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Hi!
Looks like you all had fun at the Midwest Cup!!! And she did really well taking in the various sites and sounds.At 1:05 she looked at something and kind of said “oh heck no” and went the other way (right before Emmie barked at her from the crate LOL!) Do you remember what it was she saw? She recovered just fine from it.
>I spent a lot more of the weekend having her out by herself, wandering around and meeting people and checking the place out. She was able to hang out ringside and play with her toy too later on during the weekend. >>
Very cool! It is great to hear she felt confident by the ring and was playing.
>> In the video, that was the first time she met that person at the end which was very brave for her!>>
She did say a wiggly hello to several people she walked past! Very cool!
>>Some people and dogs spooked her a bit but overall I was really happy with her experience.
>>You can also take resilience walks if you have a buddy for her that is ridiculously calm and happy in all situations, so that dog can model calm happy behavior in all situations. For example, I picked up my Whippet puppy at flyball nationals, so it was a busy crazy place. And my 3 year old adult dogs sandwiched him on our walks, creating a resilience sandwich LOL: confident happy adult, 10 week old puppy, confident happy adult. He learned a whole lot! And now he pays it forward by being the resilience buddy for my 4 month old pup – he helps out at vet visits for the pup, new places, etc, because he models calm happy behavior. So, if one of your other dogs can do that, great! If not, maybe there is an adult dog that you can borrow who can assist?
Also, check out the new resilience game added last Wednesday (Patterns) because we will be able to use that in any place that she shows any concern š
Great job!
TracyHi!
>>I have a hard time adding distance. He keeps cheating.>>
I see what you mean – especially when he needs to turn to his left to go around the object, he will often scoot in between you and it, turning to his right. This is good info from him! So a couple of ideas:
Try another session or two with this object (instead of changing to a different one) to help him get the idea to go around this one. Start each session with a quick refresher with you being close to the object to get him in the rhythm, then take a step back and start to add some distance but only on the reps where he goes to his right (when he is going from your left hand to your right hand). Then when he needs to go to his left, from your right hand to your left hand, step in closer to help make those left turns easier for now.
The left turns will catch up to the right turns š but for now, we can keep the left turns easier than the right turns. And by doing several sessions with the same object, we can build up value for the object to go around it with you standing because the object is familiar – and that will also help build distance.
>>Also I noticed in your class video you phased out a bowl for someone. Is that something I can try?
The first step to fading them is having you be standing up – got it! So now we can go to the next step of fading htem, which is moving them back a little. When you start standing close to the object, put them back by each of your heels, which will give him more room to cover and make them a little less visible.
Nice work here! Keep me posted on how he does with this! I figure another session or two of this level, and then we can go to the Turn And Burn game posted last Wednesday š
Tracy
Hi!
The parallel path game is looking strong here too! He hit is prop beautifully when you were behind him and parallel to him, and when you were ahead but not moving that fast, When you started running AND you were ahead? That was much harder so he was running near it but not really touching it. So for now, move at a walk or slow job when you are ahead, so he still looks for his prop.The countermotion sending looked great! He was super successful on both sides, with you sending and moving away pretty quickly. YAY!!
I think he is ready for you to try the Advanced level with the rear crosses. Give him a refresher and warm up by doing some parallel path reps where he drives ahead of you (start with him and don’t move too fast) then try the rears!
Great job š
TracyGood morning!
The decel game is looking good! The bowl is working nicely to help give you a head start to show the deceleration. And he was reading the deceleration really nicely! There was only one oment where he had at question: at 1:26 there was no clear transition into decel so he bounced up a little (you were moving fast and he was surprised when you stopped suddenly). But the reps before it and the two reps after that looked very strong!As he is arriving at your leg, you can deliver the treat a little more at the front of your leg now, so he turns his head a little and starts to bend, That will lead in nicely to the turns added in the next parts of the game. And to add more speed into it:
As he is eating from the bowl you can try to leave soon and if he is cool with that and continues to eat his cookie rather than ditch it to chase you, you can leave faster too. That should give you more of a head start to show the decel, plus you will be moving faster and that will show a more exaggerated transition too. He definitely looks ready for it!
Great job š
TracyNo worries! here is the reply moved over, I will go delete the other one.
Hi!
>>Funny that the backside warps were easier than the rears crosses!
