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Good morning!
The new wing looks fabulous!And I admit to chuckling at some of this shenanigans with the toy on the ground – it was definitely a big challenge to have the toy there. The rep at 1:40 where you were cueing the wrap wing and he looked at you and then was like “BE RIGHT BACK!” And went to grab the toy. So funny! I know it was not ideal for training but it was still cute and funny 🙂
With the toy on the ground being a big visual draw, plus jumping in towards a moving handler being NOT an intuitive behavior for most dogs – this skill was challenging! He was stronger on the first side where he was turning to his right to get to the jump. You did a great job helping him by adding a bit of the strike-a-pose hand touch and not moving too fast.
He has more trouble on the other side: brain tired? Harder direction of turning (to his left?) Both? Either way, it was good info so you can do a short session and do a rep or two to the ‘easy’ side then immediately go to the harder side.
The other think you can add is angling the jump: in this setup, when he is on your right to start: you can take the wing that is closer to the toy on the ground and move it towards the fence so as he exits the wing wrap, he sees a fairly direct line over the jump bar. That will allow you to keep moving and help him see the bar better. As he gets better and better at finding the bar, you can gradually angle the jump back to this original ‘flat’ position it is here.
>picture you present directs the dog what to do/where to go (vs. verbals). >
Yes – in these early stages, the physical cues are definitely more powerful than the verbals so we want the verbal and physical cue to match as much as possible.
>Skizzle isn’t close to driving through the jump – which is what I’d like to see.>
What you might have been seeing here was that he was doing the double collection of the serp: in-then-out. It is extra challenging because he has to do that while you are (correctly) close to his space, so while it might not have felt like he was driving hard, he was indeed doing a great job 🙂 That is what makes the serp skill so hard for the dogs and probably why he was also kindly offering to just go get the toy hahahaha! I think angling the jump so he is facing the bar more when he exits the start wing will help him get comfy with doing those subtle turns faster and faster.
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
Looking at the first video:
HAHA you read my mind: I was typing “You might need a couple more feet between the wing and jump, it looks like he can cover that distance with a short one stride there which makes the timing harder” and then you moved the wing a few feet further away 🙂 That helped by giving you one extra heartbeat to show him the info before he had to make a takeoff decision.The GO reps and the RCs looked strong! Great job making them look different and showing the cues nice and early.
He was so close to getting it right on the first backside wrap – you released the connection a shade too early so he slid in and took the front.That is just lack of experience – that cue would be solid with a more experienced dog. You nailed it on the next rep, holding the connection until he was right at the wing! And his commitment to the wing and the jump there was lovely, plus you supported it with connection as you continued moving forward. Click/treat for you both!
Extra click/treat to have a conversation about something else and still be very focused on good training with your pup. The life of an instructor presents these challenges and you handled it beautifully.
Find The Jump video:
He is finding it really well, especially when you were further and further away. Super!! And there was some good banging/construction noises that he ignored. Good boy!
I do think he is wondering why you are walking not running LOL so since he is doing so well it was good that you added back more of your motion. That presents a different challenge: can he find the jump even when you are way ahead or way lateral, and running! The motion can make connection harder for you both, so be sure to maintain the lovely connection you had here as you add more and more of your speed 🙂
Great job on these!!! The teamwork is looking really exciting!!
Tracy
Good morning! You have just had the grossest weather!! I hope you get some spring weather soon.
This video needed a warning at the end when you got the whole thing and said “Pigs really do fly” I almost snorted coffee out of my nose from laughing LOL!!!!!!
Good job getting the backside proofing going – having the space tight upped the challenge with the tunnel right there but he was perfect about not going to the tunnel. Yay!
In these early stages, using the outside arm really helped because it turns your shoulders to the line while allowing you to move forward without having to step to the backside. And when you paired it with BIG eye contact? Perfect!
I got a screenshot of a rep without connection and he did not find the backs, versus the next rep with connection where he did find it. He naturally wants to migrate to the front so the big cues helped him find it. Here is the link:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/15pZQFkTi_07UXt8vB9P1bmiuLAhG5zjefS50AL32K4U/edit?usp=sharing
He had some trouble when you were trying to move up the line to the center of the bar and you needed to really exaggerate the cues.
