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Hi!
Very nice job here! These are challenging and she did really well! Make sure you don’t block the barrel 🙂 Pretend it is a jump wing and let her see all of it 🙂
Things went best when you were really patient so she could get committed. If you moved too early, she was not as sure.
If something goes wrong, don’t tell her “no” because at this stage it is allllll handler error LOL!! For example, compare the difference between reps 1 & 3, and rep 2 in terms of your movement:
Rep 1 and rep 3, you held your send position until she was about halfway around the barrel, then said get it and moved. This was the same for all the successful reps after that too! Super! At this stage, she is committed when her head it turning to the other side of the barrel, so wait to move until you see her do that.
Rep 2, you moved just as she arrived at the barrel and you started to say ‘get it’ – so of course she came to the toy hand. You told her she was wrong but it was handler error and she was responding correctly at this stage. So, you can reward that 🙂 but be more patient like you were on reps 1 and 3 . At 1:01, you had a similar moment of moving too soon (backwards sending is HARD! And backwards sending to a left turn was REALLY hard for her) .
The super patience you gave her on the last rep was perfect! So for now, you need to hold position til she is turning her head and almost halfway around, before marking or shifting your weight forward to move away. As she gets more experienced and more reinforcement, her commitment will come earlier and earlier (less patience required :))
Nice work!
TracyHi!
>>Usually I struggle with these exercises but i think you explained it in a way it finally made sense to me! >>
Yay! That is great! I think you rocked it!! Lu seemed to have no questions, and turned away on the lap turns beautifully on each side. You had a nice little loop going
First tandem turn – you moved a little too fast and she was like “wait, what?” LOL! You slowed down a bit on the others and that really helped. Since you are using your outside arm/hand with the tandems, you can show her that hand sooner so she locks onto it. You were putting that hand in play at the same time as you were starting the turn cue, so she was not as as able to process it quickly (especially on the right turns in the first part of the session). I think the best timing of getting that outside arm involved was at 2:19, when you had it visible for her for a few steps and then started the turning. Perfect!
Both of these went super well…. Time to move to the advanced level and add the prop!! Great job!
Tracy
Hi! It sounds like you and the dogs had a wonderful weekend!!! YAY!!!!!
Overall, these are going really well. Some ideas for you to keep moving forward with the games:
Retrieving is a challenging behavior for puppies!
Looking at the shaped retrieves – things are moving along well. 2 suggestions for you:– More splitting of the behavior will really help, especially in the face of food reward right there. For example, on the first video: you can reward her earlier efforts to interact with the disc such as following the disc, mouth near the disc, open mouth towards the disc, etc (affirming that yes, interacting with it is the road to getting the treats!) Then you can she your way to her mouth on it and holding it. That is likely to take multiple sessions.
– You can also have your food rewards up on something, like a table, so they are not in your hands or pockets (that was confusing to her: where are those cookies?). So a small bowl of cookies on a table that you can reach up to get one from will both move the cookies a little further away, and also make it very clear for her where they are, exactly.
>>When we went to phase 2-3 it was a disaster with the treats. JJ became obsessed with the treats and could not handle focusing on the toy at all so there was no advancement in getting a retrieval. >>
It was probably too soon to move to the next steps, she likely needs another session or two of the first level before you move to the next steps.
She did well with the 2 toy video – you can reward with the 2nd toy for bringing the first one back, That will also help with the ‘release’ cue because you can cue the release and immediately toss the 2nd toy.
>>I barely tried to see if this transferred to the other type of minidisc that I had at that time and JJ was not as interested in it so I did not push it with her. That is as far as we got on this game.>>
I think a bit more room to toss the toys will be more stimulating for her to go get the one you tossed, which can totally help!
>>Funny story, someone was getting rid of the PVC square so I bought it today for $10 for this activity. It can also be used for contacts on the a-frame when we get to that point if we need it.>>
That is perfect!!! It is great for a-frame running contact training!! And also for starting the concept running dog walk training.
As soon as you build value for getting into the box, you can change the reward placement so she has to leave the box to get it – that can mean either tossing it past the box so she comes back towards you through the box for another reward, or handing her the reward from your hand so she exits the box, gets the reward, then leaves to go back into the box again. You did this at the end (after the yoga mat) and it worked well.
For the yoga mat, you did go to the back-and-forth cookie tosses and that was great! Next step on the yoga mat is to make it smaller by folding it in half. Then if that goes well, fold it in half again so it is even smaller 🙂
For both of these, the next step would be to have you walking back and forth while she is going into the box or to the yoga mat.
