[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
These are hard sequences for sure! How is your knee feeling? It looked like maybe you were still in pain so not running as fast as normal, so you ended up disconnecting which pulled him off the line in a couple of places.

First video –
It looks like he was following your line really well here, just needed more support to the line after the tunnel on the first rep and to the tunnel on the 2nd rep (you were trying to leave early to get to the jump, so he followed your shoulders as you moved away).

2nd video –
The opening looked good here!!
Very nice long lead out (I love how he wags his tail the whole time 🙂 )

For the threadle: you can call his name before he takes off for jump 4 (the jump before the threadle) so he is already turning towards you, then sue your threadle slice verbal and upper body arm cues (dog side arm back, shoulders rotating towards him, feet moving forward). That should be very smooth! You rotated towards him and he did a big zig zag, because the cue was more than he needed (it ended up being almost like 2 RCs on the flat). So less foot rotation and just using your upper body should work well.

To get the layering on the line after the 2nd tunnel, you can try saying your GO GO GO cue before he enters the tunnel so he stays on the line.

On the 2nd rep here – at 1:18 as he landed from 1, you looked forward and that shoulder rotation totally looked like the start of a blind cross… so that is what he did (good boy!). You can keep going in that moment, so he doesn’t think he is wrong and so you can practice thinking on your feet 🙂

3rd video:
It is a little hard to see the line from the 1st jump to the tunnel from this camera angle, but he definitely needed a couple of extra steps of support here to get into it. It might be slightly offset so you can’t turn away to jump 3 until he is moving towards it.
He did well finding the jump after it both times through here!
For the threadle, he is reading the pull-push cues with the switch but I don’t think he needs all of that. Try it with just the verbals and upper body rotation and we can smooth out the line there.

4th video:
The extra handling on the threadle almost got a left turn at :30, good job continuing to go even though it wasn’t perfect! And you ended up with spin at :46 and a backside at 1:23 there. I bet you will have an easier time with the simpler handling 🙂

The extra threadle handling caused you to end up behind him at :34, so he didn’t know which line to be on and took the jump in front of you. That might be a good place for a ‘get out’ on the line to shift him away to the tunnel, although on the next rep he found that line really well! He just needs that bit of connection to find the line there and also on the jump after it at 1:18.

Another thing to play around with is NOT running super fast, but when yo are not running fast you can triple the level of connection 🙂 The challenge there would be to see if he can stay on the line with you at a bit of a distance, so then you can support the lines easily without having to rush and disconnect to get to the next one. You can do it as walking agility LOL! And reward him for getting on the lines.

Nice work here! Let me know what you think!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Oops, too much caffeine and typing too fast 🙂

>>This was after. So by “play engaged chill” I assume you mean the pattern game with a delay and NOT the stand by my leg version? >>

You can use the opportunity to pretend you are getting ready to run in a trial, and rehearsing the stuff you’d do outside the ring.

So for engage chill, work on both the pattern delay version, and the stand by your leg version – and she will give feedback about which works better to be chill-ish.

>>She won’t chew a chewie in this environment.>>

Good to know, so cross it off the list. Will she lick a Kong or lickimat? Repetitive mouth movements are very decompressing.

>> Also, “short snuffle mat blasts” means what exactly? She snuffles in her down or just have her out snuffling why the dogs run?>>

She can snuffle in any position of her choosing. And by short blast, I meant just maybe 2 minutes tops (no need for 10 minutes of snuffling :))

>>There is a dog park near me where we can go and be safe. It’s pretty far from the action.>>

That might be very useful!!!

>>We may or may not have class tonight depending on the predicted rain. I’ll try to bring my tripod.>>

Keep me posted!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
It was great that she was able to be close to the ring while other dogs were running! Yay! She did well holding her down. Based on her whining and muscle tension, you can give her more to do (which will help with the arousal regulation):
– short snuffle mat blasts
– chewing a bully stick
– having her move around a bit and play/do tricks/do patterns. Being able to move would be great and also is a good rehearsal for trials. But it might be tricky if the other dog is distracted by it, so you’ll want to do it on the other side of a fence and as far as needed.

– play some engaged chill! A down stay is not the same (you’ll see she will be able to watch without whining with more chill practice 🙂

Sounds like the runs went really well! It is great that the class adds those types of challenges and also that you can add in playing the pre-run and start line games 🙂

Keep me posted on how the next classes go!!

