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Good morning!
>>Tugging in between the food rewards is brilliant and working so well!! I noticed the same thing and have spent several sessions just figuring out the food rewards and what “level” gets him where I need him. never even occurred to me to add the toy in to keep that enthusiasm.>>
Awesome! Figuring out what is needed to get him to the right arousal level, plus how to help him get himself there, is a process that will take us though adolescence and into adulthood. So if he is doing this well at 7 months old? Hooray!!!!!
The deceleration game is looking really strong! He was support about driving right to you, and was amazing about going from food to tugging to food.
He is already very speedy, so you will want to decelerate sooner: when he has taken 1 stride towards you, start the decel so he can organize his collection, then you can start the pivot as he is arriving near you (like you did here). You were starting the decel when he was maybe one stride from you, so you might have noticed that his butt was swinging out wide because he didn’t have time to process the mechanics of collecting. Decelerating sooner will get him to be able to turn super tight with you 🙂
Great job here!!
TracyGood morning!
>>That helps me break the mental logjam of “still working” on so much early stuff.>>
Cool! It is all meant to be moved through pretty quickly, and not repeated until it is perfect before moving on 🙂
>>I didn’t include the entire second direction due to a several minutes long interlude of “surely if I paw this machine enough it will give up the goods without me running through the tunnel”.>>
Well, I admire his optimism LOL! You can loop him back around to the start with a cookie in your hand so he has a good reason to leave the beloved TNT – so if he is on your left as you cue the tunnel, you can have him come to your left side for a cookie then send him into the tunnel again: cookie-fest! He will enjoy it 🙂
I think a shorter tunnel will be helpful for now – it was taking him a moment to go through it, and also he did manage the athletic feat of turning around to come out the entry LOL! So when you get your tunnel bags out, you can squish it to maybe 6 feet long so it is an easier pass through it.
Then, you can add in various angles around the clock to send him to the entry, as well as the threadle side (when he is between you and the tunnel) from other angles as well.
Great job here!!
TracyGood morning!
>>I stopped using my hand on the barrel sends since she was leaping at it. She does that once in this set.>>
Aha! Let’s use the hand, then, to sort out sending without leaping. It is a great opportunity to layer in impulse control!
She seems to LOVE the action of the barrel game and really zips around it fast and tight. So we can use it as a framework to let her see hands as part of the cue and not leap up with cookie expectations 🙂 So use a low, slow hand as part of the cue and hold position until she leaves your hand to go around the barrel. If she still wants to leap (cookie expectations are hard!) then you can put a bowl out on the other side of the barrel to give her a focal point that is different than her focus on the hand cue.
Parallel path is going well!!! For the next session, try to have the cookies in your hand not in your pocket – the hand in pocket draws her attention upwards to you 🙂 And you can keep moving back and forth so she can move through the uprights in extension. If you are stationary near the wing, she should collect (and have a different reward placement).
She did really well here, so you don’t need the click any more, you can mark with get it and throw. The clicks tend to get the pups looking at us, so you can mark with ‘get it’ when she is locked onto the jump and moving towards it, and throw right away so she continues to look straight.
She is also ready for something that resembles a bar to go over. Because she is o small, you can get a pool noodle and slice it in half lengthwise, so it is maybe an inch tall and won’t roll around.
>>There is no cookie against a wall that can force raw to turn the right way! We are making progress! >>
The rear crosses to her right are going really well! YAY!!! The rear crosses to her left are a little harder and definitely require you to be very clearly on her left side before she makes a decision. So for the right turn rear crosses… keep going with what you were doing here 🙂
For the left turn rear crosses, 2 ideas to give you more time to get to the new side so she sees the left turn:
– toss more than one treat so she has to scoop or 2 or 3 (which will give you more time).
– start a little further from the wall, more in the center of the room – and when you throw the cookies to the wall, she will have further to travel to get them and you will have less distance to cover to show the left turn.Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Good morning! Nice work on the games here!
The rear cross session was picture-perfect! Yay! By the 3rd rep, she totally had it figured out and seemed to have zero questions for the rest of it. Your attention to the cookie placement made a huge difference to helping her be super successful.
It is a good indoor game for when winter hits hard, so you can use the prop if you want: put the prop in the same spot next to the wall as the cookie was, and try sending her to it (like you did with the cookie) and do the rear cross. If the session is going as well as this cookie session did, you can start moving the prop away from the wall (and keep doing the rear cross nice and early like you did, so start yourself and Roux further from the prop when you do that to give yourself enough room and time to make the RC visible).
