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Hi!
She did well here, this is exactly how the first session of this game should go! Keep reminding yourself to NOT move til she gets to the line 🙂
You can add in a little engagement and step to the barrel after you get the toy back – on the last rep, you got the toy back but then disconnected and froze, so she was unsure. At this stage, we are moving the wraps from an offered behavior to a cued behavior, so you can engage with her and use your arm and leg to step to the barrel.
>>I think I’m going to find a different object that might work better.
This barrel was perfect – don’t change it 🙂 Keep playing the game and let latent learning work its magic 🙂
You can also try the other side to see if she is a righty? The left turns looked good here so it will be fun to see how she does to her right (starting on your left).
Nice work!
TracyHi!
The food session looked great! The ‘get it’ was super easy and happy-making for her 🙂 and she was really polite about taking the treat for your hand – if you hadn’t mentioned that it was sometimes challenging, I would not have known. Your delivery to her mouth was spot on, great mechanics.
Toy races looked really good – she won them all except the big cheat when you pushed her back LOL!! You were a great winner too, engaging with her as you went back for the next rep. She is doing really well, so you don’t need to worry about trying to win a lot 🙂
It is a high energy, high pressure game – so if she needs to take the toy on a little run before coming back to you, that is fine 🙂 I like to count to 3 in my head while the pup is having a runabout, then call the pup back (and trade for another toy to help build up the retrieve). That short lap with the toy is the pup learning to regulate her internal arousal – and the skills get better when we let them do it 🙂 It sounds counterintuitive, I know, but the decompression moment really helps 🙂 More on decompression later in the class 🙂
>>JJ was sleeping between turns. She has a Household puppy class that day and she also did some Cato board work and a few games earlier in the day (not to mention running around with the other two dogs in the yard), so she did not have the drive that she has earlier in the day in the live class. Not much I can do about that.>>
She was great in class last night! Love her!!! If she has a busy day on class days, you can build in more daytime sleep for her. Sleep consolidates learning, so a long sleep after her puppy class would be great, as it can serve 2 purposes: to consolidate the learning from the class and rest her for the evening class. She can skip other games that day, and you will get fill force JJ during the evening class 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi! Lots of good work here!
>>still working on week 1 games and trying to get those right before we move on.
They are going well – time to move on 🙂 There is no need to wait til they are perfect, you only need to get them roughly right then move onto the next stuff 🙂
>>Struggling with distractions in the basement.
I think she was not really distracted, just a couple of mechanics and time issues (see below). And you can have everything more ready by the time you bring her in: toys/treats/etc ready, camera on…. Then bring her in and get right to training.
>> Should I move to somewhere less distracting first, and then move to basesment with exercises?>>
Nope! The basement distractions give you valuable insight into your mechanics and her focus was mostly really good! And the re was only one toy that was a bit les-than-exciting – the main thing with the toys is going to be use really fun ones, keep the toy moving so she can chase it, and do short sessions.
Focus forward 1: This went really well. The main suggestion here is to remember to trade the toy for a cookie for the “out”- you were pulling the toy away while lifting her by the collar, which can actually cause her to hold the toy longer.
The session was very active and went on for too long – at 1:00 is when she lost focus. So try to time these higher energy toy-based sessions to 30 seances or 45 seconds, using the timer on your phone. That way you will be finished before she loses energy to keep playing.
Toy races – these went well! And this session of about a minute was a good session length – no loss of focus and the trade for the cookie went well!
To keep building this up, you can let go of her sooner – as the toy lands, she looks at it so let her go drive to it before she looks back at you.
2nd toy race video was also good! This was a super short session – one thing I notice here and on the previous video is that she looks at you when you make noise as you are running forward, so try to be quiet so she can keep focused on the toy. And if she looks at you because you are running, you can slow yourself down so she looks straight at the toy the whole time.
Cookie turns – this went really well with you standing still, so now you can add motion forward – as she is getting the cookie, you can be waling forward. When she is halfway to you, slow down nd show her the decel cues that you did here.
This session is also a perfect length and no loss of focus!
Blind crosses – I don’t think she was distracted here, I think she is not yet great at finding cheese on the carpet 🙂 You can use a towel or something to toss the treat too, so she can easily see the cheese, or use the darker treat because she found that nicely (iust be sure it doesn’t roll under the couch, which is what happened later in the video).