I agree ā backside wraps are often easier than rears and they take a lot less training š For backside wraps, the handling does most of the work so if we get it right, the dog gets it right. The only training element is helping the dog understand the commitment to the jump with as we move forward past the takeoff side (countermotion). I mean, of course we have to get the handling right, which is not always easy LOL!! I have found rear crosses to be the opposite: mostly a trained skill, and even if we totally get it rightā¦ the dog might not know what to do! and on these games, it is very easy for us handlers to get it wrong LOL! Rears are definitely harder!
Rep 1 (:06) was a strong rear cross, all the elements: show her the line & pressure by running towards the center of the bar then when she passed you, cut in behind her. Yay! Replacing the bar on the ground with a bump was smart, so she didnāt roll a wrist there.
Rep 2 (:10 ) was early because you try to cut in behind her but she was not past you yet, so you pushed her off the line (you can reward her ā on these games, if the dog does it wrong, generally it is hander error so you can reward her as you reset for another try. Compare that to rep 3 at :19 and rep 4 at :27 (and reps 5 and 6 too!!) ā you showed all the strong RC elements without being early, and she got it nicely š
GREAT job showing her the difference with the push at :44!!! And again at :55!! And 1:04! WOW!! After all the RCs you were very clear with the cues and she nailed it. Click/treat for YOU!!
One of the things that really made them so successful was your fabulous connection as you said your push verbal, and also your running line. Spot on! And extra click/treat for you, for looking at the landing spot as you kept moving past the jump ā that is why she was so successful. I am sending you a giant high 5!!
Well done here! Because she is young and inexperienced, you had to be very convincing in your handling to help her outā¦ and you were š YAY!!!!! Super!!!
Tracy
Hi!
>> Itās partly serious intent to have a solid start line this go round
Totally understandable – and that is the hard part. Reducing pressure and less training is generally the best road to a stay š Totally counterintuitive but works really well!
>> and partly because, except for rare instances, I am training solo. Need to figure out where and when I can do a backward cookie toss instead of a stay.>>
He loves his MM, right? So when you want a lead out but don’t want to bother with stays, you can put the MM where you want him to hang out, then send him to it and click it once or twice. You can also use a ‘station’ like a cato board or something, but that also requires criteria so it might not make things as simple as using the MM.
>>Iāll keep that adolescent brain in mind when training.
Yeah, we need a support group LOL!!! It has been interesting to learn more about canine brain development and basically it means that we all have to take a more relaxed approach and let the brain mature. It is hard!!
T
Hi!
This is looking really strong! He is showing lovely commitment to the jump after the release, and turning beautifully based on your position. Yay!
At :08 he went to the backside of 2 based on your position (staying near the jump and entry wing for a few heartbeats). You were further away at :16 ad on the reps on the other side too, so he found the front of 2 nicely – the wall was inhibiting your motion, but ideally you would do the FC and connect and keep moving rather than stop there (but NOT running into a wall is always a good option haha)
When you changed to the left turn direction, that is where you had more room to run so you can totally FC when he is locked onto 1 and move away from 2 staying on the takeoff side (rather than moving to landing side), staying connected so he commits to 2 as you move away (in the direction of an invisible jump 3, as if it was another jump on a serp line). Let me know if that makes sense š
Great job here!!
TracyHi!
He is doing well here! He did have some organization questions, and I think the cause was that the
bars are too high. Looks like the first bar is 8″ and the other two are 12″ – and he is having to process striding AND height, when ideally we only want him to process striding. That is why he bounced the middle intermediate distance in rep 2 then added a stride in rep 4 – not quite sorting out the striding and height. So, keep all the bars at 8″ for now so he doesn’t have to multi-task yet – and I bet he can figure out how to bounce all of the distances here š The bars can start to go up on jump 3 only when we have comfortable striding through all the variations here, and bar 3 is at least 15 feet away. That will happen soon!Tracy
Hi!
>>And I decided to show you the meltdown instead of the good one.
Thanks for posting it! These are always the best sessions to learn from. It was not a meltdown – it was excellent feedback from the pup!
>>She seems frustrated, and I can see why. Then she barks at me for the First time in a training session??>>
She was saying that you were unclear about what was happening so she couldnāt get it right, and it was frustrating her. So like just about everything with puppy trainingā¦ it is about mechanics and she was letting you know š
At :09, you added too much distance, it was too hard, so she didnāt go to the prop. On the next rep at :15, it was still too hard with too much distance so she missed, but you started the reward delivery process of pulling the treat from your mouth to deliver it, then changed your mind. That was really frustrating for her (bark bark!) because by starting the reward delivery process you are essentially telling her she is correct but then when you withdraw it, you are telling her she is incorrect but by then, it is not clear what was incorrect.
