Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Hi!
>> I have the long toy. Is this latest repetition looks like anything you want to see?
Oh yes, he DEFINITELY loved the long dragging toy! I think he was distracted by the larger handle at first, and that long handle made it harder for you to do the blinds – can the toy come off the handle and you hold the rope part of it? Or, tie several toys together so it is one long toy without a big handle 🙂
>>I am a little bit confused with reward placement.
I can do the Blind cross and I can see on Video that he is switching from one side to another behind me. But how to reward? I did from hand with food. Should I just continue to play with toy and forget the food reward?>>This is a good game for the toy only (no need for food since he did so well with the toy). Taking the handle off the toy will make it much easier for you – with the long handle, you were passing the toy behind you back which makes the blinds harder and probably feeling a little weird LOL!! Without the handle or with a super long toy, you can hold it all in your hand as you start to run (the toy starts in the hand on the same side that Charlie starts on – so if he is on your left, the toy is in your left hand). Then when you do the blind, keep the toy in your left hand and show it to him across your body (no need to change hands). And let the toy drag for him to chase a bit, I think he LOVED that a lot!
When he is bigger, you won’t need the super long toy because his head will be closer to your hands. But since he is so little, the long toy helps him find the blind AND gets great tugging 🙂
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
Decel and drive to handler is also going really well. I love how engaged he is the whole time, even if the big open field. SUPER!!!His decel and turns looked better when you were earlier with the decel – he was better able to prepare his body for the turn (like at :56 on the first video, you were deceling when he was about halfway to you and that looked great!). So to set up the ability to decelerate that early, you can send him to the cookie toss without you running there with him:
You can hold his collar, show him the cookie, then throw it and then send him to it without you. As soon as he gets to the cookie, you can start moving the other direction. Then when he is on his way to you, halfway to you: decel to get ready to pivot.
Two FCs at the end of video 1 looked good, and so did all of video 2 – he is very good about reading the deceleration and moving with you. Yay!!!!!
Great job here! Let me know how it goes with sending him to the cookie so you get a bigger head start 🙂
TracyGood morning! He did really well with the paw pods!!! Good boy!!
You can leave them closer together for now, so he can get all four feet on them. Because he’s so young, he doesn’t really know a lot about his hind end yet 😂 so having them separate will get some front end going but not a lot of hind end. If you keep them all together for a few more sessions, he is likely to get really good about getting front feet on – then you can begin to wait for him to add his back feet. The paw pods are challenging, so you can teach him more about the hind end getting on stuff by using a big dog bed or something for now – it is larger and easier to get his whole body on 🙂
He did well with the cookies being present! Try not to move your hands, and try not to help him by luring with the hand – he is brilliant and will offer the behavior easily 🙂
Since he did so well, you can add in tossing the treats back and forth more: he touches the pods (or whatever you are shaping on) then you toss a treat to the side so he runs to get it, then runs back onto the thing, then you toss to the other side. He will quickly figure out that touching or getting on the thing will get the cookie toss 🙂
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
>> I do have different marker words for her; I seem to default to “get it” for some reason. I use a swoosh sound for chasing a reward and “get it” for a stationary toy or toys in my hand. “Good” should be treat delivery to mouth. I should probably differentiate between toy in hand and toy on ground, right? I do have different marker words for her; I seem to default to “get it” for some reason. I use a swoosh sound for chasing a reward and “get it” for a stationary toy or toys in my hand. “Good” should be treat delivery to mouth. I should probably differentiate between toy in hand and toy on ground, right?>>
PERFECT timing for this question – later this morning, the week 2 games are posted and I have added in a section on markers.
Yes, I feel the pain of saying ‘get it’ for everything by accident haha! Dogs are very forgiving. :). And also yes – you should differentiate toy in hand and toy on ground. Because these sporty whippety dogs are very driven and maybe a little bitey 🙂 I differentiate thrown toy, toy in hand for tugging with me, and moving through the toy in my hand (which might be same as your swoosh sound). I also differentiate food delivery particularly when the pup is driving to me: we often train with food and a toy in our hands, so I want to pup to know how hard his mouth should be when coming in to me for reward. You’ll see that posted soon 🙂
Looking at the hand target – she is doing well! I couldn’t see your face, so a general reminder to look at the target and not at her, as that helps draw the pups to the target.
