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Hi!
This went SUPER well! She is SO SPICY here at the beginning! So much to say! LOL!!!
>>There’s no time for me to say Tunnel more than once and get out the directional, just not what I normally do.>>
You might get a chuckle out of this… you were actually too early on a lot of the reps, which is probably why you were feeling rushed 🙂 You were tending to start the turn cue when she exited the wrap, which is a bit too soon and probably why it felt rushed. You don’t need to start it til she is closer to the tunnel (4 or 5 feet before the entry at the earliest) which should give you time to say tunnel a couple of times then switch to the directional. Feel free to put a cone out to the side or a line on the ground, to mark the spot where you need to start the directional.
On the videos:
Video 1 – She is reading this really well! You are a little early with your left verbal on the tunnel on the first rep, and had better timing on rep 2. One thing to be thinking about: the forward verbals like TUNNEL and GO can be loud, and then you can be softer with your left verbal (and other turn cues) to help her process the difference using volume and pitch, not jus the actual word.
Video 2:
The turn verbal was a bit too early on rep 1 here 🙂
O the wrap after the tunnel, to get better commitment as you move away, you can shift your connection: look at the landing spot behind you as you move away from her (not at her). You will find that the initial training of countermotion is helped when we look behind us as we move forward.2nd rep – better timing of the turn cue! She was closer to the tunnel but not in it yet. You held position at the 2nd wing longer to get the wrap there, but you can leave at the same time as the first rep and shift your connection behind you to the landing spot.
Video 3: wow, after getting such nice turns, you had great timing with the GO and got straight lines on the exits. This is excellent!
And GO is very stimulating so she might need a quick victory lap to the pool after each rep LOL!
2nd rep – your verbals were good but your physical cue turned and left her before she had a chance to finish coming around the wing so she (correctly) followed the line of your motion. That is rewardable.
Compare to the last rep where you supported the line to the tunnel til she looked at it and then had good timing of the GO verbal too!
>>I didn’t realize until your last critiques how much she looks to me for eye contact and direction. Since I’m prone to running into wings etc>>
Yes, connection is key to handling, especially with pups! I bet your older dogs rely on connection a lot too, but with their experience it is probably much easier for them to see a bit of it and know what to do With Mochi, she doesn’t have the experience to pull information from, so she needs the full connection for now.
>>Trying to look at her nose, such a cute nose
keep my arms/hands low and shoulder open to her.>>That little nose is SO CUTE!!! I thought your connection was GREAT! The only spot to change what you were doing with connection was on the countermotion moment on the 1st run of the 2nd video.
Great job here!!!
TracyHi!
This pill bug game is harder than it looks! And you both did a great job. And yes, starting on a wing wrap instead of a cookie throw is great – she seemed to understand the assignment at the very beginning when she took off to run around the tunnel instead of wrapping the wing LOL!! Smartie!
The connection to keep her on the side you want is challenging with such a little dog – it worked best when you had your arm down and pointing at her nose, like at
1:38 – 1:43 and on the reps after that. On the reps before it, when you were doing regular running, she didn’t see the connection as well so had a question about which side to be on. When you had your shoulder back to her, she had zero questions (something happened at the end of the last rep, not sure what it was, but it seemed like she read you well there too!)You can experiment and see if it is easier to get this great connection like you did here, or by locking your elbow with your arm extended back and down to her nose. There is a time and place for both in agility handling!
The only thing to adjust here is. To call her name less, maybe just once or twice at the beginning of each rep – too much name call might get her looking up at you.
>>I’ll need to figure out the connection and path at the same time. One of my instructors taught me how to spot points to know where to go and when to turn, but now those spot points may be behind me.>>
The lower you look, the more you can see! Looking downwards to her will expand your peripheral vision. And, spotting the points works great – now you can use points behind you to spot when you are connecting back to her.
You can play with the more advanced levels of this – feel free to use wings or barrels to replace a 2nd tunnel 🙂
Great job on all of these!! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
He is doing really well here! It is super fun to start running baby dogs on this stuff because it tells us how much or how little we need to help them.
Turns out, Chip doesn’t need a whole lot of help 🙂 Yay! And when you help too much, you either get in his way or you over-help him and that causes questions. When you let him fly and trust him? Perfection!!!
1st rep – Very nice! You pretty much trusted him and cued the lines and moved to the next one, so he had no questions. Only one detail – try not to transfer the toy from hand to hand as you do the FCs, it delays you from finishing the rotation. You can leave the toy in the same hand, or have it in a pocket so you don’t switch it around.
