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Good morning!
She did well with the plank wobbling a bit! Hopping onto it and getting off – no problem!
>I think she liked it LOL>
I agree! A good indicator that it is rewarding for her to do this was when she came running back to the plank each time you released her to go get a cookie. Yay!
Sitting? No problem! Down? No problem! Turning around was hard for maybe the first rep of each side – going in a full circle s hard to balance but then she got it really well later in the session. As long as you keep the hand lure slow and low, she can balance and do the full turn.
>SSC folding was going so well until it didn’t. >
“Going well until it didn’t” basically sums up puppy training LOL! 😂😝
She definitely likes this game too! It is easy peasy when the dish is right on the line, halfway around, and more than halfway around. Perfect! So let’s look at the cutting in:
It is possible that the ‘dish’ marker is too early here so she thought you wanted her to go to the dish. Even though it is a new marker, she might recognize the context of “when da momma says a thing, it means go to the dish”. Here is why that might be the possibility: At 1:22, it looks like she was going to the cone and then you said dish while she was till a couple of steps away from the cone (so she went to the dish).
At 1:39 and 1:56 you said dish as you released her, so she went to the dish.So for the next session, don’t say ‘dish’ until she is definitely at the cone, maybe halfway around it – then mark the decision to do the cone behavior with the dish marker.
The other thing that can help is if you are closer to the cone: that way it is easier to see the line to the cone and follow the hand cue – and less room for her to cut in 🙂
If you still have the videos from previous sessions, feel free to post them so we can see if the marker timing is indeed her question.
The prop game went well! She still has a ton of value for the prop and wants to hang out at the prop (this bodes well for getting a lot of distance later in her training :)) She was driving back to you a lot better here because the yes marker and presentation of the food was enticing and fun! You can also use a tug toy in this game. That way when she hits the prop, you can bring her back for a game of tugging that will get her driving back even faster.
>I think I broke my puppy LOL! Her toy play has kinda left the room. I don’t know if it’s the time of day (befere or after breakfast/dinner), if I’m using her kibble first for training then (trying to) use a toy, me – my mechanics or what really. >
It could be time of day (hangry!) coupled with the presence of food, so her food drive is overriding the toy play. It could also be mechanics and type of toy: if the toy is not moving or is too small (close to your hands or you are bending over), she might not be as interested in tugging. You can tie the toy to something long (like another toy) so you can keep it moving away from her, drag it around for her to chase, etc. but don’t lift it up or crank her chin upwards when she is holding the toy.
And use a really high value toy, and boring treats 🙂 Most of my dogs are PIGS 🐷 for food, so I never train them on an empty stomach: they might get part of their meal then a bit later, I train with food. That helped balance the food drive with toy play, and also gets better responses because they are not distracted by their hunger 🙂
She might also be teething, so use long soft toys that are easy to grab.
>Silly question, she is playing alot more with my older dog lately, is that jepordizing her play with me? >
Not really, but also that might be giving her enough toy play that she is tired when you want to play (or mouth is sore because of teething). But also, it gives you a good idea of how she likes to play. I bet the older dog is keeping the toy low and moving it (or trying to pull it) away, rather than towards her. So you can learn about Sunnie’s play preferences from her play with the other dog, but you can also limit it so that the really great tug toys are only for you and her to play with together 🙂
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
I am glad the beef is helping him feel good! The Fold It In session went great !
>I still need to work on my mechanics for timing around the cone.>
I thought the timing of your bowl marker was spot on – you were marking when he was definitely going to the cone and not just to the bowl 🙂 You can also add your wrap verbal when you let him start moving.
He did really well here – only one question on your left side, when the bowl was very visible and he tried to cut through between you and the cone. He got it on the next rep though and the reps after that!
He was definitely excited to go around the cone, so you can try to lure him into position at your side with a treat rather than pull him – it is hard to lure when sitting, so you can toss a treat behind you and then after he gets it, have him come to your side.
>I did a little too long with the food and need to watch that also.
One way to do fewer reps with food is to limit the treats you have with you: bring 5 cookies, do 5 reps, then it is easy to break things up because you have to go get more cookies 😂 😝 And in that moment you can play tug, to keep things exciting (or do a few reps with the tug then get more cookies).
Great job here!!! Have a blast at the fun run!
Tracy
Good morning!
