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Hi!
Find the jump is looking great! She was really driving for the jump!
>>I pulled off just too early on the two of the tunnels. >>
Try to just keep moving and re-send her, rather than stop or use and uh-oh marker. She was following the body cues and you were a bit too early trying to leave the tunnel, so we don’t want to confuse her by telling her she is wrong. Staying in motion will keep her going and you can add another step or two towards the tunnel.
Throwing the toy on the line was perfect to help get even more focusing forward to the jump! The timing of the throw started early then got a bit later at the end, and was great!
She had a lot of speed on the smiley face game as well 🙂 I think it was cooler too, you are wearing long sleeves and pants, that cooler weather totally helps!
She definitely likes your marker sounds: “Yay!” And “get it!” Both of those really pump her up 🙂 And staying in motion while you rewarded – perfect 🙂 The handing of the wraps looked really good and the connection was particularly good. It was very high energy and she loved it… which is why you were both out of breath by the end LOL!
You can carry this energy over to the Diamond and the other games coming this week!About the doing handling with the toy in your hand – 3 suggestions the came to mind as I was thinking about her today:
1 – have a 2nd toy like you had later in the video and call her back to it after throwing the first one (she came right back when you were holding the second one!
2 – >>It’s very, very hard for her to ignore the toy and ignoring the mama if she is going another direction>>
For the handling games – we don’t really need precision rewards, so you can tuck the toy into a pocket so it is not distracting to her especially as she learns new things. Then you can pull it out to reward the rep when she finishes- that can help her look for the wings more.
3 – When it is hot, or very distracting outside for whatever reason, you can do entire sessions with just high value food. That can give you lots of tick reps, without the toy distraction and without running around with the toy getting her all hot and tired. She has plenty of toy drive, so we don’t have to worry about losing it if we sometimes just use food instead 🙂
Great job! See you in class tomorrow!!
TracyThat is a relief! I am glad she is feeling better. But keep her in bubble wrap for another day or two!
No worries! At first I thought it was different reps and I as amazing at how identical they were LOL!
Hi!
>> If I toss a toy towards the barrel, should I aim for the start of the turn in the beginning?
Yes, you can toss a turn to the beginning of the turn so it lands near the barrel. You can also plant the Manners Minder out on the other side of the barrel for her to drive to.
>>I’ll go back to those exercises from the last session, appreciate you sending those links. Looks like I missed some important stuff. I blame Christmas. 🙂>>
Things got busy in December!!
>>If I leave her on a sit stay, and she downs, should I just accept the fact that she’d rather have a start line down and work with that instead?>>
I like to have a start line stay where the dog is comfy and I am not worried about if they move or vulture. So… I often let my dogs choose their position. For 2 of them, I literally say ‘stay’ and walk away LOL!!! As long as they don’t move their feet, I am happy! And it sounds like she is more comfortable in a down, which is normal for BCs 🙂 and also great because if she is comfy, she will be less aroused and less likely to break the stay.
>> I’ve been re-setting her in a sit, but then she does that vulture thing, and she seems happier in a down…. >>
As a good Border Collie, the down is pretty automatic for her. And she might not even realize that she is in a down or that she is doing the vulture thing, it is all almost a reflex for her. So rather than spend time resetting or trying to get her head up, you can ask her to do the down 🙂 Just start her a little further away so she has room to stand up when you release her.
>>I would just like her to look a little happer.
She is a Border Collie with a strong drive to work work work… my guess is that she is going to look like world peace depends on the release from the start line LOL!!!! As long as you are not fighting with her and she is not stressed, she can have a really intense look and it is all good. BCs are, um, different LOL!!!!!
>> 🙂 I’m used to looking back at the start line at my beautiful Terv….connecting and releasing. Georgie’s beautiful, too, of course, but not so much when she’s crouchy. But sure, sure, it’s not all about looks>>
Tervs are naturally more upright and less stalky. So you can go with Georgie’s natural BorderCollie-ness and it will all be great!
