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Hi!
These challenges look really strong!!! She did a great job turning away and even when she had questions, she didn’t get any BIG MAD happening or barking or anything 🙂 Super!!!
One thing to consider: using the outside arm to cue turning away and not the dog-side arm. The reasoning is that the dog-side arm mainly means to keep traveling on the same line, so she was waiting to see your feet turn before she turned away. If you add your outside arm to the cue, you are likely going to be able to get the cue in sooner and not have to turn your feet as much (or at all!)
On the first video, she was great about turning away on the jump! On jump 1, you were waiting for her to land before turning her away. I think she is ready for you to tell her before she takes off (ideally as she is approaching the jump) so you can turn her away even sooner! And since she was so good at turning away at the 2nd jump (yay!) you can start to be sooner there too (cuing the turn away to the tunnel) because you can get even more distance that way. And the outside arm can help with both of those – you can raise it really early and use it in kind of a ‘check mark’ motion to get her focus on it then flip her away.
On the 2nd video, turning away from the tunnel exit – she was doing really well here too! She was a little wide because she was seeing dog-side arm and feet going straight before she entered, so she was going straight and turning away after your feet turned. To get it tighter, you can raise the outside arm before she enters, then flip her away as she exits. If she sees the cue starting before she enters, she will be able to more easily turn away at the exit.
3rd video – switch away on the jump to the tunnel looked good! Yay! This is also a good place to consider using the outside arm because you can show that cue without going past the center of the bar, which can really lead to great position wherever the course goes next.
She found the going ahead to the jump past the tunnel a little harder:
at :54, she just needed a little more connection (she ended up on the other side of you). On the other reps, she was sorting out driving ahead of you to the jump (past the tunnel). So you can try a ‘jump’ verbal instead of go – it is possible that ‘go’ could mean either the jump or tunnel, in her view? She did get it really nicely at the end, so it might also just be a matter of exposing her to this type of challenge 🙂Great job!!!
TracyI will keep digging into the brain stuff and share it – knowing how the brain develops and how it takes twice as long for adolescent dogs to bounce back from stress has really helped me be a lot more relaxed LOL!!! And it is all backed by a lot of studies, so we can lean on the science to help get us through adolescence 🙂 It is better to be science nerds than it is to be stressed-out dog owners LOL!
Hi!
He is doing well here too! We can start building up even more independence with the verbal, with the end goal being really strong verbals to get either obstacle so that you don’t need to be right there to show handling. To do this, let him hear the verbal for what you want, before you start to move:
Try to have him start next to you, gently hold his collar, so you can start the verbal without also moving before it (or at the same time). If he sees the movement before the verbal, it will be harder to build up the power of the verbal. This will be especially important on the wraps where he is turning towards the tunnel, to help him resist the tunnel (or go to the tunnel after a couple of successful wraps :)) For now it is ok to use handling after you say the verbal, but the goal is to be able to get the cues to him without any handling, and he does it independently.Nice work here! Let me know how he does with adding the verbal before you both start moving!
TracyGood morning! Super nice work on these – his commitment looks really good! I think the only thing he had a question about was connection. Here are more details.
I got confused on the first video, I couldn’t remember Charlie barking while he worked LOL! But it was not Charlie LOL!!!! I guess it is part of a playlist? He did well!
Charlie was on video 3 – he also did well! The wraps looked really good at the start! At :09, you had him on your right and wanted the tunnel – he would have had to turn away, so it would require threadle handling and the threadle verbal, so he turned towards you first then back to the tunnel.
On the 2nd rep, be sure to emphasize maintaining connection. You had excellent, clear connection at :26! At :27, you looked forward to see the next wing and that looks exactly like a blind cross starting, so he did the blind cross side change to your right side. Good boy! You are doing a great job of staying in motion and rewarding him, even if things were not exactly what you wanted 🙂
The key with the connection will be to say the verbal cues to him as you move, and resist the temptation to point forward to the obstacle or look ahead, while he is still behind you. If he is behind you, he will read the line better if you are connected back to his eyes, with a lower arm so he can see the connection.
On the FC at :30-:31, you had excellent connection! At :34, you broke connection so he saw your back and guessed that it was a blind cross, so did the side change to your left. In the moment, it might have feltlike he was going to the toy but if you watch the video in slow motion, you can see the disconnection. One thing that will help to put the toy in your pocket so you don’t feel the need to change hands – that way you can maintain the connection the whole time.
Then I think at the end of that rep his brother was blocking the tunnel entry, so he didn’t want to run into it. Now that things are moving fast and he is doing these sequences, it is better to have no other dogs on or near the course so he can build up the confidence to drive to the obstacles.
Next video –
Really nice start, very connected! At :12, you had a looking ahead/pointing ahead moment, so he did a blind cross. On the next rep, your connection was perfect! Yay! You slipped on the grass at the end, but definitely maintain that fabulous connection.Last video – I think he is a little confused on the tunnel sends that are on the threadle side, so try to run these sequences more as wrap – tunnel – wrap – tunnel, doing a front cross on each wrap so he can drive directly to the tunnel (rather than having to turn away from you to find the tunnel). It looks like he was getting a little grabby for the toy because he wasn’t sure where to be, so you can have the toy in a pocket, emphasize connection – and not try to run as fast (for now :)) By slowing down a little to get great connection, he will go fast and find the line perfectly! When we try to run fast, it is easy to break connection and that is where things come off the rails.
Great job here!!!
TracyI bet you are all so done with the snow!!! It is March now, we are all ready for lovely spring weather!
Wow great run!!!! Who was the judge? Nice big spacing and flow on this course! And that spacing & flow plus his speed made it hard to do anything other than that flip away to the tunnel 🙂 Glad you had it in the toolbox!!! And the spacing was too big to do any layering after the flip to the tunnel, so going into the box to show the next jump worked nicely (yes, a go jump verbal would take out his one little question there).