Wraps –
>>This session was too long but didn’t want to end on a fail)>
Actually…. When time is up, you can totally end on a failure! It won’t be a problem at all and it is better to keep the sessions short. And also if she fails, don’t make a big deal of it. When she was successful, you were a very quiet cookie dropper. But at 2:04, you had moved it too far away then made a big deal when she missed… which brought attention to what she did and so she kept doing it a few more times 🙂
She got back on track but then you made it harder agin and did several more – then she was very done and didn’t want to play.
So for the wing wraps, you don’t need to make it harder and harder throughout the session… just make it a littler harder in each session, keep the session short, then you can build on that in the next session.
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! Auditors are totally welcome to ask questions!
yes, you can sit on a low chair or even on the floor with your legs in a V -that can all help the very small dogs. Let me know how she does!
Tracy
Good morning!
The resilience walk was super – she had a good exploration of a place where she is probably going to be asked to do exciting things 🙂 and she seemed really comfy! Going through the tunnel was adorable and so was checking out the frog and admiring the gorgeous puppy in the mirror LOL!
She looked very confident, even when there were noise. She was scratching but I think that was more about the harness being something relatively new in her work and not a stress response to anything.
Note how she started engaging when you were talking in the beginning, so being quiet was better to let her really explore 🙂
>>Hope it’s ok that I did this off leash.
Yes, it can be without the leash in super safe spaces like this, then on leash or a long line when you are out in the big world (which is a good next step).
Prop game is going really well!!! It is a good choice of prop because it won’t move and also because you and unfold it to make it bigger as she grows 🙂
She did well sending to it, even as you rotated and send from being a bit more sideways.
One thing to add here is a bit more arousal by doing a bit of the ready ready ready and eye contact before sending her. That will get snappy behavior 🙂 and also help her see the difference between handler focus and “line” (prop) focus. When you re-loaded your treats, she when into handler focus so the ready game will help that by clearly showing her when to shift her focus away.
Blind crosses:
Her engagement looks so lovely in such a big space. Yay! She was moving with you and engaging even in the ‘in between’ moments. Super!!
>>For some reason I couldn’t interest her in tugging. Likely a combination of working in the new place and needing a more enticing tug.>>
Yes, I think a more enticing tug will do the trick – something big and furry and crazy 🙂 she was interested in it but when you stopped moving it, it as not enticing enough especially with the food smells around (you were working the tug in the same spot she had just gotten the prop cookies :))
To get her tugging in the new location, do some tug only games (like driving ahead) with a big crazy toy that you can drag around for her to grab 🙂
>>I was super late with my blinds I think>>
Not always super late with starting the blind – it was the eye contact that was late on some of the reps which is why she had trouble reading the blind early.
Looking at the very first rep (:12) and second rep (:41) – starting the blind was good timing and then, more importantly, you opened up your dog side shoulder after the blind and got a little eye contact, so she made the side change beautifully.
At 1:03 and 1:28 and 1:45, for example – you started a little late but you were trying connect by looking down at your dg-side hand next to you, so she didn’t see the connection and made the side change at the last minute.
At 2:07 and 2:43 you had better timing of starting the blind but you’re looking down at your hand and not at her, so she didn’t make the side change as soon.
So, keep using the timing you used at the very beginning and the end – but reach back to her with your eyes, pointing back to her nose so you can see her eyes and she can see you eyes. That will help her make the side change immediately 🙂
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>>It’s funny; no sooner had I read your response about deleting social media, then Muso’s breeder messaged me and asked when she was going to start trialing!>
Yeah………. LOL! There is SO much pressure out there. The road to success includes ignoring it all. Tell the breeder that she will start when she ‘gets clearance’ but don’t tell her what that means LOL!!!
>>They’re doing a breeding with Grifter’s sister and Smidgen, puppies due soon.>>
Yes – I believe one of my friends is on the list 🙂 Summer is coming soon, you should get one too! #BadInfluence
Backside slices are looking good! I am not sure she needs the outside arm cue – she is very happy to stay out on her line and the outside arm might push her even further out (further than needed). So feel free to try the backside slices with less outside arm, or no outside arm (just a big connection).
