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Hi!
She will find the ready dance engaging if you are a bit silly and if you give her cookies for it!T
Hi! This also looked really good – I thought your connection on the other videos was good and this was good too. You probably felt better because you didn’t have to think about it as much. 🙂
I am going to be a pain about the rewards 🙂 You had the cookie in your mouth here, which slows down the rewarding and caused him to look up to your face too much. So, have it in your hands 🙂 he will be great about ignoring it and you will be very fast to get the reward to him: the faster you get the reward to him, the more precise the behavior is that we are rewarding. And definitely try it with a toy, that will be more like what you do eventually on a course.Great job!
TracyThis was excellent! It looks like he had no trouble transferring it to a new location and with the bowls a little further back. Yay!!!
One thing: talk less 🙂 While he is offering, don’t say anything at all. When you put the cookie in the bowl, say a quiet yes, then be silent again 🙂 Let him work when yo are quiet – that way he won’t need praise in order to keep going, and also so the praise doesn’t distract him 🙂 But, after every 3 or 4 cookies, you can break out of the game and have a big tug party. And during the tug party, you can talk all you want and tell him how brilliant he is 🙂 Yay!
Give this game a day off so his brain can really cement it. Then in a couple of days, bring it back out. Start where you left off here and if he does well, after a few cookies you can change to sitting in a chair. Our goal is to eventually have you standing up but he is really small, so sitting in a chair is a good next step.
Nice work!
TracyHi!
He definitely looks pretty fearless and happy to interact with things – super!! For the next session with these paw pods, try moving them very close together so he can get 2 or more feet on them (if you have more than 2, you can put more than 2 out and have all the pods touching). you can also use anything big enough for him to get all 4 feet on, so we can start teaching him about his back feet too 🙂You can also have the treats in your hands, for a couple of reasons:
If the treats stay in a treat bag, it takes too long to deliver them after a good paw touch, so he might not really understand why he is getting them. Plus, with all of the praise, he is getting drawn to your hands even more than if the treats were in the hands, because you are very exciting when taking the treats out so he spends a lot of time looking at your hands 🙂I think it is also a great self-control game for the pups to learn to ignore treats in our hands, so you can have low value treats in your hands that he has to move away from in favor of touching the item. And that way you can be super quick with your rewards as well.
Great job!
TracyHi! You did a great job here, and so did he 🙂
Yes, rewarding across the body with the opposite hand feels WEIRD at first, right? But what it does is that it opens up your shoulder very fast on the exit of the blind, so he sees connection immediately. This helps you make a fast connection and he picks up the side change immediately. Perfect! Think down the road when you are doing those crazy tight blind on course – this connection will really help!You can also do this with a toy in the reward hand, he will like that 🙂 And, if you have someone to hold him, you can do this as a restrained recall: rather than tossing a cookie, you can have someone gently hold him while you run away. Then call him, they let go, and you do the blind.
Great job here!
TracyHi! This was such a fun session!
Her drive ahead to the toy was great here and you were effectively counterconditioning her desire to run off with it but running the other way with a new toy. Super! You can see if she will bring it a bit further by moving away sooner, before she even arrives at it. But even if she does not bring it further, no worries, because she is NOT running off with it. YAY!>> getting some drive which she does not have much of at this point. I will hold off on some things I was doing (RDW, channel weaves). We will do the touch game with the toy, too.>>
I think she has plenty of drive! Is she a deranged loony tune? No, thankfully hahaha! She is doing GREAT. And, as you build up reinforcement procedures and teach her body awareness, I would totally wait on the RDW and weave stuff. That is really complex stuff that requires retrieving, forward focus, body awareness, etc. It will be easier to teach all that when she is more adult and more experienced. She is doing great!
TracyGood morning!
He looked great here!!! Since he says that this is now easy, we can add challenge two different ways:
– open up the angles a little bit so the yare easier… and raise the bars 2 more inches 🙂 Everything else remains the same, no need to tighten things when the height is harder.
or
– open up the angles a little bit, leave the bars where they were here… and add more motion to the moving target 🙂 You can be jogging and eventually build up to running. The challenge becomes: Can he stay organized like he was here, but with the added distraction of more motion?