I LOVE HOW YOU PUT A CHALK LINE ON THE MAT! Clever!
And by the last rep of the backside push, he got it really well with you moving up the line to the center of the bar. Super!
The exit line game was great, super easy. And being able to put the whole thing together at the end was wonderful!!
The next step for this one can have the little advanced level sequences with a front cross or blind cross on the landing side of the backside (then into the tunnel) or a circle wrap instead of a slice on the backside jump.
Also, you can work on fading ou the opposite arm cue on the backside by angling the jump towards the line – the cone side of the jump gets angled closer to the start wing so it is easier for him to see the parallel line to the backside without you needing to exaggerate the cues as much.
Great job here!!
Tracy
Hi!
Thanks for posting this, I think there are a couple of things going on –
She is definitely telling us something about the tunnel here so we need to listen and adjust. She refuses it a LOT, which is certainly an indication of concern of some sort. Exactly what the concern is? Hard to know. Too dark? Too curved? Falls? (I think she fell in it at :17).
Either way – she definitely doesn’t have the value for the tunnel and we need to adjust. Rather than the long/dark/curved tunnel, stick to a short/straight tunnel that is super easy to see through and find the entry/exit. You can take this one and squish it up to be about 8 feet and straight, or use another one that is short & straight.
I want to take the curved tunnel out for now because she doesn’t want to do it, and then to get her motivated she is getting a lot of cookies when she doesn’t do it – which creates a conundrum about what is worrying her about the tunnel versus what we are rewarding. So for now, take the curved tunnel off the table and if you get freezing with a straight tunnel, we take that out for now too.
And take a ‘one hit wonder’ approach to training: do one rep of something then, right or wrong, move on to something else entirely. You can have something else set up for her to do so it is easy for her to do something else. It is not about accuracy, it more about just playing with the flying squirrel and balls and fun stuff. And she can alternate single reps with Jack, to help break things up and keep her excited.
Part of what went sideways here was she had concerns about the tunnel… and you continued doing tunnel threadle reps. So she did some then checked out. Try doing just one rep! It doesn’t even have to be correct, it can just be fast & fun, no stopping, no fixing.
I think there is pressure on her to get it right and that is creating a lot of reps which is not the direction we want to go!
Think of training as a game of frisbee 🙂 with an occasional agility behavior thrown in. She eats the food, and food allows you to get more reps – but it is not nearly as motivating as the balls or squirrel toy and we don’t want more reps, we want more play 🙂
She definitely liked the toy as reward in the 2nd part of the video, but like you said – she liked it until she didn’t. That is why short short short sessions and alternating can make more progress – the toy might be bringing arousal up for a couple of reps and masking her concerns, but then the concern resurface. But if you do one rep then be done with the session, the motivation and happy play feelings will remain.
>his morning she was really into her squirrel, until she’s not, and then I couldn’t even get her interested with food. Ended up just throwing the squirrel for her. I think we’re regressing…>
It would be good to know if upswings in the freezing & not wanting to play/eat in a training session correlate to the soreness in the right hind. If something is tweaked, we will see turning off like that.
In the meantime, focus the time together on just play play play. This includes being out in the yard, maybe there is an agility rep thrown in there – or not! Sometimes it is great to just go outside and play, and Jack can be involved too. And you can do lots of play in the house, so there is a play relationship being developed all around. That can also tilt things towards more motivation when yo duo ask for training – life is all about the play 🙂 and less about the ‘work’.
Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Good morning!
Nice job with the strike a pose proofing! She seemed to have no questions about coming in to the jump versus layering to the tunnel when you cued it. Yay! My only suggestion there is to open up your serp arm more, having it fully extended back away from you (which also rotates your shoulders to face the jump). That will help with the in-then-out serp behavior as you are moving. Keeping the shoulder a bit closed like you had it here will get her to come in but will make it harder to get the next jump in a serp.
Layering: I think she liked this one 🙂 Great job getting the toy throws straight out on the line. She seemed super confident and happy to ignore the tunnel on the way to the layering. You can move to the advanced level where you do a cross after the jump to get her to come back into the tunnel.
