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Hi!
She is definitely starting to get the concept! Super! You can let her offer more – when you put the start cookie down, keep your hands stationary rather than move them towards her so she moves away on her own (rather than your hands pushing her back).
You started tossing the treats and that really helped!
One thing that will help get even more backing up: Keep your hands at her nose level, rather than lift them up after you put the start cookie down. When your hands come up, her head comes up too so that stops the backing up a bit.
>I thought the target mat would be useful but it didn’t seem to help much. >
Yes, adding the mat will help a lot. You can help her understand that it is about backing up to the mat by starting each and every rep on the mat (all 4 feet on the mat, so it is should be perpendicular to you like it was :47 – 2:45. Then lure just her front feet off – and let her offer putting her front feet back on. When she can do that easily a few times, lure all 4 of her feet off then let her offer putting her back feet on it, then reward. But starting on the mat each time will make a big difference.
>Perhaps the biggest challenge was to keep her going backward in a straight line.>
Getting her knowing it is about the mat will help this, and so will alternating which hand you toss the treat from. When you only toss from your right hand, she will orient herself towards your right hand and back away from it on an angle. So, have treats in both hands and alternating tossing from your left and from your right, so she can back up straight.
Nice work here!
Tracy
Hi!
>Rory was so confident on the Versaplank tippy board I tried her on the Cato tippy board. One tip and a bang and that became a MUCH larger challenge so it seems we need to work more on noise.>
Had she been across the Cato board in this setup before? I think the big difference here was that the other plank was a lot lower on the tip, and she had already been over it a bunch. The tip on the cato plank is really high here and looked pretty different, so she was tentative before the noise added in. One thing that is super important – less is more with adolescent dogs :). Make smaller changes, and when adding in the noises and more movement, you can do one rep for a fistful of treats… then end the session. Adolescents notice all the small changes and can be extra sensitive to that, so any new changes might be like giant mountains to them 🙂
So for her next session, take the cato tippy thing and stuff all sorts of pillows and stuff under it, so it is relatively stable and quiet. Then she can have a giant reward for it. The one-reward sessions do wonders for building up the love for movement and sound.
Nice work!
Tracy
Hi!
>We did use the cone, but no video, then continued on with a ‘barrel.’ I laughed watching this video — I don’t get to see the camera’s eye view of him.>
This went really well!
I chuckled at his wrap video too – he is very emphatic about his choices LOL!!! Good boy 🙂 He’s got the idea though – super nice wrapping on the barrel as soon as he stopped optimistically smacking the bowl for treats at the beginning 🙂
You can move on to the turn and burn game, using the barrel or cone (whichever you think he is better with). That game can use a bowl as a visual aid to help him out (you will see that in the description) and you can also use a long toy as the reward.
Backing up is going well – great job keeping your hand super low! That might make your back angry 🙂 so feel free to sit on something low so you don’t have to bend over quite as much.
When you revisit backing up, you can add more distance for him to back up, bit by bit, by luring him off the mat a little further each time.
>I know that the next step will be backing up onto a slanted board. Is it okay to use a small piece of plywood with this mat or a yoga mat set on top?>
Absolutely! Great idea!
Prop game:
Parallel path is going well. You can replace the click with a ‘get it’ marker, then toss the treat. That will help him not look at you, and look forward on the line more.
For the countermotion – be sure to gather him up in front of you, engage… then send him. The first part of the cue looked just like a parallel path rep, so he was surprised when you moved the other direction. If you make it a super clear send, he will drive to his prop and then you can easily be moving the other direction.
For the rear crosses:
>For the rear cross, Charley consistently turns away from me, thereby spinning in the opposite direction.>
This is where you can use more space to set up the line. On the reps here, you were very close to the prop so when you started to show the RC info, he was already at the prop (so he correctly turned the original direction). If you give yourself more space, you can start both of you further away. He will move ahead of you and you will have the time to get to the new side before he reaches the prop so he turns the new direction.
You can use a long hallway if you have one, or even take this game outside if you have a yard or someplace available to add more room to the game.
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
Rear crosses are going well – I think the visual of the tunnel out past the jump made the right turn RC easier but the left turn RC a little harder! But he was able to get them because you were putting a lot of pressure on the RC line to the bar. The backsides looked easy here, no problem. Your line of handling was very clear. Super!
He definitely has the idea of the layering when he was on your right!
He had more questions when he was on your left – it is possible that he was not seeing the line to the start wing as well, which was causing you to come in further then have to pull away to try to layer. But when you pulled away, it actually cued him to not go to the jump. So you can change the angle of the start wing so it lines him up to the jump without you having to run in as close to get it.