The parallel path game looks terrific! You started clicking earlier (as she was locking onto the jump, rather than when she arrived at it) and that was great! At this point, you can take the clicker out entirely (the click tends to get the pups looking at us) and replace it with your ‘get it’ marker for a thrown reward. Keep marking the intent to go to the jump so she looks forward the whole time. You can also throw a toy instead of treats. And you can start to move yourself away so you are adding more and more lateral distance. And if you are feeling spicy, you can add more motion: you can jog and then build up to running 🙂
>>I am working on her concentrating on me when we aren’t home and I can see her maturing in this. Although as you can see in the video when a strange man walks in and a friend she gets distracted for a minute but then comes right back to me.>>
She did really well with that!! It sounds like they were pretty close! Yay! You can use the pattern game from the resilience track to help her ignore distractions like fun people – you can see it here in week 3:
And then we build on it in week 5:
Sideways and backwards sending looked great – nice job to you with very clear mechanics on the send, including looking back at the barrel. That really helped her!
You added distance at 4:13 so she had to think it through (nice job being patient so she could sort it out) but that was kind of a breakthrough moment for her – she got faster and faster going to the barrel after that. She was already fast driving back to you, but seeing her have the lightbulb moment and add speed going TO the barrel was really great!
I was very excited to see her be able to choose to go to the barrel even when your send hand had the toy dangling from it. Hooray for layering in impulse control!!!!
The other thing you can add is a bit of ready dance before the send… that added bit of excitement can also get more speed going to the barrel to match the speed she has coming back to you.
Great job here!!!! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
One thing I notice here is that he is doing really well with the ‘ready’ word – he used to get really stimulated by it but now it is just a fun part of the game 🙂
You called his name the first few times and I think that was more of a recall to him so he looked at you – at the end, you were just saying “bring it” and that worked better to get a couple of steps towards you. I would keep going with that – throw the toy, use bring it, be encouraging like you were. And if you have a smaller space (like a smaller room or hallway) where you can sit on the floor and not throw it as far, then encourage him to take the 1 or 2 steps back to you – that can end up being right to your hands! Even if you don’t have a smaller space, try sitting on the floor and tossing it maybe 3 feet. If he turns and takes just one step towards you, that will still be a retrieve to your hands 🙂
Looking good here! Keep me posted!
TracyOMG! Her head down trick is so adorable!!! Love it!!!! Now to get her to hold it there so you can take photos of the cuteness LOL!!!!
OK, next trick to do while she recovers: teach her to hold something in her mouth (setting up for future photos where she holds her ribbons :))
There are a lot of ways to do this, but mainly it is shaping her pick something up and gradually delay the out cue so it builds up to a hold. Start with something easy and eventually you can build up to crazy thing – a friend of mine taught her dog to hold a hot dog and an egg.
Have fun!
Tracy
Hi!
Great news about the stay ‘catch’ game, especially in a new place! So fun!!!Parallel path looked great – nice timing of the ‘get it’ marker so she was looking ahead really well! She was looking ahead perfectly on your left side and almost perfectly o your right (a few more glances towards you). You can throw a toy for this game too! Because of her age, this game does not need to go into the regular training rotation yet – she picked it up really quickly and there is not a whole lot of stuff to do with actual jumping at this point 🙂
The lap turn looked good! One small tweak to the mechanics is to step directly back and draw your arm straight back as you turn her – you were moving your hand a bit to the side so she was a little wider and not as snappy on the turn. Hitting the prop after the turn looked really strong!
>>she had no issues even without the treat in my hand.>>
She did look at the empty hand a bit like “what the heck, no cookie??” It was funny and cute!
>>She’s in full on teething mode and really not gripping or pulling well on her toys. She seems to still in interested in chasing them while I drag them and biting them. Is it ok to keep using them?>>
Yes – keep throwing and dragging the toys, and use the softest fuzziest ones you can fine. She will get back to biting and tugging hard soon 🙂
Great job here!
TracyGood morning!
Thanks for the video!!! One thing worth pointing out: LOOK HOW WELL SHE RAN OFF THE START LINE RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE RING ENTRY AND ALL THE PEOPLE!!! That is a huge win. A few weeks ago, she couldn’t do that nearly as well.
