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It is super subtle – when she was on your right and running past the jumps when you turned your shoulders down the line, you added in a brief moment of facing her as she was doing the wing wrap (:07, :12, :37. That rotated your shoulders towards her and got her onto the line but put you too far behind (she is FAST!). Plus, we want her to find the line while you turn and face it 🙂 Let me know if that makes sense!
Tracy
Welcome!! I am glad to see you here! And it sounds like good timing to be able to start building up his sequencing skills while we sharpen up your connection. YAY!! Have fun 🙂
TracyHi! Thanks for re-setting the privacy!!
This is great video for figuring out what he needs for connection and for training.
He had a question about the wing wrap start:
On the very first send, you were looking forward and pointing forward which turns your shoulders away from the wing and towards the jump – which is why he was headed that direction (then he got Big Mad because the info was not clear).
The send to the start wing at :22 and on the last rep was much clearer – low and better connection, so he committed really well!On the first rep, you were running and connecting and pretty far ahead. The position ahead combined with the motion was toooooo much so he could not quite coordinate taking the jumps.
Compare to the 3rd and last reps, where you brought the wing in closer (smart!) so you could be connected and a little ahead, without running hard – and he was perfect 🙂 Yay! Your connection was great there too.
The 2nd rep was more like a jump grid with you leading out and not moving that much – easy peasy!
So as you work through these – add one challenging variable at a time. I think the 2 challenges are you being way ahead (and also possibly behind when you get to it) and moving really fast. So either be waaaaay ahead but doing a fast walk/slow jog to start. Or, be closer to him, only a little ahead, and going fast.
We will work them separately then merge them together so you can be fast AND ahead, and he will still take the jumps.
Great job here!
TracyHi!
>>two words or 1 for both play and toys?
I use one, because it means “all done, let’s go get your reward”. The dog doesn’t need to know if it is a toy or treats in that moment – they can trust it will be good stuff and they won’t be asked to do a discrimination on which reinforcement it is 🙂
>>My word is corny. I use Cookies in a sing-song voice for my competition dog after her run, and we go to a stash, so this is already part of my vocab. But I will feel dumb saying cookies as we get a toy stash.>>
Perfect! It is not corny at all!!! It sounded really good on the video. And no one will think you are dumb if you use it for a toy; they will be too busy admiring the brilliance of your teamwork!
> Let’s Go is my cue to trot on a show lead ingrained over 45 years.>
Ah yes, so probably not a great choice for this game 🙂 Use a word/phrase that you enjoy, makes you smile, and you will remember 🙂
Good morning!
Good job with the sit releases: catch versus break! And adding arm movement and re-connection was great, she is holding her sit nicely on all of them and didn’t release on any of the non-releases 🙂 Yay!Remote reinforcement is off to a great start!!! She was terrific about ignoring the treats in the bowl as you moved away and asked for tricks.
Having the toy on the ground for remote reinforcement was a little confusing to her at first, so a clean playing field will be more straightforward. She also did well when the toy was the remote reinforcement object. Super!!The cookies marker was perfect and you also had the let’s play when the toy was on the table. 2 separate markers are fine if you can remember them 🙂
Head turns: you were getting her to do the double circles (yay!) but we can smooth it out to isolate the head turns. 2 things will really help:
For each rep, start her at your side so you can send her forward to the cone. That will be a cleaner start and give you time to set up the turn away.
Then use a low and slow hand (nose level for her, so feel free to sit so you don’t have to bend too much) to get her into the turn away: put the magic cookie hand right in front of her nose, the do a slow-ish wrist flick to indicate the turn away :and when she leaves your hand to turn away, click that moment. You hand was pretty high here so she doing the turn but looking up so not really leading with her head through the turn. The low hand will help that 🙂
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
I am glad you are getting her teeth sorted out, poor pup! That can definitely change her mood!!
Good job on the threadle video:
I was wondering what you were waiting for on the first rep LOL! You were waiting for the Pet Tutor LOL!
She was tending to stop near your hand, so we can get her to move more fluidly – click it when she is heading towards your hand but before she slows down to ask you questions. When you do that, keep the PT clearly on the landing side (even more clearly that you had it here), so it is really obvious that she should go over the bar.
