[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
Threadle wraps are similar to tandems – you had more connection on the successful reps here too! So definitely keep adding connection and big obvious hands cue on these too and don’t converge towards the wing – just go straight or even pull away a little to set the line. Using the name on the tunnel exit to get his attention is a big help! So be sure that he hears his name and sees your hands move into threadle wrap position all before he moves into the tunnel – that will really set him up for success on the wing after it.

He had really strong commitment the wing as you kept moving forward – super!!!! Nice work!

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
It is fine to submit them all together!
One thing in common for all of these videos: he reads your cues super well, even when they don’t match what you want him to do 🙂 But if your cues tells him to do something and he does it (even if it was not the plan) then be absolutely sure to reward him or just keep going.

When he was reading you correctly but you were marking him as wrong, he was getting frustrated and bitey, or just running to the other obstacles. So to avoid the frustration behavior, a couple of ideas:
– assume an error is your error, and reward or keep going. Then watch the video to see why he did something other than what you were trying to cue

– live by the 2 failure rule: if something goes wrong twice (total in the session, not necessarily twice in a row), he is not seeing the correct info so you will want to make it easier or look at the video to see what he is seeing.

Either way, he should still be getting reinforcement because there is a 99.99% chance that he is reading the cues correctly 🙂

Here on this video:

The cues that he reads the best were letting him see both of your hands extended back to him and big connection too! You can see it at :16 for example, and :43 and the las 2 reps! Yay!

When you were releasing from the stay without the very clear cues already visible, or he was coming out of the tunnel and not seeing them – then he was correct to stay on his line particularly with the motion moving forward. So if he ends up on the other side of the wing, you will want to keep going or reward then watch the video to see if the info was clear enough and/or early enough.

The reps where is was clear and timely were lovely!!!!

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
I am sorry to hear that the workshop was deflating!!! Yo are doing a great job with Seren and I have seen plenty of excellent blinds from you!

The videos here are looking good! You were emphasizing connection, motion, verbals… yay!

He had a couple of small questions that were all related to one thing on the videos: countermotion on the circle wraps. Picture a bar there on the backside circle wraps: when you stayed visible on the landing side until he also was arriving at the landing side… perfect each time. When you moved forward as he passed you so you were both on the takeoff side? That is where he had a question. You can see it at 1:11 and 1:50 on video 1, and at :20 on video 3.

However, we *do* want you to be moving forward just behind him like you did on those reps, so we can shift your connection to the landing spot as you move forward (and throw the reward there). And, you can use the arm closer to the wing to point back behind you to where you want him to go – rather than the arm across the body. All of that will support his commitment even more. That will make it easier and earlier to show him the blind cross exits , and also keep you further ahead of him on course 🙂

So as he is passing you, step right behind him but look at the landing spot, point at it, and throw reward to it. Do it at a walk at first to get him used to it, then you can go faster and faster : )

Only one other thing to consider: Anything that is a full circle can be the back cue for backside circle wraps. If it is a FC, you can use a FC verbal (I think tight is your front side wrap verbal?) or treat it like a front cross on the backside, and use your back cue 🙂

Great job here! Everything else looked lovely!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi! Nice work on these!!! These skills are going well and I have small adjustments to make that will smooth out when he has questions. One thing to do is get more bags for the tunnel – it moved a lot LOL!

The verbals did not come through on the video (I am not sure why) but I could see you talking to him, so I will assume the verbals were great 🙂

A couple of connection tweaks will sort out the questions he had here. Your connection was mainly very strong! When you are doing countermotion, shift your connection from his eyes to the landing spot (as if there were jump bars on the wings) or where you want him to go.

So on the countermotion FCs/spins to the tunnel, you were correct in trying to decelerate and rotate sooner – but you were looking at him pretty directly so he did not go the wing (like at :24) unless you were facing forward or waiting really close to the wing. So to get the commitment as you rotate away, go from connecting to his eyes to looking at the wing/landing spot (and you can use the arm closer to the wing to support it by pointing at it too).

