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Hi!
Moving outside was great!
I think she did really well here! And you can reward a lot more 🙂
On the parallel path game here, bear in mind that her hits to the prop will look pretty different than the collection games because this one puts her more in extension – so it is perfectly fine to reward the less-than-perfect touches and the ones where she is clearly committing to the prop bu ther stride takes her over it: feet near it but maybe not quite on it. So I think all of the reps here were rewardable, because she was committed to the prop on each one. Some of the ones that didn’t get rewarded were touches on the edge of it, or her stride took her over it (not around it).Now, if she does do a big miss and is not near it, then yes, you don’t have to reward but keep moving forward. No need to send her back to it or stop moving – I think that was what was getting her looking at you more 🙂
The prop is a jump bar replacer at this stage, so to keep getting her to look forward, you can mark and toss based on her intent to go to it (rather than waiting to see a touch to it). Intent and focusing ahead are more important than the actual foot stopm 🙂 So when you see her looking at it and heading to it, you can use your marker before she even arrives at it, then toss the treat so it lands past the prop. That will help her focus ahead more! Waiting til she has hit is might end up with her looking at you more, because she has nothing out ahead to look at.
Nice work! Let me know what you think!
Tracy2 quick sessions of wrap shaping foundations. I blame the cold medicine for making me think it was a good idea to sit on that little donut – it certainly made the mechanics harder LOL!! But Jitterbug was brilliant!
Session 1: he needed me to show him the treats at first, he is not so good at finding treats yet 🙂
Session 2: adding the upright! Good boy, he got into the groove 🙂
Here is the first session of explosive stays 🙂
And yes, it is entirely possible he is chaining the jump up on me into the sit: jump then sit! LOL! I am not concerned, eventually I will be cuing the line up.
Hi!
She definitely had a fun time running back and forth through the tunnel! You can try trading her for another toy or treat here, so she brings back the first toy and then you can send her again. That can let you set up the different angles around the tunnel 🙂
For the MM:
>>She’s never seen a manners minder so we worked with that by itself. She’s cautious with it, sound and noise but will still take the food.
Start it without noise and without the gears grinding – just basically as a food bowl. When she thinks that is awesome, you can keep the beeper noise off and let her hear the gears grind then send her to the treats. And when she is happy with that, you can add the beeping noise back!
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi –
>>We’re really struggling with the holding the collar part of the barrel game.>>
Yes indeed! The collar hold needs to be built separately before it can be used in this game, especially with toys. See below for more on that.
>>In the first video she even tried to bite me😔>>
>>It seemed to me the higher value the toy the worse she was when I put a finger in her collar. I did move her collar, just held on while she thrashed. If I showed her the toy before I threw it, she was worse than if she didn’t see me toss it behind me.>>There were a couple of things that were different here that played a role – mainly being outdoors, tugging, etc. I think the tugging and higher arousal and then being held while the toy was removed was hard for her, with no food intermediary to help line her up. On the first video, she said it was a big surprising no-go to have the toy taken out of the picture while her collar was being held, so you got a high arousal response. In other words, she is not ready for that.
>>She seemed to respond better if I tugged, then held her body while I took the tug, and let her eat a treat as I then moved my hand up to put a finger in her collar.>>
The other clips had the food as the step between the toy removal and the line up, and things went much better. So definitely keep using the food as the intermediate step between tugging and being touched or lined up.
>. I’ve never grabbed her collar and moved her around. I don’t grab it at all.>>
That could actually be why she is having such a big struggle with it – complete lack of experience with being held by the collar. It is very easy to pick up little dogs, but then they never learn how to be touched by or held by the collar, or put their collar-necks into your hand: all of which are useful life skills.
So, train it separately as a reward strategy (meaning, don’t try to use any collar holding in any game here) and we will split the behavior into tiny tiny pieces:
First, no toys: use a cookie lure to get her close to you. Reach towards her but don’t actually touch her: deliver another cookie. One hand has the treats, the other is empty and reaches for her.
Over the course of several sessions, build up from reaching towards her to touching her to sticking a finger under the collar, to holding the collar.When she can do that, add in toy play before it and start over: tugging, use a cookie lure to get her close to you. Reach towards her but don’t actually touch her: deliver another cookie. The higher arousal changes the picture internally, so you will want to start at the very beginnin.