The plank and wobble board looked great here! He seemed SUPER pumped up to get on both the plank and the wobbler – yay! Letting him offer is what contributed to his excitement because it gives him agency and gets a lot of reward after the decision to get on the plank/wobble board, which is very motivating 🙂 He was so quick here, I am not sure you could have slowed him down enough to let you lure him LOL!! The lure as a hand cue to turn around is perfect.
You can try the variety of stuff to walk around on again, letting him offer and see how it goes. You can also let him see Sadie do it first then let him have a turn.
Great job!
Tracy
Good morning!
The rear crosses are going well – they are really hard! Great job adding in the GO reps because that keeps him driving ahead and having fun as you work out the RC timing.
There were some normal ‘Goldilocks’ moments on the RCs:
The 2nd rep was the tiniest bit late at :07. The 3rd rep was the tiniest bit early at :13 (pushed him off the jump). Then the RC reps at :25, :36, :45 were just right: timely enough that he could see you getting to the new side before he had to make a takeoff decision on the jump. Yay!
On the other side, a similar progression to find the timing: the RC at 1:00 was a tiny bit late (he was taking off turning to the Go line before the RC info was visible). The rep at 1:12 was just right! I thought the rep at 1:24 was good but he said it was late and he gets the final say in the matter 🙂 Maybe he didn’t pick up the turn because it was almost too early and he had to squeeze by you to find the jump? Maybe he is a righty and so the left turn info had to be SUPER early in order for him to organize turning left. The last rep, 1:40, was really well-timed, nice and early, and he got the left turn. Yay!
For the next session, you can add the advanced level of the backside circle wraps.
For the serp proofing game:
You can change the setup slightly so he can see the tunnel more easily but rotating the jump placement 90 degrees: his line should be directly facing the tunnel entry (he had to collect to turn to get into it here which is why he went around it on the first rep) and the jump goes on the line between him and the tunnel. That will add more challenge to the proofing because the tunnel will be sooooo easy to get 🙂
The serps look good here, he seemed to have no questions at all! And he also did well with the in in threadles – you can leave your threadle arm back for him to find the the jump, because the arm & verbal should me come in – go out. That way the threadle will be more independent and he won’t wait for an arm/shoulder cue to take the jump.
You can add motion on that side in the next session, walking through the serp & threadle lines.
Great job here!!
Tracy
Good morning!
The distances on the bumps looked more comfy here for sure! She did a lovely job turning towards you in both directions. I thin the right turns were a little harder perhaps?
>Tried the turning away and that didn’t seem to go that well. I went back and looked at the video again and maybe need to add a target or something…>
As the proofing gets more challenging and she has to discriminate between turning away and turning towards you, a couple of things will help to solidify the verbals:
– we want her to hear the verbals before she moves and before she sees any handling cues, so line her up in a start position and hold her collar. Say the verbal 3 or 4 times, then let her go. That allows for processing time before movement and will increase the rate of success.
– for the turning away, line her up on an easier angle so she is facing the bar rather than turning away in order to get to it. That can totally help her find the line on the turning away
– If needed, you can totally add a target (bowl or toy on the line) between the first 2 bumps. That visual aid can give her the ‘aha!’ moment that tells her that it is OK to turn away from you 🙂
When she’s got that, you can move the target to between the 2nd and 3rd bumps, and the fade it out entirely.
The zig zags are off to a strong start! The mechanics might feel a bit weird 🙂
Her start position should be right next to the wing like you had on the 2nd rep and after it (like at :45). When she was on the other side of the first wing, (first and last rep) you can start her closer to the wing: sitting right next to it and facing the 2nd wing.
The handling cues to get her to go in and out fall into the category of “as much as needed, as little as possible” so there might be some experimentation on how much handling she needs. If you lead out to the 2nd wing and face here, you can cue her to zig zag in and out with your arms with minimal foot movement, like you did at :50. That will allow her to zip in and out while allowing you to fade out the handling. You can also have the wings a little closer together (maybe a foot closer) to challenge her to change leads sooner.
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning! These sessions are all super strong!
Looking at the serp/tunnel/threadle proofing video:
This was a WOW session! The feedback here will be boring 😂 You set him up perfectly for the serp challenge here! Everything was spot on: the obstacle set up, his stay position (facing the tunnel), your position relative to the jump for the jumps, your reward placement, and how you made. The handling and verbal look different when you cued the tunnel.
