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Welcome back! These games went well!!
>>We were moderately successful. I only got through the baby versions but that’s okay >
I thought you were super successful – this is a hard game!!! And there is a lot of running so it is fine to leave the advanced level for another day.
Looking as the reps:
One thing I notice overall is that he runs at big dog timing for cues, which means he needs to know what is next when he lands from the previous jump. If you wait longer, you end up late. Here are details:1st rep GO – nice! Lovely!
2nd rep – the wrap was good, but I think you were using small dog timing (which made the cues a little late) and you can start the decel at big dog timing as he lands from the first jump.
3rd rep and 4th reps were rear crosses: You did small dog timing on the 3rd rep, getting on the RC diagonal when he was maybe halfway between the jumps, so he didn’t pick up the turn On the 4th rep, you used big dog timing, started to show the diagonal when he landed from jump 1: FABULOUS!
Reps 5,6,7 were backside pushes:
On the 5th rep, you had a little too much motion and that ended up turning your feet past the jump, which pushed him off the jump (2:12)
6th and 7th rep (2:31 and 2:52) – really nice line and mic better line of motion and he nailed it. YAY!Lat rep – go from the tunnel – perfect!
So remember that he is a big dog in a little body, and start those cues as he is landing from the previous jump.
Motion override :
>>I am seeing frozen behavior again – any thoughts on this?>>
This is also a really hard game. You had a lot of success! I don’t think he was frustrated or mad about it when he froze, I think he was actively processing the cues and his brain was doing all sorts of calculations LOL!!!
I think the sits that were delayed versus the sits that were fast had something to do with being near you – he has trouble sitting when you are ahead. The best & fastest responses happened when he was next to you and the delayed or frozen moments were more when you were ahead of him. Good to know!!
So to get more success when you are more and more ahead, move very slowly to start, almost shuffling or fake walking. He is processing, so slowing down the motion as you add distance will help him.
And maybe only work one side in each session – when you changed changed sides at the end and he was like WAIT WHAT and his computer brain wen haywire hahaha Again, he didn’t seem frustrated or demotivated, he was in the game and just seemed like we gave him a massive puzzle that he was trying to solve 🙂
Great job here! I think we have some hot weather ahead, so you might end up doing the sunrise agility thing like I have been doing lately LOL!!!
Tracy
Hi!
>>I think part of my problem was that I was trying to watch Syn take the jumps and then get into position.
That is the hard part with young dogs – watching them enough to support commitment, but watching them less so we can cue the turns. Young dog handling is a LOT harder than adult dog handling LOL!!!
Good decel at :10 when she landed fro the middle jump but then you didn’t quite trust her, perhaps, and stepped forward again and she went longer on the jump.
You really worked out the timing nicely on the next reps:
:40 had more decel so she collected before takeoff! Yay!!
:57 was even better!!! Super!1:30 was my favorite so far – so nice, you can really see her collecting and bending over the bar to make. The wrap. YAY! Lovely!!!
LOVED the blind cross at 1:51!! You sent to the pinwheel jump at 1:48, saw she was looking at it, and got outta there. Freeze the video at 1:51 – she is not yet off the ground for the BC jump and you are finished with the BC, fully connected, and feet pointing to the correct tunnel entry. She had zero questions: great turn and super fast!!! And then you did the exact same thing on the other side, to get another gorgeous blind. YAY!!!
>>I just sent and trusted her and I feel like my positioning was better and more timely.>>
Yes, everything was spot on! A big high five to you – well done on these!!!
Safe travels to PA! It sounds like you will be bringing plenty to keep you and Synnie busy 🙂 Have fun! Great job here 🙂
Tracy
Hi! These are looking super!
Looking at the blind crosses here:
– Super nice blind timing
– Nice decel into the send and go, god timing built off of the good timing of the blind!
– Nice connection and verbals 🙂Click treat for you on the blinds and sends!
She will keep you completely honest with the shoulder turns 🙂
On the first rep, you had a late shoulder turn 5-6-7 plus there was a wing and teeter out there (:12) and as you were facing forward to 6, you said go… so she went. Good girlie!
At :24 and :37 you had MUCH earlier shoulder turns and you did not say GO at:24 so she turned, plus you moved the wing off her line with helped too.