Also, keep tabs on # of reps – even if he isn’t getting it entirely, you can limit the reps so he doesn’t get slow down. There were 20-something reps here so he was still working but had dialed back the speed and drive into the game. It is more ideal for the total session to be about 3 minutes, rather than editing it down to 3 minutes. The shorter blasts will keep him super fast!The diamond:
The blinds at the beginning are looking good – nice connection on the exit of the blind! Adding the tunnel went well too – I think there were times where you were trying to convince your feet to turn away into the blind so sometimes it was a little delayed, but the connection was good when you did it so he did really well reading the exits. There was a rep or two when you got a little off the line and ended up pushing him back to the tunnel but in general your line was good! The race tracks also looked good around the outside, and it was a nice variation from the repetition of the blinds – as soon as he has the blinds, you can move to the next little sequence. That will reduce the # of reps overall as well as the number of times he does the same thing. As you are working it out, you can run it without him so he sees the full picture before he tries it 🙂The zig zags are going well too – he was not quite sure of moving away on the first rep but did really nicely after that. When you revisit it, you can use shorter bars to get him to bounce more and take fewer strides, but for now you can move to the accordion in the week 8 games.
Nice work here!
Tracy
Hi! I hope you aren’t getting hit too hard with the nor’easter!
This went well! He was able to read the cues and did really well finding the lines and doing the turn aways!
>As a general finding, I think I do too many repetitions. Rusty is always more enthusiastic in the first few reps. >
Yes, he was definitely a bit tired after the first 3 or 4 reps, and slowed down. It is also possible that there were too many reps of the same/similar things with the same toy, so he wasn’t as excited about as he was at the beginning. Going to the other side of the tunnel to the wing perked him up (:58) but then he slowed down again.
So you can do fewer reps but also change the challenge more frequently and change which reward you use – he seems to like variety! And you can do a couple of reps then take a break so he doesn’t get too hot or tired.
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi!
Great job getting her to turn to her left here! It definitely seems like her harder side. You can use the bowl to help on that side: place the bowl where it is kind of visible (maybe halfway around the barrel) and use it as a visual aid. She will move to it then past it to do the FC and chase you, no more food needed in it. You can then gradually move it further and further around the barrel and then we will fade it out entirely when she is happy with the left turn.
There were a couple of right turns in there and those looked good!
For the next session: add your wrap verbal instead of saying ‘go’. That will help her match the behavior to the wrap verbal.
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi!
The parallel path and backwards sends to the props looked really good! Tons of value and really nice hits!
For the rear crosses – the info was a little late, which is why he was turning the original direction or looking at you. To get the rear crosses going, start with multiple reps of the parallel path game – but starting with him, further away, so he drives ahead of you. And when he is happy to drive ahead of you, you can add the rear cross. The goal on the rear crosses is to get to the new side before he arrives at the prop, which will get him changing to the new direction very easily 🙂
Around the barrel: He is diving around it really well on both sides! Yay! He is ready for the turn & burn game, where you have more countermotion on the exit: for example, when he was on your left you would do the FC and run towards the dog walk so there is a more dramatic line of exit.
>But he loves that thing better than any other toy so should I keep using it?>
Yes, it is great for this game: easy to drag it while you run, and he loves it 🙂
Blind-Decel-Pivot:
Your mechanics looked really good! You can add more distance on the start cookie throw to get more room to run into the blind. That will also allow you to have more time to decel into the pivot.He had a little trouble going to the toy after the pivot, so you can take the cookies out of the pivot so there is nothing on your hand to ignore. Later in the video you switched to the lotus ball and that went really well in terms of him driving to it.
Backing up is off to a great start! You can keep your hand lower (rather than stand up which moves your hand higher). Keeping your hand at his nose level will get more backing up. If it is too hard on your back to remain bent over, you can sit in a chair so it is easy to keep your hands low.
Since this went so well – for the next session, start where you ended up here then move further and further away so you get more and more distance to the backing up.
Great job here!
Tracy
That is a really cool course! What a great way to get young folks thinking about things in a good way 🙂 And I am glad that Ikaika that did really well on campus too 🙂
T
Hi!
Lovely work here – you had tremendous energy and engagement at the start of each session and he did great.
Wraps:
Excellent choice of song! And YouTube didn’t take it off LOL!The wrap with novel-exciting went GREAT. He was really getting into the concept of finishing the wrap was what was causing you to turn and run with the toy. And since he loved it when you turned and ran with the toy… the wrap kept getting faster & faster and tighter & tighter. Yay!!
