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Hi!
>>I really find your comments about food very helpful as they make total sense and help me get my own thoughts in better order if that also makes sense.>>
Yay! I think that if we think of eating food as “behavior” rather than as motivator or reinforcement, we can make tremendous progress 🙂
>>She will take food at a trial after she has run so we usually have a very brief tug when she comes out of the ring and then switch to food for the cool down She will also take food before she goes in if it’s high value enough, but prefers the toy.>>That is great! It means we can use food if needed and the toy when needed, to help optimize arousal states. The food is likely more of a gateway to getting the physiological effects of the patterns, but that is fine with me 🙂
>>I’m happy with her focus at a trial but I just feel that I need another set of eyes on what I am doing now as I’m sure there are always gaps and at 2 I think it’s a good time to address any.>>Perfect! At 2, she is still an adolescent so we can see what she needs help with, and what she does not need help with, and keep planning from there.
Volume dial game is looking good! She was quick to respond to the cues (except one down cue, she was delayed, which made me laugh because the down should be easiest for a BC LOL!!!!!) And her ‘out’ of the toy was great. So she was likely in a pretty optimized state at the moment, and we have a good picture of her body language at the very end. So the next steps would be to take this game to different places: what does it look like in a new location? When another dog is running agility? With a video on and someone yelling TUNNEL TUNNEL TUNNEL on that video? We can get a good picture of how her arousal states change.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyThis is the pattern games and volume with the novel object in the environment – looked great! Yay!! He had a great rehearsal here of seeing something new and returning engagement to you. When you play the volume dial with food- make the food into a toy 🙂 Rather than deliver from your hand in a calm way, let him chase your cookie hand as you deliver it, so there is more action.
Do you have any group classes or setting where other people/dogs are around, so he can practice these games with other new and happy distractions? He seems definitely ready for that.
Great job!
TracyThis session went really well too! I think he is ready for you to start your crosses sooner: When he lands from 2, cue the 3 jump (verbal, motion, connection). And when he looks at 3 – you start the FC or BC. You were doing it as he was lifting off for 3, so he was making the turn on landing. I think he is ready for earlier timing for sure and that will help as you raise the heights too (the bars will come time on 20 or 24 inch heights if the cues are late).
The only other thing is to either have the toy in your hand the whole time, or pull it out after he finishes. You were pulling it out on the ending line, which draws his attention to your hands. So having it ready will be easier for you both!!
He did have one question about jump 1 at 3:16, but I think he was probably not lined up as well for it as he was on the other reps where he found it easily.
Great job!
TracyHi!
This was a good session – you had really good position on the #2 jump so his turn to 3 looked good! And his stay looked really strong too – great job rewarding it!The hard part of commitment to 3 – and that was a connection issue. On the first rep and on the last rep at 4:22, you were more connected with him as you cued the commitment to 3. On the other reps at 2:30, 3:01, 3:42 – you were disconnected and looking at the jump, pointing forward – so he was not sure about what you wanted. Ideally, you would be looking at him as he is jumping 2, and maintain that connection while you send to 3 (the low arm helps because he can see the connection better) – remind yourself to say your dig dig cue directly to him and not to the jump LOL!
You gave that info more clearly at 4:22, so he committed! I think you were pressuring into the jump more, so he read it as a rear cross but that is fine – you were great to keep going and reward. If something goes wrong, try to keep going but definitely don’t mark with oops or uh-oh because you can see his demeanor change as he gets a little worried. And if he doesn’t take a jump, it is 99% be a connection issue, so you can ramp up the connection on the next rep and he will be great 🙂
Tracy
Hi!
The leash does make things harder here LOL!! He did really well. The harder part is the mechanics – try to have your treats cut up and already in your hands, so you can be super quick to throw. And, I like to loop the leash on my wrist so I don’t need a 3rd hand 🙂 and you can also throw a little less far so handling the leash is easier.Since he is doing really well, you can introduce a novel object into the environment, and also take this game on the road to different places (nothing scary or weird, just different :))
Great job!
TracyHi!
>>A couple questions, I have the bars here at 16, I know we were doing a lot of reps – his jump height will be 20 or 24, will be going for first measurement in mid dec but he is borderline. I have done some sequencing at 20, 24 just on single jumps. When should I start moving him up more?>>
You can start moving up to 18″ on easy lines and good footing. If that goes well, you can move to 18″ on harder lines and turns. Then you repeat the process to move up to 20″ It will take a few weeks or more to get 20″ then it will take a lot longer to get to 24″. He can (and should) start his trial career at a jump height lower than his measured height. 24″ in AKC is REALLY hard because of the types of lines and short distances, so there is no rush to move to that height even if he measures into it.