You had a good couple of rewards closer, that really helped. Yay! No barking. Then an error at :30 which also looked like you were going to reward then didnāt.
You were closer at :46 and she was able to be successful. Yay!
And play the section from :49 – :55 and watch what you are doing, donāt watch her:
At :50 – you indicated the prop with too much distance while looking at her and not at the prop and while your other hand was moving the cheese stick to your mouth. So she had a lot of confusion about where to look and where to go, then didnāt get any reinforcement for tryingā¦ frustration!
When pups are frustrated, I count the # of reps and how it breaks down on reinforcement versus punishment to see what the overall rate of reinforcement for the session is. Pups should be working at 85% rate of reinforcement or higher so they donāt get frustrated, and being closer to 90% or 95% rate of reinforcement is even better! On this video, she was working at 65% rate of reinforcement which is why she was frustrated.
So what to change to listen to her feedback and reduce the frustration? Three suggestions:
– Stay closer for now – no need to add distance any time soon!
– Have all of your mechanics squarely in place before each rep. In this case, it means having the treat already in your hand, broken off the stick, ready to deliver (and not in your mouth because that adds an extra delay in delivery and pulls her eyes up to your mouth/face)
– pay close attention to the number of errors. We want to keep the rate of reinforcement really high so you will want no more than 2 errors in the session, total. If you get one error, make things simpler to ideally avoid another error in that session.So get that all ready, then engage with her, then while once and close to the prop, so the send (and with the countermotion and backwards sending, you can shift your connection from her eyes to looking at the prop). Then when she hits it, you can reward, then get ready for the next rep.
If you start to reward – donāt withdraw it even if you think maybe it was not the greatest rep. No worries! You can get closer to the prop. And if she misses, also no worries – get closer again so she doesnāt not continue to miss.
Nice work! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>Crooked backing up here. Should I care? Trying to line her up better. Also her head lifting to look at me?>
Crooked backing up is generally a handler mechanics issue, when we ask for too much before the pup is ready. On this session, the video didnāt show how it started but I think you are a bit too far from the mat to start it, so she is not really targeting the mat at the beginning – it as just a little to hard at the start. So, you can start really close to the mat at the beginning of each session, and start her with all 4 feet on the mat to refresh the backing up. Then you can move back a little but we donāt need a lot of distance on this, so emphasizing being close and having good mechanics is key. Her head position during the backing up was mostly good – she only looked up at your face when you were talking to her while she was backing up, so be quiet til you mark the behavior š
>>Should I reward if she doesnāt touch the mat?>
Yes – and if she doesnāt touch the mat, then you are adding too much distance too quickly, so move closer. On all of these behaviors, distance is the least important part of it all š
>>Sheās trying with enthusiasm.
Yes! She sure was!!! Good girlie!!!!!!
Nice work!
TracyGood morning!
>>When I first brought her home, I decided that the āyipā was better for her than the clicker. And the first thing we worked on was eye contact, lots of eye contact. So I wonder if thatās part of why she looks up at me when I āyipā?>>
My guess is that all of these contribute to the looking at you: the stimulating sound, probably lots of reward delivery from your hand, and also emphasis on eye contact on the early days. And that is fine – as long as you use other markers like āget itā when we donāt want her to look at you.
>>Today we worked on Prop Work, Balance Bone, and Wobble Disc.
Since sheās now liking string cheese, I tried it for the Prop game, and voilaā¦she perked up, was more excited, and went faster. I gave her tug breaks and that helped too.
For the bone, she was more than happy to get on, balance, offered a turn around right and left, hoping off to get back on, with tug breaks. Having fun.
The wobble disc still has flat towels underneath it. Sheās excited to get on, happy to stay, turn around, hopp on and off with tug breaks.āØTugging her into the room has really helped my mechanics.>>Great update! Yay! The understanding built through simple sessions & great rewards build up the confidence and that builds the speed.
ļæ¼
>>So, sheās also happy to tug on the wobble disc. You mentioned her correct position tugging on it. Can you please describe her correct position or how do I get her into that position?>>We want her head to be low and her lower jaw parallel to the ground, so she can shift her weight into the rear. That will mean you will want to get really low (sit on the ground, perhaps?) and let her do all of the pulling back on the tug toy. You can move your hands side-to-side slowly, not up and down and not pulling forward.
