[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

Wow, Gemma ran this course beautifully!!!!

On the full run, she got Big Mad 3-4 because you were connecting with your hand not your eyes (this is where Sprite would have likely gone off course)

The middle section of 4-5-6-7-8-9 looked amazing!

On the 10 jump in the beginning and at :45 – I think you are getting too much into the takeoff spot and then ending up on her line to 11, she is drifting to let you clear the line before going to 11. She knows where 11 was, but you were in the way so she had a to curve around behind you.

>>I didn’t think about a reverse spin on 12. But, I did feel like 11-15 required a lot of patience and I was waiting with no place to go. >>

Gemma read the decel and right verbal REALLY well on the very first rep at :08 – and you were pretty far from 12 when you sent her to it, so the blind cross had lovely timing! The 2nd time through there at :48, you got closer to 12 and the post turn there made you late for the blind. I think with the spin, you will be timely for the blind even if you end up closer to 12, because you won’t need to decel and your feet will be facing the 13-14 line sooner. And then that gives you even more time to decel and set up the turn cues for 14, especially with Sprite who needs more time to process them (baby dog!)

>>The whiskey worked well for her. The German in the full course created a wide turn although she was on course.

I agree, the whiskey turn was GORGEOUS! The entry to the German was indeed wider, and I think the difference was because for the whiskey, you set the turn to the backside really well. With the German, you sent and accelerated, so she was wider. Both of those turns have great exits on the wrap to the last jump.

Great job! It is so fun to see Gemma, she looks AMAZING!!!!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

Yes, the remote reinforcement is a game we start at this stage, so the skill is in place long before we actually need it.

Only one suggestion for both the food and toy sessions: put the food or toy on something higher, so it is not so close to nose-level. Being that close and accessible made the first reps harder, so she struggled a bit and either you had to clap and call her (food session) or she took the toy (toy session :)). And those were fine choices, because she didn’t know what the behavior you were looking for was 🙂 So a simple twist is to just put them on something that is higher, like a table, so they are present but not as accessible. That will make it easier for her to offer moving away with you, without you needing to help her as much.

>>I wasn’t sure what to do in the moment when she took the toy, I don’t think your demo videos showed that??>>

You made the right decision to call her back and try again, she was being a good girl!

My demo didn’t have it because I put the toys just out of reach enough that the pup couldn’t quite get it – visible yes! But within easy grabbing reach? Not as much 🙂

>>It’s my opinion that this is a moderate value toy for her, it’s the one she voluntarily left for cheese in our barrel work. But maybe I need a lesser value one?>>

I think the value here was a really good choice, and putting it on something higher will help a lot.

>>We don’t have a lot of tricks yet, but we can do other things, so we did.>>

You can also do little things like a hand touch or having her follow your hand of a spin! The sit worked really well here too.

>>My word is “FUN”. ‘Free’, for releasing the toy, seems too close to ‘FUN’. So I’m going to change my release word to ‘Give’. Which will be interesting because I’ve used Free for all my dogs for years. But ‘Fun’ makes me giggle so I think that’s more important.>>

Fun is a great word! It definitely brings on the giggles and smiles 🙂

>>No treat exchange for giving the toy, right? She didn’t want to give it up at times.>>

You can totally use the cookie exchange here for the toy. We want her to be happy to give it up, especially because this game is pretty challenging, so cookie exchanges are still fine 🙂

Great job here!!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
The get out is going really well too. He LOVES his prop so the hardest part was getting start for each rep!
Easy tweak for that: have a cookie in each hand. Throw cookie 1 behind you and send him to it, so you are ahead and can be moving up the line past the prop. After he eats it, you can be moving up the line and cue the get out – then throw cookie #2 as the reward.
Then reload the cookies and start over. 🙂

Strike a pose also looks great! The hardest part for him was finding the treat you tossed LOL!

For the next session, a couple of things to add:
You can be closer to the jump (close enough that you can touch it with a slightly bent elbow) so he starts to turn before takeoff. And, you can also be closer to the exit wing and not as much center of the bar – both of these will help teach him an even tighter turn.

