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Hi!
Yes, there was some good neighborhood noise for her to experience here! One thing that will help is if you start each outdoor session with some tugging so that she is in a higher arousal state. Higher arousal states are linked to helping dogs ignore distractions.
And she totally got into a great rhythm here. The barrel is really big, so now you can wait until she is further around it before you mark and drop the cookie. We will be building on this game soon!!The next thing to look at with her is the Resilience Markers game. That way you can add more markers. The “yip” marker is useful, but we also want to expand her food markers and toy markers so she knows where to look (the ‘yip’ tends to get her looking up at you, which i useful in some contexts but not all contexts).
Great job!!
Tracy
Hi!
>>Funny, I was in the laundry room with her today and just walked towards her and she backed up beautifully. Not even meaning her to do so. Go figure>>
She will move away backwards when you move towards her (we could see it here too) but she raises her head a bit and that will change her mechanics. We want to maintain a neutral head position with her lower jaw parallel to the floor – not looking down, not looking up. And standing still with really low hands (nose-level) will help get that!
>>I’m wondering if our It’s Your Choice had any to do with her downing. When we played that game sometimes she would down and back up in a down.
Possibly! Or maybe the pressure if you were bending over a lot?
On the first video:
This is going really well, and she didn’t do sits or downs! Yay! Backing up with the food in your hands is causing her head to come up a little too high, so let’s get you sitting in a chair or on the inflatable ball, so you can get your hands at her nose level without your back getting too angry with all the bending over 🙂 And try not to move towards her – that gets her head looking up and we want to maintain a more neutral head position.Plus, having your cookie hands right in front of her nose is a great way to practice impulse control 🙂
>>With the mat, she normally goes crooked when her feet hit the mat. Sometimes she’ll walk on it to seemingly give 2o2o.>>
Using the mat is good! This is going well too. We can clarify the start of each rep so she isn’t as crooked or doing a 2o2o 🙂 You can cue her to get on the mat before cuing her to step off the mat to start the backing up.
And during the backing up for both of these… stand still 😁. The more your move, the more she looks up at you. If she was bigger, it would not matter as much because she would be able to maintain the neutral head position while looking at you. But because she is little, let her focus on your nose-level hands a she backs up to get the great mechanics.
>>Don’t normally have the radio going on in the background, good distraction. Our it could have been she could hear the other dogs. I have to put them in the car in the garage when we train >>
The radio was good, and I don’t think it bothered her – she heard *something* on the 2nd video and that distracted her. It is also possible that he was not sure about how to start the rep, so she was a little more prone to noticing things in the environment. So, clarifying the start by asking her to get on the mat and face you (she can have a cookie for that :)) will totally help too!
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
Sounds like she had a fun weekend!!
The backing up is going well! She is definitely understanding that you want her to go backwards to the target, but she has some questions about the mechanics.
Let’s get you lower to change her head position, which will answer her questions 🙂 With you standing up, he I looking all the way up at your hands – which changes her mechanics and makes backing up a lot harder to do. That is why she was either losing her feet a bit while backing up, or sitting (because the high head position changes the weight shift) or turning around because it was easier 🙂 So, if your hands are lower, getting her head into a more neutral position (chin parallel to floor, not looking up or down, but looking straight), the backing up mechanics will be much easier. The easiest thing to do is to have you sit on something (a normal chair would probably be perfect!) so your hand position can produce that neutral head position.
>>if we should go on to trying the ramp again
We don’t need the ramp yet, let’s get her doing a few sessions over the course of a week or so with the neutral head position so he is very comfy backing up – then we can go to the ramp.
Prop game is looking great!! She was committing brilliantly and you were able to add distance and rotation. Super!!! Don’t worry about your toe point – when the prop has this much value, and she is very pumped up like she was here, then you don’t need to be perfect (one of our goals is to teach such great commitment that we don’t need to be perfect at all :))
She only had one question. It was at :43 when she went behind you to hit the prop. She is probably a righty (so that side is easier) and she probably needed more connection to stay on the original side of you (couldn’t see your face here :)) She got the left turns really nicely on the other reps!
We will be building on this game tomorrow! Stay tuned!
Looking at the goat game video:
>>I love the clicker in theory, but have never felt the coordination of its use very well
Yes, I like the clicker but we really don’t need to use it much at all! Our verbal markers can do the trick and skipping the clicker will give us one less thing to have to coordinate.
And on these types of shaping games, you can use a “get it” marker to tell her “yes, that is correct, your reward is over there” so she doesn’t get rewarded in position and can keep moving through the target object (this is a useful skill for other things we will train).
