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Good morning!
>>I’ll try to clear a spot with the blower to be able to play on grass.>>
That is a great idea! Fingers crossed you can get a clear spot because OUCH no one wants to run on marbles!
The smiley face games are going well! His commitment is looking good. I totally see what you are saying about the handler focus. I don’t think it is a baby dog thing, so we can help him focus more on the line. 2 ideas for you:
– ramp up the connection to his eyes as you move in and out of the FCs on the wings. That will help him look forward at the lines more. For example, at :31 you were not really looking at him, so he looks at you. Compare to
:32 after the wing wrap exit – great connection so he never looked at you and drove straight to the tunnel.At :35 you were looking at and talking to the wing so he came into you looking a you and did not take the wing , so more connection will really help there too!
More connection to his eyes will help but also I think changing the placement of reinforcement will make the biggest difference:
Even when you make GREAT connection, like :45 – :53, he still looks at you especially when he is getting close to you, even leaping up a little when he gets to your side. This is most likely due to the placement of reinforcement coming out of your pocket from your hand at your side, with him facing you. So like a smart border collie, he is figuring out how to move on the line AND watch you (and the reinforcement) closely. 🙂 That is likely the root of the handler focus you are seeing, which then gets affirmed when he watches the delivery of the reward.
Easy fix: no more reward from your hands or pockets 🙂 It can be tossed out on the line after the tunnel or after a wrap, so he learns that watching you is inefficient. It will be even easier if you have someone else to throw the toy because it is so hard to place it on a line in this game, but you having it scrunched up in your hand and throwing it will definitely shift his focus to the line more.
Using a very visible cookie to throw will work well here and might even be a better choice because it might be harder to track the throw of something smaller, but also you can use a toy -this is a great time to sort out any toy play questions he might have.
Great job!!
TracyGood morning!
The side eye at the beginning of the smiley face video was so funny! Ha!
Lots of great work in the smily face video. You are making this game fast and fun for her, which is the #1 most important thing!
The first set of reps, where it was basically wing- tunnel-wing, looked really strong. She has excellent commitment! And you are consistently connected to her on the exits of the FC on the wings – NICE!!
One thing to add more of is connection to her eye when she exits the tunnel on your right side.
When she exits on your left side, you have your head turned back to her, like at :26 and :36, which gives clear info where to go next.
When she exits on your right side like at :22 and 1:29 for example, you were looking ahead to the wing and not at her, so if you free the video when her face appears at the tunnel exit, she is looking at you for more info. Compare to :40 where you were a lot more connected as she exited and she didn’t have to look at you as much.
You can also do more running with your arms low and just tucked at your side like you are jogging or sprinting, rather than up high. High arms block connection for the smalls 🙂 So when you are doing the FC on the wings and connecting with her on the tunnel exits, your arms are brilliantly low and she sees the full connection. Compare that to the race tracks at :48 – :51 and your arm gets as high as your shoulder. That blocks connected so she looks at you as she comes around the first wing (at 1:09 too).
Terrific job getting all the verbals going!
You asked if the tunnel cue at 1:31 should have been the tunnel threadle cue – yes, I believe that would be a better use of the verbals there. She read the handling brilliantly!At 1:38 and 1:46 you added the spin (FC to BC move). She read the line brilliantly but ended up on your left when you wanted her on your right, due to some lateness on the reconnection after the blind.
Starting the FC element of it sooner will really help (before she gets to the wing) because then you can start the BC element sooner too – not faster, because you were really fast, just sooner :). Starting it sooner will allow you more time to make the re-connection after the blind. By the time you got your eyes back to her eyes (1:39 and 1:48) she was already on your left side and heading to the tunnel (good girl! Nice reward there!)You got the connection in sooner at 1:58 so she got to your right side (yay!). She didn’t go into the tunnel because of your big “YEAH!” Which is the universal verbal for “cookies now” haha! But the handling looked strong there!
Set point – looking at the September video first, this is going well! I think this 3 foot distance is the sweet spot for her.
Her stay looks great (only one crazy moment LOL!), her position relative to jump 1 looked great (she hit the noodle on the last rep so she might have been too close there, or maybe it was that you crouched after saying the release to that distracted her).Her form over jump 1 is perfect. I think the MM might be a little too close to jump 2, because at first she was a little leapy, going more up than over, but that is normal when we use the MM, we get some leaping 🙂 Then she smoothed it out but she was decelerating over 2 rather than powering over it, so moving the MM another 5 or 6 feet away from jump 2 should give her room to land powerfully, take another full extension stride, then get to the MM.
