Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Hello and welcome!! I am excited learn more about Gromit and I bet there are plenty of things Carmen can do here too 🙂
Have fun!
Tracy
Almost forgot this – I grabbed screenshots so you can see what really helped him and what looked like pressure to the backside of the jump:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1OJnUg_5MI7vprq3loXosAgTSFprgXSI0OZb60xm22Q8/edit?usp=sharingT
Hello! Scotch is really cool and quite brilliant. And I love that you titled the video “Evil arm” hahahahahahaha
I think having this distance with him will serve you well on course, and we can definitely keep the when we need it and use cues to bring him in tight tight tight when needed.
> as he started out saying “yeah, since your so close, I’m just going to go around this way”.>
He is SUPER good about reading handling cues, especially pressure on the lines and your feet. On the first rep, when you released, your left leg took a step to the backside wing and so that is where he went. Note the immediate difference at :14 and after that when you did not take the big step – he came right in for a lovely wrap each time. At 1:19 and 1:26 you rotated too much so he actually turned too tight! Good boy! I think the rotation plus the direct eye contact was more than needed on one jump… but probably be what he needs when you add more speed on the sequences
Other side at 1:51 – you were not really connected before the release and facing the backside line
Compare to 2:11 where you were moving straight up the line and released facing the line you wanted, then gave the turn cues. Super!!! And on the first rep on the other side (2:50) as well as the very last rep (3:12), when you moved into ithe release facing forward then showed the brake arm – gorgeous!!
Onwards to the sequences! Based on what he showed us here – when you are working to get the tight wraps, let him see you make a transition from accelerating on the line to decelerating facing the line you want, then slide in the brake arm and eye contact. I think if you accelerate then hit the brakes HARD and show him the brake arm/eye contact, he might feel that as a cue to push away around the jump. So adding the transition into decel will make a massive difference and we can play with the timing so you are sure of when to do it. My guess is that the decel will start when he exits the tunnel if the wrap is on the jump after the tunnel.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Hello and welcome back! Reacher is looking great!!
He was VERY responsive to the brake arm but also held his commitment really well.
On the wing-to-jump drills, you were varying the timing and how strong of a brake arm you were using – this was good! I think you were mainly doing it to get a feel for your mechanics (3 arms are not needed, I promise!!) and he was turning beautifully! The best reps were when you had a bit of decel into the turn, as you can see on the sequences:
At 1:04 you had decel happening before he made a takeoff decision, so decel plus the brake arm kind of at the takeoff spot worked to set up a great turn! Fast & tight!
1:19 was even better because you looked more comfy and rotated sooner.
The rep at 1:33 was cool to see: you were a little late on the decel so he was jumping straight as if preparing for a GO line. But yoy had your brake arm visible so WOWZA he turned tight when he saw the rotation!! The brake arm helps us not need to be perfect in timing!
> Had a pretty messy circle wrap as well, but did not do another rep until I could review the video.>
On that one, you were a little in the way 🙂 When you are ahead of him or parallel to him for a circle wrap, your line should take you to where the wing and the bar meet so he can get past you and start the turn. He was a little wide here because you were pushing onto the line he needed to get on to make a tight wrap 🙂 You can decel a bit at the wing/bar junction to let him get past (using the brake arm there too) you then move forward again after he has gotten past ot begin the turn to the wing.
At the end, you did the RC wrap and he was a shade wide – this is where decel will help tighten it too. You deceled while he was in the tunnel then had to accelerate again to get the RC line commitment – it was that acceleration that sent him wide. I call it a reverse transition, when we decelerate then accelerate. Ideally it is accelerate then decelerate. With the 20 foot tunnel, you will need to run all the way to the tunnel entry and along the tunnel to set the RC without ending up waiting for him. The other option there is the blind to the wrap, which would get the acceleration because there would be serious hustle needed to get there 🙂
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Good morning! Off to a great start here and fingers crossed the snow goes away!!!
