remember the 2 failure rule š She is having too many failures, so you will want to angle the jump so it is much easier, with the bar very visible. And leave the jump in the angled position until you can really run and she does not fail. There is no rush to get it to the flat position.
All of the FC wraps looked good! Yay!
Find the jump also went really well! On the first rep where she messed the jump, I think the tunnel exit shoots out straight past the jump so she didnāt quite make the adjustment and was surprised, then he was perfect on the rest.
Otherwise she looked great! You can totally add more distance now. You can also throw the toy sooner: throw as soon as she looks at the jump and not after she starts jumping (your last 2 throws were better timed so she didnāt look at you!)
The left/right MP is also going well! When you are holding her collar, donāt pull on the collar or move her by the collar because that creates opposition reflex where she will lean the other way. So jus gently hold the collar and let go. If she is looking the incorrect direction, donāt move her over to the correct direction š You can let her go and if she is incorrect, no worries – reset cookie, try again, but also make it easier if needed (2 failure rule!)
>>Should I release or throw the toy for her when she completes it?
You can if you like but she is not coming in to the toy with a much speed as the other games, so she is not having the same torque when she gets to it.
Nice work here!
TracyHi!
The Minny Pinny game is going well for sure! You can do fewer reps of the regular one to focus on turning away a bit more while saving hi body – now that jump are in the picture, we want to limit the # of jump he does in a session – there were over 50 jumps he did here, so he was a little tired and out of breath by the time you switched to the turn aways. You can do a 30 second warm up of the left turns, for example, then do a couple of turn away reps, then switch sides. A timer set to maybe 3 minutes will help you limit reps too.On the turning away – he was totally guessing by turning towards you first LOL!! When turning towards you didnāt get a response, he cleverly turned away and got the reward LOL! So we can help him get it without first turning towards you by either putting the toy out as a visual aid, or using a physical cue (a hand cue, kind of like the turn away games youāve done on the flat and on the MaxPup 1 prop š ). That will help him get the turning away really nicely.
Find The Jump looked great! He definitely Ikes his tunnel š and had no trouble driving to it, and finding the jump after it. SUPER!!!!
>>I noticed he is checking for me as soon as he exits the tunnel. Am I throwing the toy too late?>>
2 answers for you there:
I think he was turning towards you on the tunnel exit because you were quiet and not necessarily visible on the early reps. So you can add in a GO verbal before he enters the tunnel.And yes, you can throw a little sooner: as soon as he look at the jump, you can throw the toy so he doesnāt look back at you when he reaches the jump.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
Thanks for the play videos!
>>think I should do another rep of whatever game we are playing, play with the toy & be done. Her enthusiasm just dwindles. What should I do?>>
I think at this stage in her training, sorting out the reinforcement strategies is more important than the sport-specific skills.
So looking at these videos –
She seems to find chasing a thrown toy to be motivating and reinforcing. She also seems to like active tugging especially on a bungee-type toy. Dead toys (thrown back) seem to be not that engaging.>>I had forgotten the long toy didnāt work very well ā it used to.
I couldnāt see her engagement on the long toy after the jumping, but it looked like she was driving to it? Maybe you meant the long toy was not working as a lure to get her to bring the other toy back or stop running around?
So what I am seeing here is that the sessions are more about doing the skills so there seems to be a pretty immediate pressure to bring the toy backā¦ which is causing her to not bring the toy back. Even trying to trade for the other toy is not working, because it is paired with giving up the original toy and then being asked to work and earn it again.
What we think is reinforcement might not beā¦. And the pressure to bring the toy back, let it go, and get back to work might actually be a bit punishing so she is avoiding bringing the toy back! This is not that unusual, especially when we are thinking about the next rep and get the toy back then immediately cue the dog to line up to do something hard or not naturally reinforcing.
So might be happening is that the reinforcement side of things is very short, and ends up paired with a bit of punishment because if she comes back, she has a double whammy of the toy being taken away and then the pressure of work.
To try to change this, make each session more about longer reinforcement, more time tugging with you, winning the toy after some tugging, running around, trading for a treat, throwing the toy again, running around, trading for a treat, etc. Get a good reinforcement procedure going of toy- cookie – toy – cookie – toy. Then at some point, you can slip a rep of a skill in there so it is: toy- cookie – toy – cookie – set point – toy cookie – toy.
When she understands the procedure and it no longer predicts that the toy will go away, then I think that she will bring the toy back a lot more willingly! Let me know if that makes sense – sorting this out will make everything so much easier š
TracyFind the jump is looking good too! He is doing really well!!
In the indoor space, you can try to get as far ahead as possible to challenge him š Yo can send to the tunnel from as far away as possible, then you will be miles ahead of him. Then when the jump is as far from the tunnel as possible, you can go close to the tunnel exit then move forward to see if he will pass you to find the jump.