Send and serp:
This is where you can have your serp arm back and shoulders more open to have her come in while yo uare moving. On the first and 3rd reps, you were closing your shoulders (making the line of your shoulders perpendicular to the jump) which cued her to go past it like she was layering.
Ideally, your left arm (serp arm here) would be full extended away from you and your wait a bit rotated, so the center of your chest faces the center of the bar. That will bring her in to the jump while you are moving. She did come in to the jump when you stopped moving, but she’s going to be fast and we definitely want to see you moving 🙂
Nice work here!
Tracy
Good morning! Great to see you and Leo, and I am excited to meet Scout!! He is also really fun 🙂
The brake arm with Scout is looking good, it is helping him effortlessly collect on the jump.
When he is pushing to the backside, I think he is seeing two things that contribute to it (watch in slow motion because things happen very fast with him :))
First, as you lead out without a lot of connection, he might be extra watching you instead of the jump (you can see that here at :15 and :35) That causing a widening of the line as he seeks to find more connection, so he ends up locked onto the backside line. This is a pretty common BC behavior: moving away to widen the field of vision in order to see more connection.
Second, he is seeing a subtle but clear step to the backside/convergence into the jump. Backside cue! Good boy! As you walk forward at :16 and :36, the first thing you did was move towards the takeoff spot, then watch your feet: right foot stepped to the backside followed by left foot stepping to the backside. So off he went!
You can and should use at least a reset reward when that happens because in handling, there is always the high likelihood that the dog is correct 🙂
Compare to the reps where you move totally straight and decel a tiny bit and your right foot does not step to the backside. He got the front side each time there! The rep at 1:16 was especially timely and tight! He really seemed to like coming in from the tree wraps 🙂 and was able to turn really well.
So to consistently get the front side and not the backside, I think the first bit of information he sees when he is still pretty far from the jump but making a takeoff decision is important:
– when you are decelerating facing forward to the jump as the first bit of info and then rotating, the deceleration is the critical cue that says ‘front side wrap’ and the brake arm is a nice addition to really create a lovely turn.
– when you are rotating as the first bit of info without decel, he reads that as pressure to the backside line.
This is something to test out as you add the sequences: be sure to decelerate as you are adding the brake arm then rotate, and we will see if it takes out the accidental backside cues.
Scout did really well! What a fun youngster! He was wide on his first rep at 1:21 because he was very close to the jump and already had his front feet in the air when you started the brake arm. Big difference when you started him further away so he could respond sooner! NICE!
> he usually thinks collection is for suckers. >
He was a collection star here, so this is a great start!
As with Leo, use decel as you begin the brake arm instead of pushing in to the takeoff spot, that will deliver the info even sooner. And, keep moving on the exit as you reward him so he doesn’t have to stop after the wrap. Part of the reason he was having a little trouble organizing his hind end was because he had to organize to stop. If you keep moving, he will have better hind end use because he can keep moving and really power out of the turn. Plus, it is super fun to power out of turns so that helps encourage even more collection to create the turn.
Great job here! Onwards to the sequences!!
Tracy
Yay! It worked brilliantly! Nice to see you both in action!
The get out video looked lovely – you ran the proper line and gave great cues with the upper body, so she nailed it. She seemed to have no questions at all.
The brake arm on the 2nd video looked super as well! If you are wanting a FC after the brake arm (which is what you did here), you can decelerate and face the jump a bit – then let her commit to it independently. You turned your shoulders to support her line around the jump as she was jumping, but I don’t think Waffles needs that 🙂 When you see her taking off, you can do the FC and head the new direction. Her turn was lovely so doing the FC without turning to her line around the wing will allow you to get further ahead of her on course.
This 3rd video was the *not* get out moment – perfect, Waffles thought it was easy peasy, she was fast with no questions 🙂
And the last video was the exit line arm on the blind cross. SUPER! She knew exactly where to be thanks to the exit line arm. You can get a tight turn to the last jump by decelerating a bit as she is approaching the jump after the tunnel: If you decelerate and stay nearer to that jump, the blind cross and exit line arm will set a tighter line to the next jump. She was super fast so it is not about speed, it is more about showing shorter yardage to the next jump.
Since these all went super well – onwards to the sequences so you can apply all of these moves 🙂 I am looking forward to seeing how she does!
