[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
I am glad the rains have stopped for now!
I am loving her power and commitment here!!!!! Her sends look terrific!

>>I practiced without her and with the BC and just can’t get it down on her runs>>

I think the connections were good here! So what was happening to cause her to jump long and not always see which side to be on? It was your running line compared to her decision-making moment. She has a lot of power and a huge stride, so she is making her takeoff decision when she is about 1 body length past the wing before the jump. What she is seeing there on each rep is you running parallel to the bar, so she reads that correctly as a slice cue.
She is picking up the exit line connection as soon as she can after landing, ike at :24 when she really worked to get to the correct side.

But to get her to read the turn before takeoff, she needs to see you going past the exit wing for the wrap exit sooner – when she is one body length past the wing before the jump. Your sends are really good so you can send and then basically run forward right past the exit wing (close enough to touch it). The goal is that you are on the takeoff side of the jump at the same time she is on the takeoff side of the jump 🙂 And as you run forward, shift your connection back to the landing spot and she should commit nicely!
And keep up the good exit line connection, that looked great 🙂

Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
The exit line connections are looking really good! And he is reading them really well – nice tight turns happening!!

On the first video, the first reps looked great! When you changed sides, at
:16 and :21 and the other reps on that side had your left arm tucked in to you instead of extended back to him – that closes your shoulder forward so he was not as clear where to be, so the turns were wider (on one rep he went really far, not sure where he was going on that one LOL! )
On the last rep on that side, your left arm was more extended back to him and his turn was better! So on the exit line connections, use the arm/toy across your body to hep push the dog-side arm back, so it is extended towards him 🙂

Watching the shifting connection video:
Your exit line connection looked great here too! And the shifting connection on the circle wraps also looked really strong. Every now and then you would get too far ahead like at 1:15 and have to kind of run backwards a bit – that confused him at first but then he sorted it out LOL!

For the shifting connection on the jumps: he had trouble committing on some of the reps so I think I sorted out why:
– when you were facing the jump til he took off, he committed each time.
– when you were trying to rotate earlier, he did not commit on those reps (like at :38, 1:43, 1:57 and a few other spots). What was happening there was that the transition from the forward motion into the rotation was too abrupt, so it looked like a hard stop rather than a shift into the wrap cue. Slamming on the brakes caused him to look up at you and not commit.

So to help that, add in a deceleration: Accelerate towards the jump then as he is catching up to you, slow down for a couple of steps… then as he passes you, rotate and shift your connection to the landing spot (using the arm closer to the jump to support it, ideally, rather than the arm across your body). That decel should help tremendously with his commitment and it also makes the connection shift clearer.

You did it a bit of that on the last rep at 2:25 and he committed really well with you rotating nice and early 🙂

Looking at the serps – he did well with the fancy stuff 🙂 I think you can get it so you are not behind and can easily get where you want to be – the fine art of it consists of two things:
– Send to the first serp jump or wing from as far as needed to get you to be able to run straight to the next line (rather than an L shape of running one direction then turning)
– Keep moving at all times, don’t stop 🙂 That is where the dog might end up hitting us.
He makes his takeoff decision when he is about a stride past the start wing or at landing from the jump. So if he is seeing you run fast and parallel to the bar of the serp jump (like at :19), he will slice and that is great if that if what you want.
If you want a collected exit (like a German turn) – the send is what will make or break you. You can send to the previous jump or wing from a distance position that allows you to get past the exit wing of the serp before he takes off, and showing him as little parallel line motion as possible (ideally none!) The goal is that you and he are on the takeoff side of the serp jump at the same time for those tight exits (and you shift your connection to the landing spot as you move forward).
The more Diane you have on the send, the easier it will be to get to where you want to be 🙂 Turning him away for a rear cross can work but that puts you behind too – so using big sends to get way ahead will give you more flexibility on how you handle them and less concern about using them.

Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi! Super nice session here! He seemed to have zero questions about where to be on the FCs and the spins, and his turns were really lovely!

Two small details:
When you exit the Fc or the spin (especially the spin) – yes to the exit line connection but don’t do it so much that you end up running sideways. Try to keep running forward and show the exit line connection with only enough rotation that you can connect to him without turning your feet.

When decelerating into the FC or spin, try not to push in towards the bar, as that might end up looking like an accidental rear cross cue. So you can be moving to the wrap wing and decelerating by standing up – I think the leaning you mentioned was happening when you were pushing in towards the bar. So decelerating by standing up and not stepping to the bar should help with that.

No worries about the toy being a little further from your body – you an keep it tighter but I think adding the combos to this will help smooth that out, because you will be running to the next jump rather than stopping to reward him.

Great job here!!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

The extra stride was only in that one rep, so maybe it was an anomaly He was in full extension on the other reps!

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

Really strong session here! This is boring feedback because it is all: woohoo! Looks great! Well done! LOL! But it is true – You did a great job building this up from one cone to both cones and he had no trouble with it.

Great connection as you sent him to each cone, both with the forward sending and also the backwards and sideways sending – he was very confident on all of them!