Another good rehearsal option is outside of a dog park, if there are any in the area. Definitely do NOT bring her into the dog park, but you can maybe be in the parking lot using the dog park chaos to rehearse the games because it is similar to trial chaos 🙂 But safety first – if there is no safe way to have a dog park visible without having any potential interactions, then you can skip it 🙂

Have fun!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
Driving ahead looks awesome! He has a TON of toy drive and he was very happy to outrun you as you raced to it 🙂 Yay! One thing you can add here is when he arrives at the toy, you turn and go the other way to try to encourage him to bring the toy back to you. You can pick up the other end of the line you have on the toy to avoid him scooting away with it as you encourage him to come back to you with it.

If you have had a chance to do the decel to handler (that will be really easy for him), you can move this game to the collection sandwich 🙂

Great job on all of these! He is so fun!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning and it is totally OK to post videos when you can!

Good job with the prop pre-game! You read the situation really well and quickly moved to the thrown reinforcement. That got her coming back and interacting with the prop beautifully. Super!!!! He got a little distracted by a big bark but then got back into the game.

It looks like he has good value for his prop, so you can now move to the first prop game (sending).

The nose touch looked lovely too! Yo can move this to the strike a pose game too!

Based on the toy drive you have in the video below, you can incorporate more toy play into the foodie games 🙂 A little tugging before the game starts will get him pumped up, then you can add in some tugging after every 4 or 5 treats – that will keep him pumped up through the session. With the food-only as the reward, you can see he was more engaged in the beginning than at the end, so adding more tugging in between will help keep him engaged the whole time.

Nice work!!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

Good job with the lap turns here! You were very precise with your mechanics especially to the right so she could get those smoothly too. And she did a great job finding the prop after the turn – you can add more motion of walking past it so that she finds it as a parallel path with more and more motion from you.

Because we are adding the prop and parallel path, it was fine to not loop her around because that would mean you having to run backwards to get to position – she might think that was weird LOL!!

For the dead toy: Good job getting her to go to it after throwing it. And she also did well with grabbing it from your hand without it moving to stimulate her. Super! You can mix in big throws and letting her chase it, to help keep the toy really enticing so there is more value when it is ‘dead’ 🙂

>Interesting point about her being hangry but the strike a pose session in the hotel room was after her breakfast. >>

Maybe she was full? LOL!!! It could really be anything, because there are so many things happening inside her brain and body, all we can do is surf the up and down wave of adolescence 🙂

>>I’m not sure if it could be related to more teething (she did lose a tooth at EOTT) or just some other adolescent phase where she often likes playing with toys but sometimes doesn’t think they’re a good reward after being asked for a behavior.>>

Also, bear in mind that the last 3 weeks or so have been very stimulating to her internal physiology (HPA axis) – you were at US Open, she was in a new location, you can back, then a big long drive and multiple hotels and EOTT and another big long drive.

So it might make behavior unpredictable for a bit because the cortisol and its friends need to return to baseline. The vets tell us it can take up to 3 weeks with puppies – add in adolescence, teething, etc – so be prepared for some up and down slight behavior shifts.

>> I’ll have to look at my notes but I think it comes up more often with newer behaviors so maybe she just can’t process how a toy is fun when her brain is overheating with thinking about the behavior? >>

This is entirely possible and good to track! Young brains struggle to prioritize what they should be focusing on, plus the toy is stimulating so there needs to be arousal regulation which young dogs also struggle with. That burns a whole lot of brain juice (glucose and oxygen LOL!)

>>In which case should I shift to using mainly food for rewards (esp for newer behaviors) and try here and there to mix in a toy decompression break until her brain settles down more?>>

Yes, and also toy play before so she is still getting the built-on arousal regulation benefit (as well as separately doing big toy games and then a snuffle mat or treat scatter but not trying to train a skill).

A lot of it will be experimenting and observing to figure it out, because she can’t tell us and she is changing from day to day 🙂

Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

Sounds to me like adolescence arousal regulation questions from him (in the form of humping :)) In a way, it is GREAT for him to do this now and make it obvious, so we can teach his body the arousal regulation before he needs to use it in flyball and agility 🙂 Humping is an arousal regulation behavior, so we can help him out. (Side note, he looks so much like his brother Snap!)

All of the pups need to learn this, but most do not make it obvious to us – they just simmer away under the hood LOL! I like that he is a clear communicator.

Looks like the trigger for the humping was you being on the ground, combined with the tugging (stimulating!) and the cone game (also stimulating, in the way they get stimulated when they are not 100% sure of what is next).

So a few ideas for you:

– practicing the arousal regulation game of tug tug tug then treats in the grass will be useful for his internal physiology. Start it with you standing up and away from any situation that might elicit dance moves. Do it every couple of days, so his body has a chance to reset (it is a hard game for the pups!)