And you can totally reward successive approximations, using reward placement /environment tweaks to get the full behavior. She wants to look at the food so you can still reward the touch (like at :14, she did 3 offers: almost touch, cheek touch, then a really good nose touch!) I would have rewarded that nose touch for sure (you pulled the target away) and then changed the placement of reinforcement to help her not look at the food as much.To change the things up to get fewer questions from her, a couple of ideas:
You can keep the back and forth element of the cookie tosses, but move the bowl of food out of the picture. It was too hard for now because the target doesn’t have enough value yet for her to look away from a bowl of treats and she was told she was wrong too many times (pulling the target or not rewarding counts as telling her she was wrong 😀 ). The cookies in your hand provide enough distraction. We do build up this behavior to a game that involves the reinforcement being visible on the floor, but for now let’s get her into a higher value mode for the target.
Also, you can leave the target out rather than pull it in then put it back out. If it is out the whole time, you might get a quicker come back from eating the tossed cookie because she will see the opportunity to earn more reinforcement is available. If the target is not out, there is no current reinforcement opportunity available so she might continue to look for food on the floor.
To help her isolate the nose targets, hold the target just high enough that she has to tilt her chin up to hit it without lifting her front feet. When it was too low, you were getting foot targets 🙂 When it was a little higher, you were getting lots of good touching!!!
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>> I have a question about the Goat Games. Should the object be something that they can get on completely?>>
Yes, and no 🙂 The object can be anything, mix it all up. We do want to make sure at least some of the goat game objects have room for the hind end to get on too, so she knows she has one and how to use it 🙂
She is so cute running to her towel to wait for you!! Then doing her happy Dust Bin Dance moves LOL!
The session went really well. I think she was putting herself on the towel as a bit of a ‘stay mat’ and it work well here: she was engaged and ready, but not toooooooo wild LOL!The sideways sends were harder indeed – you can start those with you a little closer. And, as you move away further away on the sending, you can change the reward placement to affirm that she was correct to leave you even though you were facing the other way. To do this, toss the treat to the dust bin when she hits it rather than reward for coming back to you.
She definitely had some questions about the toy! But I agree, she will get it. For now, approach the toy use here as a shaping game with the prop: get really close to the prop, have the toy squished up in your hands… and just wait. When she offers any movement to the prop, even if it is not a perfect foot hit, you can reward with the toy. I believe that as soon as she realizes that the way to get the toy is to go to the prop, she will be happy to leave the toy 🙂
Plus, there is a game being posted later this morning about markers: putting a marker word on for when she can have the toy will really help her ignore it when it is in your hand.Wing wraps:
Good back and forth rhythm here with the bowls! And also great with the upright! I see what you mean about her questions when you sneak the treat in, especially when she is moving to her left. No worries, we can make an adjustment: rather than do the sneak treat (which might be lumping too much behavior together), you can use a delay tactic: when she lifts her head from the bowl and takes a step around the upright, let her see you drop the cookie in the bowl as a reward.
Then you can build up to a delay of waiting for her to take 2 steps around the upright, then 3 steps, building up to going all the way around it. So, it is rewarding the behavior in smaller pieces rather than using the sneak treat which tries for the full behavior too soon, in her opinion LOL!
And as you make things harder, use a ping pong approach: sometimes delay for 2 steps, sometimes only for 1 step. And when you are waiting for 3 steps, you can also mix in rewards for 1 and 2 steps – that will build up the challenge without making it too hard, too soon.Driving forward: I love watching this game, you can definitely submit moire 🙂 And the life skill part of it with the collar grab is really the biggest training win. She seems sooooo much happier with the collar grab and hold now!!!! That is the best part.
And yes, she seemed happy to drive ahead of you and leave you in the dust. She is not going full speed yet… so later this morning you will see the toy race version of this posted. That toy race will get her up to full speed because she will be so mad if you win LOL!!!!!
Great job on all of these! Let me know what upon think!
TracyGood morning!
>> We had so much fun in the live class!
You two looked great! He is SO FUN!!!
