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This went really well – she is looking all grown up!!!
>>Doesn’t help that there is a dog barking in the background. I will try to improve conditions next time.>>
No worries! It all looked and sounded good 🙂
I think this went GREAT! You were really connected as she drove up the line in each position. The only time she looked back at you or curled towards you was over the 2nd jump when the toy had no been thrown yet. So, you can throw the toy sooner or have a placed reward so she keeps looking ahead.
>>then I moved the toy to my other hand on the last rep>>
I don’t think this was a problem for her at all – I watched that moment a few times and you were still connected plus she didn’t look at you, so it was not a problem. It is in the exit line connection that it becomes more important that the toy to remain in the correct hand and not switch around.
The only suggestion to add is on the send to the start wing, use more of your dog-side leg to support the send when you are in position 1 (near the jump) or close to position 1). When you sent the your leg already a bit forward, she had no questions. When your leg was not forward enough (:43) she thought you wanted the jump next to you. So you can have the leg already pointing forward, a step ahead of the other leg, before you send. Or, you can step forward with it as you start the send. Both will work nicely and will get your leg involved when we add moving sends next week.
Great job here!!!
TracyGood morning!
>>My videographer, Sandie, had a knee replacement on Tuesday.>>
Please send my best wishes to Sandie for a speedy recovery! She is an important part of Team JJ and I hope she has a fast and easy recovery then enjoys her new knee 🙂
>>PS: I am having fun with this pup!!!>>
Yay! She is a super fun pup with a bright future is so many different sports!!!!
>>I do not do well taking clips out of videos and linking them so is it better to do a 3 min video clip, or to do 4 miniclips, beginning -middle -end??>>
It is easier to do the session and then just post it up without editing. Set your timer for 2 or 3 minutes and train til the timer beeps. In the in-between-rep moments, I can drink more coffee 😁 or scroll forward or type ideas, so there is no need to edit it. Editing takes too much time 🙂 Plus her toy happy dances are really cute 🙂
>>. I never threw well left handed, but since my accident I do not throw well right handed now either. >>
Your right hand/arm is probably still recovering and I am sure the throwing ability will come back! In the meantime, if you are training on your own, feel free to use a placed reward or target on the big long lines. That way you can handle without having to think about managing the throws. If you have other people around to throw, great! But if not, the placed reward/target will make things easier.
On the videos:
On the first video:
>>Struggled at first getting the send around the wing.>>
That was the hardest connection spot for you here, the rest was awesome! On the the wing sends, you were tending to look ahead of her at the wing which is a broken connection. So when you were in position 1, the looking ahead was turning your shoulders to the first jump, which is why she wanted to go to it. When you were closer to the start wing, your position/motion overrode the connection so she got it with no problem.
Look at the last rep, though, at 2:28-2:29: You were in position 1 there (closer to jump 1) but you made GREAT connection to her eyes on the send to the wing… so she zipped to the wing with no questions. PERFECT!!!
The connection looked great as you moved up the line! Throwing the toy was the hardest part there 🙂 but her commitment to the jumps and your connection looked super strong. It was especially good on the position 3 reps where she had to drive ahead! She did NOT look back at you (she was looking ahead) and that is terrific especially with a young dog!!!
On the 2nd video:
You nailed the connection on the send to the wing right off the bat and she got it (you can see the subtle turn of your head towards her there even though we can’t see your eyes from this angle, plus she had it figured out by then).Her question here was finding jump 1! She just couldn’t find it! That is actually incredibly normal with young dogs – they go fast… right past the jump LOL! If you want to take a peek at the threads of Chaia & Lu and Bev & Chip you will see dogs in the same age range working through the same question 🙂 I fully expect my baby whippet to do the same thing when I put bars in for him 🙂
So, it is more of a training approach than a connection approach to help her out 🙂 You seemed to be super connected! So to help her out, do everything the same as you did here, but let’s break down finding that first jump:
– lower the bar a bit so it is easier to organize to jump
– place the toy (or a target) on the ground between the 2 jumps
– send her around the wing and walk up the line. That way you are in motion the whole time, but not going soooo fast that she matches that speed without finding the jump, and without trying to decelerate to get her to do it. Slow and steady motion to start 🙂If that helps her find the jump, we will start to add more motion, then more height, then move the reward to past jump 2 (in that order). It probably won’t happen in one session but probably will happen within 2 sessions! And if she struggles with that and still misses the jump, we can break it down more but my guess is that she won’t struggle with it 🙂
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning! I love this session!!!!
>>The distances are backwards
I thought the distances looked good! Distances on all of the games are flexible, because distances on courses can vary a lot.
Dog on right looked fantastic! Your connection was perfect on the 1t 2 reps (position 1 and position 2). When you got to position 3 (starting at the wing), you kind of went into “run for your life” mode because she is so fast and she got so far ahead 🙂 The connection was not quite as strong as she went around the start wing there, so you can keep the hustle and add a little more connection to her as she is wrapping the start wing.