You being low at the MM really helps her with her form! It will be even easier when the MM is on wheels 🙂 but for now, keep getting low to direct her focus downwards.
I think we can add a bar to jump 2, maybe at 4 inches, and see how she does!
Wow, the March video is a great comparison, she was such a puppy back then! It is pretty amazing how things change in just 6 months. She is a lot more mature now and has much better mechanics, just a few months later. You can see in the March video that she is going fast too, but not nearly as coordinated as she is now. What a fun comparison, I am glad you had the video!
Great job on all of these 🙂
Tracy>>It’s always the thing you forget when you get a puppy – how much crap you have to manage at once LOL.>>
TRUTH!
My philosophy is that we need at least 4 arms to be able to train puppies LOL!!!! And maybe 6 arms when they move as fast as Lu does 🙂
T
Good morning! Nice talking to you last night on Zoom! I am excited for what is ahead!!
And I am VERY happy to see him in action here 🙂 He is definitely ready and did great on these videos!
Looking at the set point:
His stay looked great, and the moving target accomplished the goal of getting his head down and powering off the hind end. I think overall his mechanics look really good, and only one tweak: he was too far from jump 1 on all the reps except at :54. By being too far, he had to spend a lot of time (in dog time haha) figuring out how to step into the first jump, so you can see some lead changes and even landing on the bump a bit. But when he was in the sweet spot at :54, he was balanced and showed lovely form.That sweet spot had his front feet just under the length of your foot away from the first bump. So you can use your foot as a measuring tool: lure him into a line up with his front feet next to your toes. Let me know if that makes sense or if I need more coffee 🙂
>>Looks to me like he needs the jumps closer together?
Actually, I think he will need them further apart pretty soon. How far apart are these – my guess is he will end up at 6 feet apart pretty soon, especially on grass. And you can try to get this on grass while the weather is still good!
The wind in your hair game is looking good! His commitment is solid to both the wrap and the jump, so now we can look at getting more distance, verbals, etc.
For the wrap – you can use your wrap verbal on that (I don’t think you were using it, or maybe it was really quiet 🙂 )
The GO verbal was really clear!
When you were doing the GO to the jump, he looks at you a lot – either directly or peripherally. The super early reward throws helped a lot, but it looks like it as hard to pinpoint the moment he looked forward and throw the toy, all before he looked at you.The best reps where when you had the toy placed out past jump 2 – he didn’t look at you at all. Yay! So do a few more sessions with the placed reward as a target, and then we can go back to throwing it when he focuses on the jump more and looks at you less when it is not there.
Some of the bloopers were connection errors, especially when he was wrapping the barrel to his left. If you disconnected and looked ahead (like at 1:40 and 2:25), the disconnection actually looked like the shoulder movement of a blind cross so he read you correctly and ended up on your other side. Good boy! When you showed strong connection on the exit of the barrel wrap (like on the last rep), he was super tight and stayed on the correct side. Connection for the win!
Nice work getting more distance added and tons of speed. He seems to bring the speed to everything he does, so we will be sure to use reward placement to get the mechanics and line focus as we build up the skills.
And this game can go outside onto grass too – that will make for different mechanics for him, and it is good to show him that before the snows come (or before you come south for a month in the winter LOL!!)
Great job here!!! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
I agree, this is a really strong session!!! Tons of success! Watching it all the way through and see what the oopsie moments had in common:The errors came back to one thing – the transition from the toy play to the line up and collar hold! It looks like she is not a huge fan of the collar hold and being moved into position by the collar so she is avoiding it a little by moving away and starting the rep before really hearing the verbal. So sometimes she got it right and sometimes not so much 🙂
But when you did a smooth transition from the toy play to the line up in front of the wing, she got it right every.single.time.
It is funny how a small detail like a transition can make such a difference – and it is hard to see in the moment and much easier to see on video.
So, with the goal being that you can hold her til she hears the verbal 3 or 4 times, make the transition like you did at 2:11 and 2:28. On those moments, you tugged with her til she was in position to the next starting position, then you gently took her collar, then took the toy out, and even gave her a treat. PERFECT! She had no concerns, did not avoid, and was highly successful. The only thing to add is holding her for one more heartbeat so she can hear the verbals for longer before moving.
