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Hi!
Yes, part of the art of puppy training is being an observer in-the-moment and making little adjustments.
>> I could tell I was using Yip prematurely or incorrectly.
And it is also a very simulating marker, which will draw her attention towards you – so using other markers will help shift her attention to different locations when we need that.
>>On resilience markers, it’s a fairly new concept to me to have so many words. Not quite sure how to go about it, but will give it a go!>>
We will be very gradually introducing a whole lot of words in the coming weeks 🙂
T
Good morning!
Fingers crossed for easy answers from the ultrasound! Are they looking at both sides? (Yet another thing I learned the hard way – aways ultrasound BOTH sides because only one side only gives half the picture LOL!)
Reacher dd well with the toy races! He definitely likes the flying squirrel frisbee and he was NOT going to be fooled by a cookie toss LOL!! Game on! And I love that he liked the toy. The big win on the 2nd to last rep was probably because he was looking for the treat – and the last rep got frozen in the video, I can’t get it to play that part (but it shows the tugging afterwards).
So since he is loving the racing element….
>>He was even trying so hard to get it one time that he totally flipped over trying to stop. OMG speaking of not wanting orthopedic issues Reacher…>>
Yes, he was so driven that he was splatting himself! But we can change the toy to help this – do you have a big hollee roller toy? That is perfect for the pups to run to and scoop up, no splatting. I have also shoved other toys inside it, like a tennis ball or a lotus ball or soft frisbee, to enhance the value of the hollee roller 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
He is doing really well here! He is driving ahead beautifully 🙂
Because the environment has a lot of distractions, he did best when you tossed the toy immediately after he was lined up, then you grabbed the toy and got it moving after you got to it.
That really jump-started the session and helped him ignore the environment and totally focus on the toy! When you have his focus like that, you can throw the toy further and further away so he can drive ahead more and more. Be sure to hold him by the collar like you did at the beginning, so he knows which side to be on and can watch the toy land – that sets up the driving ahead perfectly.Great job!
Tracy
Good morning! Lots of good work here!
>>The first video is Get it food. I do not see a problem with this. I do have to be careful how I offer food from the hand when JJ is in a heightened state. She wants to lunge at the food and can be quite demanding. I found that turning my hand over so that she comes in to the hand is a better situation for me.>>
I don’t see the get it with food link here, but I can totally relate about the drive to the hand for food- my youngest pup comes in hot for cookies, like something out of the Jurassic Park movies, ending up with my whole hand in his mouth. Ouch!!! He does this even when he is not in a heightened state LOL!! I think he simply doesn’t have a lot of body awareness with his mouth, so I have to train it like we train hind end body awareness 🙂 So I have done a lot of work with the food markers and getting him to take food from my hand gently in any state – and also figuring out ways to present the food (like in an open flat palm, or tossing it) so he can be successful during shaping when stimulated. So yes, be sure to turn your hand over for her so that you can deliver reinforcement while protecting your flesh.
Toy switching – she has lovely toy drive and yes, the 2nd toy was VERY EXCITING 🙂 One thing that really helps get the pups to focus on the ‘other’ toy we want them to switch to is if *we* focus on the other toy, ooh-ing and ah-ing over it, and completely ignoring the pup and the toy she currently has (you can gently hold the current toy, or have the pup on a leash so you can let go of the current toy). When we shift our focus to the new toy, we are using enhancement learning and the pups will come over to check it out, ‘forgetting’ the current toy. When we try to engage the pup and focus on the pup, we actually enhance the toy they have so they keep playing with it 🙂 Enhancement is one of the non-operant forms of learning that we use all the time with pups 🙂
And since she loves food, you can totally trade the high value toy for a low value treat (if there is such a thing :)) This is what you were doing in the toy-food video and it went really well! I love the trading as a no-fighting way to get the toy back, even after high arousal tugging like she did here. And it helps us rehearse going back and forth from toys to food to toys, which is incredibly useful for training and for working in different arousal states. This session went great!!!