And, for each rep, have 2 cookies ready – one to toss on the different angles to start the rep, and one to reward so he doesn’t look at you – you can reward immediately.

Great job!!!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Super nice start to the rocking horses! It gave us some insight into his right turn preference 🙂 and also probably that he needs more connection on the 2nd barrel wrap (when you do 2 in a row) and on all the left turn wraps.

In the beginning, the left turns looked really good as the first element when you did 2 in a row, and the 2nd wrap to the right was harder. I couldn’t see your head, but I’m guessing more direct eye contact will help.

After the cookie reload break, he really had trouble going to his left and kept offering to the right. Part of that is his right side preference and partially because he needed more eye contact.

So to help him out, 2 ideas for you:
For the next session or 2, start him on your right, so that left turn is first (making it easier to connect and send). Then you can connect and 2nd to the right on the 2nd barrel .

And give him massive, exaggerated eye contact after the FC to send to the barrel.

Then, after that is smooth, reverse it and start him on the right turn, do the FC, then do the left turn wrap. When the left turn is 2nd, get a little closer to the barrel and use that same huge connection, then reward 🙂

Nice work here!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Sounds like the day was lovely! And yes, we REALLY appreciate the work you do with the spreadsheets – so helpful!!!!

Hopefully you’re having a great weekend! And we can totally apply all this to flyball to, to prepare for The Nut!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

What a difference a year makes – these courses are harder than last years courses (in terms of design challenges) and yet they are so much easier because you and Promise have gown so much as a team. I love this!! There were SO MANY great moments out there, just a technical spot or two that needed smoothing out. The vast majority of this session was lovely ❤️

Loved the opening plan of the aggressive blind cross. You needed more connection to show her 3 on the first run, good job continuing there 🙂
2nd run was so much better with connection and I liked the the connection the 3rd time you did that section even better at 2:42. The bar came down both times she took 3… more on that below (because I am sure you want to hear more LOL!)

At first look, I thought you were a little late turning your shoulders at :25 for backside after frame on jump 10 (bar down there).

After watching the whole video, though, the ONLY bars she had trouble were the 3/10 jump… so I think it is entirely possible she was having a big OMG moment finding the backside with the tunnel right there. The tunnel is a ginormous distraction. She only had one other bar down, and that was at jump 4 on the very last run – no big deal. All of the other jumping was really really strong! So the bar on the 3/10 jump will resolve itself with continued clear handling and more experience seeing a tunnel right there 🙂

>>The rear cross extreme wrap is is most likely a new thing for her.

That slicing rear: nice job breaking it down! On the very first run, you did everything almost perfectly – you just need to take one more step to the center of the bar, right on her tail, to get the RC. You stopped short and then turned your upper body to the left turn wing on that first run (And later on at 3:04). At 1:27 and 1:41, you nailed it. Perfect! Nice job sliding through the RC line with her there, moving to the enter of the bar. At 3:28 you stepped across the line one heartbeat too soon and pushed her off.

>>That teeter coming out of the tunnel locks her focus on that too!

She only ended up over there once, at
1:15 – I thought it was the pressure of closing your shoulder pushed her away? Her name and the open shoulder you used at 1:25-1:27 and on the next rep and at 3:03 before the right verbal worked well to help her find the jump in the sea of off courses.

Ending line – nice job committing her to the tunnel on the first rep of that section! Then you cheated a little on the next time through there and didn’t fully commit her before you pulled away at 1:48, At 1:59, you almost had it but needed the one more step you gave her on the next rep 🙂 It is hard to commit to a big layering moment when the dog is coming from a stop (teeter), so you can keep moving in there: try to get closer to the rear cross jump and teeter so you are moving all the way through the release. That extra momentum will really help commit her to the tunnel – you had more momentum on the last rep and she committed really well!!

>>The rear cross on 14 to the ending was the devil for us lol!! The pink jump is just right there!!! >>

Yep – big course trend nowadays is getting turns on tunnel exits (or cuing the straight line) because there are tasty off courses everywhere LOL!!! You were good about cuing the turn except for the very ending of the video, called really late so she was already locked onto the off course. She needs the name or directional before entering the tunnel. She keeps us honest LOL!