Great job!!
TracyGood morning! This was a really nice session with a lot of good info. He is such a good boy!
He was really good about finding the line to the front, even with his amazing distance skills. He would have had an easy time getting to the backside of the jump/going around it! He *almost* pushed to the backside of the jump at :10 and :39, but I think that was due to you rotating into the brake arms without a decel – so for a heartbeat, it looked like you were pushing to the backside.
Compare to 2:43 where you were not stepping in towards the jump at all – you were facing forward as you decelerated into the rotation, so he had no questions about if it was a backside or not.
So definitely decelerate facing forward – that locks him onto the line and allows you to set up the turn, no unwanted distance moments 🙂
Now about the brake arms:
I think he was turning really well here!!! If you decelerate sooner, you can get your brake arm visible more towards him – which will set up the perfect turn. When you were a little ‘swooshy’ over the bar with your hands, he was a little wider on the turns but even the ‘wider’ turns were still really lovely!One thing that will help you get the brake arms visible sooner is to start the forward-facing deceleration into the turn cue when he is still in the tunnel – doesn’t matter if you are next to the jump or not 🙂 because he has really good commitment.
When you were a little late starting it at :40, he had a bar down, and then a little late with the timing had a bar tick at 1:32.
At 2:43, the cue was in progress as he exited the tunnel – that was really nice timing! The only thing I think he needed there was for you to have your hands back towards him more instead of moving towards the jump.
At 3:14 (the last rep), the cues were also underway as he exited so he collected really well! Then he fell when he landed, poor guy! That was because as you stepped out of the cross, you took a couple of steps backing up towards the blue jump instead of forward to the tunnel, so he thought for a moment he was turning to the jump then fell when he tried to adjust. Hopefully he is feeling fine 🙂
So if you start the decel while he is still in the tunnel so you are more fully decelerated as he exits – your brake hands will be easier to show him on the way to the jump and also it will be easier to do the tight FC because your momentum will already be shifting the new direction. Will it feel very early? Probably yes 🙂 And it might take a moment or two to solidify his commitment, but fortunately he has great commitment so I think it will be easy.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Hi!
>For this how do I reward?
– sometimes using your release word (“OK” or “break” for example) so he moves forward out of the stay. No click needed on those reps.>
You can reward with a toy or treat from your hand when he starts moving towards you.
Have fun!
Tracy
Good morning! Lots of good work here on challenging games!
Backside slices: Getting her to go to the backside more smoothly will be easier when you add more of your parallel line motion by starting out a step or two ahead of her so you are moving forward the whole time. I think that was your goal but she was having some trouble finding the start cookie so which caused you to have to wait for her 🙂 You can start near her and send to a cookie in a bowl that is pretty close by – then as soon as she eats the cookie you can let her see you moving up the line to cue the backside. Or, you can use her beloved treat and train as an easy way to start each rep.
Then as you move up the line and add the verbal: as you move and when you say it, say it directly to her face (try not to point forward). Pointing forward turns your shoulders to the front side of the jump, which is why she had a couple of questions. When you are moving forward, you can be saying t her face and keeping your arm back behind you – the connection to her and the arm kind of hanging back will turn your shoulders to the line to the backside.
It will definitely feel a little weird to keep your hand back and look at her eyes 🙂 but it works brilliantly 🙂
>I feel like I was a bit confusing on the leading with the head game, which is why it took her a bit of time to get the hang of it. Any tips for me?>
Your mechanics on the leading with the head game are going well – it does kind of feel like we need 3 hands for this game 🙂
Only one tweak to make it feel smoother: with the turn away hand motion, have her follow your hand past the upright more (drawing her in front of you and past you) then turn her away (more like what you did at 3:40 and 4:39). The slower you move the turn away hand, the better it will work. This is another one of those counterintuitive things: moving your hand slowly will get a faster/snappier turn away 🙂
For the sending to the upright to start each rep – she sent best when you stepped forward with the dog side leg, and had questions when you kept that leg back. So keep stepping forward and she will send smoothly to start each rep.