Be careful of the GO verbal – you said it at :36 – just say jump if you want to say something in a pinwheel. I think sometimes it just comes out, but when you say go she does go (and that is great, we don’t want to lose that :))
Rear crosses: RCs are more of a Goldilocks thing, sorting out what is too much, too little, and just right 🙂 I think you sorted out the just right!!!!
On the first rep at :04 – too much decel getting into, the RC started as she was lifting off for he turn, so she wrapped.
Fabulous adjustment at :14 to get on the RC line a lot sooner and you nailed it! And so did she. Yay!
Same excellent work on next rep – you an add a decel as you are moving along the RC diagonal, to get a tighter wrap collection.
On the other side: Be careful of the go go go verbal 🙂 like at :35-:36 It will confuse her is you use go then wrap, especially on a rear cross. So, just use your wrap verbal.
And you decelerated but did not turn your feet to the front of the jump so it looked like a backside send. Good girlie!Placing the toy on the net rep helped but be sure to do balance of backside and front side/RC so you get feedback on your handling (we want to make sure she is reading cues and not just going to the toy).
That way you will know if you handled the RC clearly or not – the handling on the next rep at 1:19 looked the same as :56 in terms of handling, so it was the toy that created the behavior there because she wrapped towards you when the toy was not there.
You nailed the “just right” at the end: Look at 1:23, how you got right up on her tail for the RC diagonal – that was spot on! And then again at 1:30. Yes! So I don’t think ou need as much (or any) decel to set up the RC is this context – you can get right on her tail on the RC diagonal, using the decel as she is passing you to get the tight wrap.
Have you been raising the jump height on one jump stuff or grids? Fill me in on what you have been doing with height, because I think we can start raising bars here too. If you haven’t done any height yet, we can totally start! Let me know!
Great job here!
TracyGood morning!
>>BIG MADS, that’s so funny. I will remember that. At least she didn’t bite me. :-).>>
That is a victory for you both! With young drivey dogs, we sometimes frustrate them – so not getting any ‘tooth hugs’ is a sign of a good session 🙂
>>I’m working on finding a trainer that will do privates with me, and/or a class, but baby classes are few and far between. >>
Yep, that is the truth – appropriate young dog classes are so hard to find. Are you anywhere near Kate Moreaux? Or Mia Grant? Those two talented instructors come to mind in your area.
>>A couple of weeks ago, I took her to an agility show and go, but was mainly trying to see if she had focus in a strange location with people around, so I took in a toy, did a few jumps and a tunnel, played tug, that kind of thing. She never lost her focus on work. I was very pleased about that.>>
That is very exciting!!! I am not surprised: this girl is ALL BUSINESS and wants very much to do the thing (agility) with the momma (you!). So even if she sometimes gets a case of The Big Mads, she really is going to be GREAT in new environments 🙂
Tracy
Hi!
Holy wow, she sure did ace them! And they are definitely not easy skills or sequences! Great job Prytania and well done to you too, for handling them very clearly!!!
Looking at the 2 blind cross reps – when the weather cools down to below surface-of-the-sun temps, you can accelerate more and send her further away to the middle jump. That will get you further ahead for the blind. You can trust her lines to be sooner on the first one, starting after she lands from the pinwheel jump (you were a little late at :08, she was almost taking off when you started). I liked the timing better at :29, it was definitely earlier! We will keep playing around with how early you can make it.
Both blinds had excellent reconnection so she was able to pick up the new line with no questions 🙂
Well done with the rear crosses!!!! I think the first one at :43 was a bit harder for her, but you drove up the RC line so she got it nicely! The 2nd one on the other side at :54 looked even easier – very smooth. It looks like you got on the RC diagonal earlier with that one, and she turned beautifully.
Well done! And even if the weather cools down, these one and done sessions are great!!!
Tracy
Good morning!
His commitment to the jumps and tunnel are looking really strong!! And so if your connection. And yes, it was smart to do a short, fast session: the youngsters are not really acclimated to the heat so they will tire out pretty fast.