They sound like subtle changes but they are not LOL!!! And eventually we will merge the 2 together, ending up with higher bars AND you running with the moving target 🙂
Great job! Let me know how he does!
TracyHi!
>>It was very windy.Yes! Eek! But she seemed to ignore it 🙂 She was great here!!!
>>She did well so I tightened the angle.
That was the correct thing to do. She did super well with it – the only hard part was she wasn’t always sure where to look for the reward. Sometimes she looked up at you, sometimes had to look for the reward. So, if she will hold the stay long enough (the stays looked great here!) you can go to the moving target/dragging toy. That will also add more stimulation and challenge for her – she is ready for it!
And you can also mix in going back to 2 jumps and raising the bars just a little bit. That will be harder too, but again – I think she is ready for it.
>> I think she is really learning from this course and has gained a lot of muscle 🙂 Not sure if she is using her rear, though.>>
I am glad you see the difference in muscle! Much of this is based on conditioning exercises, so the dogs should be gaining muscle and also gaining core strength. And yes – she is using her rear 🙂 I think she looks great!
Let me know how she does with the moving target!
TracyGood morning! She did really well on these!
You made a good adjustment to move off her landing spot when you released her, on the first rep she couldn’t release because you were standing in the landing spot LOL! the rest all looked good.
>>Although Changtse’s rt rear foot is off the plank in the last 2 clips, #8 & #9, it looks like she is lining herself up for the turn.
Sometimes this happens because they are fatigued or they don’t understand… but I don’t think that is the reason here 🙂 What happened on those 2 reps (:54 and the last rep) was that you were blocking the wing then stepping to your left so for a heartbeat, it looked like a slice cue and not a wrap cue… so she was setting up a slice. Good girl! Then when you cued the sit for the wrap, it was too late for her to adjust.
Compare your position and movement on those, to the first two reps (especially the rep at :17) – on those, you were where the wing and bar met, so she could see the wrap wing, and you didn’t move to your left at all. So she nailed the wrap organization. Good girl!
So as she comes around the wing, even if you are moving forward, be moving to where the wing and bar meet so she has the visual of the whole wing. She doesn’t need you to step outside of the wing to show it to her, because that changes the cue and she correctly should change her approach.
And if she does end up with a back leg off the plank, ask her to get on the plank fully before you release her, so she can push off equally with her back feet.
Nice work here! Do one more session like this but with you showing her the wing, then I think we can begin the fading process!
Tracy
Good morning!
She is doing well on all of these! As you move to the next steps, I want you to be a total stickler for mechanics and reward placement, because they are super important to get the correct form.Wrap organization:
She did really well with you facing her – nice organization! And she has the concept of th eplank and the sits. Super!! Because this is a wrap collection, you will always be close to the wing (at 2:36 you were in an extension position several feet past the wing so she was confused about the collected sit). Since she did well with the sit here, we can move to the next step:
Instead of facing her on the landing side, you will be in the wrap position where you are on the ‘takeoff’ side of the wing (basically next to her). If you visualize where a bar would be, you can tuck yourself in between the plank and the wing so you are both facing the same direction with the bar in front of you. And, rather than let her loop herself back around to the plank, start her either from a cookie toss or a stay so she can approach the plank straight on with you already in the wrap position. The demo videos have all this if my words don’t make sense LOL!
Zig zags – she is doing well here too but she is too far from jump 1 and facing straight, which changes the form. Remember to start her right next to the first wing, with her shoulder next to it, so she leaves the sit when released and begins the jumping as a slice immediately, rather than taking a few strides straight into it.
This starting point will be significantly harder, so you can open up the angles a little bit and you don’t need to make things harder on each rep like you did here. The progression to the flatter angles will take a few sessions because starting up close is harder.
Also, this is a good spot to add in the moving target rewards (dragging toy) so she gets to practice her organization with more motion added, which simulates what will happen on course.
Slice organization – She is doing well with her sits here too! On the next session, a reward target will help a lot – she is organizing on the plank nicely but looking at you (because the reward is in your hands: so her jumping form is upright (ideally she is looking down and not up). A reward target will help that – you can place a manners minder (or food bowl or toy) about where you were tossing the rewards, but not more treats from your hands on this game 🙂 All rewards come in the reward target. That will also allow you to add more of your motion.
