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Good morning! Lots of good stuff here 🙂
>>The last few days we worked on Project Unpairing. For the most part, I did better in isolating the verbal release and movement.>>
Yes, the unpairing looked a lot better and the release was more distinct for sure. Plus he got lots of rewards for staying even after you got into serp position. Perfect!
The wing wraps on the actual wings look good, he seemed to have no trouble making the concept transfer. Super!!! You can delay the ‘get it’ and showing the reward til he is fully around the wing, because he pushes the wing sometimes on his rush to get the toy when you tell him he can have it.
On the serps section:
He was reading the serps really well when released. Yay! He was having a little trouble getting back on the toy after the food rewards – right now I think food might be overbalancing the toy play. So you can use the toy a whole lot more to replace the food rewards. So on the serps, a toy can be thrown back to reward the stay, and you can also reward the serp with a toy. That will keep more engagement too because he won’t take a few seconds to find the treat and the sniff around for more.
When you looked at the landing and your hand, he was great with the serps – two little bloopers at 3:36 and 4:15 where you kept looking at him instead of shifting the connection to your hand & the landing spot under it, The release should look more like what you did at 5:13, that was great!
At 5:38 you went to wing wraps as part of the serp session, and I think he needs things to be more distinct as in “we are doing the serp game now” then take a break then come back later for “and now we wrap the wing”. That will help him shift gears.
And when you do the wraps, be sure to let him see the whole wing – you are tending to block the line to it by standing where he needs to be,. then trying to get him to cut in front of you. And example is at 5:59 and he was confused because he didn’t see the wing, especially with the motion pressure of you moving forward. On the wing wraps, you should be on the other side of the wing so he can see the whole thing 🙂
Nice work here!! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>I was saying his left and right verbals. I’m just like the Seinfeld Close Talker only a Low Talker. I also say them several times before I release him but I think you’re saying to say them the entire time he is in motion?>>
Yes – keep saying them because there is a left r right turn the entire time. And say them like you would on course, don’t be the Close Talker LOL! You need to be more like George or Kramer.
>>Should I keep up with the mini pinwheel? Open up the wings at all?
You can give it a rest til MaxPup 2 – no need to open up the wings.
>>Speaking of Da Verbals, I forget whether I should be using them on the serps and threadles.
For the serps right now, you can just use the stay release. And yes, add the threadle slice verbal to the threadles.
Tracy
Hi! I like everything I see here on the video!
The serps looked almost perfect – nice stay, nice angles, nice turning. yay! He only had one blooper (:36 when you changed sides) and I think the change of sides PLUS throwing the toy after he was in the sit PLUS you were not looking at your hand/landing spot – all of that was too much in terms of variable changes so he missed the jump til you called him to it. So each time you change a big variable (like going to a new side), start by making the other elements easier for now. You can add more motion now, moving a little faster across the jump! You were walking, so see if you can build it up to a slow jog. If that is too challenging for the stay, have someone hold him.
His decels looked great, I like how he is powering into the wrap! He is turning tight without losing speed in and out of the turn. Plus he seems to think that “boring” wraps/decel is SUPER FUN lol! Yay! We add to this game in MaxPup 2, so you can maybe revisit it once a week til then.
He did super well with the minny pinny!! Your attention to mechanics looked strong and he was bending really nicely!
Were you saying the verbals (left/right) on the minny pinny? I think maybe I heard you say left once? LOL! You can definitely add them, and repeat them as he is doing the minny pinny. There are 2 reasons to keep saying them:
– to name the turn on each bar and the exit
– to get him used to hearing things over the bars and not finding the to be distracting.You can also turn and start walking the opposite direction sooner, to help build up even more countermotion on these soft turns.
Great job on all of these! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
Tis is definitely a hard game! I think he was relying on line of motion a lot, so we can make some adjustments to help him out for sure! Some ideas for you:>> I want to figure out how to help him be more successful after he misses one>>
After he has an error, I recommend having him come to your side for a reset cookie so you can line him up for the next rep. What was happening after the errors was that was was barking at you a lot and staying in motion, or then you were having him do multi-wraps – so all of that was super arousing and maybe a bit frustrating for him, which was not conducive to helping him lock into the smaller details like verbals. The reset cookie will help him breath while also reducing frustration – and allowing you to line him up while also buying time to figure out what to do on the next rep 🙂 Those reset cookies are gold for keeping the umbrella rate of success high, which keeps the frustration level down when the skill is really hard.
