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Good morning!
>She had a hard time finding the treats for our Collection Sandwich. >
Finding treats in the grass is definitely a learned skill for puppies! You can use a big towel spread out on the grass as a giant target to toss the treat onto for her to run to – the bigger the towel, the less accurate your toss has to be š
Also – check out this weekās resilience game. It is a pattern game that I also use as a framework for teaching pups to find treats in the grass quickly and return engagement to whatever we were doing. You can teach the game indoors where it is really easy, and when she is able to grab the treat and re-engage quickly, you can move it outdoors onto grass š
If you watch her eating as you run away, she is doing a really good job of grabbing the food and returning engagement to you! She responded pretty immediately to your name call too! So making it more visible on a towel will be even smoother.
>It looks like rather than waiting till she finishes the treat I should continue moving away so that there is more distance for me to complete the blind ā >
Yes – and you were moving away really well on these reps. I think throwing the treat further away to start the game will be even easier, giving you more of a head start.
>most of these are late (again). Also Iām not sure if Iām decelling enough before we turn. >
I think the timing of the blind was good! She knew where to be on each rep and didnāt end up on the āwrongā side of you at all. Nice connection as you finished the blind!!! That really helped.
What can come earlier is the decel into the pivot – because she is so fast, you can start to slow down as soon as you finish the blind, so she sees that sooner and can collect into your side better. The decel was happening as she got to you (which is a little late), which is why she would sometimes be a little wide, or sometimes pop up.
She was fantastic about going back to the toy race after the pivots! Yay! She looks to be able to use food and toys in the same session and that is GREAT!!! It gives you so many options to choose how you want to reward while also keeping things super fun š
Lovely work here!
TracyGood morning!
Those stairs are cool! And hard, especially when in higher arousal like he was here! He is a brave dude!
The stairs seem to challenge him to balance, isolate his feet, and also move slowly because the stairs are narrow enough and light enough that fast movement would lead to him tipping off by accident or making the stairs wobble.
Front feet seemed really easy. I LOVE how you positioned yourself in front of the stairs to help give him a safer feel – that immediately got him offering all 4 feet. And then you were able to move yourself out of that position and off to the side while he maintained his bravery. Super!
When releasing him off the stairs, wait til he is calmly all four feet back on the ground before being really exciting with the treat toss or toy – when he tries to explode off the stairs, they tip and I donāt want him to have a weird landing (ouch!) or get concerned.
These stairs would be fun to incorporate into other goat games – you can do stuff like make a trail of crazy objects to go to the stairs, then he goes up the stairs and onto a plank that is a little elevated to walk across. The plank can be straight off the stairs, or at a 90 degree angle so he has to balance and turn.
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
>ām sure the food was in my hand. Am I supposed to use a bait bag?>
A small bait bag is fine, or a few treats in a bag in your pocket for easy access – but having the treat already in the opposite hand will be faster to be able to reward her.
> Or, just be sure itās in the opposite hand from the send? >
That is the priority – empty hand on the send, so for speed of reinforcement. And if she still has trouble leaving your hand (hands have a LOT of value for puppies!) you can send and then toss the treat to the prop rather than reward back at you. That can help balance the value.
>I feel like I canāt do many of this weeks games as I donāt have a send to an object.>
You can definitely do the parallel path game – this is the basis of 2 of the new games and there is no send needed. And you can keep noodling with the sending, and start to rotate a but. The rotated sends move easily into countermotion.
> Iāll try the collection sandwich and see if she can do that. But, I feel like Iāll need to feed the turn still.>
You can feed the turn the first time or two, then try a rep without feeding, just having her follow your hand, and see how it goes.
Looking at the video:
There is definite value in the barrel setup, that is great! It made tugging harder at the beginning, so you can keep the barrel and bowls out of the picture for now (up on the couch, for example) and then put them on the floor when you are ready for that part of the session. That will also make for a clean transition into the shaping so you will be ready with treats and in position before the barrel and bowls are presented.She did really well with you standing! You can move the bowls a tiny bit further back, closer to your feet, so she wraps a little more. The bowls can get further and further back by your heels in each session.
You broke off the session to play at a good spot, and the tugging looked great! In that moment, I bet you could have gone back and done a few more reps t see where she was after the first part of the session. It would have probably taken the session to about 2.5 minutes, but based on how she was doing I bet that would have been perfectly fine. She was on a roll and you can see her look at the setup and start to go back to it right after the tugging at the end š
So if you are still in āshort sessionā territory, meaning you havenāt gone past 2 minutes or so, you can do a bit more. And it will be fun to revisit it today or tomorrow to see what she locked in!