>No surprise – neither dog needed the in-your-face brake arm>
I would have wagered that your dogs would NOT need a sledgehammer approach to the wrap brake arm 🙂
Looking at Kaladin’s videos:
>He already has pretty tight wraps (when they are cued in time), but I do think the brake arm tightened it up a bit more>
This raises a good point: the brake arm allows us to NOT have to be as perfect in timing because it brings an extra layer to the cues! When you were starting him from the stay on one jump, the cue was definitely late. And it was a great contrast to the 2nd rep which did not have a brake arm or exit line connection – wider! Good to see him keeping us in line with his feedback!! That last rep where you had the brake arm AND exit line connection was just gorgeous – tight and fast!
Great job with the exit line connection on the FCs and the BCs – lovely turns and connection throughout!!
> (also – he’s just not as into chasing long dangling toys so I used his favorite frizzer. >
That is fine – the toy in the opposite hand is more for the human than for the dog 🙂 It can be a frizz or a treat.
>remembered that the brake arm waits until after the dog goes past you, but was I pointing in the right place to the landing side of his wrap?>
You can think of it more as when they are catching up/passing you, not after he is past you because that made brake hand for the backside wrap was a little late on rep 1 (he was just about at the wing) so he tried to adjust and hit the bar with his back feet. The 2nd rep was a shade earlier and he jumped nice and tight! You can use that opposite arm as part of the commitment cue, so he sees it when he is still 5 feet or more away from the entry side of the wing. And it pointed more towards his eyes – I don’t think you need to point to the landing side of the wrap for him,
Looking at the sequences: it took a couple of reps to get the feel for adding the brake arm then it looked really good!
Rep 1 at :08 can be sooner (bar tick)
Rep 2 at :19 was definitely sooner but also a little disconnected and punched, so yes it did look like a threadle wrap, good boy!!!
The rep at :35 was definitely smoother but also you can think of it as adding the opposite arm to the inside arm, to soften it up a little (he doesn’t need the sledgehammer that Hot Sauce does LOL)There were a couple of questions from him but it was not about the arms, it was more about the transitions:
> Rep around 1:09 – he drifted out a bit to the outside but then angled back for a tight wrap to the right.>
The softer application of the brake arm and timing were good! He was a little drifty because you had a reverse transition: you decelerated when he was in the tunnel then accelerated when he exited, so he read the acceleration. The decel into the turn was late due to that – he had alrady been thinking you wanted a more extended takeoff spot by the time he saw the decel (too late to adjust). The same thing happened on the RC on the last rep (reverse transition) so he was a little wide on that. So keep accelerating until you move into the decel and apply the brake arm – that will be lovely like at 1:28!
Looking at Lift’s videos:
Exit line connection looked great throughout, she really drove to the correct side with no questions and your timing or position didn’t have to be perfect at all! No worries at all about the subtle shifting on these short drills, you will have an easier time getting perfect lines on the sequences.Looking for the boing on the wraps:
First wrap was great
2nd wrap was great
3rd wrap was great
(timing, transition, connection, brake, exit line arm – all great, no questions or judgement).Do you have any video of her doing the boing on wraps recently? I would bet one of the elements is missing (timing, transition, connection, brake) so that is where she was boinging. We can look at boing videos and compare!
Sequences:
>-She was reading my brake arm to wrap left as a RC wrap right – twice! At the time I thought maybe she thought I was starting to drive the diagonal line, but I can see in the video that I am heading straight to the inside wing.>
You were on a line to the left wrap wing, but the transition is what cued the rear crosses. Darned transitions! What was happening there was that you were driving to the wrap wing without decelerating into the wrap – then as you leaned in to add the pressure of the brake arm, the motion plus pressure turned your shoulders and feet to the rear cross line. She was correct (and seemed surprised when you stopped), reward those as if she was correct or you can keep going back to the tunnel so you don’t make her angry LOL
When you did it on just the jump: you were upright and decelerated into the wrap, so the physical cues all said wrap left. Yay!
You also had a lovely decel in the transition at 1:12 and 1:35 and she wrapped super well! So it is the transition: instead of getting to the wing and punching the brake arm in, you can decelerate based on where she is: no later than halfway to the jump (probably earlier on bigger sequences with more speed) you can start slowing down and adding the opposite arm to the dog side arm.The timing is key – you did decel on the rep at 2:16, but it was as she was already gather for takeoff so she was already committed to turning to the RC line.
The rep at 2:41 had good decel and position but you were not connected and rotated early, so she barked 🙂 But the decel was clearly indicating wrap, she did not turn to the RC line at all.