>>She went straight to check out a new person that was hanging over the fence to the field. It took her 10 seconds or so to return to me. I think my substitute dog is loosing its power.>>
I think two things might have happened to cause that. Yes, the stop at the end of the contact was part of it (see below) but also she might have had to use of so much brain juice to ignore the people at the start, that she couldn’t do it twice especially since she was moving towards the new person and not away! And the two things together (new person + stopped contact) made for a zoomie. Some ideas for you:
>> I try to make a point of getting a good connection at her stopped contact as that’s a place where I have lost her. That said, I reconnect and then fail miserably at staying connected. >>
I am not sure this was a matter of not maintaining eye contact. It might have been too much stopping changed her arousal state (she was definitely on the edge here but doing well). She was engaged at the bottom of the contact – so if you reward in position, I think you should also re-start her differently.
Many, many dogs struggle with being rewarded in the stop and then waiting for the handler to lead out again. So you can release her to you then reward, or throw a reward to her as the release – both of those involve movement and a Viszla needs movement as part of arousal regulation (I have never met a V that didn’t need to move as part of arousal regulation). So the reward process on the DW can look different – or you can release and reward with movement. yes, stay connected and she might need a ‘brake’ arm (opposite arm) as part of the turn cue to the weaves, but the release to keep going will be helpful. And you can use a target to help her stop so you don’t lose criteria there.
With the new person in class, since that triggers some zoomie action, you can also add in doing short blast runs near the new person: turning towards the person then turning away and rewarding. It can even be flatwork, on leash, just shadow handling front crosses on the flat! And if she can’t do that, you can do some pattern games around the new person before you go into the ring 🙂 New people are a great opportunity to use them to practice the arousal and engagement games.
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning Annalise and Team Prytania!
Super job working through the challenging backside and rear cross on the sequence!
For the backside, you can run to where the wing and bar meet – but maintain big connection as you move forward until she is past you and heading to the backside. On the first rep, you curled away too early, so she followed the line of your shoulders to the front. I call that a ‘banana line’ because you ran a curved line in the shape of a banana LOL! Try to run a straight line to the backside til she is committing to going around the wing.
On the 2nd time through there, you kept moving forward longer and that totally helped! You got closer to the entry wing to support her, so you can work on being a little further away but maintaining the connection like you did on the 2nd rep.
She let you fix it there and stayed happy (the other option is to keep going and fix it in the next turn) and then had trouble with reading the rear cross.
The rear cross is HARD here because of the weird angles and the straight line jump right in front of her. You were a tiny bit late getting close to the RC line at :16 and :31 for a baby dog (when she is more experienced, she will read the pressure as you moved towards the line for the RC)
It was great to have you mom throw the toy, and you also got onto the RC line earlier and earlier (it feels weird to get on the RC line that earlier, right??!!)
>>She did have a loss of focus when there was a mistake(backside positioning proved difficult for handler) and it was a more difficult skill for her (rear). >>
Yes, at about :55 on the start line, she was a bit deflated. She is definitely getting more resilient to bloopers on course, so keep rewarding and continuing like you have been doing.
One other idea:
When there is a really hard sequence and there have been a couple of bloopers, you can mix things up differently to keep her pumped up: instead of do the hard sequence again right then, you can do a really easy one that starts on a different jump. And, you can take out the stay and just start by sending her into the tunnel to get her pumped up again.The other thing you can do is get her pumped up with the cartoon mashup lead outs – check out the And Beyond – Releases games in packages 3 and 4. It is goofy and fun and she might LOVE it when she needs a boost 🙂
She came back to focus after she got into the tunnel the 2nd time in that sequence (great job staying in the moment and getting her happy!!) and you got on the RC line SUPER early at 1:19 so she got it. YAY!!!!! It seems so weird to get on the RC line that early and from ahead of her, but it was correct here on the hard angles.
When you revisited this sequence at the end:
I think on the opening at 2:01 you were running straight and didn’t really turn your shoulders, so she thought you wanted the jump. Good job to just continue! She let you fix the backside but you can isolate that tunnel-backside skill to work on the straight line she needs to see to commit.
You got on the RC line really nicely at 2:17! Because it might feel weird to do a RC from a little ahead of her, you turned your shoulder to the left turn side of the wing (watch it in slow motion and you will see your right arm pointing to the jump). That is a really small movement but it cues a left turn for her, so you can see her start to turn left but then she realizes it is a right turn (verbal and motion helped a lot there) so she switches to the right turn.
So you don’t need to turn your shoulders to the jump as much – trust her commitment and she will drive past you 🙂
The 2nd sequence here looked great! The timing of your first wrap cues at 1:31 was good – you can decel sooner and keep running straight – you were moving towards her so for a moment, she looked to her right as if considering a rear cross!