Toy races – first rep went great! Rather than try to get her to bring it by moving towards her (which moves the dogs away from us :)) you can move the other direction and trade for another toy or a cookie
She drove past you nicely even with the cookie toss starts! Make sure she sees the toy thrown before you toss the treat – on the 2nd rep of that, the toy was thrown a lot later and I don’t think she even realized it was out there. But the last rep had the toy toss first and then the cookie toss, so she TOTALLY drove to the toy LOL!
>>JJ would get free from me before I could get her collar so that was a bit of a challenge,
It looks like she was getting more stimulating (which is part of the goal of the game, to teach the pups to ‘work’ when they are more stimulated like they will be in sports later on in life), and with that stimulation came some Herdy/circling behavior which made things challenging for mechanics because she was slippery!
So in the mechanics before each rep, you can slow things down to emphasize the line up: tug tug tug, get the toy back (cookie trade makes it easy), tuck the toy into the hand that will throw it, use a cookie in your hand to line her up at your side (she will probably be happy to follow a cookie), gently take her collar…. Then throw the toy to begin the next rep. That builds cleaner transitions to the next rep, and it also allows you to help her rehearse lining up even when she is very stimulated. Using the cookies as a focal point in the transition make it very very easy for now, and we can fade the cookies out eventually.
On the wing wrapping video – I think the amazon box was so tall and wide that she had trouble seeing you and seeing the bowls, so she had not quite established the back and forth and was waiting for you to drop the cookie – so moving it further away was causing the freezing behavior as she waited for the cookie drop. So using something smaller will work better like the laundry basket you mentioned. That will make it easier.
Offering going behind you is rewardable for now (we actually haven’t told the dogs anything to the contrary, and it is a moving offered behavior, so we take it for now LOL!). And since we actually don’t want her to go behind you, yes – sitting on a couch or standing against a wall will totally help her stay in front of you.
Great job here!!! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>>I didn’t realize I named my 1st forum post Sue and Grady
Ha! Old habits…
Lots of good work here on the videos! She is doing really well. I love her tug drive!!!! Most of the feedback focuses on ideas for mechanics so you won’t need 3 arms and so you don’t miss that all-important first offered behavior in shaping as you are getting ready.
1st video – good job getting the back and forth rhythm started! One suggestion for the mechanics:
Try to have the bowls in your hands and put them down when you are ready – that way she won’t have several interactions before you are ready. And at the end, pick the bowls up right away so she doesn’t continue to offer the back and forth.2nd video – she didn’t cheat LOL The upright was too far away at first, she should not be able to fit between you and the upright 🙂 Yo can also move the bowls out a little bit so they are easier to see as she goes back and forth, making it less likely that she will squeeze between you and the upright.
She found the rhythm nicely by the end of this! For the next session, start with the upright in really close to you to refresh the back and forth behavior. Then you can start to inch it out away a bit more – she is small, so move it away in tiny increments so she doesn’t slide between you and the upright.
Goat tricks – hooray for the tugging! She did really well going back to the toy after the treats!!!
Try to use an even longer toy, so she can keep her head low during the tugging rather than her chin lifting all the way up (that can be uncomfortable and she might let go of the toy).She did really well offering to touch the disc. It was fully inflated, so she was not comfy getting more than one foot on. To help her offer more feet, you can deflate the disc a lot and also use more than one disc, so she has a bigger playing field that is easier to get on. And as you transition from the tugging to the shaping, put the disc down after the treats are ready so you don’t miss any good offering. And then at the end, pick the disc up as you take the toy out, so she knows you want her to stop offering on the disc and start playing with the toy 🙂
Looking at the blind crosses:
The reward across the arm looked great on the first reps here! You were late at 1:24, so she ended up on the ‘wrong’ side… but reward anyway because it was handler error and not puppy error 🙂
She was distracted by the food here – the smells on the ground and in your pocket – so she had trouble tugging from you hand. A longer toy will help too so she can chase it as you drag it around. And, lower value food will help too!Wobble board: she did well getting on this and tugging on it! She seemed very confident! Yay! The longer toy will help here too, so her lower jaw can stay parallel to the ground and so she can shift her weight back and stay balanced as the wobble board moves. She didn’t love when you did the ‘smack the baby’ moments of pushing her with your hand or fast spins with. The toy in her mouth – it threw her balance off as she moved away and ended up off the board. So just tugging is great for this one 🙂
As with the other shaping games – have the object to offer on as the last thing she sees. The wobble board was the biggest visual here, so she started offering because she was fully engaged, so it took you a moment to get her on the toy. You can have the wobble board leaning up against the wall, for example, get the tugging going, then bring the wobble board into the picture.Plankrobatics are going well too, she did really well offering getting on it. If you stand closer to it, she will get on it even more – the distance between yo and the board was just enough that she spent time in front of you on the ground rather than on the board.