Or, keep the outside arm if you like it LOL!! Just keep it low: the faster you ran, the higher it got – try to keep your hand at or below shoulder level (it was ending up over your head LOL!)
She was doing really well on finding the bar after getting to the backside – when you had a lot of countermotion, dropping the toy early REALLY helped enhance the bar (like at 1:59). When you didn’t drop it (early or at all) she was failing but either running around the jump or just coming to you.
If she just comes to you, like at 2:07: you were a bit too far past the jump, too much countermotion there and you were looking at her more than at the landing spot. When that happens, no need to freeze and wait for her to offer the jump – it became a 12 second stare down from your side of things and she legit didn’t know what you wanted. And even if she did go back and get the jump, it is not the ‘question’ our handling had originally asked… so it is better to just tell her she is cute and try it again, throwing the toy sooner and/or using less motion with your speed, or don’t get as far past the jump.
You dropped the toy sooner and were not as far ahead on the next reps – she saw plenty of challenge and countermotion and was very successful! There was one rep at 2:58 where you got to the threshold of her current countermotion understanding: about 2 feet past the jump and running, so she went around the jump. Try 2 feet past the jump and walking for now, then we can work the speed up to jogging then running as her understanding grows even more.
The reps on the Backside wraps video look good – just be sure that the wrap verbal is used on the reps where she is exiting very close to the entry wing, with a lot of collection. Some of the FC exits had you further across the bar, so she was doing more of a slice there (entering on one wing, exiting closer to the other, not a lot of collection).
The threadle was a bit too much for her in this session – she might need the threadle in a different session after all of the backside reps the threadle was not even registering 🙂 And you can give her a wrap verbal on the wing after the tunnel for more collection, and a clearer threadle cue – arm swinging back and the threadle verbal (I think you were using her name?)
Lateral lead out – When you get to your lead out spot, you can turn and face the takeoff spot more: when you are on the takeoff side, you can put your right hip next to the wing, your eyes on her, arm and leg stepping to the spot about 3 feet in front of the jump. And when you are on the other side of the wing, landing side of jump – it is your left hip on the wing and you are even a little more rotated to you can show the step to the takeoff side of the jump.
Once she sees that it is the jump, she gets it so that first rep is really important for feedback on what the cue means to her.
At :08 (takeoff side) and 1:12 (landing side), you were facing a little too forward so you were indicating the landing spot which she read as a cue to come through the gap.
At :55 you were facing the takeoff spot a lot more and it was definitely clearer 🙂 Yay!
One other suggestion – since this is a turn cue, be sure to drop it on the line back towards you like you did at 1:34 rather than throw it straight and long.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Good morning!
Sometimes with adolescent dogs things do feel like spinning our wheels, but that is always a sign to switch to something else 🙂 You worked on the same behaviors here but it is better to switch to entirely different games on days when he just can’t seem to find the right answer.
>>in between sessions, I thought about what you said with higher arousal level helping his success. >>
Yes – could have been higher level of arousal at the trial, and also could be that there are too many failures in your yard (so he is coming in at a higher stress level before the training starts) and it is entirely possible that he has some pain memory from the yard from when his shoulder got hurt and you are seeing avoidance behavior (especially when he is not moving as much like in stays)
>>Back to square one with not knowing how to stay, forgetting how to serp, rolling on something stinky.>>
The lack of stays and the rolling were stress behaviors. The not serping was just not understanding the setup (more on that below). It is pretty normal that adolescent dogs “forget” something they might have been fine with in the last session or in a different place.
So the main thing is to make the 2 failure rule a fully-embraced lifestyle. I think you recognize that there are too many failures but keep trying anyway. That leads to failure and punishment (by withdrawing access to reinforcement) which leads to stress because adolescents are far more reactive to punishment than to reinforcement (there is some cool science on this!).
I think the 2 failure rule will be life changing for you and him in your training 🙂 2 failures is not 2 in a row… it is 2, period, in the session. The first failure is the yellow light, he has a question. The 2nd failure is the red light, full stop, something has to change before the next rep. That way you can train behavior without getting the stress built in.