Great job working the toy play in – and also great job switching to a different toy when she had trouble with the original toy. We want her to play with the toy, any toy, which is challenging after all the treats right there!
Next step is to do some goat trick shaping with you standing!
Markers video: this was a great session!
>>Again I fear that my own coordination issues did not help me out on this. This was our first time doing this and I am not sure that I liked the choice I made for the toys.>>
That is why we start it like this: to experiment with our mechanics and decide what we like, all why the dog has a grand time and is not expected to learn calculus 🙂 And I think she had a great time! If it was frustrating for her, we would see frustration behaviors (I didn’t see any frustration from her!)
Also, all this is dog-specific, so we are also learning her needs and what works best with her.
Using the same toy was fine, because it differentiates the markers: get it for the throw, release for the out, then bite for the toy in your hand. It went well! She needs the ‘release’ before the bite for now, but as she learns what bite means, you probably won’t need the release marker.
Nice job getting the cookies in there with the cookie-in-hand marker and then going back to the toy! Lovely!Her only question was when you wanted her to play with the other toy but the frisbees was still there and higher in value. You can try throwing the new toy with the ‘get it’ and see if she can switch to it in that context.
She definitely seemed happy on the wobble board for food! She was not unhappy with the toy, but the toy is not her favorite 🙂 especially with food right there. I bet the frisbees would work great for this, or even both frisbees: to make the transition from food to toy, you can toss a frisbee with your get it marker. Then when she comes back to the wobble board, you can toss the next frisbees with your get it marker. That can get her flying back and forth over the wobble board 🙂 And then you can work it to a “bite” of a frisbee on the board for tugging 🙂
Because she seemed confident on the board, you can leave the towels in for the toy sessions but also slide one of the towels out when you use food to add a little more tip.
Plankrobatics went great! Your turn lure was slow and low, so she maintained her coordination and balance. Perfect! Do you have access to a longer plank? That can get her moving back and forth across it, and you can also have her hop on and hop off without you having to use a foot to stabilize it.
>>I find the handedness in dogs really interesting and am becoming more aware of it when JJ does her work on her training games and activities. We have done a lot of work in the heel position and working with her on my right side is definitely not very strong. >>
I agree – the handedness is interesting and also very helpful!!! We can set up more success by teaching a new hard skill on the easier side, then switching to the harder side when things are more comfy. And so you can definitely take the skill she finds easy now, and work them with her on your right so you are more comfy on that side too.
>>I wanted to do more with the toy races, but found it too difficult at home. Maybe we can do more with this tomorrow on my teaching day at the club.>>
Toy races do require some room to run run run 🙂 Let me know how it goes!
Great job here!
TracyGood morning! I love your on-the-road setup here!!!
There were a couple of variable here that changed the picture, so he lost the rhythm a little at first: outdoors, you went from sitting to standing, adding a little distance between you and the upright, etc.
You did the exit right thing at 1:10 to re-establish the rhythm with the cookie drops into the bowls. That set up a lot of success! Yay!
>>Am I adding too much distance too early? Is it ok to stop him with my foot? Would a wing work better?>>
I think he was just having a few questions about the new things and how it was starting to look different.
So to help him out – rather than use your foot or a wing, you can think of each thing as a new variable so when one variable gets harder another variable should get easier.
For example – when working in a new location, start everything easy with you sitting and the upright very close to you at first, to establish the rhythm in a new place.
Then, when adding a little more distance between you and the upright, you can be sitting (in the chair or on the ground).Or, if you want to work on standing, you can bring the upright in close to you so he doesn’t have to figure out standing AND the upright being further away 🙂
And I like to use a 2-failure rule. If I make something a little harder, and he fails twice in the session, then it is too hard and I can make it easier. That will help him too!
Nice work here!!! Keep me posted!
TracyGood morning!
She is doing well on the Wobble board! You can feed her with a more neutral head position so she can balance better – head too high or head too low and change her center of gravity which will change her balance. Neutral head position for her will probably be something like her chin parallel to the ground but her head just about her shoulders (not looking up, not looking down).
