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Good morning!
Congrats on a great weekend! It sounds like he had no trouble moving – maybe he is slipping on the mats in the training building, so he was compensating?Thanks for re-listing the video! It was a good example of why we want to keep moving on the get out cue rather than stop and send:
At :36 you sent to the jump and didn’t move up the line enough… so when you tried to cue the next wrap, you ended up a little behind and totally turned to the tunnel, so he was correct to go to the tunnel 🙂 Staying in motion with your feet pointing to the next wing while upper body does the get out cue (big connection and outside arm) will give you an easier time getting up the line to the next wing, so there will be less likelihood of that delicious off course tunnel 🙂
The other reps had a little more movement but you can totally eliminate the stops on the send and keep running forward.Great job!
TracyGood morning!
My handling mantra is “Keep moving!” I learned it the hard way when my dear Voodoo was young – he would come in and bark & bite me if I stopped moving LOL!!!!! Eeek! Sid would never dream of biting you but so you can pretend you are running young Voodoo and keep moving so you don’t get any “tooth hugs” LOL!Hi!
>>I rewatched your videos but I’m still kind of confused what we are trying to get out of this exercise? It just seems simple? Or like I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to accomplish long term? >>
I think it will make more sense if you watch the competition level video:
As soon as I see the dog is heading to the backside (and before he gets there), I completely disconnect and just run like mad to get to the next line ahead of him. Not having to connect in that moment allows me to gain significant yardage because it is faster to run forward without looking back at the dog 🙂 So it makes complex backsides easier for us humans 🙂
>>Should I be telling Kashia “backside” so she gets used to the command?>>
Yes – you can add your backside slice verbal. And yes, it is super simple at this level but this understanding will make the higher levels much easier 🙂
The backside session looked great – well done on the disconnection and the timing/placement of the reward! You can add the verbal for sure, and add moving faster through these – the faster you move, the harder it will be for her to jump the bar, so keep throwing the reward to the landing side by the entry wing for now.
And she definitely likes the toy, it was hilarious to see her clutching it to rip it open (and trying to cheat to get to it on the Go lines LOL!!). Out of curiosity, what treats were you using? You can probably be using slightly lower value treats in the toy and save the crazy high value stuff for other locations.
>>I had a few silly mistakes in the sends around the cones but I just got a little complacent in my handling there. I knew how to fix that right away.>>
Having the toy on the ground behind you made it harder to get the send 🙂 But she went to the cone when you were super clear with the connection!
The go session on the easy side looked great. BIG happy dance about the “hard” side -great job breaking it down and also, she had clearly been learning it in her sleep because she was quite perfect here! FUN!! You can add back height to the bars for jumping because she seems ready for that now 🙂
Nice job on the extreme connection combos! She really had no trouble reading the cues for get out versus come in for the turn away. She had a couple of question, but nothing major: At 1:00 you had a disconnection by looking forward, which looked like a blind to her so she changed sides. Compare to the great connection in that same spot at 1:12, so she knew to stay on your right side. She had a little bit of a delayed response to coming in towards you for the turn away at 1:52 – she probably needed to see your hands more there – but that was her only delayed response. Everything else was speedy!!
>>It was hard to keep my verbal praise down but I did my best and she seemed to read it pretty well!>>
It went really well! You either gave her the cues for what you wanted, or you used something like “Let’s go” which worked well because it is not a “come get a cookie” marker ever, so she was not confused.
>>It’s so funny how she has such drastic days in her training attitude. Obviously we all do and they are no different than humans with good days and bad days. It’s just a little harder with a puppy who has a little bit less consistency than the older dogs. lol And yes, you are correct, she’s 18 months on Tuesday!>>
This is so true! With teenager dog brains, some days we are convinced they have learned nothing and it is all terrible… then 2 days later than know everything and more. CRAZY! It used to frustrate me but now I just expect it as part of the teenage brain process LOL! And we tend to forget how our older dogs were when they were 18 months old, which makes it even easier to think things are going poorly when in fact they are going just fine and the youngster is doing great 🙂
Terrific job here!!!
TracyGood morning! I am glad you finally had some good weather!!!!! The work on the video looked really strong!