The other tweak to try is to separate the jump and tunnel a bit so there is more like 6 -8 feet between them. And, rather than peel off to the side of one or the other, your handling path will take you between the two obstacles on every rep:
for example, if he starts on your left you can send to the wing then FC to cue the tunnel, or send to the wing and spin to start the cue to the jump – and your line of motion will be relatively the same for both. On the video, your handling path was sometimes blocking the jump or blocking the tunnel, so he didn’t know where to look.That allows you to use connection and verbal to help him look for more than motion (because motion won’t hold the answers here LOL!)
And keep the connection nice and strong so when you are running fast and way ahead, he can use it to override the speed/arousal.
>>Nexus definitely struggles with the disconnect especially>>
The disconnection game will definitely work better if your line is between the two obstacles, and to start it you should be walking (running and disconnection together will be too hard at first). If he struggles with complete disconnection, you can do to ‘weak’ connection first, where he only sees maybe half of your cheek 🙂
One more suggestion – repeat your obstacle verbals. You were saying the jump verbal only once, but it will help him if you say it a few times to help him process (as long as you make it sound different than the tunnel cue :))
Nice work here! Let me know how he does!
TracyHi!
He definitely likes the layering to the tunnel here, no problem at all!
You can move the start wing further away so you have more room to cue the tunnel and peel away, to see if he will continue to the tunnel on his own (I think he will).>>To get the backside I had to stay pretty close to the jump.>>
You did a really good job helping him out with the backsides, both with physical cues and makng the verbal sound really different. Yay! The next step would be to start moving yourself over, so the start wing is more in line with the exit wing of the backside, and you can be moving up the line towards the center of the bar of the jump, for both the tunnel cue and the backside cue. That will add more challenge to both, but a lot more independence as well which will make things easier on the big courses.
Great job here!! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
I think this session went great!!! There are a lot of handling options and it looked like he always got to the correct obstacle on the correct side (and some good Lizzo in the background too :))
For most of the challenges here (like sending to the tunnel or doing the blind between the jump and the tunnel) you can add more handler speed – try to start right next to him and the wing and run as fast as you can (which is pretty fast!) That will challenge him to pay attention to the verbals and connection, even when there is a LOT of motion.
>> Our backsides are still not independent and we haven’t worked the 360 wraps a lot so the turn is pretty wide to pull him off the tunnel.
The backside after the blind looked great and he did really well with the threadle slices too! For the threadle wrap, you can add more decel and turn him away on the flat a little more before you indicate the jump. It is a good skill to work on because it is becoming SUPER popular on course nowadays!
Since all this went well and you have room – leave the tunnel/jump close together like they were here, but spread the wing and start jump out so there is a lot more room to run run run! You can challenge him to read all of these cues when there is a lot more motion and excitement 🙂
Nice work!
TracyHappy Mardi Gras!!!! Great tunes here too 🙂
He did well on this first video – primarily he had to learn when to go past an obstacle to find another one (layering!) which was making steam come out of his ears a bit LOL!
>>With every sequence. He was telling me “I know what I’m doing, you don’t need to help.”>>
On the first few reps when he was on your left side, there was possibly too much handling help so that when the angle got really hard, he was still reading handling and had a couple of errors.
>>I ended up holding the collar to get him to listen to the verbals before I sent him.>>
Yes, this helped and also when you did that, you helped a little less with the handling/motion.
Ideally your handling path/line of motion is basically identical to minimize your motion – this is what happened on the last couple of dog-on-left reps and then you were handling a little less on the dog on right reps, so he was successful! Super! So you can revisit this and try to stay on the other side of the obstacle he would have to pass to find the other, stepping in as little as needed.Nice work!!
Tracy
Hi!
I am glad you had a great weekend!!