The fit bone was definitely harder. -it was very inflated and also she would have to scrunch up to get all 4 feet on it, which is very hard for a puppy. So two things to help:
Deflate the bone so it doesn’t move nearly as much under her and she can balance better. And, if you have a 2nd bone or something similar, you can put put it next to the 1st one so she has a wider playing field to get all of her feet on. It doesn’t have to be 2 fit bones, it can be 3 or 4 deflated different things all placed next to each other so she can get comfy.>>I decided to skip noise for this week. It’s definitely something that we need to work on though. But I think she might be going through a possible fear period the last couple of days because she’s been very sensitive to different sounds so we skipped trying anything with that for this week.>>
Ah, welcome to adolescence! Biologically, there is no such thing as a fear period (per the neuroscience behavior vets) but what you are seeing is adolescent brain development. No worries! You can wait a few days, and add noise is a very small way: stuff 10,000 towels under the wobble board so the noise is incredibly minimal, and use more toy play so she is in a higher arousal state. And a good rule of thumb is the any time we see our adolescent dog being sensitive to something, we give them a break and come back to it at a different time, different day, different week 🙂
Great job!!
TracyNice work here too!
She had ton of success getting to the backside and is also doing well with finding the bar when she is on the backside – YAY!!!We will definitely keep emphasizing the parallel line of motion to get even more independent entires, which will make it easier to stay ahead on the countermotion exits. When you were facing forward and moving forward, she was very successful! If you rotated too much or tried to step to the wing, it was harder for her to find the backside or for you to get ahead on the exit.
For example – At :35, you were looking forward and turning to face the entry wing… which actually rotates the cue to the front of the bar so that is where she went.
Compare to :59 where you were moving forward more on the parallel path and she got to the backside really well! Add a little more connection directly to her (say the push verbal to her eyes :)) as you move forward and then it will be easier to add more lateral distance like you were getting at 1:17.
Great job on all of these! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
The zig zags went really well too! Great job starting in an easy spot then working your way up all the way out to past the 3rd wing. She really figured out this puzzle so nicely and was shifting back and forth brilliantly. You can move the wings closer together to add the challenge of having to do the lead changes more quickly – then you can move to the next step of adding the bars (added here:
https://agility-u.com/lesson/jumping-foundations-4-the-zig-zag-part-2-4/ )Only one suggestion: you can start her closer to the first wing, right next to it and almost touching it, to help simulate where she would be on a backside slice or serpentine or threadle line.
Great job!
TracyHi!
This backside refresher went really well!
You can use more motion of you moving along a parallel path to her line, so that you don’t have to step towards the entry wing or turn towards the entry wing. That way she will be able to commit to the backside on the verbal as the primary cue, with the line of motion and connection supporting it. Looking at her more as you move up the line will help you not need to step towards the entry wing.Great job!
TracyGood morning!
Turn aways are looking good! She is reading everything perfectly! The 2nd rep and 2nd-to-last rep were lap turns. They seemed natural in the moment and she read them perfectly (not sure if they were what you planned LOL!) The 1st, 3rd, 4th reps and all the reps after that were all tandems which looked great – we are seeing these more on course lately than we are seeing the lap turns, so definitely keep emphasizing these.
You can spread the wings out to give yourself more running room, which should make the tandems feel even easier.
Great job!!
TracyGood morning!
Keep me posted about what you think of Ninja Weaves!
The grid went really well – she was definitely making adjustments as the 3rd jump moved in and out!
I am glad you were rewarding the sit – I like it better than the down, for grids. For a regular stay on sequences, when she is 15 feet or so from jump 1? You can totally use a down or let her pick the position, but the down on grids makes the initial take-off really challenging.
Because she leans a bit in her sit (it is fine, she is allowed to lean :)) you can start her a tiny bit further back from 1 like you did at 1:03 and on the last rep, to let her organize that first step-in.It was hard to see the reinforcement here – was it stationary? She looked like she was spending quality time preparing to slow down and stop, so if the reward was stationary you can change that to the moving target reward. And if the reward was moving, you can move it faster by jogging/slow running on the release – that also challenges her organization when thing are more stimulating 🙂
What was the distance between 2 and 3 when the jump were at their furthest apart? It looks like the 3rd jump can go up 2 inches at least when it is out there, to add some more challenge too 🙂
The handling is going well too! I am especially excited about how well she is able to switch from line focus to handler focus to line focus…. That is awesome!!!
On the threadle/turn away for the wing after the tunnel, you can help her out more by exaggerating the hand motions so there is more of a “hey pay attention to my hands!” Then the hands can flip her away as well. That will be especially useful on the very first reps. After she saw it a couple of times, she didn’t need as much help so the first rep or two on each side can be extra helpy 🙂
Great job getting her to the wing on the other side of the tunnel – it is NOT easy especially after the threadle/turn away!!!
