Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Onwards to tunnel threadles!
>.Two video posts in one day!? Thanks, Obama!>>
I admit this made me laugh out loud 🙂 Still laughing!
The key to being able to consistently get this behavior is to cue a wrap on the wing before it to set the line, and as he is arriving at the wing, you are already moving to the correct side of the tunnel and cuing the threadle.
Any time you did that? Perfect!
If you did not? Things went a bit sideways…For example on the first rep – your arm & voice might have been saying threadle, but the line he was on and your line of motion cued the tunnel entry in front of him. Your line of motion was a parallel path to the tunnel entry in front of him.
Compare to the 2nd rep at :05 – your line and his line were both different already as he exited the wing so he got it. Yay! I especially like how your feet were turned towards the correct line – not facing the incorrect tunnel entry, and also not rotated towards him (ideally you don’t rotate towards him as main cue, because you won’t always be there to show the rotation).
As things go faster and the wing gets added, cuing the wrap on the wing and showing the threadle info before he exits it will work best. With his speed, you don’t have time to be late or switch the toy from hand to hand (:13 & :38 for example, toy switches, no wing wrap cue, and late info so he took the off course because the cues were late and you were facing the wrong end of the tunnel on a parallel line to it.
On the reps where he got the correct end (:21, :31, for example) your threadle info was sooner so he was able to read the info. A wrap verbal on the wing will tighten the line, and on those reps you had a little rotation towards him that helped – be sure to show that before he exits the wing wrap 🙂
Nice work! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
This is a really hard skill but I think this is going super well! On the first couple of reps on the flat, you were moving your foot a little too early which might be why it felt a bit awkward: you were stepping the foot back when you released him, but ideally you would wait til he is almost at your outstretched hand then both the hand and leg move back together.
When you added it to the wings, though, you didn’t have time to be early 🙂 because he was coming at you like a speeding train. Ha! That worked in your favor and so your cues were much more timely! And the good news is that he seems to recognize the position and was doing the turn away very independently! This is great because timing and precision of hand/leg movement are less important if he recognizes the position! YAY!!! So this all went well, and his commitment to the wings looked great.
Next up – try this with the tandem turns, which you’ll probably end up using more on course nowadays 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi!
This was a great way to build up the grid! He had lots of good rehearsals of sitting in front of jumps, focusing forward, driving to the MM. Lots of success!! And you had really good timing of releasing him when he was looking forward (also a good rehearsal with lots of success!)>.. I know it’s not how was supposed to be done…>>
The way it should be done is that the dog is close to jump 1, relatively calm, and drives through to a target. We were looking for balanced, consistent bounce striding. That is exactly what he did here! Perfect! And you built up a ton of success for the stay. You can tackle the accordion grid like this too if you want! His striding looks good, so the accordion will add a bit more challenge. And you will be able to oh-so-gradually build up the stays as well!
he was a good boy following the handling as you sorted out the blinds! Muscle memory was telling you to spin 🙂 And the blinds were a little delayed, which is why he ended up in the tunnel (or close to it) a few times. But you got earlier and earlier, which really helped. When you reward the blind, use the arm across the body to open up more connection so he can see the side change better (rather than using the dog side hand to reward, which blocks connection).
I do agree with your instinct that starting him from the tunnel will be easier because you can commit him to the wing sooner and start the blind sooner. You tried it at 6:23 but he didn’t go to the wing because your arm was high and forward (pointing to the wing). So even though your head was turned and you were looking at him, he did not see the connection and came to you instead. Remember to make massive eye contact with your arm low & fingers pointing back to his nose when he exits the tunnel, to commit him to the wing. That should totally make the commit sooner and easier to get the blinds.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyYay! A fun match – so fun! I wish there were more of those!!
Having a plan is good but also be flexible and change the plan as needed. The main goal is that she has a fabulous happy time in a trial-like environment. Resist temptation to do too much! That means keeping things relatively easy and super fun and super reinforcing 🙂
>>1. Engagement
Yes! Top priority.
>>2. Start line protocol
Maybe, but don’t go in and start asking for stays as the first thing. Don’t even ask for a stay in the first run. Just go in, get engagement, then send and go for a few obstacles. If that goes well, ask for super short stays in runs 2 and 3 but don’t ask for one in run 4 (depletion). The stay goal is to always release before she breaks. No failure!
>>3. Happy crating ringside/car
Yes! Definitely in the car. Crating ringside is less important and will potentially waste brain bandwidth.
