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Hi!
These first handling challenges are also looking good – nice connection with the position 1 reps! You can add more motion while you do these connected reps: you can be running (because the connection should support the cue).Starting closer to the wing and letting him drive ahead also looked really good, no trouble at all – definitely add running to those too. (You can start touching the wing so you don’t end up too far ahead when you want him to drive ahead, and you will still have room to run.
The disconnected reps also looked good! These had the perfect amount of motion (not a whole lot) because disconnection is so hard.
Since it all went really well, you can add a lot more motion to the connected reps (including trying to get waaaaaay ahead, past the tunnel, and be connected and running) and a little more motion to the disconnected reps.
Great job!
TracyGood morning! It is great to see you in a working spot here!
The verbal only discrimination is super hard and he is doing well from the position with you standing up – there is a recognizable “mom is standing, go do a thing” and maybe a tiny bit of leaning so he did well.
One thing to add to the standing is to hold onto him so he can hear the verbal a few times and hen move. I think he was trying to move on the very first sound which is a goal star for enthusiasm LOL! But moving that early doesn’t always give him a moment to process the verbal.>>He kept offering lying down and looking at me rather than taking the jump or the tunnel. I’m guessing it’s all of the mat relaxation that we’ve done that makes him think this is what I want.>>
That makes sense because yes, he thought sitting in the chair was bizarre at first LOL! There is no preconceived notion of doing agility while mom is in a chair 🙂 It is interesting to see how the chair indicates behavior and when the chair is not there, the obstacles indicate behavior. But he was able to offer motion to the obstacles and then was getting lots of success when he lined up at your side. For the chair game, I also recommend holding him by the collar so he can hear the verbal 3 or 4 times and then you can let him move.
He was successful at your side here by the end of the video, so that is where I would start him on the next session – at your side but holding him so you can get the verbal going. And then eventually you can work up to sitting with him between your feet (this is really hard!) And your plan to revisit this challenge a couple of times a week is a good one – it doesn’t need to be daily and we do want latent learning kicking in. Plus, we add to it on Monday in a way that might be more fun for him 🙂
Great job!
TracyHappy birthday Ripley! I am raising a birthday toast to him!!
This session went really well –
>>Sorry, long stressful work week and my brain is a little fried.
totally relatable! But you still got in a really good training session and showed him lots of the challenges. And he rocked it. It looked like everything you did was successful. I think the only thing you didn’t show him were the reps of you getting way ahead past the tunnel/jump and running hard (with connection) – so if you wanted to do that again, definitely try it as it will simulate course working also set him up for next week’s games 🙂
And if he is happy with you being super far ahead and moving fast, you can try a new tweak on it which is you being super far ahead and not really connecting (but maybe not super fast at first, but definitely in motion).
Great job here!!
Tracy
Good morning! (Or is it afternoon there?)
I think this session was more about sorting out reinforcement for now – she seems to like the thrown reward, she seems to love the obstacles, and she seems not terribly interested in the food from your hand if it means lining up LOL!
Overall she did well with the directionals – they were all correct except one, so that is a really high success rate!!! You can have her chase the thrown ball as a reward like you did here – then to get her to come back, you can try using a tug toy or another ball, so the reward and the line up are (almost) as fun as the obstacles.
I think most of the ‘ma feets won’t move’ moments were the line up, so that is no worries and we can figure out what it more motivating to convince her to line up.
Yes, you can definitely move to the handling games – the challenge is motion and connection, so you will both enjoy being able to move more 🙂
Great job!!!
TracyGood morning! I think you will have fun! We are seeing jump-tunnel discrims everywhere nowadays (plus when Audie is a little older, you can play these games because they are good for pups too – maybe when he is 9 or 10 months you can start them 🙂
TracyGood morning!
This session looked really good! She seems MUCH happier to move away to the obstacle!