This is not intended to be done in one session – it can take multiple sessions or days or weeks, and falls squarely into the “it takes as long as it takes” category. You will know when she is ready for the next step when she stops moving away from you, or when she starts moving towards you.
And in the meantime, don’t use the collar holding in any game until it is built up as a reward strategy. So put this barrel game on the shelf for now until the line up and hold is more pleasant for her, otherwise she will have errors and that is not what we want at all.
For other games, you can use a cookie lure line up or a cookie toss start to replace the collar holding (you can also do something like a tiny bit of cream cheese on a spoon to line her up for the games that need her to start in a certain position).
Let me know if the plan makes sense!
Tracy
Hi!
This went well too! Tossing the treat further away om the 2nd and 3rd rep gave you time to get the lap turn hand in position as she was making a decision after eating it, so she read the cues really well. You had good timing of letting her get to your hand then turning hear away! After you turn her away, you can then start walking forward rather than remaining stationary, so she sees more of your motion as she is heading for the prop too.
Onwards to the tandem turn with the prop!Tracy
Hi!
This went really well! Being low ot the ground sets up the good mechanics for her while preventing the bending over. Super!!!! If only she could retrieve the targt when it goes rolling away haha!
Keep things low like this for another session or two – when she gets more used to the MM, you can use that as the reward (more on the MM below). And you can also work in having a toy in the reward hand, instead of a cookie, with the toy getting closer and closer to the ground for her to ignore while she is coming to the target hand.
Nice work!!
TracyGood morning!
This went super well! It looks like it was a really easy transfer from what you did in your in person class, to adding the toy and the verbal. Yay! She is a little stronger to her left than to her right (as we can see on the turn away threadle-side entries) but was able to find the entries on both sides really well.You can add in running with the toy to help her really explode out of the tunnel 🙂 and also you can be facing the tunnel more (on the regular tunnel entries) so that you are less rotated and your dog-side leg and step to it even more.
She seemed to have no questions about the threadle-side entries – yay! Have you started thinking about what you want your threadle verbal to be? I highly recommend that it is the same as the tunnel threadle you use with your other dogs 🙂 as long as it is different from any jump threadle verbals. On the next session, you can do a quick refresher of the threadle side entries with then if that goes well, then you can add your tunnel threadle verbal (holding her collar, saying then verbal 3 or 4 times, then letting go so she can find the tunnel and get her toy :))
After one more session to add the threadle verbal on the short tunnel, you can move to a longer straight tunnel – scrunched up at first, then gradually more and more extended 🙂
Nice work! Have fun!
Tracyhmmm that is weird – they worked well for a few days but now they won’t. I will sort it out over the weekend, no rush, your spot is held 🙂
TracyHi!
Starting her with the cookie under the Klimb worked really well here! Yay! You got several strong steps and good head position as soon as she got the cookie out from under it. Super!!! And using your legs as a channel does indeed help keep her straight.
You might not need to use gates (you are welcome to, but you might not need them, she is doing great).At the back of the pink mat was a smaller red mat of some sort. It looks like she was beginning to target it with her back feet? You should totally move into the back foot targeting stage of backing up now – starting with something big/wide/low (maybe the red thing is big enough) so it is easy to start her with all of her feet on it, then lure front feet off to get her to step back on – then you can have all four feet off for her to step back on.
After that quick intro to the target, you can combine the rear foot targeting concept with what you’ve got going here – sitting on the Klimb but with the rear foot target within a step or two for easy targeting. Then over time it can be moved further and further back.
The rear foot targeting will help with moving board foundations and contact foundations, so it will be great found to see her work through it!
>>I’ve been using my marker cues with Gem. I’m used to this from Morgan. >>
Your marker words are great! I like that they are distinct: one cookie of search versus multiple for scatter, and toss versus get it versus take: all of that really helps!!
>>I’m not using all of these with Gem yet>>
That is fine! You can start putting them in wherever they make sense and we can keep building them up 🙂
Great job here!
TracyHi!
This went really well with Rich holding him! Thanks, Rich!!!