2nd run –
>>I’m probably handling him too closely, so he a$$ passed me – lol.There was a little of that here (handling too close), at :15 where you walked into the FC on the tunnel, and ended up on the wrong line so he had to go around you and he vocally gave you some feedback LOL! The dude has opinions! LOL!! On the other reps where you cued him to the tunnel and left for the next line? No questions from him and no verbal feedback from him 🙂
On the ass-pass moment at :22 and later on at 1:02, 2 things happened to accidentally cue it:
– As you were exiting the FC, you were moving laterally to the other side of the tunnel, kind of backing up a bit, so he read that as the line you wanted.
– And the connection can be clearer as you exit the FC (keep it very direct but keep moving forward), so it took him a moment to process the connection. When he processed that and you moved forward instead of laterally/backwards, he realized which line you wanted and went to it, good boy! (ending up behind you to do so)
Compare those moments to the wrap on the other wing at :57 – you sent him to it, rotated, connected immediately, and moved forward, so he had no questions and did not ass pass LOL!
The rep at :57 was more like adult-dog handling, and he rose to the occasion. Yay! The ass pass reps looked like you were trying to help him more than he needed, so you ended up over-helping him.
When you added the racetracks and left/right turns, I think you were over helping by getting all the way to the wing to push him around it, then using the ‘right’ verbal then ‘here’, because the here pulled him between the wings.
You didn’t use the ‘here’ on the next rep (left turns) and he was great! You can use more of a parallel path for him, running parallel to the line to the wing so he can see the whole wing – with your connection and a parallel line, I bet he finds the wings easily!
Overall, your connections were really strong and your arms are low – both of those are HUGELY helpful so keep up the good work with that! And you were getting all of those verbals out too – lovely!!!
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
Wow, he is doing so well! Yay!!! Lovely commitment from him, he is driving the lines really well and turning beautifully. And your connection looks terrific!!!!
You can start giving all the cues sooner – for example, you can be giving the wrap cue (or left/right) as he is exiting the tunnel so he drives directly to the wing and doesn’t look at you at all. For example, at :13 your ‘check check’ was pretty timely (as he was exiting the tunnel) so he drove pretty directly to the wing, versus the ‘cap cap’ at :17 which was late (he was almost at the wing) so he did a little zig zag into you before going to the wing.
His race tracks for the left & right turns looks great!
Nice spin timing at :21, you were decelerating as he was passing you and rotating before he got to the wing. Nice! Keep the verbals going – he seems very verbal and when you get quiet, he looks at you (like at the exit of the spin, he hesitated until you said tunnel).
The 2nd run went well too! I think you were running out of steam from all the running, you were getting quiet and decelerating 🙂 But he is reading motion really well and his commitment looks great!
The only wide turns were on the exits of the tunnel, because the info was a little late (after he was in the tunnel). I added a tunnel exits game this week, so you can totally work on that and add it into the other games 🙂
Great job here!
TracyHi!
On this video with the racetracks, I felt you were in that sweet spot of being connected and moving along the lines, so he committed beautifully! Yay! And his wraps and tunnel commitments look strong too (his only question is a little zig zag to the tunnel at :31 when you were not as well-connected and you didn’t say tunnel, so he was waiting for more information and curled in a little.I will bug you soon to add more directionals on the wings (wrap verbals and soft turn verbals) but that is a lower priority for now than the placement markers to get his eyes more on the line. The markers can be thrown in anywhere you see him looking forward, no need to wait til the end of a sequence. You can surprise him with a reinforcement for looking forward to any element of the sequence, which should help build up the looking forward behavior 🙂
Great job on all of these! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
On these race tracks, I feel like you are having MUCH better connection, almost too much because it is causing you to not move as much so he was not sure if he should stay on the line the you moved away (like at :10)You had the toy here and he was definitely aware of it and watching your hand – so we can use this simple game as a framework to teach him the fine art of looking at the toy does not get the toy – looking at the line gets the toy. So when he looks at the line, you can toss the toy forward on the line to both mark and reinforce the looking ahead. Using a ‘get it’ marker or any marker which means “reward is out ahead” will help, and also when you do reward from hands in other games, using a “reward from hand” marker will help clarify where to look.
For example, I train alone so I do all of the reward throwing 🙂 I figure you are in a similar situation! I emphasized the ‘get it’ marker for thrown toys, and I tried to consistently use a “bite” marker which means ‘come get the toy in my hand’. This clarification really helped my herdy dogs know where to look so they end up looking at the line a lot better and at my hands/face a whole lot less.
