[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi! It is there:
“Here is the PDF with the maps for these games: MaxPup AF Handling 2 tunnel turns ”

You can find it right above the video.

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

On the set point:
You can do a warm up without the jumps to refresh the stay while the toy moves – that way he won’t break the stay, plus you can make sure you are moving and the toy is moving a few steps before the release. If you move and release at the same time (like at 1:57) then the release will become motion-based. At 3:00, you were spot on with moving and dragging the toy for a few steps, then releasing. Try to always face forward on these, and not back at him.

For the jumping – try to set him up closer to the first bump, probably within a foot of the bump. That way he can push off his rear and have a balanced jumping effort. He was a bit too far from the bump here, which makes it harder to organize the takeoff. At 2:31 and 2:53 he added a foot tap before the first bump, and at 3:40 he landed on the first bump.

To get him lining up straight, you can work on tight lines up right at your side, so you can be nice and close and he will still line up. Or, you can be on the landing side of the first bump and face him, drawing him in closer for the line up.

Speaking of his rear: if you see him roll his hips I the sit (like at 2:50), take a break from the session and come back later. That is usually a fatigue sign (even if it is only a couple of reps) and he was rolling onto a hip to shorten a muscle that might be tired. If he releases from a rolled sit, he will have his feet going every which way (which is what happened here) and not the mechanics we want. So, a break to walk around for a while or take a drink or chill out is helpful and then he will come back later or the next day without fatigue. And yes, they can get fatigued after just a couple of reps 🙂

On the tunnel exits videos:
On both videos, he is showing lovely commitment! You can move the wings on the left/right exits a little further away – that can help with cue timing too (see below). Leave the wing for the ‘go’ exit where it is for now to answer his questions there:

For the go exits on both videos, he had some questions because you were looking ahead and he was not sure which side of the wing to go to until you were right at it. To get him to drive ahead smoothly to the wing, you can make a big connection to his eyes on the tunnel exit for the go rather than point ahead. The connection to his eyes will turn your shoulders to the line – the pointing ahead turns your shoulders away from the line, which is why head had questions.

On the first video, he had great commitment to the right/left wings! Your verbals can come sooner on those: be sure to let him hear and see them before he gets into the tunnel, so you can put a line on the ground about 3 or 4 feet before the tunnel. When he gets to that line, you can start saying your left or right (or go) verbal.

On the 2nd video, you were cuing the turns on the wings really well but quiet for the tunnel exit turns, so add those back in to get tighter turns (or straight lines) on the tunnel exits.

I noticed that on the 2nd video in particular, he was looking around more, sniffing the ground, etc. I think what was happening was that he was unsure if your were cuing a wing or throwing a cookie. The arm cues did look like the movement of cookie tosses so I can see why he might have that question.

Easy fixes: add a marker for the cookie toss, like ‘get it’, so he is totally sure of when it is tossed or not.
Or, use a toy instead of a cookie: it an be a food toy like a lotus ball, or a tug toy. That will also make it clearer if he should look at the obstacles or look for the reward (and use the marker with this too 🙂 )

Great job here!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!
Hopefully you didn’t get too much snow!

>>The ground is hard, the tunnels and bags are still kinda frozen, so she was looking a little for the opening, and since I couldn’t completely close them, it confused her a bit. >>

Yes, she needed a moment to figure out that it was not a tunnel game LOL! Sorry, Babs!

She did well following your cues, pretty darned perfect! And you had really lovely connection throughout, which is exactly what we want in this game.
Interestingly, on the reps herewhere she either tried to get into the tunnel or went to the other side, I think that is what your shoulders were showing and she was responding correctly:

At :05, you had connection on your left side then looked forward (getting the reward ready I think?) which looked like a blind – so she figured it was a cue for the tunnel entry right there.

At :11, she was on your left and then with the timing when you did the blind to your right at :12, she picked up the parallel path to the other side of the tunnel. You were a stride or so too early and she didn’t see the connection long enough to pick up the line on your right to do the inside turn on the pillbug.

Compare to :22-:23, when you turned a tiny bit later and she easily picked up the line on your right side.

The blind cross on the last rep was perfect!

So the main suggestion is to do your crosses a little later 🙂 so she has time to see them (the tunnel does block some of the visual).

Great job here!!!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

The triangle setup here actually worked well! It was a great variation: The middle wing was more out of the way which made the tight blinds a little easier – but added challenge when you needed to do the wraps on the middle wing because there was more distance. Your connection and line of motion made it really clear, sh had no real questions (other than going downstairs in the tunnel on one of the reps LOL!) and she had good speed throughout!