Compare to your next rep – GREAT timing at 1:52, starting the decel and verbal as she was in the air over the jump before the wrap, and nice decel. The turn was amazing and she had no questions!!
And great drive on the line back to the. Tunnel. YAY!! And don’t get too mad at your mom if the throw goes wild LOL!!!!
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Good morning!
This was an interest session!
>>We had done a session of this at EOTT using some cheese and then a toy for a few reps and it went quite well. >>
Do you remember if you had the cheese container on the ground next to your leg at EOTT? The 3-heads look appeared to be because she couldn’t possibly get near the cheese container and needed to be a little herdy – couldn’t quite process working with coordinated movement next to it. So the session was more about the processing of doing a thing while her brain was dealing with the cheese-on-the-ground distraction. So she was watching it, herding it a little, and couldn’t quite process the cue to do a coordinated jump over your legs. The puppy brain will prioritize certain things and literally make them appear bigger. So it is possible that her brain was making the cheese container look HUGE and your legs look tiny by comparison, so all she could “see” was the cheese. That delays the processing and the mechanics of other behavior.
This is exactly why we play these goofy puppy games – for the processing, not just the skills 🙂 Processing this on your leg bumps will make it a lot easier when she processes it on real jumps 🙂
Then when you tried to get tugging, she gave you the look of “I can’t right now” so you changed gears (smart!) so you didn’t get frustration behavior. Excellent job supporting the pup as she was trying to work through it!
You were able to get her to walk through and use your legs like cavalettis which was a HUGE win considering how hard the cheese container on the ground was for her here.
You put the cheese away at about 3:00 and she could tug but needed a coffee break with it first (took it way to chew for a moment) – then you got toy interaction really nicely!
It would be interesting to see how she does with leg bumps with the cheese starting up high on the counter first to get the behavior rolling… then move the cheese to the ground after a few successful reps to see if she can still process her mechanics even with the big cheese distraction.
>>2 questions – I don’t have a ladder. What’s a good substitute? poles stuck through low holes on cones?>>
Yes – I did a cheap and quick set of cavalettis from amazon. Skinny poles and cones with holes, and I use them for conditioning stuff too. I can find the link if you like. A real jump bar might be too thick for her at this point – the set I got from Amazon has poles that are really thin.
>>Is Lift’s parallel prop work strong enough that I should try the jump?>>I think so! You can warm her up with just the prop and see how she does with it. Then you can transfer it with an intermediate step of the prop between 2 jump uprights. And if she is happy with that, you can put a pool noodle or tiny bump in to replace the prop.
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Good morning!
The barrel sending looked really strong! She needed a warm-up rep on the first one, when she came back to you when you moved away quickly. So let her have an easy first rep then you can move to the harder ones. After the first rep, she was zipping around it at a million miles per hour LOL!! As you add the sideways and backwards sending to the barrel, add in using your arm to send as well. The toy can be in the opposite hand and the arm & leg closer to the barrel point to it. That will look more like what she will see on course.
The rear crosses are working well! She needs the cookie tossed close enough to the wall that she really can only turn the new direction 🙂 That gives you time to get the new side and gives her less opportunity to turn the other way. Most of the cookie tosses here were perfect so you had time to do the rear and she could only turn the new direction, which helps her to process it. The one cookie toss that was too far from the wall (and too close to you) made it easy to turn the wrong way and hard for you to get to the new side. So definitely keep using the toss to the walk to help her out 🙂
Nice work here! Good luck with the puppy show today!!! Get lots of photos!!!!!
Tracy
Good morning!
>>I’m struggling with when to move on to the next games vs continuing to work towards the more advanced versions. The games build on each other over time so do we need to get all the way to advanced level or move on, let the skills build, and come back to more advanced levels if we struggle later?>>
This is an excellent question!!!!
In thinking about it, it will depend on the individual puppy and how hard the skill is in terms of what is needed to be ‘successful’ at the advanced level.
For example: backing up requires a lot of development and coordination, so it is likely to lag behind the other skills and will take longer to get backing up onto something that moves. So you can re-visit it here and there, no rush, because we cannot rush coordination and physical development 🙂Another example: the handling games like turn and burn or the games on the flat are a bit of commitment training for him, and mostly handling from you 🙂 So you might find that you get to the advanced level really quickly on those.
One thing about the levels, especially the advanced levels: nothing needs to be perfect 🙂 You can be ‘good-ish’ or ‘mostly correct’ 🙂 The advanced levels all get re-visiting somehow when we build up the baby level of a new game, so if he needs more help, we can always help him out. That way you can feel confident moving forward and even if the skills are not perfect at each level.