Great job!!! He is looking fantastic 🙂
TracyYay! She definitely likes the tunnel here too 🙂 Super!
And since she is doing so well with the barrel, you can transition this game to a jump wing to match the visual she will be seeing on course in those jump versus tunnel discriminations.Great job on all of these! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
She did really well here too – she is a rockstar!!! Fun!!! Your mechanics are really good too which helps her be a rockstar 🙂
She found the wrap on the first rep, easy peasy. On the 2nd rep, it looked like she was looking at the tunnel so you didn’t let her go right away. That helped set up success! On the next session, you *can* let go even if she might be looking at the tunnel. She will either surprise you and do the wrap, or she will do the tunnel and get a reset cookie at your side to line up for the next rep (which basically says to the pups: “nice try, you are cute, but that was not quite right”). So it is ok to allow her to possibly choose the wrong obstacle once or twice – she won’t get in trouble LOL! and she will get that reset cookie to line up… it is when she chooses the wrong obstacle more than once or twice that we can help her more. Because she is doing so well, you can see what she does even if she is looking in a different spot 🙂Great job!!
TracyHi! This also looks great! She found the jump very easily and the timing of your reward throw was really good! You can switch to throwing a toy, because I think it will be easier for her to find and will help her continue to accelerate over the jump.
On this rep, you were ahead of her, no problems at all. So keep sending away to the barrel and getting ahead. You can also add starting super close to the barrel, so you close you can touch it – and don’t run til she is finishing the barrel wrap. Then you can run, which challenges her to drive ahead of you.
Great job!
TracyGood morning Gayle and Maya!
The set point here is looking great! She has a nice tight sit, and her form was great! The only thing I would do is move the reward target further away, so she can take a powerful stride or two after landing from jump 2. It is possible her reward target will end up being 15 feet past jump 2 🙂
Have you played with the moving target pre-game? We are going to add that to the jumping games soon, as long as she is comfortable with it. Based on her performance here, I am sure she will be great!!!
Tracy
Hi!
He is also doing really well with the wrap proofing! I don’t think he made a single mistake. Super!!!!
You can add in emphasizing the verbal more and handling less – to do that, you can hold him by the collar while you start saying the verbal for the wrap or tunnel…. then let him go after he hears it a couple of times. You can move a tiny bit and then work up to not moving at all – the challenge is to see if he can do it independently with the verbals only with little or no handling (because he was perfect with the handling, like when you turned towards the tunnel or when you did the front cross on the wing.And you started a rep at the very end of the first video that was 2 tunnels in a row then the wing – but the video cut off so I didn’t see how he did. I am assuming he was great 🙂 so you can add in ‘meeting’ him at the tunnel exit and moving forward to the wing wrap, so he sees motion but no ta lot of handling help. The goal is to get him processing the verbals really well, even if you are not close to the wing to help with handling.
Great job on all of these! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
He looks awesome with this Wind In Your Hair game, on both sides! Yay! You can definitely add more motion now (as much as possible in a small space) – you can take off and run, and keep running as you throw the toy. He was happy to have you start in different positions (near the wing, or near the jump) so now you can challenge him and see if he can still find the jump with you hustling as much as possible in a smaller space.
This game will go outside soon too, but for now try to be able to move past the jump and keep movin. In the smaller space, you were getting caught behind the wing a little of the jump and having to decelerate (you can see the position better on the 2nd video). So you can alter the position of the start wing to allow you to move in a straight line past the wing of the jump (rather than stopping near the wing).
In a bigger area, a 4 or 5 foot bar is great. But indoors until the snow melts, you can use a 3 foot bar or a weave pole to give yourself more room (and it is also a good challenge for him to find a smaller bar!
Nice work 🙂
TracyGood morning! All the jumping foundation skills are going well!
For the moving target on the flat – he is definitely happy to focus downward to the moving toy! Perfect! Because we are going to be using this with jump grids, we want to make it a little more dull for him since he loves his toy so much. He was holding his stay but starting to move and lean forward. To prevent the forward leaning and foot movement, try not to build up too much anticipation. Make it a little more boring LOL!!! When the toy is on the ground and moving, release pretty quickly so he doesn’t start to lean forward in anticipation of the release to the toy.
Same thing on the jump – there was a bit of a proofing element (extra toy movement before the release) which I don’t think he needs because it draws him into a forward lean. Snice we will want him more on his hind end for the jump work, you can be a little less exciting here too 🙂 When he has seen this combined with the jump grids and he is doing well – then we can add back the extra excitement level 🙂
On the set point:
The rewards on the first video totally helped him hold the sit and not move into the down (the sit is the better position for these jumping grids). If he does move into the down, you can reset him ino the sit (as Vicki suggested, it is great to have a training partner!).About the sit versus a down… for the jump grids, a down will put him in an awkward spot relative to the jump, so a sit or stand are better positions. But for regular full course agility you can totally use a down as your start position – that is because there will be at least 15 feet between him and the first jump on course, as opposed to the 6 inches we use on the grids 🙂
He was really good when you started him at jump 1 too! What was the distance between the jumps? It seemed to work well for him. And yes – definitely get him to line up straight and not move into the down. So you can throw back treats as you lead out to remind him.
The other detail to add now is to put the toy down on the ground before you release him so he is looking forward and not at you at all.
This will need to go outside soon or into a building with turf or dirt if you have any access to one – we will want the toy target to end up being about 15 feet away from jump 2 (and also moving) so more room will help! Fingers crossed for the snow to melt ASAP so you can work this outside soon!!
Great job on these!
Tracy
