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Hi!
>You’ll see/hear me discuss the nip at my shirt before we started. Clearly this game has become an exciting one lol! >
If you are getting nipping even before a session starts, you can bring her into the session with a combination of tugging and pattern games, to help her regulate the arousal.
Good job placing the toy and rewarding her for walking away from it! Did she bite your leg at :32? Looks like she reached over and tagged you there. For arousal regulation there – rather than hand feed her on the way back to the barrel, you can do the back and forth pattern game. That will maintain the engagement but also give her an outlet for arousal regulation (the movement and the rhythm of the pattern).
The game went really well! Nice job with the verbals, connection, and motion!!!!
>I did add a jump on the go. This isn’t new to her.
Do you have a jump bump? She did weird things over the bar on the first rep 🤣😂 so using a bump can be a bigger visual for her to get better mechanics. The other reps looked good but a bump can promote better form in general at this stage.
>She’s really trying to sort out the “get it” cue. This video doesn’t show it but our first round when I yelled go and the. Get it- she looked around for her cookie… no idea how this happened.>
Maybe there was food scents, or the toy was dead and she was thinking about the thrown food? No worries though, I think she did really well!
>Most proud is this is a high value toy and she’s not running off!!!
>Yessssssss! She was really great with that too! Lovely session overall.
I think you should move to the advanced level of the rocking horses, because it has a lot of countermotion getting added and she seems ready for it 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi!
>It’s nice to see a little progress with more regular work. Skizzle gets pretty excited for training, which is also fun.>
Tremendous progress!!! So fun to see! And he is an absolute blast to watch, I just love him!
>
>I have a question about this. Skizzle prefers to grip close to my hand and will re-grip to do so. Yesterday he did get my hand (ouch). He does this even with long toys – part of it may be on the ground close to him, and he’ll jump up in the air to grab the toy closer to my hand. So what approach do you use with puppies that don’t mind biting your fingers/hands?>I do a couple of things –
I have gigantic long toys with multiple things to grab onto. They are either a bunch of toys tied together, or a crazy flyball toy which are built to protect our hands while the beasts come at us at 35 mph LOL!And they are long enough that I can fully stand up while tugging – I can still be engaged and tugging, but that keeps my hands further away LOL!
And if I throw a toy, it is a long one and I always pick up the end furthest from the dog’s mouth (you picked the toy up closest to his mouth in the parallel path video and got a tooth hug).
*Most* tooth hugs are totally accidental (like if I am reaching for the toy at the same time the pup is driving into it, I might get teeth on flesh). *Some* tooth hugs are 100% deliberate 🙂 like if I am fully upright with a 5 foot long toy and the pup jumps up to grab my hand or my clothes.
For the accidental ones, I might give a small yelp and then adjust my mechanics. And most of the time, the pup adjusts his mechanics too.
For the deliberate ones, where my hands were clearly out of the way and the pup had to leave the ground to grab my hand… I might yelp and stop the game for a heartbeat. That is a response cost for the pup in that the effort he made to leap up and get grabby is not worth it, because the game ends for a bit. I try to keep it unemotional and just informational for the pup.
On the get out video: he is loving his prop! Such great commitment! His happy hops onto it were *adorable*
Since he was so fast to go to the prop, you were correct to toss the cookie behind so you could get a bit of a head start. When you were stationary and far from the prop (like at 1:46) he was not as sure about going to it (looking at the prop then at you, trying to figure out if he should follow arm cue or lack of motion). He sorted it out nicely on the last rep, but we can add motion now because it is a cue he will see in motion:
You can move the prop further away from the cookie toss (closer to the camera, in this setup) and begin moving up the line: toss the treat all the way back to the blue tarp area, and slowly walk forward parallel to the prop. When he gets the treat, you can show him the ‘get out’ arm and as soon as he says “I can do it!” you can also begin adding the verbal cue as you do the physical cues.
His barrel wraps get better and better every time I see them! Very cool! Yes, he is a little better on the right turn side (clockwise) but as you mentioned, could be a combination of your side preference and his side preference. His left turn/counterclockwise is coming along nicely too! For the left turn side (when he is on your right) you can help him out with a slower hand/leg cue, and more connection (eye contact). That can help him process things on the harder side.
Have you decided what you want your wrap verbals to be? I think he is ready for you to add them! And also, you can start the turn and burn variation on this, with you starting a FC earlier and earlier.