>>I only lost her to 1 tunnel trap >>
Do you have a map of this course? I am curious to see where she was tempted by the off course tunnel gremlins 🙂
She did really well on the Combo sequences! She had zero questions about whether you wanted the jump or tunnel – nice work!!!!!
>> I lost her to the wrong end of the tunnel quite a few times on #5. >>
Aha! This is GREAT to have on video! I took some screenshots but here is what was happening:
When you wanted to do the send to the tunnel, you were decelerating (which is fine) but then you were turning your feet and shoulders to the wrong end of the tunnel. You were connected, you could see her – but you were also pointing to the tunnel entry you wanted which blocked connected and turned your body to the wrong entry.You can see 3 photos here – the first and 3rd photos were when she took the wrong entry, and on the 2nd one she went to correct entry. Note how your feet/shoulders/chest were pointing to the wrong entry on photos 1 and 3, but your feet/shulders/chest were pointing to the correct entry on photo 2!
So to help her consistently get the correct tunnel entry on the sends: point less at the tunnel, and focus the cue more on her. What I mean by that is to keep your arm low, make BIG eye contact with her, and point out to the line you want her to take rather than at the tunnel entry ahead of her (which is what was causing too much rotation of the body cue).
That will end up looking like photo 4 (:55) where you were wanting to drive in more but actually you ended up in about the same place but with a much clearer cue: note how your eyes are on her, your hand is pointing to her, and that lines up feet/shoulders/chest to the correct tunnel entry. She is looking straight at it. Yay!
Here is the link to the screenshots:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KIcMA13JQ7b-Pb1afhdNNXYUp1jZaF7MQToGsaYiGxY/edit?usp=sharingLet me know if that makes sense, everything else looked fabulous!
>>I looked ahead at the Week 2 games and we do not have a very strong/advanced threadle like the one pictured in the videos. Should I substitute a different move there?
You can try it with a bit of rotation on the threadle, where you rotate your feet too?
Great job here!
TracyHi!
He was such a good boy here, this is a hard game for sure!!! Yay! He had a lot of successes and was also very good about working independently of motion!
>>. It’s hard because I’ve always used a non-reward marker to let him know the exercise wasn’t correct and we need to try again. He and my other corgis were never very sensitive, so it never seemed to bother them. Is using non-reward markers too much? >>
I think that non-reward markers are the same as markers for negative punishment (which is withdrawing the availability of positive reinforcement, aka non-reward). So the dogs often lose a little ‘oomph’ with a non-reward marker because it tells them they are wrong without any real help on what t odo next. So try to replace them with a quick reset, something that calls him back to line, get a reset cookie try again. The difference I see is that the dogs maintain a lot of excitement even with hard games like this, and come driving back to try again after an error, versus freezing up a bit after an error (which is what he was doing, then you can see the lost “oomph” when he didn’t want to start moving).
>> At the end, he seemed to be guessing a little, so maybe I made the session too long?>>
It could have been that it was too long (23 reps or so is a lot when it is warm outside, his tongue was hanging out) or that he needed those reset cookies to happen really quick after an error (or both LOL!). I would try both – shorter session and quick reset cookies so he keeps driving to the obtacles.
>> I think I don’t know what my verbal for “jump”
Do you have any trials videos? You will be able to hear what you say in trials and more importantly, how you say it. For example, your tunnel cue was quiet and calm – you might say it like that at trials, or it might be a bigger louder cue at trials. If it is bigger/louder, say it just like that in this game too because he is differentiating based on the rhythm, pitch, energy and word, not just the word. That would also make the jump verbal sound very different, which can help the discrimination.
>>He seemed to really understand the “Go jump” or “go go go”, but I’m not sure what I want it to be. “go go go” means go on, but maybe he has generalized it to “jump” as it usually means take all the jumps in front of you?>>
This is possible, or maybe ‘go’ is a release to move?
>> could make the verbal just “jump” but I feel like that would mean just take a single jump? >>
It is good to define it all – when I say “juuump” (a slightly long word, not too loud), it means “take this one jump on a gentle curve”. When I say “GO GO GO” it means to stay on the straight line – so “go jump” would be confusing. Plus, we often say “go” with tunnels too, which would make it harder in discriminations.