>>And I feel like I still have to run up to the tunnel quite a bit to support it so he’ll go in”
The key will be to getting more value on the tunnels independently from you, by throwing rewards at the exit – regardless of where you were. He loved the toy here (yay!) but it was near you (from your hand) so he of course wanted to be near you 🙂 Will he chase that toy if you throw it and bring it back (eventually LOL!). If so, you can use it as a thrown reward at the tunnel exit.
Or, you can throw a lotus ball or any type of toy/food that he can easily see and chase. That will really get him driving to the tunnels without need as much help from you.Totally agree that he wanted more of the teeter! Ha! “MOM I WAS JUST GETTING STARTED” 😂 Great job leaving him wanting more. The only suggestion for this is to have the reward already placed on a target at the end of the board, so he doesn’t look at your hands at all (this can make balancing harder). For my small dogs, I would put a piece of duct tape across the end of the board as a target, with a little smear of cream cheese on it for them to run to. Nom Nom! And sometimes I would stick something delicious into the cream cheese too 🙂 I bet he would like that!
>>(I always say that because of Professor Grubbly-Plank from Harry Potter lol)>>
Ha! Love it!!!!
He seemed perfectly happy with the wobbly grubbly plank 🙂 You can add a slight noise element by playing this game on a harder surface so he hears a slam. Concrete or tile would be great!
Great job here, especially with keeping things short, fast, and super fun – he is looking super confident!!
TracyGood morning!
>>I should see this same setup again on Friday afternoon. I do rentals on Tuesdays and then a class on Fridays where Dawn can set me straight. A bit backwards, but it is what it is.>>
That is fine! It is good to try things out and make decisions without an instructor, because that gets you ready for trials which are all about decision making! Then you can get her feedback later on.
The training here went well!!!
For the Go Go Go – you can over-emphasize the Go by throwing the reward as far as possible so he leaves you in the dust to get it 🙂 The trick to getting the Go behavior really strong is getting the dogs to predict that when we start yelling Go and we accelerate, the reward (or next obstacle then reward) will be straight out ahead and nowhere near us. So definitely fling the reward as far as possible (or ask Dawn to be your thrower on Friday, so Coal doesn’t even look at you, he only looks ahead on the Go Go Go 🙂
The other thing I see here is that he has a lot of skills and reads cues brilliantly when you give them early enough that he can make adjustments. Yay! The threadle wraps and backside pushes are great examples of that. But if you are late (we are human, it happens LOL!) or showing the wrong line, then he can’t read it. He is an honest critter and 100% does what your cues are telling him, so if he makes an error like an off course, reward him enthusiastically like he was correct! Because the video will show that he was correct 🙂 and we don’t want to confuse him by saying he was wrong when he was reading you correctly.
The 2 spots here that you can see that in play are:
The threadle wrap after the tunnel:
On the first rep at :38, your cues started basically at takeoff so he could not make the adjustment to the backside. He was correct, so I suggest rewarding him (even if you are not sure why it went wrong – you can watch t he video to see why, the video never lies LOL!)
Look at the difference in your timing at :58 when he was in the stay – you released him with the threadle wraps cues so the info was much earlier and he nailed it.
And after the tunnel at 1:06 and 1:24 – that was great timing! He exited the tunnel and was already seeing and hearing the cues. So he was perfect! Now scroll back to :38 and you will see how much later those cues were. That is why I reward when the dog goes off courses – I was probably just late 🙂
You can call him sooner before he goes into the tunnelThe other spot he went off course was at 1:12, after the threadle wrap and he was correct there too – baby dog is growing up and reading the lines really nicely!!!
As he exited the threadle wrap at 1:11, you looked over your right shoulder. That is what committed him to the jump before you looked back over your left shoulder. He might have gotten a cookie for that, but you can also praise and reward as if it was what you meant for him to do, because he was reading your cues. Sometimes I can’t feel or know in the moment what I did wrong, but I reward enthusiastically anyway because I know the video will show me exactly how I cued the line the dog took 😂😆🤣Compare to the rep at 1:29 where you had fabulous clear connection and he never looked behind you! Yay!
Something happened at 1:33 where he went past a jump, I couldn’t really see it? Maybe a little disconnection?
He only had one other question on this course, which was the dropped bar at 1:45. That looked like the decel was a little late, so he didn’t quite get fully organized for the backside wrap. Because his skills are looking really strong, you can start decelerating as he is landing from the previous jump (nice blind cross there!), so he sees it before he passes you and can set up the tight turn.