The same goes for the circle wraps. He did really well when you sent him past you (good job making the wings visible and not blocking them!) and he committed when you stayed where the landing side would be. Ideally, you would move forward sooner so you would be passing the ‘takeoff’ side as he was arriving at the bar, so you can be timely for the next cues especially if there is a blind cross exit.

You tried that earlier at 1:32 and 1:44, for example, which is great! You looked ahead at the next wing, so he did not take the circle wing. This is also a spot where as you move forward in the countermotion, you can look back behind you (and point to the anding spot area with the arm closer to the wing). The connection shift will go a long way to getting great countermotion commitment 🙂

Start adding that connection shift with you just walking, so extra motion is not a distraction (and throw the reward behind you). When you are both comfy with it, add more and more speed 🙂

Great job!!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
Great question. On a game like the RC game, the physical cues might be competing with the verbal cues (perhaps my physical cues are late so they are cuing a right turn even though my mouth is cuing a left turn :))

So don’t use left/right until he can read it on physical cues, then add the verbal back in. We don’t want to dilute the verbal by having him need to choose between a physical cue and a verbal. The physical cue is generally stronger at this age so he is more likely to not be able to process the verbal.

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

>Sorry to hear that you and CB had a tough weekend.>>

Thanks, sometimes things just go sideways. He seems to be feeling better each day.

Minny pinny: This is actually going pretty well!! Left is NOT a disaster at all!

I think your start position on the left side is on his line on that very first rep plus you were leaning in and upper body rotated to him when saying left at :07 which actually cued the backside 🙂 That was the only time you did that, the rest were all clearly front side cues 🙂

>>Is there a particular way that my shoulders should be facing or that I should be looking?>>

Facing the front of the bar and softly looking at him.

Turning away is definitely harder and the pups often present turning to the easy side (right) before turning to the harder side. His progression here is pretty normal – one side is really strong and easy (right side for him) and the other side is a lot harder (left side for him). So on the left turns, help him out with a visual target: drop a toy or treat bowl between the first 2 bars while you are holding him, then say left left left, then release him to turn away, That will help him sort out the mechanics of turning away to his left (which are harder than turning towards you to his left). And then you will see him have a better time processing the verbals too.

Looking at the zig zags:

>>Mason is actually really good at this game if I have someone hold him at the start and I stand directly behind the farthest wing.>>

Great!

>>When we’ve played this before we had the wings much farther apart so it was really hard for me to cue the lead change soon enough with the wings this close.>>

Yes – having the wings closer makes it harder for us to cue quickly and harder for him to change leads quickly.

>>I also cheated a little by leading out through the wings to show him the path.>>

This is NOT cheating 🙂

The main think here is the stay. The lead change work is going great! So let’s focus on getting a stay going because he is FAST and powerful… you will need a good stay behavior 🙂

He seems to think that the release is the reconnection as you lead out or the hand motion. And I don’t think he is incorrect about that LOL! Every release here was paired with one or both of those, so he does not seem to know that the release is a verbal (unless you want the release to be a physical cue?)

You are in good company – as the games get harder, people are releasing a lot with arm or leg motion or reconnection, and so the understanding of the release has shifted to be motion-based and not a verbal. So everyone is basically getting the same homework 🙂

When you lead out: go to position, stop moving, look at him, raise your hand/move it into position, smile, praise him, count to 3, then be completely still while you say a release verbal. It can be a release forward or obstacle name or a marker to throw back the reward – but do not move while you say it. Then when he moves…. You can move.

Take this away from the obstacles at first, then do it next to a jump wing (do it with the platform at first then we need to fade the platform pretty quickly).

He is very likely to break the stay (because he thinks the arm/leg/eyes are the release) so in all fairness, start off really close to him. And, if he does break: tell him he is cute (not verbal corrections or oops markers or mad faces LOL), reset him with a cookie and try again. Yes, he gets a cookie on the reset because we are changing something significant that has been rewarded differently (he leaves the stay on the arm cue for example and gets to run or gets rewarded). If we *don’t* reward him on the reset, he is going to get frustrated/stressed/over-aroused which we absolutely do not want.

Sends and serps are going great! Super!

