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Hi!
You are both doing well with the verbals!!! And it is perfectly fine to take a moment to remember which verbal goes which direction – they are new for you, so better to take that heartbeat to remember. It gets easier LOL!
He really loves flying out to the wing – that is AWESOME!! Getting massive commitment with the small dogs is soooo important and he is doing it without even needing the step to the wing. And he is just as fast going to the wing as he is coming back from it – that is hard to achieve that balance and he was perfect.
>>He did so much better this time after another session on the wing wrap verbals
Yes! The wing wrap game warm up definitely refreshed the value, plus he had already seen this setup so he was more prepared for it LOL!
>>Notice in earlier video he was all about grabbing that toy – in this video he won’t touch it – wants me to throw it.>>
This is probably because the arousal level shifts: the wrap game is easier, so he is happier to tug. The discrimination game is a lot harder, so he needs more motion in the reinforcement to clear out his brain because he is working really hard.
To start the game, take a gentle hold of him, so you can start the verbal then let go then step to the wing or tunnel. When you started from a standstill at the very beginning, he didn’t quite realize that the game was ON so it took a moment to get moving. He was fine without the hold later on, but the first rep can be done with the gentle hold so he is ready to start.
He had one little question at 1:07 – he was correct, you were right to reward. When the dog hears the tunnel verbal, he should go to whatever tunnel he is looking towards… and in that moment, he was looking at the tunnel entry behind you LOL!! If you play it in slow motion you will see that. I have a personal rule of always knowing where the dog is looking before saying “tunnel” because my dogs keep me VERY honest and will take the tunnel they are looking towards LOL!
The rest looked awesome, including when you changed sides. Yes, he ended the toy thrown but his retrieve was fabulous!
At the very end, you did 2 tunnels in a row – the first one was after the wing wrap, a normal tunnel send. When he exited the tunnel you sent him back into the entry – that can be a tunnel threadle verbal and arm, because he has to turn away from you for that one.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
I can’t believe how crazy your weather is!!! !It will normalize soon, right?!?!?!
>>so I’m playing with arousal manipulation
There was a lot of great stuff for this sprinkled throughout the session.
I loved the rehearsals with the leash here. That might have contributed to the slower sits? The Cato Board was smart to help her out. The leash rehearsals are so important for future trialing!!!
The sequence work looked fabulous. She had zero questions on the tunnels, zero questions on the backside slice, and only one question on the circle wrap. She had a crazy wrap jumping effort at 2:18, watch it in slow motion – kind of like half her brain was saying wrap (she was indeed collecting) but the other half of her brain was on auto pilot from the slices (watch her head turn and look at the slice line). My guess is that she was a little on autopilot and simply surprised. Bar down, no worries, she was perfect at 2:32 with the circle wrap. So mix things up more so she doesn’t assume slice, by adding the circle wrap in sooner during the session.
Next step with this setup, as you continue working the start jump around the clock is to treat is as mid-course because that is where we will see this challenge – and she is ready for it to be put in context. So to treat it like it is mid-course, you can leave her in her stay and don’t lead out much past the first jump. Release then move into it 🙂 so you are moving the whole time. You can total handle (like a little shoulder turn towards the backside) because the added motion will add significant challenge . And if you want to really get running, you can or replace the stay with a wrap of a start wing before that first jump. Fun!
10 tunnel game looked awesome!!!
Nice snuffle matting 🙂 to help her with her ‘resilience flex’ of return to baseline. She was exited, engaged…. But never got overstimulated or into the hot zone where she struggled with arousal. YAY! So for giggles to keep working on this… do the 10 tunnels then line her up for the sequence 🙂 Doing the 10 tunnels, putting her on leash then lining up in front of a jump is great for trial prep!!!!Great job! She is looking great! Wish you lived closer, I’d drag you to some UKI trials so we can do some NFCing together!!
Tracy
Good morning!
Great job in class on Wednesday!!!The Wind In Your Hair game looks great! As you mentioned, she only had one question – handling induced 🙂 At :14 you were close to the jump, gave the wrap cue and the first motion was actually towards the jump! Watch it in slow motion and you’ll see it clearly. So she was being very good!!
Remember that you can step to the start wing to help her understand which wing you want wrapped and that will eliminate that question.
The next step is to exaggerate things a bit: you can add more distance and either start very close to the wing so she drives waaaaay ahead (this can also be done for the Advanced level). Or, you can start very close to the jump and send to the wing then rub hard past the jump – and see if she can still find the jump with you miles ahead.
Looking at the wrap proofing, which is definitely the hardest game of week 1:
The variations went really well! You could hear her grunting because it was so hard!
On the other side later in the video, she had a little extra tunnel action but overall did really well! Yes, you can be quicker with the reset cookie but you were fine here! We can all be quicker with the reinforcement of course, but she seemed happy with the pace here 🙂She was a little surprised when you added the 2nd wing (more like the Smiley face game) because you didn’t really handle it. So be sure to show clear handling because these are handling games once you get into the smiley face (not verbalsl games):
Do a post turn to the tunnel, then accelerate. Try not to do a rotation or spin on the tunnel entry because that cues a turn on the tunnel exit which we don’t want here. Her question wasn’t that the wing was too far away, it was that you were cuing a turn on the tunnel exit so she was turning 😀Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyThat’s no longer legal in NAFA. They revamped their measuring rules. So, shaving? Yes! Crouching? Nope.