The backside slices at the end looked lovely!! Very nice timing and connection, so he found those lines really well!
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>>I’m confused about “wraps”. With the barrels, are we only doing backside wraps?
With the barrels, we are doing front side wraps on the rocking horses, and on the 360s (which is the Advanced level of the leading with the head game) we begin doing backside circle wraps.
>> If so, we should be using the same verbal for each barrel (digdigdig in my case) right? In today’s lesson I thought I heard someone use a different verbal at each barrel.>>
Good ears!! Yes, they were using front side wrap verbals on the rocking horses, because when we replace the barrels with jumps, the concept becomes front cross wraps over the bar. I know some people use all barrels as backsides, but I use them mainly as front side wraps until we get the 360 circle wraps going, and until we put a bar in.
>>Also in class, I saw someone using wings instead of barrels. Is it ok to go to wings now? Or should I find/buy something taller than my buckets.>>
Some folks have skipped ahead LOL!!! I like to keep the pups on barrels for a while at this age – we will switch over to wings as soon as the rocking horses are pretty solid on barrels. So definitely look for something taller than the buckets as the next step for Skeeter.
>>On the soft turns, it looks like a wrap to me because the dog goes all the way around. May I ask you please explain the mechanics and theory behind the exercise?>>
Last night’s introductory soft turns were on the barrel only, just to get the game going and to get the mechanics correct for the humans. Take a look at the advanced level, where we add the bars, that will make a LOT more sense as to why it is left/right soft turns and not a giant wrap.
the advanced level is here:
When the pup is going over bumps or bars, you can see he is going over the front side and turning left or right, and not coming back around to the takeoff side like he would be doing on a wrap. The minny pinny is a tiny version of what it builds up to.
Here is a video that shows the difference between the left/right and the wrap (hard to hear my wrap verbals because they are quiet noises :))
Let me know what you think!
TracyYes! The program has a MaxPup 2 and a MaxPup3 🙂 I figure this MaxPup 1 will go until early August, so everyone can catch up as needed.
Then I am driving cross country for a wild teaching trip (I am insane, yes, it is true) so MaxPup 2 will start in early September. That way everyone is ready for it and also has had some time to take training breaks 🙂 I will get the exact date posted soon!
Tracy
Good morning!!
No worries about not getting all the games in this week here! You have a really lovely balanced life with her, doing all sorts of great things 🙂 It is not all about agility! And we have plenty of time in this class.
Based on what I saw last night in class, you two are nailing it! The concepts build on each other, so as long as the teamwork and connection is in place, you don’t need to worry if you don’t get in a lot of practice. I also think that having other things going on gives her a little training break from agility – which is great and highly recommended. No pressure! You two are looking fabulous 🙂
Fingers crossed for a smooth move for your parents this weekend, and maybe mother nature will cooperate and you won’t have to worry about smoke. When I am super busy in life, I tend to play with the puppies but not necessarily try to train or catch up – my training is never as good as when I am feeling less stress 🙂 So I end up taking a week or two off from training and then when life gets less busy, it is easier to pick up the training. The pups don’t care if we train or not, they are just as happy to run around LOL!
I am off to go buy the tab ball – JJ was WILD for it last night, even when there was food in the picture. YAY!! And I was obsessed with those barrels LOL!
Tracy
Hi!
Yes, that might have been a moment where there was no way to keep going without impaling yourself on the weaves 🙂 so stopping and rewarding was great 🙂 You are doing a great job of staying in flow!!
Tracy
Good morning!
Congrats on a great showing at the Classic!!! A first place overall and a 3rd place overall in 2 different events: IMPRESSIVE!!!!!!!
Yes, those turf surfaces can be super abrasive – UKI allows dogs to run in wraps, so you can wrap his feet to help prevent that! I ran Voodoo in wraps when running on turf so he wouldn’t shred his feet and might start the same with Contraband. I can show you how if you think it might help.
Also glad your thumb is healing up 🙂 Yay!!!