The serps on the first few reps were perfect! He has a little more value for serps right now than he does for layering to a tunnel – you did a great job breaking it down for him! And then he went right back to the serp went cued.
He also did really well with the new threadle cue – and a double click/treat for you for all adding in stay rewards when your threadle arm was extended.
My only feedback is that you can keep your threadle arm back as he comes in to you and don’t use it to cue him to take the jump, because the threadle arm cues nothing the come in AND go back out to the jump bar. If you leave it back and let him sort that out, you will have very independent threadle slices. We don’t want him to wait until you turn your arm to the jump as permission to take it.
So overall – this session’s setup and mechanics were AWESOME and that is why he was so wildly successful. Next time you can start adding motion!
The ladder grid session also went well! He is doing a wonderful job of staying organized even with the aded excitement of motion and a moving toy. I like this distance for now, he did a great job!
For the moving target toy, switch to having a longer toy to drag so you can be upright instead of leaning over. And, lead out more so to the toy is 10 feet or more past the last jump before he gets to the last jump. I think the leaning over (which is pressure downwards on his line) plus the toy being so close were what got a lower head position here – a bit too low. And that might also be part of why he ticked the first bar on the 2nd to last rep (it was a back foot, I think) – a bit too much excitement with leaning over and the toy close. He was also a shade too close to the jump on that rep. You being upright and the toy being further ahead will fix all of that.
>That will be it for jumping until next week so he will have a rest.>
Because he is so young and because he already has lovely form, a rest is good! There is no need to do a lot of jumping because he is well on his way to being a great jumper.
Looking at the FCs:
>I have trouble sending him with the toy in my dog side hand but I guess he will get better at that. >
That is part of the embedded impulse control challenge: can he go past the toy to get to the wing? I like to throw in impulse control challenges a lot LOL It was hard for him because that is one of his favorite toys
Part of the challenge is to be connected on the sends: if you point but don’t connect, he doesn’t go to the wing (1st rep). If you connect even with a little point? He goes directly to the wing (2nd rep)
>Hopefully there is some improvement on my part here.>
You rocked it! They were perfect on the first side! You had a small challenge on the 2nd side at 3:54 where you didn’t get get the connection: your dog-side (left) arm was not pointing back and out of the way to show connection, even with the toy across your body – so motion overrode the the verbal there and he thought it was the serp. You fixed it on the next rep at 4:05 and after that, and he was great.
On each side, there was one rep where he was going to the other side of you on the way to the toy (at 2:22 and 4:06 where you got him back to the correct side). That was a subtle disconnection moment. The rep was excellent til you looked forward and pointed forward, which accidentally cued a blind cross on the get it cue. He reads everything! So even in that moment, be connected to him by saying ‘get it’ directly to him and not to the toy 🙂 A classic disconnection is where the dog is behind us and we look forward and point forward, and say the cue to the obstacle and not the dog. So try to always deliver the cues to him (and not to the obstacle) when he is behind you or next to you.
One other thing I notice: he is relying on an arm swing back as the cue to come in for the serp. When you don’t swing your arm back (or do it really late), he doesn’t come in like at 3:00. Compare to the other reps (like the next one at 3:11) and those all have tile arm swings. If you want the arm swing to be part of it, do it earlier at 3:00. Or you can make serps into a locked arm and have threadles be the cue which has the arm swing back. That is one of the ways my dogs differentiate between serps and threadles (arm movement or not).
> Why is it so hard? I feel like I don’t trust his commitment so I stay still too long. Is that what you see?>
It is hard because connection is hard – a small subtle handle cue needs to override the motion, and I think it is even harder for smaller dogs because they are closer to our feet/motion and not our faces. Plus it is a brutal mechanics challenge for us humans 🙂 with the off course jump right there – our cues need to be clear and timely or we get the off course. I found this game to be much easier with my 20” dogs than with my 12” and 8” dogs. Dipping my shoulder down a bit to really show the connection helped the Papillon a lot.
> I will persist and keep trying! Funny how we forget that we can’t take things for granted with puppies/young dogs!!!>
This is SO true!! Adult dogs have learned all this even if it was through a different path, and that makes puppy training feel so much harder.
Great job here! Have a blast at the trial!
Tracy
Good morning!
>she did manage to pee on the grass!>
Victory!!!!!
I think the lap and tandem turn sessions went great!!
>It’s too rushed>
Do you mean she is too quick to get back to loop back to you, or she is rushing?