>>Also, yesterday she did Not want me to take her collar, say to start the barrel game like some people did in live class. At one point she threw herself on her back when I took her collar. Ish!>>
But a little later she tolerated it for the toy race game. Weird.>>We want her to be happy about it, so try changing your mechanics: line her up in position where you want her to start with a cookie lure, slip a finger under the collar, then delivery the cookie. Donāt move her by the collar into position or pull the collar forward or back – that is when we see things like avoidance or rolling on the back. Most pups really donāt like being moved around by the collar.
Onward to the videos!
TracyGood morning!
Sounds like she had a great weekend! So fun! And I am excited to hear she is in a fun, small puppy class – those can be so valuable š
Looking at the 2 wrap foundation videos:
On the first one:
The first part went perfectly! At 1:11, the cone was a little too far from the sweet spot but then she figured it out nicely in the next reps. Adding the 2nd cone seemed fine for her and got more distance. Yay!
Adding the 3rd cone was a big visual change for her, and really hardā¦ you can see as soon as you did that at 2:19, she froze and looked at you. You helped her out with cookie dropped, but it was probably a little too hard in the moment (plus, at over 2 minutes, the session was a little long for her age and she was due for a dance break with the toy LOL :)) A quick 10 second dance break then returning to that setup can help her out when she has a big question.>trying to remove first cone. She takes the short cut every time. Not sure what to do except make the space available smaller. >>
The reason is that one of the modes of learning, enhancement, was directing her focus to the gap:
When you removed the cone closer to you, the gap between the cone and your feet became more noticeable which is why she immediately went to that space (enhancement of that space, by revealing it when you removed the cone that was there). And enhancement is a powerful, non-operant form of getting behavior. So rather than remove cones to reveal an unwanted space, gradually moving one cone out will get the behavior because it keeps the cone as the main focal point.
>>I know this is quite a long session but being a Border Collie she loves working so I lose track of time.>>
Thatās the good news and bad news of Border Collies LOL!!! They will often continue to move their bodies for as long as we want, but it doesnāt mean they are in the ideal internal state and able to focus on the learning like we want. And it is really easy to lose track of time š So what you can do here is set a timer for 2 minutes and when it goes off, you can break the session off for some tugging, then come back and do another 2 minutes of shaping.
The trash can on the 2nd video went really well! You can jump start any new object by doing the quick cookie drops like we did a the very beginning of this game (so she goes āah yes, this is the go around gameā ).
She got into the groove really nicely and did super well with you standing!!!She has a little trouble when the barrel moves away (like at 1:28), so you can move it away very gradually, half an inch at a time. Distance is not that important right now, so you can move it away more gradually so she can get the first rep correct after you add distance.
The next step is to choose the object that you will stick with for the next several weeks, like a pop up laundry basket (or this trash can LOL!). Something easily portable will be good so that you can start to take the wrap games new locations in coming weeks. And after a session like this on the object you choose, you can move to the turn and burn game posted last week š
She did really well getting onto the bog fit bone! What a brave little girl! Yay! When she has all 4 feet on the bone, while she is still small enough to fit comfortable – you can have her do position changes: sit, down, stand. You will probably need to lure these with a hand cue and/or cookie to give her a hand to focus on (it is harder than it looks to balance on the bone while changing position!)
Also, you can incorporate tugging before and during the sequence: the goal of adding the tugging is to teach her to use her body and develop good proprioception when she is in a higher arousal state, which she will be during agility when she needs the proprioception the most š
Looking at the backing up:
The first 20 seconds were really strong backing up! So it is possible that it is simply a hard behavior (which it is) and all she had in her was 20 seconds of it. And yes, add in that the treat delivery might look like the down cue, and I can see why she went to the down behavior.>>Iām thinking of switching to using training gates to assist with learning a back up. They help with the puppy learning a straight back up too.>>
Yes, you can totally use training gates. That gets the backing up going for sure!
The other option is look at the game from last week:This adds back foot targeting and can help her figure out the difference between the down and the backing up. Starting her with all four feet on the mat and the just starting with front feet backing up, then getting all four feet off the mat and going to back feet stepping back onto it – that can help clarify things for her.
And to help avoid the down behavior, 2 ideas:
Sit in a chair or on balance ball or something like that so you are not bending over.
Deliver the reward with her head higher, in a more neutral position: jaw parallel to the ground and her nose pointing at you š
Let me know how it goes!Great job here!!
TracyGood morning! Thanks for your patience, I am finally home! Great weather made it easy, but it is still incredibly long. I am happy to not drive anywhere, any time soon LOL!!!