You might chuckle about this – you tied your hair back partway through the video and it really helped 🙂 because she could see your connection better 🙂
On the video:
Turn away – tandems/RCs are going well! It seemed like she didn’t have questions figuring out that it was a turn away from you. You can add in more independence as the next step:
Look at your hands more (but still her her see them) and don’t need to move to the RC line as much – you can decel and use your hands/connection to flip away from further from the jump. That can add a lot of independence and put you in great handler position is something crazy is out ahead on the next line.Threadle wraps – nice job working through these! They are really challenging for sure!
On the reps where she wasn’t really coming in to you, she was either drifting out to get a good look at the handling or she was (correctly) staying on the line to the front of the jump when you are looking at her (1:48 for example).You had a BIG DRAMA look-at-your-hands moment at 2:10 and she came right in 🙂 – that turned your shoulders/feet to a better line and drew her right in.
2 things to add to that – let her see your hands a little more and also, keep moving. Staying in motion is the hardest element for the dogs, so move slowly and you can reward her for coming into your hands. The flip away after that is easy! And she was very clever figuring out how to find the jump after the turn away 🙂Get out –
>>Love her get outs! So cool they just know what that means
Totally agree, she seemed to really love that! 🙂 Well done to you both, in both directions! You can add even more distance and also more running on your line. You were great about staying in motion but not moving tooooo fast at first to help her read the cues.
Nice balance reps too – I am super excited that she read both brilliantly!
>>When’s the last day to post?
Feb 21! That should give us time to find breaks in this crazy weather 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi! I hope the weather isn’t too bad!
>>Backsides (we are certainly not solid yet).
I thought you did REALLY well and there was a ton of independence!!
>>I see in the video I sometimes have slight head turn to peak at her progress. Is this ok?>>Absolutely!
On the backsides: Deliberate disconnection on backsides is like a trust fall – you really have to trust the dog to do the jump 🙂 That is hard to do with a young dog! You can keep dropping the reward in behind you on the landing side of the bar as you disconnect, that helps build the trust (and the skill).All reps on both sides got her to the backside, except one rep. That was at :48 and even though your verbal was correct, the connection was a little too soft (not enough extreme eyeballs LOL!) and not enough physical cue of the shoulder rotation towards her, small convergence towards the backside, arms, etc. You can still use a reset reward there – she had a conflicting indicator in the cue so went with the motion cues.
Compare to the rep at 1:04 (and previous reps) and 1:11 (and reps after it, including the 2nd half of the video): These were great both in terms of connection to get the backside and disconnection to run ahead. You seemed to be getting more and more comfortable disconnecting 🙂
>>Please tell me what to do with my arms on the backsides….I tried some variations, outside arm vs inside arm and even both arms once lol. Fritzi requested I get a solid plan here :).>>
To be honest, your connection was so powerful on the reps where she went to the backside that I didn’t even notice what your arms were doing so I had to go back and watch again LOL!! Your arms were supporting the connection and cue, and also staying out of the way… love it! It looked like you were using a bit of outside arm (sometimes both like you mentioned) but it was subtle – so I say to choose what felt easiest for you and also supported your connection and go with that. Probably the subtle, single outside arm will work best, but it is up to you with what feels comfortable as long as you make the massive connection that helps her so much.
The Go lines are going well! I think she is used to having connection from you so she was adding a few little strides on the way to the 2nd jump. You can throw the toy a lot sooner (when you see the blur of Fritzi approaching jump 1) so she gets confident driving ahead to 2 even when you are disconnected 🙂
Great job here!!
TracyHi! Nice work on the combos!!
Looking at the backsides/serps: he has really good independent sends to the wing, so you can use that independence and send to the wing from further away. That way you can be further across the bar on the backside/serpy moments which sets up on sending around to the next wing more clearly. Sometimes he took the inside line to the wing and turned away, based on your being a little behind on the backside serp moment there. When you were further across the bar, he was more easily able to find the outside line to the wing which set up the line around to the first wing really well (nice connection on those!!)
And since his send to the wing is so strong, if you want to send to the backside of the jump and *not* the wing – be sure to line him up facing the backside, and maintain connection until he is around the wing so he doesn’t end up on the front side (you looked forward a little too soon on the 3rd video so he ended up on the front side).
