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Good morning!
His forward focus is looking fabulous:)
He is driving back pretty well here too, after getting to the toy! Even the wider turns were not lengthy victory laps at all.
The best drive back to you was when you turned and ran the other way without waiting for him – he drove back pretty immediately (3rd rep, :45ish). When you were more stationary, he came back pretty quickly but not as quickly as when you were moving away fast.So just before he grabs the toy, call like you did, do the front cross, and run away the other direction without waiting for him. That should help convince him to drive back immediately. And you can keep your toy hidden til he is almost all the way back to you with the original toy, as a way of getting him to retrieve all the way to you.
Nice job!
TracyGood morning!
The pattern game went really well here! I know it was not the *most* distracting environment for him, but there was still enough going on that he had to work through. You can see him processing things, especially whatever he was seeing/hearing/smelling off to his left when he was facing you. And he worked through it really well!
And when you played with food instead of the toy – fun! That was a great adjustment to keep it fun even without the toy.
You can take this game on the road to different places, using super high value food if you go somewhere hard (like near the ring at an agility trial :)) And every time you play this game in a hard place, do a short session at home in a quiet place with NO distractions to keep it neutral: we don’t want the game to only be associated with arousal or distractions.
The novel-exciting object was a good challenge! You can see him look at it as you were tugging him out to your starting position. He did really well ignoring the cookie bag after an initial investigation, and he also did well ignoring the toy (although he clearly knew it was there, based on his response at the end when you sent him to it 🙂
One thing to adjust is to run on the recall, just like you would if there were no distractions in the environment.
Standing still and facing him is not as exciting as running, and he will be able to process the self-control challenge better if there is more exciting in the game with you.Also, by being stationary and near the novel-exciting object, your position actually enhances it and he might be *more* interested in it because usually when we are near something, we are asking for interaction with it. So you can have him chase you for the recall – moving past the object and not staying near it.
Keep introducing various novel-exciting objects into the simple games! And that will be great brain preparation for when the environment throws novel-exciting things at him 🙂
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
She is SO CUTE!! And so smart too!!Toy races went well! Great job connecting to her as you were holding her to see looking forward! She was definitely getting here first on the first couple of reps then was *almost* winning the toy when you did the push backs. On those, she did get to the toy first but it was low so it was hard to pick up. To let her really win, you can get a taller toy that she can scoop up (like a holleee roller) so she can grab it as she arrives rather than stop to try can pick it up.
Keep adding distance to these so she can get further and further ahead of you as she gets bigger and bigger 🙂
Blind crosses:
Lovely! Nice job with your timing and your connection after the blind was PERFECT. You can see how snappy her side change was!
The only hard part was that she had trouble finding the start cookie LOL!! It might have been that there was other stuff in the corner (dust or whatever) or the sunspot was changing the visual, so you can make the start cookie more obvious. But once she locked onto it, you were great with running away and doing the blind. Yay!Stealth self-control:
She definitely likes the cookie recall game! She might have been a little too close to the novel-neutral object for now – she had to check it out both times 🙂 So you can play this game (and the next levels) with the self-control object further away so her brain can process it but it is much easier to go past it without checking it out.
Goat tricks – nice job shaping interaction with the disc! She seemed perfectly happy to put her front feet on it, and then she was hilarious when she was lifting it with her head! Good job *not* clicking for that even though it was super cute LOL!!
She offered all sorts of front end stuff but no hind end – that was probably because the disc was small and it was inflated a lot so there was not a lot of room to comfortably get her and end on too. I don’t think it was a lack of confidence, I just think there was not enough room for her booty LOL!
So to encourage her to get her hind end on too, you can expand the playing field by putting multiple objects out, close together, so there is plenty of room for her to get all feet on them without having to scrunch up. And, if you are using inflatables, take out about 50% of the inflation. That will allow her to balance – if they are fully inflated or over-inflated, so probably doesn’t have the coordination to balance on them quite yet.
Great job here!
TracyHi!
I don’t think I ever watched That Girl long enough to know the theme song! But I recognized the theme here on this video!