Looking at the rear cross videos:
>We tried rear crosses in the hallway and corner inside. What a speedy, spinny thing.>Yes! He grabbed that treat and was turned in a heartbeat, so fast!
> He gave me pause with all that spinning – pondering the frustrated spinning dogs I’ve seen on agility courses.>
He was not doing frustration spins here – he was (correctly) turning to where he could see you. In other words… you were late on some of them 😁 so he turned to your position, like a front cross. To get the RC in these early stages, he needs you to be fully visible on the new side, past his shoulder, as he lift his head from the treat.
You can see that at :17 and 1:30 on the hallway video, and at :21 on the corner video. In those spots, he automatically turned to the RC side based on your position.
On the other reps, he saw you still on the original side, so he turned towards you like a FC. You can reward those, because he is correct.
Because he is speedy, we need to figure out how to get you to the other side faster/sooner (and you were hustling!!) I think getting him to eat the cookie more slowly or take longer to find it will help. So to get the cookie eating more slowly: try tossing a couple of small treats, so he has to snarf them all up (rather than just 1) and that might buy you time to get to the other side sooner. Another option is to use a small snuffle mat or bathmat with a high pile, so it takes him longer to find and eat the treat – that can but you time too!
> But part of why I’m here is to learn to communicate well with him – so hopefully we can avoid frustration (and spinning).>
Yes to the communication! But this was not frustration spinning at all, he seemed happy to eat all these treats and turn to wherever he could see you 🙂
He did well with the parallel path to the ‘bar’! To help give him a bigger visual, you can add jump uprights (or barrels or cones, whatever you have) to each side of the bar. That will lead you smoothly into the strike a pose concept transfers and the new game coming next week 🙂
And as he is moving towards it, you can mark and throw the reward even sooner: think of it as marking his intent to move to the bar rather than his arrival at the bar – and the earlier reward throw will help him keep looking forward and not at you.
>And we did some schpile. He seems unfazed by different textures and movement underfoot – which is great!>
Totally agree – it didn’t matter to him what was in your pike, he was happy to walk all over it, make it move, balance on it, etc. Super!!! Since he is so confident, you can add more arousal into it so he learns to use his body well when he is super excited (which is exactly what he will need to do in agility :)) You can do that by starting each session with tugging and a recall from a cookie toss to tugging… then a couple of treats on the pile. Then back to crazy tugging, wild recall, etc. His footwork on the pile might get messy but that is fine – reward anyway as he sorts out how to use his body and balance, even in higher arousal.
Great job here!!
Tracy
Hi!
I love that rug, by the way 🙂
Turn and burn is going well!
To give yourself more room to run, you can move the barrel all the way to one end of the rug so you can run the other way and have a bit more room indoors. But she is definitely ready for this game to go to bigger locations too!
Two suggestions:
– At the start of each rep, you can line her up with a cookie – she didn’t know what to do to restart and didn’t like being physically moved or grabbed (she was avoiding it a bit and had her ears back, big eyes, low tail). And with a cookie line up, you can also be clearer on when to start – you can put your hand on her collar, start the verbal wrap directional, then send her to it. That will allow you to get the verbals attached too!
– you were doing a post turn here as she wrapped the barrel. You can do a front cross to get even more countermotion commitment going.
Since this is going so well, you can start doing the FC even earlier and earlier. And you can stat the rocking horse game too!
Great job :) Tracy
Hi! I think this tugging looks really good!
The long toy is great, it is soft in case there are any teething issues, and you were moving it away, keeping it low, and keeping it “alive” for her… but not making it hard for her to grab onto by moving it too fast or too high. This style of play gives her something to chase and grab onto, and is looking like she really enjoys it!And she likes a bit of ‘smack da baby’ too 🙂 Fun!
>If I don’t keep tension on the tug, she loses interest and is done. If I play hard and rough, she growls and enjoys it more. >
Yes, if the tug goes ‘dead’ she is seeing it as an end of game, almost a cue to drop it. Whippety dogs lose interest when the bunny is dead LOL!
And I was glad to see how easily she will ‘out’ it and also eat a cookie. That will be very useful during training sessions!
Great job 🙂
TracyGood morning!
>1: how do we know when they are done if we send off for a run?