> and she is struggling to turn as she needs to slow down>
This is more about the timing of the cues, more about that below.
The lap turn session went great! She (and you) seem more comfy turning her to the left. Those were lovely!
There was one blooper on the right turn side at :41 – that was mainly because your turn cues were too early (leg stepped back to soon so it was not available to draw her back when she got to the turn hand). It was also the 5th one in a row – you don’t need to do that many. You can do one then play with a toy, or two in a row as a loop then break it off. Doing a whole bunch in a row will generally lead to someone messing up (human or canine, usually human 😂) and breaking it up is easier to keep it clean and successful.
The tandems are also looking really good! Going back to your question:
The tandems are built off of handler decel – so her questions were mainly because you actually moved forward fast while she was heading towards you and also trying to turn her away so there was a bit of a conflicting indicator: accelerate or decel to turn?
When you decelerated on the left turn side – those reps were pretty perfect 🙂
On the right turn side, you had more acceleration so that is where the tandems were a little harder. When you were sure to decel then turn her, she was perfect.So be moving away as she goes to get the treat, then slow down to lock her onto you hands, and I bet she nails it every time.
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
>I caught him out of the corner of my eye prance up the length of the plank on his own, just enjoying it. >
That is so cute!!!1
He did great on the plank session – very confidently hopping on and off. He was also super happy to run across it.
He wants to look up at you (makes sense because he is so little) and that was causing him to lose his balance when he was moving across the board, so try to get the treats delivered down below the level of your knee. When you did that, he was looking forward better instead of all the way up at you. To keep him looking lower when he is running across the board you can try holding him, placing a cookie a few feet ahead then letting him run to it. Keep the board low like it was here when you do this, in case he gets too excited and falls off 🙂
Looking at the prop sends – I think he is doing really well and he has good value here. Was it his first time doing this outside? Having the neighbor noise was actually a good thing to add as a distraction here. He had a lot of success even with that. The backwards sends were definitely the hardest so you can stick to forward sendings and sideways sending where there are distractions.
The first side went great and then at about 1:08 you changed sides and he was not as snappy. It is possible he was a bit brain-tired from having to hit the prop AND ignore neighbor noise in the early part of the session. Getting the toy involved helped because it raised his arousal, which helped get him going again. So definitely use lots of toys! And in the harder environments, you can reward the ‘almost’ hits because he is still leaving you to send, and that can make it easier for him as distractions get harder.
He loves to offer behavior and was practically on the wobble board before you finished putting it on the ground LOL! Good boy! The very minimal tip and noise was perfect here. You can delay the click or time it so it happens for moving the board, not just for getting on the board. That can get him slamming it even more!
He was not as sure about tugging on the board but I think that had more to do with the toy not moving as much. You can have the toy moving more, even if it goes all the way across the wobble board, and see how he feels about it.
>I suspect he may notice the sounds. He is pretty tuned-in to sounds. I won’t say sensitive necessarily, but he listens, assesses & reacts to sound quickly. So maybeeeee he is sound sensitive?>
It is hard to know for sure – but as long as he is not worried about it, we are good to go! Using super high value toys and crazy high value food – plus one or two rep sessions – will ward off any fear of sounds. I like to do super short sessions on the wobble board (one or two reps) with high value rewards so the pups don’t have time to get worried and we leave them with positive associations and wanting more 🙂
>We have been working on toy play and reinforcement strategies. Mostly we are working on tug and out, the 2 toys game, and some retrieves and “get it” for thrown treats on the ground. >
Perfect! He has a lot of good options in his toolbox!
>With food from the hand, I think need to add a verbal. (decisions, decisions to pick one!) >
What about “cookie”? LOL It is easy to remember 🙂
>He has been pretty good about switching from toys to food & back so far. >
I have never met a Chin who can do that. YAY LEW!!!!!!
>I’m keeping the treat value at a medium (not steak!)>
Maybe a single piece of steak for one rep only on the wobble board when there is more noise?
>I wish he would eat string cheese – I love your suggestion about shreds being safer for him as far as choking. I’m going to give it another try since he seems to be into developing his palate these days! hahaha>
Ha! They also have shredded cheese in cheddar varieties, my dogs all like cheddar a lot LOL!
