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Good morning! This is going really well!!
>>He’s a lefty as you’ll see that going to his left is easier for him. I felt like I still had to help him more to the right as he kind of straightens out. But maybe it’s my mechanics as well???>>
A side preference is totally normal and that is fine 🙂 He is a lefty indeed, but his right turns also look good. Slowing down the cue to turn away was helpful for him on the right turns: your first cue to turn away was a very quick flick, but the others were all slower and the slower cue allows him to sort himself out more easily 🙂 The left cues were all nice and slow too, so he did great. The hardest part was getting the clicker and cookies going from the same hand LOL!!
So overall, this is going super well – the right side skills will catch up to the left side skills, so just keep revisiting this here and there. It is a nice warm up too, something to do before you then train something more explosive 🙂
Great job!
TracyOmg this was great!!! Very nice rehearsal session with The Big Brother. 🙂 Then you nailed it with him, then nailed it with Charlie.
You got your verbals and handling really well, and made the adjustment to add more connection (after Charlie did not quite see a FC) while staying in flow. Then the rest was great!
And yes, the pup was on fire because he did not like having to watch his brother first lol!!!
So, take a look at this week’s Rocking Horse games with the spins and race tracks, and do those next 🙂 Do them like you did here: practice them first then try them with the pup. 🙂
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
I think she really liked the minny pinny haha! She was happy to just keep going around and around it LOL!!!
>> I may need to do less hand movement?
I think you were fine with the hand movement, because Bazinga was going to go around the minny pinny no matter what you did (this is a GOOD thing LOL!!!) Yes, you were moving a hand but she was not relying on it to do the thing – she was motoring through it on her own. YAY!!
My only suggestion is that after the cookie, you line her up again to start so she is not turning away from you to get into it on all of them.
>>I’m going to say the real, actual, scary words “Left” & “Right”!!!>>
Perfect!!! And it will feel very comfortable as we build the verbals in more and more 🙂
When you the left and right verbals, start by holding her collar, saying the verbal, and then letting go so she can move. That will solidify the verbals even more so that you can fade out handling eventually.
At the end you had one little jump “bar” visible (look like like a panel jump board?) – she is ready for you to have all 3 of them out there, or you can use 3 pool noodles (as long as they don’t go rolling away :))
Tunnel threadles are going well on the left turns! The right turns are a pretty classic example of young dog development… she can’t quite get the processing done in time to make the turn. So let’s approach the left turns and the right turns as two separate training skills:
On the left turns, keep adding more motion – on this video, you were walking forward and she was great. So on the next double whammy session, you can add in fast walking then jogging, building to running.But don’t do that on the right turns: for the right turns, start at a right degree angle to the tunnel entry, very close to it, holding her collar and saying tunnel tunnel tunnel… when she looks at the tunnel, keep saying it and let go of her collar (then throw the reward).
One thing that helped my dogs get it on the the it non-dominant side was to put the reward right inside the tunnel entry. So the MM was a foot or two inside the tunnel, or a toy. That really helped! then you can gradually move the toy to the exit of the tunnel, and also gradually move her start position so she is further from the entry.Basically, the left turns are ready for the fancy stuff and the right turns still need some time on the easier stuff to percolate. From my perspective, it is the same being able to draw full pictures with my dominant hand but still doing stick figures with my non-dominant hand. It all catches up and evens out with practice.
Rear crosses –
“” I think I need a lot of help about my mechanics for this.””
I think you are doing REALLY well! It is a hard skill and she is nailing it now, in both directions. Super!!! It will be soooo much easier when it gets added to a jump (MaxPup 2 LOL!)
>>My current rear cross verbal is “go jump” (I did not choose a very good verbal).
When we add it to a jump, we will just use the existing verbals like the wrap verbals if it is a wrap, or left/right, etc.
>> I also rely on my arms (I sweep the dog-side arm in front of me & then change to the new-side arm as Frankie approaches the jump).
This will also make more sense as we transfer it to a jump – she REALLY drives to the prop so I am guessing that she will drive to a jump the same way… which means you won’y have time to do much with your arms on rear crosses LOL!! So what you did here on this video looks really good – you used less arm swoosh and she was able to get the RC nicely!
My only suggestion here is to throw the reward so you don’t have to run as hard to catch up to deliver it to her 🙂 You can throw the treat or even go to throwing a toy! Yay!