Great job :)āØāØTracy
Good morning!
She did GREAT on all 3 of these videos!!
The first 2 were her turning to her left, which seems to be her easier side but she did super well turning to her right on video 3!The timing of your FC and run worked best when you had the line on the ground, because it kept you from leaving too early or too late š So definitely keep that line on the ground and keep moving it, so you can have both a visual of when to move and also a way to make it progressively more challenging.
She really loved it when you ran!! I bet you can get even more excitement using a toy reward. She might not be able to go from food to toy yet, so you can either use a toy only in the session, or you can use one of the most boring treats ever (if there is a boring treat for a Dalmatian haha) and the most exciting toy, and see if she can go back and forth.
The only other suggestion for you: you can give her a cue to start wrapping the barrel. I think she was waiting for a cue to start, especially on video 3/right turns. So this is a great game for adding a cue: get her excited, get her on your side (you can gently hold her collar when she is on your side too) and the step to the barrel and give a small hand/arm cue to the barrel. That will be clear for her and also that can get even more speed.
You gave her a cue on the last rep of video 3 (it was a verbal ok) and she exploded to the barrel, tons of speed and excitement! So adding the physical cue will be useful for her too.
Great job!
TracyHi! I am looking forward to your videos!
In case you didn’t get my email yet – the easiest way to put videos here is to load them into Youtube then copy/paste the link here. That will also bring up the preview of the link. Or, posting an iCloud link is great too!
Thanks,
TracyGood morning!
>The hall is in a church where I teach some puppy classes.>
Ah! That is a great puppy class location!
Backing up: this went really well and he was straighter! And you had both hands involved with rewarding: super!
He really only had one question: when to start offering the behavior at the beginning.
You can make the transition from the tugging into the backing up smoother by making the context cue (the target and your position) more salient:
Tug in a separate spot then move into the sitting position at the target. That will basically cue him to start backing up šLooks like you were beginning to reward him for getting front feet on the target here which is great – he has to back up more to do this, and has to have good hind end awareness to know that he has touched the mat and to keep going. YAY!!!
Since you can reliably predict he is going to back up, you can start adding a verbal cue to it if you want to.
For the forward focus: This is going really well in terms of the impulse control to look at the line and not at the treat or toy, then go around the cone to get to the reward. YAY!
>The release timing was a little tricky as it was hard to tell sometimes if he was actually looking at the cone. I figured generally looking forward was ok?>
Yes, generally looking forward is good but when you put the treat in a harder position I think it was easier to see where he was looking. So keep going with the harder challenges because it was actually easier for you both. And it is a good way to sort out what the mechanics look like when he looks forward – seeing small dogs on course is harder sometimes!
On the reps where the treat plate was not too far around the cone, he could probably see the cone and the treat in the same field of vision, so didnāt really need to turn his head much.
But when you moved it so that he had to look away from the target and at the cone (like at :26, :49, :55 with food for example, and also when the toy got pretty far around the cone) there was a much clearer head turn to look at the line.
He is so expressive though – when it was hard, he looks away entirely as part of the forward focus game. It happens consistently and reliably so I donāt think it is coincidence LOL!! It might just be a superstitious behavior that got built in because you would mark and release when he looked away, so by the end he was looking away on each rep. Too funny!
So to remove the looking away, you can watch where his nose is pointing. With the toy/treat in a hard location, mark only when his nose is pointing to the line – not to the treats/toy, and not away from the line LOL! Shelties have a nice pointy snout so that might be easier to see!
>For the last week, Aelfraed has been getting extremely excited when he sees me pick up the tripod. He knows it means we are going to play fun games.>
That is so fun!! He must be pairing the tripod with all of the reward and play š He definitely likes being the star of Aelfraed TV!
Great job here!
TracyGood morning!
Adding the toys to the wrapping was lovely! I think the hardest part for her twas to realize that it was still a wrap-the-thing game and not a go-directly-to-the-toy game š She did really well! You an also incorporate getting the toy back with a treat – then letting her offer going around the barrel to the other toy. She was really into the toy then it looks like he almost lost her chain of thought when she let go of it LOL! So a few seconds of tugging then trade for a treat – then let her offer – might be the quickest way into the next rep while keep it fun and successful.
You can also move to standing up too with the 2 toys – that will lead you into the turn and burn game really well too!
Nice work!