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>With the toy in each hand, do I tug lightly/calmly then wait for her to let go or ask her to release and wait for her to go to the other side?
Tug a little, then let the toy go “dead” and if she has a great ‘out’ cue, you can use it. Otherwise, juts wait. You can practice this on the flat without the upright, to establish the back and forth like you did with the cookie bowls.
>>Put the dead toy away on my lap or under my arm?
Nope! They can stay out there, like the cookie bowls were. Doing it that way is also a nicely stealthy way to add self-control 🙂
>>Is there any benefit to using a real wing rather than the upright? I have wings I could use, too.
It is too soon for the real wing 🙂 We have things to add before we get those added 🙂
>>We plan to do the blind cross foundation today outside. I tried it in the house this morning but there just wasn’t enough room and I came too close to walking into walls when looking back at her. It will be safer for me outside>>
Oh yes, safety first! You definitely need room to run with the blinds 🙂
Have fun!
TracyPerfect! It is great for his brain, and then will also be useful when you are cleared to go to more exciting areas 🙂
Tracy
Hi! She is such a fun girl!!!!
She did well with this game. You can help her out with a couple of little adjustments:Try the shaping stuff with you in a chair or sitting on the floor – that lowers you so she is more likely to look adown at the thing and less likely to look up at your face 🙂
Also, hold the prop in your arm pit 🙂 til she gets to you at the start of the session… then put it down. That moment of putting it down will immediately draw her attention to it, so you can then get that first reward in right away. If it is already on the floor when she approaches you, she is less likely to notice it and interact with it.
Once she got rolling, she was great about hitting it! It think there are a lot of visual distractions in the training building, so you don’t need to toss the reward quite as far LOL!! And be sure to break up the sessions with some tug parties 🙂
Nice work here! You can do one more session of value building like you did here, then move to the send game 🙂
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
She did really well with the wrap foundations!! She got the back-and-forth rhythm established really well on the bowls and cone contraption, and easily transferred it to the jump upright. Super!!!You don’t need to add any more distance between you and the wing upright at this point, but we can add 2 other things:
– brng the wing upright back in very close to you, and replace the bowls with a toy in each hand 🙂
– bring the wing upright back in closer, and try this with you standing up 🙂 but still using the cookie bowls.The reason to bring the wing upright in closer to you is because the addition of the other variables (the toys or you standing) will make things harder at first, and we want her to set up for success.
Great job with the pivots, she looks amazing!!! We can build in more fun stuff as we add the pivots here too 🙂
Nice work! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
Nice work with the foot target prop sends! She did really well!At :31, you started from a little ready dance moment and look at how fast & snappy that send was! Nice! This is the best rep here!
So be sure to start each rep very systematically: get the reward ready, engage her with the ready dance… then send. I think you were sending before the reward was ready and without that moment of engagement so the reward was delayed and sometimes she was unsure of when to go to the prop. The ready dance makes it very clear with a “ready, set… NOW!” rhythm.
You can also reward the effort of getting her feet near the target even if it is not a perfect front foot hit or if it is hard to see – I think you were questioning some of them but they all looked good to me! This will eventually turn into jump commitment so you don’t need perfectly precise front foot hits as long as she is hitting it somewhat decently 🙂
>> We had started some ‘go to mat & get some rear feet’ so there is some confusion there.>>
Actually, I don’t think she was confused about the RDW mat – what she was doing here was hitting with front feet while setting up the turn back to you, which is very clever! Perfect! The RDW mat is trained a bit differently – and to make sure there is zero confusion, I suggest skipping the RDW stuff til after we are finished wit the prop games here 🙂
And you can also play this game with a toy reward – probably a smaller one than the fabulous green toy you had here but you can reward her from you hand with tugging instead of treats too!
Speaking of toys… the driving forward look great!! You can definitely add more distance and add your motion as well. Begin by sending her while you walk forward, then build up to jogging and running as long as she continues to drive straight.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