He is also a very wise man:
“By the time I let go, you gotta be doing your thing”Yes 🙂 As soon as Reacher starts to move, do the blind so you can then start the decel even sooner.
“Go further away maybe, get more room” was also excellent advice! It buys you some time to make the blind, connect, then decel.
Overall it looked great. Yay! Your connections were clear and the earlier you did the decel, the better he could stay low on the ground and make the turn. And he did well going to the frisbee after you tossed it (he prefers that you interact with him with it, so running to it helped a lot and it was much better than sending him to it with you not running to it as well.
When you did the decel Ince and early, he was better able to set up the turn. And because he is a shortie, keep you hand low as you do the pivot. When you raised your hand early in the session, he jumped up a bit. Later on, like at 1:05, you kept your hand low and he was great about staying on the ground and turning (no leaping).
>>I used the wrong hand on the decel a few times and in that case he would often lunge at the toy on the turn. >>
Which hand to use is not as important as your connection, and your connection was great here! The jumping up might have been that the decel was a little late or that the toy got too high, or you needed to scrunch it up in your hand so it is less right in front of him. That will totally help him out too!
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!!
The left and right are looking strong, I love how different they sound (this is very helpful for the dogs)
As things get more complicated in terms of your position and turning away, hold her collar longer so she can process the verbal before moving. I like for the dogs to hear it at least twice before they move 🙂 At the end you were holding her, but she was moving as soon as she heard the verbal. And sometimes her choice was quite correct 🙂 So you can hold her til she hears the verbal twice, then let go: that will strengthen the verbals because she was be processing them more before moving.
She did well with the neutral position too! The first part was easy for her because she figured out to do the left or right regardless of your position relative to the jump. Things got trickier when you started alternating the verbals, after 1:19 – that is where you can hold her longer while you repeat the verbal,to basically say: listen to the verbal before you move! She would move then catch herself going the wrong direction a few times here, when the processing caught up to the motion 🙂
Sends and serps went really well too – excellent use of verbals throughout this session!!!
The serps look really strong on the first side. You were pulling away from the serp jump too much on the first few reps, but then you made a great adjustment after :31 and great serp lines (parallel to the bar) for the rest of it.
The other side was hard on that first rep! You had a lot of motion and maybe that is her harder side? You slowed down a little for a few reps then she locked it in really nicely on that side too. Yay!!
On the FC balance reps, one tweak to exaggerate the connection: point your fingers all the back to her nose and make a very direct eye contact. That will help her really see the turn cue the first time you do it. When your shoulder was a little forward, pointing to the gap instead of to her nose, she thought it was the serp jump on the first rep. The more she can see your eyes, the more she will pick up the FC – and pointing back to her will open up your connection.
The backside variation looked great too! Well done to you for adding it very gradually, so it was super natural for her to find the backside and take the jump. You can keep moving the wing further and further back, so the backside is more and more challenging.
Great job on all of these! Let me know what you think!
TracyAh! Here’s the advanced level! Also looking really strong – her understanding transferred easily to this and she was committing and setting up her turn brilliantly! That allowed you to do the handling on 2: FC (1st rep) and throwback (2nd and 3rd rep) really easily. So nice!!!!
The next step now is to start the handling for 2 before she takes off for 1. This will be especially important for the FC and serps (when you are on the other side of 1, landing side of 2).
Ideally, ypu are fully finished with the FC before she takes off for 1 or moving past the exit wing of 2 for the serp. Based on her commitment here, you can definitely try getting earlier and earlier to see if you can be fully rotated before takeoff. If she has any commitment questions, you can throw the reward to landing of 1 to help maintain the commitment.
Great job here!
TracyHi!
This looks great (and very theatrical lighting behind you, thanks to mother nature 😀)It looks like everything was in place: the stay, her commitment and forward focus, her collection on the jump. And your mechanics of the lead out and release and send were all spot on!!! Super!!!!
Onwards to the advanced level, since this was pretty perfect 🥰 when the 2nd jump is added, you can totally add in handling that 2nd jump too (crosses, serps, throw backs, etc – all the things we would use the lateral lead out for.
Great job! Let me know how the advanced level goes!
Tracy