Tracy
Good morning! So much great stuff here!!
Moving the backing up to a new spot is great! He was doing well about offering to back up and you were able to start adding the cue. YAY!!! I want to see if we can get him to do more steps by keeping your hands lower, but I also donāt want to make your back angry from staying bent over the whole time. When you were standing up after the start cookie, he was lifting his head up to look at the cookie hand, which might have been inhibiting the number of steps he was taking. So you can try sitting on the agility table that is visible behind you (giving him room to back up, of course) – that way can can keep your hands low by resting your elbows on your legs rather than having to bend over a lot.
You can also get more steps backwards by using the ādestinationā approach: you will see it in the Adding Challenge section here and at about :40 in the demo video:
The turn and burn session looked strong! He did well on the āharderā side – he is pretty balanced! It was SUPER interesting how at about halfway through the session he started offering his stronger side. That is possibility an indication of how hard it is to turn to the harder side, even though it looked easy!
Click/treat to you for using the line on the ground to be very systematic about adding your movement – based on how well he did here, you can move the line after every rep!
Also, be careful of when you use your reward marker. āYesā seems to mean, to him, to come get the cookie from your hand. So at 1:44, you said āYES!ā then moved the treat, so he was not necessarily wrong to come directly to you without finishing the barrel wrap. Note how confused he was when you did not give the reward at 1:46 – he was likeā¦ wait, what? You said āyes!ā LOL! Very expressive dude š
The same thing happened at 2:08, and he was definitely trying to sort out what the āyesā marker meant.
So you can start your motion when he arrives at the lineā¦ but you donāt need to mark until he completes the wrap. This will be useful as the challenges get harder. You can also dial back the countermotion challenge to do a FC without the full 360 around the barrel.
I love how he got back onto the toy at the end, after all the treats!! SUPER! You can use a toy as the reward for this game too – starting without any food at first, then if he likes that we can add a tiny bit of food so he gets comfy using food and toy in back-to-back reps.
Rear crosses are the hardest thing we have done so far! He was turning toward you here like a FC because he as not seeing you on the new side before he arrived at the prop (good job rewarding him because he was correct on these reps).
A couple of ideas for you to help him turn the correct direction. The goal is to get him driving way ahead of you to the prop from further back, so you can change sides and be visible on the new side before he arrives at the prop:
The main thing will be to get the reward out of your hand and thrown ahead of him pat the prop. With the reward in your hand, he will drive ahead a little but not a lot š And since you need the space, working outdoors is great – using his Lotus ball should make it easy to find the thrown food so it doesnāt get lost in the grass.
When he is leaving you in the dust to race to the prop then getting the treat from the lotus ball, you can start to add the RCs:
Be 15 feet or so away from the pop – start next to him and move forward. As soon as he is past you (heading to the prop) you can do the RC then keep moving forward to support him continuing to the prop with you on the new side. That should get the turn to the new side.
Plankrobatics looked super fun! He really likes it, so be sure he turns around before you give his 2o2o cue (otherwise he tries to drive down to position AND turn around, which led to some slipping off the side a bit). The other thing you can add is turning him around, giving him a treat and asking him to stay there on the plankā¦ then you can move away so you are able to cue the 2o2o with you laterally away, or behind him, or ahead of him, etc. He seems ready for that!
Great job here!!
Tracy
Good morning!
Your outdoor space is just gorgeous! And this game is well suited for that spot: the prop is very visible and the treat was visible too.
I agree – she did really well here!! Yes, the treat was bouncing but I donāt think that was a problem because it just changed her angle for the next approach and that is a good challenge š You can try small cheese chunks of her GI can handle it? Those wonāt bounce. I freeze them before use, so they donāt melt in the heat.
She did have a few questions about the reward placement on the parallel path game – the click seemed to indicate that she should look at the prop or at you, it took her a few reps to lock into reward placement of going forward. So you can replace the click with a reward marker, which will tell her she is correct (like the click does) and also tell her where to look for the reward (which the click does not). You can use āget itā as the marker to replace the click. And it doesnāt matter if she doesnāt know the marker yet – this is a great framework to teach it š
>It looks like she did better when I wasnāt crowding her line ā what do you think?>
I think you what you mean here is when she was pushing away a little and looking up at you? I donāt think you were crowding her line – I think she was moving away to get a looksee at the bigger picture of the cue. And being more laterally away opens up her field of vision to see the prop and your cues all together. That will go away when she sees this again – she will realize she can āwatchā you peripherally and look forward to her line to the prop.