>>I spent about 10 minutes getting some of the first sits out of JJ (not on video), and i really had to wait her out. >>
That is a long time! Definitely try to get some video next time so I can see what is going on. If she is not getting it right, you can help by having her offer a sit on a platform or something similar so she can figure out what to offer, then fade the platform.
>>(this would not work earlier in the day even though she knows the command well, but tonight I got her to sit most of the time on a verbal command>>
This is typical of adolescent dog brain development: a cue response with a history of reinforcement can simply disappear for a day or two… totally normal part of their brain development. No worries, it comes back 🙂 so you can either help with a prop like a platform or just try again another day. And sometimes it disappears because what we thought was the cue and what the dog perceived as the cue are 2 different things LOL! Either way – if an adolescent dog can no longer do something, the neuroscientists advise us dog trainers to remain chill and try again in a day or two 🙂
On the first video here – She sat when you stopped moving and then after a little backing up, she started offering the sits more and got faster and faster with it. This went well!
Free/get it and catch markers both went well on the 2nd video – nicely done! Try to say ‘catch’ then throw the cookie so that we strengthen the word even more by separating the verbal from the cookie toss.
She sometimes needed a 2nd ‘sit’ cue. When cuing the sit, try not to cue it until she is all the way back to you, looking at you, finished chewing, and you have already loaded the next cookie into your hand 🙂 When she needed more than one sit cue, it was because either she was still chewing and moving towards you (I can totally relate, I cannot chew and process at the same time haha!), or your hand was moving to your cookie pocket. In both of these instances, she was not able to process the sit cue until the other elements had stopped 🙂
These are going well, so the next step is to try them with a toy! You can help the sit get going with a Cato Board or something to jump start the behavior if needed. The toy will be more stimulating which is GREAT in that it adds a little more impulse control to the sit/stay behavior, and also in that it begins to develop the stay in the arousal state she will be in when you need her to stay (a higher arousal state). The state-dependent memory science on this is really cool, and tell us that training these skills in higher arousal states (even if we do smaller bits of behavior at first) is VERY helpful for transferring the skills to the ring later on 🙂
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>Lord help me. I can’t believe I’m going to do this again.
Because it is SO FUN (even when it is not hahaha!) My guess is that her smaller size will make it an easier adventure.
This was a really strong first session! Hooray! It was all about value building and she had a whole lot of great interactions with the “thing” (future mat hahaha). Part of these early stage sessions is figuring out what mechanics work best in terms of transitions from the reward to the start then back to the reward:
In this session, tugging to the start spot then letting her go do the thing seemed to work best, in terms of both going directly to hit it, and not looking at you or your hands. Compare to the middle of the session when you had her do a hand touch/tried to put the toy on the couch – she looked at you a lot more than on the other reps, and we don’t want to build in looking at you.
Only 2 little suggestions:
– take longer before presenting the toy after the MM treats, so she can finish chewing (unless you have treats that can work in the MM that don’t need to be chewed – soft tiny zukes maybe?) She was a little delayed getting back on the toy or didn’t quite grab it because chew chew chew swallow LOL!!
– the other reason she didn’t quite grab the toy was that it was a bit lower in value than the mat-to-MM chain. So for now, use a higher value toy so she really grab it (fur toy? What is her favorite?) Normally I would also recommend having you get lower with the toy but I think you are also protecting your back which is GOOD! No back pain wanted! So use that super long toy (the length was great) and maybe tie something higher value onto the end of it 🙂 If she clamps on it and won’t let go, you can always trade for a cookie: show a cookie, when she lets go of the toy, toss the cookie away from the mat and then start the rep after she gets it.Onwards to more RDW fun!!! I figure you can start delaying the MM click til you see the first rear foot on, then the 2nd rear foot on, but the toy-treat-toy mechanics take priority for now 🙂 No need to worry a lot about footwork til she is closer to her adult body 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi!
He did really well with the threadle side entries in the tunnel! Now it is time to put the verbal for it on (on the easier side). At the beginning of the next session, start on an easier angle, almost facing the tunnel entry, so he doesn’t spin towards you then turn away to the tunnel (as a warm up).
After a rep or two then you can move to the new verbal and then to the harder entries.