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>>Today’s 3 min video of Rocking Horse. WARNING! It is painful to watch.
I think you are being way too hard on yourself!!! Nothing painful here! And Charlie was happy!!!
Yes, things were moving fast so the verbals and connections were not perfect… but you stayed happy, kept rewarding him, and he was fast and happy. An example of that is at 1:26 when you had a little error, but you kept going and he got rewarded. That is exactly right – when we humans make an error, the answer is to either keep going if possible then reward, or just reward the pup if we can’t keep going (there was a little connection blooper later on where you just rewarded him).
>>Charlie at his peak of energy and abilities, I am at my lowest. I am a morning person. However unable to play Agility early morning. I cannot think fast enough or at all. I was trying to use the verbals. Total failure. I could get ready ( later on a day) and analyze the routine and be ready with correct verbal for routine.
>>What if you practiced the verbals for this game, without him (or with one of your adult dogs) in the afternoon when you are at your best and he is sleepy 🙂 Practice it a few times without him, get the verbals going… then in the morning try it with him. The verbals will be easier because you have practiced them.
One thing that made it harder for you was that he was really excited, really likes this game, and wanted to start without you 🙂 You can also add in a transition to line him up at your side before each rep – gently hold his collar at your side, take a moment to connect and remember the verbals, then start. That way you are ready for him and can be connected and giving the verbals. When he was starting without you, you had to catch up and that made it harder for you. I bet he would take a cookie for the line up and then chase the ball for the reward.
>>We started with his favorite ball, but as you can see we are still in stage struggling to gave it back to a handler No worries here, just a stage. I knew that and had another toy on me.>>
Totally agree that he was in the “I got my favorite ball” stage LOL!! You can trade him for the favorite ball with another ball (do you have another one just like this one?) or for a cookie. I think he likes that ball enough to go back to it after a cookie.
>>Tell me if there is hope for improvement and how to start.>>
Of course! You are already on the right track! I think practicing without him will be the key, then it will be much easier practicing with him 🙂
TracyGood morning!
I am glad you played the volume dial game – you can totally see her getting into the higher arousal state and how that changes behavior. Instead of one paw on the high five, the first high five cue produced almost her whole body doing the high five! LOL!
And towards the end, you can see how she had a harder time letting go of the toy and not jumping up to regrip the toy.
All of this is GREAT for 2 reasons:
– it helps her sort out how to handle herself when she is in the higher arousal state
– it helps us identify where she struggles and how we can help herSo looking at the toy “out” first – you can incorporate trading for treats to help her self-regulate: rather than try to pull it away or hold her neck/collar, you can trade her for a treat. Use your out cue (verbal and relaxing your hands) then immediately present a really good treat. When she lets go of the toy, toss the treat away for her to go chase and grab. The treat toss is key for a few reasons:
– it will maintain some action and we know this girl likes action!
– it will give you a moment to move the toy to a good position without her regripping as you move it
– it will encourage her to have a quick sniff to get the cookie, and that quick sniff is GREAT for self-regulation!And then using this volume dial game, you can incorporate this into simple training stuff that she is already good at. She has always been confident at the goat games and shaping games, so you can do the volume dial game while also playing those!
And also, you can add this into the tunnel – shorten up the tunnel and start on easy angles, but get her more stimulated to help her learn to do the tunnel (as an example) without biting the tunnel or the momma 🙂 When she is more stimulated, be as clear as possible with mechanics: have a collar on her to line her up, use cookies to help with the line up, and have the MM or a toy to throw for the tunnel exit. The volume dial game will add the stimulation so you will want to cue the tunnels as clearly as possible 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>She likes work more than toys and treats? That explains a lot. I’m sorry, BCs are so weird. Cute, but weird. LOL.>>
Well… yeah. LOL!! They are definitely DIFFERENT haha! But the good news is, she is pretty normal and she is asking these questions early in her training, so we can find the answers. Every dog is a little different, but she is a really awesome girl and we will help her out 🙂
>> I laughed when you mentioned we have to make her understand when we don’t want the work, I’ve been wondering about that, when I train something I typically can’t get her to stop offering behaviors and I wasn’t sure what to do about that.>>
Haha! She is an overachiever LOL! Sometimes the “work” that we want is for her to be still. To *not* offer stuff. Developing training loops as well as clean line ups that are fun fun will help – because she will realize that the stillness and the waiting is also part of the “work” 🙂 Plus, bear in mind that adolescent brain development makes for some ups and downs in training, but that is also normal and we are ready for it!