You can now start to reward her for staying on the plank, and for getting her to slowly follow your cookie hand in a full circle.
Backing up – she was starting to figure it out by the end for sure! To help her out, you can reward even quicker after she eats that first cookie between your feet – look for the first movement back after the treat and then toss the treat back towards her feet. She was offering that first step or two but not getting rewarded, so she started thinking about other things. And tossing the reward rather than handing it to her makes a big difference, as it keeps her head low which gets more backing up 🙂
Focus forward: that first toss was a bit too far, she was thinking about something right next to you LOL! The 2nd rep was much better after you got her running on the first rep and the last rep was good too – you need a stronger grip on her collar LOL!!
Toy races – I think the cheat-to-win element with the cookie toss behind you has come a bit too early in her toy race understanding, because she was not really understanding that you wanted her to outrun you to the toy. So take out the cookie toss start for now, and just work with the toy to get her driving further and further ahead of you to it. After a few sessions of that, we can bring the cookie toss back in – but when you do that and you get to the toy first, you need to dance around and tease her with it, rather than let her get it 🙂 then go directly into the next rep with no cookie toss.
Wing wraps – she found going behind you a little easier than always going in front of you on this one! You can try this with a wall behind you, to help convince her to go in front of you and not behind you 🙂 And no need to tell “oopsie” or withdraw the treat in those moments, just keep rewarding her – she is not wrong, necessarily, because she is just learning the game with a brand new element of the barrel. If you see 2 errors in a session (going behind you), make a change so she can be successful. At the end, you were doing some rapid-fire rewards with the bowls more in front of the barrel and that really helped!
Markers video 1 – the get it looks good and she has a really nice retrieve! That first toy was high value so she had a little trouble doing the “bite” to the 2nd toy, but she did get to it nicely when you made the toy move a little more 🙂 and put the other one behind you. You might have to hide the 2nd toy under your shirt for now, because it was still distracting when it was behind you and we TOTALLY want her to love toys like she did here (and not tell her she should not grab a toy :))
The food markers looked good too! You mentioned not being sure if you were doing it right (maybe because it felt so easy :)) but you were totally doing it right! The search to go get the cookie and then the snacks back at you looked great.
One thing about the ‘search’ – you will want to define if it means one cookie, or a scatter of several cookies. You used it here as one cookie, which is great! I mention it because a lot of people use ‘search’ to mean both one cookie and a scatter of multiple cookies, and that can be confusing when we use it in the future.Great job!! Let me know what you think!
TracyYay!! Thank you for the update!!! He knew he was at THE BIG SHOW so he brought his A Game 🙂 (Also it is possible that the excitement of that environment brought him to a higher arousal level which helped him focus in the best way – that is GREAT!!)
I am glad he had a great time!!! Fingers crossed for some dry afternoon weather ahead 🙂
TracyHi!
She did well here with the lateral lead outs! I think getting into the release quickly helps her: when you got to your position and released pretty quickly, she got it right each time. When you were delayed to much (like the rep starting at :18) she had too much time to watch you and watch the cookie, so she didn’t take the jump.The other thing that can help you add even more distance is to toss all rewards onto the landing spot of the jump and nowhere near you. 🙂 If they are all out by the jump, she will lock onto the jump and not curl into you 🙂
She had a little trouble when you tried the backsides – Yes I can see how the push cues were confusing at first with the same setup as the lateral lead outs she did, then with the tunnel right there when she exited the wing wrap. So if you want to change skills, give her a break so you can change the setup and start with a clean slate 🙂
>>Am thinking of signing up for MaxPup 3 again, because we need to get the contacts and WPs under our belts. The Teeter has been particularly difficult because of Changtse’s skittishness with motion and noise together. Thot that max Pup 3 would beagood place for her. What do you think?>>
MaxPup 3 has only a little bit of teeter work (foundation stuff) and no weaves – have you looked at the weave and teeter classes? Those might be a better fit!