When you start his harder side (left turn side) start on super easy entries so he barely has to turn and still sue the regular tunnel verbal. His success level will tell you how quickly you can move to the harder angles or add the new verbals… no rush though, the coordination of turning away into the tunnel is more important than the level of difficulty.Looking at the handling combo:
>>but it was much too long a session>>
Set.A.Timer. 😂😁😂😂⏰🤣
Timing the sessions is especially important on any session with a lot of running. If you do a lot of running reps, both handler and dog get tired and then mechanics get sloppy… which is what happened here on the human side of things LOL! Setting a 2 minute timer will make a world of difference!
>>also I didn’t like the lack of engagement with the reward due to using the Treat & Train,>>
He was not disengaged, he was really good! You can build in reset rewards and line up cookies along with the MM, and that can totally build engagement up! The MM does lend more of a relaxed approach to the session but that is fine. You can call him back after he gets the MM cookies, like you did at 2:23 – the only thing I would add there is a line up cookie to start him, when he runs back to you.
>>Despite that “thinking time” by the end I could not run in a proper straight line and confused the heck out of him as far as what side I wanted him to be on. In fact I wasn’t really sure either, if I was doing a blind cross or not.>>
Part of this game is definitely handler mechanics for the humans. It is really important to be clear with the puppies and it would be better if you could be perfect. HA! But since we cannot be perfect, we can assume all errors are human errors, and reward the pup for the effort. For example:
At :26 he went to the side of the start wing you didn’t want. But, he went the direction your body turned to when he was starting to move, and also that happened to be a right turn side (stronger side for him). You can use a cookie to reset the line up for the next turn, that is both a reinforcement for the effort and a line up for the next rep. You can be closer to the wing and step to it more clearly with the dog side leg, especially on those early reps in a session.
At 2:29 he was great about figuring out a line considering the info given, but did not get a reinforcement. That was all handling confusion, not puppy error, so you can (and should) totally reward all of that.
Overall, yes, you can plan the handling moves more but the shorter session will help that. Start with something really easy to refresh his memory then you can build up from there.
One other suggestion – when he is driving ahead, you can click the MM sooner like what you did at :52 – as soon as he is looking forward – to both mark the looking forward and have him accelerate past you.
>>“WHY, OH WHY do I tell people these things because they never listen to me!”>>
Ha! I think people listen when the mechanics click in – setting a timer is really hard for some reason but then the dogs tell us they need it… so then we start to do it 🙂
Great job!!
TracyHi!
Yes, jump 3 gets moved out and stays out, then the height changes.
And yes, you can do the ladder separately (those heights stay low) and you can revisit it every now and then, maybe do one day a week of a grid, any grid. 🙂
TracyGood morning!
The turn and burn game here looks fabulous: his commitment is great, you were able to do the FC and run away earlier and earlier, and he was fast and tight with his turns! SUPER!!!!
One little detail for the game: at the start of each rep, line him up at your side (a cookie lure can help this :)), gently take his collar in your hand, start saying the wrap verbal while holding him…. Then release him to start the wrap. That will accomplish getting the wrap verbals attached, and it will make him even more explosive (in a good way!)
>>The wheels have fallen off Chip’s retrieves>>
I don’t think the wheels have fallen off – he is retrieving-ish LOL!! He is not completely having a party of one elsewhere on the property or refusing to come back at all. It looks like he is avoiding bringing the toy back to you, and instead is putting himself close to the barrel because he wants to do the barrel wrap again (clearly he loves the “work” here and the tugging is not as fun as the action of the work). This is fine, and normal 🙂
To help get the toy all the way back to you, you can create a little bit of a loop which will get a retrieve without looking like we are wanting or asking for a retrieve:
You will need 2 toys and some cookies 🙂
– start with tugging, then line him up at your side, hold his collar, start the verbal, send to the barrel, do the wrap, let him take the toy from you.
– While he is running with the toy, you run back to the barrel and to the starting position, and pull out a 2nd toy and call him back to you (or a treat, it is possible a treat will work better for him here). Don’t worry about what he does with the original toy – it doesn’t matter 🙂 So it is more about “get back here fast so we can do it again” and less about “bring me the toy, I need to take it from you”
When he comes back, repeat the process: tug a bit with the 2nd toy, or give him the cookie to line up, and do the steps of the game again – let him have the 2nd toy. Repeat the process (and you can probably pick up the 1st toy).
So by getting him to figure out that he can keep the game going by coming back and not hanging out on the other side of the barrel, you’ll see that he starts to bring the toy back more quickly and more directly, without us demanding it at all 🙂 Let me know if that makes sense!