Dog on left was basically perfection 🙂 This is EXACTLY what we are going for – the camera angle gave us a great view of your connection. You nailed it on each rep! Yay! And she seemed to have NO questions at all no matter which position you were in
>>The distances are backwards: she never had to look up at you for more info, and she had consistent striding (big fast confident strides). And I think she liked the fling-and-go start with the wing wrap LOL!!!
Terrific job here! Keep practicing this so that you don’t even have to think about it – she seems to thrive on getting the connection. Onwards to the exit line connection!
Tracy
Good morning!
First rep – oops, I think you said tunnel LOL! He was good though, good job rewarding him 🙂The FCs here are wrap on the jumps not between the jumps, so you don’t have to worry about getting into the gap between the 2 jumps without getting run over 🙂 So you can send around the wing and accelerate – then decelerate do a wrap FC on the 2nd jump, then accelerate again (with the exit line connection after the FC).
The straight line rep at the end on your left looked great! You can add on your Go Go Go verbal because the connection looks lovely 🙂
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
>>I need to work on a broad jump. Do you think it’s reasonable to use that as the first jump or second jump?>>
Oh, that is CLEVER!! Yes, great idea. You can start it as the first jump because that is more likely to be the context (I have never ever seen it as the last jump :))
>> Also, is your spacing 20 ft?>>
A little closer to 23 feet, but spacing can be flexible (and bar heights reduced if the spacing is tight).
>>I’m assuming you do NOT want 4 tries in each position. That would definitely be too many especially with both sides.>>
Correct! Move through it quickly if it is easy. And if she sails through the 3 positions with no questions, you can exaggerate them: start halfway better the jumps to send to the wing to get WAAAAAAY ahead. Or, start close to the wing and stay there til she exits the wrap to try to get way behind 🙂
>> I think this will be easy for Sprite so I think it’ll be one and done in each position unless the broad jump throws her. If so, I’d remove it.>>
If it throws her, don’t remove it – let’s train on it! If it was a connection error, you can fix the connection on the next rep. If she walks on it, and you are very connected and see it clearly, then you have 2 options to break it down:
– make the handling easier by keeping your motion fast by not being as far ahead or behind her
– reduce the # of boards. Maybe just do 2 boards to start with then build it up.Keep me posted!
TracyGood morning!
>>Wisconsin girl here that plays a lot of agility in Minneapolis at On the Run and in Madison, Wi at Canine Sports Zone>>
Very fun! There is a lot of great agility in that area!
>>My verbal system was taught to me by my former coach, Kim Schaefer-out of Rochester MN.>>
Awesome! Kim is fantastic!!!!
I like the verbals system! TONS of clear info for the dog with all of those verbals!!! Do you also have a threadle/wrap or something to differentiate it fro the threadle slice? Threadle/wraps are a hot item in course design lately LOL!!!
>>I use very little arms or hands and I have found this to be effective.>>
Perfect – arms/hands are not all that important and often get in the way 🙂
>>I know Im losing Mira on some of the more difficult courses by not maintaining my connection with her. This fits so great with what Im doing.>>
Yes – connection bloopers are the top cause of faults in dog agility. Video shows us exactly the moment that connection breaks change the info and cause the dog to have to make decisions based on less info.
The video looked great! I love your giant cookie tub target – clever!!!!
Your connection was pretty perfect 🙂 You had your arms back and out of the way which is great too. Have you tried just pumping them like a sprinter to help run up the big lines? She is really fast and course lines are getting longer, so we are trying to find ways to get handlers up the line and arm pumping (while maintaining connection like this) is one way to do it.
>>I should have put her between my legs as that is how we start out. I don’t know why I had her on my right side.>>
I think you did it intuitively perhaps, because it is meant to be like handling the middle of the course rather than a start line? Mira seemed fine with it and sent beautifully to the wing 🙂
She had a bar down on the first jump of rep 2 at :31. I watched it a few times to figure out why he might have had the bar down. Are bars a regular thing for her, or was this a random thing? After watching it, I think two things were happening: you can give your verbal cue sooner (it happened as she was over the bar here and it looked like you looked at you the tiniest bit because you were quiet.
And, I think the wing placement created a lead change to get jump 1 and shift to jump 2 (which is totally fine :)) but she was just a little late doing it so she touched the Bar. It might be related to the verbal needing to come sooner, as soon as she exits the wing wrap. The verbal on the other 2 reps came just before takeoff for her.
Great job here! How did the other side go?
Have fun!
TracyGood morning! I am excited to see you and Bazinga here!!
>>Should Bazinga use jumps in this class since we just added bars at the end of MaxPup 2?
Yes, I think she should totally ue jumps. Yay! She is ready!
Have fun!
TracyHi! These are fantastic questions!