Nice work here 🙂 Tracy
Funny you should ask… the first retrieve game gets added tomorrow!
One thing I have done with my 2 youngest dogs is a LOT of trading to build up the retrieve, without actually working on the retrieve. I sit on my butt a lot, throw a toy or ball, then encourage the pup to turn towards me – and I immediately offer a trade so the pup comes back to me. It doesn’t matter at first if they bring the toy back all or part of the way, I just want them to bring themselves back! And you can trade for a treat or for another toy. Then you can either throw the new toy or go grab the other toy and throw it, and repeat the pattern. You can see some of it in the reinforcement strategies I posted and it is working better than any retrieve training I have ever done: the 9 month old and the 4 month old puppies have spectacular retrieves because it has been all about the trading (and of course built to ‘bring me the thing’ :))
Tracy
Hi!
Backing up is going really well! It took her a moment to get started, so you can start her with her back feet on the board, cue her to come off, then let her offer backing up to it.
Once she got started after the initial moment, she did great! Yay!!! Good girlie! And you were able to add some distance and she did well too. I think by the end she was either getting physically tired or a little distracted, because she was doing more bunny hopping backwards or ending up in a sit 🙂 So maybe a 30 second session would work better, especially as you add more and more distance.
Since we are talking about getting her to want to come into your hands and be happy with hands on her: when you feed her, you can deliver the treat and also slip a finger under her collar for a half second, then as soon as the cookie in her mouth, let go so there is no collar holding. We are just going to slyly fold in the collar touching. Let me know if that makes sense 🙂
Great job!!
TracyHi!
>>Not much training has gone on in the past 2 weeks. This moving/house thing has had me exhausted. It showed when I brought her out to try the games we played the last time.>>
I bet it is stressful and exhausting! But things are moving forward and will be more normal very soon. The sessions went well!!
>>1st session of the prop game, I was not that happy with it. It also seemed like she wanted food more. So, later on i did the game again and just used food. Bingo! it was better.>>
So I watched both videos in a row, taking some notes, with this in mind. There were times when the toy was more effective, then towards the end of the longer video the food was more effective. What was the common denominator? Well, it was when you didn’t try to do any collar grab or hand play or even any big ready dance – she seems to perceive all that as pressure. When you played with the toy, got it back, then sent her to the prop – fabulous! When you clicked and tossed a treat, then sent her again as soon as she got back to you – also fabulous! Fast and snappy! She did go to the prop on the other reps that had the other interactions, but it was more of a trot. This is good to know!
So I think she has value for working for both food and toys, and can even go back and forth between them. But she is all business on the send – so all she needs is a bit of eye contact, maybe a quiet ‘ready?’ then send her.
She likes a little bit of ready dance but not a lot (when you were more upright and bending over less, she liked it more and was even doing a little of the same monkey dance that Elektra does!!
She does NOT like the hand play when you would do a little smack-da-baby. She would move away from you and turn off a little. I think you felt that in the moment, because you stopped doing it 🙂
And as you noted: She doesn’t like the collar hold and definitely does NOT like to be moved by the collar. She gives that a big 🤮💩 LOL!!! So, since we need to train her to like it, a couple of ideas:
– take it out of this game and use the more casual interaction and all-business approach.
– try it in the driving ahead/toy race game: get her on a favorite toy or treat, slip one finger under the collar, drop the toy or treat and immediately let her go so she can get the toy/treat. That will make the collar touch into a game-starter and over time we can build it up. I also do a lot of scoop up, deliver a cookie, put down games throughout the day. And if you are doing something and she is not facing the right direction, no worries, don’t turn her – just adjust your direction and carry on.