Looking at the threadle (5th video) – you were in great position between the wing and the jump so he was able to come into the gap really well. Yay! As you do the threadle, try to keep moving with your feet forward to the jump, and upper body rotated towards him to bring him into the gap. That way he will come in for the threadle but you can stay ahead of him 🙂
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>><< I don’t think you need the arm across your body as part of the cue because it makes it harder to shift the connection to the landing while you move forward.>>
Are you suggesting that I don’t use the arm across the body for any type of connection or just in this scenario? Am I mixing up exit line connection cues with shifting connection cues?>>The arm coming across the body as part of a commitment cue like a front side wrap or circle wrap is not something I recommend, because it inhibits rotation and it inhibits shifting connection (the shifting connection is much easier with the arm on the ‘new’ side (closer to the wing) and that allows for fuller and earlier handler rotation. Plus the arm across the body as part of a commitment cue can also look like a RC cue.
I use the arm across the body for exit line connection (it moves the shoulder back in the learning stages, then we fade it out as the brain re-wires :)) and there are other uses for the opposite arm but those are generally not used with handler rotation like front side wraps and circle wraps.
>>Just to clarify, you’re saying that even though it worked to get her to commit, I actually should not wait for her.>>
Correct! Picture a jump bar there – you would be on landing side which would change the jumping line and could cause her to land on the bar or do a slice instead of a wrap. Plus, staying there puts you behind her and we want to keep you ahead!
>>I just need to do a better job of shifting my connection to the landing spot? (And probably work on circle wraps more in general since they aren’t something we really do much of).>>
Yes and yes 🙂 Independence on these circle wraps – such a hard skill but totally worth it!
Tracy
Hi!
The serps on your left were looking good! Your position as she exited the wing was clearly serp position, so you were able to get really good serp behavior!>>For some reason, I was struggling pretty hard with her on the right. I kept getting a threadle. >>
I think on the first rep at :25 she saw you in threadle position (near the entry wing) as she came around the start wing, plus you were shifting connection…. So she threadled. Then she was in threadle mode 🙂 because the next rep had good rep position.
>>I was able to see in the video (which I watched in between reps) that I was pulling my shoulder back to get the threadle instead of the serp.>>
Maybe a little, and it might be the harder side for her too. Also, I think that she responds to positional cues for the serp versus threadle (threadle near the entry wing, serp closer to the exit wing). You helped her by showing the line as more of a backside and that did help. The other way to help is to angle the jump towards her, so she sees the front of the bar and doesn’t see the threadle line as much. And you won’t feel as stuck on her line. You shouldn’t need a backside verbal (because it is front side based on where she should be coming from) there but a jump verbal can help.
When you add the countermotion exits where you move forward past the exit wing of the serp (towards the camera here, and not towards the next wing), 2 ideas for you:
– go forward past the wing as directly as you can, running parallel to the bar as little as possible. That will get you to the takeoff side sooner so she can adjust her stride to make a collected turn. And it will require more of a collection shift to the landing spot as you run forward 🙂 If she sees you running parallel to the bar, she will set up a slice exit and have to turn when she lands (you can hear her grunt then grumble when she does that).
– as you run through the serp lines, try to run through the reward for 6 or 7 more steps so you are not hitting the brakes and dropping the toy as she is over the bar especially with the countermotion exit. That causes her to land heavy on her shoulders (more grunting and grumbling LOL). If you keep moving, she will chase your line and then you can throw the lotus ball ahead of her.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
There was nothing on the first video, 3 seconds of just the jump 🙂 Let me know if there was supposed to be a different video?
The threadles on the 2nd video are going well – he was able to find the threadle side from several different angles on the first side! Nice!
He had a couple of errors on the other side so you can make the angle easier of him by having him sit more directly facing the threadle line and not facing the front side of the jump. Looking at your hand and making your hand more obvious also helped!
For the threadles – definitely add in a release from the stay. It can be your release word or your threadle cue, but the verbal release is key. He was releasing on your hand movement here so we want to add in a big loud obvious release word 🙂
Going to the dish was good to help him find the line! You can also add a ‘get it’ or ‘dish’ marker for the reward placement (but the release verbal is more important :))Good job getting him to go through the tunnel! He was a bit wary at first (he seems a little taller than the tunnel! So scrunching it up seemed to help and showing him the reward to get his head lower TOTALLY helped. Since he was still not 90-100% sure about it, do one more session with it scrunched up before extending it more, so he is very confidently flying through it.
