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Hi!
It is great that you are able to work outside!!! Yay!The set point is going well. The best form was with the moving target at the beginning (1st 2 reps) where she could move pretty fluidly to the toy and through it. The rep with the toy on the ground caused her to get over on her front then have to stop suddenly, which torqued her shoulders a bit. Then when she hit the toy and you held on, she swung around too (she might have swung around on the 2nd rep, but that part wasn’t in the edit lol)
So a couple of ideas for you:
I think the 6 foot distance looked good, so keep the distance there.Keep going with the moving target, but have it in your dog side hand (not opposite arm) so she doesn’t curl in front of you here.
And, when she gets to the tug, let go and let her grab it and “run through it” so she doesn’t have to do any sudden stops or wrenches. I have video of that somewhere to show you what I mean, I’ll go find it šLooking at the serp game – she was definitely amped up! Darn cat LOL!!!!
She did well, though – and yes, your shoulders can be more open you the jump to help her come in:This about twisting more at the waist, so your shoulders each line of with a wing and the center of your chest points to the center of the bar. The further ahead you are, the more you twist back, and the better she will see the cue.
You can see on the video, especially on the last several reps, that you were facing forward a bit too much so she had some questions.
She was pretty successful, overall, so you can add a bit more motion to these (jogging) and then we can change the angle.
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
This looks super!!! Her stay looks fabulous and she was making the lead changes perfectly in both directions. YAY!!! You and Prytty made this game looks far easier than it actually is LOL!!!Since this went o well, there are two things you can try with it:
– with the sings at this same distance, you can try to use a little less motion with your arms, a little less twist at the waist and see if she can respond š– and if that goes well, you can shorten up the distances. See if she can do it at 6 foot distances (I think this was something like 8 foot distances?) And then if that is fine and dandy, work your way down to 5 foot distances š
Great job!!
TracyGood morning!
>>Ok, no more naughtiness on my part! Iāll set him up 6ā behind the first bar and not go too high with the second.
yes, take your time, do lots of video review, and let him grow into his body before we focus on height š The payoff will be HUGE!
>> but what height should the first bar be, please?
4″ or 6″ or a bump, it is just a regulator to how him where to put his feet.
T
Hi!
>I did not realize that I was dialing back my handling. I hope that I improved on this next session.
You rocked it! Looked great!!!
She is really getting those switches!! You can add the switch verbal on the jump before the tunnel (obstacle 2) and that can start as she is approaching the takeoff. It will turn her even tighter ,and that way you and leave for the next position even sooner (like you did at :47)
>>If she saw me move in before she went into the tunnel, she was ready to turn on the exit!
Yes! She is doing great with convergence!!! You can be even more aggressive with it: you were turning towards the tunnel kind of like a straight line exit and then starting the convergence, but I bet you can start the convergence as you are cuing the tunnel – just give her enough room to see the entry, which should be fine because you should be running towards the exit away LOL!!
I am glad you had fun! You and Frankie are a joy to watch, and you were both fantastic with these crazy challenges š
Tracy
Hi!
Glad you are back š
>>n the first exercise, in retrospect, maybe I am releasing him while I am too close to the second jump?
Yes – you want to be a solid 10 feet past jump 2 before you release, and center on the line (I think on a couple of the early reps you were off to the side). It looks like he was jumping towards the wall, so definitely turn the setup so he has a ton of room after jump 2 to stride out to the moving target.
On a couple of the reps he was a tiny bit too close to bar 1, so try for 6 inches away for the front feet being away from bar 1, approximately.
>>How is his form in spite of that?
Good on the lower bar, but will be better when you give him more room – because you were so close, he was working out how to stop rather than working out how to jump.
>>Also, I may have been naughty and raised the bar too soon in the last few reps.>>
Agree, naughty, no soup for you! LOL! Plus it was a BIG change, both Bob and I were like WHOA! when we saw it. Bars can go up in 2 inch increments, this looked like more than that. So it changed his jumping form, especially since he was still jumping to a target that was too close. (He was hoisting/carrying his back end over the bar rather than pushing from it)
So on the next visit of this, start with the bar at 6ā or 8ā and be sure he has at least 20-30 feet after landing , release him when you are 10 feet away. And if you feel like he balanced, you can raise the bar by 2 inches but resist temptation to raise it more – we have plenty of time to do that, and we donāt want to add height before his body is ready.