She liked the double tunnel at the end! Woohoo!
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Good morning!
>Here’s another couple coats. He definitely likes a coat in colder weather – and I like dressing him in coats >
Ha! My whippets approve this message – it is all about the coats 🙂
It was smart of you to change plans and just play with the tunnel. It is pretty different than a puppy tunnel! He looked pretty happy here so you can give him a ‘warm up’ of going through the utnnel then add in the smiley face game 🙂
Minny pinny – He gave good feedback here! Based on the line up (coming off your left side and facing the right turn line) both Skiz and I thought he was correct on the first rep and maybe the 2nd one too. To get him turning away, you can have him facing the bar you want and you can even place the reward or a target (like an empty bowl) in between the first and 2nd bumps.
>What would improve how I handle “errors”?>
This is an important element of training!
> In retrospect, I shouldn’t have thrown my hands up and made a big deal of it, especially given he was already slowing down, hesitating and lip-licking.>
Agree! We don’t need to make a big marker or big deal if the behavior is incorrect – instead, you can use a reset cookie in the form of a ‘good boy’ and reset him at your side with a cookie, for the next rep. So there is still reinforcement for effort while we humans can figure out if we were unclear (sometimes we are unclear 😂🤣)
Then when he gets it right: giant party! Woohoo! With the reward thrown on the line you want. Then reset for the next rep. That will keep him working happily and understanding what you want.
>I almost feel like I need to have variable reinforcement for Skizzle – where I reward every effort, but have higher value rewards for “correct” efforts>
Yes, I am a big fan of rewarding for effort (especially when my cues are not clear). That can come in the form of bringing him in for a reset – he doesn’t have to do anything to earn the effort reward, because putting up with me is definitely what earned it 🙂 And then having the BIG party will help him understand that we both got it right. And also, rewarding effort allows us humans to get feedback from the dog: if the dog keeps doing it ‘wrong’ then we humans can change what we are doing to clarify things.
The 2nd minny pinny session was really good! You had the big happy party when he got it as you intended and he was happy to keep offering the behavior.
>. I’m fascinated by dogs who understand verbals, having had a hound dog who was very good with signals, but not so much with verbals.>
Out of curiousity: Scent hound or sight hound? I have a bunch of sighthounds now and I am kind of shocked by how well they do with verbals.
>. I’m sure Skizzle doesn’t know the difference between the left and right verbals yet – but we’ll work on getting there.>
The key is getting the verbal happening before any movement is added. That way the verbal is the antecedent to the behavior, so he will learn what it predicts and start doing that. To help him learn the verbal – hold him and say the verbal 4 or 5 times while you are still holding him, no one is moving. Then after he hears it – let go and then you can give an arm/leg step if needed. You will find he will start to go without needing the arm/leg step but for now I think he needs it – and he will still learn the verbal as long as it happens before and separately from movement. If it happens during movement, the movement takes priority. They do eventually learn the verbals but it takes a bit longer.
>>It’s clear he doesn’t recognize “Ok” as a release. Do you mean when he was stopping at the barrel?
Ha – laughing at my (tired) self. I got ahead of myself – this comment pairs better with the exercise (jump grids) that I had done in person before I sent you this video.>I can see a bit of not being sure about the reelase in the 2nd minny pinny video here – so I think the order of festivities being verbal then you let go then you step/move your hand will help him with that. The same can happen with your regular release on a jump grid: say it then you can move/step/point/drop a toy. As long as it is not simultaneous, you will find that the release begins to take on more value & understanding, and he will begin to move.
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
>I do want to keep diving and I never mind showing struggles. It doesn’t help to hide them>
So true!!
> my connection I’m not even sure I can be better. I will try but I’m watching him. I even made sure th reps I sent were good from me lol!>
You sure can be better! LOL! And you were on many of the reps. Watching him and being connected are two entirely different things. We can watch and see a dog without being connected. It is what the dog sees, not what we see. I could tell you were not fully connected because on a bunch of reps you were cueing GO GO GO and he had never gotten to the side you wanted. So he stayed on his line, as cued. If you were really connected, you would have called his name or opened up more to get him to the side you wanted before cueing the Go line.