Another way to work the transition is to use a line up cookie then slip a finger under her collar, but I think she liked the tugging into position then the collar hold you did a 2:11 and 2:48 better.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
The reps here look great: consistent and powerful. Her head is low and she is striding nicely. She is not trying to change things in each rep, which likely means she is comfortable and feeling good about the movement. And her stay looks FANTASTIC which makes training this sooooo much easier 🙂I think we need to give her more elevation on bar 2. Remind me how old she is? It looks like you had a super low bar here on jump 2, so let’s take it up a notch by 2 inches. And then my guess is that we will move it up another 2 inches pretty quickly. And then you can put a bar in on the first jump as well, at 4 inches.
Adding elevation to jump 2 might be something she has to work out while maintaining her form, or maybe not and she will have zero questions LOL! She will let us know 🙂 And since she is so young, no need to do this more than twice a week. As she continues to sort out her mechanics, we might tinker with the distance and heights. The set point becomes the foundation for other grids so we can keep building it up.
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
Major congrats on all the titles and wins! JJ is a talented, versatile girl! Love it!!! I know she will also be a brilliant agility dog when she starts competing 🙂
>>I am still not sure she is solid on her verbal‘s for wraps. Unfortunately, we worked on reps with Jen Pinder and did this without verbals, so I believe we need more work on this.>>
No worries! The verbals are the last thing to get solid, so we keep using them and rehearsing them. They will lock in when she is more experienced.
Because the games are getting more complex in terms of the verbals, I highly recommend giving yourselves a mini walk through before each rep to practice getting the verbals out. And when the verbals went a little awry, you did the right thing of continuing to use motion and rewarding her.
The smiley face videos are looking great! Sandie is doing a marvelous job!
On the first video – she loves her Cato board for sure, that was pretty hilarious!! I also think that there was a disconnection there (Sandie was looking forward to the wing when JJ exited the tunnel) so JJ took a guess about what it was and the Cato board was nearby. Clever! On the other passes on this clip, there was more connection and JJ didn’t look at the Cato board 🙂
2nd video was pretty perfect in both directions. One thing I notice is that JJ has picked up a new gear of speed! That will mean some distance handling as she continues to add more and more speed, but that is fine. As long as you are connected and giving the cues directly to her, she will find the lines. The only place she had a question here was right at the very end. If you watch it in slow motion, you can see what JJ is seeing:
At 1:00, Sandie makes excellent connection as JJ comes around the wing. As JJ catches up to her, Sandie starts to point forward ahead of JJ a 1:01, which turns her shoulders and feet to the other end of the tunnel. And so that is exactly where JJ went. Good girl! She reads shoulders and motion as the primary cues, which is what we want, so adding more eye contact every step of the way will help direct her to the line you want by lining up your shoulders to the line.Compare that moment to the next video at :10, where Sandie makes the great connection around the wing and maintains it better, so JJ sees her feet and shoulders pointing to the end of the tunnel you wanted. Nailed it! The 2nd run on this video was lovely!
Video 4 had the race tracks and that looked great! JJ is understanding the difference between wraps and soft turns really well. The left and right verbals went well. Transitioning to the wrap verbals was harder 🙂 so that is where you can do mini walk throughs to get the wraps and soft turn verbals ready to roll 🙂
>>The new brace doesn’t allow her to move super fluidly. That keeps her from being where she wants to be as she exits the tunnel. I noticed Jay’s ribs aren’t real tight so it looks like we need more work on that. I’m not sure how to best do that.>>
I don’t think handler position is as important as connection on these 🙂
You will notice on this one (and the others) that JJ head checks a bit especially on the exit of the tunnel or drifts a little wide from the tunnel to the wing (especially on your right). That is because the connection is a line too soft when she exits the tunnel, she can only see a little bit of your face so she is ‘information seeking’ by looking up or drifting wide. If you crank up the amount of connection and look squarely back to her eyes, she will look forward to the line better and drive the lines even tighter.
The wraps will tighten up with more connection too, and in coming weeks we work on the timing of the cues to get them tighter and tighter. However, at this age, we want JJ to enjoy the thrill of going fast fast fast while paying attention to the cues – so the wraps don’t need to be super tight. Also, she is small, so one thing to consider is that those pretty, magazine-cover wraps might not actually be the fastest lines for her, and slightly wider is better/faster. We will get into that more later in the class 🙂
>>I think in the J was losing interest in the game so we quit for the session.>>
Yes, I could see in the previous video that she was getting tired and going into a down between reps. It is a lot of running for the dogs (and for the humans too LOL!!)