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
Starting with the end of the video:
He had some questions about the wobble board: too much movement for his little self! So you can squish some towels under it so it moves less and he can happily explore it at his own pace.>For the movement and noise- instead of luring, should I set up a treat scatter? Think he’ll pay attention more. The pad is under the wobble board because it’ll slid across the floor.>
Letting him offer is the best bet instead of luring or treat scatters, so he thinks about his body and also tells us what he is concerned about and happy with. Making the unstable objects *more* stable for now will make a big difference and you won’t have to lure him to get on them.
Going back to the start of the video: He was really good with his plank games! Luring with a hand cue to turn around is useful here because it directs the behavior and he was already happy to get on the board.
I think the plank here might have been a tiny bit too high (hard to jump on for a little dude) so you can lower it a bit and keep the reward placement low so he doesn’t lose his balance reaching up for it.
He did great with the cone wrapping! He was sorting out how to go all the way around really well, especially when he could totally see the treats and could get to the them without going around 🙂 Super! He was not fully staring at the line but also I wouldn’t expect a Dachshund to stare. You can watch his eyes and see if he is looking there or glancing there to get more forward focus. He was tossing his head when he was ready to go LOL
Barrel wraps are going super! The wraps to the left were great – good job moving it for the right turns and out for the left turns 🙂 That is perfect for now at the start of each session, and then when you did NOT move it back in he got the right turns too! Yay!
The transition to standing was great. This is going make the new game on Monday much easier.
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
>We did one of our in person classes Tuesday night and wish I had recorded it to show Dublin wrapping a chair and going under a pole with fleece and cups hanging. The instructor was thrilled how he was going so close to the chair and ignoring the gap in the fleece curtain lol. >
So fun!! He is doing great!!
>Sad to say lots of chicken and we ended up with more tummy troubles. >
Poor buddy! I wonder if he has a chicken sensitivity? Lots of dogs don’t do well with chicken but are great with beef or turkey or cheese. And the pumpkin treats are perfect: tasty but also good for his belly!
>Today we did some of our wrapping and I tried to keep the bowls by my feet or behind me. >
He did great! The pop up was really far away and he was wrapping beautifully. He had one frozen moment where he kind of forgot what he was doing LOL but then he got back into it really well!
You can put the wrapping game away for the weekend, so his brain can sleep on it 🙂 We add the next steps on Monday!
>We also did some goat work on plank and a little obstacle course. The cot was new and the Cato plank was higher
I agree, he did really well being a goat 🙂 The plank is narrow and higher but he was great about getting on and staying on – he was brilliant about turning around and keeping all 4 feet no the narrow plank! Impressive!!! Keep your hand moving a little slower when you want him to turn around – faster hand movement will pull him a bit off balance.
His little obstacle course is hilarious! He was terrific and confident. For the moving Cato plank and mini teeter – try to reward lower (with the cookie close to the ground) so he shifts his weight back and doesn’t look up at you as much. That will be helpful when you eventually train his teeter for real.
To keep creating obstacle courses for him, you can tart to overlap objects – the little orange teeter can have one end resting on the blue plank. The cato plank can land on the cot. Anything different and new is fun and helpful!
Great job here!!
Tracy
Oops, I forgot to mention that there is a discount code for the Opposite Arm class:
WINTER25
It will save you $25 🙂T
Good morning!
>We finally had a lesson with Jessica today after a 2 month hiatus. >
Awesome!! I bet it was fun! And since you are working on all these verbals, I am sure she has good ideas/opinions and can help. The last I checked on what she and Perry were doing, we all had the same general ideas about verbals (as in, we need a lot of them haha) even if the actual words were different.
>but there was major distractions going on in the arena next to the puppy room so maybe being home in his comfort zone helped him do better….or maybe he had all day to process it and that helped too. >
Yes, and also yes. It might have been a connection issue, or an adolescent split brain issue: he was able to devote only part of his brain to the FC because he was devoting the other part of the brain to trying to tune out distractions from the arena next to him.
Looking at the video:
The serps are going well! You can rotate towards him even more on the serps by rotating at the waist – think of it as pointing your chest back to him. The reason we want more more rotation is to get him in on the serp jump but also to be able to cue the next jump when we add it: the rotation at the waist will be the easiest/best way to cue it.
>I also want to know about my position while doing the FC. >
On the first side, standing in the gap blocks the line to the serp so he was able to get it. But I don’t think it shows enough connection – you had to stay there without moving until he came to the correct side.