>>I’m dropping my arm to call Mason over the jump. Is this ok or should I work to fade it? It isn’t technically part of the pose, but I didn’t think he would take the jump without it.>>

The arm back/dropped arm is totally part of the pose. You can do it sooner! When he is exiting the wing, you can drop the arm and rotate your shoulders to face the bar (but not your feet :)) and that will get great serping as you add more and more motion.

When you changed side and added more motion, he had a couple of misses. But when you exaggerated the upper body rotation by using your arm back/dropped more, he got it every time. YAY!!

>>included video of the frustration-free setup I’ve been working on. We have a long way to go, but I will say that there was less grass pulling overall this weekend so I’m calling that progress.>>

Fantastic!! The grass pulling might just be him regulating his arousal levels (sooooo many dogs do this with grass!) so adding in a smooth, clear start really helps a whole lot. Good for you for thinking about his arousal state and not just the skill!!!

>>I was too lazy to set up the tunnel this week.>

This is completely relatable LOL!!!!

>>For today’s videos the jump bars are locked in at 6″. On April 1st (next session) I’m going to raise them to 8″ and then go up 2″ every month. This would put Mason jumping 12″ (elbow height) in June (age 14 mos) and 20″ in Oct (18 mos). What do you think?

This is a good general plan!! I would follow this plan for the easy stuff, like straight lines, wraps, etc. As we add crazier stuff like backsides, threadle wraps, etc – start anything new and crazy on a lower bar so he can process the next skill without worrying about jump height.

>>Will he develop a flat jumping style if I raise the heights this slowly?

Just the opposite! He will develop a deeper understanding of handling while separately you let him grow up ore physically and mentally – that way he is not “learning” how to jump with a baby body 🙂 He will do the real jump work with a more adult body which will produce better jumping. But get off of Facebook where you will see young dogs doing full height at a year old – that messes with your mind!

>>He may end up in the 24″ height group, but I don’t know if I would actually jump him that high.

I am personally not a big fan of the 24” height especially here in the USA. The distances are a little too small at 24” for the big dogs to cram themselves into, and I don’t like what it does to their bodies. So even if he measures into 24”, I still recommend competing at 20” because you will have an incredible amount of competition available in a variety of different venues. If you ever wanted to take him to Europe to compete at 24”, then we can do a directed conditioning program to build up to that (when he is more like 2 or 3 years old) and also restrict his competition to ISC or UKI with the bigger distances that fit 24” better. If you have no interest in going to Europe? Then no need for 24” 🙂

Great job here!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

>>Not submitting another video yet but we did a couple sessions today with loaded food bowl and he was close to 100% left and right today. When he wasn’t naughty and skipped the wrap to just go scarf up the treat in the bowl. He’s been quite wild today.>>

Good boy! And he might be having a bit of adolescent wild running urges LOL!!! Too bad you don’t live closer, we could have your Ven and my Ramen just run run run run run run run to deal with being adolescent boys 🙂

Looking at the 2 ladder videos: overall, I think these are going really well! His stays are looking great – only one broken stay (there was a blast of motorcycle or engine noise that caused him to move to you as you were walking away). And he pretty much held the stay while the wing almost blew over on his head LOL!! Good boy. Great job mixing in a TON of reinforcement for the stay.

I watched the baby version to compare to the advanced version and have ideas for you! There is a LOT of processing happening here and so that is what produced some of his questions. 2 things will help him with the more challenging advanced version (and the baby version too)
– a reinforcement target that he drives to without you bending down or facing him
– sightly easier angles of the jumps on th advanced level, for the visual processing.

Here is what I mean:

You were really emphasizing the the low reward target which is great! That meant you were sometimes rotated towards him and it is possible that the pressure of you down low and facing him a bit was being processed as a collection cue. Add in the angles of the bumps/wings in the advanced level and his brain was processing a LOT so he didn’t quite have the bounce mechanics (trotting more). No worries at all! Will he focus down to his manners minder more than a loaded bowl? Or a food-stuffed toy? Those might be better options as a target because then you can be upright and not facing him as much.