Great job with the hand target pre-game! By the 2nd session here (the indoor session), he had really great hits going!! Good boy! Two ideas for you:
– Because he is so young, break off to play tug after every 3 or 4 treats. This will help extend his attention span. When you went for too many treats in a row, he would look around or offer other behaviors (he is 13 weeks old, I believe, so we can expect him to need the tug breaks more often at this point)
– Let’s get the rewards in quicker by changing the reward mechanics a bit. When you had the treats in your mouth (outside) or had to get them from the other hand to deliver (inside) you ended up getting behavior that didn’t involve the nose touch, such as downs or looking at you or a paw hit LOL!!! So, the key is to be as quick as possible getting the rewards to him, and the placement should be either on the target itself or tossed away so he goes to get it and comes back to hit the target. I think at this point, he is ready for the treats to be tossed away. And, tossing them away (with a little ‘get it!’) will help prevent him from going into the down or looking at you too much.
To get this going, I use the motto of “everything between the click and the delivery gets built into the behavior”. So we want to be super quick – this means definitely don’t have treats in your mouth because it takes too long (in puppy years haha) to click then get the treat out into your hand then to him…. and he is either in a down or looking at you (or both) the whole time. Things went better when the cookies were in your other hand, so you can say “get it” and toss the treat away with that other hand rather than transfer to the target hand and deliver to him.
This also might mean that you don’t use the clicker anymore for this – he has a good idea of the behavior now, so no need to click. And getting rid of the clicker will open up room in your hand for cookie tossing 🙂
One last thought – for now, do this in a chair. It will be easier on your back because he is so tiny at the moment, and with less bending over, he is less likely to offer the down 🙂
Wing wraps – he was very happy to get all the free and easy cookies at the beginning! You can tap or point to the bowl so he understands that yes, it really is that easy and he doesn’t need to offer anything else LOL! The down seems to be his new favorite thing when he doesn’t know what else to do 🙂
I like that you made the 2 bowls a little more visible to him too, that helped with establishing the back and forth rhythm we are looking for here.For the next session, start where you left off with the 2 bowls and do a couple of reps to see if he remembers the rhythm. If yes? Bring the upright in! If not? Stay with the 2 bowls for one more session.
You did the 2 toy version of this later in the video, he really liked that 🙂 You can totally have the 2nd toy come alive in front of you, so it is more visible, then as he moves towards it, you can slide it back. When he gets the hang of the back and forth with toys, both toys can be at your sides but having them a little more visible for now is perfect! When you try this one again, if he can go back and forth, you can add the upright in too 🙂
Blind cross foundation – this went well even in a small space! You can move away from him sooner, while he is looking for the treat, to get a better head start for the blind. He is small but already very fast 🙂 Great job with the mechanics and connection after the blind – this is going to go really well when you take it to a larger space!!!
Shaping a new prop is good! You are either going to laugh or hate me, or both… this one is going to end up being too small LOL!! We add a lot of motion to the prop games, and he is going to have trouble hitting this one with his 2 front feet as his front feet continue to grow LOL! Can you make this one bigger? Or what do you have that’s is bigger than this one but smaller than the other one?
Great job on all of these! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
Yes, the momma in a chair is a pretty big difference for the small dogs in particular! He did really well, good boy!!!!
2 little details to add now:
As you are getting into the chair and getting ready, put the bowls down and get the cookies ready… then put the cone down (yes, you will need 3 or 4 arms LOL!!). I tuck the cone into my armpit while I am putting everything else down. That way, when the cone appears, he is very likely to offer the behavior immediately and you can get that all-important first reward going. By having the cone in first while you got everything else ready, he offered a couple of times but didn’t get rewarded so that contributed to why he didn’t offer as much at the beginning when you were ready.The next step to add is to have your cookie hands in your lap. You were very smart to have your hands nice and low to make the cookie plops into the bowl very easy. NICE!!!! So with the goal of you standing up eventually: the next step is to have your hands higher, so keeping them in your lap will be a good small change. You will have to be quick to get the cookie into the bowl, but you are already really quick so I think that will be fine 🙂
>> Should I try the back-and-forth with toys?
Yes, definitely! That will be fun!
>>Do I need identical toys?