WOWZA about the trial run!!! You had great connection and showed each part of every line. Super!!! She nailed the backside!!! She did think the opening was a little stooooopid but then kicked into high gear a soon as the course got normal 😁

This makes it really motivating to keep working contacts and weaves and all the other stuff so you can enter her in all the classes 🙂

>>It’s amazing the positive arousal that comes from a trial environment for Kashia.>>

On the other website, we are doing a webinar called “Under Pressure” where we help people teach their dogs to deal with the pressure of trial environments. Normally, dogs struggle with the pressure. However, there are some dogs that get lifted up by the pressure and are faster and more accurate. They are like the top level professional athletes, who focus and perform better when it is REAL competition 🙂 Kashia is one of those! SO COOL!!!

And the other thing we are discussing in the webinar is something called ‘episodic memory’ where basically, the scientists know that the dogs can remember enough about situations to be able to predict outcomes. This often works agains people, in that they put a lot of pressure on young dogs in the trial environment, or they (accidentally) set the dogs up to make too many mistakes or get stressed out… so the dogs remember a bad feeling and bad outcomes in that environment and that affect their overall performance.

Kashia’ first trial experiences are producing exactly what we want her memory to hold: fast, fun, no bad stressy stuff, all good times, and possibly a dopamine release that feels good in the moment but also (and more importantly) leaves her wanting to do it all again and again! Good job to you for starting her trial career slowly and making it fun fun fun – hopefully the 1st places and Qs are good rewards for you too 🙂

>My timing (and plan) was all off because she totally caught me off guard with her speed>>

You have a poker face – you didn’t freak out or get frantic, you stayed connected and nailed it. Perfect!!!

Great job 🙂

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

>>I kep my “back, back” duck call!!! Hopefully I’ll only need to use it once per course IRL! LOL>>

Ha! The back back is great!

The circle wraps with the blinds looked great – you were able to get the connections while staying in motion. That is exactly what we want! The best runs where when you let her get past you, then immediately moved up the line behind her –
First rep
:29 – :38
:46 and the last 2 reps when perfect in that you were right up on her tail as she passed you (and the toy drop to reward her commitment was great).
(And the other reps were really strong too!)

The tandems are going well too! The right turns were strong – you were moving forward til she was passing you, then turning your feet (your hands were a little too fast at :09 but the rest were good!)

>>Going to her left was harder. I’m not sure if it was because of my physical cues or if it was just hard for her.

Yes – the left might be a harder side for her to turn away in general, but on the reps at :21 and :25, you were turning your feet towards her before she was past you, which is what pushed her off the line to the tandem turn.

The rep at :36 good! On the last 2 reps, she was looking up at you so she might have been waiting to see more of the info. So to get it smooth, your hands can be visible but keep your feet moving forward til after she starts to turn away.

She definitely loves her plank game and her target!!! Is the down position something you have worked on in the plank context, or is she offering it because she read on Facebook that the down is a good position for small dogs on teeters? LOL!! If the down is easy for her – great! We can get her to put her front feet on the target at the end of the board and move into a down as the teeter moves.

Yes, her feet were so quick here, it was hard to get the target in and then it was sliding around LOL!! You can try a bit of duct tape on the bottom so it stays in position and a longer board like you mentioned can help too. We will be building on this game next week so it will be easier for the target to be fixed in place.

Great job here!!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

>>I’m pretty sure there are some games in Max Pup 1 that we still need to do that practice those skills>>

Yes, it is the Minny Pinny game from week 10.

>>Even though she doesn’t know those verbals, I was hoping body language would suffice.>>

Also yes! This game also builds on following physical cues to build the tunnel turns, and that also helps support the verbals as she learns them.

>>The “Go” was the hardest one. I think I needed to connect more, and it didn’t help that she flew out of the tunnel past me and doesn’t know what a “go” verbal is.>>

Looking at he video – I think you were putting the big pieces together before she understood the smaller pieces 🙂 and that is what was leading to the errors and frustration in that spot. Ideally you would be way ahead to show the line and be connected, but that was causing her to run past the tunnel early on.
So, you can break that skill down into 2 parts:
– Go straight out of the tunnel when you say go and accelerate, with a thrown toy reward (not trying to get the wing after it until she was finding the tunnel and exiting straight)
– Finding the tunnel entry on an angle, then adding more and more speed as she does it
That way, when you are trying to handle to the next wing, sending to the tunnel from further away so you are more connected and showing the line before she exits totally helps! You had some good reps of this later in the video, but a few too many errors overall (like withholding the reinforcement at :18 and :49, or stopping and giving her the toy quietly which still reads as an error) in that section caused some questions:

>>She sometimes runs behind the tunnel instead of going in it. There is one example of this at :27 and :46. >>

At :27, you sent from a hard angle there and took off – she tried to coordinate her mechanics but couldn’t, so went with the physical cue of ‘go fast’ and she didn’t take the tunnel. If that happens: in that rep, just keep going and reward something else. You can cue the wing wrap and reward that, or do the wrap then the next tunnel and reward it. On the rep after it, you can slow down the handling to help her find the tunnel on the angle and reward the tunnel on the next reps.

>>-At 2:23, I messed up the handling, and she didn’t know what to do, so she jumped on my back. She’s done this a couple of other times in the past, and it’s definitely not something I want her to do, even if my handling sucks, lol. Should I just ignore it like I did in the video, or is there a better response if it happens again?>>

That jumping on the back is a frustration behavior (jumping on the handler’s back is a pretty common Aussie frustration behavior, actually!) – in the moment, is is important info that there is frustration that has built up. In this session, there was a history of lack of clarity in that spot and withholding reinforcement, so when there was lack of clarity at 2:23, she was frustrated.

Yes, in the moment, ignore it and keep going but that is big feedback from the dog – if we tell her she is wrong to express her frustration, you will only get more frustration.

The most important thing will be to break down the skill earlier in the session, so there are fewer errors, no reinforcement being withheld following handler error, and more understanding. I live by the 2 failure rule (no more than 2 failures, total, in a session) with young dogs: the first failure is a flashing yellow light that hmmm, maybe I need to simplify this and/or clarify it. And the 2nd failure is the red light to me that says whatever I am doing is either too hard or unclear or both, so I immediately simplify it, clarify it, or end the session if I don’t know what to do. That all helps to keep frustration from creeping in, which also helps with arousal regulation too (as well as doing the find my face game in Maxpup 1 week 10).

Looking at the video: you hit the 2 failures on that skill at :19, so all reps after that should be broken down so they are clearer and more reinforced. Yes, she did end up getting a toy in those moments… but there was a stop in the action before each so it still reads as a ‘something has gone wrong’ moment to the pups.

I have found that being an absolute stickler about the 2 failure rule has helped build skills up really well, and also allow us to train without frustration from the pups.

She did well with the left & right soft turns! Your Left cue at 1:06 was timely – try to be facing the wing but connected back to her when she exits the tunnel. You were converging sideways which pushed her wide. Compare to the reps where you were straighter to the wing at 1:50 and 2:01 and her line was better and more direct to t he wing. Resist temptation to say “go” there, though, like at 2:17 🙂

Also really good timing with the right cues at 1:15 and 1:23 and you were forward facing on the line, so she drove more directly to the wing. Nice!!!! When you came into the right turn at 2:09 with more speed after the wing wrap, the physical and verbal cues were a little later so she exited straight and was wider to the wing.

The sequence at 1:37 – 1:46 looked really good, strong timing and connection! For the last ‘go’ – you can accelerate more and say it sooner as you throw the toy for the ending line.

Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

She is figuring out the serps nicely! I think to get even more success, you can start the first few reps with the jump angled to face her like you did at 2:15, but angled even more so it is very easy to see the bar. The entry wing (the one you are standing next to when you start) can stay where it is, and the exit wing (the one closer to the PT) can move away from the line so the bar is more visible.

That way you can stay in motion the whole time, and also stay on your straight line to the PT – close enough to touch the first wing you are sending from without backing away from the line to draw her over the bar.

That can kick the session off with a lot of success and then gradually we can rotate the wing back to flat (might be a couple of sessions, because handler line and motion is more important than jump position).

The wrap FCs looked great! You are showing clear rotation and connection, and she is having no questions about it. Super!!!!

Looking at the collar grab fun:

>.I know you said it’s not a problem to get a nose touch when you put your hand near their neck. Does the dog just start to realize that if your hand is closer to their neck it’s the collar grab?>>

Yes, some dogs skip the nose touch and just go straight to the collar – I think the cues look different enough in how we present our hands. And, some dogs create a bit of a chain where it is nose touch then they slide forward to put the collar in our hand: I am fine with that! To help it make it look different from the hand touch cue, you had a couple of reps where your palm was facing a bit of up to the ceiling, and that is great! You can also curl/wiggle your fingers a bit, to make the things look different than the hand touch cue.