>>Second exercise, min pin went really well, I think. Not sure if I am telegraphing the R/L directions to him when I had him stand in front of me in the last few reps.>>
Agree! It was super!!!!! He likes this game š I donāt think you were over-doing any physical help. Maybe there was a little leaning on the turn away moments or maybe you had your head tilted in a helpful way LOL!! But it was super subtle and by the end, he was able to do it from the center position and between your feet š Yay! So the next part would be to hold him with both hands and just look down at his head in that center position and see if he can process the left or right.
Great job!
TracyHi!
Wow, she was great here!!! he was plenty excited but I didnāt see her look at the tunnel when you cued the wrap – perfect on both sides!!
She needed one extra step to the tunnel after all the wraps on the second part (when she was on your left, turning right) but otherwise, she nailed all of it. Very cool!!!
Since she did so well with such a hard game, we can use it to help her process verbals even when she is in higher arousal. That means to repeat the session but use a toy instead š You can use the toy, then trade for a treat to line her up and hold her collar to start the next verbal, then reward with the toy, trade for a treat, and so on. That way she will get even more excited but you will still be able to get the toy back and line her up easily.
She seems like she is going to be super excited about agility, so playing these games in high arousal will really help her transfer the skills to the ring. Doing this with food reward for the first session was brilliant and definitely contributing to her success. So now you can start to add the toy in and see how she does.
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
Serp video 1 – looked great – you are running a great line and the little shoulder dip to the landing spot really helps him come right in! Yay!
Serps video 2 – dog on your right and his left turnā¦ harder for you both š It is perfectly fine and normal to have one serp direction to be flat like in your first video, and angled like you did here. You can angle it a shade more (the wing closer to the MM can move out towards the camera more, so he sees the bar more. He was coming on to the bar here, but it was a little last minute, on the part of the bar closer to the MM. That likely means he was processing, processing, processingā¦ because it is the harder side. So on this direction, you can make the jump on a really easy line for now, then it will even out with the dog-on-left side.
>>I need to learn to twist at the waist more!
You were good! You were moving forward and doing a little shoulder dip, works perfectly.
Tunnel exits – no worries about the first rep, it was just a warm up š
I love how he was able to find all the turns AND maintain a ton of speed – that is IDEAL for what we want with out small dogs!!
1:51 – really late with the right cue and he went straight, good boy!
Best rep was less late but you can be even sooner with the verbal and physical cues. We definitely want to maintain the go go go on the tunnel exits and not having waiting to hear a cue>>And I left at the end of the video for your amusement the joys of working him outdoors right now
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OMG! But he looked so happy being a dirty dog LOL!!!The tree loops looked great! So fun! What a great ācourse workā setup š Great connection – that is the hardest part of this game and you were nailing it. It is also quite the workout LOL !
On the blinds, keep your arms in really tight to your ribs so they donāt block the eye contact. The eye contact is what creates the side change, so when he was not seeing it, it was because your arm was blocking it.
For the inside circles – yes, these are MUCH harder! You can try being a little further ahead and just get a couple of steps of inside circle in, then reward, more like what you did on the last rep.
>>Youāll see on one of the last attempts I tried to push him back to give me a head start. I realize after I did it that Iām sure he thought we were doing toy races and blasted right past me.>>
That was hilarious! He smoked you! For a dog that does not enjoy being moved by a collar, he sure does like that push back! LOL!
Great job on these! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>>I was going to do the Tunnel Exit Turns exercise from Week 1 and/or the Find the Jump, but my husband is using the cart that I need to haul tunnel bags and tunnel.
Totally makes sense! The tunnel stuff can be done on the same day or two days in a row, to minimize tunnel carrying.