One other thing that is happening on the prop game:
She kept turning to her left on the first part where she should have been turning to her right… but then when you switched sides, she would turn to her right when she should have turned left. So something about this is making her think she should turn away, so you can step off to the side you want her to turn towards rather than have her come directly back to you. Think of it as more of a triangle: you send from your left side, for example, then step to your right to reward to emphasize the right turn you will want there.Decel game looks great! She may be little, but she drives hard… so you need to decel sooner 🙂 You were late (decelerating when she was 2/3rds of the way to you) so her butt was swinging wide. Try to start the decel when she is halfway to you, so she can get organized into the collection.
The blinds looked great! You can also add in a toy to this. We build on this game tomorrow 🙂
Barrel wraps – yes, the collar pressure is obvious here when you hold for too long and say ‘ready’ and especially when you pull back:
Watch from :30 when you physically moved her then pulled her backwards with a lot of pressure – she started sniffing (stress response). Then you smacked her and she moved away. She did come back and do the barrel but we don’t want to build in any stress or frustration.>>You can see the avoidence behavior and her trying to bite me (not agreesive)to get my hand away and then she rolls. >>
Yes, this was from 1:14 to 1:28 – she rolled over when you reached over for her collar, then after you moved her physically into position, she gave a big body shake when you sent her around the barrel.
So, we can make all of the line ups much happier for her!
A few ideas:
To line her up facing the barrel, use a cookie to lure her into position. No more moving her by her body at this stage – top stressful and it builds avoidance behavior.
She is fine with the collar hold in the first instant if you are quick to let go and don’t apply any pressure;, so you can lure her into position, give her the treat, slip a finger under her collar, say the verbal and let go immediately. No moving her, no saying ready or pull back by the collar. That can make it fast and fun, and will eventually build to being able to hold her longer and pull back.
She didn’t seem to mind the body hold at :41 when you had your hand under her belly, so that can work if you don’t move her around physically (cookie lures are you friend for now, and also are very easy to fade :))
>>Maybe I just have her sit and say????>>
You can lure her to your side, cue a sit, give the cookie, then release with the verbal. But that makes it something you have to maintain, and also loses the one-finger-under-the-collar moment as a game starter, to build the collar love 🙂
Since we are in the early stages and hashing out the mechanics, I think we can do collar-as-game-starter in tiny bits – it will build up really fast 🙂
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>She is speedy fast and SOOOOOOO fun. I didn’t realize that you can buy that >>
HAHA!!! Quote of the day!!! And yes… you can buy it and then it becomes our job to maintain it 🙂

>>I already want another one.Totally relatable, and also I am a terrible influence who would say to get another one 🙂 These pointy dogs are so fun!
>>She can’t do NFC in AAC until she is 18 months, so that would be the fall. I can go to fun matches, though. Is it different in UKI?
I believe in UKI you can enter at 15 months for Speedstakes, so you can do a bit of NFC over the summer (enter 2 heights lower, you won’t need to be measured for NFC, and that way you won’t be tempted to try to run for real). Basically, we go in and play with toys and do things that are insanely simple like some tunnels and simple sequences, so she thinks the trial setting is really easy and fun!
>>PLEASE let me know what you think I should do with her to get us to the top of our game.
The first thing to understand is that it will take you longer to get her trialing ‘for real’ because she really needs to be done with adolescence before we finish training the behaviors that have a lot of mechanics and before we add any trial pressure to these behaviors. My guess is she will have her first real runs when she is 2.5 ish? But plenty of NFC before then. And when you do the real runs, she will kick ass and you will be rewarded for waiting.
In the meantime, unfollow everyone on social media who has dogs the same age, as they start to trial. I am not kidding – watching that will mess with your head!
For example – I didn’t start training CB’s box turn in flyball til he was over 2 years old. He debuted at about 2.5 years old and is doing SUPER well. And in agility, he started NFC at 16” (he runs 20” for real) and he was 23 months old in his first NFCs… I continued NFCs with a real run here or there til he was 3 – now he runs a lot for real and is fast, confident, accurate.
>>I have a full set of equipment and I will do whatever course, seminar, etc. that you recommend.
There are a TON of good courses out there! But the key is to take your time, no pressure, no frustration.
>>Blunt feedback is fine if you think we’re off track or missing some foundations and need to go back.