His commitment is looking really strong, so we can totally use this game as a framework to add markers for the reinforcement placement and getting looking at where he want him to be looking. And then you can add verbal directionals too!
Nice work!
TracyGood morning!
>>I’ll try to clear a spot with the blower to be able to play on grass.>>
That is a great idea! Fingers crossed you can get a clear spot because OUCH no one wants to run on marbles!
The smiley face games are going well! His commitment is looking good. I totally see what you are saying about the handler focus. I don’t think it is a baby dog thing, so we can help him focus more on the line. 2 ideas for you:
– ramp up the connection to his eyes as you move in and out of the FCs on the wings. That will help him look forward at the lines more. For example, at :31 you were not really looking at him, so he looks at you. Compare to
:32 after the wing wrap exit – great connection so he never looked at you and drove straight to the tunnel.At :35 you were looking at and talking to the wing so he came into you looking a you and did not take the wing , so more connection will really help there too!
More connection to his eyes will help but also I think changing the placement of reinforcement will make the biggest difference:
Even when you make GREAT connection, like :45 – :53, he still looks at you especially when he is getting close to you, even leaping up a little when he gets to your side. This is most likely due to the placement of reinforcement coming out of your pocket from your hand at your side, with him facing you. So like a smart border collie, he is figuring out how to move on the line AND watch you (and the reinforcement) closely. 🙂 That is likely the root of the handler focus you are seeing, which then gets affirmed when he watches the delivery of the reward.
Easy fix: no more reward from your hands or pockets 🙂 It can be tossed out on the line after the tunnel or after a wrap, so he learns that watching you is inefficient. It will be even easier if you have someone else to throw the toy because it is so hard to place it on a line in this game, but you having it scrunched up in your hand and throwing it will definitely shift his focus to the line more.
Using a very visible cookie to throw will work well here and might even be a better choice because it might be harder to track the throw of something smaller, but also you can use a toy -this is a great time to sort out any toy play questions he might have.
Great job!!
TracyGood morning!
The side eye at the beginning of the smiley face video was so funny! Ha!
Lots of great work in the smily face video. You are making this game fast and fun for her, which is the #1 most important thing!
The first set of reps, where it was basically wing- tunnel-wing, looked really strong. She has excellent commitment! And you are consistently connected to her on the exits of the FC on the wings – NICE!!
One thing to add more of is connection to her eye when she exits the tunnel on your right side.
When she exits on your left side, you have your head turned back to her, like at :26 and :36, which gives clear info where to go next.
When she exits on your right side like at :22 and 1:29 for example, you were looking ahead to the wing and not at her, so if you free the video when her face appears at the tunnel exit, she is looking at you for more info. Compare to :40 where you were a lot more connected as she exited and she didn’t have to look at you as much.
You can also do more running with your arms low and just tucked at your side like you are jogging or sprinting, rather than up high. High arms block connection for the smalls 🙂 So when you are doing the FC on the wings and connecting with her on the tunnel exits, your arms are brilliantly low and she sees the full connection. Compare that to the race tracks at :48 – :51 and your arm gets as high as your shoulder. That blocks connected so she looks at you as she comes around the first wing (at 1:09 too).
Terrific job getting all the verbals going!
You asked if the tunnel cue at 1:31 should have been the tunnel threadle cue – yes, I believe that would be a better use of the verbals there. She read the handling brilliantly!At 1:38 and 1:46 you added the spin (FC to BC move). She read the line brilliantly but ended up on your left when you wanted her on your right, due to some lateness on the reconnection after the blind.
Starting the FC element of it sooner will really help (before she gets to the wing) because then you can start the BC element sooner too – not faster, because you were really fast, just sooner :). Starting it sooner will allow you more time to make the re-connection after the blind. By the time you got your eyes back to her eyes (1:39 and 1:48) she was already on your left side and heading to the tunnel (good girl! Nice reward there!)You got the connection in sooner at 1:58 so she got to your right side (yay!). She didn’t go into the tunnel because of your big “YEAH!” Which is the universal verbal for “cookies now” haha! But the handling looked strong there!
Set point – looking at the September video first, this is going well! I think this 3 foot distance is the sweet spot for her.
Her stay looks great (only one crazy moment LOL!), her position relative to jump 1 looked great (she hit the noodle on the last rep so she might have been too close there, or maybe it was that you crouched after saying the release to that distracted her).Her form over jump 1 is perfect. I think the MM might be a little too close to jump 2, because at first she was a little leapy, going more up than over, but that is normal when we use the MM, we get some leaping 🙂 Then she smoothed it out but she was decelerating over 2 rather than powering over it, so moving the MM another 5 or 6 feet away from jump 2 should give her room to land powerfully, take another full extension stride, then get to the MM.