>About the arms, I can hear instructors saying something like “you dropped your arm and that is why Karma came in/missed the jump” as an example. Or if I was sending and thought she was “going” but then dropped my arm and it pulls her off her path.>>
That is why we video things pretty obsessively nowadays 🙂 The refusals/missed jump issues could be that the connection was broken (which is incredibly common when we use too much arm and not enough eyes) so she comes in off the line to try to figure it out (herding dogs often go around the other side of the jump to figure it out, some dogs bite the handler LOL! – same issue, different responses)
Or you might have dropped your arm and looked at where you were going… and that totally changes the line of motion so the dog comes with us 🙂
Or the dog doesn’t understand the distance requirement of a send.
We will be working on all of that for sure! I do use my arms on sends, but for simple straight lines, I often just run and use connection and motion. You can see my just hustling up the lines in the demos, because otherwise my racing whippet youngster would leave me in the dust so much that he’d be in the next county LOL!!!
>>I know it’s hard for you to say without actually seeing an example, but could it be that dropping my arm was NOT the reason for the refusal or missing an obstacle but simply the quality of the connection???? >>
10000% yes! And if you have a video example, feel free to post it and we can see what the cause was. And then we can work on it!
>>I have always been told that the arm(s) support the rest of the cue so my arm(s) is ALWAYS out. >>
We humans made that up somewhere, probably because we like to use our hands LOL!! The dogs get most of their info from our motion, where our shoulder are pointing, connection. The hands are useful for some things to support all of this, but hands are really not a primary cue to the dogs that motion and connection are. And hands/arms tend to mess up the info more often than they help, on some types of lines LOL!
>>I have been told to “keep my arm lower”, but never to run without any arm support, maybe this is my problem!!! >>
Try the simple lines without the arm support – your motion and connection are doing the work there (along with verbals) so you can just hustle along the line. I think sends are good to have some arm support, but my arms are really just extensions of my eyeballs 🙂
>>So this is a HUGE change of thought for me to run with my arm(s) not what I THOUGHT was “supporting” the cue……..am I making any sense????? >>
Totally makes sense – it is a BIG change of thought!! I think motion is a primary cue for dogs (fast versus slow motion, and the direction of our motion/feet). So that is lower-body driven. The details of motion (like which side to be on, exactly what the line is, etc) are given by our connection because it is our connection which controls the upper body. The dogs definitely read where shoulders and chest are pointing!
And interestingly: the better our connection is, the less the dogs look at us. But when our connection is poopy, the dogs look at us because they need more info. Feels so counterintuitive, right?
Let me know if that makes sense :)
TracyI see what you mean! You asked if she was ready and she definitely said “no thanks”. She didn’t fully disengage and leave she just didn’t want to do the obstacles. She wanted the ball and the treats so you were able to get her to do the tunnels…
It looks like she is wearing a harness here – you can try running her without it because it looks like it might be restricting her movement (she was not moving that fluidly here). And when she had her physical checks, did a soft tissue specialist check her out? She might have something going on that might be the underlying cause of her “no thanks” to doing the obstacles. I know the Chiro adjusted her but there could be something causing her to be out of alignment. That is where I would totally start looking.
>>And exit line connection should really help on those tunnel exits, I believe!
yes – the exit of the first curved tunnel is a serp where exit line connection would work great!
Tracy
It is super subtle – when she was on your right and running past the jumps when you turned your shoulders down the line, you added in a brief moment of facing her as she was doing the wing wrap (:07, :12, :37. That rotated your shoulders towards her and got her onto the line but put you too far behind (she is FAST!). Plus, we want her to find the line while you turn and face it 🙂 Let me know if that makes sense!
Tracy
Welcome!! I am glad to see you here! And it sounds like good timing to be able to start building up his sequencing skills while we sharpen up your connection. YAY!! Have fun 🙂
TracyHi! Thanks for re-setting the privacy!!
This is great video for figuring out what he needs for connection and for training.
He had a question about the wing wrap start:
On the very first send, you were looking forward and pointing forward which turns your shoulders away from the wing and towards the jump – which is why he was headed that direction (then he got Big Mad because the info was not clear).
The send to the start wing at :22 and on the last rep was much clearer – low and better connection, so he committed really well!On the first rep, you were running and connecting and pretty far ahead. The position ahead combined with the motion was toooooo much so he could not quite coordinate taking the jumps.
Compare to the 3rd and last reps, where you brought the wing in closer (smart!) so you could be connected and a little ahead, without running hard – and he was perfect 🙂 Yay! Your connection was great there too.
The 2nd rep was more like a jump grid with you leading out and not moving that much – easy peasy!
So as you work through these – add one challenging variable at a time. I think the 2 challenges are you being way ahead (and also possibly behind when you get to it) and moving really fast. So either be waaaaay ahead but doing a fast walk/slow jog to start. Or, be closer to him, only a little ahead, and going fast.
We will work them separately then merge them together so you can be fast AND ahead, and he will still take the jumps.
Great job here!
Tracy