For now, step away from any game that involves a stay right now – he doesn’t quite understand, in your yard, for whatever reason, how to hold the stay especially when you put the toy down. The reason doesn’t really matter right now 🙂 we can accept that he finds it too hard at the moment without worrying about the why. And trying to get it with a lot of failures if shifting the needle the wrong way. You can replace the stay on the flat with a bit of staying on a bed or platform, then add in the moving target in that context eventually.
If you want to work on his mechanics in the jump grid, you can hold him at the start and send him through it to the MM, so he can work his mechanics without having to deal with the stay.
On the serps – angle the serp jump towards him so when he comes around the start wing he can see the bar. Some of the dogs in the class needed the jump to be angled at a 90 degree angle at first, when the handler was moving. Your line of motion is the same as if the jump is flat. And over the course of multiple high-success sessions, you can angle the jump back to the flat serp position as long as you live within the 2 failure rule 🙂
And you can add in a lot of the games that involve running forward, doing the thing, coming back, the tunnels, fast and fun! I think that is especially important in the yard so you can establish that high success level before going back to the harder precision behaviors like stays, serps, or proofing. Try the tunnel-wing games and also the wind in your hair variations (Go, decel, backside circle, rear cross) because those games are challenging in a different way 🙂
Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>>He actually really really REALLY hates to be grabbed and held, even if I try to do it positively. I have been working on that in non-agility training sessions but it’s slow going.>>
You can do a little cookie lure to line him up at your side and the neither just send him directly, or slip a finger onto his collar then immediately send him – all without actually making him feel like he is being grabbed or held 🙂
>>He would sniff and do his own independent thing even if I ran around, so I brought out the big guns… Dreamer! That got Kaz’s attention! I just did a little tunnels outside with them both, then I put Dreamer away and did a couple with Kaz by himself.>>
The more we learn about how dogs learn, the more we see that social learning is a real thing, and we can use it! If you have another dog that can model behavior you want (Dreamer!) then you can totally ask Dreamer for his help in teaching. Dreamer seemed perfectly happy to help 🙂
So Kat was overwhelmed by the environment on his own… smells, heat, the great outdoors… but Dreamer provided the social support and modeled behavior for him, so you got great behavior but with Dreamer there, and then afterwards. So cool! His tunnels at the end looked great, and good for you for only doing a few!! So in places where he might struggle, adding a 2nd dog to assist in the social learning can really help him!
>>Then we moved inside because he really loves it inside and it’s a bit cooler, and there are a lot fewer distractions. >>
Yes – it is a comfortable environment, in terms of having familiar smells and lower temperatures (heat is VERY distracting for puppies, because they brain processing gets devoted to dealing with the heat.
He did well with t he tunnel here! And yes you can fade the MM by gradually moving it further and further away, or even putting it off to the side or behind you 🙂
It looks like you were lining him between your feet on some reps at the beginning and he seemed to like it! That will be a useful way to start him rather than holding him.
I loved him big entry on the first barrel wrap video – he was PUMPED UP to be there and that carried over to the barrels. YAY!! Lots of distances and commitment!!!!
At :39, you asked if he was tired already… maybe not tired, but definitely hot. Look at the size of his tongue! Running and tugging heats him up, so you can do maybe 2 reps, then get a water break or let him breathe for a second. He did come back and finish strong, after standing still to breathe for a few seconds.
You can start adding the wrap cues to this now, since his commitment looks strong! His tugging looks strong too!
And the 2nd barrel wrap video was after a food session? Looking great and I am especially excited about how well he was tugging. Yay! You can do an arm and leg send to get him to start, rather than waiting for him to offer. The length of this session seemed pretty perfect – the las rep was at about :39 then the rest was play. So for now when it is hot: 30-40 seconds is perfect for games with running and tugging (which is about the length of a standard agility run).
Was the last video where he was not coming back something that happened only at the end, or at the end of all the sessions, or when he gets a ball (looks like he had a ball with him). Does it only happen when his harness is on?
On thing to do is call him back like he is going to go back to the car, then send him back into the ring. That can help break the association between being done and having to go in a crate or a car.
You can also try the pattern game to get his engagement at the end of the session – that can work really well especially if he is having any car or crate anxiety!