Because the advanced level has a lot more processing (the wind plus the jump angles take up a lot of mental bandwidth in a teenage brain), you can soften up the angles a tiny bit and even shorten the distance a little.

Those 2 small adjustments plus letting him sleep on it and having latent learning work its magic will help too 🙂 So I don’t think you moved to advanced too soon, I just think you were seeing his brain work the puzzle.

Nice work here!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi! She definitely seemed all in with the ball reinforcement!!!

>>I thought you would get a kick out of her ability to back jump at a slice and take the tunnel-

The athleticism is impressive!!! She has quick feet!

>>I can use a shorter bar next time too!>

No need for a shorter bar, you cued it by accident. You said ‘yay’ and stepped into her path/leaned in before she as past you. That pinged her back to the bar. Still rewardable, because it is not particularly incorrect – remember to reward if there is *any* chance that the error as handler induced (which is always a possibility in agility!) So a reward marker will help her and hold the serp position until you deliver the reward – you started doing this at :37ish and afterwards and she did not consider a back jump to the tunnel because the line and reinforcement was so clear! The only think I would add is a marker other that praise to are it super clear.

>>I missed that she was breaking on the second side. Oops better watch that.>>

That is a common theme this week with most of the pups! It is because the handlers are very focused on the game, and pairing the release word with arm movement and reconnecting after the lead out. So in this context, the pups believe that the release is the arm movement and not the verbal. So everyone is getting the same stay homework LOL!!

When releasing from the stay, separate the connection & motion from the verbal. Right now the verbal and the arm movement/connection are coming almost simultaneously so it is entirely possible that she thinks the motion is the release and the verbal is not that important, as you can see when she was on your left here. So get to your position, put your arm into the cue position, connect… praise her for a couple of seconds, then release without *any* movement. You can move after she moves 🙂

Now, we also don’t want to set the pups up for failure or stress because it is human error that they think the release is based on arm movement (we humans need a support group for this LOL!!!). So start this on the flat and away from the jump and tunnel. And if she does break before the verbal (based on what has been rewarded in previous sessions), just tell her she is super cute (which is totally true) and reset her with a cookie. The reset cookie does not reinforcement the early movement, it just helps keep the stress and frustration level low as we try to change what she thinks the release is. I think of it as an apology cookie: “Sorry that I have been unclear, I am going to be clear now, have a cookie to stay happy as I adjust the info”. That helps the dogs stick with us 🙂

The reps of the smiley face here looked great! You can give her the ‘right’ verbal earlier – as soon as she exits the tunnel y toucan be saying it and showing the line. That will tighten up the turn on the wing. You were earlier on the left verbal on the next rep (she was about halfway between the tunnel and the wing) and her turn was already tighter! Super! She is moving really fast, so you can start the verbals early and say them often – my philosophy is that we cannot be late with verbals if we start them early (even before she exits the tunnel) and say them multiple times. We will hit perfect timing with that LOL!!

Great job!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
Hope you had a good Easter! Looks like Spring is arriving! This is his first spring, yes? So he might get hot more quickly than the other dogs, which means shorter sessions until he builds up some heat tolerance.

BC video – super nice connection on the exit of the wraps at the beginning and great job with your verbals! They were FCs (not blinds) so when you add the tunnel to this, remind yourself to turn away from him (blind) rather than towards him (FC).

One small detail to make it even smoother: Try to leave the toy in the hand you will reward from – he is getting better and better about ignoring it while working. When you switch the toy from hand-to-hand, it draws his focus to your hands and a little away from the wing.

He had a question on the tunnel entry at 1:55 – that entry was more of a threadle (turn away) entry, so you can use your tunnel threadle verbal there and move directly towards it.

I think we see him a bit fatigued at 2:20, probably a little warm – you were smart to not insist on more. As temperatures rise, you can do 90 second sessions then take a break, then do more later throughout the day like you did with these sessions.

RC video – be sure to add arm up and reps of driving ahed on a straight line. You got the RC on the first rep with a lot of arm help but he wasn’t really driving ahead on the 2nd & 4th rep so he didn’t get it (and the rep after the left turns)
3rd rep (and 2:11) was better when you stuck closer to the wing so he drove ahead a little more and you can show the info sooner

On the left turn reps, you stuck closer to the wrap wing on all of them, so you were able to get him driving ahead better and setting the line sooner, o he got them all. Yay!