Perch work: she was very happy to get her front feet on the perch! Yay! She didn’t mind the pressure of you moving towards her, but she was starting to move her feet a bit at the every end Yay! You can also keep working the tossing of the treat off to the side – you can make the angles of the treat tossing more dramatically to the side, even behind you, while you remain in font of the perch – that way she might hop on from the side and pivot around to face you. Then you can reward for her pivoting to center, and toss the next start cookie on a hard angle to the side. Let me know if that makes sense!
Great job :)
TracyGood morning!
Lovely work here! Your mechanics were spot on so she had an easy time doing the serp foundation. Her only question was when you switched to have the target in your left hand after a bunch of rewards on the other side – you can shift your gaze to look at the target (and not at her cuteness :)) because that will help direct her to the serp hand.
Since this went great, you can move to the next levels. Two way to do this:
– you can use a tug toy in the reward hand so she hits the serp hand target then goes to the tug in your other hand– you can get the reward to the ground by putting an empty food bowl on the ground just past your reward hand. After she hits the serp hand, you can drop the cookie into the bowl. Eventually we will have the reward already placed in the bowl but it is easiest to start with an empty bowl 🙂
Great start here!!!
Tracy
Good morning!
The clicker sits are off to a good start.
He had a little trouble offering the sit – sometimes it was right away, sometimes after you gave a cue once or twice, sometimes after a bit of barking at you LOL he was getting the idea though and by the end he was slamming his butt down LOL!!The timing of the click was spot on here – one tweak for the reward placement. Throw it towards him and even a little behind him so he turns back to get it rather than moving forward. We want to really emphasize the importance of staying in that spot because the reward is flying to him.
For the next session, start where you ended here and see what he says. If he is offering the quick sits, you can begin to delay the click to start adding duration then we can get you moving too. I don’t want to spend a lot of time adding duration with you standing still too, because he will winder why you are standing there staring at him with nothing happening LOL!! So a bit of quiet praise is good before the click/catch, and adding in a little bit of moving away.
He is doing well with the tandem turns! You can show him the outside arm sooner, bringing it up to join the inside arm before he gets to you. When it was visible after he arrived, the turn was not as smooth. It is the opposite arm that draws him forward and into the turn, so the more visible it is, the easier the turn is.
For the lap turns – he sure loves the prop! Having your arm extended early helped him *not* go to the prop You can also shake the magic cookie hand and reward him for coming to it before you turn him away.
After you turn him away, to get him to go to the prop – take the magic cookie hand out of the picture by standing up and also start walking forward: that is the cue to find the prop (then you can reward with a tossed cookie). You were stationary with the magic cookie hand right over his nose, so he remained locked onto it ) By standing up and moving forward, you are cueing him to look for the prop on the line (like you did with the parallel path game).
Great job here!!
Tracy
Good morning!
>Question – for the start line game, should I use a different word for agility start line? Right now I say Wait before opening the crate door. Once I open it & she gives me eye contact I say Ok, she hops out or sometimes have her come to my side for a hand touch >
It is your decision about which verbal to use. Dogs are brilliant at context so you can use wait in a crate and also wait on the start line if you wanted to. For example, I use ‘stay’ at home when I don’t want the dogs underfoot in the kitchen (there are a lot of dogs here haha). And I also use stay in front of a jump in agility. No questions from the dogs 🙂 The only suggestion is that you won’t want eye contact as part of the criteria while she is holding a stay in agility – we will eventually be teaching her to focus forward on the first obstacle. But again – dogs are brilliant at context so I don’t think she will have any questions at all.
> Other than that she does not have a formal stay like in a sit or down outside the crate. Guess I should teach her that at some point, lol!>
Yes! Start teaching the sit stay with the stays-2-ways game. It is actually really fun to teach stays!
The beep beep backing up looks great!!! She ends up in a down or a bow sometimes because it is a really hard skill and she is shifting her weight back, but she is doing really great with using her feet independently and not needing you to help more than giving the verbal cue. Super!!
>How can I fade away that down?>
To get rid of the down, don’t reward it 🙂 But also, we don’t want to frustrate her if she does good backing up and then ends up in a down, and doesn’t get rewarded. So if you shorten the distance to the rear foot target, she will get to it sooner before she ends up in a down. That way you can reward her while she is still standing. You can also throw the reward behind her, which will help her want to remain standing as a way to prepare for getting the reward 🙂
Good job warming up the tandems – I think the 2 hand approach is working great!! It will be easier if you start her behind you with a cookie toss rather than next to you. That will give you more time to decelerate (which is a big part of these turn aways) and show her your hands, so she is prepared to turn away.