>>Then we had trouble with the go on once I got her focused on me.>>

The ending line with dog on left is a come in then a get out for the last jump. At 2:11-2:12 you got her to come in nicely but the go and high arm for the last jump sent her past it – a get out and maybe even outside arm would help with it. Lower arm at 2:36 totally helped!
And the very last run was gorgeous there!

It is an easier line to run dog on right, but you would after the rear cross, you would have to leave her on the teeter and run ahead of her to get a blind on the tunnel exit. We don’t want to leave her on the teeter for too long (eats up time and frustrates the dogs to stay there), so it might not make a lot of sense to do that when dog on left works really well.

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

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

Wow, that is AWESOME that your instructor set up the course for you!!!!! That certainly makes things easier!

>>The spacing is tight and that jump is very close to the tunnel entrance at 4.>>

Yep – there is plenty of yardage and room on the dog’s lines… but all sorts of other obstacles nearby on your lines 🙂

>>I struggled with timing of the blinds as I’m not trusting that she won’t grab something else along the way. So, most are late>>

One of the goals of the working this particular course trend of stuff nearby is that you have to pretend the off course obstacles are not even there, and do proper handling… which makes the off course obstacles disappear.

The opening is a great example! Yes, the jump is very close to tunnel #4 🙂 You didn’t quite trust her commitment to 3 which made the blind a little too late – the connection element was the late part – so she did pick up the off course because motion and the last connection she saw presented it on her line.

You trusted the FC a lot more, so she was great – the off course jump didn’t exist. So ideally the blind would be at the same timing as the FC and with the same super clear connection, and it will work just as well (or even better to get you up the next line).

You trusted more and exaggerated the connection at 1:45 and she got the blind really well! SUPER!!!!

The weaves looked fabulous, and then the serpy line to the tunnel look good! You can call the 9 Tunnel sooner on the first run, more trust 🙂 but then you called sooner on the 2nd full run and she had an even better line.

>>Also, I tried to turn into Sprite more for the FC at 10 and I think it really helped her. But, what’s the timing of me leaving?

Yes – I think the style change made a big difference – immediate collection (she was a little surprised too LOL!). The timing of you leaving? Well that is harder to pinpoint exactly right now because we are working the skill – so for now, think of it like this:

– when she exits the tunnel, slow down and turn into her like you did on the first run (you don’t need to be at the wing of the jump, trying to get there made you a little late at 1:59)
– look directly at her eyes: when you see her shift into collection, that is your cue to then shift your connection to the landing spot. This basically rewards the collection with permission to take the jump, because shifting connection to the landing spot is the cue to take it (for now). When you shift connection, it is your eyes and your hand closer to the jump (left hand in this case) but not your feet – your feet continue pointing forward.

For now, you might have to shift connection and hold position as she passes you, then you can move forward again. Pretty soon, you will be able to shift connection and move forward to the next line, and she will commit (think back to the countermotion games from MaxPup :))

>>I do remember a drill where we stood still on a jump and Sprite just took off in extension still. No motion doesn’t seem to help her add a stride. >>

Baby dog is maturing and sorting it out! She was doing a wonderful job with her turns here!

I love that you did the blind at 13-14!!! A spin on 12 will get you there faster/sooner. By doing the post turn, you got the off course on the first rep (you were facing the off course). Decel on the post turn gets the turn to 13, but makes the blind harder to get to. So you can send to 12 on your left and when she is looking at it, you can basically turn your back on her and run to the blind, trusting her to find 13 (you may or may not have time to connect over your right shoulder before doing the blind – you might end up sending on your left side, then running to the blind and reconnecting on your left side, trusting your motion to show her the line).

Great job with the verbals there – between the blind and the verbals and you moving away in a timely fashion at 14, she never looked at the off course tunnel!

At the end – the Whisky startsed well, you just needed to take one more step across to center of the bar to set it as a rear cross. However, the backside Serp looked awesome, great connection and line of motion: WOWZA!!!! Definitely a better option than the whisky turn.

Wow that 2nd run was stunning!!!