Happy to provide feedback! I will let you know if you are f*cking it up hahahahahahaha 🙂
>>We audited a seminar on the weekend and they strongly recommended gates and fences near jumps to ensure success to shape the turns and wraps.
My opinion on that is: oh hell no. That is a LOT of pressure and will ultimately slow her down and/or cause frustration. She is a baby dog who is fast and happy – let’s keep it that way! No pressure on adolescent dogs! And if she is wide somewhere, either she doesn’t understand or you were late or both… the pressure of gates/fences is not what helps you be a better handler or teach her cue responses.
Plus, 2 more issues:
– all the gates/fences add more visual ‘clutter’ for her brain to try to process… and we know adolescent dogs are not so great at processing at begin with! So we don’t want to make it harder.
– all the gates/fences absolve the handler of learning about timing and connection by forcing the turns on the dogs. Bleh. LOL!Also… as an adolescent, we know more about her neurobiology and brain development: she is twice as susceptible to punishment/pressure than to reinforcement right now. So we need to reduce pressure, not add to it. Also, in terms of stimulating the HPA axis, it takes 3x as long to return to baseline in adolescent dogs than it does with puppies or adults – so more pressure like that is anti-resilience.
Also – I know her parents, and I also have a decent amount of sport mix and whippety dog experience at this point: pressure like that will not help (and it is indeed pressure). Let her rip! Trust the process (more on that below).
>> I think most of my cues are late at this point, but I am worried that she is ‘getting away’ with turning wide and I don’t want to have to fix it later.
I officially relieve you from worrying about that! Sure, you might be late, but no worries, you are learning how to run this little pointy Ferrari. That is why we are still doing tunnel-wing stuff, to maintain the speed while figuring out the connections and timing.
She is not trying to “get away” with anything – she is working as hard as she can to process info and respond as quickly and as correctly as possible. The concept of getting away with something assumes she is trying to put one over on you, or is naughty, or… all of which is not true of course. She is processing and responding brilliantly. We are not going to tell her she is wrong, she is doing the very best she can (and he is pretty amazing!)
You won’t have to fix anything later. Trust the process 🙂
The other thing with small dogs is that often the winningest non-sheltie small dogs do not look like they are turning at all. But they are turning – it just looks different in terms of mechanics. The best thing to do is let her sort out her mechanics and then give her info as best you can and get out of the way 🙂 The sport mixes are then the fastest dogs out there! I hear this all the time with my Hot Sauce (sport mix, terrier/BC and a tiny bit of whippet). She does not look like she is turning tight at all, but she will lay down the fastest time of all heights (which includes a faster time than my BorderWhippet LOL!!!)
One thing we will do at some point (probably in a year) is get the timing lights out and see what is fastest – cuing a tight turn or letting her rip? The smalls almost always are faster when there is a little less collection.
>>So far, the channel weaves and guides are helping her confidence, but she also has springs for legs, so she is just as happy to jump over everything or run around the whole set up so that she can go faster! >>
Are you using a MM as a target? Using only 6 poles? Break it down so there is no frustration built in. She might not like the pressure of the guides, so maybe try without them.
She also might be a little too young for weaves (adolescence!!), you can try again in a month and see how it goes.
>>It’s the high head that is the main issue when she starts weaving; it messes everything up and she barks like a maniac. I hope Karen has some thoughts on that.>>
I don’t know what Karen would say, but a MM at the end or a toy gets the head position quite nicely! And I start with the MM on the base between poles 2 and 3, then 3 and 4, then 4 and 5, etc – gradually moving the MM to the exit then 15 feet past the exit while keeping the head down.
>>Karen says that she wants the dog to look at her as it exits the weaves to receive the next information, so the reward is delivered from my hand.
I lean more towards the Jenny Damm school of thought which is give the dog the next cue when they are at pooe 6 or 8 so they don’t have to look at you 🙂 The dogs can see us peripherally, plus nowadays the distance skills require the dog to not look at us directly.
>> We’re starting about 4 weeks into the course, so I will have to balance my need to progress and the availability of feedback with her actual progress, and not rush things!
Exactly! Don’t rush!!! Have fun 🙂
Tracy
Hi!