When she is able to drive ahead to the prop when you start next to her and pretty close to her, you can start the rear cross game. And separately, you can add more distance away from the prop on the parallel path.
Countermotion/backwards sending is going well too! She did her best commitment and prop hit when you did a clear ready dance before the send. For example, at 1:04 you kind of backed up then sent her without a clear transition, so she went to the prop but it was not as snappy and crisp as it was a 1:12, where you did a clear ready dance and super clear send. That was lovely!
And she gets a gold star for engaging with you during the ready danceā¦ but NOT biting you! This is one of the ways we teach puppies to get pumped up and play with us, without putting their little shark teeth on our flesh LOL!
You really had some clear countermotion on that last rep too – lovely! You can keep building that up, it looked great.
Great job here!!
TracyIt seems like ALL the puppies are in Mastication Mode š
And good for you for stopping the session when time was up and resisting temptation to move to the next step! I am sure he will do great when you revisit it.
T
Good morning!
>Today we revisted the back up. >
This looks like the same link from Wednesday? Or maybe I need more coffee, which is always a possibility š Let me know if there is a different link.
The other games are going well – just small suggestions for you advance them even more:
Parallel path: He did an excellent job driving to the prop and clearly indicating it! SUPER!! Your connection was lovely. You might have noticed that he was looking at you more as the session went along – it was because of the reward placement (cookies coming for your hand).
So, one adjustment: throw the rewards rather than deliver the reward from your hand – to build distance, we want to get the reward away from you. Instead of āyesā, use your āget itā marker and throw the treat. That will also give you time to change your position: moving further to the side, or getting ahead of him.
Countermotion – he has good commitment to the prop here, but he did have a good question as you mentioned:
>Towards the end he started offering me a wave so maybe that was a sign I just did too much and should have stopped.>
The cue was a bit unclear, so he was not really sure of where to look and when to look at/move towards the prop. What was happening was that after you rewarded him, you were backing up towards the prop and then sending while backing up, so it was unclear about what was happening (the cue was getting a bit buried in the motion of you walking backwards).
To clarify the cue: Give a clearer ready dance while you are stationary rather than backing up towards the prop. After the reward, move forward into your next starting position – then with you stationary, you can engage him with the ready dance for 2 or 3 seconds – then BOOM! Big cue to the prop. That tells him exactly when to start moving and exactly what you want. You can use the tug toy either as the primary reward, or after the cookie reward, to move back into position and he will also enjoy the tugging š
You can see that each time you changed position relative to the prop, he was very snappy with his send to the prop! That was because you were stationary before the send so the cue was very very clear. Then he started asking questions after a couple of reps when you were backing up into the send there (like looking at the tape on the ground). So, clean crisp starts before each cue will help a lot (and the ready dance really helps make things clear :))
>He occasionally was fixating on food in my hand which I know he has to learn to ignore>
Yes – but you can make that easier: if the cookie is in the hand next to him, start closer to the prop like you did at 2:00 approx). Or as you add distance, have the cookie in the other hand so the dog-side hand is empty. That way when one variable gets harder (distance for example), you can make another variable easier (moving away from the cookie).
>Weāll work on rear cross another day. Maybe I should work more on the parallel path first or not?>
For the rear cross, add a bit more to parallel path first. We definitely want the reward out of your hands and tossed past the prop – if he is looking at your hands, rear crosses get really hard. And the other element to add before the rear cross is to start with him on the parallel path game, very close to him – and as you start to move, he drives ahead of you to the prop. When you are close to him and he leaves you in th dust to go to the prop? Onwards to the rear cross š Based on what he did here, my guess is he will start driving ahead really easily!
>Very interesting approach for these concepts!>
I am glad you are enjoying it! Since we started using these concepts as the foundation (started in 2020 during the early covid lockdown) we have found that the transition onto jumps and into coursework has been insanely easy for the pups! It has been really fun watching them learn š
Nice work here!
TracyGood morning! This went really well!!!
>Here, we did a bit off to the side, which seems like a reasonable transition to getting the behavior on cue without the platform. >
Absolutely! That was a really clever way to get him into backing up mode, then get it without the platform (but with the platform still in the picture as a context cue). Yay!
My only suggestion is to stay a little bent over for now – when your hands are just at or below your knees, his head position is more āneutralā and he can back up more freely. When you stand fully upright, he lifts his chin to look up which inhibits the backing up a bit, so he will likely take fewer steps. I try to position my hands so the pupās lower jaw is parallel to the floor as much as possible.