Since you are working on getting him to NOT jump up at you…
He was really good about offering a sit for a while and not jumping up for about 15 seconds in the middle here… that was too long and he ended up jumping up at your hands. So as you are reloading treats, you can toss a few treats into the grass so he has something to do, or you can be faster so he doesn’t have to be patient for more than 5 seconds for now. Then reward the polite sit – he was being a good boy!Great job here :) Tracy
Good morning!
>>Game 1 felt too simple. Like I was doing something wrong because it was too simple. I didn’t do it much because she seemed to get it unless we did it wrong??>>
Ha! It went great – nothing wrong. Nailed it! My only suggestion is to throw the reward back more to the entry wing (and not close to your line at all) so as she comes about the wing, she is looking to the bar for the reward and not at you 🙂
In other news, she seems to really like the new toy now – opening it herself in the first game and trying to skip the jumps to go get it in the 2nd game LOL!!! I am glad she likes it!
>>I can’t figure out what I did wrong with Kashia. I ended up going slower and pointing at the jumps to get her to go through them. Which that’s obviously not disconnection but I wanted some success and to be clear that she can run between the two wings.>>
All of the right turn reps at the beginning and end looked great!
Even though things didn’t go according to plan on the other side, I still count it as a good session and you made great adjustments – changing the reward placement at 1:30 to try to make it more obvious, putting the bars on the ground, using handling to help her… all good! And you did get a lot of success by the end
So what was happening? You didn’t do anything wrong as a handler or trainer. It looks like she was having a typical adolescent/inexperienced dog case of the “go fasters” and we are seeing her side preference: she appears to be a righty (note how easy it was for her when she turned right to get the line, and how much harder it was when she turned left to get the line).
By “go fasters” what I mean is when the young dog kicks up the speed to the next level (yay!) but the coordination of turning to the hard direction (left, for her) is not fully in place yet – so they end up going around the jumps. We see this all the time with dogs her age (18 months old, approximately, right?). I think you will see some moments of this with my young whippet in the MaxPup Track: he has ALL the ‘go fasters’ but not necessarily all of the coordination to find the jumps on left turns.
So what to do? Well, we LOVE the speed the dogs are producing so a couple of ideas for you to also help her find the jumps:
– Do it on one jump only, so it is a little easier for her to coordinate
– With 2 jumps, place the toy on the ground between the 2 jumps for a few reps, then if she is successful, move to it to the landing of jump 2. Alternatively, you can do this WITHOUT a placed toy because it might be easier of her to look for the jumps without the joy of the reward on the ground 🙂
– Slow down your motion a little so you are doing a slow jog. That can help her process her mechanics without also having to process your speed.
And with some time between sessions, I bet latent learning will kick in and help her sort it out. That happens ALL the time – a session where we can’t really get the dog to do something, then they sleep on it and we try again in a couple of days and BOOM! They have it 🙂
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
Really nice sessions here! You worked out what the cues are that can get her flying away for the ‘get out’ 🙂 Yay!
At the beginning of the first video you were not quite moving up the line enough (:33, :55) but you totally adjusted that and added moving up the line really well (like at 1:15) – super!!Nice balance at the end of the first video – the handling clearly said to go straight and she never looked at the ‘get out’ wing 🙂
On the 2nd video – this went super well!! So now we can add more distance and independence 🙂 To get that, you can add a line on the ground so as you give the emphatic cues, you don’t move in toward the get out wing at all (this is HARD to keep moving straight and not towards the wing on this game!!)
One thing that will help you keep moving straight and not towards the get out wing is to use the dramatic outside arm like you did at 1:20 and 1:44, but a little lower – shoulder height and pointing at the wing. This is indeed a high arm cue but you can totally play with it to find the sweet spot of exactly where to use it.
Great job here!
TracyGood morning! Hope you are having fun at the trial!
>>The more I’m able to maintain a connection with Mira in course, the easier my handling and our runs become and the more confident I’m getting on course.>>
Yay! I agree – good connection makes everything else sooooo much easier: timing, commitment, etc which makes us humans a lot more confident on course!
Looking at the videos – great job here! She responds immediately to the connections shifts and accompanying hand cues!!! (Actually, she responds brilliantly to everything!)
Video 1:
Nice job with all the cues here! At :03 & :45 you had a bit of a hand cue for the front of the jump – I don’t think you need that for her (and you didn’t use it on the other clips and she did great :))
At :10 – very nice timing of the threadle cue – no problem for her to read it! Note how you were starting it when she exited the wing before the jump. You can add in making it a threadle wrap there by continuing to move forward as she is turning the opposite direction.