>>Next week I have entered him in FEO fast one day at a newish location- he has been in to do some training and get body work. I am going there one day this weekend- work on the pattern games there?>>
Yes, pattern games and volume dial. And remember that he is only 17 months old, total adolescent 🙂 so make the FEO FAST run really easy and fun fun fun! Take a look at the “Just Like Home” game I posted.
>>Another question – there is an ACT test next month. You can’t use toys / food in ring. At this point i am thinking to hold off on this and get my contacts more solid- and keep doing FEO runs. What do you think?>>
I agree with you. There is NOTHING to be gained by putting him into a real run of any sort (again, only 17 months old, wildly inexperienced). There are 4 steps of NFC/FEO runs we will work through before he runs for real 🙂
Tracy
Hi!
You can try to change the default down by having your feet more spread out, so he has to move more to get the cookie 🙂Tracy
Good morning!
>>We walked out to the sequence yesterday on leash. Changtse shut down!!! She said that this was a strange way to start our training session in ouryard!>>
That is terrific feedback from the dog, and indicates that you need to use the leash a whole lot more in simple environments like at home. You can use in the house for simple pattern games, and simple pattern games in the yard. The more you incorporate it into the everyday things, the less weird it will be 🙂
>>Today, we went out with no leash, just doing the “GEt It!” Game (Back & Forth).
If she did well with it, time to add the leash! Add it in the house first then bring it to the yard.
>>Broke down the sequence with the bowl to drive to. That went well, except I noticed that she was very distracted by the bowl. On Seq 1, placed the bowl at exit of #1 jmp, then near tun ent., then at tun exit. C opted togo from jump 1 to the bowl. After 2 times of skipping the tunnel, I put the bowl inside the tun. ent. Then again at the tun exit. That went very well! We took a break after running more of the sequence.>>
She might have been confused about what the indication was for the bowl versus for the sequence, so be sure the the bowl marker is very specific and clear. That might help!
>>Later, we went out with no bowls. She is having difficulty with her start line sit/stays. Should I try your bowl to bowl exercise at the start line?>>You can definitely try that! She did well with the stay here on the video, so was she breaking the stay when she was struggling? Or was she not able to sit?
>>Here is her start line and then some tricks that she also could not do at the start of the session.>>
The start line and sequence looked really good here. You might not need to add bowls to it at home, that might be something you save for harder situations.
For the tricks – that is a great repertoire of useful tricks! The higher your energy was, the more she was able to do the tricks 🙂 That was mainly visible when you were giving little hand cues or physical cues to help the tricks, and that is great. The one thing to add to this is more energetic cookie delivery. Rather than handing her the cookie when she is stationary and delivering to her mouth, make it more of a chase-my-hand moment: have her follow your hand as you run a couple of steps, then hand her the cookie. Or, you can have her jump up on you to get the cookie. That will help to optimize her arousal but adding action!
Great job here :)
Tracy
A kong is a good option! And it is good feedback to note that she was able to walk on a loose leash 🙂 You can try adding the down to class, to see how she does in her next run – that is also good insight from the dogs 🙂
Tracy
Good morning!
Thanks for posting the complete video, I love to nerd out on the entire process 🙂
>>If I let him he would constantly be running circles around me when we are walking.>>
It sounds like we are on the same page that running circles around you the whole time is going to send his arousal the wrong direction LOL!! You can add his leash to the process, even at home, so it is a part of the process that you both don’t even have to think about, and also so that the leash does not become paired with the arousal of the trial environment.
Glad he could eat food, the pattern games look good!! Practice makes pathways! (Neural pathways 🙂 )
He looked lovely on the sequence. He is a gifted agility dog and all of your efforts to help him be comfy in the environment are going to pay off BIG TIME with huge successes in the ring! I am excited for you! In fact, it is really cool that. I can obsess on the tiny handling details here 🙂
>>You’ll see he started in full run mode :-)>>
I want full run mode – giddy up!! Of course, we have to figure out the cues and I think that is what happened here at the beginning of the sequence.