>>4. Wraps, L/R, Threadles, Lap/Tandem Turns, GO
That’s a LOT. There is no need to do any complex handling – she is a baby dog in a complex environment, so keep the handing simple. Tunnels, jumps, simple sequences. No wraps, no tandem or lap turns, Definitely no threadles! Don’t ask for anything complex that she might fail with – time is limited in a fun match run and the top goal is fast, fun, engaged, successful.
>>5. Short sequences (3-6 obstacles)
Yes, with extra big handler connection
>>6. Toy on ground (not in my hand) and small sequences, then send to toy.>>
This is a low priority and doesn’t need to be introduced yet. Her adolescent brain might not be able to successfully process that in that environment and we don’t want failure or frustration. I think all 4 runs should be toy-in-hand or pocket.
>>7. Decompression
Heck yes! And seeing how she does outside the ring while waiting (pattern games and tricks for toys :))
And of course get it all on video and keep me posted!
TracyGood morning! The sessions looked great here!! And I am glad the pattern games are going well too!
Really nice session on the RCs – I like how you started with just parallel path stuff, getting her leaving you for it, then gradually slid in the RC concept by setting yourself up to start close to her so it was easy to do the RC nice and early. It is hard to get baby dogs to read RCs at first, and you nailed it here. Click/treat for you! Woohoo!!
Ladder – she really had to think about where her little feets were at the beginning here! But that is exactly the point of this game LOL! Nice job keeping your hand low so her head stayed in a good neutral position. By about 1:30, she was so much smoother through the ladder! So now you start to let her do it by herself more without your hand in front of her nose. But to keep her head low, put a bowl a couple of feet past each end, so she can trot through on her own while focusing on the bowl (in which you can then drop a cookie). That will maintain the good form while adding a little more independence.
Prop value video is looking good too – she definitely goes out of her way to go smack the prop! Good girl! And she goes to it FAST! The toy brought a new element of fun to it. You added the sideways sending at about 1:45 – the first rep on each was just a little too far away, so try to start the first rep of any countermotion game in a spot that is about 50% easier than the last time you did it… then after that quick refresher, you can add the distance back pretty quickly. She just needs that first rep to be a bit of a reminder, then she is perfect!
>>Barrel Wrap – turn and burn>>
This is the same video as the prop value video.
Threadle foundation is looking good – it helps that her stay is going well and also she gets a gold star for being able to ignore the toy on the ground and go to the hand target: SUPER!!!! You were good about being relatively stationary and using your get it marker rather than closing your shoulders to the toy.
She did have some questions about driving to the toy as it got further from your foot (“that is pretty far, mom, am I allowed to get it?”), so for now keep it just past your toys so she can pounce on it. Since it is a great long toy, you can also hold one end of it so that as soon as she gets to it, you can start moving it for her to chase (which is more fun that a dead toy :))This one is going really well, and we do the concept transfers really soon for this game!
Look at her putting her little neck into your hand! What a great update! You can slowly move your hand away and see if she tries to follow it with her neck haha.
Since collar grabby stuff is pressure on the puppies, you can do the collar grab like you did it here then toss the treat away (kind go like a ‘game starter’ moment) then she can run back, shove her neck into your hand to get you to toss another treat. And then of course you can oh-so-slowly add in holding the collar for gradually longer periods of time.And the play in your lap at the end was so stinkin’ cute!!!!
Handling combos – the first rep was hilarious. I thought you did a good job of downplaying that you had thrown the toy, rewarding her, sending her…. She had a different opinion and grabbed the toy. Nailed it! Hilarious! But then things got rolling and she did well. She was not that fast to the barrel and she had a couple of errors, but I don’t think it had anything to do with the understanding here:
One thing to be aware of was asking her to move towards the barrel and wrap it… while there is a dog in a crate barking at her. The barking started every time you started to add energy, and it was barking in a frantic way directly at her and you. It may seem like no big deal, but she says it is a big deal (it is a lot of pressure). At 1:28 when she went to the toy instead of the barrel, that looked more like pressure avoidance than lack of understanding. You can see it again at 3:11, where she starts to go, looks at the dog barking in the crate, then follows you instead, And at this stage and age, I don’t want to ask her to work on relatively hard concepts like impulse control with the toy on the ground in the face of that pressure (in all fairness, it is actually correct for a puppy brain to process NOT moving towards pressure of a dog barking at her in a crate)
So easy peasy answer: if there is a dog that will bark at her from a crate (or anywhere!) you can move your setup so she is not training near the barking dog. At her age, the brain development is not set up to really be able to ignore that, plus it is a little anxiety-producing for a baby puppy, plus she has to split her attention between the barking dog and the skill, and the barking dog will take up more brain space at this age. Eventually it won’t be an issue but for now, we don’t need to have it happening,
Tandem turns at the beginning went well! She turned away in both directions and found her prop. Super! You had good timing of the distinct actions, keeping turning away and hitting the prop separate. On the lap turns, you were not as clear about keeping the turn away and prop cue separate, so there were a bunch of reps where you tried to turn her away AND cue the prop (like at 2:48 and 4:24) and it was not as smooth – she hit the prop but didn’t quite turn away.