He needs equal value toys, even if they are not identical. I know that a lot of folks use identical toys but to the dog… they aren’t identical because they smell different, they are on different sides of you, etc. So we have had great success with the pups with different toys as long as he really likes them both. Plus, it is a great game for sliding in some self-control: “yes Casper, I know you might like that toy a little better, but can you come play with this one please”. That is a great skill for further down the road, when he might like the tunnel better but we are asking him to do the weave poles that are right next to it 🙂
>I am curious to how he would do with that. Sometimes he seems like he doesn’t want to give up the toy he has, even if it’s not moving, for the toy that’s moving
He will sort it out when it becomes a pattern: the toy he has will go limp and get boring, and your other toy will get SUPER exciting! I have a game about that specifically coming later this morning 🙂
Looking at the decel:
I thought I noticed a slight preference turning to his right in the cone game, but he was pretty balanced. He did seem super tight on the right turns here but it might have also been your mechanics – when you were low with the hand and slow on the pivots, the left turns were pretty perfect too 🙂 So, he is pretty balanced and that is GREAT! He is also pretty speedy 🙂 which means you can throw the treat further now, to give you time to get the decel set up before he gets back to you. But overall, he is looking great on this game so adding more distance and speed is a good next step 🙂Great job!! Keep me posted on how he does!
TracyWelcome!! What a cool name and cool breed – I am excited to hear more!!!
You can totally catch up – the week 2 stuff builds on week 1, so you won’t be feeling behind because it all builds up over time 🙂
Have a blast! Keep me posted!
TracyGood morning!
It is so great that you can take him different places to play his games!!!
Decel to handler: He was definitely looking for a thing to do past you but you were really good about getting the reward in early so he figured out not to run past you. Because he is a big long-legged dude, I think the pivots will really help him decelerate into the turns here. For example, at :44 you did a pivot and he was really good about lining up his hind end for the turn!
So with that in mind – a next step for this game is to create a loop out of it:
Start with the cookie toss like you did here. Bring him to you with the hand like you did here, and pivot like you did here… but rather than feed him in position, throw the cookie as the reward, so he drives out of the turn. That cookie reward also serves as the cookie toss to start the next rep so while he is getting the cookie, you are getting the next one out and getting ready for the next rep of decel/pivot/toss. This will add even more motion and speed for him, plus his decel/turn gets rewarded with motion which makes a lot of dogs very happy 🙂He definitely likes his prop 🙂 There was some visual “clutter” so when you were at a distance, he needed a moment to find it. Good job being patient to let him find it there.
At 1:11 you will see he turned to his right even when the cue would ideally say “turn to your left”. It is possible he is a righty, and it is possible that your position read a bit like a rear cross. So on these sends, try to be more off to the side and less centered on the prop, so that it is easier for him to see which way to turn back to you (always towards you like a front cross).I think you can also try this game with a toy reward by tugging when he gets back to you! Start closer to the prop when you add the toy, just in case it is harder for him to leave the toy. When he is happy to leave the toy to do the foot target, you can add more distance back in.
Wing wraps with upright: He started off immediately engaging with the wing, but then the environment got more challenging. He had a little trouble with the “stuff” behind you and needed to explore it (also a barking dog might’ve contributed to his need to look around). And then it sounds like someone was running a course! Eek! So even though he clearly has value for the uprights, the environment made things SO HARD. It looks like you shuffled in closer to the wing a tiny bit and then he got it. I give him a giant gold star for remaining engaged with you rather than explore the other things happening – so even if he wasn’t perfect with the wing, he still stayed and engaged which is awesome!
In a quiet environment or home environment, you probably have the wing a little further away already. So, you can move to the next step of trying this with you in a chair rather than on the ground, to start moving towards the goal of you standing. It appears that he has the value for that!
And yo were smart to end on some tunnel fun – all of that action is easier in the environment plus it sounds like the environment was quieter when you did that.
Great job here!! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning again :)
This is a good game to refresh now because she is at the age where we will move things along pretty quickly. She did super well with both the treats and the toys…. so onwards to adding the upright was the correct next step.I think she liked the game with the upright in even more, wow! She looked great! She picked up the speed (doesn’t surprise me at all) and was eating the treats so fast I had to check to see if she was even eating them LOL! (She was eating them – eating fast is fine, NOT eating is a problem). And she did a great job leaving the cookies in your hand to go do the wrap, which is great. She had a strong food motivation (yay!) so this game adds some good self-control too!
Next step… try this same thing with the upright and bowls, but with you sitting in a chair. You should start the session with the upright a little closer to you because putting you in a chair might make it harder. But I am confident that she will be fine with you in a chair. This will help us work our way to getting you standing up!
Great job :) Tracy
Good morning!
This is definitely accomplishing our goal of getting her to drive ahead!