So with that in mind: use the exit line connection to train your body to consistently connect with your eyes on his eyes and your dog-side arm back & out of the way. This is the missing element:
>As far as errors go: I may have taken one skil and that one time you said something about not rewarding and employed to all. Oops!! Generally I reward everything then I get the “why did you reward that” ( not saying just from you.>
I think it has to do with dog-training skill versus handling skill. So let’s say I am training wrap versus tunnel in the proofing game, and I am standing still, hand on collar, said wrap 6 times then let go… and he flies into the tunnel – I won’t reward it. I will reset with a cookie, while I mentally check that I did it right and try again. Those are sessions where it is easy to be ‘clean’ and we can show criteria to the dog.
For handling – it is entirely possible that I was late/early/disconnected/running the wrong way/all of the above and we see common errors from all dogs when handling is wrong. An example is ending up on the ‘wrong’ side of me on a cross – well, that is either disconnection or really late connection, so I keep going, reward something else, try again with amped up connection. Or if I think I was on time and connected, I will watch the video… the video always tells me that I am disconnected and/or late.
> And with that, at some point I’m gonna be wrong in handling training trialing, >
Yes – but that is with an adult dog who has far more tools both on how to cope with handler errors, and tools about how to read lines. And if there is a handler error, handlers should just keep going at a trial and own that it was a handler error. Stopping to fix or blaming the dog is going to cause issues.
And in theory you won’t make that many mistakes, maybe one error. But as I am sure you have seen – if the handler is wrong a lot in trials AND blames the dog… you will get the same low rate of success and high rate of frustration.
So it is not about making a mistake here or there… it is about punishment paired with handler error that drops the rate of success below 85%. An error or withholding reward 10% or15% of the time? Not great, but not likely to have the same fallout if the rate of success gets to 50% or lower.
>As far as food rewards, they are there with food. He doesn’t like to eat but I am giving him food for every “middle” leg set up. You may not notice them all because it’s more cookie in his face vs him like ooh can I have that Cookie mom.>
What type of treats are you using? Also, you can (and should, at this stage) build up his food drive so he *can* eat in training. Make eating the behavior, sandwiched between tugging and other work he likes. Tug- treat – wrap or tunnel – tug for example. Or wrap – treat – tug- wrap-treat-tug.
Here is a video of how quickly this can change the dog’s food value: at hte beginning, this pup just wanted to tug or wrap. So we wuickly built food as the behavior: eat then tug. Then it was wrap – eat -tug.
> That said he got the first rep right. That almost never happens.>
Consistent failure on the first rep might be bringing frustration into the session before it even begins. It might be happening because you are working out your mechanics at the same time as you are training him – and it takes you a few reps, but he is frustrated by then. So work the mechanics without him (video it!) then work it with an adult dog… if that goes well, do a few reps with him. That will result in fewer reps for him overall but they will be great reps!
> we’ve been working mostly dog on right for the past couple weeks and when I switched over to the left there a minor moment. Mechanics, clarity ,
or him going wait a minute we don’t do this routine. Which is fine.>What happened in the minor moment? It might have nothing to do with changes in arousal and might be asking him to do something he didn’t recognize.
>The only thing I just can’t wrap around is being perfect all the time. It’s not real life, So I’ll focus on the concept of rate
of reward to help me work through that.>Dog sport training is not real life 🙂 so there is an emphasis on being close to perfect with young dogs! Rate is the absolute key – I aim for 90% rate of success. And if there is a failure or two, then something needs to change to avoid that rate dropping. The rate dropping causes frustration to rise.
My mechanics (connection primarily, and timing too) are generally what causes failure on these games but this is critical:
just because the dog didn’t do what I intended doesn’t mean I withhold reward. End up on the wrong side of me and go to the backside of the jump? Reward! And up on the wrong side of me and find the front of the jump? Reward! Something goes sideways and the dog is entirely off the line? Keep moving in flow and try again then reward.And it goes wrong more than once? Time for video watching.
My failure in communication does not automatically mean that I withhold reward – in fact, I tend to pay extra when the dog somehow tries to save me and find a line. That actually builds more resilience when there is no line to find.