So for the lap turns, you can position yourself 2 or 3 feet past the prop, call her past it with the lap turn cue, turn her away, the walk forward to the prop. That should make it smoother!
She seems to be pretty balanced and able to turn nicely in both directions – YAY!!! That is great for such a young dog!
>>I was able to get her back after a few seconds and she went back to working. I kept this part on camera.>>
Probably some legit good smells but also if this was the last session of the day, she might have been a little over it with the all food, plus the tandem game can be a little repetitive for dogs who don’t obsess on food 🙂 You can switch to a toy for this game: an empty hand cues the turning away, and the toy is the reward after she hits the prop.
Great job here! And re-post that turn and burn video 🙂
TracyGood morning! These are all looking great!
She did really well with the 2nd zig zag game! No problems adding the bars and she was able to get the back-and-forth jumping effort with no problem. She was even getting comfortable enough to bounce some of the distances, especially on the last bar or two nearer you. Yay! So you can re-visit this game once a week or so – add challenge by cuing the jumps more quickly so she responds more quickly, and then you can also move them in a bit closer so the end of the bar touches the next wing 🙂 Eventually I bet she will bounce all of the distances.
The find the jump after the tunnel game is looking good. She had no questions about the lateral distance you added on both sides – easy peasy! Nice! You can be using your ‘go’ or ‘jump’ verbal on these to add a verbal so she looks for the jump even when the handling gets more complicated. And the 90 degree turns around with the wing with the verbal at the start worked perfectly. I really love how different those verbals sound – it will be a big help to her on course!
Because the lateral distance was so easy for her, you can also add more motion – still working through all the lateral positions, but with you running 🙂 And you can add in getting WAY ahead while running (this is harder for the pups then it sounds) and you can also go all the way close to the tunnel exit then start running forward, so she drives ahead of you to the jump. Basically – let’s show her all the possibilities of handling 🙂
The WIYH session was very happy-making in terms of clear handling 🙂 The Go reps at the start looked great, and then it was immediately obvious to me (and MiG!) when you wanted the RC. You can accelerate more through the RCs, letting her see the pressure and pass you with more speed – that way you won’t be as far behind on the RCs because she is a speedster!
The backside circle wraps are also looking really good – nice connection and running line! That really helped her! And she has good commitment to the jump bar too – it looked like it was a little easier for her when she was turning to her left, and the right turns were a little harder. So for the right turns (when she is on your left), keep the motion slower for now so she can be organized turning to her harder side.
There was only one oopsie – at 1:38 when you were late on the RC cue, so she didn’t turn to her right. That makes sense that it would need to be very timely turning to her harder side. The other reps after that were a step earlier, in that you were already showing the RC pressure as she was passing you. In the oopsie moment, she passed you, locked onto the jump, then you showed the RC. So definitely keep that pressure starting nice and early, so she sees it as she passes you, especially on the right turn sides.
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>When we get into a new environment, no people or dogs, she wants to explore and check everything out before she engages with me for the game. >>
You can start the game in each environment, but showing her the treat then putting it down. The better she learns the framework for the game, the easier it will be to offer engagement.
>>Comes and goes for the game. Then eventually settles in to the rhythm of the game. I only stand there and let her go as far as the leash will take her. I don’t ask for any behavior, just say Get It for the treat. That’s ok?>>
Yes, that is one of the goals of the game – to let her just look at the world, process it, offer engagement, and get a cookie tossed back out to the world. If it takes her a long time to offer engagement, it is an indication that the environment is really challenging.