She was still mentally in the game, though, and did really well! You can see her looking up at Sandie here and not always taking the wings – that was a connection question too. Note how well JJ found the line around the wings at :25 – :27. That was when Sandie was running parallel to the line, and had a low arm and lots of connection, so JJ had no questions. Yay!
Compare to :34 and :38, where Sandie was pointing forward to the wing (and ahead of JJ) which was pulling her feet and shoulders away from the line to the wing… so JJ followed the feet and shoulders. Good girl!!!!
So overall, her understanding of lines is great and she is reading feet/shoulders/motion pretty perfectly. The next step on this game (or any of our wing/tunnel games) is to try to run them with sustained connection and low arms the whole time.
I am not sure if I showed you this game? It is a super fun way to get and maintain connection without needing to sprint:
It is a good one to do with the wing/tunnel games!
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHello! Mr. Pesto is doing really well here!
He is doing well with the wing/tunnel discrimination game! We can clarify a couple of things for him:
He was thinking really hard here! To get him exploding to the wing or tunnel, start with your hand on his harness (just holding him not moving him around), say the verbal 3 or 4 times… and THEN let him go. That will clarify when he should start moving and also gives him a moment to process the verbal before he starts moving.Also, don’t use check check (which means wrap) and then tunnel all on the same rep – check means come all the way around the wing and don’t take the tunnel, so either use the check only or the tunnel only (he can go past the wing to get into the tunnel, that is fine. You were clearer with this in the 2nd half of the video.
>>Proofing – are there ways to progress this?
You can add more of your motion (turning to the tunnel, stepping to the wing, and on the combos, you can meet him at the tunnel exit and move towards the wing). We will also be adding more to this with other games in coming weeks 🙂
Looking at the set point:
>>Set Point – Is this the right distance apart? I think the last one looks the best.
I agree, the last one looks the best! I think the distance can actually be about 6 inches further apart that it was here, maybe more.
But more importantly: no more manners minder for this game, because it is inducing leaping 🙂 It is not that unusual to get leaping in the presence of the MM, take a look at the beginning of this video LOL!
So for Pesto, switch to the moving target toy that you used in the pre-game (more on that coming tomorrow). We might eventually be able to go back to the MM and have it much further away, but for now, let’s get the mechanics of head down jumping going with the moving target. His stay looked fabulous so the moving target will be easy to add to the game!
The smiley face game is going really well – he is showing lovely commitment to hte wing and tunnel, and his focus and tugging are great!
One tweak – you need to spread these out so you can move more rather than be stationary and sending. The deceleration and sending was a little confusing to him and there was not a lot of connection with the sending, so getting you running will really help support the lines (and less pointing ahead :)) And moving more will get you to use your dog-side leg more: when you send with your dog side arm but not with your dog-side leg, he has big questions (like at :16 and :53 and 1:49, where your dog side leg was way back and he was not sure if he should go past it). So when in motion or when sending, use the dog side leg to step to the wing or tunnel you want as part of the cue.
>> is it possible to increase clarity going from wing to wing or is just him learning?
It is your lack of motion that is causing him to not drive to the 2nd wing, because the decel and send reads more as a wrap. Think back to the MaxPup 1 race tracks where we were running wing to wing – you can do that here and he will drive to the 2nd wing more 🙂 Also, using the wrap verbals when you sometimes wanted wing to wing and sometimes wanted wrap to the tunnel might be why he had questions – more on that below.
Remember that he is really small so your arm needs to be low and always pointing down to his nose rather than up high and pointing to the obstacles. When your arm gets up past your shoulder, you are blocking his view of the connection so he is not as sure of where to be when you are sending and ends up looking at you for more info.
Also, assume any and all dog errors are caused by handler errors… so either keep going or reward him because he is reading you correctly 🙂 For example, at 1:47, you cued a wrap but your dog-side leg was way back and you started rotating away too soon, so he didn’t take the wing and he was correct to take the tunnel. You can (and should!) reward with the toy not just praise, that because he was following handling correctly, particularly at this very early stage where the pups don’t know enough to save our butts 🙂
You got closer to the wing on the next rep and didn’t move away as early, so he got it – but I will keep bugging you to get your dog-side leg involved because that will make a huge difference to him.>> I don’t have a soft turn cue so I used check which is my wrap cue. Thoughts?>>
You are doing a great job adding all the verbals here! But… you will need a soft turn verbal and you can’t use the wrap verbal for the soft turns 🙂 The soft turn and the wrap are entirely different behaviors (especially when we get jumping involved) so you will need to add your soft turn verbals from the Minny Pinny work we did in MaxPup 1 🙂 It is totally worth it to do so! And since the wrap is going really well, now is a good time to add the left/right verbals for soft turns to begin rehearsing using them 🙂
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyYes – anywhere between 15 and 18 feet past the 2nd jump is great so she can powerfully stride out of the grid. If the reward is too close, she will be decelerating in the grid which we don’t want.