> For example. Yes I usually start a rep at x seconds. sometimes a girl forgets her word and needs an Extra second. LOL! He can’t lose his mind every time that happens.>
Right! And he won’t lose his mind if he is already working at 85-90% rate of success. If he is at 33% or 50%? Yep, expect some frustration behavior for little things like that.
> I do need to be able to be human with life tho. If that makes sense.>
Yes, but also nope LOL!! You are the only one with the course map, he doesn’t have it 🙂 The dog doing something unintended is feedback about what/when he is seeing/hearing cues. If you could have in any way messed up the handling and the dog is still working and trying to find the line but does something unexpected – find a way to get reward to him as if he was correct because the video will show you that he was.
On the RC video: he ate his food really well here! And you had real connection on the exit of all the wraps, I don’t think he ended up on an unintended side of you at all.
This is a good example of rewarding anyway if the handling might not be correct. The RCs were late except for 2:15 – on the late ones, he always turned the unintended way, but good job rewarding anyway because he was doing a good job of processing what he saw. 2:15 was on time and he read it well!
I think you need a bit more room between the wing and jump to get on the RC line, and also put the start wing closer to the RC line. That will make it easier for you to be running to the center of the bar earlier, which will create the RCs. It is also a good place to stop and watch the video to see why he kept turning the ‘wrong’ way (actually correct way based on the cues. You can delay the toy throw until after you have changed sides, rather than use the toy throw to try to get the side change.
It was definitely a higher rate of success session and you can see it in the lack of frustration behavior especially when something was happening that was giving him the ick: at 3:21 and 3:39 you lined him up then pulled him to a new spot by the neck. Definite ick! Much easier to give a cookie then just line him up again where you want him.
But he tolerated it without big frustration responses like avoiding lining up or getting grabby or trying to wrap the wing – the only spot where I saw an inkling of frustration was at 4:13 where he really did not want to move when you were pulling him by his neck. It is a good example of how an overall high rate of success can keep any frustration behaviors from appearing but also – don’t pull him by the neck, it gives him the ick 🤣😂
For the serp proofing:
He had a good question about finding the tunnel here at first – the angle of the jump relative to the tunnel is incorrect: it should be rotated 90 degrees from where it was here, so he is sitting on a line facing straight into the tunnel entry and the bar is perpendicular to the tunnel entry (it was parallel to it here). The setup here makes the serp a little too easy and the tunnel a little too hard – he needed a lot more physical support which is why it was hard to get him to do it. Try flipping the angle of the jump and I bet it is much easier!
But overall it was a higher rate of success session: lots of effort rewards and helping him find it, even though I am pretty sure he knew something was not quite right – but no frustration behavior, because he was doing the best he could with the info, and you were affirming that. Yay!!
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Good morning! She is doing well with all the games!
Zig zags:
Very nice start here! Having Christine hold her wasa great way to set her up for success. She seemed very good at switching her leads, no problem at all!The next step would be to move the wings a little closer together, so you both have to do it faster 🙂
Ladder grid – the stay is looking strong here even with the cookie placed in the bowl! And she has the concept of bouncing each distance – the angled jumps were also easy for her.
So now we add more power! Switch the stationary bowl to a moving target (you slowly dragging a toy as you release her). That will get her pushing off her rear all the way through. With the stationary reward, she steps in nicely but then is decelerating to be ready to stop at the bowl. The moving target will ask for power the whole way through til a stride or two after landing, plus it begins to add in the small distraction of handler motion.I think this distance will end up being too short for her when there is more power – if this was 4 feet, try her at 5 feet and see how she does! If it was 5 feet, try 6 feet 🙂
Looking at the rear crosses: These went well! She was a little distracted by something in the environment before the wraps (a dog making noise perhaps?) but then when you sent her to the wrap, she was all business. YAY! Good job doing lots of GO reps to keep her driving forward – that made it easier to add the RC reps.
Try to have the toy already in the hand you are throwing it with – switching it was causing her to watch your hands and also delaying your line on the RCs, like at 2:01 where you were a little late.