I think the hardest part for him was going past the toy dangling from your hands on the sideways sending. That was HARD so you can scrunch the toy up in one hand so you don’t have to switch hands or have him ask about it as he passes it 🙂 And you can use a toy marker for when he can grab it from your hands – that way he won’t even look at it as he scoots past it on the way to a cone.

You can move to the next steps:

Spread the cones out to add more distance so you can add more running in and out of the sends 🙂 And then you can add the deceleration into the rotation (which sets up the uses of the sideways and backwards sending).

Along with all of that – you can add in your wrap verbals 🙂 I think he will move very quickly through the different levels here so you will be able to get to the spins and race tracks in the next set of rocking horse games very quickly.

Great job!!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!
He did really well here! He definitely likes his wrapping!!! He read the cues the best when you had more eye contact and less arm pointing, so definitely keep using the eye contact as part of the send cue.

He also did well moving past the cookies in your hands here! As the rocking horses get more complicated, you can do them with empty hands (cookies in pockets) then pull a cookie out at the end – it doesn’t need to be a precision reward for those. That will help him commit even better! You can add in the more advanced levels which have earlier rotations and the spins 🙂

Great job here!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Great question!

The threadle verbal is really important, yes! But also there are positional cues that help the dogs: on threadles, our position is more on the entry wing and on serps, our position is further across the bar and more towards the exit wing. This is not as important for really experienced dog but it is really important for the teaching stages.

For the serp, there is no single verbal for a serp because it can have so many different exits – so I just use directionals (left or right or wraps) on the harder lines, or the dog’s name or a jump cue on easier ones 🙂

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

OMG this was great and also adorable! She was like “CHALLENGE ACCEPTED” as the crates changed. And she even got herself into the red bag LOL! Good girl! And she seems to have the concept of staying in there too 🙂 For flight purposes, we probably need to fade the MM out of the picture and go to tossed food.

Great job!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

>>she was perfect! I was perfect! aaaaaand I forgot to hit record. hahahahaha!>>

I hate when that happens!!!

I agree – I think she liked the longer sequences and extra obstacles. She loves to run run run!!

The theme of these sequences was trying to maintain connection all the way through because one connection break would change her line – it all happens pretty quickly too!

As you starting building p at the beginning of video one – nice job sorting out adding more connection and less arm to get her to take the 2nd jump.

For the send to the wing after it, that is another place for BIG connection and less arm – you don’t have to get as close to it, but you will want to keep facing it until she is locked onto it. For the reps where she didn’t go to the wing (:42 and 1:33 in this video for example, :23 on the 2nd video) you were moving away before she saw the connection to it, so she came off of the line on those.

With the big connection and step to the wing, I bet you can send to it from even further away! Getting back up the line to the blind is hard, so as you are working the big sequence you can decelerate near the jump before the send – then as she is landing, make the big eye contact and take a big step to the wing (and reward her for sending that far away :))

That will make it easier to get back up the line for the blind. Be sure that as you get ahead for that, you keep your dog-side arm back and strong regular connection. On the reps where she didn’t take the jump, you were looking at the jump with a high arm. So with her being behind you, it looked like the beginning of the blind cross cue as she exited the wing wrap which is what she would do the blind before taking the jump 🙂

When you had lower arms and more eye contact until she locked onto the jump, you go that jump really well like 2:07 on the first video and the first run on the 2nd video (that was my favorite run!)
Sp as you are working through these games:
If she ends up on the wrong side of you, it is because the connection broke and it looks like a blind 🙂 Adding more connection for longer will sort it out.

Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!
Good job sorting out the connection on the send – the first one was not as connected as you mentioned, but then the rest were really nice!!!

And also, good job trying to figure out how to make the serp clearer!! Watching it to see what was causing him to be SO CONVINCED it was a threadle:
It looks like on the reps with the send to the wing before it, he saw you in threadle position (visible through the gap between the wing in the jump, positionally closer to the entry wing). You can see this at ;22, :29, :52, 1:06 and also when you moved the wing out at the end – he could still see you in threadle position so he offered harder threadles 🙂

Compare to the 2 reps starting at :37 when you did it on just the jump: you were on the exit wing so you were visible between the uprights – a very different positional cue, so he had lovely serps.

So to get him to serp rather than threadle? 2 ideas:

– send to the wing before the jump from further away, so as he exits the wing he sees you in serp position (between the uprights, heading to the exit wing). It might take some rewarding to get more distance on the send, but that is valuable anyway 🙂

– angle the jump about 45 degrees so the bar is very easy for him to see as he exits the wing. The exit wing can move towards the camera here and the entry wing can move back towards the first wing of the sequence. That should rotate the jump enough that it is really hard to see threadle position and much easier to see you in serp position.

Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

Ewww, more rain, you have had so much lately!!!

It looks like the footing in the park was good, she was able to grip really well (hopefully I was not too slippery for you)
She was reading the cues to send to the tart wing really well (great connection on your sends there!) and the was coming into the serp jump beautifully. Super!!!