Another thing that could have been in play was the visual of the tunnel: the right turns all had him turning away from the tunnel, which might have been harder for him to process because of all the value of the tunnel (but this might have helped the left turns!)

Looking at the serp video: he is reading the handling cues well! 2 suggestions for you:

– be closer to the serp jump, close enough to reach out and touch it with a relaxed arm 🙂 That way he will make the turn on the takeoff and be set up better for the next jump (when we add movement and more jumps to it). Plus it will et him used to driving into the handler pressure that is part of serps and threadles. When you changed sides, you were definitely closer (yay!) He had a question at 2:56 – I think you were not connected enough with your arm back like you were on the other reps. You added more connection on the next rep and he nailed it 🙂 When you add the threadle, you will also want to be close to the wing of the jump (the entry wing)

– when releasing from the stay, separate the connection & motion from the verbal. Right now the verbal and the arm movement/connection are coming almost simultaneously so it is entirely possible that he thinks the motion is the release and the verbal is not that important. So get to your position, put your arm into the cue position, connect… praise him for a couple of seconds, then release without *any* movement. You can move after he moves 🙂

I would think he is going to leave the stay when your arm goes into position, and I don’t want to stress him out because he is not necessarily incorrect (that is what has been paired) so 2 ideas for you: start this on the flat and away from jumps. And if/when he breaks on arm movement, tell him he is cute and reset him back into the stay with a cookie. That way we can shift the release to not being paired with motion (we definitely don’t want it to be paired with arm movement for example!) without frustrating him or stressing him.

Great job here!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
He is reading the physical cues really well for the 3 different challenges on these videos!! The serp and tunnel went very smoothly. He had some questions about the threadle in video 2 – he came to the correct side but did not take the jump automatically.

That had to do with your position when you released him. To get the automatic commitment to the jump, be close to the entry wing – that is threadle position (it would be the gap between the 2 jumps on a threadle line). This will also help him find the threadle side when he is at different angles.
You were across the bar in what would be serp position, which is why you needed to show him the jump. Being in threadle position will naturally set up the line to the jump so you don’t have to show it to him (we want the jump to be automatic rather than cued).

His other question was about the releases from the stays 🙂 This falls into the category of “what we think we are training versus what the dog is actually learning”. Yes, you were emphasizing the verbals – but the verbals (release, tunnel, in in, and catch) all came with some type of motion: re-connection, arm movement, shoulder movement etc.

So – he sometimes moved before you said the verbal because the motion was shown before the verbal… and the motion of the arm/head/shoulder/ etc is what he thinks the verbal is. And we don’t want to stress him by letting him fail too much, giving stronger stay cues, or telling him he is wrong (because, turns out, the motion *is* what is reliably paired with reinforcement). He is showing a little stress about it (head shake on the first rep of video 1, and one twitchiness on the other moments) so we really want to clarify it for him.

When he is in a stay, try this to separate the verbal releases from any motion. For stationary releases where you are not going to move:
– get to your position (ideally with connection)
– put your hands/feet/connection etc into the position (threadle arm back, for example, or arm pointing to tunnel).
– freeze in that position
– praise him and count to 3 in your had
– say the release (but don’t move til after he moves)

You might get some broken stays when he sees you put yourself into position, so try it without the jump at first and if he does break, tell him he is a good boy and reset with a treat.

For releases when you will be moving: be in motion the whole time, with your upper body showing the cue and feet moving for multiple steps before the release. And after the release, stay in that same steady motion until after he moves rather than explode forward when you say the word.

Of all the behaviors here (stay/releae, tunnel, serp, threadle) I think the stay is the most important 🙂 so we can really focus on making it clear for him so he is very successful with it too!

Nice work here!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

>>That’s the same for chiropractic adjustments! Especially in horses. A good head shake shows signs of relief during an adjustment>>

Yes! And the dog chiro vets look for a nose-to-tail shake with dogs.