On the 2nd side – your position and line were good. So why was he still thinking it was a serpentine? Lack of connection. You are trying to cue him to come into the gap with your dog-side arm low which closes your shoulders forward/breaks connection so it only works if you are stationary.
So to get the line change and be able to stay in motion, change the connection to the exit line connection where you are pushing your dog side arm out of the way by wrapping your opposite arm across your body. You can even show the toy across your body – that is mainly to get the dog side arm out of the way and establish connection to his eyes so you can keep moving.
Here are visuals:
>FYI I changed my left wrap verbal to “loop” (Left ….Loop…makes more sense to my brain) and I put the “tight” back to the right wrap as I didn’t love saying wrap wrap wrap (tight and right rhyme so that works for my brain too LOL).>These are great! The highest priority is that we remember to use the verbals, so it is useful that they make sense to your brain 🙂
The ladder grid is off to a lovely start. The introductory back-chaining went great and you got lots of stay rewards in too. Super!!
For the next session, we can ramp it up 🙂
I think when we ask for more power, the distances here will be too short. What distance was this? We can probably add 6” to each distance, maybe a full foot! But the first reps can be done with an extra 6” in each distance – and with the moving target 🙂 That will get even more hind end push and keep him looking forward.
>Not sure if you prefer a side camera angle?>
Yes, that is ideal, because I can play it in slow motion and obsess on his form 🙂 The form I see here was really good – organized and balanced! He seemed to have no questions which is why we can move to the next level.
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
>I think I’ll sign up for the opposite arm class, it’s something I’ve always wanted to do better. Do you think I should do it with one of my adults though since Carmen’s still learning things?>
Absolutely! Part of the class is one jump and wing to one jump, with Carmen can TOTALLY do alongside your adults. We play with some opposite arm stuff here in Max Pup 2 in the proofing games but not a ton of it. And the sequences can be done by the adults. Since it is a handling class, you can split the working time and post videos of Carmen and the adults each working different things.
> My boy is awesome but we struggle some with turns and deceleration at trials. In fact, after what you said about having them jump preferred in AKC to help with striding I think I’m going to try that with him to see if it helps.>
The thing with dogs with HUGE strides is that the decel has to start really early. You might find with your boy and with Carmen too that you need to start your decel/turns cues before he takes off for the previous jump, so he already sees the cues in progress when he lands and can adjust. It will feel crazy early 🙂 but is actually right on time for these hounds 🙂
In the Wind In Your Hair games, we are adding handling (decel into a wrap is the next game to be added, coming soon!) so you will see how early Carmen needs to see the info starting (no later than exiting the wrap of the start wing).
>This evening Carmen and I worked on the Sends and Serps from last week because I hadn’t done that yet. It went well but there were some times of her going straight to the treat and train so I did some having her come through the jump to my hand with a treat. We did 3 short sessions. I rotate through turns with my other two between her sessions.>
Perfect! You can reward from hand as a balance for the TnT, and also rotate the jump slightly so it is easier to take in order to get the TnT. I try to trigger the TnT as soon as the dog is over the bar, so make the association that it is coming over the bar that gets the cookies to appear, not just running to the TnT 😂
>After watching the videos I saw that for the entire first two sessions I was telling her to go left when she was going right and right when she was going left!!>
Oops! I think we have all done that at some point. When I started adding all of these verbals, I had to record my ‘walk through’ even on these puppy games to double check that I was not screwing it up 🙂
> I feel bad because who knows how many other times of done this and I’m sure it’s confusing for her. So, I didn’t bother uploading the video and I’ll redo that and start on this weeks games.>
Don’t feel badly about it! Part of what they are learning is the tone/volume/pitch of these verbals which are an important (or MORE important) than the actual word. But you might need to video your walk through without her to be sure you have the right word too
I am looking forward to the video!
Tracy
Good morning!
Tunnel exits:
He is doing really well! We can clarify some of the cues to make it perfect!
>Our biggest challenge seemed to be the turns out of tunnels. Not sure if it’s me or if I can help reinforce it more.>
It is handling (too much convergence, generally), he was responding really well!! Here is the breakdown:
Run 1:
Your timing of the GO was good, say it a few more times (don’t let there be much silence :))
Your left turn verbal timing on the tunnel exit was good but the convergence to the wing pushed hum wide on both left turn tunnel exits.