She did well wrapping a new object here! She also was offering turning to her left when you were not moving the bowl or putting the treat in it – the left turns get better and better each time! Right turns remain strong too. When she could see your left hand putting the treat in the bowl or moving the moving, she went to the hand. There was a lot of movement in the first part of the session, then you were standing still. She was waiting for hand movement to some extent at that point, I believe – but when you didn’t move, she started offered going around the suitcase. Yay! A good example of how she was waiting but the hand movement pulled her between you and the suitcase was at 2:50.
So at this stage, have the bowls already set where you want them to be, and you can drop or place treats in the bowls after she is almost all the way to them. You can start with the object close to you again but then it will be easy to get a bit of distance. And in the transition from the tugging to treats, you can also have the treats already in your pocket or bait bag, so she doesn’t watch you grab a bunch as that might also put her focus on your hands right at the start.
I would do maybe one more session (trying not to move hands until after she is wrapping to the bowl) then head into the turn and burn game!
Nice work!
TracyHi!
>. I did a session earlier that was just two bowls and he really struggled because there was a dog barking. >
This is where a pattern game from the resilience track can be used and also the highest value food – after he is really good at the pattern game at home, you can take it places like the wallpaper factory and use it there to help him assess the environment. Barking dogs in the distance hard for him, probably because it is weird LOL
There is a pattern game element to using just the 2 bowls so it wa a good choice of games here too.
What were those treats! He did not appear to have to really chew them, he basically slurped them down – hooray!
Good job adding the cone. You can scoot the bowls in closer to your feet so there is more wrapping fully around it. He seemed to have no question about the wrapping with you standing up and even corrected himself when he almost went between you and the cone. Super!!
You can do a warm up like this in the next session (bowls and cone) then try the turn and burn game!
>This was also his first time playing with the inflation too. >
It took him a moment to get into the inflation – it might have been that the bowls/cone setup was right there (cookies!) and you were bending over backwards(harder to tug) plus a dog barking in the distance somewhere. But then he got into it! Yay! You can attach the inflation to something longer (I put a knot in a fleece tug then thread the other end through the end of the inflation). That will allow you to swing it around more, which will help overcome the environmental distractions too!
>He is very aroused when we got home, I think partially cos it’s so late (got home at 10.20pm!)>
Yes – I think that dogs have a circadian rhythm that is not that different than us humans! So if that was unusually late and he was doing stimulating things at a time when he would normally would be winding down, you will see more arousal. Training and being in a different place that is challenging will release cortisol, adrenaline, endorphins, etc – all of which is the opposite of the body’s natural rhythm at night 🙂 so the arousal was probably a reflection of that.
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning! Congrats on Benni’s NW3 title!! That is a BIG accomplishment!!!!
>A couple of these games for week 3 were very humbling for this handler!>
Yes – so many mechanics and we humans have to be correct because the puppies don’t have enough knowledge to cover us if we mess up LOL 😂😝
Toy races – going great!
>tried the toy race game…I lost. >
Ha! Yes, he is super fast and I love it!!
One suggestion, for smoother starts so he can go straighter and even faster: have him wear a collar or harness because holding him by the chest is making the start of each rep off balance. He almost went behind you on the first rep (it was hard for him to see connection) and was moving away from you on the 2nd rep. This game can go outside or two other locations!
Parallel path – good job adding the rear crosses! We can adjust the reward timing so you get less looking at you, not more, which will help the drive to the prop on the RC:
You can be a tiny bit earlier on the marker and reward: he was looking at you already when you marked the behavior. Think of the prop as a jump-bar replacement, so you can reward commitment to it as the priority here: You can see him heading towards and arriving at the prop, and mark/throw before he looks at you.
We can also get him more excited so it is less of a trotting game and more of a running game: use the toy a lot more often! Have a tug break after every couple of treats, and you can also use the toy as the reward (fling it like you flung the treats :)) Then before you start moving forward, add a bit of ready dance to pump him up 🙂
That can help get him exploding forward which will help you get the RC cues in sooner. All of the RCs here were to his right, so his questions were about timing and not about side preference.
At 1:17 and 1:34, you were visible enough doing the side change that he was able to switch gears and turn right! Yay!!!
At 1:26 and 1:44, you were still visible on the left turn side so he turned left – then completed the circle to find you. Good job rewarding him there!!! So if he explodes forward more, you will see that you can get to the other side before he arrives at the prop and then he will get the RC right each time.
