Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Hi!
Nice session here – She totally thought this was super big fun!!
>> This was her first time with the bump, she kept wanting to stand on it,
Ha! She was probably thinking it was a goat game at first 🙂
She did great here when you got her moving! It was easy to add the verbals and great job with the reward placement too. Only one suggestion: have her wear a collar so you can line her up at your side, slide a finger under her collar so she stays tehre, say the verbals a few times… then let her go. Hearing the verbals before she and you start to move will help attach the verbals to the behavior better, and will also prevent little oopsies like at L41 where she was not sure of where to be (if that happens, you can go to the reset cookie right away, line her up, and start again).
You can also add in the countermotion of the tune-and-burn style exit: as she is doing the minny pinny one direction, you can do the font cross and start walking the other direction to challenge her to maintain her commitment even as you go the other way.
Great job!
Tracy
That is odd! Are you getting an error message? Can you get a screenshot of what you are seeing and send it to support@agility-u.com and we will sort it out.
T
You are doing a great job! One thing that helps me is to make a note of the one thing I need to remember for each training session – for example, I will put “low hands” on a post it note for the perch work sessions 🙂 Or “hand position THEN release” for the serp and threadle games, so I don’t do them at the same time. Post it notes are great, or a white board with one of those markers helps too!
Have fun!
TracyThis is a great update!! He is doing so well!! Since based on your facebook post it turns out you have some time on your hands this weekend 🙂 Maybe take him on a resilience game field trip or two? That way we can have those games cemented before adolescence hits 🙂
Tracy
Good morning!
>> I just wanted heavy distractions
Great! She did well! One tweak – don’t hand her to the holder until you are ready to start, so she doesn’t start looking around and doesn’t have to wait too long. So – give instructions to the helpers, then hand her to the holder and as soon as the holder has a good grip – run around the back of the holder and then run into the recall 🙂
Snap was perfect here! So you can use your helpers to do more “head to head” and passing pattern recalls. By head to head, you will need 2 holders 🙂 And I am sure you have done this at flyball practice – one dog does the recall then the other dog. You eventually work up to both dogs recalling at the same time, but you will want the less experienced dog to recall first so he can be successful (which means in this case, Snap recalls 2nd because I don’t think she will chase the other dog). it might take multiple sessions to have them recalling head-to-head but that is fine 🙂
The passing pattern recalls are also fun: you need 2 holders again, and they will be set up on opposite walls and pretty far apart (as far apart as possible when puppies are involved). The handlers are running towards the opposite wall, doing a recall, but now there is another dog recalling “towards” them (but 20 feet away or more) . So the pups are not passing each other to start, it will be more like one dog returning from the box while the dog in the other lane is being sent. Then you can gradually move the holders to center so the dogs are getting more of a passing feel. Let me know if that makes sense or if I need more caffeine haha!!! I might have video of it somewhere with my adult dogs….
Great job here! I think agility dogs all need to play flyball recall games 🙂
Tracy
Good morning!
I was getting ready to bug you to see how she was doing 🙂 I am glad you posted!
>>I need about 4 (or more) hours to sit down and figure out what I need to do next, I’m feeling quite disorganized.
I will give you next steps to the games you posted here, so hopefully that will save time and help things not feel as overwhelming. Once we get past week 5, things build on each other really easily so you will be able to move through things quickly 🙂
>>Anyway, these are somewhat skipped around and I know I need to go back on work on some things, but here are 5 games for you to take a look at.>
It is fine to skip around! You can think of it as “tracks” rather than trying to complete an entire week before moving to the next one. For example, with the parallel path game, you can go to the backside slice game because it is the next step and you don’t need to finish all the other games in the other weeks before it 🙂
Tunnel shaping- this went well, using both the MM and the toys! Before stretching it out, add in holding her collar, saying the verbal tunnel cue, then letting her drive through. And when she is happy with that (will probably happen very quickly :)) you can repeat the process with her on the threadle side, then add your tunnel threadle verbal. It will be pretty easy for her and can probably happen all in one session or two sessions. Then it will be easy to add the double whammy game too 🙂
The high excitement stays were good! She didn’t seem to move a muscle, even when you were very exciting! Great job rewarding her early and often 🙂 Since she is doing well with this, you can move to the Happy Stays with the prop:
Rotated barrel sends – these look good in both directions! One small tweak: when sending sideways, use the hand closer to the barrel rather than the hand across your chest.