T
With my Hot Sauce, the psoas issue turned out to be compensatory. And o course her core is not that strong, she is only a year old! Definitely see if you can get an exam with her on her side.
2 important things the PT vet had me do were
posture, for core and back strength:
and mountain climbers, specifically for her quads because quads can be a bit “puny” in terriers:
The mountain climbers are the slow, deliberate back foot step.
T
Hi! Nice session here!!!
Yes, adding the placed toy to help her see jump 2 really helped! She still had a little question when she was on your right. She was smoother to it when she was on your left! You can also move the 2 jumps closer (while the bars are still low) so that the second jump is more visible. Plus, you can leave the wing wrap sooner so you are a little further ahead to show the Go line. Start that with the placed toy, and then you can fade it by having it in your hand but throwing it as she is landing from jump 1.
One detail: Make sure you don’t decelerate until after she gets to the toy, otherwise she will learn to ignore your decel 🙂 This will make more sense when you see this week’s games 🙂
Great job!
Tracy(and now all of the vets who examined her and ruled out the luxating patella have changed their procedures and examine the dogs on their sides, not standing)
Ah! I am glad you mentioned the luxating patella – I can share what I learned about it from my MixyMix who is similar to Snap 🙂
I had her examined a whole bunch of times by vets including by a Board Certified Orthopedic Surgeon. The normal OFA exam for patellas has the dog standing up. But these powerful terriers have big muscles so the patella won’t luxate when they are standing. But my girlie had some weird soreness and was even diagnosed with a psoas injury at one point (which was shocking because she was really young and hadn’t really done much). So my vet re-did the exam with Hot Sauce laying on her side, not standing: Boom! Luxating patella. We fixed it and all is great!
Now, I hope it is nothing but if it is a patella thing – ask them to get her to lie on her side, head down so her big terrier muscles don’t hold the patella. Then you will get a true picture of what is happening. And if it *is* a patella, I have a wealth of info to help (lots of specific conditioning stuff for it and other stuff) and I am happy to share.
T
Hi!
I read your post before watching the video, so I thought I was going to be seeing a lot of errors… Nope! It was a really good session on a hard skill!!!! I think the video had some of the reps repeated in the 2nd part of it (:14 – :46 were the same as 1:09 – end) so let me know if anything was missing from the video.
>>I’m still getting some jumping up at the beginning, but am trying the connection/eye contact, and less arm, though it doesn’t always help.
It is definitely improved!!!! I see a big difference. To help her want to move away to the barrel or start wing, you can mix in throwing a treat or toy to the barrel as she goes to it, to help refresh the value of going to the barrel especially now that she knows the action is going to be at the jump 🙂
>>I’m fairly sure that I was often using too much arm, trying to support her for the send, and you’re right, I don’t think it really works that way.
I think for most of the reps, you were really good – low arm, lots of connection, and your hand was following her nose rather than pointing ahead of her. There was only one connection blooper (:49) where you turned your shoulders to the jump too soon and broke connection – but then you adjusted perfectly on the next reps.
>>I’m also trying to bring down my verbal cues a bit. Again, easy to get louder and louder, and saying the cue louder is definitely not helpful.>>
Yes – louder generally pushes the dogs away and makes them go faster (think about GO TUNNEL GO TUNNEL and how fast the dogs will take off on a line LOL!) so quieter verbals definitely help bring the dogs in to us. You were good here!
>>I also think I was rotating my shoulders too soon, that is shockingly difficult to fix, but I’m trying to stay facing the wall.>>
I agree that this is a hard skill – but you were good! Don’t obsess on it too much, because you have it and she was able to respond beautifully 🙂
>>I did decide to shift to a barrel, and that seemed to help some. I’m going to continue working on sends separately, with a toy as reward and see if we can smooth things out.>>
Perfect! Do the send to the barrel or a wing as if you are going to move away to the serp… but don’t have the jump out there as a visual distraction for now. She did really really well coming in over the jump AND making the turns – super!!!!