Collection sandwich:
Yes, this one does require 3 or 4 arms LOL!! A little bit of chaos is actually useful here because agility handling can sometimes be fast moving chaos 🙂 On the harder side, you can give yourself a walk through without him to get it all sorted out. But overall, this went well and I think he enjoyed the craziness of it all!
One suggestion here: after the blind, decel sooner (almost immediately as you finish the blind) and then have your hand closer to your leg. You can let your elbow be touching your side so it doesn’t extend away.
When you were reaching out to him, it was pushing him away a bit. When you had your hand closed and closer to your side, he turned a lot better on the pivots!
He drove really well to the toy at the end of each rep, so you can add your go go go verbal!
This is a good one to take outside so both of you can really run run run!
Barrel wraps:
He is understanding these pretty well! You can change the orientation of this game so it is lengthwise in your training area – that way you can run away for real, and not run towards the wall.
>I think I did it all backwards as far as the line placement on the floor. >
Yes, – you were moving it towards you when it should move away from you around the barrel (towards where he is starting). That will give you the visual of when you can do the FC – when you were doing it too early here, he was coming with you. When you were doing it more as he exited the barrel, he was able to complete his commitment really well!
When you changed sides, you started with it more in the center and that was the right placement to add earlier timing on the FC!
That is the only adjustment I’d suggest: having the line on the ground start at the exit and move it gradually around the barrel away from you, so you can start moving through the FC earlier and earlier.
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
>Oh, do you think she’s a righty? I think so. But, I’m not sure.>
Based on the barrel session here, yes – it seemed the right turns were easier, and when in doubt: she offered going to the right.
>The first part was too hard. Difficult environment and I had the bowls too far back. Epic fail!>
Definitely not an epic fail! It was actually GREAT information about mechanics. Two things were happening (video is great for giving us a bigger view):
– when she scooted between you and the barrel, it was happening in one specific instance: you were accidentally enhancing the other bowl. She was eating from one bowl (usually by your right hand), she saw you drop the treat in the other bowl. Or, she saw you moving the bowl. Those were basically a cue to just go directly to the other bowl, because the hand movement and cookie placement enhanced it. So she wasn’t wrong (based on her current frame of reference).
Easy fix: don’t let her see you put the treat in or move the bowl 🙂 You can toss a cookie away for her to go find in the grass, or take a tug break, and move the bowls or adjust the setup in a way that she is not in the middle of offering and can see the bowls moving.
– she did a bit more thinking when she needed to turn left (going from your right to your left). Don’t help her 🙂 Let her make a decision that involves some type of movement and not standing still and looking up. The reason you don’t want to help with a hand cue there is that what actually gets rewarded is standing still and looking up, when we want her to thinking about offering left turn movement. It can be any movement that gets rewarded – turning left for one step, even a sit or down can be rewarded with a treat in the bowl. Movement gets rewarded. Standing still gets us waiting for movement 🙂
If she has a harder time on the left turns, you can have the bowl more visible on that side to make it easier without adding cues or reinforcement for standing still (and the right turn bowl can be less visible since that is currently the easier side).
Overall it went well, especially outside! The tug breaks were also really good! And yes, trying one more object is good before you progress to turn and burn.
>Can you guess the out if tune TV theme song in the prop video? >
Hmmmm it sounds familiar but I think more coffee is needed to figure it out!
The prop game went great! She was immediately ready to interact on both the left and right turn side. Big progress!
She was so funny on the sideways and backwards sending, starting it on some reps before you were ready! So add in the ready dance on the right turn side (first part of the session) to get a little more handler focus so she doesn’t start without you. You had the ready dance on the left turn side and she did great!
>I know… I went in too long. But, you can see our struggles. Better though.>
I don’t think it was session length in general, I think she got a little distracted when you did a whole bunch of cookie reps in a row. She likes cookies and all, but it was a lot of the same thing for the same cookie, so you can do 2 or 3 then take a tug break! You can also have a ‘trail mix’ of treats, so different treats are happening which keeps things interesting.
Or, play this game for a toy which will make it very exciting and a little harder 🙂 She seems ready for that!