>> THE BIG MAD made me laugh. We really don’t want that!
A lot of dogs show The Big Mads in different ways… and herding dogs tend to want to bite something. It can be the obstacle (tunnel and also I’ve seen dogs bite the teeter) or us – but either way, we are going to help her NOT get a case of The Big Mads both with the Volume Dial and also with all the levels of the pattern games (the game added last night is how I taught my bitey dogs to allow me to sometimes really screw up and not feel the need to bite me :))
Have fun!
TracyYes, it is so interesting to see the side preferences! And totally normal 🙂 it all balances out eventually but we can definitely adjust the mechanics for now 🙂
TracyHi!
>>First a general thought: I struggle with proofing all the skills that are new to me in threadles. I have had several classes for introducing the concepts and feel pretty comfortable there. But then I fail to execute since the skills are not trained well enough or proofed well enough. I set up things for Hoke on my own to try and get there, but I think I try to go from 0 to 60 without all the steps in between. >>
The MaxPup 2 and 3 bring the skills into course work, including some proofing, so I think working systematically through it all will definitely help!
Barrel game video – this is going well and she definitely likes wrapping her barrel! She also is really excited about the toy, so you can reward her for moving away from the toy on the ground (with cookies) .
Now that there is a lot more action… clear your floor a bit more so the teeter holder and the jump are not that close – we don’ want her to think of them on her line, but we also don’t want her to ignore things on her line. The easiest thing is to have a clear working space.
Things were super smooth when you held her collar, added the wrap verbla, then let go. NICE!! She wants to start without you 🙂 so be sure to hold her, reward her for letting you hold her, then cue her to start when you are ready.
You can add in FCs and spins now – these were post turns but she is totally ready to see more handling moves 🙂
>>I will start to step back from the barrel. (see above 0 to 60!). Maybe if I put the leash out there for my visual I can do it in small steps.>>
Yes, you can put a line on the ground to make gradually backing up the way to go, or you can take one step back at a time.
Serps –
>>She does not want to come in to me. I don’t like the lack of interest at all.Driving directly into a person like that is HARD for Border Collies who are not naturally wired for that, especially when something of value is there and not moving (the toy on the ground). I don’t think it is lack of interest, I thnk it is a combination of the hard-wired moving slowing into stationary things that we see in a lot of BCs early in training, and a lack of understanding about exactly what you want.
So since she likes the toy a lot bu tdoesn’t necessarily know how to ignore it to drive in hard to you, two ideas for you:
– do the serps with food for now – use an empty food bowl instead of the toy on the ground. Or have a ball in your hand and throw it after she comes in – she might like that!
– separately from the serp games, you can have her sit facing you. Put the toy down on one side of you, and hold your hand touch target out on the other side of you. Look at the target and release her to touch it. When she touches it, you can cue her to get the toy. If that is too hard, you an have the toy dangling from your hand and see if that helps.
When she can do those separately, it will be easy to put the toy back into the serp game 🙂
You were doing something similar to this on the 3rd video (first couple of reps then again later on) – the adjustment at this point can be have the toy visible on the ground or dangling from your hand.
She definitely liked the volume dial game! I think er only question was about where to look from about :40 to about :50 – you had the toy visible but alsoa cookie in your hand so she thought you wanted her to look at the toy, but I think you wanted her to follow the cookie? She seems to like both equally now which is GREAT! so you can put the toy in a pocket when you want her to look at cookies, so she is clear about what is happening at all times.
Great job here!
Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! He did well here too!
>> I wasn’t sure if I should have backup more to the middle since he was going for the end and I just kept holding him till he choose the other end.
Watching the video from end to start… the double whammys with threadles at the end were easy for him when you were in motion and not at the far end of the tunnel. Those looked great in both directions!!
When you were starting him at the exit of the tunnel earlier in the video and not moving… he had a valid question 🙂 So in that situation, start him halfway between the middle tunnel back and the exit, and move forward a bit – that should answer his question. And then when you go back to the double whammy game, you can meet him more at the exit of the tunnel send on the first rep of it, then you will be showing him the exit option (versus the threadle option) but supporting with motion. That should help make it clearer for sure.