Note how on the first several reps she was flanking a bit – I think she lost the visual of the toy and was watching you more, so she had some questions. The video doesn’t show how/when you threw the toy, but my guess is that the toy was on the ground for too long before the game started, so she ended up looking up at you more than looking at the toy. Even 5 seconds is too long 🙂So since it appears that Brad is willing to join our crazy games here, we elect him to be one who does the countdown to the start:
He holds her, you lead out, just like here.
brad yells “ready!”
Then he says “Set” and when he says that… you throw the toy.As the toy lands, he says “GO!” And that’s when you begin running (and saying go) and that is when he lets her go as well.
It all happens really quickly but that way the timing of the toy landing and the running starting will be very quick, so she will be more focused on the toy. That will help her go straighter and flank or look around less.
Let me know if this description makes sense or if I need more coffee. It is fun to add variations for her; she is doing GREAT!
TracyHi!
>>I always feel weird stopping my movement (such as in rally) which I think came through in this exercise, so again a mechanic I need to work on more. >>
You didn’t look weird at all! I never would have guessed it felt weird if you hadn’t mentioned it. You looked great, and her response showed it. My only suggestion is to try to get the cookie hand just below your knee, so her head and chin is in a neutral/forward position or tipped slightly down, rather than up. The higher feeding position produces a lifted head, which is good for rally or obedience but for agility, the lower head helps more.
>>However, I’m thrilled with how Rogue was reading the decel>
Yes! Rogue was great, maybe thinking it was the easiest game EVER Lol!!!! Good girl!
You don’t need to stop her at your side anymore, you can go directly into the pivot on each rep, doing it just like you did here (letting her get almost all the way to you, then pivotong slowly). The only tweak is to have your hand lower.Great job!
TracyHi!
>>Can’t remember when this course ends.
End of November! But I am going to send out info for a December extension because a bunch of of folks have asked. Stay tuned!
>>Zig zags are going to be a tight fit in the winter training space, but the Organizers fit.>
Yes, I think the ZZs might end up being in a ring rental but the organizers fit nicely!!
Looking at the wraps: he did well figuring out how to do the sit then go over the bar to the PT. You can now have the beep beep of the PT happen as soon as you see his butt hit the sit position, so he can release without looking at you. He was definitely focusing down more!!! I think you will be in the fading stages of the wrap pretty soon!!!
>>Apparently having the PT sitting there makes it hard to sit
I see his sticky questions more on the slice stuff, mainly after the threadles. I like that you did the threadles! I think his sticky stuff came when he got confused about the threadle cue: at :46, 1:27 and 2:08 he didn’t sit and just did the threadle over the bar. I believe it was because you gave the come cue for the threadle, which does indeed mean to come in then go out over the bar. So he did, especially because the sit cue was not super early. Good boy! When the sit cue got added to it, I think he got confused: “wait, does come mean take the jump or not?” so his brain was steaming up a bit LOL!!! And then towards the end he didn’t quite release from the stay – you were saying ‘come’ so he was not sure if he was going to be asked to jump or to sit.
So the best thing to do? Use the physical cues but not the come verbal – the come verbal can come back into the picture when we go to the fading stages.
He did really well when he did sit, so I don’t think it was an organization question at all. He looked good!
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
She definitely liked this toy, and it looks like she jumped everything really well!!! So the next step would be to have the toy on the ground before you release her, rather than bring it out as a reward after she is doing the jumps. Think of it as a target for her to look at the whole time. At first, the toy can be stationary and if she is fine with that, you can be dragging it as you release her and you move forward.
If she is happy when the toy is on the ground, you can start the make the angles of the jumps a little harder, by flattening them out (moving the outer wings out away from center by an inch or two at a time, over the course of several sessions).And I am glad you like the resilience games, I am finding them super fun and helpful! 🙂
Tracy
Hi!
I am so glad you had a great vacation!!!!! And maybe the snow will all melt and it will be a warm, clear winter? Haha, a girl can dream LOL!!!I am putting together a December extension because people have asked the same question you asked 🙂 Stayed tuned!
>>Should I continue to work on occasional platform sits & indoor stuff as exercise/maintenance activity a couple of times/week? I’m assuming it doesn’t hurt to revisit that stuff, as long as I’m not overdoing it?>>
Yes – it is all built directly off of conditioning exercises, so even if she does not actually jump, she will still get some great fitness workouts in!
Have fun!
Tracy
