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Hi!
She is an excellent goat 🙂 She looked very happy to interact with the upside down thing in the first video and even got her back feet on it when you waited for more. What a good girl! She was even getting spicy and offering MORE when the rewards were not coming fast enough, in her opinion LOL!
She offered all 4 feet on the moving object, but was close enough to you that it didn’t move. You can help her move it by standing and walking around, so she is moving it a lot! You used your reward placement to get her to rock it back and forth (that was ADORABLE, she was surfing LOL!!) so adding your movement as you walk around it will get her smacking it even more and approaching from different angles.
In the coming weeks, keep adding different objects for her to walk on, slam, move, etc, so we can maintain this confidence though adolescence and beyond.Great job here!!
TracyHi!
Yay! She is totally getting it, zipping around the barrel. Super!!
You can let her see you putting the treat in the bowl after she arrives at it, because that will help affirm that she was correct.She didn’t always seem to know to look at the bowl to find the cookie when she didn’t see you put it in there LOL!
The distance you got here was perfect – the next step is to do this exact same session, with you standing up 🙂 That will lead us in perfectly to what is being added on Tuesday!
Great job 🙂
TracyHi!
>Yes, I randomly hum tunes. I’m not sure why the circus one popped in my head.>
Singing, humming, and pajamas are all important parts of puppy training videos hahaha!!
> Sometimes she really doesn’t want the toy as you’ll see in this session. I don’t want to force her. >
I think the challenge her is balancing the food interest with the toy interest. And to keep the interest in the toy high, it might need to be presented in a different location because the food presence really drew her attention away from the toy here. She did tug, the interest is there, so it might just need to be set up a little differently so we don’t have the competing stimuli of the food and bowl.
One thing you can do is start the toy play in a different spot, away from the smell/visual of the food. Then run into the food area, do a food session…. Then leave the area and get back into the tugging 🙂 That also gets the toy really active! With my Papillon, I used to run down the hallway to play tug, then back into the original room for shaping, then back down the hallway. It was an excellent work out hahaha! But it maintained the interest in the toy play without having to worry about food as the distraction. (It was hard to video, but totally worth it).
>I’ll try to remember tying them together. She’s better with smaller toys to grab onto. Most of my stuff is too thick at this point for her.>
Yes, the toy in your hand is perfect! Yo can put something longer on it as a handle for you to take off and run to a different spot, dragging it for her to chase and grab 🙂
She did well with the forward focus and stealth self-control here! That bowl got pretty far around the cone, she was super!
Something we can consider is delaying the marker because I could see it potentially get confusing. If you say bowl when she looks at the cone and then you let go… she might not be wrong if she goes directly to the visible bowl and not around the cone 🙂 It is not an issue when the bowl is on th obvious line around the cone, but when things get harder and he will need to pass this bowl… it might be better to let her start moving (the collar release or a yes can be the context cue for that) and then say the bowl marker when she is at the cone and past the bowl.
You can also play this game entirely with a toy, no food at all, so you don’t have to worry about balancing interest in toys with interest in food!
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi!
>I was surprised by her interest in the food as she wasn’t really food motivated when we played it in the past.>
She was definitely interested in the food here, that is great! And that helped her pick up gong back-and-forth really well! She spent some extra time chewing LOL so you can try small slurp-able bit of treats, like tiny pieces of cheese. She won’t hear them plunk into the bowls but I don’t think she needs that anymore.
The next step to this would be to put an upright in front of you, to get started with getting her to go around objects. I am sure she will find it easy!
>I included switching off the “dead” toy as the previous times I had a really hard time getting her off the dead and onto the live. No problem with that this time. I guess there is something to be said for latent learning.>
She did great here!!! Yes, latent learning can be magical 🙂 The next step here is to get her to let go of the toy by making it dead – but delay activating the other toy til she starts moving towards it. That can establish the back-and-forth pattern she was doing with the food – and as soon as you have that pattern established, you can put the upright in here too.
Great job!
TracyGood morning! I love having people hold puppies for this game! And the auntie was so cute, cheering for him 🙂 He did great!!
Has he also done restrained recalls? When you started running, it looked like his first impulse was to look at you, and that might be him asking if he was supposed to do a recall or run ahead to the toy. So to give him the feeling of leaving you in the dust, you can be moving but not as fast – pretend you are running for real, but only run half speed.
And you can use a marker to indicate the toy is in play o he doesn’t have to watch you (‘get it’, for example, if he is familiar with that one). He was beating you to the toy (good boy!) so now I want him to feel the joy of leaving you in the dust without looking at you first.