The serp session went pretty well, you are NOT a bad momma LOL!!!
When you are running a serp line, try to keep moving forward rather than pull away or rotate your feet to pull her in over the first jump then push back out to the 2nd one. The pull-then-push was fine when you were doing the 2 jump serps at the beginning, but that pull-then-push is what made it hard when you added the tunnel:

When she was coming from the tunnel exit, you were pulling her in and rotating your feet, so if you pushed back to jump 2 and you were in the gap a bit, she correctly ended up on the backside. That is the line we would run if you wanted the backside.

Angling the jumps did help! So with the slightly angled jumps you can run a totally straight line, about an arm’s length from the jumps. Your upper body turns to face her as she exits the tunnel but your feet keep moving forward (not rotating or pulling away). This is hard for us human, so feel free to lay a leash on the ground so you can see the line.

And to help the timing so you don’t feel like you are waiting for her, you can run a couple of steps closer to the tunnel so you can stay in motion as she is exiting (this will also speed up her send to the tunnel :))

>>I just felt like I had to kind of pull her to me before taking off for the second one or she’d miss the first one all together.>>

That is where angling that jump can really help: make it easy enough to find the jump s you don’t need to pull her to you.

Let me know if that makes sense! I think that change of line will make all the difference.

Nice work!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

The FEO opportunities in CPE sound good – they let you take a toy in the ring? AKC has some opportunities but not as many as other venues. USDAA and UKI have amazing FEO opportunities! And the whole goal of the first 6 months or more of trialing is to get her very very happy in the ring and to oh-so-gradually introduce the harder obstacles.

Video 1: Lookin at the straight line exits – be sure to connect to her eyes at the tunnel exit, especially if you are not that far ahead. When you are looking forward and pointing forward, it turns your shoulders away from the line you want (like at :05) and it ends up looking almost like a threadle wrap cue. You got her to the wing by being further ahead on the last rep but she still had a question and curled into you. Compare to lower arm and a little more connection on the other side, so she went to the wing more smoothly. Yay!

“”but the video I got was where something was happening in the back of the building and JJ got very concerned about it.”

Turn up the volume and you will hear a series of high frequency noises in the background at :14, :17, :35, :37, :40 and :55 (and right as the video ended). I don’t know what the noises were, but she definitely found them aversive/scary and stopped working. My dogs all popped their heads up from a sleep when I played the video. And the noise must have been even more prominent to her young ears, because my old ears found it a little irritating.

Looking at the tunnel car crosses:

>>I could not get to the end of the tunnel fast enough to direct JJ. I tried backing it up a bit, but did not ever get to where I needed to be to support her. Maybe a shortened tunnel, or a better send to the tunnel would have worked. I look forward to your input.

She was reading the RC really well here in both directions! What was causing her to miss the wing after it was that you were too far behind as you mentioned. What was causing you to be a little too far behind was that you were standing at the tunnel for the RC, so you couldn’t move to the next line til she was past you… which made you late getting there. If you start at the wing and are showing the RC line (to the center of the tunnel) as you are both moving towards the tunnel, you can cut behind her sooner and then be on the other side of the tunnel sooner to show her the line to the next wing.

You don’t have to fix the direction wing wrap before rewarding her – she was correct based on the line of motion and verbal. So getting you further up the line (by starting nearer to the wrap wing and not at the tunnel) will help a lot. You can see how handler position makes a big difference: At :17 and :24 (on the last video) when you were more visible when she exited, your line showed the wing easily. But by being close to the tunnel to start you set a very slicing rear cross line and ended p further behind. Being near the wing will allow you to see a more extended RC and also put you closer to her line.

Great job here!

Have a happy Easter!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
Thanks for the kind words about CB, he is getting plenty of love today although I know he would prefer to run the courses LOL

Looking at the 2 videos here:
The go lines are looking good on the first video! You can mix in a lot more go lines throughout both sessions, as a a nice balance to the harder stuff.

The RCs on the first video are looking strong – the first one went well and the timing on the next 2 reps was earlier and so the turns were really nice!!!