>>I’m not sure about the new video rules when you are breaking stuff down. Hopefully, this complies. >>

Totally complies! The framework of doing 4 total runs is to discourage people from doing the course 10 times (over 200 jumps – EEK!). So you can do the opening, then do a middle section a few times, then another section a few times, then put it all back together. That is pretty much what you did here and I thought it went really well!

>>But, I was good and only did the full course with Sprite once.

Yes! That was great – end on the run you want her to sleep on if possible – but also it is not always possible and then it is fine to just be finished. The brain has probably learned and you will see it in the next session (latent learning!) It is important that we handlers don’t get greedy hahaha! The dogs will get fatigued or sore, and then nothing good happens on course.

>>She did great even with my late blinds.

Yes! You trusted more on that last run – trust is turning out to be more important than timing!

>> I wanted to show one clip of Gemma, but I wasn’t sure if I could. She nailed it twice!>>

Yes, totally show it! The video guidelines are suggestions to prevent overtraining, and you definitely didn’t over train 🙂

Great job! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi –
>>If i had stirred her up we would have got more. >>

I don’t think we need to stir her up more, I think it is a matter of keeping you in motion whether she is on the correct line or not, rather than stopping to fix the lines.

The first step is to just keep moving along the lines, so she keeps moving. And if there is something that went wrong, keep going like it didn’t happen and that things are perfectly correct. If it has really gone sideways, get one more jump and then reward.

When both of you are comfortable moving with the curve of the course the entire time, then we start to work on the finesse of tighter turns and more accurate lines.

>>In the ring i usually run more but we are getting lots of going wide.

>> I tend to lose connection when she is away in front of her going fast. If ste does turn she would miss 5 and possibly six. There is a very fine line between her being super responsive and me losing her because of lacknof clear communication.>>

For now, focus on getting her going the general direction on course and it doesn’t matter if she is wide or tight or misses a jump. Let’s get you practicing staying in motion, and let’s get her frustration reduced so she doesn’t go really wide or start offering different lines when the information is unclear. So if she misses 5 and 6? No worries, go to 7. Then on the next rep, turn sooner (but stay in motion, no stopping allowed :))

And when she is ahead, you can be looking at her bum and not at her eyes 🙂 She will still see the communication and connection, and you can keep moving.

So remember – we are not going for clean tight runs right now. We are going for smoothing out the teamwork, then we can get things smoother and tighter.

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning! Thanks for the update!

>>I struggled with Alonso who would either take jump 2 to the tunnel or go in the wrong opening ignoring my physical and verbal cues. Granted jump 2 was probably closer to the tunnel then it should have been due my space contraints. I could not do this at speed with the puppy.>>

It is pretty normal that the adult dogs can do this and the 17 month old puppy cannot – he is still learning the skill while the adult dogs are rehearsing the skill they already learned.

>>But, How else can I handle going from jump 4 to 5 to tunnel 6 at speed ??>>

With the puppy, don’t worry about handling at speed – think of it as a training moment where you break it down and show him the skill at a walk, then at a jog, then eventually at a run. This is likely to take a couple of sessions because he needs to learn it before you can add the distraction of motion.
So break it down like you were mentioned and start him in front of 5 in a stay – and walk through it. If he is successful a couple of times, you can try faster walking then jogging.

The only other handling option is a blind cross 5-6 but that is a really hard blind cross – so would need to be broken down for you to teach him as well.

Keep me posted about how he does when you break it down to work the skill more slowly.

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

8 hours of presenting?? That is heroic!!!!! You will be amazing 🙂

The sequences here looked good! More on thoughts about the bars below.

Seq 1 – I am think the handling was clear – the blind 2-3-4 looked good! You were timely and connected. If I had to nit pick, I would say you could open your shoulders into serp position for 5 sooner (as he is exiting 4) to get him turning left on 5 sooner (he was looking at you a little bit there). But your line of motion there was great and the 6-7 turn looked lovely too.