Great job here!
TracyGood morning!
Tunnel games – good start with lining her up, clicking the MM, then sending her through! As you added angles, you delaying the click was helpful to her because she didn’t always know to end the tunnel if the MM had already clicked.
And using a cookie to line her up in position was much happier for her than moving her by the collar, so keep moving her into position with a cookie, then taking her collar to ststart the game.
In the second session, I think you ended up too far from the entry so she had several failures. Try to limit total failures in a session to 2 (not just in a row, 2 total) because that will speed learning and reduce frustration. Once you get 2 failures, you will then want to make the rest of the session easier then be finished. The harder angles can be saved for another session.
2nd video:
The lap turns are going well! So are the tandem turns. On the tandem turns, remember to keep moving the whole time, even as you are turning here: that was when things were smoothest. When you are turning your feet & stopping, and then using your hands to turn her, things were less smooth,I think she is ready for the prop to be added to both of these!
And with all of these games: add some toy play in too, so it is not all about the cookies 🙂
Looking at the handling combo game: She did really well wrapping the cone and then going to the toy! YAY!
I think the running round with the toy is not a problem – she was feeling some pressure in this game, with the toy behind her and you moving her by the collar, so the toy laps are a bit of decompression (she took just a few seconds). She is learning to balance her arousal , which is a good thing! I would let her do the lap with the toy if she needs it, and count to 10 in your head. If she is not back yet, you call her back and trade for another toy (or a cookie which you started doing here) . And if she does bring it back on her own, you can reward her. As with the tunnel game, line her up where you want her and then take her collar, so you don’t move her around by the collar at the start of the game.
One small suggestion: the Go element, be sure to keep moving towards the toy, so she doesn’t have to go past deceleration to get it.
Retrieve – she is doing great here! I am loving her toy play!
And using a limited space helped build up the play. One suggestion: rather than catch her as she tries to get past you, you can offer a trade for another toy as she turns towards you and starts heading your way. That will also get her to ‘out’ the toy very easily, creating a happy little loop of retrieving to a reward. And over time, you can delay the trade so that she is eventually only working with the thrown toy.Stays: These are going really well too! Releasing forward is looking good, she is showing she really nice duration on the stays so far! Great job keeping things happy and fun like you did here 🙂
When throwing the cookies or toys back to her, you don’t have to move back towards her at all – you can toss the reward back from wherever you are – that will add even more distance and duration while showing her the picture of a lead out (with you facing the way you will want to go).
She is totally ready for the tug-stay-tug version of this game (explosive stays :)). That will be very useful for her, to help balance arousal!
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
This went really well! The serps looked great, the threadles looked great (she was such a good girl to immediately get the threadle after the serp reps!!) You did a greta job setting up the session so that the cues were obvious, the verbals were SUPER different and you were able to gradually add your motion and different angles for her. I loved at the end how you added the really hard backside threadle slice!
Her only really question was on the threadles when you were moving and she was on the different angles like at 1:57 – she definitely needed the big physical cue before the release to help her get the threadle – when you did that, she had no questions at all. So as you move to position, while she is in the stay, you can already be showing the big physical cue (arm way back, or cross arm, whichever you like :)) and then add the verbal so she can move.
If you want to add a little extra ‘oomph’ of challenge, you can change the angle of the jump in relation to the tunnel so she fully sees the entry of the tunnel to make it even more tempting 🙂 Basically, you can put her on a straight line to the center of the tunnel entry (this was a bit of an angled approach here) and then line the jump up relative to that, so the tunnel is very easy to see and the jump is not nearly as easy to see 🙂
Great job here!! You and MiG are looking great 🙂 See you in MaxPup 3!!
Tracy
Good morning!
This is going well! She had an easy time with most of it. She found the 8 foot distance really awkward! I don’t think you went back to it so be sure to stretch then contract the accordion so she can see it more than once.
My guess s that as she continues to power up and muscle up in coming months that she will end up at 5.5 feet or even 6 feet a her compression distance between 1 and 2. We can revisit it at a later date, no need to change anything now, just something to consider on the horizon 🙂
>>I also tweaked the heights but wasn’t sure if I did those the right way. I put text on the video at the beginning of each change showing height and distance.>>
You had the heights coming up at the 5 foot distance, which is fine for the lower heights. As you continue to raise the height, try to only raise it now when she is at a one stride distance – minimum of 12 feet between 2 and 3, and ideally more 🙂 You can keep the distance between 1 and 2 at the 5 for distance you had here and each time you revisit this, you can start the 3rd jump further away. For example, you can start at 12 feet next time, and do 12 then 15 then 18 then 15 then 12 as the session (no height changes, just striding). And if that goes well, you can use the same distances on the next session and raise the bar of jump 3 another 2 inches.