She will also give you better feedback about the handling if you don’t throw the toy until *after* she takes the jump 🙂 Try to throw early was creating the turn on some of the RCs, but we want to be sure that your line was creating the turn not the toy throw 🙂 So run the RC pressure line and throw after you have changed sides rather than before. If you are late, she will let you know by turning the other way before finding the new side. If you are on time, she will confirm that by turning the correct direction 🙂
The Diamond: very nice connection after the blinds! You can hear her digging in to make the turn on the first one!
The BC at :52 & 1:28 were really well-timed. She was not as fast because you were not running on those. If you are moving slowly, she will think you are cueing decel so she will decel too! You can spread out the wings a lot more so you can’t walk, you have to run 🙂 When you ran more on the race track at the end, she definitely saw the acceleration cue and ran faster. So you can spread things out even more to get both of you accelerating more 🙂
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
>Realized we had skipped the Week 5 games (Oops!) so played with the layering game this morning.>
Fun!!!!
> Noticed a couple of things with my handling. 1.) Lack of connection after the wrap brought her to me so she bypassed the jump. Connection, with the “Go” and she was focused and driving forward.>
Connection is really magic! When you were connected she found the jump really well!! Layering is hard for small dogs because they have to take so many more strides, but I think this session went great! Lots of good rewards for staying out on the line and it looked super fun.
> 2) When layering the tunnel if I wasn’t in the right lane and had to step around the tunnel it pulled her off the line and off the jump. Was much better if I was further away and could show more of a straight line. >
Yes – that goes back to all those parallel path games we played: if we can set a parallel path to a line for her to stay on, we can easily build distance and layering. That is a hot course trend right now anway as I am sure you have seen with Jack!
When adding the layering you can reward ‘close enough’ and try to toss the reward past the jump when she is working at a distance even if she doesn’t perfectly get the obstacles.
>Would also help if I didn’t fall over the tunnel.>
Ha! Falling is too much decel haha
>At UKI trials I can take it in the ring with me and give it to the leash runner with his leash. >
I love this about UKI!!
>. When she caught sight of Jack’s ball she was totally focused and responsive! I’m not sure if you can see the difference in her intensity and focus on the last “run” of our layering game. >
YESSS I totally saw it 🙂 I am a big fan of using balls and hollee rollers and all that stuff in training. Somewhere in agility, people started to think BALLS ARE BAD but they are actually super high value rewards.
> Challenge is that she doesn’t bring the ball (or any of her rubber toys) back. Which is why I really need to get her retrieve down. The ball for all my poodles has much more value than any tug toy or bait bag and I really would like to use it but won’t until I get a reliable retrieve with her.>
Controversial opinion: you should play with these toys before you have a retrieve. The toys bring the joy which brings the teamwork… which brings the retrieve 🙂 More joy, less control 🙂
So how do you keep training after the first thrown ball/hollee roller/rubber toy which she is zooming around with? You cheer her on for a moment then without asking for the toy back, you whip out another ball and head back to the tunnel or wing or jump to start a new rep. It will be wildly inefficient at first 🤣😂because it will take her a moment to realize that there are plenty of balls/hollee rollers available and that you don’t want the first one back, you just want to continue playing. Then once it locks in… you can trade for treats or another ball, and she will bring it back faster and faster.The joy is more important than the efficiency 🙂 so definitely bring the balls into the game right away and the retrieve will follow 🙂 You just need several balls/hollee rollers. I also use frisbees a lot because my dogs are NUTS for them.
Nice work here! Keep me posted on how things go today!
Tracy
Good morning!
Hopefully YouTube has recovered itself – I am not seeing any errors or delays anywhere this morning. Let me know if you are still seeing the errors.
>Rou did great with the toy races and bringing the toy back (although a tad slower which is to be expected).>
Super! What a good girl!!!!
>This is as close as we are allowed to get to the ring and warm up dogs/train. She did pretty darn good with all the distractions.>
I am super proud of how well she did!! Lots of exposure to other people and dogs and noises… and she was amazing. I give YOU a big click/treat for keeping her leash loose and not trying to control her with it – a great example of that was at :37 when she was a little bit away from you and a person with a big Lab exited the building. You let her process the moment and she was able to engage with you again. SUPER!!! And then she worked really well in the last part of the video when there were all sorts of people and dogs. Yay!
There was one hard part where she took a bit of time to re-engage and I can relate: she and I both got distracted by the woman and Sheltie going into the porta-potty. I am with you, Rou – that was weird hahahahahahaha but once again, she re-engaged brilliantly.