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyMy mantra is “talk to the dog, not to the obstacles” 😁
And I use magnet fingers:
>>Do you have another ongoing class on your schedule?
I am glad you are having fun in class! MaxPup 3 opens for registration on the 16th!! Stay tuned for more info!
TracyGood morning!
The drive to handler/decel/turn is looking great! A nice by product of this is excellent attention and engagement outdoors, she did so well!!
Great job with your early decelerations, that helped her begin to coordinate her collection. You will see her get more and more coordination as you play this, and as she develops more coordination in general 🙂
>>I think she’s doing great with this but I need more practice. I can definitely go further and faster. I’m finding it harder because she’s still so small but super quick and I don’t want to trip over her.>>
I agree, she is doing a great job!!!! So are you! And she totally figured out that the mat was the starting point. So with that in mind, you can put a cookie on a mat (while holding her) then move her away from the mat (carrying her while she is still portable like that LOL!) and the sending her to the mat. That should give you an even bigger head start to add more running before the decel.
You can also try it with a cookie on the mat, and a tug toy as the reward – this will work in going back and forth between food and toys quite nicely 🙂 And empty hand as a focal point as you decelerate will help her collect, then you can use tugging as the reward.
Driving ahead also looks great! She is definitely driving nicely to the toy! She seems to like the bigger red toy, possibly because it is more obvious and easier to grab.
She doesn’t quite know what to do with the dead toy when she arrives at it yet, so you were great about getting to her and tugging with her. That will help build up the grabbing of the toy and bringing it back. To get more grabbing the toy, you can mix in some up-close toy drops so all she has to do is grab it and then play with you.
>>I’m using my verbal “Get it” which is my Marker for chasing a thrown toy. Maybe I should start using “Go, Go” instead? Means drive ahead of me to the next obstacle on course.>>
Yes, the get it worked perfectly for now! You can do the get it marker for one more session, where you add a little more of your motion forward: when you let go of her, start walking forward immediately as she drives ahead. If she is happy with it and continues to drive ahead, you can add faster walking and maybe a little jogging (you can add running when she is bigger and can run faster LOL!)..
And when she is happy to continue driving forward as you are also moving forward, then you can add the GO verbal. The handler motion is part of the GO verbal, so I want to make sure she is happy with that before we add the word.
Wing wrapping is looking good here! You can refresh the back and forth rhythm at the beginning by doing the cookie drops without waiting for offering – then you can fade the drops out and let her offer. Think of it as a warm up LOL!
She did really well when you added the Kong bag! Super! And it was a very clever way to add more distance on the wraps without also making it easier to slide between you and the wrap object. Click/treat for yoU!!!
For the next step, you can replace the current wrap objects with a pop up barrel or hamper or giant cone (something that we will be using as we build on these games). Refresh the back and forth with that new object with you sitting… then when she is in the groove, you can stand up and see how she does! If standing is too hard, we can find a middle ground of having you sit on something taller (she is still really small, so having you stand up might be a big challenge for now).
Goat tricks video:
>>I think I should maybe take some air out of this large disc for her? I have a giant fitbone that might work better. >>
Yes, the inflatables should be mostly deflated to start – fully inflated things are hard for adult dogs and definitely hard for puppies 🙂 And you can use the fit bone and the giant disc together, so she has a bigger playing field to get all of her feet on, not just front feet. This will also help her as she grows, so she has room to put her feet on the objects.
One front foot was easy here, and you had really strong click timing! Two front feet were harder but she did well! She did go across the disc when you tossed the treat to the other side but you can see that she had trouble figuring out where to put the weight in her rear to balance and couldn’t hold position. Part of that was the inflation of the disc, and part of that was the smaller size of the disc (she would have had to scrunch up to get all 4 feet on it, which is really hard). So you can use all sorts of your fitness stuff – several discs, the fit bone, anything that is easy to stand on, to create a big playing field for her to comfortably get all 4 feet on and standing a naturally balanced position.