Seq 2:

On the first rep, right turn on 4 at 1:46 was handling that looked like a RC on the flat with the arm cue and line of motion turning your feet to the center of the bar. You felt that too because you re-walked it and made the adjustment and the other reps were spot on!
When you walked it, you moved to the left turn wing of 4 sooner – ideally as soon as you see his head turn for liftoff for 3, you run to the exit/wrap wing of 4. You definitely did that line of motion when you did the other reps and he got the left wrap. Yay! Now… you can do it sooner to cue the wrap sooner 🙂 As he lands from the backside at 2, when he looks at 3, we can assume that is his cue for you to go to 3: “Mom, I see it, what’s next”. So you can be on the way to 4 before he even gets to 3 – which will help you get the wrap at 4 even earlier and tighter, but will also draw him through the wrap on the exit of 3 more. And that will also tell us if there are any spots where he has commitment questions that we can answer for him 🙂

These sequences are ready for the added jump and added tunnel 🙂

But first, the jumping questions he had: I do think these are more jumping questions than I remember him having. All of the questions at the beginning were on left turns – not just the obvious ones where he hit the bar or the wing, but also the more subtle ones where he ticked the bar on 1 and added a stride on 2 for the 2nd sequence. But to keep us on our toes, the jumping questions at the end were right turns.

While young fast dogs do tend to sometimes hit bars when we talk over the bar (processing all the things and their mechanics drop out a little), I don’t think that was the cause here. Thanks to the close ups (those were great) it looks like he is rotated it little in his hind end so he is not getting equal power on both sides to jump (I hope I am making sense, it is early on a trial day here and only half a cup of coffee is in me LOL!!) That unequal liftoff was causing the bars and wing touching.

So why is it happening? Sure, it could have been the verbals over the bar, but that rotation was actually happening before he took off and before the verbal, so I don’t think it was verbals over the bar. I am leaning more towards either a bit of a struggle on the dry grass (subtle slipping, or not trusting the surface?) and/or maybe soreness somewhere.

A bit of soreness could cause him to offload to one side or the other, and also he was not turning his head into turns as much as he usually does (the cool thing about watching hours of a dog on video is that I can be like, his movement looks different LOL!).

And it would also explain why he was more vocal on Thursday than I remember him being 🙂 a bit of frustration that something was ouch, perhaps?

He warmed up into the left turns during this session and the striding got better – but then the right turns got harder towards the end.

Since you have a crazy work weekend, he gets 3 days of rest now and if you have time, you might want to give him a massage and see if you feel any tightness. Or, if you have a soft tissue person who can check for and release trigger points? I bet that would do the trick!

Keep me posted! The handling here looks great so we will figure out why he might be touching more bars than usual.

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning! These are looking great!!!

First video:
The lap turns are going really well! You might have been a little early stepping back with your leg throughout the session, but that was not a question for him (ideally you keep your feet together until he gets to your turn hand). You started off with really good timing for the turn hand, and then started to get a bit too early with it: note how he was tight when you were later at the beginning and wider when you were earlier wit moving the hand. Lap turns are weird in that they are a little delayed, to set up the best turn. Compare :12 where you let him get closer to your hand before turning (nice and tight!) versus :22, where you started the hand moving earlier and he was wider. The hand moving is what draws the dog in close for the tight turn so the longer you wait, the tighter it will be 🙂

Tandem turns also looked great were especially strong when you started with a tossed treat – that allowed you to set the turn with your hands before he got to you. Super!!!

Adding the prop looked great on the 2nd video. You had super good timing with the lap turn hands, probably because you needed to wait for him to get past the prop before moving: perfect!

Try not to mark anything with an ‘uh oh’ if something goes wrong because in handling, it is 99.99% our fault 🙂 Like at :24, you called him but he was already about 2 inches from the prop and fully committed to going to it before you called him – but you marked with uh oh when it was just a late name call.

The name calls on the other reps were earlier and he was perfect 🙂

The tandem turns also looked really good – you can start to do these a little sooner (just before he gets to you, you can start the turn hand cues).

I think he is ready for you to do these with the turn hand empty – that will get him looking at you hands a little less when you turn him away, and then you can toss the reward from the other hand.

Great job!!!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Feeling validated is HUGE!!! Because it is true – yo have emotions and opinions about things, and you are correct to have them and feel the way you do!!