At :30 and :53 she is reading the tandems well too! You can cue these earlier – she can see your hands start to move and your connection shift from her eyes to your hands start to happen when she exits the wing before it. You were doing it closer to the takeoff spot of the jump here but doing it sooner will give her more time to prepare and also will make it even more of an independent skill 🙂
Video 2:
As you were getting ready to do the tandem here, you actually shifted your connection too early on the first 2 reps 🙂
At :08 the connection shift was early (she came around the wing and your were looking forward/ahead of her) so she almost did a blind cross there. You quickly reconnected so she stayed on your left side. At :27 the same thing happened, so she did end up (correctly) going to the other side of you.So for timing: when she exits the wing you can make a big connection, show your hands and then shift into the turn away cues (more like what you did at :43, but you can make a connection to her even more first before shifting connection) Or, if you aren’t turning away, make and maintain connection like you did at :37 – that was very clear connection!
The tandems on video 3 looked good! You can play with how much sooner you can show them to her – big connection as she exits the wing then shifting to your hand/turn away cues. That can really get her moving away super independently.
Great job here! Enjoy the rest of the weekend!
TracyGood morning!
The lateral lead out game looked great. And our ultimate goal is to be able to happily use food and toys in the same session, and that is what happened here – SUPER!!!
Stays looked good! She found the barrel nicely after the release! My only suggestion is that you can put yourself on a line parallel too the barrel so it is not lateral & forward on the send to get to it (only lateral). You can bring the barrel in closer if you think the stay behavior might suffer if you lead out more – the stay is looking really strong so we don’t want to mess with it 🙂
Barrel wrapping for the circle wraps was a fun choice of game after the control of the lateral lead outs. I think there was some confusion about the circle wraps – you were behind her then suddenly exploded forward (while looking at her) before she was finishing the wrap, so she was not sure where to be. You waited longer on the net reps and she was able to do it. You can add in more of the circle wrap countermotion by moving at a steady pace the whole time (until she exits the wrap, then you can run :)) and as you move up the line behind her, shift your connection to where the landing spot would be (and throw the reward back there). That will help her know where to look and go to, rather than looking at you 🙂
>>Caffeine inspired brilliance for the win. This is the microwaveable snugglesafe pad. Cover can shift a bit but it’s generally decent traction. At first it was so low she was going over it but then she figured it out and is pivoting more.>>
Huzzah! Caffeine for the win! I’m celebrating by having more caffeine hahaha
I definitely see more pivoting – yes, it took her a moment to realize that the new object was for pivoting, but even in those moments, she was moving more freely with her hind end than before. Super! You can deliver the reward with her head turned away from where she is pivoting too, like you did at :38. Expecting that reward placement can get even more pivoting!
Great job here! Have fun this weekend!!
TracyGood morning!
The distance here between the cavalettis was great! Much better trotting and a more comfortable distance for him. In the 2nd video, he accidentally moved the middle one and it was a little angled – perfect! You can angle these but keep the same center-to-center distance. The angling creates a little more challenge because the visual is weirder 🙂
>>He’s still looking at my hands, but hopefully that will eventually go away.>>
It probably won’t go away on its own, so remember to put an empty food bowl out past the cavaletti on each side – probably 3 feet away is perfect. You would then toss the treat into it. The bowl should provide a focal point. He might blast his way through the cavalettis to it the first time (because he is STARVING hahaha) so you can break it down to just one cavaletti and let him see that the trotting gets the cookie to fly into the bowl 🙂
He did well with the remote reinforcement! Showing him that your hands were empty made his head explode a little LOL!!
Two suggestions:
You can say “let’s go’ before you start moving back to the treats – you did that sometimes, and on other times you were moving back to them before you said it. Saying it before moving will really help solidify the verbal.Also, you can put the whole bag of treats on the table so you don’t have to reload from the different location – he was actually working double time because the treats were in 2 spots! Good boy!! It will be easier if all the treats are in one spot 🙂
>>though he did knock something off the table I used
That was when you made a point to show him the treats you put down at approx 1:00 – I think it was too much focus on the treats when you showed then to him so he couldn’t quite tear himself away. On the other reps, you didn’t make big deal out of putting the treats down and he did great!
Nice work here!!
Tracy