Hi!
Great idea! We can add a measuring track!!! I need to get Elektra measured for flyball this weekend – she has several 15″ measurements for agility, but needs to be 14.9999 for flyball. I am going to shave her LOL!Hi Gayle! Welcome! This was a fabulous session with Maya!!!
You were very clear and precise with your mechanics: lined her up, said the verbal, sent her around. She was terrific and is turning beautifully around the upright. Yay!
You also did a great job of gradually moving further away. There were 2 right turn moments that were hard and she didn’t get the upright, but you handled it beautifully with a ‘nice try’ and happy reset. I think she might be a lefty – she kept offering left turns an the left turns looked easier for her. The right turns looked good too, and I am sure they will all balance out.
She was also fabulous with the toy – and I love how well she went to the to yeven after the cookies. Super!!!!
So, mission accomplished on the pre-game here! She is definitely ready for you to try the wing-tunnel discrimination.
Great job! I am excited to see more!!!
TracyHi! Lots of good stuff here!
Looking at the wing wraps – yes, having the upright closer really helped! He was very successful! Try to be very precise as you start each rep – line him up at your side with a cookie, hold his collar. say the verbals… and only then should you let him start moving. Otherwise, he is looking at you the whole time and we don’t want him looking at you 🙂
You can move this to the wing-tunnel proofing game (but definitely hold onto him so he can hear the verbals before he starts moving :))
The wind in your hair game looked great! You can throw the toy sooner: as soon as he looks at the jump, throw it. That means he will probably get it as soon as he exits the start wrap. You were waiting to throw it til he got between the uprights , at which point he was looking at you because there was nothing else to look at 🙂 So throwing nice and early will really get him driving ahead. You can try the advanced version of the game too!
You can also add more distance (15 feet, 18 feet between the wing and jump 🙂 and try the Advanced level too!
Set point – he probably needs a 4 foot distance at least, the set up on the video looked a little too tight. And that might have contributed to him not wanting to stay, but yes I agree – he doesn’t understand the stay behavior fully yet, so you can’t use it in the set point yet (or it becomes really frustrating for you both). For the set point, the stay needs to be strong enough that you can lead all the way out to the reward target and point to it, to get his head down. He was holding the stay for a few steps, which is a great start, but you can take the stay out of the set point for now, no worries!
To work on the set point, you can do it without a stay: start with your hand on his collar and send him through the grid without you moving. That way he can practice the jumping without the stay 🙂
To work on it separately, pull out the MaxPup 1 games:
And you can also work the stays with him sitting on a mat, that can help!
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
This game went really well!
She only had 2 questions:
at :02 she needed more connection
at :37 the throw was late (she was already jumping) so she hit the barThe rest looked good! You can add more direct eye contact on the connection moments, so you can see where she is looking. And as soon as she looks at the jump, you can throw the reward.
When you are in the ‘meandering’ prt of the game, be sure to keep moving when you throw so that you are not decelerating but cuing her to accelerate. And you can add more speed like you did on the very last rep!For the next session, move the wing away from the jump so it is at least 15 feet away (18 feet or 20 feet would be even better :)) And, move to the advanced level where you start very close to the wing, but the toy is already placed pretty far (15 feet) past the 2nd jump, so she leaves you in the dust 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi!
Both sessions of the wing wraps look good! He had really good distance too, and really solid commitment. Super!! He definitely likes training in the morning!Everything was very strong; he just needed a little more connection/eye contact from you for the send at :16 on the first video where he went behind you. He seemed to have no questions on the 2nd video.
For the next session, try it on a wing and with a toy – and if he is happy with that, you can definitely move this to the wing-tunnel discrimination.
Great job! Let me know how he does!
TracyHi!
>>I was really interested in your comments last night about the adolescent period. Hola somehow feels more fussy and clingy and then other times can seem conflicted about some things.>>
Yep – adolescence! It is an up-and-down ride til they get through it 🙂
>>On the set point exercise I had the jumps set 5 feet apart and the manners minder was 10 feet away. Hola is about 17-3/4″ tall so I figured that might be a good place to start. However, Hola looks like she’s throwing herself over the jumps.>>
She had good form over jump 1 for the most part, particularly in the reps where you were pointing down to the MM as that helped keep her head down. She had a lot of experimenting with her form over jump 2, and I think mainly that the MM was too close and she didn’t know how to both jump properly AND stop in time to get to the MM, thus all the interesting hind end use LOL!
So, that MM should be more like 15 feet away, and ideally you would be crouching next to it for the next session. Or, skip the MM (because they MM can definitely cause that hopping form!) and use a toy on the ground, like a big hollee roller or something that is easy to grab (but also should be 15 feet away).