One thing to consider on both the first and 2nd videos here: there are a lot of large visual things in the environment, and both of these games ask her to pick out something relatively smallā¦ and the giant visuals of the tunnel/teeter/jump are inhibiting the behavior a bit. Is there a clear place on the floor to play this? Or can you move the jump away so she is further from the other stuff?
On the toy races, she did start to drive ahead really nicely! It took her a moment to āseeā the toy in the environment and then she as driving to it really nicely. Yay!
You can now start more of the toy race variation, building on the motion you had here: keep throwing it far like you were doing at the end, so she keeps driving ahead even as you run faster and faster. And every now and then, throw in a rep where you try to beat her even if you cheat to win a little š And if you canāt beat her to the toy, that is cool too š
On the hat sends – the forward sends are looking good with some nice distance too!
The sideways and backwards sends are much harder in general, but I donāt think it was the treats in your hands that caused her questions – adding in the visual distractions around her made it harder (you can see her looking around a bit more and responding less, especially on the left turn backwards sends). Getting closer to the hat totally helped but I also think getting further from the jump and tunnel will really help too. The environment is really challenging: other obstacles, other people, other dogs squeaking in the background š so we want to reduce the environmental distraction as much as possible š Then it will all lock in really nicely and you will be able to add the countermotion as well.
Barrel wraps are going well! You had a couple of good reps at the beginning and at :23 it looks like she left a cookie to do the wrap! Yay!!
You can be a bit wilder with the toy when you do the FC and run, so she is more stimulated by it as the reward.
>>One of the workers came out of her office and it was a bit too much of a distraction
Yes- that was when you switched to the left turn wraps and she whacked it with a paw, then left to explore the distraction. And if it was the 3rd session, she might have also been a bit mentally tired.
>>Wing Wrap ā cone (5/14) This went much better with the cone! Is Ginger a righty or a lefty?>>
Not sure if you had a video here? She did well to the right on the barrel and had a question to her left, so she might be a righty but more video evidence will help us sort it out more š
Great job!!!
TracyYes! The home session looked GREAT! High success, low pressure. The stay is a tiny piece of the puzzle, so it doesn’t not have to be the main focal point.
T
Good morning! Thanks for your patience, I am finally home!
Great job on these sessions!! Operation Surviving Adolescence is really all about frustration reduction for the pup (and the handler :)) because their adolescent brains are just not set up to process errors or big changes or frustration. So you did a great job on both sessions of keeping things fast and fun and highly reinforcing, so he was able to process really well and be successful!!
One thing I realize is that based on what we starting to learn about adolescent dog brains: sometimes they cannot process info like cues and how to respond because that part of their brain underdeveloped (science!) and that is particularly true when there is a distraction. With a distraction, their brain might prioritize processing the distraction, and cue response processing definitely gets reduced.
Distractions can be stuff like smells or other dogs, and also frustration if there are too many errors. And when we reduce distractions, the brain can process cues better. So when we reduce frustration from failure, the brain can process everything else better as you saw here. YAY!!!!
He did really well with the games in the first part of the session. He had a couple of bars down when he was set up really close to the bar, so you can use a bump or lock the bars in so he isnāt rehearsing dropping bars (and we donāt want to punish bars).
Be sure to mix in games without stays – there were probably still too many stays here, even short ones with rewards š It is ok if his stay behavior takes longer to percolate because it is such a hard behavior! So you can start a to of reps with cookies tosses or have someone hold him if other people are around. Again, that help his teenage brain prioritize info: if he doesnāt have to think about holding the stay and also reading a Serp cue, for example, the serp cues will go much better.
During the home session:
>>I decided to try a different approach to training in my yard. Instead of letting him roam the yard while I set up, I crated him before and also in between sessions.>>
It is interesting to see the difference! Perhaps he was expending too much mental energy exploring etc while you set up or between turns and didnāt have much left for the training. It might not have seemed like he was expending energy, but he was and we can see the difference here! He did really well with the game here, finding the jump whenever you cued it. The one time you didnāt cue it (you didnāt have thew connection or verbal or motion to it at 5:29 like you did on other reps) he didnāt take it – so you can reward and reset that anyway, because that is handler error (especially since you started to throw the toy then withdrew it)
Compare that to the next rep at 5:38, which had very clear info!
Great job with seeing any potential errors or frustration, and shifting things towards success. What a massive difference it made in both session!!!!! Not a fluke!! Love it!!!!!!!
And donāt get discouraged if he wakes up tomorrow and canāt do any of this LOL!!! Teenage brainsā¦.. if that happens, you can do something else and try again a few days later š
Nice work! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