>>The last weekend of April she stayed with my friend when I was away. My friend has a teeter out in her yard set to tip with just a 4″ drop for her older puppy. She wasn’t expecting Gem to interact with it but she did. On her own she was running back & forth down the whole board and loved the tipping!!!! >>
That is good news and bad news LOL!!! Good news – super confident little pup that is willing try things! Bad news – super confident little pup that is willing try things LOL!!! Because she was confident enough to run back and forth, I strongly suggest that you now block off any access to the contact equipment because we don’t want her to get on and have something scry happen (like falling off or a surprising loud sound). I have the contacts all blocked off in my field because my 2 pups (4 months and 9 months) are at the pre-adolescent life stage where they put themselves in precarious positions like wanting to climb up the dog walk LOL!!!
So since Gemma is showing interest in the teeter… the teeter can do on puppy lockdown for a while LOL!!!
Great job on these! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning! Lots of wonderful things happening here, she is doing so well!!!! Yay!
On the plank – I love how you got the plank in place and IMMEDIATELY got a cookie in to jumpstart the game. Perfect! She was all pumped up in a good way, and the cookie directed her focus really well. Then she was able to offer lots of good behavior and get rewarded. The power of that very first cookie set a great tone for the rest of the session.
One suggestion for mechanics:
When asking her to turn around, keep your hand low and slow – the high head position caused her to lose her balance.
And the sit on the plank at the end looked good!
You can add in toy play before (you might have done this), during (after every 4 or 5 cookies) and after so she rehearses the mechanics of the body awareness on the plank while in higher arousal too. She is ready for that!
You can bring this game to a longer plank, or put two planks next to each other side by side, to get her moving back and forth a bit more and adding in hopping on and off.
As a side note: she did BRILLIANTLY working for food here! You are doing a great job raising the value of food as reinforcement during ‘work’ and training.
She did well tugging on the wobble board! The hardest part is getting the pups to shift their weight back –
I liked your mechanics best in the section that started at :29 then again at 1:01, when you held your hands relatively still so she could balance and weight shift while tugging. Letting her dog the tugging with your calmer hands also allowed her to comfortable weight shift and balance. At the beginning, your hands we too active so she couldn’t really get herself set up into a good balance. And great job adding the ‘relief’ moments of releasing her from the board.
You can try moving the wobble board to a location where there might be a little more noise when it moves (but start by putting towels or something under it, so the noise is very gradually introduced to be sure she is happy with the noise).
Wrapping is going well too! She is bending nicely in both directions here.
Since your markers are in place, be careful not to do too much “yes” or “yeah!” because those draw her focus to you (like in the very beginning when she came to you instead of bringing the toy back), and also the ‘strike’ marker without the ‘yes’ before it will help her look at the line and not at you as much. It is HARD not to say “yes” a lot, I feel that pain LOL!!!!!
At the very beginning, she took a moment to figure out what was happening. To jump start the wrapping, you can tap the toy on the other side at the very beginning on that first rep. Then she will have the “aha” moment and start offering more.
Once she got into the rhythm, she did really well! Very nice!! Moving the barrel further away was the right choice (at :58) but I think you moved it a little too far away so she had a lot of errors – try just inching it out, literally by an inch each time, so it is barely noticeable.
Also, she is ready for you to transfer this game to something a little taller like a pop up laundry basket – that gets us moving towards using a wing and also gets you standing up too!
So the next steps for her would be:
– Introduce the taller thing like a barrel
– Change the game to you standing up (with the barrel close to you, since the standing might be a challenging variable)We will be adding more to this game this week!
Great job here!!
TracyHi!
The thing about temperament tests is that while they are snapshots of the puppy in the moment, they are not the full picture and we can expect behavior to shift 🙂 So what might have looked to the humans like a retrieve, was probably not a retrieve – it was probably play solicitation. That is great though, I prefer play solicitation over a retrieve 🙂
>But if there’s an object just on the ground somewhere, if I say go ‘Get it’, she usually doesn’t respond.
That is normal – she doesn’t even really ‘see’ it because it is not moving and it was not something she was focusing on.
>>I don’t think she fully understands what I want, Go Get that Thing and bring it to me, and don’t know how important it is to get this skill.>>
It is unimportant right now for her to go find something that is not something she was interacting with. The adult dogs have figured it out and she will too as she grows up, but it is not important to focus on for now – it is more useful to work the engagement games for now.
T