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
Most of the reps here were super strong, and we found a spot where she struggles!The strong reps on the handling 1 were when you were ahead, running, and connection. Perfect! Handling 2 was EXCELLENT because you were connected and moving, so she read things very nicely 🙂
Her struggle is finding the jump when cued when you are not connected. That is what happened at :20 – you were disconnected as she came around the wing, plus she had just done a bunch of tunnels and the verbals were sounding alike… so she ran into you. You were disconnected on the next rep (:24) so she cut behind you to the tunnel. And at the very end with the naked verbals :), she took the tunnel with no problem but took the tunnel again when you said the ‘over’ cue (although she was not looking entirely convinced that she was right.
So it is good to know that she has one area of questions – we can sort it out! To do that, I suggest the Handling 1 game where you disconnect (or use ‘weak’ connection where she only sees part of your cheek but not your eyes) and move slowly. And make the verbals sound like you did on the last two reps on this video – the tunnel verbal was higher in pitch and faster, while the over verbal was lower in pitch and slower. That was great!
Everything else looked really strong! You can take a look at the week 2 games, she is ready to start them 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi!
Really interesting to see her take off after the 2nd rep where she was successful – low frustration tolerance for lack of motion!
You can help her out in two ways:
– after saying the verbal a few times with you totally stationary, let go of her and do an arm point to the correct obstacle. It will help her out a little, it will still build up the verbals, and it is easy to fade 🙂And separately – you can do a bit of a ‘lazy tunnel’ game by straightening out the tunnel and making it shorter, then walk towards the entry with minimal connection/handling, just saying the verbal. And BIG rewards at the exit when she takes it. That will help that argument at the tunnel! She doesn’t love the tunnel so this can help.
>>On to this week’s first game! This was REALLY hard once we moved on to the second side. We clearly need to play the stationary game more to help build this skill.>>
I can’t get it to play – youtube says it is still processing. Last night I thought it was because you had just posted, but now there appears to be a glitch. Let me know if you are seeing the same error?
Thanks!
TracyHi!
>>When you say more eye contact do you mean to look at him or the obstacle more?>>
Look at him more, because that will line up your shoulders better to the line you want him on.
T
Hi!
Well done with the videos!! I hope it was not too much anxiety because they all looked terrific!On the first video, great job with your mechanics – you were great about being super stationary and looking at him – and he was perfect about going to the jump! Yay!
>>t I have trouble with my reward markers as I am just learning to use different ones>>
You were consistently using them here! I don’t think Gibbs is totally used to them yet because he would look back at you when you tossed the reward, but he will figure it out fast 🙂
Video 2 was the tunnel verbal game – lovely also! Gibbs was happy to drive to the tunnel with ZERO handling help (and on this clip, he saw the ‘get it’ reward very easily and didn’t look back LOL!)
Video 3, this is the super hard version of the game (from the chair). He is sorting it out really nicely: at first he tried to predict which obstacle it was based on his line up spot, but then he was differentiating based on the verbal (and from neutral position).
Your mechanics were almost perfect here – great job paying such close attention to mechanics, a giant click treat for you! The only time you had a mechanics blooper was when he got the tunnel and you said “YES!” so he came back out LOL!!! The big “yes” verbal seems to pull the dogs back to us (I do this by accident too) so keep using the get it and if you accidentally say yes and he pulls off – no worries, he can have a reset cookie and try again without the big yes (and you took the “yes” out on the last rep and he was perfect!!)
Super job here! Definitely keep posting, these looked great!!!!!
Tracy
We haven’t set the date for the next one – probably next week because this week is NUTS between the webinar on Wednesday and then I have to drive to Florida for the ESPN invitational. I figure Monday or Tuesday of next week should work!
TracyHi!
Rocky was super on both of these!! He seems to have no question about how to read the handling on either video. Yay! That is great especially considering he is such a young dog! He looks at you when your hand is pointing forward and he can’t see connection, so try to use less hand pointing and use more eye contact.
He looks ready for more challenge: you can take out some of the handling and emphasize the verbals. You can do this by walking forward and just saying the words, but not really trying to handle or run 🙂Great job!!
Tracy