Most pups do what he did, which is take the toy on a short victory lap before coming back for the next rep. I have always considered that to be a bit of a decompression, where they are moving off the pressure of us humans running hard next to them – and I think it is great!
His little barks were HILARIOUS when he was finished with his victory lap and was ready for his staff (you haha) to pick up the toy for the next rep. He has such a big, fun personality!
Great job!
TracyHi!
>I tried the wing wrap exercise. Started with food – Skizzle remembered working on this before, and is a pro moving back and forth. >
Super!!! That will make it easy for him to fly through the different steps.
>This is our attempt with toys. He loves his toys and tugging. Hi toy release isn’t as great as I thought it would be by this point (though it accurately reflects our training 😉 ). It’s a little awkward with his reluctant release, but I don’t think there’s much conflict here.>
I didn’t see conflict. He let the first toy go when it was officially ‘dead’ 🙂 He might need a marker or word as permission to go to the toy in your right hand here – he was focused on it, but seemed unsure if it was ok to grab it? So you can use a ‘get it’ type of marker, and even make the toy crazy, flopping up and down more 🙂
Great job here! Does he remember going around an object? And will he go back and forth with treats, with you standing up? That will lead us into the upcoming games 🙂
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
Paper towel package as a wrap object: BRILLIANT! He had no trouble, no questions at all. And the giant gift bag was great too – those different textures will help him generalize wrapping to anything he sees.
>He only tried to “cheat” once but I blocked him with my leg.>
The oopsie moment was in the transition after the tugging – you don’t need to block him, you can simply not reward him (no marker needed, but no cookies) and let him experience the “that was not correct” moment. That is actually important for pups: sometimes what they offer is *not* correct so they learn to process that and get back to figuring out the correct behavior. He did not have the same error after the second tugging break when you switched to the bag.
It is a fine line – if he fails several times, or always fails at the same time (like after a tugging break) then we are not getting the understanding that we want. But one failure/no reward moment can be as instructional as all the reward moments 🙂 and that little bit of friction of NOT getting the expected reward can be very motivating to work to get the reward (has to do with the dopamine drop out of NOT getting the reward).
>I notice when I change the distance at first, he seems more hesitant when wrapping to the left. I’m not sure if that just happens to be when I change the distance each time or it’s an actual side preference.>
It could be that it is the new challenge of the distance change (he sees the thing being moved and that slows him down for a moment, or it could be a side preference: his and yours. You tend to re-start (after tugging or distance changing) the game with left turns here. So maybe he is more of a righty? Or maybe you are more of a righty, or both LOL! Either way though – he is looking strong in both directions and he will be more than ready for the next level of this game on Tuesday.
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
The circus music while tugging is hilarious 🙂
She was a superstar, getting right up on the plank! Yay! At this stage, you can show her something different each time in terms of an object to get on. You can also set up a big ‘playing field’ by having 2 planks next to each other, or several objects next to each other, so she can offer all 4 feet on things. The plank is a shade narrow (for now) for all 4 feet but 2 of them side-by-side will be a nice wide surface for her to get on.
She likes that toy! She is letting go of it a bit earlier than you are intending – it is either because she notices food or is predicting you moving to get the food, or because there is too much pressure with you having to lean over during tugging (or both :)) So tie that toy to something long so you don’t have to lean over – you can be pretty upright and still move it around a lot! And keep tugging til you are going to transition back to food, and if she stops early, you can squiggle the toy around more (away from the food) to maintain the balance of drive for food and toy.
Great job here!
TracyWelcome!!!!! This video is a great way to get started: fantastic!!! Jazz was VERY happy to focus forward on the toy and drive to you. Your releases were connected and everything looks great!
>Still working on bringing the toy back… hence the rope attached.>
That was smart! I looked like Jazz was not exactly trying to run away, but not exactly bringing it to you LOL!!! So the rope is perfect. And you can have a second toy in your hand or pocket: That way you can add in turning and running the other way when Jazz grabs the thrown toy. This can help make it exciting for Jazz to come back to you (no worries if he doesn’t carry the original toy all the way back to you yet :))
You can take this game to the week 2 Toy Races! My only suggestion is to perhaps use a taller toy, so it is easier for Jazz to scoop up on the run. Something like a big hollee roller works great, or a taller toy.
Great job! I am excited to see more!
Tracy
Hi again!