>Dot was distracted by water. She’s drinking a lot these days.>
It was right there and dry treats can make her thirsty, so she stopped for a sip 🙂 I think you moved the water? That was good – and something to note that water can be a good distraction in the future!
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
>We are playing a pattern game where I am placing food on my shoe. >
Yes – that is a good one too! There are lots of good pattern games. This one is ‘up and down’, which is super useful for tighter situations and also for resetting certain brainwave patterns. I am glad it helped him tune out distractions!
Try to be perfectly stationary when you play it – you were moving your feet before he looked up at you, and we don’t want the foot movement to become a cue by accident.
The back and forth game (with the tossed treats) is great for exploring the environment and for letting him move more, which is super useful especially for adolescent dogs 🙂
>Blind Cross: I need to do more work on my throwing mechanics,>
Your placement was really good – you just needed to throw the cookie further on the 2nd rep so you had more time to do the blind cross 🙂 You were stationary on these reps – he is ready for you to add movement. As he is heading towards the thrown treat, you can be walking forward then when he eats it: run! That will give you plenty of time for the blind and also make it easy to add the decel when you play the next game 🙂
>Goat Tricks: This was brand new for him. I am using three different objects.>
On the first object, I didn’t see the transition into the shaping session – he was sitting and looking up at you, so he might not have been immediately sure he was being asked to offer getting on it. You can start the session with a cookie toss away from you then out the object down – the cookie tosses in the next part of the session worked beautifully to get him moving and offering!
>Tribute grew since then so, even though he can place all four paws on the platform, it wasn’t easy and my treat placement wasn’t helping>
I think it was a little too small and he would have had to crunch up to get onto it – but you can combine it with the other object you used here to make a bigger playing field, so he would have more room to get all 4 feet up on it.
He got all 4 feet on the longer step you can use the step – so now you can challenge him to stand on it and turn around (following a cookie lure hand).
And you can squish all of these objects (and any other random things you can find) together for him to walk across and climb around on.
The smaller round bowl is perfect for front feet – we will be teaching pivoting pretty soon, so that seems like the perfect object for it!
The retrieves at the end looked good!
>He is bringing it back somewhere between 55% and 60% so I don’t think it is a solid behavior but there appears to be some understanding.>
To get the rate of success higher, you can add your motion – when yo throw a toy, take off and run the other direction so he chases you with the toy 🙂 He might think that is super fun, which will help entice him to bring the toy back 🙂 And if he is really loving tugs, you can reward the retrieve with a 2nd toy 🙂
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
This is exactly right! Super! She was able to maintain her speed and commitment, even with you running the other direction. She seemed surprised at how tight the turn would be – she might have been expecting that you would throw the frisbee on her line on the first rep so she was heading that way.
She was already tighter on the next rep – yay! The more you show her the countermotion, the more she can tighten her turn and chase you line.Looking great!!
TracyHi!
>Are you good with two videos per post? If not, I’ll go back to one. >
Totally yes! My motto is: if you have ’em, post ’em! So if you have a couple of videos ready to post, put them all in. No one-video-per-post rule 🙂 and you’ll get quicker feedback that way too.
Parallel path – the Flintstones was today’s tug song hahahaha! Cracks me up!
This went pretty well overall – I think during the early part of the session, she was thinking it was about looking at you. But when that didn’t get rewarded (looking at you and passing the prop), she offered a lot more looking at/towards the prop and touching it. Yay! I agree that she had a harder time on your right side – no clear reason why, other than perhaps you had less room moving that direction, or it is a mutual side preference 🙂 So you can stay close on the right and add a little bit of distance on the left side reps.
>. I tried outside which was an epic fail for parallel path. She couldn’t touch the object at all. Walked right on the outside of it. >
The prop might not have been salient enough in the outdoor environment, so you can make it more obvious by placing it up on a rolled up towel or something similar. Or have her do it on leash, on the sidewalk so there is no grass distraction (before the sidewalk gets too hot). And she might have needed a refresher on just hitting it outside, so you can always start with that.