Through observation – how long does it take them to come back? How are they when they come back? Or, if you call them back, how are they when they come back (if they do come back). I tend to wait for them to come back and if it takes a long time, I don’t do another session right then.
>2- how do I know if I’m cuing go for a run as a take a moment or it’s just considered a “play break/training break”>
I think they will look like basically the same thing – a release from the pressure of the training session to have a break. No need to worry about it, just observe how they act and what happens after the break.
> she doesn’t necessarily take her moments – occasionally we get that jumping up: is that frustration for her making a mistake ( and me trying to adjust but she still knows it’s wrong answer) or her taking a moment? >
That is indeed taking a moment. A decompression that the dog ‘takes’ is not always sniffing or running off. If the dog needs a decompression because of frustration or a need to regulate arousal, then you can definitely get biting. That means you waited too long before taking the break and/or allowed frustration to come into play.
> I see that as a taking a moment yes?>
Possibly yes, also possibly the session when on too long and arousal level dropped.
>Also For Julee: I started teaching the on off switch for obedience. Wasn’t sure how felt about it but it’s something kamal teaches to help in the venue. I do think Julee knows it bc when we go to train she tootles around until I say ready steady and then it is game on. She’s alert ready and focused. >
Most dogs get that built into training. Be careful about letting her do too much of the ‘before’ stuff at this age because we don’t want the need to do that to get built in – that can impact her ability to enter a new environment and get to work without toodling around first.
>When we are done training: I don’t know if I’m cuing what you consider the moment: I use her “all done” cue which means she can go sniff, run about, grab a frisbee, go for a run etc but we are done training.>
Possibly – again, it depends on what happens next. Observation is the key here to know if the decompression we think we are helping with, is actually helpful for the dog.
Tracy
Hi! Happy New Year!
The shpile game went well!! On the very first transition from the tugging to the pile, it took a moment for him to center himself and think about getting his feet onto the stuff. In the second and third transitions, though, he was immediately balanced and moving well onto the objects. Yay! He put himself onto the objects that didn’t move – so next time you can tug nearer the inflatables/unstable surfaces and see if he can immediately get on those.
When the weather improves, you can take this outside to be able to do recalls. And you can use the other dogs as well – he watches with you while Dellin does a recall, perhaps, then he does the pile then a recall. That will make it more challenging than it sounds! And when you are able to do some baby dog grids outside, you can do the recall or tugging right before it too!
Nice job on the serp helping him out by taking out the motion at first and shaking your serp hand. He was far more successful with the motion after that! He still needs you to move pretty slowly when he is on the slice line, because that is probably where the motion supports the wrong line (to the bowl) the most – the more perpendicular angles were easier with movement.
You can repeat this session and add a little more motion. Since it is hard, you can angle the jump so the exit wing (near the bowl) is pushed away from you. Your line and his line and the bowl placement are the same, but the jump is angled slightly towards him. That way the bar is more visible as a way to get to the bowl, and the line around the jump to the bowl is harder to move on. Then when the motion is easier, you can angle the jump back to the ‘flat’ position.
Great job here!!
TracyHi! Happy New Year!
This session went great! Because you were indoors, using food was the total correct thing to use as the reward – not enough room for racing to the tug! If you get to a bigger place, you can try it with the toy too!
The things that helped him be most successful were when you stepped to the cone with the dog-side leg, and when you held your position until he arrived at the line on the ground. He nailed it every time when you did that! Super!!!
If you didn’t step the cone as clearly, he was not always sure of when to start (especially on your left side, you are a better leg-stepper on your right side :))
There were only 2 times when he didn’t wrap:
At :30 – he came off the cone because you moved too early (just as he arrived at the cone and before he arrived at the line). You can reset him with a cookie right away there, no need to ask for him to do a touch or anything to earn it (it was handler error). The same early movement might have happened at 2:19 (it was definitely more subtle) but also it might have been fatigue because there were a lot of reps at that point. You can limit to maybe 4 or 5 on each side, to avoid fatigue – there were 25 sends here, which is a lot.
For the next session, add your wrap verbals! You can do this by holding his collar, saying the verbal 3 or 4 times, then let go and step to the wing. That way he can hear and process the verbal separately from the motion (and it predicts the motion), Plus, it will give him a clear “start now” moment when you let go of the collar and step to the cone.
Great job!!!