Looking at the sequences:
After watching the whole video, one thing pops out: he does his best layering when you are accelerating on the parallel path. Sending when you are decelerated is not as effective, except in the one spot where he wrapped towards you at 4 then you had to send him out to 5 – that worked great because there is no parallel path there, it is definitely a send.
At the beginning of sequence 1, he had a tiny head check/question from the tunnel to jump on 1st and 2nd rep. That is a scenario he is likely to see a lot, so keep refreshing it and rewarding it. I am not sure if different verbals will help, or if he just needs more experience so let’s build up the experience for now and see how it goes (I am guessing he just needs more experience and exposure to it, he is only 3!)
>>Proved to myself that turning my feet to the left early enough really does get his nice dig dig wrap away.>>
Yes! Super nice!!! The Switch away at 4 looked good! Driving to 5 was harder. On the first rep of it at ;16, you were handling it more as a send so I think the decel and turn of body and proximity to the barrier was confusing about why he should stay out on the line in extension, On the next 2 reps, the “Out” helped and your body was more open to the line.
This is a place where acceleration on the parallel path might be the most helpful for him – as soon as he turns his head away over 4, try adding acceleration and driving down the line to the tunnel (yelling the GO JUMP verbals) so it is not a send, it is a parallel path line. That will help us know if that cue makes more sense to him (and keep throwing the reward after 5 like you did here).
Seq 2:
>>Then tried the jump slightly behind the tunnel and struggled when using my off arm. I’ve noticed this before with him so later in the day I tried it using the inside arm but keeping the shoulders open to the jump and he had no problem staying out for the jump even when we did the inner loop with the tunnel first. I’m not sure why this is the case, but it’s happened before where keeping him out on a line seems to work better with my inside arm. >>
It is definitely possible that the outside arm didn’t make sense to him. It was a little to high on the first rep (above your head LOL!) so that plus the eye contact might have drawn him into you.
Also, he might need more exposure to this concept too – at 1:08 he basically looked like passing the tunnel was stoooopid (“Why would we pass by this perfectly good tunnel right here?”) to find the little tiny barely visible jump behind it LOL!!! You did a good job of helping him sort it out and get rewarded.
When you revisited it on the last reps here – he totally had it! Latent learning? More motion from you supporting the parallel path going into it? Dog-side arm forward (not outside arm) made more sense to hold him out on the line past the tunnel? All of the above? We will take it! He looked great finding it, no questions. So we can test the theory of the dog-side arm on different sequences but same concept and see what he says 🙂
>>Where the off arm works well with him is when I’m doing a lead change “get out” on a turn away and the arm is lower down or a switch away like weave poles flipping away into the tunnel or over a jump while layering the poles>>
Perfect! Using the outside arm to send him out to he jump is not important – developing the vocabulary to communicate lines is important! So we will definitely be tracking what cues make the most sense to him, as well as pumping up understanding of all the skills so you can just yell some words as you run and he will go do whatever is needed 🙂
Great job here!!!
TracyPS – I owe you from the live class you couldn’t do earlier this month. Do you want to join another live class, or should I send a refund? Let me know!
Hi!
>>Pretty bummed out it was basically just a mess.>>I read this and was expecting disaster! Instead, I saw two spots that she didn’t quite understand and all of the rest was REALLY nice!!!! Focus on the great stuff that you nailed, and we will train the 2 spots she didn’t understand. DEFINITELY NOT A MESS!!!!!!!!
First video – this went well!! I think you handled 1-9 beautifully and she read it really well. Hooray! (Definitely not a mess!!!)
Not sure why she popped the weaves, maybe she was not comfy weaving towards the crowd?Her first question was that she doesn’t fully understand how to go to the tunnel entry when you handling from the other side and trying to send or hang back (so she jumps over it). Ideally you would commit her to the 9 jump then meet her at the 10 entry to help support the layering. To help build up the skill, you can throw the reward for 9 really early and really far, so she extends a lot over 9 and looks at you a lot less.
2nd section:
The blind at the beginning of the 2nd video was BRAVE and you got it! Yay!!!!
You tried to pull away to get to the tunnel #10 entry but that pulled her off of 9. It was correct to try to get to the tunnel entry, but she needs more reward to build the value of staying on her line at 9 – just one section to isolate and solidify.