>the wrap had a red play ball that you can’t really see. >
It didn’t seem to cause any major challenges for him, which is super! You can mix in different exciting things to keep his brain processing new things in the environment.
The song on the blind cross & turn video was more chill but also an excellent choice 🙂
He had no trouble finding the bowl with the treat in this session – perhaps a bit of latent learning, perhaps a bit of you taking an extra moment to have him focus on it before you sent him to it. Either way, it made it much easier to play this game! The blinds and pivots also looked really good.>We also had an overall really big challenge today – chainsaw and tree cutting. I decided to keep going and just see if he could work through it.>
Yes, something was distracting him a bit – it must have been the tree cutting. He didn’t seem scared or anything, he just seemed interested when he kept looking at something off in the lower right of the screen. But he was able to stay in the game and did great! Super proud of him even with that massive distraction.
>I scrapped the plan on throwing the toy after the turn as I wasn’t reading like he was ready for it today.>
I am sure he will be ready next time when the big distraction is not happening (or even if it is!)
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning! These sessions look good: the right combo of good mechanics and lots of fun 🙂
>tried using two of my smaller ones, not terribly successful as similar to the plank she kept looking up at me and didn’t get all 4 feet on it. Will try with 3/4 of them next.>
Maybe try to use all the smaller objects together to get all of her feet on? Using multiple objects even if they are all different is still good for proprioception.
Really nice session with the rocker board! She was offering happily even with all the movement, and you did a great job alternating food & toys.
For the rocker board, you can take it to different surfaces so it moves differently and adds some sound. When you are on a harder surface, put some stuff back under the board so the sound is very soft at first. She is doing GREAT and we want to over-protect her confidence for now 🙂Forward focus video:
She is making great progress here! In the early stages where the bowl is really only accessible on the other side of the cone, the session was pretty perfect. She would look at you then look at the line to the bowl. You released her with the bowl marker, which marks looking forward (and indicates that she should go to the bowl).
Things get harder with the marker being that early, though – at 3:05 the bowl is accessible without wrapping the cone, so when she looked forward then you said ‘bowl’… she was not actually incorrect to go to the bowl without the cone. (The marker does indicate that she should go to the bowl, the cone is not part of that).
So delay the bowl marker until she is at the cone! To release her after she moves forward, use your wrap cue. This can start on the easier reps when she will definitely go around the cone, and it will help when she has to go past the cone.
Sitting on the ground to shape the backing up is how most of my dogs learn too 🙂 The leaning over gets the behavior quickly for most folks – as long as it doesn’t make our backs angry! You can try it sitting in a chair and dangling your hands to keep that at nose level for her, which will help her keep going backwards.
But sitting and shaping is a tried & true method for sure!
>I will put in the mat with texture for her to back up to also.>
Yes, the thing I think will help is if you add a destination like a mat: have her start with all 4 feet on a mat. Then lure her front feet off, and reward when she steps her front feet back onto the mat. When she does that a few times, you can lure all 4 feet barely off the mat – then reward when she steps her back feet onto the mat. That can really help her understand stepping backwards without you having to lean over and make your back angry 🙂
>Kyrie does a lot of the things you listed to work on, most are in various videos already.>
Yes! You have a ton of good markers and strategies happening already. Yay!
>Right now I do it sitting on the floor, toss a toy, and will let her see the toy i have and she coming to grab it. the toy she has doesn’t always make it all the way back, but usually, depends on how much attention I bring to the toy I have.>
The retrieve is built a variety of ways – like backing up, there are a lot of different approaches and we go with what works best for dog and handler 🙂 Using this approach, you can keep the 2nd toy hidden longer and longer, to gradually shape her to bring toy #1 back closer and closer. Eventually she can drop it in your hand or even tug on it, to get toy #2 to come out to play.
>wondering when we get to a point where she bould decide not to bring it back and has the room I would be tempted to use a line as I did in the earlier drive ahead video.
>When you say not bring it back – do you mean she makes off and runs around with it? You can have a line on it for sure, to prevent some massive victory laps 🙂 And two other things: make it a reverse toy race, where you send to toy 1 and you take off the other direction, presenting toy 2.
And, name the victory lap so you can cue it as a reward strategy: tell her when she can take the toy for a run! (I use ‘go for a run’). That goes a long way towards getting the pups to NOT run around with it! So when they bring the toy back even a little, I send them off for a run with the toy. I also play when they bring it back on their own accord, and send them for a run again. It sounds counterintuitive but it really helps build a retrieve 🙂
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Good morning! These. games went really well and I agree that he liked the variety of toys 🙂
Send to the tunnel from further away on the Go reps so you are a bit ahead on the tunnel exit. And make a big connection as he exits the tunnel – without the connection, he won’t know which side of the wing to go to (like at :13). When it was clearer connection like at :56, he found the line really well!