The backside pushes are going well on both videos – you used a push verbal on the first rep at 2:06 and a back verbal on the others, so be sure to have the correct verbal planned.
Having your arm back and making connection was GREAT for helping him see the backside line! There was only one rep where he had a question about if it was the front side or not… and that was the rep where you broke connection and looked ahead of him. The rest looked great!

The countermotion commitment on the circle wraps is hard – he does well when you look at the landing spot as you move forward. Great job tossing the reward to the landing spot!

If you are still on the landing side as he gets to the takeoff spot, it is no problem for him to take the jump. When you are passing the wing and moving to the takeoff side when he is approaching takeoff, though, he has trouble taking the jump. So for now you can be walking forward rather than running to keep supporting the commitment on the circle wraps when you are getting further ahead, plus looking back behind you to the landing spot (and continuing to drop the reward there) will help build up the commitment too.

Great job!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
The straight line grid is going really well! The angled bumps were harder, so you can overlap the wings by about 6 inches so he has a little less distance between the bumps center-to-center (for now) to help him get a more balanced jumping effort there.

Looking at the tight blinds game:

Really nice exit line connection on the blinds when you were going from your left to your right! You can see it really clearly at :29 and 1:09, for example. Those were really good timing – you started the BC when he was maybe halfway between the tunnel exit and the barrel so the BC was almost fully don before he arrived at the barrel.

When you switched sides (going from your right to your left), the timing was late at :41 and :48. He didn’t see the next connection in time and your motion supported him to the next wing on the original side. Good boy!! Your timing was earlier at 54 and the exit line connection was a lot clearer, so he got it 🙂

When he was on your left going to your right, you were in motion the whole time and that made it easier to start the blinds sooner. When he was on your right going to your left side, you were decelerating at the wing then accelerating through the blind – the acceleration sends him wider and makes it harder to get the connection and timing.

Since he is speedy – one thing to help execute the blinds even more quickly is to keep your arms in tighter. Rather than have them fully extended, you can bend your elbows and keep them tucked in a little. That makes it super quick to do the blinds and you can still show great connection.

That will also make the race tracks even easier, rather than pointing forward – connect and run more like you did at 1:02. And prep the verbals before each rep so it is easy to spit them out – on one rep you said out-left-right LOL!! I can relate so I practice without the dog before each rep 🙂

And yes – using the verbals really helps, mainly because you are also connecting to him as you say them and matching your motion to the verbals. This will help him commit really well like you are seeing, and also learn the verbals really well 🙂

Serps – fantastic job releasing while in motion!!! Yay!!! These reps looked good – for the serps you can show him a little more rotation back to him as you move into position – a slightly more exaggerated turn at the waist with your arm back and eye contact will make it even easier as you add more motion. The tunnel cue looked perfect!

Great job!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!

The rear crosses are coming along! Yay! They are hard for sure! There are a few things to help clarify them for him:

– Adding more distance between the barrel and the prop or jump will give you more space to set the line. They were pretty close together which didn’t give you a lot of time to show the line.

– Clarifying the reward markers will help a lot too – you were tending to use ‘yes’ a lot but then he was not sure where to look when you were throwing the rewards (they tend to look at us when we say ‘yes’ and that makes rear harder). So using ‘get it’ is great!!!

>>He got sticky at ‘wrap to RX’ before I added the toy (treats in hand has a lot to do with that).>>

That was probably because the marker was ‘yes’ so he was not sure where to look, so as looking at you 🙂

– Placing the toy is really helpful too… but be sure he is committing to the obstacle (prop or jump) and reading cues, not just going to the toy 🙂 Two options for that are to have the placed toy in the same spot for each rep, and mix in go lines where he gets a thrown toy and not the placed toy. And you can tuck the placed toy right in next to the landing side of the wing so it is not as visible between the uprights: that way you will cue it with motion and line (and a reward marker).
– And, do a lot of throwing the rewards on these too (especially the right turns which are easier) so that you can be sure that you are executing the cues. With the toy placed very visibly between the uprights, I think he is going to it regardless of the info so we do want to make sure the handling supports the line.

Great job here!
Tracy

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