Tracy
That concern is valid! And that concern is also why we have to start it now… if we don’t, then she won’t have the regulation tools that she needs when things get REALLY exciting (I mean, the prop games are not that exciting LOL!) and there is no food in the picture. She will bite you 🙂 The prop games are where we work out all of those issues, arousal included, so it does not get built into agility at all.
So add the ready dance in small pieces: tiny bit of bend of knees, tiny bit of muscle tension, bent elbows, look at her… then send to the prop (or give her a cookie). Don’t start with a big READY READY READY and rocking back and forth, that is too much. And if you do a little bit and she sends herself to the prop? Cool! You can reset her with a cookie because that sending herself is a far better activity than biting you.
Let me know how it goes!
Happy New Year!
I hope Max was at least a little tired last night? LOL!! Will I see you at Level Up on the weekend of the 12th-13th?
>What is your tunnel threadle cue? Is it different from your jump threadle cue?>
My tunnel threadle cue is “kiss kiss kiss” and I use an opposite arm for it. And yes, it is different from the jump threadle cues – it used to be the same, but then the judges got smart and began putting jumps right next to tunnels… so the dogs didn’t know if we wanted the tunnel or jump on the threadle cue, if we were not fast enough to be ahead. Hmmmm LOL!! So most of us added separate words and now the dogs can get better info.
T
Awesome! I like the visuals too – when we get deeper into backside slices versus backside wraps (and the threadle versions), I will add a video that explains the difference and where we need more verbals (and where we don’t LOL!)
T
Hi! Happy New Year!
Very cool to hear that Freedom can do it with the verbal and needs relatively little help with motion cues! Super!!
10 did really well here, it is hard for a baby dog! At :15 she read the go out with the opposite arm because you were moving to the jump (watch your feet and line of motion there). Eventually, she will be able to do the ‘get out’ with the same line of motion and foot position as you had at :08… she is only 7 months old, so we have more layers to build up before getting it into a bigger sequence 🙂
Great job!
TracyHappy New Year!
The prop sends are definitely on the right track! She seemed to really get the idea that it is a foot target and not a toy to be picked up. YAY!! That allowed you to work the different sending really well and she was really good about moving to the prop. The first rep was a surprise to her and you were too far from the prop, but you adjusted and the others were closer and clearer. Her touches were not always perfect, but I think she was sorting out how to set up the collection to turn – and I am always happy when they are sorting out how to collect! 🙂
Good job calling her to you to re-engage and line up before each rep on most of these. Sometimes you would get into a loop which we don’t want on this game – this is because we want to build in arousal and build in the transition from handler focus to obstacle focus. With that in mind – you can add a little bit of arousal in the form of a ready dance – adding arousal this early is important so she can learn to regulate that arousal. The ready dance will also give her a clear indication of when the cue was coming.
>Mostly she wants to just go and I want to set the scene so I’m using food as much as I can to bridge the gap. >
The ready dance also fades the food as the cue to stay with you 🙂 Lots of good things come from the ready dance 🙂
>Adding in a lot more play breaks which I probably should be doing. >
Yes! Adding more frequent play breaks is great because otherwise I think she gets bored with cookie only games and needs an outlet for her energy – at about 1:00, she had had enough of the cookie reps (jumped up on you twice, started looking around…) She got a tug break at about 1:45, but you can build it in sooner, maybe after every 2 or 3 reps so it is more like :45 seconds between tugging. When the tug breaks became more frequent, she didn’t jump up on you or look around at all.
The serps went well, I think it was good to add the jump.
Good job rewarding the stays a lot on the serps, and making sure your hand was in position before and separately from the release. Yay! And I think she is definitely figuring out to do the thing before going directly to the toy here.
At :49 on rep 1, she was correct to come in and out with a sideswipe of the hand target – that is the in and out behavior we want. She hit the hand target more squarely on the next reps, but you can mark her arrival near your hand with the toy marker without moving at all, so she starts to anticipate that and turn herself to the toy. When we have that, it will be easy to add movement 🙂Great job!
Tracy
Hi!
She totally loves the tunnel 🙂 And she did a great job finding the entry – it is a hard turn and I love how she set up her body! Yay!
Since this went super well, you can replace your tunnel verbal here with your tunnel threadle verbal (I use “kisskisskiss” for that).