T
Hi!
>>Thank you for the tug videos! I worked with her a little over the weekend and had some success with her letting go when I made the toy go still.
Perfect!!
>>I have also put my Manners Minder on wheels and dragged it LOL!!! Food based toys are still toys 🙂
This is BRILLIANT! I may do this. The MM is life to my dogs.>>
Here is the link to the ones I use:
>>Well, I only have 1 MM, so I put it on the setting where it randomly dispenses and left the Bazinga with it behind the gate on my deck and went to work with Frankie in the yard. The MM was so comepelling, every time it dispensed, Frankie ran up the stairs to go see if she could get some! It was pretty funny.>>
That is hilarious!!! Frankie does NOT want to miss out LOL!!
>>Also, I was so excited to see your posts about MaxPup4 I was going to be asking you so many questions about how to debut a puppy. I am excited to take the class. Will you be offering it after the MaxMup3 session from this group too?>>
Yes – it will come in the line up for this group too. I have a very systematic way to get young dogs into the competition ring and keeping them fast and happy!
Wind In Your Hair is looking fabulous! You are correct, she was ALL IN and no need for walking 🙂 And yes, try to say Go Go Go more, I don’t think you need to say get it. She totally liked that toy too!
I think her only question was about when the toy was available for grabbing, especially when she was on your right after the wing wrap. When it was dangling in front of her, she sometimes reached up for it, not quite sure if it was a reward for the wrap or she needed to take the jump (she didn’t really do it on your left). So two options to help answer here question:
You can scrunch up the toy into your first so it is not dangling
And/or you can always have it in the opposite hand so you are still throwing it but it is not right in front of her as she exits the wing wrap.Next steps on this are to keep adding more and more distance, so she keeps leaving you in the dust more and more. Try to work up to 25 feet between the wing and jump! As the distance increases, if you are finding it hard to throw the toy to land out ahead of her, you can use a placed toy (or the MM).
The wrap versus tunnel is looking good! great job making your verbals sound VERY different, that is so important and useful!
She had trouble with the tunnel when you did not turn your feet, so for now do one step towards the tunnel on the tunnel cues. The stationary feet match the wrap cues, so that worked really well!
When you do the combos, she did not go to the off course tunnel but she had a question about the wrap at 1:20 and 1:57. it is possible that you were blocking the wing a little and not taking a step to it (she was fine when you stepped to the wing). So you can tuck yourself in closer to the tunnel so she sees the full wing when she exits – that might help her commit even when you don’t step to the wing.
Great job here!! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
Excellent sessions here! The skills are looking good and Skeeter looks VERY happy to be playing these crazy games 🙂 Yay!Wind in your hair – this is going really well! He was showing lovely commitment to the wing wrap and the jump ahead of him. Super!
A couple of ideas for you to build it up while you are on the road:– on the concrete pad here, you can throw big chunks of cookies so he can leave you in the dust and you won’t have to open a treat container because he can just grab the treat. I am confident he will find a treat that you toss 🙂
– You can start close to the wing and stay close to it, so he is parallel to you as you start moving (and therefore drives ahead to the jump)
It looks like you are at a campground – if they have a fenced dog run, maybe try it in there so you can add more and more distance. He totally looks ready for that! And since it is probably on grass, you can throw the treat tube because it is easier to find in the grass than a cookie would be.
2nd video – the travel tunnel is awesome! It is a pop up barrel with holes on both ends? Small enough for ease of travel, big enough to be a little distracting for training purposes especially when you did your front cross near it. Super! The game was a little challenging in a good way – he was perfect with the wing wrapping until you introduced the tunnel, then things got a little harder LOL!! But he was overall very successful.
