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Hi!
I totally understand the part about getting dizzy LOL!!!He did well with the tunnel game here… so now let’s get you running! Heeling for cookies was good and he was not looking away from you to the tunnel at all. So… now put the tunnel entries on the ground so that he can’t get into the tunnel, and add in you jogging so that he gets used to more motion without going into the tunnel 🙂
Great job on all of these! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
He was finding the uprights/barrel really well after the tunnel here! He is really getting so good with his commitment!
You used the tunnel and wrap verbals, so now you can add the directionals – after you cue the tunnel and before he goes in, tell him if you want him to go or if you want a left or right turn. He should see and hear it before he enters, so he is turned when he exits. You did use his name on the second video, which will get him to orient to you on a wider line (he was perfect with that) so now you can emphasize the GO and also the higher left/right turns.Nice work!
TracyGood morning! His commitment is looking good on the smiley face videos here!
Looking at the videos:
Because this is a great training ground for the verbals and his commitment is really strong, you can shorten up the sequences so you can focus on the verbals – I think the wrap verbals got a little interchanged, and you threw in some Go verbals instead of the soft turn around verbals. So, doing 4 or 5 obstacles in a row will help you maintain the verbals, then you can walk the next sequence and get those verbals et before you run him.When I was getting the verbals on my young dogs, I found that I screwed up a lot when the sequences got longer or if I didn’t walk them a few times before trying them with the dog 🙂
He did have one blooper moment where he took the tunnel instead of wrapping the wing (1:03). You might have been a tiny bit late on the FC, but also he saw the tunnel clearly and got sucked in LOL! So more of the wing-tunnel discrimination game will help that.
You really emphasized the connection on the next rep there and that totally helped him 🙂 NICE!
On the repeated tunnels at the end of the first video, it is basically the same as the double whammy tunnel game where you can say tunnel for when he has the direct line into the tunnel, then it becomes a threadle tunnel entry when you pick him up on the exit and he turns away from you to get back in it.
The other thing you can do at this stage is tuck the toy in your pocket so yo d on’t have to switch hands. Things are happening really fast with him so you can save time by having empty hands 🙂
There were a couple of things he didn’t know yet (like finding you on the other side of the tunnel when you started on the entry side of the tunnel or turning away from you on the wing), but no worries, we will be adding those soon.
Great job!
TracyGood morning! I am glad he is feeling better, poor little guy!!!
Looking at the video:
>>We’ve been working a bit off and on on the set point jumps. >>
Off and on is the perfect way to work this skill – he doesn’t need a lot of work on this, he is doing really well!
>>Over the past few sessions (before his upset) he became “stuck” and wouldn’t release over the jump.
We will definitely keep an eye on that – we saw it once in the previous video on the last rep. There are a lot of reasons why they don’t release such as they are stressed about something, or they think it is a proofing trick and expect cookies at the stay, or they are tired, or something hurts, or he is confused, or maybe it was just the beginning of his GI upset. There is no way to know so adding the MM to it as smart, and making the release reinforcing was great!
And I didn’t see any of that tay question in this video. His stay is looking so good!!! Good job with the set up cookie!! You were getting the toy down to the ground just as you released, so it was there as he was moving (and he was expecting it to be there) – that is a good compromise to support the stay but still get the targeted jumping form we want. It is possible that dropping the toy on the ground before the release is too hard, so I like what you did here.
It was hard to see all the movement in the jumping form from this angle but I think he looked good! – speedy, powerful, and consistent (he wasn’t trying to find a way to get comfy, he was already comfy :))
Remind me what the distance/height was here so we can plan for the future 🙂
The pill bug game is definitely awkward at first LOL! Yo can wait a tiny but longer after he gets the treat before you start moving – when you moved too early, it was hard to keep connection. When you moved a little later (like at 1:50 and 2:42ish), it looked easier to connect and less awkward feeling . And if you left way too early, he ended up finding you on the other side of the tunnel LOL!!
So toss the treat, let him get it and finish chewing, then start to run 🙂
Also, because there is a lot of running and the weather is heating up: do only 2 or 3 reps, then give him a break – he got real hot at the end (these pups have not really been alive long enough to experience the heat of spring and summer :))
I think you can add in the blind cross an inside turns on one tunnel, and add the 2nd tunnel if you have one!