Once she gets the hang of staying in motion and not stopping near your hand, then you can shift the timing of the click to when she looks at the bar as she is moving. I think that is what you were waiting on here, but she was building stopping into the behavior so we can focus on ‘keep moving’ instead first.Nice work here!!
Tracy
Good morning!
>>Rocking Horse with a toy is still sticky for her. Any advice? I think she was frustrated here when she stopped moving and didn’t wrap. >>
I can answer this one before looking at the video:
She’s a whippet! So the one thing I have learned about whippets is that to get the best results, train the skill less LOL! So, put this game away for a week and I bet she comes back to it with far fewer questions (or maybe no questions :)) Whippet latent learning is MAGIC (and also a little bit mind-blowing).Watching the video – it is frozen on a photo until the very end where there is one rep that looked good! So I can’t really comment on what happened LOL I tried it on 2 devices – let me know if it works for you?
Common causes of not committing if that is what happened would be:
– not enough connection, so add more eye contact before the send
– too much distance, so you can move the barrels in closer>>
Should I keep the toy in my pocket for a bit?>>Usually the toy is not the question – although it can appear that way when the connection is not that strong. So as long as the toy is scrunched up and not flapping around, you can keep it in your hand and ramp up the connection and get closer to the barrel. But I stick with my initial response to leave the game for a week and come back to it, because latent learning will kick in. The last time you posted them (December 27), they looked great so now the new stuff is added and we let her brain cement the new info 🙂
Tracy
Good morning!
>>The first time I used the little blue bowl sitting on the mantle with a bunch of kibble in it >>
It sounds like the bowl with kibble was the right level of challenge.
>>then I switched to the MM on the ground with boring crunchy treats in it.
And this was too hard as he told you 🙂
You can use the blue bowl on a table for the remote reinforcement game but you can split the difference with the MM – teach him to leave it alone until cued but *not* as part of remote reinforcement yet. As you want him to move away from the MM, reward him with food for moving with you (no tricks needed, just moving away is fine). Then when you click the MM, he can run back to it. Use the highest value food needed to convince him to move away from it, without diluting the value of the MM.
Then when you use the MM in training, like for tunnel games, you can food reward him for leaving it and lining up, then use the MM to reward the skill. Eventually you can fade out the food rewards for moving away from it but for now, I think he needs them.
>>I was using a piece of kibble placed on a dustpan as my “get it” reward. It was soooo hard for Mason to focus on anything else besides that lone cookie behind him, that I struggled to get any connection at all out of the turn. >>
This is another place you can using reinforcement of matching value to teach him to leave the reward target on the ground until cued.
He did a good job of it overall! You can start with an empty dustpan to develop the framework of doing the barrel then the handling then going to it – then add the treat to it. When the treat is in it, give him more agency to choose (less collar holding!) but also a LOT of quick high value reinforcement for staying with you. You were tending to hold his collar a little too long on the send to the barrel which delayed the next cue.
There were a few reps where he seemed to think he should go straight but you wanted him stopping with you – it was a conflicting indicators question that was causing it. For example, looking at the rep at :35-:36 approx: you were moving forward at the same pace but showing your hands to get his attention onto you, so he was moving forward (based on motion info) and then did catch the info to come to you, but you can see the question there.
I think sending to the barrel from further and then slowing down sooner and showing the hand cue to come to you after the decel will make a big difference, even when a cookie is there in the dustpan 🙂
The rep at :40 had the most trust (letting go of his collar die and early) and the earliest “come to me” decel and cue. The last rep was good too – I think the dustpan was empty on those? You can do the same thing but with the cookie placed in the pan 🙂
Looking at the rocking horses:
“”The new red crate had previously been used by Annie so it smelled like her and Mason wouldn’t stop sniffing it””
His interest in it could have been a combination of it being new & different, plus smelling like her, so he had a little bit of trouble processing it as something to go around. Using the upright was a better choice for sure.
>>I wonder if this amount of arm motion is good or if I should wave my arms a little higher for the sends.>>
Your arms were good here! And your connection after the first FC as you sent to the 2nd barrel was GREAT, which is why he always went to the 2nd barrel. Super!!!