Nice job on these! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! I think he came back plenty fast on all of them 🙂 He did great here!!
Yes, he was a shade faster with the 2nd toy but he dropped the first toy. When you didn’t have the 2nd toy, he brought the first toy all the way back 🙂 Good boy!!!One thing I noticed here is that he turned to his left (away from you) on all of these, when your position should indicate a right turn. Since this game is also a foundation for countermotion commitment, let’s tweak the mechanics so that he turns the direction indicated by your position:
– rather than throw it really far and run away, put him in a sit facing you. You will be facing the direction you will be running (either towards him or off to the side). Drop the toy next to you, tell him to get it, then run the direction you are facing. That should help him turn the correct direction because you are in the visual picture more) and also makes the countermotion element harder.
– think of your line of running as being a little bit away from him rather than straight back behind him, so you don’t accidentally show rear cross pressure or cut behind him (which would cause turning away instead of towards you).
If he turns away from you, still reward him – but then set up the next rep where you don’t move as fast and you are more clearly in the ‘turn towards me’ picture so he understands to turn towards you on the retrieve.
Have fun!
TracyGood morning!!
>He does clamp the toy and delays giving it back a small percentage of the time. Less than half, more than a quarter.>
I asked about it because it is an arousal indicator. That clamping usually indicates that the dog is past the optimal state and a little over-aroused (could also be frustration based which is also an arousal indicator).
It is fairly normal to see this with dogs that love to tug, so it is important to help the dog when that happens:Be sure to constantly reward the “out” of the toy – either by directly and immediately giving the toy back, or with a treat, or another toy.
– be sure that the out of the toy is not immediately paired with having to do something un-fun, like ending a session or going in a crate or having to get into a stay. Mixing in a TON of reward for out-ing the toy will help that.
Also, if he starts to clamp, take a look at what is happening in the moment:
– do you need to raise the rate of success? Has there been too much failure?
– is the session too long, is he mentally tired?
– do you need to reward the out?
– are you playing before taking the toy back?All of this will help maintain toy drive as well as optimal arousal.
TGood morning!
He is wrapping beautifully! I think you can isolate the head turns more on the big wing here by creating them with the double wrap.
Have him line up at your side each time so he doesn’t send himself LOL! And send him around (no reward for the first time around) then as he comes around, the send hand engages him and turns him away – that is the click moment. The click should come just before he arrives at the wing on the 2nd wrap (the clicks here on the single wraps were for the exit of the wrap not the head turn approaching it)
I think you can also do this sitting so he doesn’t have to look up as much – keeping his head lower will help the turns too!
>>is such a little stinker to turn his nose up at yummy treats.
He did well with all the treats here – there was one that he didn’t like, which is fine, but otherwise he was good about eating the cookies and then getting back on the toy at the end. If he loses interest in the treats, you can limit the session to just a few treats then do something else, so he remains hungry 🙂
Tunnel threadles – he is getting the idea here! You can warm up with some regular forward sends into the tunnel (not threadles). That will get him locked onto the tunnel, making adding the threadle stuff even easier.
>>But is this right? It didn’t seem right.>>
I think it feels awkward because he has to turn away without our help 🙂>>To be honest it didn’t feel great because I don’t have a clue what I’m doing.
I think it is an arm thing – you were using your opposite arm to point to the tunnel and turning your feet to the tunnel, but you don’t need to do that: you arm can be in threadle position while you just walk forward (slowly for now :)) and he turns himself away.
About threadle position for the arm: it should be high, across your chest, on your opposite shoulder , pointing back to him (rather than pointing ahead to the tunnel) – it is not meant to actually turn him away, it is just a visual cue that helps him turn himself away.
So for the next session, get him pumped up with a couple of regular forward ‘go tunnel’ moments 🙂 Then start the threadle side relatively close to the entry – and you will slowly move on a parallel line to the entry and do the arm and verbal. Don’t turn your feet or help him into the tunnel – let him turn himself away to it – then you can mark it and party and reward 🙂 He seems to have an easier time on the left turns here, so start with him on your left for the threadles so he can turn to his left away from you.