The snow should be melting very soon, then this can all go outside! He is definitely ready for the bigger distances, we just need the dang snow to melt.
Great job on all of these!
TracyHi!
He is doing his lead changes really well! Only one thing to tweak here:
Try to use a release cue and not āgoā because we want go to mean straight and not turning. You can see at the end he was confused when you said āgoā but your arms cued a turn, so he slowed down to figure it out.
If your knee is bothering you, this is a good game to play because you don’t need to move as much. So you can add challenge by moving the wings to 4 or 5 feet apart and see how he does š
T
Hi!
Serps are also looking really good!!For the serps that are now more of a backside like on the first video, you can go directly to the backside verbal and you probably donāt need the left or right anymore on the start wing, because the left and right verbals are a little too tight of a turn and we need him to carry out to the backside. He was finding the backside and serps brilliantly!
On the 2nd video
Nice job with the connection and verbals for the wraps! And he had no questions when you did the serps at the end. Nice!3rd video:
Also looking really good! I notice on these you were using a cross arm (opposite arm) as part of your serp cue – you can use it if you like, but you will be able to run faster if you use your dog-side arm š And I am pretty sure Sid will require you to run fast LOL! So feel free to try these with your dog-side arm open up behind you and without the cross arm.Nice work!
TracyHi!
During the first minute of the video, you asked why you were getting your rights & left mixed up – it was because you were trying to go too fast š You can slow down the start of each rep to get the accuracy of the verbals without losing his speed:
Before you start each rep, hold his collar and double check the verbal – the early set of rep had verbals reversed. That moment where you hold him and start saying the verbal will help you be sure you have it correct, and let him process the verbal before he starts moving.
He understands the Minny Pinny so now we can do some crazy things with it! He was also turning away from your really nicely š The only thing to add is that moment of mentally double checking the verbal before you start.
Nice work!
TracyOh no!!!!! I hope you are ok!!!!! You and Sid are looking good in these videos so fingers crossed that your knee is fine.
T
Hi!
The jump set point is looking really good when she is in the sweet spot line up position – at :10, she is in the perfect spot! On the previous rep (:08), she was a little too far back so she did a little funky front foot movement before the first jump and landed short between the 2 jumps. Since she does a rock back sit (as you can see at :13), you can help her be in the right spot with a little cookie lure to get her front feet position precisely for maximum power. A couple of inches makes a big difference to her!
The distance (6 feet) and the heights look good! Leave things like this and we will build on it soon :)āØGreat job!
TracyHi!
She did really well picking up the line of jumps! For offset lead change lines like this, be sure to use convergence for jump 3, otherwise it will conflict with threadles to the other side of jump 3 because we don’t want her to flick herself away to the front of a jump if you are wanting to cue a threadle. I am pretty sure threadle slices and threadle wraps were NOT a thing when Linda M developed this game LOL!!!>>I am guessing that she learned to look ahead in the woods while running pell mell after something. (Survivalof the Fittest!)>
Ha! This is an incredibly useful skill for sport AND life š
T
Good morning! Hope you had a good weekend!
Her serps looked really good! She is driving in really nicely with you running! The only question she has here is about the reinforcement: she is not all that interested in the Manners Minder. She moves to it like a target, but she is not really driving to it like a reward. So the next step is to put something more valuable there as a rewardā¦ maybe the ball! The ball definitely seems higher value than the MM. And if you are using something on the ground as a reward, try not to have the ball also in your hand, as that is drawing her focus away from the reward target.
Nice work!
TracyGood morning! Hope you had a great weekend!
>>The first night we did this she was PERFECT, even on the more advanced pattern. And nowā¦
There might be any number of reasons why she was great the first night, but not as solid here – no worries, though! Everything looked strong except she cannot push away to her left with you are wing 3. So the main thing here is going to be splitting the behavior so she can do it, repeatedly, and successfully. The first step is to count failures (and use reset cookies): it is easy to count failures, because all you need to do is count to 2 LOL! It is like traffic likes: successes are green lights. 1 failure? Yellow light. Proceed, but pay attention. 2nd failure? Red light! Time to stop that level of challenge and help her out (and it is not 2 failures in a row, it is 2 failures, total, in the session. She had 6 failures in these 2 videos, which is too many.
She was good about shifting to her left away from you when you were at wing 2, so you can start there on the next session, get 2 or 3 successes on that pushing away to her leftā¦ then take one step back so you are one step past wing 2. If she can be successful there? One more step back towards wing 3, which can help use split the behavior and build up the hard skill.
On the 2nd to last rep, you angled the 2nd wing which is another way to split the behavior and help her be successful (and she was! Yay!) When you do that, leave the wing angled for several reps, no changesā¦ then maybe change the position by a couple of centimeters. And gradually inch it back towards the original position.