>>It was working pretty nicely except that I would always get a refusal on the third send.>>
On the 3rd sends (at :06, :11, :20), you were not as connected as you were on the previous send – you were pointing ahead of him, looking at the barrel, and your shoulders were f acing the a-frame in the field (:06 and :11) and towards the camera at :20. So he was behind you and no longer saw connection plus saw your shoulders turning to a different line… so he looked up at you to figure it out.
Compare those reps to the 3rd send at :26 – SUPER clear connection to his eyes as he exited the upright and you maintained it as he passed you to the barrel. Note how at :27 your shoulders were pointed to the barrel 🙂 So he was perfect and went to the barrel – very clear info for him. Yay!
So be sure to make the clear connection each time, and if you get the refusal, add in more connection on the next rep.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
She did great here too! I think she liked the toy in your left hand a little better (ok a lot better LOL!) but she was terrific about going to the other one as well in the first part of the session. I think the value of that left hand toy got really high during the game so it was harder to let go at the end, but she did it and did end ups going to the other toy. Yay!You can add in an ‘out’ cue (just before your tug hand goes stationary) to help with the release of the toy. And you can add a marker that indicates that she can get the other toy you are moving around (I added “bite” for that).
One more challenge to how her is to use food – she outs the toy, she gets a cookie, then try to get her to go to the next toy. That way she will get used to going back and forth between food and toys in training (I think she will have no trouble with this).
Great job!
TracyGood morning and happy New Year!
This went really well, and you can see how her value for going around the basket really made it easy to transition it into backside understanding. Super!!!!
Since she had no questions, you can add three things to this:
– your backside slice verbal 🙂 Start saying it as you start moving forward to the basket.– change your position to be moving forward to the center of the bar here. This will add some challenge because she will see more of the front side of the bar, so it creates more independence to the backside. Be sure to be a little ahead of her when you add this so she doesn’t slip in front of you to take the bar.
– you did a great job rewarding her on the landing side of the bar! So now, after she is definitely committing to the basket, you can start to move parallel to the bar like a serp and drop the toy in behind you (closer to the basket) to get her to take the jump as you move away on the slice line.
Great job here!!
TracyHi!
>> my next is stiffer (in general), when I am looking over my left shoulder which you noticed in the “dog on left” video. I used to do alot more stretching than I have lately, so this is a good reminder to focus some on ME in 2024 and not just on our team training! I have gotten out of the habit of monthly chiropractic which did help my neck stiffness!>>
Totally relatable! Connection was easier when I wasn’t so stiff LOL!!!
>>I will get more video tomorrow (today is Karma’s swim day)……….maybe I will just work on walking the sequences with my “virtual dog” and then bring her back tomorrow for video. >>
Perfect! Practicing without her will also build the skill so it becomes second nature.
>>Then I need to get crackin’ on the next task, the exit line connection! Will let you know if I have any questions about those diagrams once I watch the demo video! This is great!!!>>
Have fun! Keep me posted!
Tracy
Good morning!
She is so tiny, so cute, so fast! Love it!
She was terrific, especially at Robyn’s – very focused and engaged.I think the hardest parts were getting the toy back and getting her to look ahead and not at you.
Will she alternate between food and toys? If so, you can use food to get her to bring the toy back faster, and also use food to line her up at your side. When she is not lined up, the first send gets dicey.
Also, food is a great reset for when there is a handling blooper – you were tending to withhold the reinforcement but all errors here were handler errors, so she still needed to get rewarded at least in the form of a reset cookie.To get her looking ahead – a placed reward will do the trick, like I did with my young whippet. You can use food to reward her for ignoring it! And then food to get her lined up too.
First video: nice job here!
The first two reps needed some working out for mechanics but then you smoothed it out and the next reps were really strong with clear connection.At 1:14 – you can still reward her, she got it right 🙂 Your throw was really late and you were not moving that fast, so she was not sure if she should go straight or not. Remember that all errors are handler errors and to reward the dog – don’t withhold reinforcement if the rep is not perfect.
Last rep had more motion and earlier throw, so she did great!2nd video went GREAT with the dog-on-left reps. Nice job adding the verbals! The only thing I would suggest here is to add the placed toy so she doesn’t look at you.