The rest of the video is looking good too – there was a lot of hand near collar then instant toy throw, and also hand on collar then toy throw. She seemed happy with it – pressure on (hand on collar) immediately followed by pressure off (toy throw) and fun fun fun stuff 🙂 You can do this informally throughout the day with cookies or toys or going out the door to the yard, etc.

Great job!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

Nice job here!!!
I think the bars might be a bit too far apart so she was spending a lot of mental energy sorting out how to bounce it or how to add strides… since we want the mental energy here to be about the verbals, you can move the bars a little closer together so she can easily bounce.

The left turns where she turned towards you were all great! She had a question about turning away to get the left turns – totally normal question! So to help her out, you can do two things:

– hold her collar longer so she can hear the verbal at least 3 times before you let go. You were letting go right as you were saying the verbal, which creates the behavior on a physical cue more than a verbal. So holding her longer will help solidify the verbals.

– when beginning the turn-away concept, you can drop her toy or a treat in between bars 1 and 2, to give her a visual aid to turn towards. After a rep or two of that, you can drop the treat/toy between bars 2 and 3, and after a rep or two: no more dropped treat or toy and see how she does.

As we build up the verbal discriminations, you can work left and right in the same session – that way we can make sure it is really about the verbals, and not just knowing that we will only be turning left 🙂

Great job!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

This went really well! I think she liked the extra distance (more room to run run run!) Great job with the timing of the verbals (and associated physical cues). The verbals all sounded pretty different too, not just different words, and that REALLY helps the dogs especially at this early stage.

>>This is a super exercise for ME to remember my dang verbals>>

Since you made the verbals sound really different, even if the left/right got crossed here and there, the rhythm and pitch still sounded like a soft turn cue so she was able to get it 🙂

I think there was only one moment when the verbal was late and the physical cue said something else – that was at :57, when you were accelerating straight and the right verbal came after she was already in the tunnel, so she exited straight and caught the turn after she exited. On the other reps, she was able to exit turned or straight, depending on the cue, because the timing was all before she entered the tunnel. Yay!

One thing I notice is that she is pretty tall and has to duck to get into the tunnel and through it… that gives you a little extra time, so you can go closer to the tunnel and then accelerate to the wing. That way you don’t end up too far ahead and waiting for her, which produces too much deceleration for you both.

Great job here!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning! Great job with all of these games!

He is doing well with the moving target game –
Is there a way to put a cookie on or in the target so he doesn’t look up at you (and looks at the target the whole time)? Indy looked at it more when it is moving, so can add in moving it very slowly before the release. As you add dragging it, you can be facing forward and use your dog-side arm to drag it, so it will look more like what he will see in the jumping games (see below).

Wind in Your Hair game went well! He got the idea of finding the the jump in order to get to the MM pretty quickly then you were able to add more and more. Yay!
Nice job with your wrap verbals and adding distance – you added the Go verbal and more motion which is great!

One thing you can add in is sending to the wing wrap from further away and take off up the line, so you are miles ahead of him – this challenges him to find the jumps from behind you (which is harder than it sounds, because sometimes the dogs just chase us 🙂 )

Set point is going well! The distance between bumps looked good. The start position when he is a few inches away from the first bump (like at 3:17) works best.
He had a little trouble with the stays, so adding in connection as you walk away will help support the stay, and throwing rewards back for the stay will help too. The MM was pretty far away by the end, but that made the stay harder.

You can add the moving target to this game – starting a couple of feet past the 2nd bump, you can put the target down and start to move it, then release him. The further from jump 2 you can start the target the better, but it is a fine balance of adding the distance and moving target, with keeping the stay 🙂 So for now, you can star as close as needed to help him hold the stay 🙂

Great job here!!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning! Both of these looked really strong, and it was especially cool to see her nail it in a class setting!

She did great with the send & serp! You can add more distance when you have ore room, but this went well. To keep building it up to serpentines including finding the next jump, one thing to add:
You can rotate at the waist more so as you are passing the serp jump, so your shoulders are parallel to the bar and not perpendicular to it (as they were here). The perpendicular shoulders cues more of a 180. The parallel shoulders will cue the serp which includes going out to the next jump.

She was great about finding the jump!!! Super fast and with great focus on the line. You can throw even sooner so she powers past you 🙂 The first sided had a straight line exit – no problem at all. The 2nd side had a turn to find the jump, so you can add a turn cue before the tunnel. It is a subtle turn, so her name is probably all she needs there.