>>But time to move on. This was a frustrating exercise, I should have moved on sooner.>>
I think you persevered nicely and this session turned out well!!! And yes, you can move on to something else too 🙂
Question, I must have missed the exercise on introducing backsides, and can’t seem to find it, maybe it was in the first session?
Yes, they were in MaxPup 1:
Slices:
Wraps:
Tight Turns: Leading With The Head and 360s (Backside Wraps)
>>Would move on to tunnels, but clean run is completely out of tunnel bags, it appears there is a tunnel bag shortage. I’d prefer not to continue without more tunnel bags, I’ll keep looking.>>
You can use some homemade tunnel bags – I have gotten some bags of sand from Lowes, put them in giant black garbage bags (like the leaf collection bags), and use those as tunnel bags by using a strap across the top of the tunnel to tie them together so they in place. I have also done this with water jugs and bags of small stones from garden stores 🙂
Nice work here!
TracyYAY! I am so happy to see him back in action, I was thinking of you!!!!
He did great here with focus switching between food and toy as you mentioned, and general focus in general. This was an excellent choice to ease him back into the games 🙂 He looked great!
His stay looked good, relaxed and happy! He was very happy to catch all the cheese balls LOL!
I am not sure he knew you wanted him to focus ahead on the MM, plus we don’t want to add motion to this quite yet – so you can be standing near the MM when you release him (rather than move alongside the jumps) so he has no striding questions. He was a little ‘hoppy’ over the 2nd jump but he was still learning to drive to the MM, so placing you out there with the MM will really help. For now, you can also move the MM about 6 to 8 feet further away from jump 2 so he can take a nice line stride to it after landing.
Eventually, he will see this with the moving target (toy on a line being dragged) and that will produce the best striding. So let me know what he is released to do, in terms of his rehab from the scope and from any ouchiness he had in March.
So with that in mind, what is he cleared to do? Let me know and we can plan for the live class this week. YAY!!
Tracy
Hi!
I have had those wild and crazy dogs at the beginning and it was a lot harder to train them to be really successful in competition. The wildness was not drive, it was usually a combination of frustration and lack of arousal regulation. The demo dogs in the videos have matured into wicked fast performance dogs without the frustration – for example, I think Contraband (the big blue merle BorderWhippet) looks slow and gawky in the demo videos 🙂 But he is 3 now, and is super fast and accurate, doing 3.6s in flyball (very fast!) and fast in agility with great turns: at the last trial, he won both rounds of steeplechase by about 7 seconds in each round, and also won jumping by a mile (I ran Standard as NFC).
So, it is always better to be patient, sort out the reinforcement system for each dog, let them really learn the skills, and the results will be lovely 🙂
We can play it by ear, or switch her to Thursday to give her an extra day (if you can do Thursday). Do you know what is causing the soreness?
Oh no! Hopefully it is something small and easy. Poor girl!! Which leg is it? Check her pads and toes – these fast little whippety creatures often bang up their pads and toes.
T
Hi!
She definitely got the hang go the wrap after the first couple of reps – then after that she was really solid. Nice job making your verbals sound really different and helping a little with body language then fading it back out.
I was happy to see her nail the first rep of the advanced level too! YAY! That is pretty hard but she did not end up back in the tunnel 🙂 Her turns were a tiny bit wider and there was steam coming out of her ears but she never ended up in the tunnel when you cued a wrap. Her only error was a wrap when you cued a tunnel, just an oopsie, no biggie and she was great on the rest of them. She also had a little trouble finding the other side of the tunnel after the wrap, but that was just because she is used to getting a reward after the wrap and might have been surprised about the tunnel cue.
But overall, these were both great sessions: she was amped up, barking, fast…. But still really wonderful about processing the verbals. YAY!!!
>>She has a sore leg so I may have to take it easy for a bit.>>
Poor girl! She might need a couple of days of rest/leash walks to resolve any soreness.
Great job here!
Tracy