Great job!
TracyHi!
This is going well too! The stay is looking really good – she was distracted on the 2nd rep but still pulled off a good jumping effort!
>>We ended up with 8″ to 10″ with 6′ spread.>>
The 6 foot spread looked good! And I think 10″ on the 2nd bar is good too. But 8″ on the first bar was too high. Because she has to power in off her rear, the 8″ was a titch too tall and she strugled a little – you can see it at :22 for example,if you play the video in slow motion: she lifts her front feet over the bar btu then has to rock back and use her spine when ideally she would push from the rear. So leave jump 1 at 4″ for now and let’s see how she does. That first jump never needs to go up in height, it is all about the 2nd jump 🙂
>.PS Forgot on the last 3 to start with the toy 10″ away.>>
Having the toy start further away definitely helped her, so definitely keep starting it 10 feet away or more especially since her stay looked so strong!
Nice work!
TracyHi!
>>Since you mentioned balancing out some GO!s with the Wraps, I set up your “GO!” Exercise. That was illuminating.
This is from the discrimination class…. Changtse said it was tooooo hard for now with driving ahead of you! She could do it when you were ahead and throwing the ball early, but to really get the GO polished up so she drives ahead – try it without the tunnel distraction and with you starting really close to the wrap wing – throwing the toy past jump 1 at the moment you see her starting to look ahead. Then you will be able to build it up to more jumps eventually – and at some point the tunnel can get added back in.
Nice job!
TracyHi!
This is going really well! Your timing was realy good – nice job waiting for her to turn her head. It looks like you were looking downard to her, which is great – it allows you to connect and opens up your peripheral vision so you don’t run into things! Changste was great!>>Perhaps,I should just run a straight line 1st while maintaining connection with Changtse and Toy in outside hand.>>
The pill bug game with one tunnel is really awkward 🙂 But now that you have it going so well, you can move to the 2 tunnel advanced version (and also add the blind cross to the one tunnel version) – I think both of those will feel less awkward 🙂
Great job!
Tracy>>Sorry rookie mistake. I changed it.
No worries! Youtube constantly changes settings anyway, which makes it harder to make the videos unlisted.
>>Great glad we can still do something.
I will have an indoor plan prepared, because it looks like you are getting more snow 🙁
T
This one looks great too! Her commitment looks lovely, and I agree – she was listening to verbals and following the physical cues. GOOD GIRL!!!!!
You had strong connection throughout, with especially great connection after the tunnel on the GO exits!! That is hard to do and you nailed it, so she was able to get to the wing really easily!
>>I got too far up on the jump after the tunnel.>>
Yes, but you kind of had to in order to show her the turn on the tunnel exits. Without moving away to the jump, you would have been saying the turn verbal for the tunnel exit but running straight like a Go, which would have been confusing. By being at the wing, you were showing decel and that is great for a tight turn. She committed really nicely and then allowed you to leave the wrap early to get a tight, fast turn. Yay!
And the smaller spaces will not give you a lot of running room, so you can totally spread these out so there is more running involved 🙂 In the meantime, enjoy being able to get ahead of her so easily because when she grows up, she is going to be SO FAST on course!!!!
Great job 🙂
TracyHi!
This is looking fabulous!! She is doing a great job of finishing her wing wrap regardless of your position and finding the jump. This setup was a little spicy because the tunnel was RIGHT THERE especially in the second part of the session – it was on her line. So you can see some steam coming out of her ears when you sent her away to do the wrap, but she was super great about doing it. YAY!So now you can ramp up the speed and get more running going for you both. When you are in a bigger space like this, or when the snow melts at home, here are some ideas:
– spread out the wing and jump for even more distance
– start your GO verbal earlier, as soon as she is finishing the wing wrap
– run harder past he jump (which will cue her to run more too) but also maintain connection to her eyes (and point your dog-side hand back to her nose when you are aheadWith more speed and more distance, you can totally place the toy out on the line past the jump so you don’t have to throw it.
Great job!
TracyHi!