She also did well finding the jump on the parallel path concept transfer!!
>She did better with just “get it.” (Except when I got too far away.) It seemed like I was using “get it” instead of the “go” command.>
Yes – I agree that the get it was more of a cue than a reward marker. So you can use your ‘go’ as you start moving towards the jump – then as she looks at the jump (but nice and early, before she gets to it) say the get it and throw the reward.
You can add more motion! You can job or even run a bit – but don’t add too much lateral distance when you add motion, because we don’t want to have too many variables challenging her.
The Folding It In Game went great too – she was offering forward focus immediately! That was easy to do when the bowl was on the easy line, but she looked at her line brilliantly even when the bowl got to a harder position and it would have been easier to cut in front of the cone.
By the end, the bowl was on a very hard line – she had to go past it – and she did! Yay! So using the food bowl, you can keep moving it harder and harder, moving it closer to you! Start it in easy positions as a mental warm up 🙂 then you can make it harder and harder so she has to go past it to get to the cone 🙂 And you can also try it with a toy instead of the bowl!
Rocking horses look awesome!!! Nice connection 🙂 She committed really well and also liked the turn and burn exits 🙂 Super!!! You can add your wrap verbals as you send her, so she gets used to hearing them. Since you also added distance between the barrels here, you can now move to the advanced level where you get to move more, and there is countermotion too!
Fantastic job here!! She looks great!
Happy New Year!
Tracy
Hi!
The blind cross looked great! To help remain more upright (and make sure he doesn’t actually get your finger when going to the toy) you can try a longer toy for the reward (or you can tie two of them together).
>For some of the reps, he skips eating the treat and bounces off for the next rep. I had him go back for the treat (~39 sec).>
I think chasing you for the toy is more fun than leaving you for the treat. So we can pump up the send to the treat! It is kind of a countermotion commitment exercise 🙂
You can reward him for eating by running! So toss the treat and be upright and a little boring 🙂 until he has eaten it… then you can take off and run. If you are even a little exciting (crouching, looking like you are going to run, or running before he eats it) then he might not eat it or he might cough it up. And you were pretty exciting here, so use more of a boring stance til he eats: then the party can begin!
The decel and pivot also went well! He was blasting up the line and going really fast! So you can do the blind sooner (as soon as he starts moving to you) and then immediately decel so he has time to collect for the turn. Now, all this is easier if you are further ahead, so you can toss the treat to the towel and slowly/boringly walk away to get ahead. Then when he has eaten the treat: Run! Game on 🙂
>we tried running contacts foundation – a hula hoop was our box today. >
Oh! That is clever!!!! I have never thought of using a hula hoop for this! Smart!!!!! And it will probably be easier to transition on to the a-frame, and also easy to fade.
He totally figured out that going to the hoop was the road to reward. Clever!! Funny how he would also bring the toy back to the middle of the hoop too LOL!
Since introducing it went really well, you can move to the next step which is figuring out what he needs so he can go through the hoop and look straight rather than up at you. You can put a towel about 8 or 10 feet past the hoop on each side (so it is a mini sequence of towel-hoop-towel). Then when he goes through the hoop, you toss the reward to the towel. That will provide a focal point so he can look forward and not at you (and not track the toy or treat, because the towel will help him predict where it will arrive).
Great job here!! Happy New Year!
Tracy
Hi!
Backing up is off to a good start! Yay! The next step is to remain bent over with several treats in your hands, to speed the delivery of the reward and get even more backing up. You were doing more of that towards the end of the video and getting more steps. When you stand up after dropping the first treat, she is following that movement and stepping back to look up at you – but not really backing up. That was also happening towards the end, because you were not standing fully upright but still standing enough that she is looking at you.
Now since she is big, we can get creative to find a way to have you be able to remain bending over comfortably and give her enough room to back up easily: do you have 2 Cato planks or something similar? You can put each foot on a cato plank and that will raise you up by about 2 inches (maybe 3”?) which might be just the right height for you to be able to keep your elbows on your knees without standing up, but give her room to easily back up from under you.
She did great on your strike a pose game! I think she really likes it!!! You can move to the next steps: Since she was already ignoring the treat hand, you can use a toy as the reward to see if she can still find the target hand. And separately from that, you can try the concept transfer of this game: adding the jump in between you and her!
Great job here! Happy New Year!!
Tracy