>>We are still struggling with the high value of the toy as a reward. That was a separate, but good lesson.>>
It looked like the toy was mostly in your position and one rep it was on the ground between your feet, and she did much better about moving away from it. That is a good start! You can keep it in your pocket and then gradually get it into your hand. Moving away from the high value reinforcement is part of the challenge, in terms of creating commitment. She is doing well!!! I think you should stick with the toy as she is making tremendous progress.
The tunnel commitment went really well, and so did the jump commitment.
You can still reward the backside, it is jump-ish enough for now 🙂 I think it had to do with your chair position because she was convinced of it – then took the front when you moved.
You can shelve this game til next week so she can percolate on it and let latent learning do its magic – we build on it and also we will have new games coming on Monday. Have a great time at the trial!!!
Nice work 🙂
TracyGood morning!
>>both words ended up sounding the same – but crazy the other way, loud, lots….Sly was SO confused!!! New plan; no dog, me just sit in a chair and work on the words. We’ll give it try and see how it goes!
I like that plan! And it is good rehearsal to make sure the words are different because we do often end up making them sound too alike even during runs.
On the video:
>>How soon can I give the verbal cues for Jump and Tunnel?You can start them as soon as he is finishing the barrel wrap, and repeat them a bunch of times – that is mostly what you did here and it all looked really good!
If you give them much sooner than that, you run the risk of him looking at and going to the wrong line. It won’t happen in this training setup but it sure can happen on course!
I think the only time you were a little late in starting the verbal was the jump verbal when you were way ahead, and then you only said it once. He had the widest line there on the way to the jump when you were way ahead – the motion and the proximity of the tunnel definitely made it harder!!! But he still got the correct obstacle – YAY!!!!
>Should I do this from the other side – have him wrap the barrel to his right?
You can if you like! The games all balance out in the end, so a few reps on the other side are fun or you can add in turning to his right. I decided to only work one side on this game because the variable changes came in the form of the different positions and disconnection, so I didn’t want to change too many things.
>>one each from the spin. I was curious to see how much which side he was on exiting the barrel was impacting his decision of which obstacle to take.>>
Your position does impact his decision – which is why we do the reps where were are way ahead, past the entry of both the obstacles, to negate the positional influence and see how he does with the connection (or disconnection haha) and verbal. He did great!!!!
And yes, disconnection is weird and hard when we WANT to disconnect, but somehow it all feels natural when we don’t want to disconnect LOL!! He did well there too – it is the hardest element because it really emphasizes the verbals.
Great job!!
TracyGood morning!
This is a really hard game!!!
>> I think she just remembered that the jump was the last successful thing she did the last time I was being a total weirdo>>
I agree, she thought this was WEIRD haha! But the good news is that she figured out that it was “go do a thing while the human is sitting” even if she didn’t yet have the discrimination between the tunnel and jump. That is a big step in the right direction (pun intended hahaha)
So to help build up the discrimination, 2 ways to tackle this:
– you can be sitting in a chair, closer to the obstacle, but only have one visible so she learns to independently leave you for a jump or tunnel without motion and without the other obstacle visible.
– separately, you can be in the chair in front of both obstacles, a little closer… and point to the obstacle you want. That way you are fading the motion and handling help, rather than removing it entirely from the start. Then we can fade out the pointing.
Let me know if that makes sense!! Have fun!
TracyGood morning, great to see you here!!!
She was amazing on that first video! The jump was a little harder at first but then it evened out and she was great at both!
The handling 1 game went really well too!! You can increase the challenge with position 2 by getting even further ahead – if you can send her to the start wing from miles away and be passing the center of the tnnel when she exits the wrap, that should increase the challenge because she can see a lot o fmotion and both obstacles… but needs to look at your upper body and listen for the verbals.
When you do the disconnection, yo ucan add more motion to that now – basically you would be moving forward and not really looking at her at all 🙂
Great job here! You can add in the Handling 2 combos as well 🙂
Tracy
Hi and welcome!!
yes, it would make sense that there were too many things changing: chair, collar hold, discriminations, etc. So you can do it standing up – but we want her to not start until you have said the verbal a few times, so a hand on the collar is something worth working through.