– when he has had a couple of arousal regulation sessions with you standing, try it with you sitting on the ground (that seems to be the trigger as you mentioned, and as we see here in the video at the beginning).

– for any training that involves a lot of tugging, use a ‘step down’ behavior to bridge him from the higher arousal down to normal life. It can be stuff like scattering treats in the grass if he likes that, or letting him run around with a toy or chew on something. All of those are good! His sister Elektra is a big fan of the treat scatters and chewing a bully stick as her ‘step down’ out of a session.

The arousal regulation will help him be able to focus (or re-focus if there is a big distraction) throughout a session. It is really cool stuff! It is also expensive on their brains (depleting glucose and oxygen quickly) so keeping harder sessions short will help too.

Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

>>Yes. He plays tug with me, retrieves / chases his tribbles, plays with a squeaky toy and retrieves it. He also enjoys personal play. He can do the baby level wing wrap for two tugs.>>

Perfect! Keep going with those play games and we will slowly merge them together. It is possible that we need to get through the early stages of adolescence where his brain might be prioritizing food over the toy.

On the video – you did a great job of getting to the new side sooner so he did the RCs! Yay! He didn’t always hit the prop and that was fine (and also why we use the prop so we can isolate the skill and not worry about him taking a jump or not – that comes later :))

>>I’m wondering if I should have stopped once we did 3 left rear crosses as the session went downhill from there.>>

I think throwing in some straight line parallel path reps without a rear cross will make it easier. At 1:16 you were a little late – then you were early on the next two and he was anticipating something going to happen and didn’t drive ahead as much. So I don’t think the session was too long, I just think maintaining the drive ahead with parallel path reps in between the RCs will keep them going through the session.

And you can also check out the other RC game I posted yesterday – that can help too!

Great job here!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

Adding catch to the sit went well! You can be moving away while you throw, so she gets used to you throwing it back while you move away. I think she was anticipating releasing when you were stopping your motion a little, so try to be moving the whole time after she moves into the sit. You were starting to do this towards the end and that was excellent! She held the stay well and was doing a good job processing the new marker 🙂

>>I’d add the tunnel verbal, but we’ve forgotten how to tunnel. She was such a rockstar with it yesterday so not sure what happened. >>

Adolescent brain development happened 🙂 Totally normal for an adolescent dog to have “forgotten” something they did really well the day before. It will come back in a day or two. Could be teething, could be stubbed toe, could be different neural pathways, etc. Adolescence is an up and down adventure!

>>Let me know what I should do!>>

Revisit it in a couple of days. Rather than keep trying, we turn off the pressure on the behavior til her adolescent brain development catches up again, then start with a few easy reps and see how she does.

And because she might be entering adolescence, the mantra now is “less is more”. In the puppy honeymoon, you might have been able to have 3 or 4 sessions a day, with other activities in between. As an adolescent, she is likely to need fewer sessions and longer breaks (and more physical activity outside of training). That can help you survive adolescence 🙂

I think we are also seeing side preference and/or wanting to watch you (struggling to NOT be able to see you). She was trying to migrate to your left side – she took the tunnel easily on your left, then did a couple of reps of going to the other side to put herself in the tunnel… on your left LOL!

So when you revisit it, start with her on your left and you can also use a placed reward which can be inside the tunnel to help guide her focus into it. Then you can move it to your right side.

>>Tried one more session this evening after her nap, but we are still on the struggle bus today lol. Maybe her mouth is really hurting today from teething? This was another exercise where the first time she did it, it was easy, and then we revisited it and she really found it hard to not go to the prop immediately.>>

Could be more adolescence, or her brain is tired, or her mouth hurts, or all of the above. You can also make it more obvious to her: On the video, I think your hand was too close to the prop – it was almost pointing at it, and the prop has a ton of value. So move yourself further from it (5 or 6 feet) and play the game. When you started to get further away by a step at the end, she was coming to the hand really well!

>>Also is there an alternative to a collar hold when adding the verbal cues? From past training, the collar hold seems to confuse her, rather than help kind of propel her ahead. Could I have her sit, give the verbal, then give the physical cues?>>

The collar holding is only to get her standing still while you add the verbals, she doesn’t need to propel out of it. You can move to a harness and just gently hold her. Then let go and start the physical cues (which are more likely to help her move forward). I thin using the new verbals as stay releases could confuse the stays, so you can keep them separately for now.

Great job here!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!