The next step to this would be to have the wing more parallel to the tunnel entry, so he really has to ignore the tunnel to complete the wrap. That might be harder, so you can totally help him with front cross handling. And if that is easy, you can try fading out your motion and only using verbal cues (you can add more distance between the wing and tunnel if that ends up being super challenging for him).
The set point grid is also going well – nice stay!!!! The distance between the jumps seems perfect for now (he will probably need a bigger distance when he reaches adulthood). Having the toy on the ground before the release was great – that kept his head down better for sure. He was not sure if the release was verbal only or if you moving was the release, so be extra careful about either standing totally still next to the toy to release, or moving the whole time and releasing without stopping. That is what you did on the last rep (stayed in motion the whole time) and it was my favorite rep because he had no questions, his head was low and focused forward, and his jumping form was the best one of the session (especially in how he powered off his hind end).
This should also move to grass if you have a grassy spot available, so he can grip the grass with his feet 🙂 And, you can add in the moving target (check out the pre-game) to get even more power going.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
Hooray for arts and crafts! He was on fire for that toy 🙂 What is the glove made of, to make him love it so much?
He did well with the session – the goal of the moving target is to get his head down and a lot of push through the hind end: mission accomplished! Looked great!
He actually held the stay when the toy went to the ground… it was when you and the toy started moving that he broke the stay. So you can add a reminder stay cue as the toy starts to move, and also move it really slowly. And be sure that your release and the movement are not coinciding, because that will make him think the release is the movement.
>>That and the grass was a bit wet and he didn’t want to sit on that.>>
It is possible that he didn’t want to sit on the jump bar behind him – he was like “why is there a pvc pole right here??” LOL!!
Since he did so well, you can add doing 2 jumps now!
>>. I tried to time it but turns out when I hit the timer (set at 2min) I accidentally hit the clear button instead.>>
Your response at the end was so funny! And your natural timing is getting really good – even without the timer beeping at you, the session was only 2.5 minutes. Super!
Nice job with the proofing game! Definitely off to a great start! You can keep saying the tunnel cue til he is in it and the wrap cue til he is around the wing (no need to be quiet when you let him start moving). When you get too quiet, he starts asking questions 🙂
The next step would be to move the wing a little closer to the tunnel (makes it harder!) and also fade out your motion (keeping the verbals going will help fade out the motion).
One last detail – rather than take the toy away then move him back to the starting point by his collar, it will be easier to tug him back to the starting point, get the toy, then you are in position to hold him to start, without moving him around by his neck. He seems to not like being moved by the collar here, based on how he was trying to bite you when you did that. It is probably uncomfortable especially when he is stimulated, so you can get him lined up by tugging to position, then use the collar hold to start without moving him by the collar.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>>For the soft turn verbals, I do want them but I have a really hard time remembering all those lol.>>
Adding them now will give you plenty of rehearsal time, which makes using them much much easier.
>>Sadly I do have a “chase” marker word but didn’t use it. I don’t have one for a placed toy yet though.>>
I have found that the dogs do just fine with one marker for anything that is ahead, thrown or placed. I say “get it” for that, and they orient ahead to the reward. You are welcome to have separate markers, but you don’t need to have separate markers 🙂 I know that the marker purists might disagree but for our purposes, it is more useful to consistently be able to direct th dog ahead for reinforcement than it is to try to remember all sorts of different markers and end up not using them LOL!!!
>>I might actually be subconsciously switching it between hands depending on what side she is on trying to keep it on the side opposite of her. I didn’t know I switched hands. Good to know lol.>>
Yes, that is what most of us do: switch hands without realizing it. And for some of the games, the reinforcement timing or placement is not all that important, so putting the toy in a pocket is great!
Really nice concept-building session with the set point! Lots of great rehearsal with the stay and the lining up and moving through the little grid. Yay! Because she did so well, we can start tweaking things to get even more power and balance:
The Manners Minder was fine here as a reward, but she doesn’t really focus on it automatically or power to it. So, two things to add when using the MM:
– Get low and point to it before releasing her, that is when she is at her best in terms of form. You did this more on the last rep at 1:42 and she was great! When you release standing and then point low, she is looking up for too long and is a little ‘short’ striding into the grid (landing close to the first jump, like at 1:27, where you released then go low).
– Move the MM another 8 feet past jump 2, so she has to stride out to it rather than decelerate to it.
Separately from the MM though – let’s use the moving target as the focal point and reward! You can re-create the session you had here, except instead of the MM you will be slowly dragging the toy. Start about 10 feet past jump 2 and move slowly, and let’s see how she does.