On the first release 1-2: I would give him the benefit of the doubt on jump 1 to the tunnel – the tunnel is not actually on his line there the way it is set up, and he is inexperienced enough to run past it. Marky would go in the tunnel. A youngster would run past the tunnel. And you acknowledged that by changing your handling which really helped! YAY!!
It is a good moment to look at how to handle oopsies on course with him: if something goes wrong, stay happily engaged, use a reset reinforcement (toy or treat) and try again. You got stationary and very quiet, which indicates error but when it is not *his* error or he doesn’t understand, you will see frustration/arousal creep in very quickly. You can see after the 2nd error, the arousal changes and he starts to circle a bit
Also – I highly recommend that you do NOT punish bars, for two reasons:
– he is managing a lot in terms of processing and speed and arousal and if your cue is wrong or weird (because we are human), he is likely not going to be able to always cover you and keep the bar up, especially at this age. So if a bar goes down, unless you can see the *exact specific mechanic* that caused it and you are willing to wager $100 that your handling was very clear (I am never willing to wager that my handling is very clear LOL!!!), just mentally note it but carry on. Then look at the video to see what happened.
– punishment needs to give feedback about the precise thing that he did that caused the bar to drop… which is something agility handlers are really NOT good at LOL!!! What happens is by the time we process that a bar in down, the dog is long past the moment of whatever mechanics or choice called it, so the feedback doesn’t make sense. That makes us humans pretty unpredictable and creates a lot of anxiety/arousal/frustration.
So looking at 2:33 where bar 7 dropped:
You were very decelerated and quiet in your cues, so at 2:32 he landed was approaching 6 in relative collection, responding to your cues. As he was lifting off, you dropped the connection, dropped your arm, and accelerated. He was like WHAT!! OH CRAP WE ARE NOT TURNING and hit the bar trying to adjust (you can see based on his placement on the bar that he thought it was a turn based on the cues).
The marker that he was wrong came 2 strides later, when he was facing jump 7. That is too late to indicate what the error was precisely.
Also bar 3 was down and he didn’t get feedback on that (it was a late FC so he was trying to adjust in the air) – but stopping for one bar and not the other bar is also really unpredictable.
So even though it looks like he got a cookie or toy, the marker and stopping is a definite punisher. It will skew the arousal in directions we do not want (over-arousal) and doesn’t help the processing that we need to get around the course. He is a really strong jumper on the next rep he actually started jumping HUGE over 3 and 7 but that is not really form we want because then he will stop responding to turn cues (because they can be unpredictable and sometimes come before a punisher).
So the key is to stay really connected and work on staying in high motion on the go lines. Dropping your arm down lower so you can make better connection and so he can see it will really help! And on these smaller setups, you can run closer to the lines so you can stay accelerated – if you get too far away, you might end up doing the decel-then-accel which confuses the dogs a bit. And for the FC 2-3-4, let’s test his commitment: as he exits the tunnel, be connected. Tell him to jump 3 and when he looks at 3, start the FC. So you will be running forward into it then rotating – you were running backwards into it while rotating, but backward motion can still present as forward motion.
>>I didn’t take a break after the first complete run to show you a bit of his escalation. >>
I thought it was overall a strong session and nothing worrisome in the escalation. The bits of arousal shift that I saw were due to the confusion when he was being told he was wrong. But he bounced back really well! The #1 easiest path to regulating arousal on course is to set things up so you don’t tell the dog he is wrong (because the dogs are really almost never ever wrong :)).
And I do have some more tools coming to help him regulate the arousal because when contacts & weaves get added, there might a time where we say “dude, no leaping over yellow please and thanks” LOL!!
For the next session: add the volume dial game. We need to bring him into that higher state of arousal. He is ready!!
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Good morning!
Outside back and forth looked good, he was very quick to re-engage and your timing was good with the cookie tosses! He definitely did get to practice assessing the environment and re-engage, because every now and there something caught his attention and he looked at it… then looked back at you. Perfect!
When you added the new obstacle – also a great session. It was the perfect level of distraction: out of place but not too weird and definitely not scary. At first I think he was wondering if he should target it LOL! And there was one moment when an outside distraction caught his eye but he returned his engagement to you there too.
Volume dial was definitely a different energy level and that is perfect!