> I ābrokeā the behavior when I worked on single-leg lateral rear leg lifts, and itās never quite been the same ;). In this video, he seems to dip his hips a bit, and reaches for the prop. >
Your reinforcement for the leg lifts must have been really powerful š You can shift that for backing up by isolating the back foot with the click: looking at the foot he would normal lift rather than step back with, you can click for the moment he puts it down after stepping back. It is a bit of surgical precision with the clicker š To mark it precisely, just stare at his back feet so you donāt miss it: he is small and quick!!!
>Iām pleased with his responsiveness and that heās moving straight back here.>
Yes! I think he did really well!! Great job! You can keep using the platform to add even more distance and see how he does.
Nice work!
TracyGood morning! I am sending you a giant high five for how you handled this session! Excellent dog training here!
>Enjoy our destroy the barrel session š. Heās sure my hand has something to do with itā¦ bite my hand, jump on the barrelā¦ just not sure mom. >
Totally agree – he was like IT IS ABOUT YOUR HAND!!! So what was needed was to build value for the line by changing his focal point. Your hand has a lot of value so going past it was not making a lot of sense to him.
And that is exactly what you did: You made an excellent adjustment to putting the toy on the exit line of the barrel, then putting the bowl there. He had a MUCH clearer understanding of where to look and where to go. That changed the session entirely and he was spot on!
Then you added the next step of moving away (the FC element of turn and burn) and he was still great! It looks like the treat was in the bowl on those last couple of reps as you moved away.
So for the next session, start where you left off with the bowl on the exit line and cookie in it. When he is smooth like he was here at the end, you can remove the cookie from the bowl (but leave the bowl there) and reward him for running to you after he wraps the barrel. He would be running right over the bowl. When he can do that? We can start fading the bowl out by just moving it away more (towards you) or starting to hide it under the barrel little by little.
Excellent work here!!!
Tracy
Good morning!
Adding the forward ending went well! She did really well heading to it and touching it!! I think you had a cookie in the hand? A empty/slightly open hand might be easier as the cue, for now.
One suggestion to help her know exactly when to move and where to look: Separate the ready from the send: you were saying ready and sending at the same time – it should be ready ready engagement for 2 for 3 seconds, then sending silently š Your last rep here was closest to that and she did great!
>I tried sideways at the end and she couldnāt do it. >
It might have been the cookie in the hand? I donāt think it is in the video, feel free to leave it in because video will answer some of the āwhyā questions.
>Maybe tired.>
Quite possibly! She did a lot of thinking (in a good way!) in this session, plus if she has had a busy week then she might need a day off to do nothing other than lounging and running around š My puppy slept almost all day yesterday, including for 4 hours straight in a crate right next to the agility ring (I had people check to see if he was still breathing haha!). So she might be heading into a growth spurt where we see more sleeping and more rest needed. My pup is totally in a growth spurt – he comes out of the crate each morning visibly larger than he was the night before.
>We havenāt stood up with the pop up laundry basket, so Iām not sure if I should do that before turn and burn. >
Yes, we will want you to be standing for the pop up basket before turn and burn – at least one session with you standing. And if she zips around it, you can move to turn and burn pretty quickly!
>Itās lawn day and Dot is not fond of the lawnmower noise. I donāt want to be in the backyard until I know theyāve been here.>
It is definitely a weird noise! How does Sprite feel about it? Maybe Dot can hang out with Sprite when the noise is weird – I do a lot of group speed sits for cookies with the puppy in those moments of weird outdoor noises (thunder has been BAD in this area!).
Nice work here!
TracyGood morning!
He was great about going to the prop on the parallel path game! Very clear indication and intent! So yes – you can take this game to a bigger space where you can add parallel distance.
> The send to it while I go away is haaaaaard>
Yes but I think he did really well here! You were sending him forward, so yo can try starting with you already sideways so you donāt have to rotate as much. It was hard to see where you were looking, so be sure shift where you are looking: start by looking at his cute face, then as you send to the prop you can shift your gaze to the prop and keep looking at it as you move away.
He was also really strong with the barrel wraps! Yay!! Nice offering from that far away! He might be indicating that he is a righty? When he was free to offer, he generally chose the right turn. Were you rewarding with giant cheese cubes? Yummy!
Since he is being really confident with your barrel here: onwards to the turn and burn that we posted this week! Because it is a new game, start nice and close to the barrel so it is easy for him to offer.
Great job! I am excited to see him do the next steps!
Tracy