>>And I forgot to add in the verbal aagghhh!!
You did have the verbal going – kisskisskiss. Either that or I need a lot more coffee LOL!!!
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
She did well on the tunnel threadle with the verbal! The left turns looked great and the right turns will come along nicely.
>>I’m sure my mechanics can use work. It’s embarrassing! I was pumping my arm with the verbal. ridiculous!>>
Ha! It was fine, sometimes there is nothing else to do with the arm 🙂 The only thing I would change is to let her do all the turning away… so you keep moving slowly forward til *after* she turns herself to the tunnel and then you can turn to the tunnel and finish the handling. You were turning to the tunnel here which created her line – so she was waiting for that on the right turns where you didn’t do it as much. In order to not get too far ahead or past the tunnel entry, you can move slowly (walking) and that way she wan turn herself away. It will feel odd to walk forward, doing the verbal and the arm, but not turning your feet and not turning her – just watch her cute little head and see if she turns herself into the tunnel. And when she does – bug party and reward 🙂
She did well on the yoga mat here! For future running dog walk work (it is a good foundation skill even if you don’t end up training a running dog walk) – fold the yoga mat in half. That will narrow the space she needs to put her feet on, and also it will elevate it a tiny bit which will make it more salient too.
And using the clicker was fine, but at this point you can use your ‘get it’. When you do the next session, we will want to begin marking her back feet on the mat. The easiest way to do this is to stare at the mat and not at her LOL!! Staring at the mat will make seeing the feet sooooo much clearer. And seeing the feet is the most important part of running contacts (and the hardest part with small dogs).
>>Yay for pivots! She already knew how to target the bowl with her front paws, so I think that gave her a head start.

>>Thanks for the reminder that is a workout! I bet her booty is sore today>>The pivoting games were popularized by conditioning and PT vets! And they will give her a power booty for sure!
>>I tried another toy that was a longer tug toy & she brought it back! I’ll keep trying different ones to find her faves. What is the “formal” training for retrieve? It is not something I have really trained for agility before, but it is super nice to have them bring something back, so this is going to be cool!>>
This is super!!!! I train my agility retrieves pretty informally like this, all play play play. The next step is the reverse retrieve game 🙂
A more ‘formal’ retrieve on non-toy items can be shaped, click/treat style:
This is how I shaped one of my Papillons to retrieve the ball for flyball – he had zero interest in the ball before this and really didn’t care about toys either. So you can totally shape a retrieve with other objects for Bazinga too!
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
This is fun to watch! Even with the toy and cookies and a relatively un-exciting thing to get on… she still would prefer to ‘work’ by getting on it than to play or eat the cookies. She *did* play and eat… but the work was more the reward for playing or eating, if that makes sense: If you play with the toy, Georgie, you can do the ‘work’.
This is both good to know, and pretty normal for working breeds like a BC. As long as we know what her reinforcement preferences are, then we can really help her out!
So the toys and cookies are motivators in training situations: they get her focused, they motivate her to enter the session, they help us train the behavior… but it is possible that the opportunity to work is the real reinforcement at this point. The toys/ treats do have some reinforcement value, and we will continue to use them like you did here! And we will also set her up to be able to get back into work smoothly – as well as use the motivators to help her understand when we *don’t* want the work (so she doesn’t send herself to things then get BIG MAD when you tell her not to LOL! This will involve how we balance stillness with action.
A couple of ideas to help do this:
I think this shaping in arousal stuff is perfect to help her learn the self-regulation to handle the excitement of the tunnel!!Make the food rewards have more action – rather than hand them to her, you can toss them for her to chase. That should be fun for her!
Same with the toy – lots of thrown toys, or chasing them with you moving. That will help get more action into the motivator/reinforcement process to balance out the inherent motivation to work.
Build up stillness/lineups by getting a heartbeat of stillness then releasing her to have action: action can be chasing a cookie or toy, or doing a ‘thing’ 🙂 At first, it will just be stillness (a stay is fine, or even just informal landing still. Then we add in stillness near something that will make her want to work. This will be harder, so work in smaller bits 🙂 I have a game coming today that will actually address this specifically – stay tuned!!!
And, pattern games : )That tossed cookie pattern game will be sooooo helpful especially when she has a minor frustration moment. And it is easy to do indoors! More on that one coming today too :) Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