>>Sometimes if she notices something unusual she’ll just stand or sit in front of me, or front side, and watch/observe. And just stay there. Is that ok? Should I try to get her to re-engage?>>
Yes, just let her observe. No need to try to re-engage her. She is saying that something is really hard and she needs to look at it and process it all.
>>When we first got there tonight she was SO excited/over stimulated she didn’t want to take treats or play with a toy. People, other dogs, big dog barking at us through fence from next door, airplanes over head, other dogs barking in distance.
Wow, that is a LOT for a tiny puppy.
>>As class started and we settled in she was able to engage for the pattern game. So we did that A LOT during the whole class, when waiting our turn for something or sitting and listening etc. >>
That is a good use for the pattern game! I also like to give puppies breaks by holding them or putting them in a crate to relax, somewhere away from the action, if possible. Even in a short class, the puppies need a break.
>>For individual work I took her FAR away just like you said. She still noticed others but was able to engage with me. We kept things short and had play breaks.
Fantastic!!!! Yay!
>> When waiting our turn for a recall, some shade draping on the fence blew hard in the wind. She turned and stood and watched it. When she was satisfied she re-engaged for our pattern game.>>
Wow, there was a lot going on at this class – and some of it can be a bit scary like the flapping shade, the barking dogs, etc. Keep making it all about having a pleasant, happy experience and no pressure. No worries about the skills, that is the easy part when she is happy and relaxed.
I am so glad it went well! Thank you for the update!
TracyHi!
Nice work on these – these are going well and they are REALLY Hard! She had a couple of questions and we can easily answer those for her 🙂At the training school and at home, there was a lot of emphasis on the thrown toy, so she locked onto it like it was toy races game. You can change that up to de-emphasize the toy and make things more successful for her:
Start right next to the cone or barrel, with her facing it, toss the toy behind you without you really looking at it much (just kind of toss it back while paying more attention to the barrel or cone). She will still look at the toy, probably, but it will be less of a focal point and easier to make the barrel/cone the focal point.And, starting close to the cone or barrel – don’t pick her up or move her, I think that was creating some avoidance/frustration behavior (especially when you picked her up). Part of this is the impulse control, so we can still give her lots of choice while setting her up for success 🙂 When she was frustrated, she was making some poor body-awareness decisions (see below) so we definitely don’t want that!
The challenge was harder at home – maybe because it was outdoors, or there was noise in the background (a LOT for a youngster to process!). So after you drop the toy in behind you and her, be sure to step to the barrel and let her arrive at it before you move away – when you do step to it, and let her commit, she does it really well! When you don’t step to it with the dog side leg (1:23 and 1:37)or you step to the side too early (2:00, 2:35), she doesn’t commit to the barrel and heads to the toy, then gets frustrated.
I think the frustration manifested as rushing to get the toy and then falling over herself and flipping. Since we don’t want her to splat herself or get hurt, you can use a bigger toy (world’s largest hollee roller or maybe a giant jolly ball?) and less motion from you so she scoops it up but doesn’t fall or flip. Or, you can use a MannersMinder to help her learn the concept but it will prevent her from splatting herself when she arrives there.
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
Nice job starting the leg bumps off as cavalettis with her trotting a bit – really nice for balanced movement!! You will get more ‘bouncing’ if you toss the treats a little further away so she has a little more speed. The toy produced ore of the bouncing (sometimes over both legs haha!) but she was also nicely balanced with those too. The toy worked best when it was a couple of feet past your leg. Yo can also put it on angles, so she can bend and bounce too!And you can definitely try to enlist someone else to be legs 3 and 4 to create more of a ‘grid’ for her LOL!!
Her ladder work is going really nicely too – balanced trot without rushing. YAY! She wants to look up at you as she is finishing the ladder, so you can add a target at each end. An empty food bowl will work, placed 3 or 4 feet past the ladder, so she trots all the way through and then you plop the treat into the bowl. That should keep her head straight all the way through.
Great job here!!!
TracyGood morning!
Tunnel sessions:
These were very strong sessions! She definitely had fun in the tunnel – she was very happy to offer going through it and very happy to line up to go through it. She was super fast about it all, so you might need to be quicker with the reinforcement to get her into line up position before she offers again – you can totally use food in your line up hand to get her where you want her to be, and balance the value of coming to your side versus running through the tunnel.The ‘ready ready’ line ups looked good too, I think it ramped her up even more in a good way 🙂
>>I used a treat to get her back in position each time and gently took her collar, but looking at the video I still did move her in to place with the collar at times. >>
I thought you were really good about gently lining her up before taking the collar and she seemed happy with it all! You can use the cookie sooner to get her to your side so she doesn’t mistake any little motion as a tunnel cue LOL!