>>Sprite is not putting in a check stride to try to turn tight after coming in. >>

I agree that adding check strides are not high on her list of priorities 🙂 But I think on this video it might be that she needs to see the motion of the wrap cue sooner. Watching her decision points (when she was taking off and when she was making the decision to take off), she appears to be making the decision on how to approach the line when she is one body length pat the exit of the wing wrap before the serp jump.

So what she sees in that moment will change her choice of takeoff. In tat moment, she was seeing you running parallel to the jump bar (and running fast in some of the reps) so she was saying “got it! Extension slice!” The wrap info of you getting around the wing was happening after her takeoff point, which is why she was turning after landing.

Since her sends look really good, you can end from further away so as she is exiting the wrap wing, you are already passing the exit wing of the serp (really close to the wing) and moving forward so she doesn’t see any parallel line slice motion. And as you move forward (you would be moving towards the camera here), your shifting connection will cue the jump behind you. That should set up much tighter turns – I am interested to see what she does!

“”I felt like I was doing the exit line connection. Does it need to be sooner? When do I switch from looking at landing to looking at the exit line? I’m assuming it’s after she lands. Is it earlier?””

It should feel pretty natural to go from the landing spot to exit line connection because they basically merge when the dog takes off and is fully in your field of vision as you look back. So you probably already have the eye contact when she lands, and you can definitely add the reward-across-the-body as part of it sooner. You can present the toy as he is taking off, which means it is already visible at landing. And, keep moving through the toy reward moment so as she approaches it, you let go as she grabs it and keeps going. That should help prevent any falling on her head 🙂

I think most of the exit line connection was clear (one blooper at :32 when it was not as clear so she ended up on the other side of you) so getting past the wrap wing on the jump sooner should make a big difference in her turns.

Great job here! Fingers crossed for dryer weather ahead!!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning! Congrats on the scent trial success – sounds like the girls are doing amazingly well in that sport too!

Nice work here on the videos!

Shifting connection Video – The earlier rotation worked really well on the wraps here! She committed really well and you were able to rotate and move the new direction long before she got to the jump. Nice!
For the circle wrap, you can leave sooner there too, by moving forward again as soon as he passes you rather than step sideways or back (that keeps you on the side of the wing where landing would be when ideally you are already past the takeoff side of the wing.

On the serp videos:

>>ended up just being a photo. I forgot to hit video>>

I hate when that happens!!

The first send on the first video was not connected, so she went to the jump backside which is what the physical cue indicated. Remember to reward her in those moments, even if she went someplace you didn’t intend 🙂 She is reading your cue correctly. The rest of the sends to the start wing on both videos had great connection, so she went to the wing right away.

She read the serps really well when you were moving parallel to the bar. Yay! Nice shoulder position! When you are parallel to the bar, it is not that important that you show a big connection shift. But the exit line connection will help her know which side to be on (at :32 you looked forward so she saw the shoulders move and correctly did a blind).

When you add countermotion (end of first video and in the 2nd video), you will definitely want to show the shifting connection back to the landing spot. At :50 on the first video there was more countermotion but you were looking at her cute face instead of the landing spot, so she read it as a cue to not take the jump. That is rewardable too!
On the last rep on that video and on the serps on the 2nd video, you slowed your motion/turned your feet there and used more arm – you can also add in more connection shift so you don’t have to slow down or turn your feet – that will allow you to get even further ahead and add more countermotion to the exit of the serp.

Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!

>>Were you running as fast as you could while staying connected to your dog?” >>

So true!! We are not sprinters, we are football wide receivers charging down the field while watching for the throw from the quarterback (the dog :))

This session went really well! He was super confident when you were ahead on both sides. On the left side when you were behind him, he was not as confident on that rep and added strides (:12-:14) but he was totally confident driving ahead on the other side. He might have needed more verbal support in the form of repeated verbals on the dog-on-left side.

Since this is going well and we use regular connection in every game, you can add in the combos and other games as well. Great job here!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
This went well too!
You can send earlier to wing 2 here as well – your send to wing 1 looks great, so you can hang out where you sent from, make the big connection, and send to wing 2 from there 🙂 That will make it even easier to get past ht exit wing of the serp. You were sending to 1 then taking a few steps towards 2, so the connection was not as clear (she looks at you at :02 and :32) and then you are further from the serp jump.

The shifting connection on the serp and the exit line connection both look great!!!
Nice work here!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!

>>You know—the airplane arms you see handlers use. I am the other way and use almost no arms>>

Yes, we definitely don’t want the airplane arms! Think of your arms as extensions of your eyeballs and use them in places where they help. Otherwise, you can keep them low and out of the way 🙂

The countermotion is looking good here on the Serp 4 video! Your connections looked great 🙂 You can send her to wing 2 even sooner: as soon as she finishes wrapping wing 1, send to 2 and that way you can get even further ahead 🙂
For the wrap on the exit, you were giving her more room than she needed 🙂 You can run past the wing close enough to touch it, and that’ll create a super tight exit line. That will be more challenging for her in term of commitment, so remember to show a big connection shift as you run forward (and point the landing spot).

The exit line connection looked great 🙂

Onwards to video 3 below! Great job here!
Tracy

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