The backwards sends looked great – nice use of the send arm and shifting connection to the “landing” spot past the barrel 🙂
Now start to add the countermotion: start a couple of steps away from the barrel, send her to it and look at the ‘landing spot’. As she starts to move to the barrel, you start walking away from the barrel. You should probably wait til she is passing you before you start moving forward and definitely do it at a walk to start.And if you haven’t done the rocking horses yet… definitely do those! They build on this and are super fun too 🙂
Parallel path – she is doing well here! You can do two things to make this even smoother:
-toss a cookie away to start, so she is not ahead of your or facing you – and while she is eating the cookie, you can set yourself up laterally and be moving to set the line. She did well with the stays but was looking at you, so the thrown cookie starts will get her to look at you even less.
– switch to a thrown toy instead of a cookie as a reward 🙂
Since this is going well, you can move to the backside slice foundation:
It is based on the parallel path concept, but you will only have one barrel and a jump bump so it is easier to show her to the backside.
Minny pinny looks great! Nice job with the verbals and the placement of reinforcement! My only suggestion is to hold her collar, say the verbal 3 or 4 times… and then let her go to start moving. If she is moving before the verbal, she won’t necessarily attach the verbal as a cue as well as she will if you let her hear it a few times before you let her start moving.
Great job on these! Let me know what you think, especially about the next steps 🙂
TracyGood morning!
The signs were hilarious!! This session went well. She wants to start herself each time, so good job to you for making sure that you had a hold of her in the line up position so she wasn’t sending herself through before you were ready 🙂
The pool noodles also looked good – she can also use them as a tug toy LOL!
You can add a little bit of countermotion to this game – after you send her into the minny pinny, keep saying the verbal while you start doing a FC and a ‘turn-and-burn’ style exit so she is basically continuing to turn away from you. Do it at a walk to get started so she completes the line in the correct direction.The tunnel threadle looked good! The rights were perfect! Go back to a slightly easier angle and now add the verbal and arm cue, like you have on the left turns, then work your way back to the hard angles and the double whammy – I think she is ready for it!
And the left turn threadles without you using physical cues looked really good! She only looked at you like you were nuts one time, maybe twice LOL!
On the double whammy, it will help if you don’t get quite as far ahead (because you then have to stop otherwise you end up past the tunnel). So you can wait at the exit of the tunnel send for her to exit, then start moving up the line for the threadle part of it.
>>I protected your eyes from the beginning (you’ll see… it had to be done!)>>
Ha! Somehow the camera always seems to get good views of our butts LOL!
The running contact mat work looks good! You can move the MM a couple of feet further away. She is a little leapy when going towards the MM – probably the excitement of the magical food dispenser LOL!
One of my dogs wanted to do that, as you can see here at the beginning of the video:What I did to un-leap the behavior was delay the click so she would go through the mat and take one more civilized non-leaping stride, so she was getting rewarded for striding not leaping (and also turning the MM sideways made it a little less exciting for her):
So you can try to delay the click and don’t click if she leaps, just call her back over it and reward her for striding the other direction (she was not leaping at all going away from the MM)
Strike a pose – the mat really helps her find the start cookie! And she was able to hold a stay on it too 🙂 Yay! She did well with both the serp and the threadles, including ignoring the MM for most of the reps.
Because she is so little and we are going to add motion soon (like later today haha!) – you can fade out the actual touch to the target. When she is on the way to your hand you can click the MM before she touches the target (that will also help you not have to ben dover as much :)) Also, what do you want your threadle slice word to be? You can totally add it on the threadles (and keep the regular release word when you are working on the serpentines).
Great job on all of these! Let me know what you think!
TracyAnd here is the very first head turn session. I would have bet $100 that he was a righty… but he insisted on starting with a left turn. OK…. so I went with that LOL! And then later on he insisted that he was a righty LOL!! This is pretty normal as the pups grow up. It all eventually evens out 🙂
Since I have been putting Ramen’s videos in the demo videos recently, I figured I should get my b*tt in gear and video some of the other games too! He is 6 months old as of yesterday, so we are in a good spot in terms of letting him grow up a bit and letting him figure out how to use all of his legs 🙂
Here is the first session of rocking horses on 2 barrels, with me adding the verbals. And it was first time I took the barrels outside 🙂 He was great! I had trouble figuring out where to put the giant toy I was using (note to self: SMALLER TOY NEXT TIME haha) and also I needed to be a little more patient and not start rushing away until he has turned his head to wrap the barrel.
Hi! The platform was helping for sure, he was a good boy here!
He was not always sure if you wanted him on the platform, so you can cue him to get on the platform, and then stand still and let him fully sit on the platform – the first couple of clicks were too soon, he was not yet sitting which is why he stopped offering the sit. He was great when you helped him out and asked him to sit on it – that really got him a whole bunch of great reps in a row!
You can make it more ‘formal’ now: start next to him, ask him to sit on the platform, then start to move away (like a lead out in agility), being sure to release to reinforcement before he breaks. He seems ready for that!