Yes, there was some good neighborhood noise for her to experience here! One thing that will help is if you start each outdoor session with some tugging so that she is in a higher arousal state. Higher arousal states are linked to helping dogs ignore distractions.
And she totally got into a great rhythm here. The barrel is really big, so now you can wait until she is further around it before you mark and drop the cookie. We will be building on this game soon!!The next thing to look at with her is the Resilience Markers game. That way you can add more markers. The “yip” marker is useful, but we also want to expand her food markers and toy markers so she knows where to look (the ‘yip’ tends to get her looking up at you, which i useful in some contexts but not all contexts).
Great job!!
Tracy
Hi!
>>Funny, I was in the laundry room with her today and just walked towards her and she backed up beautifully. Not even meaning her to do so. Go figure>>
She will move away backwards when you move towards her (we could see it here too) but she raises her head a bit and that will change her mechanics. We want to maintain a neutral head position with her lower jaw parallel to the floor – not looking down, not looking up. And standing still with really low hands (nose-level) will help get that!
>>I’m wondering if our It’s Your Choice had any to do with her downing. When we played that game sometimes she would down and back up in a down.
Possibly! Or maybe the pressure if you were bending over a lot?
On the first video:
This is going really well, and she didn’t do sits or downs! Yay! Backing up with the food in your hands is causing her head to come up a little too high, so let’s get you sitting in a chair or on the inflatable ball, so you can get your hands at her nose level without your back getting too angry with all the bending over 🙂 And try not to move towards her – that gets her head looking up and we want to maintain a more neutral head position.Plus, having your cookie hands right in front of her nose is a great way to practice impulse control 🙂
>>With the mat, she normally goes crooked when her feet hit the mat. Sometimes she’ll walk on it to seemingly give 2o2o.>>
Using the mat is good! This is going well too. We can clarify the start of each rep so she isn’t as crooked or doing a 2o2o 🙂 You can cue her to get on the mat before cuing her to step off the mat to start the backing up.
And during the backing up for both of these… stand still 😁. The more your move, the more she looks up at you. If she was bigger, it would not matter as much because she would be able to maintain the neutral head position while looking at you. But because she is little, let her focus on your nose-level hands a she backs up to get the great mechanics.
>>Don’t normally have the radio going on in the background, good distraction. Our it could have been she could hear the other dogs. I have to put them in the car in the garage when we train >>
The radio was good, and I don’t think it bothered her – she heard *something* on the 2nd video and that distracted her. It is also possible that he was not sure about how to start the rep, so she was a little more prone to noticing things in the environment. So, clarifying the start by asking her to get on the mat and face you (she can have a cookie for that :)) will totally help too!
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
Sounds like she had a fun weekend!!
The backing up is going well! She is definitely understanding that you want her to go backwards to the target, but she has some questions about the mechanics.
Let’s get you lower to change her head position, which will answer her questions 🙂 With you standing up, he I looking all the way up at your hands – which changes her mechanics and makes backing up a lot harder to do. That is why she was either losing her feet a bit while backing up, or sitting (because the high head position changes the weight shift) or turning around because it was easier 🙂 So, if your hands are lower, getting her head into a more neutral position (chin parallel to floor, not looking up or down, but looking straight), the backing up mechanics will be much easier. The easiest thing to do is to have you sit on something (a normal chair would probably be perfect!) so your hand position can produce that neutral head position.
>>if we should go on to trying the ramp again
We don’t need the ramp yet, let’s get her doing a few sessions over the course of a week or so with the neutral head position so he is very comfy backing up – then we can go to the ramp.
Prop game is looking great!! She was committing brilliantly and you were able to add distance and rotation. Super!!! Don’t worry about your toe point – when the prop has this much value, and she is very pumped up like she was here, then you don’t need to be perfect (one of our goals is to teach such great commitment that we don’t need to be perfect at all :))
She only had one question. It was at :43 when she went behind you to hit the prop. She is probably a righty (so that side is easier) and she probably needed more connection to stay on the original side of you (couldn’t see your face here :)) She got the left turns really nicely on the other reps!
We will be building on this game tomorrow! Stay tuned!