>>I was not sure if she should get any kind of reward for running backwards through the tunnel.>>
Based on your position and where you were connected – she was correct to offer it that direction because the body cues presented that line. , You can reward it or you can call her back by connecting over your other shoulders and showing her your other hand so it is clear that you want her to go around it and not through it. You started doing that mainly after :23 in the first video then got really consistent with calling her to a line up spot through the rest of the video and the 2nd video, and it worked like a charm 🙂
For the next session at the training building – try to replace the MM with a toy! You can play with the toy, gently hold her collar, throw the toy to the exit of the tunnel, then send her through. That will be a fun way to get the toy involved, plus it adds in a little retrieving and cookie exchanges for line ups, so there is toy-cookie-toy work too 🙂
At home, start with a super scrunched up tunnel and the MM nice and close – and if she has a session similar to what she had here indoors, then you can switch to the toy too! The outdoor environment is harder, so making the tunnel skill easier will help 🙂
The pattern game looks great! You can add in a leash to this – not because she needs a leash when working at the training building, but because the leash will be involved when you take this on the road and holding the leash and the cookies is a royal pain in the butt haha! Practicing the mechanics with the leash is helpful because the game is ready to go to new places, like trials, etc 🙂
Strike a pose is going well too! Mechanics look good (only on the last rep were your feet pointing the opposite direction, but you caught yourself) and she is driving nicely to the target hand.
She is doing well with the cookie-to-toy element (in fact her only question was about going to the toy before the target when the toy was very visible, which is GREAT because we want the toy to be interesting!) And having it slightly visible is great for self-control. Eventually it will be on the ground, so we are folding in self-control on the toy while keeping it high value. I think she is right on track!
She doesn’t exactly always chew her treat from the start cookie, so you can use your Cato Board too as a start behavior too instead of a tossed treat.
>>JJ does not hit as hard or as fast when food is not the reward, but I felt like this was a great session.
I agree, really great session!! And it is ok for her to not hit the target that hard. Part of the reason for the softer hit is that she is preparing to turn, so it doesn’t make sense to hit it really hard (and we want her to prepare to turn :)) And the other reason I don’t worry too much about how hard they hit the target is that we will be fading out the actually hit very soon – the cue is more for the come-in, go-out of the serps and threadles so she won’t need to touch the hand. And the high value toy helps her learn to do the ‘come in’ element and not skip to the ‘go out’ element LOL!
The lap turns are looking good – really nice mechanics and she definitely knew where to drive to after getting the tossed treat!
Tandem turns are going well too – you can add walking forward to this now (you would be doing this in motion on course) so after she gets the start cookie, you can be walking showing the hand cues and start turning her away just as she gets to your hands.
>> I am wondering if my hand was too high up (not at nose level) for the tandem turn. I see JJ jumping in the air for this turn.
I think the jumping up a little was a combination of 3 things:
– puppy coordination 🙂 Turning away on the ground is kind of a ballet move and she is still sorting out the coordination
– with that in mind, on some reps your turn away cues were very fast so she jumped up a little more – so keep your hand movements sloooow for now 🙂 Your hand position was good, so yes to keeping the hand low but slow is also going to be helpful.
– when she realizes there is a destination (the prop then eventually a jump) after the turn away, she will turn away and start looking for the destination and then the little leaps upward will fade away.>>I accidentally left JJ’s prop at home : I forget the prop all the time, and I think I lost the one I started with for my puppy here LOL! You can make it into a generalization game – grab something new to be a prop, do a quick click/treat value session to kind of say to her “this is your new prop” and then add it to the game 🙂 My guess is she will nail it perfectly!
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Totally yes – the toy was a great choice of reinforcement! He is not yet a full foodie, but that will develop more over time. His sister was not a foodie at this stage either, so I used toys a lot.
TracyHi! They all worked well – the 4th one didn’t have any jumping on it, so maybe there is one missing?