Sometimes the pups do act like they are fully mature at 8 months old, so learning the games is very easy LOL!! They still have to work through adolescence, but it seems easier. Disclaimer: that is HIGHLY UNUSUAL 🤣🤣. In my 30 years of being a dog owner, I have had a grand total of one dog like this (the whippet is like this!)

Yes, we can get her hooked up with an auditing spot! She can email me at agilityuniversity@gmail.com and we will set it up.

Thanks!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning and welcome!
11 weeks is a perfect time to start! The smaller black & white pup in the demo videos was 11 weeks old at the very beginning.

Have fun! And keep me posted!!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning! A little break is a good thing for puppies, they continue learning even when your schedule and the weather get nuts LOL! Hooray for latent learning – she looked great here.

The lap turns are going really well – she seemed to have no trouble turning away in both directions. You had a nice slow and low cookie hand, which as perfect! My only suggestion would be to draw your hand back as close to your leg (and more under you) as possible rather than a little out to the side, so the turn can be even tighter 🙂 If you delay the leg stepping back until she is a couple of inches from your hand, I think you will find it easier to keep your hand close to you.

Adding the prop went well! Her only question was whether to go directly to the prop or directly to you:
As she is returning her engagement to you after eating the ‘search’ cookie, you can have the cookie hands already visible and you can call her name – that ay she can lock onto the handling cue and not zig to the prop then zag back to you 🙂 When we get this on a jump, we add threadle cues, but for now her name is great here.

The tunnel sessions also looked good, especially in a new place! In the first video, she was mostly fascinated with the manners minder LOL As soon as she figured out that it was through-the-tunnel-then-to-the-magic-cookie-dispenser, she totally had it nailed 🙂

The toy added more spice to the tunnel game (and more speed) so that was great! Using the bigger toy made it harder for her to take it for a spin but you can also build in a little retrieve game: when she gets to the toy, you can move the other way to encourage her to come towards you. Then you can trade her for a cookie or another toy, just to start building in the retrieve with the thrown or placed toy.

For the tunnel game, you can keep alternating the MM and the toy (they serve different purposes, and using the MM will be a good running DW foundation). You can move the MM further from the tunnel to get even more speed. And you can try letting her offer the tunnel before you throw the toy (throw it as soon as you see her heading to the tunnel).

I think you will be able to add your tunnel verbal pretty soon, so feel free to add it as soon as you think she is consistently driving to the tunnel!

Great job here!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!

>>She likes to follow Sunni through tunnel. Would that help her get the verbal connected to the object. >>

Probably not, because she will be in ‘chase Sunni’ mode 🙂

>>I actually did some with lure, but didn’t post it. I threw the ball through the tunnel so she was looking inside. >>

Yay! She might need one or two full sessions of that to convince her to go through it – gradually moving the ball further and further through the tunnel until it is past the exit (then we fade it out).

Keep me posted! I am sure she will love it very soon.

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

>> I have yet to find a LOW VALUE treat for Teagan. To him, kibble is as exciting as string cheese.>>

You can try using mashed up pieces of kibble so it is closer to crumbs LOL! Also, when do you train in relation to his meals? You can train shortly after he gets part of his meal, so maybe the food won’t be as valuable.

>>y second challenge is finding a bigger working space indoors. If the weather permits, I will try the exercises outdoors.>>

Outdoors is great! Fingers crossed for good weather!

>>The good news is that this morning while I was making my breakfast at the stove, he went to the bed without being told and he is staying on it longer. He still ventures off here and there to visit me, but it is much SOOO much better than before.>>

What a good boy! So smart! He likes his “job” of supervising from the bed 🙂

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

OMG this is the best MaxPup video I have ever seen! Hilarious!!! And yes, adolescence is hard LOL! I will be laughing about this all night LOL! I love your sense of humor and his creativity with his dance moves LOL!!!!

for the wing wraps, try a bigger cone or barrel, so that he can’t go over it 🙂 the cone here was just a little too small, so he (cleverly) figured out that over is the fastest and most efficient way to the toy. Ha! Smart! A bigger cone will create the wrapping 🙂

About the humping: is this a new dance move for him? We can help him with the arousal regulation to *not* hump you 🙂 You can do one or two tug moments in a row, then scatter a bunch of treats in the grass so he can sniff for them. This sounds really simple, but it is a really effective way to get more arousal regulation happening. And then at the end of the session, especially if you used the toy, you can toss more treats into the grass then take him for a walk, to help bridge the behavior from the higher arousal toy play, to the calmer regular life.

Nice work here!! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

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