He is brilliant at wrapping this cone! SUPER! The distance is perfect here, and it was great to see that he could maintain the behavior while you moved into a standing position. PERFECT!
The next step is to replace the cone with different things: laundry basket, barrel, anything you can find that is not a jump wing yet 🙂 That helps him generalize the behavior. One Tuesday we add some big excitement to it all!
Great job 🙂
Tracy
Hi!
He did really well here too! You were a shade too far away on the first rep but he did nicely when you were closer. It really helped him when your leg moved with your arm – the cue was very clear and he sent to the prop really well.
>I have always did my turns counter arm and truly don’t want to change now since I will be running 2 dogs.>
You can totally start the crosses with the counter arm and stepping with the leg, no worries! For the backwards and sideways sends, think of the sending as being the visual of what happens after you have finished the cross and are running the other direction, so you would be on the new arm. We will be adding countermotion soon which will feel more normal 🙂
Great job!
Tracy
Hi!
I agree, this went really well. You had SUPER nice connection on the blind crosses here!! That is why he did so well – when you were connected, he knew where to be. Your arms were nice and low, and he could see your eyes clearly.Now, you also need to show him that new connection early enough that he can adjust. At :23, you were late with the blind so his response was late (he responded as quickly as he could) – and you didn’t reward. You can and should reward that. Remember that his reward is not contingent on whether *you* were right or not 🙂 He got to the correct side as quickly as he could. All of the other reps were much earlier, so he was able to change sides much earlier too. That looked great!
Nice work here!
TracyHi!
>I’m giving her a few days for the step on the hat game. Yesterday we did goat tricks on the plank! She was stellar.>
Perfect! And the goat games will help with the prop games too. Plus you can switch to a bigger prop that she can step up onto! It might be more salient.
She did well with the novel-neutral object! Your position made it more salient: you were standing near it then tugging almost on it LOL! So you can have it further away – being so close can accidentally enhance it, as if we want her to interact with it.
You can also do this as more of a recall, especially if she heats the weird lawnmower noise outside: after you toss the start cookie, you can move away a bit and let her chase you while you call her name. Then you can reward with the tugging further from the novel-neutral object and she gets to practice running past it and ignoring it.
>She is a baby baby. Took her on a walk around the neighborhood. She plopped down in the grass several times.>
She really is a youngster! So tiny! These short bursts of training are best to avoid depletion. She will be able to extend the session duration as she grows up, but these 1-minute-ish sessions are great for now 🙂
Nice work!
TracyHi!
>It’s a shame that he doesn’t like food at all 😂😂🙃! This is just his kibble lol!>
Poor starving baby dog LOL!!!! This was after half of his breakfast? HA! And he loves to tug too. Yay!
He did really well with the forward focus. You also added the hand eye (and we can add the verbal for it soon if you want a verbal). And click/treat to you for working both sides!
For the next session, start a little easier from where you ended here, then see if you can get the bowl to come all the way around the cone so he has to look past it then travel past it to get to the cone.
>My only issue was trying to not choke him or make restraining bad before I released him. That was hard 😂. >
He was STARVING hahaha You can line him up using a cookie then take hold of him – that might feel smoother? You can also get lower by sitting on something (that will feel easier because you can be closer to manage all the things: collar, cookies, bowl, etc). And a harness is easier for restraining these powerful youngsters, if you have a harness.
Great job here!
TracyHi!
>I started with food, but failed to notice a toy, that he did not fail to notice, so we switched.>
Yes, he totally noticed the toy 🙂 His expression was so cute!
> As we worked, I noticed that my holding his collar when I get the toy may be acting counter-productively to the collar grab, adding a slight aversive into the sequence,>
It might have been a bit of unintentional trying to preserve your flesh to prevent him from jumping up? And he did prefer to stay just out of reach after that.
> so I shifted to tossing a treat to get the toy–I think you may have been pointing this out earlier, but I really felt it here. I liked the last rep.>
Yes! That last rep was my favorite too! I think it was favorite as well!
Since he loves treats, you can use the treats to help get the line up, looping them into the game:
Tug tug tug, out cue, follow a treat to line up at your side (or between your feet), feed cookie, gently take collar… throw toy then tug either with the toy he has brought back, or the other one you had with you. And repeat 🙂 That can help him love the collar holding while also building the value for getting nice and close to you after tugging, but without jumping up for the toy.And I personally LOVE to use food with very drivey, toy-loving BCs like him! It really builds in the precision while maintaining the excitement of the game.
Great job here!
Tracy