The other side was a little harder because it was newer: On the first rep at :41 – I think she is very literal and was going where you were facing – reward her anyway as a reset because there was a handling blooper and she was definitely making a huge effort.
She had a question at :55- :56 where you were not as connected. You had your arm up then arm down then arm up and you were looking forward (and not at her) so she almost missed the first jump – still rewardable!
You had a little disconnect at 1:10 (getting ready to throw the toy), it changed the line of your handling so she missed jump 1 while reading the handling. You reconnected at 1;11 so she took jump 2: good girl! You withheld the reinforcement there too… But she was 100% correct – always find a way to reward at this stage, even if it goes wrong. And if you were not sure what happened, watch the video and you will see the handling oopsie.
You were better connected on the last rep, so she got the toy. Yay! Remember that the reward should get to her if you were good or not good with the connection 🙂
Looking at the crosses video: She was getting a little frustrated with the toy play, and I think it was because you were pulling it away so fast.
Each reward moment for tugging should take twice as long as the rep she did to earn it – she was great on the first rep, you presented the toy, then immediately took it away within a second. Not sure what happened there but she was really good, so tug longer – 4 or 5 seconds – rather than taking the toy away immediately. She jumped up for the toy as you moved it away because there was no clear “out” cue and you had just given it to her so she was probably not expecting to give it back that quickly. You were tending to take it away really quickly on all the reps, so remember to tug and praise for a while before taking it away for the next rep. Then you can give her a cookie to line up for the next rep.
I think you did a great job with the exit line connection here! The first rep didn’t have it but the rest all did and she read the lines perfectly because your connection was clear. Yay! The differences between the FC and the spins were obvious to her (super!) even if the spins were sometimes a little late. And the last rep was a blind, and you had strong exit line connection there too.
She only had one question here where she almost didn’t go to the barrel, due to a really high arm at 1:05. You had your hand up at the level of your head, and when it is that high (especially for small dogs) it blocks connection and turns your shoulders away from the line. When that happened, she had to look up at you to see what you wanted before going to the barrel.
On the other reps, you hand was low, so she had no questions 🙂
One suggestion to add here:
For the exit line connection, keep moving after the FC or spin or blind so she can drive to you and get used to you moving to the next line.Great job here!!
TracyGood morning! Nice work here!! Kashia is so fun!!
Lovely job on video 1!! You had great connection at the start, and you said each verbal directly to her cute face. Nice low arms too! SUPER!!!! Try to resist temptation to sneak a peek ahead of you – you were probably trying to not run into anything (that is valid LOL!) but if you look downwards, you will likely be able to see the next jump and maintain connection.
On video 2: great job with your connection here too! She was comfy on all of the reps where you are ahead of her. Her question was when you were a little behind her:
>>>> She did that two times in a row until we got back into rhythm. I thought maybe it was my hand not pointing to the jump but I’m not sure. >>
I don’t think you did anything wrong in terms of connection or line… I think it was a young dog moment where she was not comfy driving ahead of you on that side (she was comfy doing it on your other side). It is totally normal for youngsters (like 17 month old dogs :)) to have side preferences. No worries! We can help her out for sure:
She seems to be working for food rewards, which is great – she was super focused and motivated! So, using the rewards, you can place a reward target out past the last jump here so she doesn’t look at you (and leaves you in the dust by driving to it :)) A reward target for a food-motivated dog can be something like a big empty food bowl (and then you throw the cookie into it when she gets there) or a Manners Minder, or one of those cookie-delivery toys like a lotus ball, treat hugger, or tuggie that you can stuff treats into. The lotus ball and treat hugger are my favorites because she can get the cookies without needing you to be there at all, plus they are small enough that you can use them on course by throwing them too!
The reward target will be useful on all the reps, because she wants to look back at you a bit on jump 2 – the reward target will keep her looking ahead as the lines get longer and longer.
>>My other dog did this exercise great so I definitely miscommunicated something with my younger dog.>>
Yes – the youngster give us very clear feedback on what they are comfortable with (or not) and if the cue is good (or not). I watched that section a bunch of times and the cue was good, so missing jump 2 was more about her learning the skill of driving ahead of you. Your experienced dog has already learned this which is why she did it so well 🙂
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