Have you tried the moving target pre-game yet? That will be a game changer for her, so definitely get that going then we will add it here 🙂
I am not sure if 5 feet is the sweet spot, or 4.5 feet, but that doesn’t matter – I think the first step will be getting her comfy with focusing downward to the target then we can noodle around with the spacing.
>>Wondering if I should I move jumps a foot closer? Move MM to about 8 feet away?>>
Definitely no to both of those, the MM should be further away so she can run to it. The spacing will be clearer once we have a better targeting spot and motivator (MM or toy – I am leaning towards toy at this point).
And also, don’t worry too much about it – it is like learning to tap dance! The first rehearsal might not be great but then she will practice and get very smooth 🙂
>>I felt like the 2nd exercise went better but quit because we had done enough already and I wasn’t sure what our next steps should be until we hear what you think about both of these.>>
Both videos were the same, let me know if there was supposed to be another video instead.
Nice work!
TracyHi!
>.Have I again mentioned how wonderful training has been for us lately. Not that it wasn’t good before but we really aren’t fighting and I’m really not having to beg him to work all the time and it’s so so so nice.>
This is so great!!!!! Training through challenges is always better when we aren’t fighting or begging our canine partners 🙂 He was really into the happy tugging in this video!
And it sounds like he did well at the seminar too! Good boy!!!!!
On the video – this was a really good session for us to see what he process as the primary bits of info!
On the first part – he did well with the send to the tunnel and the send to the backside. You can definitely add more motion and less stationary cuing now. For example, you were moving at 1:20 and that was really good to get the tunnel – now add that movement for all of these – not running, necessarily, but motion instead of stopping or sending.
On the second part, we can see he definitely needs the motion to support the verbal. When you were saying “pass”, your entire body was facing the tunnel like a forward send to it (not that different than when you wanted the tunnel in the earlier parts), so he went to the tunnel. And pass is a ‘forward’ cue (as in, move forward to go do the thing) so I can see how he would end up in the tunnel.
So, to help support the verbal on the pass backside – turn your shoulders and feet so your line of motion supports the backside of the jump. Motion is your friend LOL! And he totally processes motion as a primary info cue for now (which is fine, of course!)
On the video, you asked if you were late with your verbal – nope, timing was fine, but the verbal was not overriding motion when the motion was facing the tunnel, so you need to support it with motion towards the jump. He wasn’t brain fried there – just had a couple too many failures so was getting frustrated (but chose to not deliver any tooth hugs, so that is good!)
Note how at 4:28, you turned your shoulders and he immediately knew it was not the tunnel. But your feet were stationary so he started to question if the backside was correct or not. 4:43 was a better shoulder turn for sure! But then at 5:28, your body cue was moving to the jump and the verbal said tunnel… so he took the jump.
So definitely adding handling and motion will help – and that will also help solidify the verbals, because the verbals will be attached to the physical cues that he reads well. And if he fails twice – stop the video and watch it before attempting another rep, so you can see what your body language is telling him 🙂
The only other hard part for him were the stays, and I think it was mainly because you were ot connected as you walked away (probably thinking about the handling). So he moved with yoou – probably because either the disconnection felt strange, or he didn’t think he was formally in a stay 🙂 He was much better when you watched him a bit more on the lead out, as long as you didn’t say “ready” which he was tending to mistake as a release, because he was indeed ready 🙂
Great job here! Let me know what you think! Have a blast in Tulsa!!
TracyOMG! That is too funny!!!! I think it is important to make offerings to the Zoom gods and their gremlins LOL!!!! I had to do that last night (and also reset all devices and the internet) to please the Zoom gods enough to make it work LOL!!
Fingers crossed for good weather ahead!
Tracy
Hello and welcome back! It is going to be so fun to watch you and Hola!!
>>I have a question about the Wind in Your Hair exercise. Last night you had teams start close to wing, and then had some reps where they started close to the jump. Example, start close to jump, send to wing and then meander. Then again close to the jump, when dog committed to wing take off and run, ending with both of you at the wing with you meandering to the jump. I didn’t see any of this in the video. Can you give a little more explanation and outline these steps or was this just because most of the dogs were in a tight space?>>
The variations were mainly extra credit challenges: partially because of the smaller spaces, but also to add additional challenges because all of the dogs were so fabulous (I kinda figured all of the pups would be perfect, so I had extras prepared LOL!!).
Starting close to the wing challenges the pups to drive ahead of you – whether you are meandering, or running hard. Many dogs look at the handler too much, or are distracted by motion.
Starting closer to the jump challenges the pups to resist the temptation to chase you and challenges them to find the jump instead, even when the handler is miles ahead (and moving fast). Young dogs can often switch into chase-mode when the handler is way ahead, so my goal was to begin exposing the youngsters to the whole “mom is going to be ahead and RUNNING” and asking them to still find the jump.
>>ending with both of you at the wing with you meandering to the jump.>>
I ended with that one because it was the least exciting for the pups – after all of the run run running, could they still drive ahead to find the jump, even when the handler was not running? And they were all great! Yay! We want to build massive commitment and love for jumps, and we definitely don’t want to rely on our footspeed to get these speed demons to commit to jumps 🙂
Let me know if that makes sense! Have fun!
Tracy