To avoid that, don’t converge: move the wing over onto a mire visible line and be moving towards it on a parallel line at a distance from wherever you are when he exits – no need to be right next to it, so he won’t push wide when he sees your line pushing into him.Then you said GO! at :10 then right when he was in the tunnel so he exited straight then adjusted after he exited. I think the GO was just a verbal blooper on your part LOL
The left soft turns wing to wing looked good and the GO GO GO at the end was lovely – he didn’t see the toy throw so you can say get it when you throw it to help him look forward for the toy
Run 2: Go then wrap on the wing at the beginning and end looked great!
As with the first run, there was too much convergence on the wing wrap after the left turn tunnel exit so he was a little wide heading to the wing. Handling on a parallel line with more distance will smooth that out.
Pill Bug:
Yay for the gentle suggestion of GO! RUN! Hahaha Yes – no standing still here, even if you are terrified LOL
And having him held also made it easier to start the game 🙂
He was great! And your connection was great!When you changed sides, starting with a shorter run worked a lot better because he had done several reps to the other side o it made sense he would go there again. But he nailed it when you shortened up the distance a bit!
You can add in the blinds on t his game, and the 2nd tunnel 🙂
For the Minny Pinny:
Either lock the bars into the jump cups, or use jump bumps: he is hitting bars and we don’t want to desensitize that by having a toy follow it. And we don’t want him rolling a wrist or getting hurt if a bar is on the ground.
Along with the locked in bars or bumps, you can use food for this too – reward with food then tug in between reps. That can help him work his footwork and should take out the dropping bars when you present the toy to reward.
The whole conversation about turning away was honest and hilarious! Good for you for getting outside of comfort zone. And he did well!
For the turn away, you were starting him in the hardest spot. He should be much closer to the bar you want him to turn to (he was closer to the ‘wrong’ bar here). So for the next session, start him a little closer to the correct bar so it is even easier.
Tunnel-wing discrimination:
Finding the tunnels was easy! When he had a question about the wing, don’t move it further away (because that takes the tunnel a lot harder when you want it) – I think a better approach is to make it easier to wrap by helping him see the line. You can use a physical cue or put the toy in the gap to help him out.
He is getting the idea so you can start the next session with immediate help on the wing (rather than starting with the tunnel then having failures on the wing) and build the tunnel in after that.2nd video:
One thing to add in these sessions is to line up and reset after an error with a treat. Don’t think that happened at all, so you will want to mix that in.He was able to get the wing wrap after repeated tunnel reps but the wing was really far away – so the tunnel was out of the picture after the wing wraps and he was guessing. So definitely keep that wing nice and close and help with physical cues as needed.
Also – hold him long enough so he hears the verbal several times before you let him go. When he was missing the tunnel in the middle, you had gone back to releasing his collar as soon as you started the verbal. Compare that to the beginning of the video where you held it long enough for him to hear it a couple of times and he was far more successful with both the tunnel and the wraps – that hold so he can process the verbals is really helpful!
Nice work here!!
Tracy
Good morning!
>I’m a little worried about a toy on the ground as getting it back will be an issue>
As she is learning to bring it back, you can still have it on a line: the main part of the toy is on the ground but you are holding the line. That way you get all the benefit of the toy placement, and she gets the fun reward, and you don’t have to worry about the retrieve.
>But, she might bring it back twice and then the next rep she stands and stares at me with the toy in her mouth or she takes off running with it.>
If you know you might max out at 2 retrieves… ask for only 1 retrieve then the toy goes back on the line or you do something else. That way you get rehearsal of what you want instead of rehearsal of what you don’t want.
She did well learning the tunnel!
>Mostly, she went around the outside of the tunnel and didn’t go in. >
Those were not in the video – was the bowl far away so it was easy to see past the tunnel? The placement and entries you had here were appropriate for the first session: very close to the end so it was more efficient to go through the tunnel to get it rather than around the tunnel. Going through the tunnel is hard because there is an element of having to duck down, so staying close and having a straight line of approach helped a lot.
Since the tunnel is short, you can also use a toy: have it on a long line and when she offers going through the tunnel, you can toss past the exit and move it for her to chase. You can also place it before she goes through the tunnel, but I think the next session should be more about getting her to offer it and less about having a placed reward at the end.
>I’ve finally relented and ordered a treat and train from Amazon. Never used one before. Hopefully, it’ll be helpful.>
It does have a zillion uses! I think you will like it!
Nice work here! Have fun at the puppy seminar!
Tracy