How often to do this? Maybe once a week, no need to do it more than that. She will have plenty of other jumping opportunities so we don’t need to do a lot of grid work 🙂
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
He is sorting out the grid nicely! The line up spot was perfect! A couple of ideas to help him use his power even more:
– the distance between jumps 1 and 2 should be a bit shorter, so he bounces rather than take 1 stride. I think 4 or 5 feet should work – maybe start with 4 feet between the 2 jumps and see if he bounces it. And if it easy you can try 5 feet – the goal is that he puts his front feet down only once between jumps 1 and 2.– because his stay is still in the learning stages, working the jump skill with you moving is causing him to ask if he should be watching handling or if he should drive ahead so he is adding strides. So for the grids, you can start right next to him, holding his collar (nice and close to jump 1 like he was here). No stay needed! Trigger the MM and *then* send him through the grid to it. Triggering the MM before you let him go will get his head down through the grid. That way he can just power through, and the stay can be built up separately.
On the 2nd video (zig zags) – he bounced the 2nd distance, so that is a good distance to use (or even a little bit of a shorter distance so that he can also bounce it from a stay. The angles of the jump didn’t seem to be a question for him, so you can approach this grid the same way without the lead out: holding his collar, triggering the MM, then letting him go.
Nice work here!!
TracyGood morning!
Sounds like you have a really fun weekend coming up, for humans AND dogs! Yay! Enjoy it 🙂
>>First I have a Question. When you said add people to the leg bump game should the people be back to back so JJ moves over the legs in a circle, or should they be side to side? I was having a hard time visualizing this.>>
Oops, sorry! I meant sitting side by side, so she goes over 4 legs in a row like a straight jump grid. The legs can be 3 or 4 feet apart, with her starting on one side (and the opposite side person calls her and taps the ground) and after she goes through, you can have her come back across the leg grid by the first person calling her through and tapping the ground past the 4th leg.
Having said that, though, I think it is brilliant to try it as a circle, with the other person sitting back to back with you. Then it becomes a bending grid – it is clever and hilarious and you should totally try it!!
On the ladder video:
>>for some reason the height was no longer an obstacle and JJ was fine moving through the ladder even with the ladder flipped to the higher side. >>
Latent learning for the win! You might notice that I am very relaxed about things if that first session doesn’t appear to ‘get’ the behavior… because the neuroscientist behaviorist we wrk with tells us that learning is still happening, even if we don’t see the behavioral expression of it. And then latent learning kicks in, and we have the behavior in the next session. So cool! And I see it all the time in my whippet and whippet mix, fascinating stuff. That is why it is important that we try our best with mechanic, keep a high rate of reinforcement, and keep the sessions short – doesn’t really matter if we see the finished product behavior or not LOL!!
Looking at the video:
>>The one thing that I had to be aware of was how fast JJ went through the ladder. a couple of times she sped up making her trot no longer the nice even gate she had been doing. >>
Yes! She was trotting into it pretty well then hopping out – so the bowls will be very helpful on each side, as a focal point. You can start her in the middle of the ladder (or towards the end) and then trot out to the bowl. Then you can work backwards to have her start at the beginning of the ladder and trot out to the bowl. This will also be a good foundation for the cavalettis that we do with the adult dogs for conditioning work.
The concept transfer also looks great! Easy peasy 🙂 YAY!!! And yes, doing it in a bigger space will allow for more distance but waiting til Tuesday is fine 🙂
>>I did notice that even if I clicked as JJ was looking at the bump, I really needed to get the treat thrown out or she would look back at me. Timing is everything in most of these games.>>
Your timing was good! My only suggestion for this is to not use the clicker anymore – dogs generally look at us when we click, then that looking at us gets built into the behavior because it is happening between the click and the reinforcement. You can see her looking at you more and more here, so to keep her looking forward you can mark the drive to the jump like you did (before she arrives at it, and while she is looking ahead) but use a verbal “get it” marker and toss the reward out ahead. That will keep her looking straight 🙂
Great job! Enjoy your weekend!
Tracy