Looking at timing: she is speedy and that is GREAT and she is also relentless, meaning she is not going to slow down to help you out 🙂 That it all great 🙂 So, you can now get the cues in earlier and earlier. 2 ideas for you:
You can be earlier on soft turn verbals and handling, being sure she sees you peeling away and hears the verbal when she is about 6 feet from the tunnel entry. Your right verbal and physical cues at :38 and 1:28 were late so she was wide. Compare to the Left physical and verbals at :54 and 1:13 which were well-timed and she had really good turns!
This is a good setup for practicing the quickness of the verbals she will need on course. One way to get quicker with the verbals is to watch her head: when her head turns to the next correct line, you switch to the next verbals. On the rep from 1:31 to 1:39, you were a beat behind each verbal (there was a LOT to spit out there LOL!!) but she got it 🙂
So looking at that sequence, you can watch her head: when she turns towards you a little on the MOOOOOOS on the tunnel exit, switch to the threadle handling and verbal. This might be one step out of the tunnel. Then when she turns her head to the correct side of the wing, switch to the handling/verbal for the wing on the other side of the tunnel. When she looks at the wing, switch to the tunnel threadle verbal.
It will feel sooooo early but it will be correct and hold (eventually) feel easier. And also, it will have the nice by-product of you will be super connected!
Getting the tunnel threadle on the other side was a lot harder:
I think bye bye bye is the wrap verbal for the wing on the other side of the tunnel? Then you were calling her name but I don’t think that is a tunnel threadle verbal because you were also using it as a “look at me” verbal before the threadle on the wing. So you can use the wrap verbal then the tunnel threadle verbal (in slower motion on the other side for now, like at 2:25 you can be walking through it because it is really hard!)It is also possible that the reps at the end were not as perfect because her brain was tired 🙂 So next time you tackle this, you can start on that side and see how it goes!
Great job on these, she looks amazing!!!
One thing start considering is finding some baby dog NFC stuff over the summer – I have a bunch of ideas for that if you are interested!
Tracy
Good morning!
>>I’ve been having a hard time sending her to an obstacle from a stationary position (but no problem with lead outs or wrapping a cone beforehand) because she gets fixated on my hands. I’m going to focus on cleaning that up, doing as you advise with the clear verbal and step to the wing.>>
It is an impulse control skill too – asking her is she can go past the reward and your hands and your decel to do a cued behavior, even when she knows she is coming back to you. And if she really struggles, you can have an empty hand sending and the reward in the other hand. I like to stay really close to the cone while I am stationary for a while so the pup can send past my with the toy in it. And adding a “you can have the toy now” marker really helps. I added “bite!” For the toy and ‘snacks’ for the treats, so the dogs learned to ignore the hand and the toy and the treat til I said the marker.
Looking at the videos:
The moving target work went really well! The flatwork was really good: yes, it introduced the concept but also she got to practice holding her stay when things were REALLY EXCITING 😁 She was great!
And the set point went really well too – she was incredibly consistent with good form, even though she was *definitely* excited 🙂 She was in a state that is probably similar to what she will be feeling at a start line in a trial, and that is GREAT!! Good girl!
She was more powerful when you were further ahead, because she was not preparing to stop while also preparing to jump #2. Since she has strong stays, you can lead out even further.
Continue to be super clear on your releases – when you were less clear like at 1:37-1:39 (you didn’t connect, then connected, then started to run), he got a little twitchy ad came forward on her front feet. So, since she is working in a really optimal state of arousal (which is also a high state 😁 ) you will want to be super smooth like you were at 1:19, for example.
Her best starting positions where when she was slightly further back from the jump, so her nose doesn’t go past the bar, like at 1:53. Those were great!
Because she is 18 months (19 months now?) and doing so well, you can add some more challenge to this: keep the distance the same, but raise the height of bar 2. It was at 8” here, so you can start the next session at 10” and if that goes well for 2 or 3 reps, you can try it at 12”. Let me know how she does!
On the tunnel exit video:
Her commitment looks lovely! And she is super responsive to handling, so that allows us to look at the timing:For the GO verbals, you can have both the verbal cue and the acceleration happening when she is 4 or 5 feet before the tunnel entry, to get her going really straight. The Go to the wing after the tunnel was the hardest part (that wing is far away!). You were a tiny bit late at first, like at 1:06 – the go physical cue of acceleration and verbal were late (she was already entering the tunnel) so she turned a bit into you on the tunnel exit. At 1:20 and 1:35, the physical cue of acceleration was great, easily seen before she entered! And lots of good distance! The Go verbal was a little late on those but the timing of the physical cue plus your position really helped – she exited straighter plus you were right there to help push her out to the wing.