Great job!!
TracyHi –
She is driving ahead really well on the first video to the MM!
>>The MM wasn’t working properly. I’d press it when she saw the line but it wouldn’t beep or give a treat. Maybe we were out of range for it.
The MMs are temperamental for sure. Might be a battery issue? If it doesn’t trigger, you can drop treats into the tray so she still gets her treats and not from your hands.
Take out the ready verbal here too because it is becoming a cue to start and we don’t want her to start on the word ready.
2nd video:
>>But I think the cheese in my hands could be the reason she didn’t complete her turn around the wing.>>Yes, I think the high value cookies in your hand were overriding the medium value toy on the ground and muddying the waters about where to look, thus needing the get it verbal. And if she gets to the toy but doesn’t pick it up, resist temptation to give her a treat from your hand (which will reward her for NOT picking up the toy). Instead, you can pick up the toy and throw it.
After putting the toy on the ground, you can give her one cookie for moving away from it, a boring cookie, so the toy remains the focal point. I don’t think you need to give her cookies all the way back to the starting point. Then yes, give her a moment to focus on the wing before starting the next rep, with empty hands. And to help her focus on the toy, shorten the distance between the wing and the jump so it is easier for her to see.
>>And the only time she Didn’t look back at me after the jump was for the Holle Roller.>>
Yes, I think the HR is a better toy for this, and have no cheese in your hands will help a lot too 🙂
>>Please tell me what you think and how to progress.
Put the game on a shelf for a couple of days to let latent learning work its magic 🙂 Then revisit it with the HR and no cheese in your hands 🙂
>>I think we should take a break tomorrow or at least have a light day of training. Or do something super fun with movement where she doesn’t have to think too hard.>>
She did multiple sessions during the past couple of days, so a day off from training will be most helpful. Now that jumping and wrapping are becoming regular parts of training, we don’t want to train every day and especially not multiple sessions or skills each day. The skills all build on each other in coming weeks, so we don’t need perfection, we just need to start building the neural pathways 🙂
Great job!!
TracyHi!
>>Also, if I plan our pattern, I can remember my new Rye and Lev. But when I start ad-libbing, I’m not getting the right word out for the wraps…at least once I told her the wrong way but she went the right way. >>
Yes, plan the pattern and give yourself a walk through of it, so you have rehearsed it before you run it with her 🙂
Yes, add more connection down to her and less looking at the line – looking at the line to the wing causes us to look too far ahead of the dog, and the dogs ask questions (especially when your arm is up high, it blocks your face).
My philosophy on connection is that it is a handling cue that shows the dog the line by turning our shoulders to it as we move. And looking ahead of the dog to show the dog the line doesn’t work that well unless we are ahead and motion is fully supporting it (because looking ahead turns our shoulders away from the desired line). So the key to making connection easy? Always look at the dog. And since she is really small, you need to be looking down and pointing down to her nose, so you can see her eyes the whole time and she can see your eyes too.
For example at :17, she is just exiting the tunnel and your are looking at the line next to you and your hand is higher than your hip. So she is not seeing clear connection – watch her as she comes around the wing and you will see her looking up at you. That is an information-seeking behavior when the dogs don’t see enough connection.
We have a super clear view of her response to what she sees at :27 as she exits the tunnel. You were looking ahead of her almost to the wing, pointing at the wing… so she is looking at you because she cannot see the connection. And because you are looking ahead, you cannot really see her exit the tunnel and you are late starting the cue for the wing, so she zig zags there a bit.
Same at ;29 – you are looking ahead at the tunnel, pointing ahead of her to it, so she looks at you and curls into you, then back out to the tunnel then comes off the tunnel entirely.
On the second video, your connection was better for sure and your arms are lower, so she is looking at the lines more (because connection is the cue to look at the line and not at you). Super!!
>>So I’m guessing I need to go back to the shorter tunnel and not bend it so much?>>
I think you don’t need a shorter tunnel – instead, drive her to the tunnel and keep facing it saying tunnel til she gets in. You were saying it then getting quiet and then turning away before she was in, so she started second-guessing the cue because the info had changed. As a baby dog, you can support the tunnel more and you’ll see her commitment expand more and more. And you can also extend the tunnel more so it is not as dark and curved.
Last thing to remember – either have the toy in a pocket or keep it in one hand. Try not to switch it from hand to hand because that draws her focus to your hands and makes the cues late.
Nice work!
Tracy