Great job 🙂
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

I must have been right at the end? I saw the connection drop then come back in. No worries, you two were great!

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

>>Bit of a windy day today, sorry for the sound>>

Totally relatable! February and March are so windy at my place that I often turn on the camera then turn around to see everything has blown over LOL!!

He is doing well with the moving target and set point! The stay is the hardest part at this stage and he is doing well with that (only one blooper). The best rep were when the lotus ball started a bit further from jump 2 (like at 1:32 and 2:01) because that gave him more room over jump 2. And I liked his distance from the first jump on that last rep too (it looked like about the length of a hand, tip of pinky to tip of thumb).

He is ready for more on this game: remind me how old he is? That helps direct the plan because we can’t do a ton with a large breed boy puppy til he is physically mature. I think we want to start showing either jump bumps (rather than bars on the ground) or low bars. We can start at 4” to test out if we have the right distances, and then see how he does.

>>t’s really fun to see the games pay off in class, we got better sends to tunnels and wraps with the verbals and I managed a blind cross (I dislike blind crosses).>>

WOW!!! He looks awesome, look at the commitment! Your connection looks great! And yes, you nailed the blind! He is fast so you will need blinds 🙂 I can understand why you would be concerned about turning your back on a dog with that much speed and power LOL!

>>In class he jumps with a bar during the “sequence runs”. Should I be dropping the bar completely or let him do it at this height?>>

It looks like an 8” bar? That looks fine for him and he seemed to have no problem with it. For harder things (like slices or serps) you can ask for a 4 inch bar or no bar. I think either the bar in the cup or no bar are the best options on rubber matting, because if he rolls his foot on a bar then he could hurt his wrist.

>>The class already does A-frames but Obi has suicidal jumping tendencies so I’m skipping those until he gets his head on straight and we get our handling rhythm .>>

Yes, he is definitely too young to do a-frames! That is one of the last obstacles I recommend doing with him, because it is one of the most physically demanding and we need him to have a more mature body & brain before doing it (it might end up being more like 2 years old, which is about when my baby whippet will be doing it too – all to avoid them slamming themselves with crazy leaping tendencies LOL!!)

>>(p.s. love that class is on Wednesdays now so we can tune in, we were always out on Tuesday nights for MaxPup1)>>

Yay!!!! I am o glad you can watch!!!!

Great job here :)

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

This went really well, and I think he liked this crazy game LOL!! It is actually a really hard game for both humans and dogs, but you both did GREAT! He really liked the toy too – he was going really fast, which didn’t give you a lot of time to think about what your cues were but it looked like you figured out the moves and verbals before you ran him on each rep – perfect!

Video 1:
Excellent use of your arm, leg, and connection shift behind you to get the commitment behind you! And he really liked the ‘ready’ game before each rep 🙂

Turning to his left harder at first but then he got it – it might be the left turn side is a little harder, or he was looking at the toy more, or both. But there was only that one question then his left turns were strong on this video and the next one too. To help make sure he is not watching the toy, you can use a toy marker like ‘bite’ to indicate exactly when the toy is available so he has no questions about it.

He did well when you added the motion – you did a great job of moving then rotating then showing the clear cues. That was great because he was flying!

He was a good boy getting the next wing when you added motion, that is correct unless you tell him otherwise – the toy marker will help clarify when you want the wing versus when the toy is ready for chin to grab.

Video 2:
This was super too!
He had a couple of questions in the beginning, going to the a different wing when you were putting them together: Wing 1 and 2 were good then I it looks like you were blocking the wing you wanted when he went to the other wing instead of the one you wanted to indicate (or the tunnel). When he could see the wing clearly: he had no questions.

He was also understanding the lines here really well and going to the next line with speed and forward focus – even when your brain was trying to remember the moves and the words LOL!

Getting all 4 wings is a big accomplishment!!! Happy dance!!!!!!

Well done here! He is ready for you to add the race tracks and the mini sequences.

Great job! Have a fun time at the conformation show – he is definitely the best Papillon ❤️ You can also practice some of the resilience games from MaxPup 1, like the pattern game!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Yeah!!!!! The power of a meatball!!!!
One suggestion: keep going with this style of meatball-heavy training, but move your teeter to a slightly different place each time. Even if it is just a foot or two away, or a little rotated, that will present a slightly different picture for him to learn to do the teeter in different places. And then do one big meatball rep 🙂 He might not be as confident yet in each new place, but it is the next step in building the teeter love 🙂

Tracy

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