>>And the idea that I can just do fun stuff for training or sneak in little bits and it’ll still help makes me so much less worried about them! That constant feeling of being behind is subsiding a little bit.>>

Feeling behind is a lot of pressure on yourself, in a way that doesn’t really help you achieve goals. A little performance goal of “I am going to run the dogs through some tunnels today and teach them to go straight at the exit with thrown rewards” is not fancy or sexy training, but it totally helps you achieve goals and is super silly fun for everyone LOL!

>This course that I thought would be one more pressure thing to check off on my list is becoming my favorite part of the day>>

Yay! There is no pressure in this course – just stuff to read when you can and chew on in your brain 🙂

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!

Seq 2 (which was first on this video) looked really strong! The turn from 3 to 4 was a bit of a Goldilocks And The 3 Bears Moment 🙂

On the first rep, there was not enough info:
As she lands from 2, she needs a wrap cue to come though the gap from 3-4. Without it, she jumps straight on that slice which puts her (correctly) on the parallel path line to the backside of 4

On the 2nd rep, there was too much info LOL! You did the flappy tappy at :18 which was a bit too much because she turned of the line to 4 entirely for a moment, and then you had to push her back out to 4.

I bet the verbal wrap and you moving to the left wing of 4 will be just right 🙂

Sequence 1 with the added jump:
She never looked at the added jump. Super!!!

The idea line and easy line here is to turn her to the right over 4, so she is looking directly at 5 and has a nice sweet serp to the slice at 6 (seems like there was plenty of room for the slice landing here). Yes, the added jump is out there but I bet she never looks at it 🙂
Turning to the left over 4 made 1-2-3-4 work nicely but made 4-5-6-7 a little harder – you had to be closer to 5 to push to the backside, but you can still get the slice exit for 6 (which is the faster line). You got the threadle wrap but it was definitely the slower line here and would put you behind on a bigger course.

Sequence 2 with the added jump looked great! Again, she never looked at the off course jump. Yay!

Question about your ‘in in’ and flappy tappy (thigh hitting) cue from :46 and also the first run – is it a threadle cue or a bypass cue? The Canadians use it as a bypass (don’t take anything) cue which is when I use it (which also means we basically never use it because we never really bypass things haha!) You were using it in a threadle context here, but she was looking at you a lot when o udid it, which adds to the handling. Threadle arms instead of the tapping might help her look at you less?

Great job here! Definitely add the tunnel now 🙂
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!

>>The clapper. I haven’t done that since Nia. It is not a thing I would like to continue.

Ha! Yeah, let’s not bring it back LOL!

>>She doesn’t have the slice skill yet. Thought about the blind. If we get a chance I will try the blind at the end>>
Yes, try the blind, I bet she can do it!!

>>Very excited about this summer and all the things we will learn

Me too! You are off to a great start!
T

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
You and Promise looked great in class last night! So much fun seeing you!!!

>.We got a run by on the first backside>>

I think the handling was strong there, the run past the bar was more of a training question. Yes, you can help her by shifting your connection to the landing spot as you run past, but also you can be dropping toys on the landing side as you run past to help her remember to look at the bar and not run parallel to it.

The first full run looked perfect!!

>>Then, I decided to go one more time to fix my wider turn at the end, >>

Let’s reframe how you look at that: your WINNING turn LOL! Sure it looks a little wider but she was in full on extension, so probably a lot faster than if you got her to put in a collection stride.
You can try it both ways on video, then we can time it and see which is faster 🙂

>. and then I just got the backside >>

Actually, I think that was not a threadle question – your running lines were different.

As she exited the wrap at :21 on the first run, you were already heading to the left side (exit) of jump 4. Perfect! Compare to he same spot at :36 – she landed from 3 and you had an extra step or two forward (like a backside cue) before moving to the left side of 4, so she correctly read it as a backside cue. Good girl!

>.Also, a housekeeping note. My mental management course has not popped up on my course list and won’t let me access it.>>

Oops, sorry! Totally my fault for not clicking the right buttons. It should be fixed now.

Great job here!
Tracy

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