At the beginning, you waited for her to engage to start the game. That worked well! You might sometimes encounter harder environments where she can’t engage right away. In those moments, it is perfectly good for you to start the game by showing her the treat then toss it to the side. That can help her process the really hard distractions or environments.
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
One thing to tell you – did you know that Cheetos makes mini cheese balls? Perfect for highly visible thrown rewards! Shout out to Cindi for telling me. Looks like they are widely available:
And super useful for throwing treats in grass! Figured I would pass it along.
>I’ll play more with the toy keeping it in one hand. I was trying to not have it in the send hand. Dot tries to steal it out of my pocket if I stuff it in there.>
You can start close and have it scrunched up in the send hand, to work on a bit of the impulse control with the toy! And you an use it as a stealth self-control exciting object by having it in your pocket but playing other games – so she learns to ignore it in your pocket 🙂
>I have a question on the out lecture. What marker are you using when they go out and hit the prop? I thought you said “yes”, but then you were tossing a cookie towards the prop. >
In that video, the pup was maybe 13-14 weeks old and it was her first sessions, so I was using ‘yes’ which was the only powerful marker at the time (others were still too new and at that age I don’t want to train 2 concepts at once). With more experienced pups like Dot, I would use ‘get it’ for the thrown rewards because she has an understanding of what that means. When the demo pup had a couple of sessions under her belt, I switched to the ‘get it’ marker which I think is ‘find it’ for you.
Concept transfer is looking great! And a bonus outdoor pee LOL!!! She was very committed to finding the jump and also was pretty brilliant at reading your cues. When you were turned to the jump and moving? Perfection. You can throw the reward even sooner, to mark & reward commitment to the line before she even arrives at the jump (the reward still gets thrown to the landing side of the jump).
She had two misses but when I slowed them down… I think she was actually reading handling info! Slow motion tells a different story from what I see in real time:
One miss was I think just because she was going FAST and when she started the next rep after getting the treat (:40) you were facing her, which is absolutely a cue to just come to you and *not* take the jump. By the time you rotated to face the line an started moving (:41) she was already just about at your side. Watching it in slow motion is interesting to see how well she read the cues there, coming to you even if that was not what you intended.
She had a miss at :57 but that looked to be a combo of losing her train of thought for a heartbeat at :56, then you were standing still pretty far from the jump, so she came to you.
I am happy with her choices on both of those – the subtleties of the handling asked her to engage with you and not the jump, so she did. Just because the jump if there, we don’t want her to ignore everything and take it no matter what you are doing. Good girl! The misses were both on your left side, which might have more value for coming to you than the other side – but there were no unintended ‘come to me’ cues on the other side.
You handled the misses really well – didn’t mark anything, just kept going. For the next session, you can move sooner/faster by moving up the line before she gets to the treat. That will help be sure she sees the cues sooner and also challenges her to fin the jump from behind you.
Great job!
Tracy
OMG MINI CHEESE BALLS I NEED TO FIND THOSE!!!!! Maybe Costco has them, I am a big Costco fan!
Look at that gorgeous field a the trial! Fun!!! What a luxury for the dogs – puppy and trial pro getting to enjoy free running!!
Super nice sessions here! Great use of the walk through time to play all these games.
Tugging, pattern games, chilling a bit at the trial, wraps, etc – all looked great. I could hear the wrap verbals and markers – all super! His is beautifully engaged. At the end he could see the person approaching but it did not distract his engagement. Good boy!
Send to mat was adorable – he collected to get on and not slide across it (brilliant) then rolled on his hip to look relaxed but his tail gave away his excitement LOL! Wag wag wag! Perfect 🙂
Since trials are a great opportunity to work with crowds of people, you can add in playing pattern games with you holding the leash and navigating past groups of people – a good time for that is when people congregate outside the ring before a walk through. That is a nice mental game for him eventually navigating through crowds before entering the trial ring.
I would like to add dogs to the crowd he navigates through BUT I want him to be able to do it easily first with only people, and I don’t trust other dogs at a trial to be sure that he is 100000% safe. So you can set up navigating through a dog crowd with friends who have dogs that are safe and will ignore him, or with your own dogs – maybe they can be on cots at home, or Ripley on a cot and the Swissy on the other side of a gate, and Vibe patterns past them.