Looking at the goat game video:
>>I love the clicker in theory, but have never felt the coordination of its use very well
Yes, I like the clicker but we really don’t need to use it much at all! Our verbal markers can do the trick and skipping the clicker will give us one less thing to have to coordinate.
And on these types of shaping games, you can use a “get it” marker to tell her “yes, that is correct, your reward is over there” so she doesn’t get rewarded in position and can keep moving through the target object (this is a useful skill for other things we will train).
Great job working the toy play in – and also great job switching to a different toy when she had trouble with the original toy. We want her to play with the toy, any toy, which is challenging after all the treats right there!
Next step is to do some goat trick shaping with you standing!
Markers video: this was a great session!
>>Again I fear that my own coordination issues did not help me out on this. This was our first time doing this and I am not sure that I liked the choice I made for the toys.>>
That is why we start it like this: to experiment with our mechanics and decide what we like, all why the dog has a grand time and is not expected to learn calculus 🙂 And I think she had a great time! If it was frustrating for her, we would see frustration behaviors (I didn’t see any frustration from her!)
Also, all this is dog-specific, so we are also learning her needs and what works best with her.
Using the same toy was fine, because it differentiates the markers: get it for the throw, release for the out, then bite for the toy in your hand. It went well! She needs the ‘release’ before the bite for now, but as she learns what bite means, you probably won’t need the release marker.
Nice job getting the cookies in there with the cookie-in-hand marker and then going back to the toy! Lovely!Her only question was when you wanted her to play with the other toy but the frisbees was still there and higher in value. You can try throwing the new toy with the ‘get it’ and see if she can switch to it in that context.
She definitely seemed happy on the wobble board for food! She was not unhappy with the toy, but the toy is not her favorite 🙂 especially with food right there. I bet the frisbees would work great for this, or even both frisbees: to make the transition from food to toy, you can toss a frisbee with your get it marker. Then when she comes back to the wobble board, you can toss the next frisbees with your get it marker. That can get her flying back and forth over the wobble board 🙂 And then you can work it to a “bite” of a frisbee on the board for tugging 🙂
Because she seemed confident on the board, you can leave the towels in for the toy sessions but also slide one of the towels out when you use food to add a little more tip.
Plankrobatics went great! Your turn lure was slow and low, so she maintained her coordination and balance. Perfect! Do you have access to a longer plank? That can get her moving back and forth across it, and you can also have her hop on and hop off without you having to use a foot to stabilize it.
>>I find the handedness in dogs really interesting and am becoming more aware of it when JJ does her work on her training games and activities. We have done a lot of work in the heel position and working with her on my right side is definitely not very strong. >>
I agree – the handedness is interesting and also very helpful!!! We can set up more success by teaching a new hard skill on the easier side, then switching to the harder side when things are more comfy. And so you can definitely take the skill she finds easy now, and work them with her on your right so you are more comfy on that side too.
>>I wanted to do more with the toy races, but found it too difficult at home. Maybe we can do more with this tomorrow on my teaching day at the club.>>
Toy races do require some room to run run run 🙂 Let me know how it goes!
Great job here!
TracyGood morning! I love your on-the-road setup here!!!
There were a couple of variable here that changed the picture, so he lost the rhythm a little at first: outdoors, you went from sitting to standing, adding a little distance between you and the upright, etc.
You did the exit right thing at 1:10 to re-establish the rhythm with the cookie drops into the bowls. That set up a lot of success! Yay!
>>Am I adding too much distance too early? Is it ok to stop him with my foot? Would a wing work better?>>
I think he was just having a few questions about the new things and how it was starting to look different.
So to help him out – rather than use your foot or a wing, you can think of each thing as a new variable so when one variable gets harder another variable should get easier.
For example – when working in a new location, start everything easy with you sitting and the upright very close to you at first, to establish the rhythm in a new place.
Then, when adding a little more distance between you and the upright, you can be sitting (in the chair or on the ground).Or, if you want to work on standing, you can bring the upright in close to you so he doesn’t have to figure out standing AND the upright being further away 🙂
And I like to use a 2-failure rule. If I make something a little harder, and he fails twice in the session, then it is too hard and I can make it easier. That will help him too!
Nice work here!!! Keep me posted!
Tracy