>>For example, we worked a more advanced level of back up to a large balance disk tonight.>>
That is really hard for most puppies! So if he needs more sessions spread out over time, no worries – it won’t hold him back from moving forward with the other games 🙂
Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>>I think I am doing better on focusing on the process and making it as successful as I can for her.>>
You are doing a great job of that! Teenage dogs give us know choice to focus on the process 🙂 The videos are showing that you and Caper are making huge progress!
>> I wonder if having the walls of the indoor help her focus on the jump ahead but she sure thought it was fun.>>
I was trying to figure out what the differences could be versus outdoors at home. Fewer distractions indoors? Early puppy experiences there that bring her to a different arousal state? No cats? LOL!! We will never know, but we will embrace it as a fantastic way to get closer to the goals.
The throw back looked good on the first rep! You just need to reconnect sooner to show her the next jump. You did that at :42 and she took the jump. Yay!
I am pretty sure she went straight over the #5 jump then past it on the next rep through there because of the rewards previously for driving straight. Good job getting her back on track and breaking it down so she could look for it (and soon as you were like “Caper we need you to take this jump” she was great about finding it.For the jump after it (jump 6) – you need a collection cue before 5 so she gets a pretty significant left turn to landing facing the next jump – otherwise she is on the backside line and would run past it to the backside, like she did a few times.
She did have a couple of questions about jump 1 – you need to face the takeoff spot of jump 1 more for the release to it. On. The very first rep, you were moving parallel to it which worked for her. At :24 and :33 you were turned away from it, so she did not even consider it. You can get to your lead out position and turn to face the takeoff spot before you release, then step towards it as you release to support that #1 jump.
She was terrific with the high arousal lead outs!!! he was able to ignore the reward station even though it was literally in the middle of things LOL! And she was VERY stimulated )sa were the other dogs) but she did a brilliant job of holding her stay and FINDING HER JUMPS. YAY!!!
Do you have snow on the ground? If the ground is still usable, it would be interesting to re-create this exact same session at home and see if we can get the same or similar behavior.
Great job here!!!
Tracy
Good morning! He was quite brilliant here!!!
He did really well with the 10 tunnel game to targeting on the plank. It is a really easy way to practice his contacts LOL! The best thing about this is that I didn’t really see him get overaroused. He was more excited, yes, but still happy and able to respond really well. That is part of the reason why he is doing so well with his FEO runs and is just about ready to run for real 🙂
I love that you did it with weaves too – it is definitely something all dog need to see and he was perfect.
And the stay on the last video was perfect. He did SO WELL here!! It is unusual that young dogs have no real struggle with this game, but he is perfectly fine with managing his arousal. YAY!!!!
So one thought to add to this: the only time I can recall him ever getting overaroused is when he is a little frustrated (handling goes wrong or something) and he jumps up at you (and there was a video with him jumping up at someone else a while ago).
You can directly address that with this game – 10 tunnels then a short sequence that you mess up and disconnect on purpose, and stop moving (don’t be your usually good dog trainer where you keep going or reward LOL). Do you remember the Find My Face game? It is basically getting him wild with the tunnels then doing that game, to see if he can regulate his arousal when he is frustrated.
Great job here!
TracyHi!
>>They are sequences, not drive ahead, but Sid did drive ahead! AND he tried to pick up the numbers!>>
He did great! I watched them and commented in the order you posted them (but it might not be the order you ran them in).
What do you mean by pick up the numbers? Was he trying to run around with them LOL!
Looking at the videos:
Driving ahead 3 and 2 were posted first –
Really nice! He really liked the crouchy lead out on the Driving ahead # 2 video 🙂
Good job with the wrap verbal. The better & faster line for him will be to turn him on the slice (to his left) on 3 at :18 on the #3 video and :25 on the #2 videoDriving ahead video – really nice!!!!! On the #6 jump, you flipped him to his left and it was GREAT! He turned beautifully and you were able to layer the jump so get ahead of him to the last jump. Super!
On the last video – really nice opening here! At :16 on the turn from jump 5 to 6, he needed an earlier cue to come in and take 6. When he was taking 5, you said Go so he appeared to think you were wanting to layer the jump. If you call him as he takes off for 5 then keep calling him (along with the serp cues) then he will come in to the jump more easily. That way you can do. The blind if you want to, or have a smoother rear cross.
Great job on these! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