And yes, as you mentioned in the video… be more consistent with your verbals 🙂 “catch” means the cookie is coming back to him. And I think you use “ok” for him to release towards you. After you reminded yourself of that, you were much more consistent 🙂 Super!!
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Hi!
Parallel path to the baby jump is going well! For the next session, switch to a thrown toy (or his ball) so that he can add more speed! With the MM and the click/treats, he was happy to do it but I think a toy will get even more speed (and he is definitely ready for that :))
For now, let’s keep the parallel path to the jump and the ‘get out’ to the prop separate. He was not sure where to look after the jump, because the wing kept you a little too far away – so you ended up using motion to show him the prop, but we want him to respond based on the upper body and verbal and not your motion towards it. So, easy fix: just use the prop without the jump 🙂 That way you can gradually add in more and more distance away from it and not get too far away with the wing in the way 🙂
Nice work!
TracyHi!
The backsides are going well and they are super fun 🙂 He did really well going around the cones to get to the backside, so we can add/tweak some things to make it even easier:
Since we want you to be setting the line with motion and moving before he is moving, you can toss a treat back to start the rep so you are moving and ahead of him when he starts moving. When you were starting next to him, you either had to move towards the cone more than we want, or he slipped in front of you to the front side. So, you moving before he starts moving up the line will really help set the line.
And to make sure you don’t move too much towards the cone, you can put a leash on the ground so you are moving straight and not converging towards the cone 🙂 Teaching him to go to the backside without you needing to go close to the cone will make the skill even more independent 🙂
One suggestion: don’t use the MM here, for 2 reasons:
– having it straight ahead looked too much like the parallel path to the front side, so he had some confusion.
– also, we want to get him to look for the bar on the backside as a default behavior, so we can train it by dropping the reward on the landing side of the bar (instead of rewarding him for going straight after the backside cone).So with that in mind, you can use a reward from your hands, either dropping it on the landing side as soon as he gets to the backside cone, or delivering from your hand 🙂
Nice work!!
TracyHi!
These are looking strong too 🙂You had one transition that was too soon at :10 and ended up running backwards so he had a question. Compare that to the much smoother transition you did when turning earlier at 1:27 – that smooth transition really helps him, when you decelerate then rotate. At :10 you were fast then suddenly rotated, so he had a question.
The race tracks were super good – great connection! Looks like he was having fun fun fun! You had a little connection break at :58, but you fixed it and kept going, which is exactly right.
My only suggestion is to try to not to have the toy switching hands. He is moving fast and you don’t have time to switch hands before you give the next cue, plus it causes him to look at you more than we want. So, either keep it in one hand the whole time, or you can stick it in a pocket it and whip it out after a couple of wraps 🙂
Tracy
Hi!
The wraps looked really food here! You had much smoother transitions on the sending before the rotating, so he committed beautifully! Yay!!! I heard the verbals too, YAY! Great job! I see more wraps below in the next video, so we will move to that one 🙂Tracy
Good morning!
He is doing well here!
Looking at the remote reinforcement game – yes, it was hard with the cookie right there 🙂 Since we want to be able to do this with nothing in your hands or pockets, you can start with something easier like a bag of treats that is sealed or in a container (less tempting that way :)) or using something taller to put the reinforcement on so the reinforcement is not at nose level. That way you will have an easier time convincing him to move away without having anything in your hand (he was not as sure about where to look because of the cookies in your hand and on the chair). Plus, if it is in a bag or something, you can hand it to him rather than him grabbing it when you get back to the chair.
When you do this with no food in your hands or pockets, remember use your marker very quickly and not just after a few behaviors. You can mark that first step or two away with your let’s go then go back to the reward station – having nothing in your hands or pockets wil be harder so we want to reward sooner.
Thanks for leaving in the part where he lost a tooth – hilarious!
The retrieves are defintiely improving!!! He had a little too much freedom with the great toy at first! But then he got better and better especially when you moved to the other toy that was also high in value. Yay! Having two equally-matched toys in terms of value definitely helped – so now you can start to delay presenting the other toy, so that he brings the first one further and further back. You can bring out the second toy when he is on the way back with the first by only a step to get started, then gradually build up to bringing it out when he has brought the first toy all the way back.
Stays – He is definitely is getting the idea, especially when you adding moving away after 5:33. He did a great job holding them! For now, there is no need to push your luck by adding the crouch and temptation before teh release (like at 6:01). Just be chill and release, he has plenty of internal temptation to break and we don’t want to set him up for an error 🙂
The stays with the prop were harder at the very beginning but then he did well both facing the prop and facing away from it. This was mainly because you started with lots of short stays, quick reinforcement. Perfect! Keep that up when he is presented with new distractions.
Great job!! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