His jumping form overall is coming together nicely! The distances seem comfortable for him too! It was hard to know exactly what his striding was here – you were releasing him and moving up the line, but he was cuing off of your motion so he was decelerating and lifting his head. For the next session, ideally you would lead all the way out to the Manners Minder and release him from there, so he can drive forward. If he doesn’t quite have a long enough stay, you can try it with someone gently holding him so you can lead out. And, start him closer to the 1st jump (less than a foot from it, so he powers into the grid off his rear) and you can move the MM further from the 3rd jump (like you did on rep 5 here) so he has room to land and take a full stride or two before getting to it.
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
TracyThanks for the distances! You can probably round the inches into feet now – make it a 5 foot distance to start and use 3 foot increments after that. That will start to approximate what she will see on course and you won’t need to be as precise with inches.
So the distance will be 5 feet between 1 and 2 on all reps. For the distances between 2 and 3:
Rep 2 is 8 feet
rep 3 is 11 feet
rep 4 is 14 feet
rep 5, raise the bar a little
rep 6, raise the bar a little more 🙂
and yes, you can try it tomorrow or the next day, that should be plenty of time in between. Let me know how it goes!
TracyI think you will have time when a tunnel gets added in! Just focus on adding one verbal, like a wrap verbal. That will make it easier than trying to add ALL the verbals 🙂
Hi!
He is definitely figuring out the tunnel, but you can also make some adjustments to help him out.Start by just getting play in the great outdoors to begin the session – don’t ask for anything else until you have engagement. The start of the first session was harder because you didn’t have playing right up til you were ready. You had a lot more playing at the start of the 2nd session and it was much better! He was so much more engaged.
You can help him in a few other ways, and take out one of your ways of trying to help him:
Helpful things include:
– squishing up the tunnel more at the start, that totally helped when you made it shorter. And a shorter tunnel will make it easier for you to get at the other side without you having to run (he might not be ready for you to run yet)
– Having the toy visible sooner will help too – as soon as he even looks into the tunnel, you can toss the toy to the other end of it.
– line him up straighter by tugging him to the entry so he can see it straight on. He had a lot of hard angles here, and the behavior is too new for that challenge.One thing that doesn’t help and you should take it out of the toolbox? Grabbing him to line him up or to move him towards the entry, especially when the challenge is hard. That is a big NOPE from him and he dials up an Uber almost immediately after that. So the “no touching” rule is in full effect. Tugging towards the entry? Sure! Using a hand target, or calling him over? Yes! Physically moving him by his collar or body? Nope!
>>It was also clear to me that in session two he was not really ready for the advanced behavior with the threadle – it was too much pressure.>>
Yes, I don’t think he has enough experience driving to the tunnel yet to add the threadle entry. He will get it in another session or two – and be sure to add it on a relatively straight approach, rather than angles. Also this threadle side moment is when you added in a lot more touching him and moving him which definitely contributes to him checking out.
>>The bigger take away from the training is that he is letting me know when he is done and this is probably not a good thing>>
Yes, we really don’t want to have a session that is long enough for the puppy to leave it – you need to force yourself to set a timer to keep the sessions short and fun. Give yourself a total of 1 minute then be done when the timer goes off. You need to have it on a device otherwise you will go for too long and he will leave the session, which is definitely not something we want to develop as a habit. These sessions were too long – the first one was timed stamped at about 2:50 but it was actually longer, because the video was in fast forward. Set the timer on your phone or watch, or buy a cheapie kitchen timer – but set a timer on every session. It will make a world of difference!
Also, be sure to read up on the 2 failure rule:
Setting Up For Success: Schedule Your Training And The 2 Failure Rule
I think keeping an eye on the 2 failure rule (rate of reinforcement) will also make a world of difference. Don’t let your sessions go past 2 failures, total (not just in a row, 2 failures total period). Once you get past 2 failures, the rate of reinforcement drops and then the pups get frustrated and check out. Ideally, the pups work at about 90-95% rate of reinforcement. A failure is any attempt at offering a behavior that does not get rewarded. That includes standing still near the tunnel, running past the tunnel, etc. In the first 90 seconds here, he had 12 offered behaviors and 9 failures (no rewards) and 3 rewards. That is 25% rate of reinforcement, so we need to flip that! Set up the next session where he is at one end of the very squished up tunnel and, using a super long toy, you show the toy to him through the other end of the tunnel as soon as he is near the entry. Keep doing that til he is zipping back and forth, and you can gradually delay the timing of the toy being visible (but not by a lot).
The tunnel value will continue to grow! I think these little adjustments will make it a whole lot easier! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