Great job here!!
Tracy
Good morning!
She definitely loves smacking the prop!! She was fast and adorable!!!
Both sessions went really well!!!
>The 2nd video I realized I wasn’t looking at her, once I started to make eye contact before I send it seemed to really help. >
Yes – excellent adjustment and adding the connection to her eyes did help!!
>I was struggling when she kept trying to get the treat from my hand instead of looking at her prop. >
Part of the challenge is ignoring the treats, and she did really well. One thing I see here is a side preference – this is totally normal with puppies and good to see as we start the training! What I mean by that is she was really good at turning to her right: sending to the prop from your left sides then turning right to get back to you. Those were very smooth sends and not a lot of wanting to stay with the cookie 🙂
The harder side for her was when you were sending from your right side and she needed to turn to her left – she would either not send as smoothly because she needed to think about it (because it is like trying to write your name with your non-dominant hand). Or, she would turn to her right, away from you.
So she is a righty 🙂 And that is good to know! When you add challenge to the games, start with right turns for her. And to get her smoother with left turns, you can start her closer to the prop and also you can be a little further away to the side so it is easier to turn to her left.
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
He did really well here! What a good boy!
>Dublin was a little more distracted but did well.>
The visuals of the contacts were distracting at the beginning then when you went back to the prop later in the session. That is good to know – they are pretty big and probably smell lie cookies 😂 He was distracted in a good way – he seemed interested in getting on them! Not yet, Dublin, not yet 🙂
>I think I need to add maybe the pattern game or something for focus at start of my session. >
You can totally start with a pattern game new the contacts! It can help. And playing the prop game further from the contacts will help too. The prop is tiny compared to the contacts (the barrel is a much bigger visual and he had no trouble with that).
Looking at the prop game – with the visual of the contacts, you were probably too far ahead on the back and forth with the prop at the beginning. He was hitting it well when you were closer but running to you when you were really far ahead. I think the contacts were simply a big visual draw.
So when the prop is in between big visual distractions, you can start closer to the prop to make it more obvious – that is when he was most successful and was able tp do the parallel path game and the RCs.
The RCs went well! He turned really well in both directions!!!Turn and burn went well too! He turned beautifully in both directions (fast and tight!) and by the end of that session, you were starting the FC pretty early – right as he arrived at the barrel. SUPER!
The hardest part was the one up – he was very interested in the toy 🙂 You can line him up with a cookie then reward him for coming to your side – he seemed to have no trouble going from a cookie to that great toy. The good line ups like at 4:47 and 5:28 really helped, those were perfect reps!
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Good morning!
Backing up is going really well!! You’ve got her backing up pretty far and straight – the platform really helps. She is ‘looking’ for it with her back right foot. Verbal is added, you are standing.. perfect timing to add the next steps which are getting posted soon!
Lateral distance game is also going really well – by the end of the session you were 4 or 5 feet away, I think. Nice! When you had a little more speed, it took her a moment to remember to hit the prop but she had a great one on the last rep! Super!
For this game, we are going to start working rear crosses – to get her ready for that, you can add more distance away from the prop to start but not lateral distance: start right next to her so you move forward together. She should leave you behind to get to the prop. When she is driving ahead, we will add the rears where you change sides behind her and throw the reward the new direction.
Great job with your connection on the blinds! She is very responsive to the side changes – your timing was super on most of them, starting the blind when she took a step or two towards you after the cookie start. There as only one late rep (:22) where. The blind came just before she got to you so she had a delay finding the new side. But your connection was super so she was able to get it! And the pivots were all lovely because you had clear decel. Yay!
You can add more distance to this game so you are both running more 🙂 And you can also add a toy as the reward to see if she will switch back and forth from food (start cookie) to toy.
Lovely job with the pattern game! She is doing really well – this game can totally go on the road (you might have already taken it places :)) Using high value food, you can take her to agility locations or any place there are good distractions, and play this game to get engagement. She will be on leash in those places, so be sure to practice it on leash if you haven’t done so alredy.
Great job on these! Stay tuned for more games coming today!
Tracy