One thing we add with pups who want to look at us is marking and throwing the treat for the forward focus and intent to move to the prop – mark and throw on the line, just before the pup actually hits it and before the pup looks at us 🙂 Hitting the prop is not terribly relevant here because we are teaching the pup to stay on a line to a ‘thing’ as we get further away. The ‘thing’ will eventually be a jump or tunnel 🙂
>We are still not great at send to the prop or going around things. I’m not sure if it’s my mechanics or she’s just a little young still.>
I think it is coming along nicely! She has more and more value and commitment each time you try it. And nothing needs to be perfect in order to move forward – it is all about exposure to concepts. And also we are developing neural pathways, and the first ones she had to develop were all about how we humans like to structure our sessions! Then the brain gets to work on the concepts like wrapping a barrel. An 8 or 9 month old pup has the benefit of “this is how we work with humans” pathways already developed and the 10 week old pups are starting from scratch 🙂
She did well with the novel-exciting objects here and the pattern game. On a couple of the reps, you were saying ‘find it’ while she was looking at the object at the beginning – I think some of that was you getting into a rhythm 🙂 So you can wait a heartbeat longer until you are seeing her head lift up and orient towards you.
You might have noticed that she approached the novel-exciting object first thing when you let her out of the xpen. That was probably because she was released and there was something new and exciting, so she went to it of course. Since we want to avoid her going directly to new/exciting things, you can change up how you release her into the session:
– you can release her from the xpen, get a reward or two in for a behavior like the pattern game here, then toss a treat off far enough that she has to really go find it – then you put the novel-exciting into the environment and continue the game as if it is not there.
– you can bring her into a room with the novel-exciting already in place, and begin the game as you are entering the room.
Great job!
TracyHi!
He did really well touching the prop here! He was being thoughtful about it, and it is possible that he was processing finding the treat in the grass (and chewing it haha) and ignoring outside distractions. And figuring out if he should look at you or not – so much to consider! He did really well with all of that! So you can add some toy play before the session and after every 3 or 4 treats here, so he can be really ramped up for it – that will help the environment fade into the background and hopefully help him gobble the treats LOL!The other thing you can add now is to switch from a ‘yes’ marker to a ‘get it’ marker, so he can look forward after smacking the prop. And then you can throw the treat further away, because he is already looking towards the line expecting it to drop out ahead.
Great job!!
TracyHi!
He looks so cute with his new hair style!!!The forward focus to the toy is looking great – he was more than happy to look at it, then run to it and tug tug tug. Super!
I think you can now throw the toy further – fling it as far as possible and when it lands, if he is looking at it, let him rip to it. That will also add in the toy races, where you try to get to the toy before him (and if you do, have a toy party without him haha). I believe he will get there first, and you’ll see some big big acceleration. I am also excited about how easily he went from toy to food to toy! Yay!
Great job!
TracyHi!
Yay for youtube! The videos look great!!! And I agree – Goose is super quick to learn and so much fun!! Who are the two cuties right in front of the camera?She is driving around the object with a ton of speed here, I love it! No questions from her at all – the frisbee is VERY motivating 🙂 Towards the end she was not sure which side to be on – that is where you were pointing forward more than looking at her. As soon as you looked at her more (connection!) she got right back to going around. Super!
The next step is to change your running line – if she starts on your left side, as she is going around the object (moving to the left hand side of the screen), you will do a FC, running back towards where you started (towards the right side of the screen, instead of towards the top of the screen :)) That will add the challenge of countermotion, where she needs to complete the wrap even with you already going the other direction. And then when she catches up to you, throw the frisbee or let her tug from your hand.
Great job!
Tracy
Hi!
She is getting the idea beautfully here!! She looked at you a bit on the first rep, perhaps surprised that you were running too. But then on the other reps she drove ahead perfectly. Super!!! You can keep adding distance (maybe do long distance rollers and hold her longer before letting her go, to get the toy even further before the game starts). And you can expand the reward toolbox and try this with other toys too!
Great job!
Tracy
Hi!
The teeter plank was perfect for this!! She started off really super but then got distracted by something under the board… at which point her feet were going every which way LOL!! She got back to focus and balance really well after that though. Turning around was easy! The down was harder for her but she was able to do it.
Lifting her to stack her actually put her off balance (she almost fell off at the end LOL!), so you can let her find the stack with her own balance.
The next thing to add is getting her to play tug right next to the board… then hop on it and walk across it. That will challenge her to maintain her balance and footwork even when she is more stimulated, and that is perfect for dog sports!
Nice work here!
Tracy