At 1:52 and 2:11 – perfect physical cue timing AND Go verbal timing. She was much straighter on the exit of the tunnel! Finding the wing is a little hard but it is definitely easier to see since you were there to help AND you cued a straight exit on the tunnel.Looking at the turns – well done with making the verbals sound different! Different from the GO, and also different from the jump and tunnel turns. So nice!!!
When you were decelerated and giving the cues, he was turning really well in both directions. As with the GO verbals, try to match the physical cue with the timing of the verbal cue – it is easiest to see this when she is coming towards the camera on a right turn exit:
At :41 and :51, for example: the timing of the right verbal was good. Your physical cue was acceleration straight forward, which looked like the go cue, so she was wider on the tunnel exit. You can also see that at 1:23 and 1:40. So, to cue the turn sooner – keep the verbal timing of the right verbal but also let her see you peeling away to the wing. Because she is already very speedy, you won’t have time to decel, so you can be accelerating but showing a lateral line towards the wing before she enters the tunnel. That should help her set up a perfect turn and keep you way ahead so you can meet her at the wing 🙂
Great job here! Let the know what you think!
TracyHi!
This went really well!!! She was very successful on the variety of elements!The visual of the a-frame was indeed hard on the first rep! But she figured it out nicely after that.
As you give the push cue, you had great connection but you probably don’t need to drop your shoulder as far back – you can have your fingers pointing to her nose 😉 If your shoulder is too far back, then it might look like a threadle cue.
Speaking of threadles – the threadle/front side balance reps looked easy for her, no problem at all. Nice!!
She also did really well with the countermotion – both in isolation and when you added it to the backside! Yay!!! Showing her the exaggerated look at and point at the landing spot really helped her commit as you moved forward.
And great job with the reward placement!!!
Only one suggestion, because of the reward placement: keep the bar nice and low so she has an easy time landing when the reward is dropped in. The bar was a little elevated here, which was caused her to have to jam herself up a bit in order to stop for the reward.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyReally nice session here too – the clicks for the back and forth looked great and the 2 no-click moments were legit no-click moments. Your click was early on the very last rep, it looked like you clicked her front feet there 🙂 But everything else looked great!
One thing you can do is elevate the mat a bit, attaching it to something, to continue to isolate the back feet as you add more speed. Kind of like this:
But this video was from the first session with the mat, you can be moving more like what you did on your video here. (The smaller target in the 2nd half was just a collection game for the back feet, useful for flyball).
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
Super nice session here!>Here is the Accordion Grid that Miss Prē was SO tired for at the end of her private Live Thursday nite – LOL!>>
Yes! Poor girl worked her butt off – no classmates to help give her a rest LOL!!!
>>She did a serious adjust to get the BOUNCE at 11’, but then she settled in nicely to add a stride at 14’>>Yes – that 11 foot distance was NOT comfy for her right now – and it was not just because it was surprising the first time, because she did the same the 2nd time she saw it 🙂 That is fine, you can replace 11 feet with 12 feet and see if that is less weird for her. The one stride looked lovely!! And so did the bounces.
I couldn’t quite see the reward, so if you were not dragging it, then you can start dragging it. If you were dragging it and walking, you can go to dragging it and jogging (or running :))
Nice work!
TracyHi!
>>Of course right before the camera was on she was literally lying on top of this waiting for me and then had a hard time getting all four feet on during filming lol.
Ha! That is hilarious!!!
She is a little pat 6 months old, so 2 things are happening:
– She is still growing so her back feet/legs are basically in a new place every day 🙂
– She is entering adolescence, which is a time of life not known for good coordination or brain-body communication in dogs LOL!!
So, keep making things easy and fun for now – no need for the plank to be high, you can keep it really low til she is a bit closer to full grown. That way her view of planks are that they are super easy 🙂>> She just didn’t know where her rear end.
She did indeed have a few hind end questions – getting lower later in he session on the smaller plank totally helped her. And if you have 2 planks you can put side by side to make a wider playing field, that will help too!
You will see sessions where she is fully confident and perfectly knowledgeable about how to use her hind end… and then other days it will be like she has never seen a plank in her life LOL!! That is completely normal adolescent behavior, so when that happens, just leave it be and go do something else (and try the planks again a few days after that).
Great job!
Tracy