Looking at the videos:
>>Yesterday we tried the L/R Minny Pinny proofing and it didnāt go very well. Did a mini version of it last night in the house which was great so we tried again outside this morning. That went much better,>>
Definitely post up any videos where things did not go well š Those are the most informative!
Minny pinny looked great on this video – my only big suggestion is that you can mix up left and right more, to prevent fatigue from all the reps in the same direction for a bunch of reps. This is a bit of a gym workout for the dogs too, so doing 10 of the sane reps in a row will result in subtle form changes as her muscles begin to āfeel the burnā lol! So you do maybe 3 or 4 to one side, then switch to the other side, then switch back.
>>in watching my videos it looks like Iām inadvertently cueing with my body which way she should go. >>
When she was between your feet, you were leaning a little to indicate the left or right, which is fine because it is a good way to start with the concept that it could be either left or right from that position. It was minimal body cue and it can be faded out more as she gets more experience.
>>Same thing happened with the Sends & Serps yesterday. That didnāt go well so we quit after only a few tries. We tried again with the send/right to serp this morning. It was just ok, I had to jazz things up a bit because she seemed kind of ho-hum about it and she doesnāt come in on the serp jump if Iām moving. >>>
Two suggestions for you to help her understand the serps:
– angle the jump so she can see the bar directly in front of her a she exits the wrap by taking the wing closer to the MM and pushing it towards the camera. Because this was so hard for her, you can angle it a lot (almost 90 degrees) so it is obvious for her to see and so you can keep moving.– replace the MM with something less visually stimulating, like an empty bowl and you can then toss the treat into it.
These suggestions will help you not have to go fast then decelerate, because that adds a handling cue that we donāt want to rely on (decelerating or stopping in the serp). So the angling of the jump will get her started and then over the course of a few sessions, we can angle it back to where it is here.
>>We stopped after she started sniffing the jump. I think the session was too long (more on that below).
It wasnāt too longā¦ it was too many failures and she knew that things were not quite right but didnāt know how to fix it. So angling the jump will really help!
>>I angled the jump after a few reps and she still wouldnāt come in. We didnāt spend much time on this and finally stopped.>>
On the next session, start with the jump angled a full 90 degrees and see how she does š Your line will be the same, it is the jump that moves.
The set point is looks good. Form is good, stay is good (nice job telling her why you went back towards her when you wanted to reward :)) She looks powerful but also organized. Yay! You can try stretching it a few more inches, but overall lets leave it here for a little while (this gets built up in coming weeks, so we donāt need to obsess now that you have found the sweet spot). You can put it into the training rotation of once per week.
>>So, what I wanted to bring up is that poor Hola is not only in adolescence (15 months old on Wednesday this week), but she came in heat on Sunday (her 2nd one) and that is definitely affecting her concentration, mood, etc. She was so fussy the first 2 days I couldnāt get her to move!
Poor girl! I think she did well on these videos. Maybe the blooper sessions were hormone related? No worries, it is all normal.
>Iām thinking fewer exercises with very few reps for the next few weeks might be in order. Or mix in something that she really likes where she can run or chase a toy.
Yes! Do the favorite ones that are fast and silly, and maybe mix in a couple of reps of the more intellectual ones LOL!!
Great job here!
TracyNice work with the Minny Pinny Proofing!
The right turns in the A, B, and C positions with you standing still looked great when he was turning towards you. Position A turning away was not too hardā¦ position B was definitely hard to turn away!Turning left towards you in position A. B, and C also looked great, especially when you were in position C and he could have easily turned to his right.
As with the turning away to the right, turning away to the left was hard in positions B & C! Position A turning away to the left was a little hard for him too, he definitely seems like a righty.
So to build up the turning away, you can start in that Position A, and then inch your way over to position B turning away š We also helped some of the dogs by placing the toy out between jumps 2 and 3 on the turn aways when the handler was in position B or C, to help clarify for the dog what we wanted.
Great job on these! Let me know what you think!
TracyāØHe did well with these 3 wing lead change zig zags too!