Keep going and reward anyway even if it doesn’t go according to plan
Your timing is getting earlier and earlier, which is great! And yes, as you noticed – more variation in volume will help him differentiate between the verbals and respond even better 🙂
Looking at the proofing game: he did like the new toy for sure! When you were not moving or moving slowly, the cues were pretty easy to read. When you added moving faster, be sure that he sees the info before you give a release – at 1:05, that info was late because he was already locked onto the jump before he really saw or heard threadle info. Much better at 1:14 where the threadle info was very clear before he started moving.
I think the threadles in general will be clearer for him when you swing your arm back more to contrast it with the serps. You can see that on the 2nd side in particular: swinging your arm back really helped him get the the threadles. Yay!
The layering session went well – moving the wing in a little closer helped get him out on the line and then he found the jump really well. And yes, adding the go verbal to the jump is great – he was really good about passing the tunnel to the jump, then finding the tunnel when cued. Yay! You can add a little more distance between the jump and tunnel, so the layering ends up with more distance too.
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
The Diamond game went really well 🙂
The blinds at the beginning were really good! Nice job with the connection after the blind! When you were cheering for him after it, he was not sure if he should go to the toy or keep going, so you got some jumping up at the beginning. So… no need to cheer, you can just tell him what is next if you are going to keep going.He is doing much better about finding the line to the wing after the tunnel thanks to clear connection and motion, like at 1:02 when you were ahead but still connected. When you had your arm at shoulder height right after that (1:04) the connection got blocked so he didn’t know where to be – he thought it was a blind and changed sides, But when you kept the arm down and made connection – no questions. Yay! To get hm driving ahead to the wing, you can drive right down to the tunnel so you are not ahead or barely ahead as he exits.
His jumping on the ladder grid is looking good – what was the distance between the jumps? We might be able to expand it 2 or 3 inches and still get the powerful bounce!
One thing to add to the stays: he is anticipating the release when you arrive at the target, so make arriving at the target more unrelated to the release in two ways:
-Arrive that the target on every rep, whether you throw back the reward or not (rather than almost always release when you are at the target)
-When you arrive at the target, quietly praise him before either releasing him forward or throwing the reward back.So it would be lead out, stop moving, praise… then either catch or break cue.
If he hasn’t really had the praise as part of it, you can add that on one jump or even on the flat with no jumps so he can be successful.
Great job!!
Tracy
Hi!
>Dublin was very excited outside the ring again but I was able to get him to pay attention with some pattern games. Some vocalizations and stares at the dog in the ring before us so I know I need to work on his focus more still. >
Good boy! He might need crazy high value food rewards to help motivate him to NOT look at the dogs in the ring 🙂
>We tried some backsides which showed me I need to break it down into your steps better. >
The challenge he was having there mainly was on coming over the bar on the backside while you were moving through it. You can drop a treat on the landing side as you move through parallel to the bar to help him automatically look for the bar.
When sending to the backside, make a big connection and move parallel to the line, rather than point forward or turn your line to the jump (which can cue the front by accident).
And when he was missing the jump after the wrap (before the tunnel under the dog walk) – you can add more connection and less line pointing 🙂 because that will turn your shoulders to the line to help cue him to take the jump.
>I have been putting in some 12-16 hour work days.>
LONG days! But onwards to a fun weekend – I am looking forward to seeing you!
Tracy
Hi!
I agree, this is looking super good! She has a lot of value for the offering the cone wrap with you standing which means onwards to Turn And Burn!
wing-wrap-foundations-part-3-turn-and-burn-11Be super systematic with it – the line on the ground helps so you don’t do the FC too early and pull her off the cone. But she is ready for it and I think she will love the motion and tugging. The wrapping is cued now, so you can do a small step and arm movement towards the cone to cue her to begin goin around it.
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi! I love your shirt!
>Lots of noise and chatter from the lake tonight>
Yes, I can see him distracted by something off in the distance! I could hear it a little too – he could really only turn to his left smoothly with that distraction, Right turns were harder so it looks like you stepped in closer to help those.
If he finds things distracting, you can see if increasing arousal helps: use a toy! You can try the turn and burn game because that works the wing wrapping and it is really fun, with the toy reward and all the movement 🙂
>He was already into these before I threw some kibbles in.>
He was so funny with these – not worried about anything other than finding the treat even if it means getting Dr. Pepper box stuck on his head LOL! Since he is really brave, you can pile it up and stack it up into a pole for him to climb on 🙂
Great job!Tracy