Adding the prop: she was locked into your hands so turned away really well – the next step is to turn her away then take your hands out of the picture so she looks for the prop. When your hands were still in front of her nose, she hit the prop when you drew her over it. You can be further away from it and past it before you turn her away – then lift your hands as you move the new direction to see if she locks onto the prop (then reward when she does :))
>I think I went a bit too long with the tandem turn because I got confused at one point while doing the lap turn & had to cut it short lol!>
Yes, there you had tandem on the brain 🙂 but she got rewarded so it is all good! And you did use a thrown start cookie which is great because it gives you more time to set up the turn away. For the lap turns, the arm closer to the prop is what draws her in then turns her away. Then you can take the hand out of the picture as you move forward to see if she will lock onto the prop.
She is more than happy to turn away, so I think this will be easy for her!
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
The pattern game is going well! You can add in walking back and forth as you play, because that will make it easier to take it on the road to new places.
He did really well with the bowl on the ground after he offered trying to get his feet into it LOL!! I think that him seeing you put it down got him thinking that you wanted him to offer behavior on it, so you can have stuff already in the room then bring him in to start the pattern game.You can also take this game to different places: the kitchen of your house with something interesting on the counter that you don’t want him to have, outside on a leash walk, training facilities, etc. You might find that harder locations will require really high value food, which is perfectly fine.
Great job with the handling combo! This was fabulous 🙂 He was such a good boy about ignoring the toy on the ground, cookies for ignoring it helped a lot 🙂 By the 3rd rep, you didn’t even need to hold his collar anymore, he was really good about moving away from the toy – he understood the assignment 🙂 I was super happy with how well he went from the toy to the cookie to the toy.
Since this went really well and you have your wrap verbals added, you can add the last step: after the barrel send, do a FC like you did here and add in driving to you for a decelerated pivot. As he exits the barrel, decelerate and call his name, and show him your hand. When he gets to the hand, do the 360 degree pivot that we did early on in the drive to handler game. After he pivots with you, you can then after to the toy on the ground. He might be expecting to go immediately to the toy after he exits the barrel, so you can have a treat in your hand to get him focused on the pivot too.
The stay game is going well! The first couple of reps where a refresher then you were able to add duration and distance. He was totally on board and held the stay (nice tuck sit too).
Four small things to add as you work the stay behavior:
– more turning to walk forward instead of backing up like you started doing at 6:30
– lining him up at your side with a sit cue (he can follow your hand into position) which will make it easier to move away forward
– sometimes using your release word (“OK” or “break” for example) so he moves forward out of the stay. No click needed on those reps.
– Add more arousal with tugging before every few reps… and you can even use the toy as the reward, I think he will like that.It was so fun to see him swimming! He was very comfy both with the water and with the helper in the pool. Love it! Swimming is such a great activity in so many ways.
Great job here!!
Tracy
Good morning! This was such a wonderful session!!!! No real feedback other than saying how great it was 🙂
He really is a total rockstar about leaving the treat on the ground and not trying to grab it. WOW!! That is wildly unusual (in a good way!) for such a young dog, especially a dog with a lot of food drive. So lovely!!!! And so cute when he would look at it lovingly before walking away from it. Made me chuckle each time.
The barrel wraps look great, because he is able to focus on the task and can ignore the food. Your crosses also looked lovely – there were fronts and spins (front/blind combo) and there was even one ‘regular’ blind in there. All perfect!
With that in mind, you can add more now:
>to also include some turns and consistent verbals.>
Yes – you did have the wrap verbal on some of the reps, so you can use it more consistently. And you can add in the pivot/drive to handler after the barrel: as you finish the FC, you call him to your side and he does a complete circle with you. Then you drive forward to the cookie on the ground. That might surprise him at first, he might be expecting to go to the cookie on the ground, so you can absolutely have a treat in your hand to reward him for sticking with you on the turn rather than trying to go to the cookie.
Fantastic work here!
Tracy