You being low at the MM really helps her with her form! It will be even easier when the MM is on wheels 🙂 but for now, keep getting low to direct her focus downwards.
I think we can add a bar to jump 2, maybe at 4 inches, and see how she does!
Wow, the March video is a great comparison, she was such a puppy back then! It is pretty amazing how things change in just 6 months. She is a lot more mature now and has much better mechanics, just a few months later. You can see in the March video that she is going fast too, but not nearly as coordinated as she is now. What a fun comparison, I am glad you had the video!
Great job on all of these 🙂
Tracy>>It’s always the thing you forget when you get a puppy – how much crap you have to manage at once LOL.>>
TRUTH!
My philosophy is that we need at least 4 arms to be able to train puppies LOL!!!! And maybe 6 arms when they move as fast as Lu does 🙂
T
Good morning! Nice talking to you last night on Zoom! I am excited for what is ahead!!
And I am VERY happy to see him in action here 🙂 He is definitely ready and did great on these videos!
Looking at the set point:
His stay looked great, and the moving target accomplished the goal of getting his head down and powering off the hind end. I think overall his mechanics look really good, and only one tweak: he was too far from jump 1 on all the reps except at :54. By being too far, he had to spend a lot of time (in dog time haha) figuring out how to step into the first jump, so you can see some lead changes and even landing on the bump a bit. But when he was in the sweet spot at :54, he was balanced and showed lovely form.That sweet spot had his front feet just under the length of your foot away from the first bump. So you can use your foot as a measuring tool: lure him into a line up with his front feet next to your toes. Let me know if that makes sense or if I need more coffee 🙂
>>Looks to me like he needs the jumps closer together?
Actually, I think he will need them further apart pretty soon. How far apart are these – my guess is he will end up at 6 feet apart pretty soon, especially on grass. And you can try to get this on grass while the weather is still good!
The wind in your hair game is looking good! His commitment is solid to both the wrap and the jump, so now we can look at getting more distance, verbals, etc.
For the wrap – you can use your wrap verbal on that (I don’t think you were using it, or maybe it was really quiet 🙂 )
The GO verbal was really clear!
When you were doing the GO to the jump, he looks at you a lot – either directly or peripherally. The super early reward throws helped a lot, but it looks like it as hard to pinpoint the moment he looked forward and throw the toy, all before he looked at you.The best reps where when you had the toy placed out past jump 2 – he didn’t look at you at all. Yay! So do a few more sessions with the placed reward as a target, and then we can go back to throwing it when he focuses on the jump more and looks at you less when it is not there.
Some of the bloopers were connection errors, especially when he was wrapping the barrel to his left. If you disconnected and looked ahead (like at 1:40 and 2:25), the disconnection actually looked like the shoulder movement of a blind cross so he read you correctly and ended up on your other side. Good boy! When you showed strong connection on the exit of the barrel wrap (like on the last rep), he was super tight and stayed on the correct side. Connection for the win!
Nice work getting more distance added and tons of speed. He seems to bring the speed to everything he does, so we will be sure to use reward placement to get the mechanics and line focus as we build up the skills.
And this game can go outside onto grass too – that will make for different mechanics for him, and it is good to show him that before the snows come (or before you come south for a month in the winter LOL!!)
Great job here!!! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
I agree, this is a really strong session!!! Tons of success! Watching it all the way through and see what the oopsie moments had in common:The errors came back to one thing – the transition from the toy play to the line up and collar hold! It looks like she is not a huge fan of the collar hold and being moved into position by the collar so she is avoiding it a little by moving away and starting the rep before really hearing the verbal. So sometimes she got it right and sometimes not so much 🙂
But when you did a smooth transition from the toy play to the line up in front of the wing, she got it right every.single.time.
It is funny how a small detail like a transition can make such a difference – and it is hard to see in the moment and much easier to see on video.
So, with the goal being that you can hold her til she hears the verbal 3 or 4 times, make the transition like you did at 2:11 and 2:28. On those moments, you tugged with her til she was in position to the next starting position, then you gently took her collar, then took the toy out, and even gave her a treat. PERFECT! She had no concerns, did not avoid, and was highly successful. The only thing to add is holding her for one more heartbeat so she can hear the verbals for longer before moving.