And since motion is harder for her, you can do the handling games – no need to wait for the verbal-only game to be perfect, because the handling games focus on different skills (connection, motion, etc).
Have fun!
TracyGood morning!
The MM blooper was hilarious!!! His expression was so cute!
He has always been amazing with his verbals, so I am not surprised that this session went so well – a super high rate of success!!!
He easily went to the jump or tunnel when he was on the same side as the obstacle – you can also have him do each obstacle from that same side: for example, when he is on your left, you can cue the jump or the tunnel which makes it a whole lot harder because being at your side adds a bit of handling info… and now we would be asking the verbal to override that.
He did really well with the neutral position starts!!! Super!!!!
The first game next week builds on this, so you don’t need to revisit it unless you wanted to try each obstacle with him at your side (rather than switching sides). You can totally go to the handling games too 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi!
For the longer distance sends to the wing, you can totally use physical cues. The only game which has no motion is the first one with the jump-tunnel discrimination 🙂
TracyHi!
The rocking horses looked really good!! You got a lot more commitment and connection going on most of the reps here and she nailed it! She is VERY responsive to all of your handling and cues, which is good news but also bad news LOL!! All of her little questions were handling bloopers:
The rep where you messed up the verbals was the one where she messed up the commitment -she was probably saying “what the heck is the momma doing?!?!” LOL!!!
She didn’t fully commit to the left turn wrap at :52 – you can drive forward longer, you rotated too soon there and left wraps seem to be ever so slightly harder for her on this game (but it is a small difference).
At 1:37 she pushed away to her left – because you stepped that direction, almost like a rear cross line. The next rep you stepped straight forward so she went to the wing. Yay!
We do more rear cross stuff in the next class, but it is good to do a refresher here! I think the session overall went well – you did a couple too many parallel path reps at the beginning because the first rear cross rep at :28 was a total surprise to her LOL!! You were a little too close to the jump on the next couple of reps she it made the cues a little rushed, but then you found the sweet spot of how far back you needed to start in order to show her the RC line – and then it looked great! She was able to turn nicely in both directions on the RC, and go back to the straight line when you cued that at the end. SUPER!
>>I used food since it is a little less arousing but would a toy be good to use on this?
For dogs that like toys, I think the handling stuff like this should be all with toys and not all with food (yes, you can reward the retrieve with a cookie but the main rewards should be toys). We want the arousal for a variety of reasons – and also, she prefers toys over food! I think she does it fine with food but it is more like drilling… doing it for a toy will be more like play!
Nice work here!
TracyHi!
She is definitely improved with this game – it is wicked hard!! She did well taking the tunnel on just the verbal. It was harder when the jump was there, but I think there are a couple of tweaks that will help her:
– she seemed to be moving to the obstacle as soon as she heard noise come out of your mouth LOL! That means she was not really processing the verbal, she was just go go going LOL!! So hold onto her until she hears the verbal 4 or 5 times… then let her move (she might have big mad feelings about that but… LOL!!!)
Yes, I like your idea to shorten up the tunnel but also I think moving the obstacles further apart will help too.
And it sounds crazy – but you might to try it without the MM out there. She might be doing things as fast as she can to get to it 🙂 so throwing the rewards might end up being the better plan. The rewards might be later but that is fine because the visual of the MM might be too stimulating for now.
At one point on the video, you asked if the verbal should override position – yes, it should 🙂 Eventually! So this is a good game to revisit once a week or once every two weeks or so, to rotate it through the games you play. It takes a long time to get it perfect but she is on the right road. Yay!
And yes – you can do the handling games because those tackle a different skill set (more about the motion and the connection, with the verbals in there too)
Great job!!! I am looking forward to the handling games!
Tracy