Thanks for the info, I was going off of the numbers above:
>>First reps: 5 feet apart, both bars 6″
Changed to 6 feet apart, both bars at 6″>>Try 5.5 feet and see if that is the sweet spot for her.
>>Changed 2nd bar to 10″
If you think the bars should be lower than 6″, I’ll switch to my wing jumps or bumps.I think the first bar should be lower, so maybe a bump to act as the step-in point. and then warm up on 6″ for bar 2 for a rep or 2, then go to 8 for the rest and see how she does. I don’t think 8 will be hard at all, I am looking for the push off over 1 🙂 She is still young enough that even though she appears really coordinated, she is actually still developing her movement style so we can find the sweet spot and then everything else is easy 🙂
Keep me posted!
TracyGood morning!
>>You suggested I stop the verbal until she stops flailing. I am not sure she was really flailing
I don’t think she was flailing at the beginning or when you changed sides 🙂 You can try to stand up more so she isn’t in a down at the beginning? That might make it more comfy for both of you. You were more upright at :50 and that seemed more comfy.
Nice job on the first couple of reps with the Go on the tunnel and wrap on the wing!
Your right cue at :26 was late – she was in the tunnel and also your physical cue was very forward . A little better at :36 but still too much forward motion
The arm down, clear connection at :29 was great! The pointing arm up high (above your shoulders) pulled her off the line at :30 by blocking connection and also turning your shoulders towards the line she too (good girl)
Good adjustment at :40 to show her the connection! But keep running 🙂 You went to a walk and she was like… “You are massively decelerated, should I be turning more? “The right turn exits of the tunnel looked good I the second part of the session. You can also turn your shoulders towards the next line when you do the verbals – that will really help when there is more speed.
She didn’t quite commit at 1:12 when you ran away from the wing a bit too soon twith not enough looking behind you to the landing spot (you were looking at her, mostly, but on countermotion we want to shift connection to where the landing spot would be if it was a jump).
Rather than fling her back to complete the wrap, give an effort reward like a cookie and try it again in flow. The reason I don’t like to send dogs back like that after a blooper is:
– it doesn’t teach the skill in flow
– you end up getting frustration behaviors built in, like when she jumped up on you at 1:13.1:26 was much smoother nice commitment with no frustration behavior!
I think as you added the more complex handling on the las couple of reps, you lost the timing and positions to help show the sequence – so be sure to give yourself walk throughs to have it all planned out (verbals, handling, liens, etc). That will help you be ready because these are high speed mini sequences 🙂
Smiley face game is looking great!! You are really emphasizing connection and keeping your arms low. The wraps look terrific and she is driving ahead of you into the wraps, to the tunnel, and through the left/right turns. Yay!
One small detail with the soft turns and connections in general: try to be connected to her eyes without connecting so much that you end up rotating and your dog-side shoulder gets too far back, almost like a threadle.
At :28, you were a bit over-connected by really staring at her eyes to the point where your dog-side shoulder was way back so she had questions. Your connection at :51 was a little softer (in a good way) here you could see her eyes by your shoulders were not too open, so she was great, no questions there.
At 1:00, I think you were a little over-connected so she had a question there too.
So what to do instead? Look at her eyes but you can also use your arm to gently point to her nose. So when she is next to you or ahead of you, you won’t end up with your shoulder too far open. The trick is to not point ahead of her, and not let your arm. Get up to your shoulders 🙂 that is where connection breaks 🙂
Spin to the other side of the tunnel looked great!
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
Totally agree – our experienced dogs make it so much easier and then the baby dogs come along and remind us that we need to really exaggerate handling and help them out LOL!!
Tracy
Good morning!
Yay for snow going away!!!
Set point – she’s got the framework of the game, so now we can find the sweet spot for her. For the first jump: lower the bar to the lowest setting and set her back maybe one or two more inches from it. It was a little tall and she was the tiniest bit too close for the plyometric approach, so she was hoisting herself more than she was pushing from her rear. I think her position at :16 was good!
And split the difference with the distance: put the distance at 4.5 feet. Leave the 2nd bar low for one more session so we can see how she adjusts. Don’t change anything in the session, just do maybe 5 passes through it. The changed distance and taller bar required more reading than she could pull off, while maintaining form and you got a tick of the bar and a dropped bar on that #1 jump. We will do more reading grids later on.