3rd video – On that first video, she was SO CLOSE to getting 14! That is a really hard layer. Cutting through the weaves later in the session was brilliant!! It is a good way to start teaching the layering (I have people cut through a jump without a bar all the time to start that too). That will really get her looking at jumps on the parallel line (and keep throwing rewards to help her out).
On the first rep, she needed more connection on the send to 17 – compare to the 2nd rep where you got it by looking at her. NICE!! And then the rest went super well!!
Her layering skills are still developing, no worries, we are going to keep working on that! But overall, this was a whole lot of lovely course work! Definitely not a mess 🙂 Great job!
TracyHi!
This jumpers course went super well!!!The opening on the first run was good – you seemed a little tentative about it (I mean, it is a weird opening :)) but you were very clear on the 2nd run).
She had a question/head check on the get out at :37, which was the tunnel exit to jump 11. You can get a little further ahead there and the cues should be more towards her and less to the jump, so she can see the line of your shoulders better there.
One the 11-12-13 line, you can use your tunnel verbal sooner to propel her away on the line to set up the layering – she was like “go where? Weaves?”
Then switch to your jump cue for 14 at :44 (you got really quiet :))14-15-16-17-18 went great – you set good lines and she ignored all the of the off courses that were nearby – excellent!!! You handled the lines as if the off courses didn’t exist. Yay!
A small detail on the ending: Give the turn cue from 18 exit to 19 sooner and more towards her, and don’t forget jump 20 🙂
The second run, the opening had more conviction so it was smoother and faster. Super!
Same thoughts at the exit of the 10 tunnel to jump 11 at :32 about delivering the cue to her and not to the jump ahead of her – her go line on the 7-8-9 section was so good there that I bet you can trust her to get 9 on the verbals and be closer to the tunnel exit when she enters the 10 tunnel, to set the line even better from ahead of her.
>>I got stuck when I couldn’t get her into the tunnel,>>
Actually, you cued her to NOT go into it at :35. As she lifted for 12, you started saying “jump jump jump” and turned away a bit, and both Josie and I were like “wait, what?!?” LOL! So good red dog… started looking for a jump because you never actually said or moved to the tunnel. Gold star! Yes, she appears to know the words and then didn’t trust you as much after that LOL!!
So in term of timing: yes, you will want to say the tunnel cue and keep facing forward to it, until you see her look squarely at it… then you can say your jump cue 🙂
And yes it was some good improv at the end LOL But Josie was happy and the session went well!!!
Great job here!
TracyHi!
<>She is very forgiving of my questionable handling LOL.>>
That is why we do all those resilience games, so they forgive us without getting flustered when we screw up LOL!
First rep:
The hard part about a small setup like this is trying to strategize how and where to move! You can go in closer to the tunnel so you can run more – that will propel her into the pinwheel ahead of you and so you will have an easier time getting the BC. Your timing was great! Being a bit further down the line would have made it even easier to get the tunnel entry.2nd rep – she didn’t get jump 3 (after the tunnel) the first time (nice job continuing a bit and rewarding her). On the re-start and again at :38 you turned your shoulders & feet sooner so she turned tighter on the tunnel exit and got the jump perfectly.
At :29 when she was taking 4, you were facing the fence (instead of turning and running to the blind) so she ran past 5. At :40 and :54 you definitely turned sooner so she got the jump both times (but she still said you were late, because she had to turn on the ground after 4 instead of turning before takeoff.
This is good to know! I am sensing a theme. She has great commitment and is very literal on her lines – so if you don’t turn, she doesn’t turn either. GOOD GIRL! That means definitely be sure to turn while she is still 6 feet from the tunnel entry (when you want a turn on the exit) and as she is approaching 4 (the pinwheel jump) you can already be turned and running to the blind.
That will also help you get further pup the line to a better position for the blind – you are hanging out a bit too long for he 3-4-5 line so you are not quite far up enough on the blind. Ideally, you would be closer to the tunnel than to the jumps to set a smoother line.
And when you start the blind, keep moving forward through it At :54 you stopped your motion as you connected, so she almost took the #3 jump because that is what you were facing.
So this is a good one to get more movement: send to 4 and turn and run hard to the blind 🙂 When you see a blur land from 4, you can start the blind and keep moving 🙂 Great job here!!! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