Set point:
With apologies to Riverā¦ Muso needs to not have an Aussie humping her on the first rep LOL! Ha!Overall, form is going well and it looks like you were also running – and she didnāt lose her organization when you were running and that is a HUGE WIN!
>>Sheās landing equal distance from take-off, but not in the middle. 5.5 feet apart, 6ā³, 8ā³, 10ā³ on second jump.>>
No worries about that for now, she is looking good and the dogs donāt actually need to be centered as the bar goes up – it is more about form and less about being centered (takeoff point will change as the angle of elevation changes). You can leave this setup where it is for another session or two, a couple of days apart, to let it percolate š We build on it soon!
Serps – This is coming along! I also have a reward placement idea, see below.
>>rotated the jump a bit.
Rotate the jump a lot more, so she can see the bar really obviously on her line You might end up rotating it almost 90 degrees. 2 reasons for this:
– so she can do the serp with you parallel or ahead of her, not behind her (more on that below)
– so she can do the serp with you much closer to the serp jump. You should be able to reach out and touch the serp jump with a bent arm as you go by it, and you were pretty far from it here.
– to raise her rate of success (see above about the 2 failure rule so you donāt end up building failure or frustration in while teaching these more challenging skills). Because she had 6 failures on 16 reps, the next session needs to be 100% to start to balance things out. You can also maintain a high umbrella success rate by rewarding the adjunct behaviors like the line ups and the retrieves.
The start mechanics definitely helped her: starting her next to you or in āneedleā position, at the first wing of the serp jump, and sending her to the wing set up better start mechanics. You can (and should!) cookie that position so it retains its value, helps build up the success rate overall, and so she doesnāt get barky about lining up.
She was having the most trouble when you were parallel or a little ahead of her: you were a little closer to the start wing (you can see the start position at 1:31) and walkingā¦ so she was ahead of you on the serp jump (like at 1:01). Compare it to the blooper moments at 1:15, 1:35, 1:41, etc, where you were more parallel to her, and she thought about coming in but didnāt come inā¦ so she is asking questions about the pressure and lead changes. Angling the jump will help her sort it out!
You are also really far from the serp jump so she is coming in like a 180 on a lot of reps. Since serps have those tight pressure lines, we want you to be super close š And angling the jump helps there too – you can still run your line from the start wing to the toy, but the serp pressure and jumping line will be much easier.
>>Should the toy be in line with where the jump bar would be if the jump was flat?
Yes – it should be placed where the next jump would be on a traditional serp, to help create the in-then-out line for the dog. That is what she did at :48, and 1:01, very nice! Compare it to :51 where the toy was not placed there – she is doing a 180 on that line instead of a serp and cutting across your line, so it is not the ideal placement.
For serps, I also sometimes change the placement of reward to help promote the concept of coming in on the serp jump. I will explain it and then try to find the video:
If she starts on your left, your toy will be in your left hand. As you move past the serp jump, look at the toy, and drop it (you can use a get it marker) so she comes in over the bar and gets the toy. This can isolate and reward that coming in over the bar that is really hard. The drop location should be relatively close to the first wing (entry wing). This dropping is done before the dog even makes a decision about coming in over the bar or not – it is just plopped in there as you move through. We do this on the backside serp pushes too, to help build up the default of taking the jump.
Let me go find a video of that – and if I canāt find it, I will grab a dog and make a video LOL!!
Great job on these! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
This is looking really good! I think the more we make retrieving into a fun game, and also fun part of training sessionsā¦ the better the retrieving becomes! She did great here! (And I love training sessions that I can do sitting down haha)
>>I use a little extra ātransfer of valueā with a food reward, but I am making sure she can still tug after getting cookies.
This was great for many reasons. It is an instant reward for bringing the toy back and allows you to be very precise in your reinforcement, so she is bringing it to your hand. And it keeps working the toy-food-toy strategy, so she is able to go back and forth between motivators. Thatās so important and useful!!!
āØ>>Weāll find out in a little while if this is transferring at all to Amyās yard, and I havenāt even tried it with a ādeadā toy ā but no worries if not. Thatāll just be the next steps, along with fading out the cookies.>>Exactly! No worries and no rush. And also, sometimes there is pressure in training (even when things are going well) and the pups need to take a quick spin with the toy to clear their heads. So if she does take a quick spin, it might have nothing to do with the retrieve skills and everything to do with her thinking hard during training. All good!!! And you donāt really ever need to fade the cookies for agility or flyball retrieves – if she likes them, you can keep using them as rewards for retrieving and giving the toy back (rather than running off or clamping down on it LOL!)
Great job!
Tracy