The outside circles on the pill bug were fun! The timing of your releases were all good except for :16 where you were too late, and she was not sure which side of the tunnel to run around (so she chose OVER the tunnel LOL!!). She started to tighten up the turns as well – she was wide on the first couple but then got tighter and tighter to you on the outside turns (yay!!)
The blind cross and inside turns looked AWESOME – those inside turns are hard and she nailed it!!! Onwards to the 2 Tunnel game 🙂
Tunnel turns:
The left turns at the beginning looked really good – as you start running courses, I bet the ‘tunnel’ and ‘left’ verbals will start sounding more different, they were a little similar here. You can be bigger/louder with the tunnel verbals, and softer/lower energy with the left/right verbals (I try to ask them as a question because it prevents me from yelling them LOL!!)The GO on the tunnel exit was harder for her in the first part here – and I am going to really get everyone to emphasize the GO GO GO on the tunnel exits because they are getting very popular. We saw a few of those at the UKI trial this weekend where the dogs needed to go straight from a straight tunnel and find a jump with the handler NOT being ahead of the dog. That challenge ate everyone alive (unless they could outrun the dog), except for my Contraband and Hot Sauce who both learned this GO on the tunnel with a lot of emphasis 🙂
So in a nutshell… don’t worry as much about the turn on the wing after the tunnel, let’s get her to go to the wing without you being ahead of her (it was easy when you were ahead of her :)) Throw the rewards a LOT and you will see the value shift to the big lines, and also repeat the GO verbals a lot more. You were tending to say them one then switch to the turn verbal, which produced more turn and less Go line on the tunnel exit. The turn on the wing or a jump will be really easy no matter where you are, once the GO is solid.
For example: You had one GO at :25 and switched to a turn cue too soon… so she turned. Reward that! She was correct, because she heard a lot of turn cue before she exited the tunnel – assume all things that aren’t exactly as planned to be handler errors and reward her 🙂
She went straighter at :30 but more Go is needed 🙂 You can do lots of GO GO GO GO with long toy throws 🙂
When you were ahead at :39 you got the wing beautifully! You can sue the GO verbal here too, because the handling really supports the line too and she won’t look at you (like she did at :45)
Switching to the right turns: You were a little late at :53 and :58 (we can hear your right verbal relative to the noise of her getting into the tunnel :)) and then you were perfect at 1:05!
You did a lot of long toy throws when she was driving through the tunnel towards the camera in this section, and she looked great!
You can be using your GO GO GO in those moments to help name the straight drive out of the tunnel followed by the toy marker. You can see how quickly she got on board with the straight line exits 🙂She was a little wide on the right turns on the tunnel exits towards the end of the session: Your timing of the right verbal at 1:57 and 2:02 was really good! What caused the wide exit was that it was a high energy verbal and the handling was all explosive forward so it looked and sounded more like the go lines she had just done.
So keep that same timing, and add in letting her see you move away from the tunnel towards the wing (instead of driving straight) and also try to reduce the energy of the verbal (easier said than done while running).
You broke it down at 2:20 and after that – she was great because there was no explosive forward motion.
Then at the very end (2:36) you did have motion moving away to the wing which she saw before entering the tunnel and had a great exit! Yay!The trick is to be able to show that motion and deliver the verbal with that same timing, without decel because you will not likely have time to decelerate on a line like this 🙂 So the verbal and line of movement will override lack of decel.
Try playing with delivering the verbal so it sounds different while you are also running – using it as a question works well of me, but everyone gets to play with different ways to produce the sound 🙂 And yes, I do run around outside without the dogs to try out the verbals and also yes, my neighbors thing I am insane hahaha You are a musician so I have total confidence that you will sort it out!
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! Both of the videos are marked private, can you change to unlisted?
>> I am not sure we will be able to work the live due to space and snow but I will if you can break it down for us so we can participate.
I took a peek at the live topics and they can all be done in a small space – indoors, or on the deck if it is warm enough! Fingers crossed for a fast snow melt!
Tracy