His downs look good (although he doesn’t quite move into the sit easily after the down, so maybe keep those separate). The spins are great for this game. And the touches are also great. Talking a lot during this game is PERFECT FINE 🙂 It is the pattern games that we want to keep quiet on.You can take the volume dial game outside and into other locations and see how he does!
Looking at the handling:
At the end of the first video, you said something like “most excellent” and I agree! There were no warts on this video LOL!
That session of 1-2-3-4 on the first sequence went great! Lovely stay, he found the line very easily, and you got the FC 3-4 very easily. Yo can try starting the FC sooner to see how well he is committing to 3: when he is halfway between the tunnel and the jump, you can be saying “jump” and starting the FC. Otherwise, don’t change a thing!!On your first sequence outside: Also lovely! I think he was confused when you lined him up and stepped backwards so he ended up being lined up sideways especially on the 2nd run. O the 3rd run, he was a LOT straighter and found jump 1 with no questions. So be sure he is totally straight and facing the jump so he has no questions.
He found his line here really well on both runs so you can totally start the FC sooner on jump 3: you were starting it when he lifted off for 3, so now try it at the halfway point between the jump and tunnel. As long as you are connected, I bet he has no trouble.
>>taking it outside takes it to a whole new level, he stays with me, but he checks in sometimes and I think I talk too much
Yes, outside amps things up but it went great! I don’t think you talk to much and in fact, I think you need to talk MORE. The checking in happened when you got quiet, either on the 2nd to last jump or on the jump before the tunnel at the end.
On the first run, you told him to go and then you got quiet, so as you fell behind him he looked back at you to be sure. On the second run you were saying go then you said something else (I am not quite sure what it was, maybe ‘get in’? ) so he looked at you, thinking you wanted at turn – then you said go so he tried to adjust and hit the bar. And on the 3rd run you got a little quiet and mixed in get in with go, and I think that caused him to look at you. So feel free to be extra noisy and name the entire line by continuing to say go go go tunnel tunnel tunnel 🙂 He seems to understand that better than get in, because he looked at you when you said get in.
Great job here!!
TracyHi!
>>So I’m watching everyone else’s pattern games and their dogs don’t seem as frantic as Tipsy gets…I’m using pretty low value treats and she is hyper-arroused to eat anything. Is that normal and okay?>
It is normal and ok and actually pretty helpful! Terriers can get into that more frantic-looking state, but it is possible she is not frantic but just REALLY motivated 🙂 And that is helpful because it simulates the higher arousal state you get in classes, for example – so she is offering engagement and practicing self-regulation in that higher state! Super!! One thing I had to learn when I got my first terrier was just how quickly they can move – fast feet, fast decision making, fast everything. BIG learning curve for me, but they were not necessarily over-aroused or frantic. Sounds like she is similar 🙂
>> Last night she started being focused on where the treats would be thrown next, to finally offering focus to me.
Brilliant and hilarious! And totally terrier, trying to think 6 steps ahead of us. If you have done a lot of shaping, it is possible she was thinking it was a shaping game and looking for the reward placement? Definitely an overachiever 🙂 But she sorted it out nicely. And I am glad the up and down game is going well!
You can definitely add moving and the leash, and even a novel object in the environment. Keep me posted!
Tracy
Hi!
>>Covers don’t help. It’s the sound I think.>>
Could be the sound! Will she lick something off a lickimat or from a Kong?
>>I can try outside the pickleball courts in a few days. >>
Oooh that is a fun distraction!
On the down video from class:
She was not calm here, and that is fine! She was able to hold a stay and self-regulate a bit. Relaxed? Nope, but not frantic and able to do a stay. Yay! So then… what happens next will be good to know. Was she able to work with focus and engagement?On the 2nd video – thanks for the singing, Gemma! Very cool! EVERYTHING moved faster in this session and that is great – we need to add arousal to all of these games and this definitely accomplished that. Plus YOU were in a higher arousal state too, probably closer to what you are like at a trial, and that is great for her to see in training 🙂 Sprite was great here!
>>We played in the backyard with Gemma and the ball. I’m tossing small pieces of food, so they might be hard to find. >>
You can use bigger pieces and shorter sessions so the amount of food remains overall the same.
>>Interesting about the left and right. Is it my tossing to that side?
I don’t think it is your tossing. I see it here, and in the park video, but not the first home video. Interesting! Notable! But nothing concerning. Maybe it is a processing thing when in slightly higher arousal. The answer will reveal itself eventually 🙂
Great job :)
Tracy