You can try giving him the cues quicker by only moving your arms and not moving your feet at all. When you were doing the big rotations, he got the info but it made you a little late showing him the next thing. So, just use your arms and donāt move your feet at all (your feet can be facing him) and see how he does. I am confident he will be great šWowza, the find the jump game looked great – he exited that tunnel looking totally straight – GOOD BOY! Nice throws of the toy! You can add the GO verbal for the tunnel exit then keep saying it, to help name the line. You can also add more and more of your speed – run run run! Your connection was great, so keep the good connection. And you can use your arm like. Sprinter (pumping your arms) rather than having your dog side arm back. Pumping arms like a sprinter makes it easier to run, as long as you donāt lose connection š
Hi!
First rep had a little blooper – you didnāt pull him when you released so he stayed out on the line past the 2nd wing but the next reps were very strong! And it was good that you mixed up his start position so he could work on do all of the different lead changes – they looked really easy for him.He is definitely ready to do the 3 wing game, which I see you posted below.
Hi!
This is the serpentine but the camera was a little off-center so we can only really see the start wing and a little bit of the jump. I think he went past the first one – remember to look back at the landing spot as you move past the bar. Then it looks like he was doing his serps nicely on all the rest – super!
So, you can add a little more motion to these and try jogging š If he has trouble with the added motion, try angling the jump towards him so it is easier for him to see the bar.Great job!
Hi! Glad to see you here!!! She is doing really well š
On the set point – she is clearing the 20″ bar, but not quite the form we want yet. She is looking at you and landing on her shoulders a bit (instead of driving her hind end under her to power out of the next stride. So before leaving the bar at 20ā, show her the moving target set point game starting on a low bar (8″) so we can get her looking straight and engaging the power of her hind end more. Y
Driving ahead to the jump looked great! She really liked the thrown toy and accelerated beautifully to it! You can add in the Advanced version, where the toy is placed past the jump and she has to ignore it and do the wrap first š
2nd video – she did really well with the handling here and was great with the tunnel exits! I couldnāt hear if you were using a wrap verbal or not on the wrap wings (I did hear some āaroundā but not consistently – so keep adding those wrap verbals). The left and right were great! She had a little bit of a hard time finding the wing all the way past the tunnel exit after the Go, so you can move it in closer so it is easier for her to find as she learns to get comfy driving ahead of you.
>I am unsure how to proceed with her toy play. She was engaged with this game so when she played with the toy by herself I called her back to āget readyā & she came back & spit the toy out.
When you edit the video, leave more of the toy play in so I can see what is happening – the video cuts off each rep basically as soon as her mouth gets on the toy LOL!! It looked like she was tugging. Is she not bringing it back/retrieving it? Let me know and I can give you ideas.
Pill bug game –
>>Another day we did pill bug & struggled with keeping her interest.I think she wants a little more action š in the form of running and rewards. On the first rep, you had her start next to you so it was a little like heeling and she looked a little confused. When you added more excitement, she looked more interested! So add more movement and running and tugging.
>>But she gradually lost interest in playing.
How long was the session, and what was the value of the treats you were using? She likely needs very short, very exciting sessions with the toy and either a super low value treat or no treats, for now š You can trade for another toy, and also keep it in your hand if you are planning another rep. I do a lot of letting go of the toy then running the other direction with the other toy (better toy, hopefully :))
>>The nature of the game mainly? Is this how I should handle her with toys right now?>>
I think it is a matter of figuring out how she likes to play, and massaging it into a form that is useful for training. If she only has 4 or 5 reps of great training with a toyā¦ stick to 3 reps and be done š If she is losing interest, the sessions are probably too long. You can do 2 or 3 reps, then go do something else with Hoke, then come back later for another couple of reps, etc.
On the last video with food, she was more engaged because she might like food a little better at the moment š But either with food or toys, she will like the pill bugs a whole lot better if you run š That makes them a bit death-defying because you will be trying not to trip over the tunnel LOL! But she will like the energy and action of running, and will probably like the toys for that too!
Nice work! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