Another way to work the transition is to use a line up cookie then slip a finger under her collar, but I think she liked the tugging into position then the collar hold you did a 2:11 and 2:48 better.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
The reps here look great: consistent and powerful. Her head is low and she is striding nicely. She is not trying to change things in each rep, which likely means she is comfortable and feeling good about the movement. And her stay looks FANTASTIC which makes training this sooooo much easier 🙂I think we need to give her more elevation on bar 2. Remind me how old she is? It looks like you had a super low bar here on jump 2, so let’s take it up a notch by 2 inches. And then my guess is that we will move it up another 2 inches pretty quickly. And then you can put a bar in on the first jump as well, at 4 inches.
Adding elevation to jump 2 might be something she has to work out while maintaining her form, or maybe not and she will have zero questions LOL! She will let us know 🙂 And since she is so young, no need to do this more than twice a week. As she continues to sort out her mechanics, we might tinker with the distance and heights. The set point becomes the foundation for other grids so we can keep building it up.
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
Major congrats on all the titles and wins! JJ is a talented, versatile girl! Love it!!! I know she will also be a brilliant agility dog when she starts competing 🙂
>>I am still not sure she is solid on her verbal‘s for wraps. Unfortunately, we worked on reps with Jen Pinder and did this without verbals, so I believe we need more work on this.>>
No worries! The verbals are the last thing to get solid, so we keep using them and rehearsing them. They will lock in when she is more experienced.
Because the games are getting more complex in terms of the verbals, I highly recommend giving yourselves a mini walk through before each rep to practice getting the verbals out. And when the verbals went a little awry, you did the right thing of continuing to use motion and rewarding her.
The smiley face videos are looking great! Sandie is doing a marvelous job!
On the first video – she loves her Cato board for sure, that was pretty hilarious!! I also think that there was a disconnection there (Sandie was looking forward to the wing when JJ exited the tunnel) so JJ took a guess about what it was and the Cato board was nearby. Clever! On the other passes on this clip, there was more connection and JJ didn’t look at the Cato board 🙂
2nd video was pretty perfect in both directions. One thing I notice is that JJ has picked up a new gear of speed! That will mean some distance handling as she continues to add more and more speed, but that is fine. As long as you are connected and giving the cues directly to her, she will find the lines. The only place she had a question here was right at the very end. If you watch it in slow motion, you can see what JJ is seeing:
At 1:00, Sandie makes excellent connection as JJ comes around the wing. As JJ catches up to her, Sandie starts to point forward ahead of JJ a 1:01, which turns her shoulders and feet to the other end of the tunnel. And so that is exactly where JJ went. Good girl! She reads shoulders and motion as the primary cues, which is what we want, so adding more eye contact every step of the way will help direct her to the line you want by lining up your shoulders to the line.Compare that moment to the next video at :10, where Sandie makes the great connection around the wing and maintains it better, so JJ sees her feet and shoulders pointing to the end of the tunnel you wanted. Nailed it! The 2nd run on this video was lovely!
Video 4 had the race tracks and that looked great! JJ is understanding the difference between wraps and soft turns really well. The left and right verbals went well. Transitioning to the wrap verbals was harder 🙂 so that is where you can do mini walk throughs to get the wraps and soft turn verbals ready to roll 🙂
>>The new brace doesn’t allow her to move super fluidly. That keeps her from being where she wants to be as she exits the tunnel. I noticed Jay’s ribs aren’t real tight so it looks like we need more work on that. I’m not sure how to best do that.>>
I don’t think handler position is as important as connection on these 🙂
You will notice on this one (and the others) that JJ head checks a bit especially on the exit of the tunnel or drifts a little wide from the tunnel to the wing (especially on your right). That is because the connection is a line too soft when she exits the tunnel, she can only see a little bit of your face so she is ‘information seeking’ by looking up or drifting wide. If you crank up the amount of connection and look squarely back to her eyes, she will look forward to the line better and drive the lines even tighter.
The wraps will tighten up with more connection too, and in coming weeks we work on the timing of the cues to get them tighter and tighter. However, at this age, we want JJ to enjoy the thrill of going fast fast fast while paying attention to the cues – so the wraps don’t need to be super tight. Also, she is small, so one thing to consider is that those pretty, magazine-cover wraps might not actually be the fastest lines for her, and slightly wider is better/faster. We will get into that more later in the class 🙂
>>I think in the J was losing interest in the game so we quit for the session.>>
Yes, I could see in the previous video that she was getting tired and going into a down between reps. It is a lot of running for the dogs (and for the humans too LOL!!)
She was still mentally in the game, though, and did really well! You can see her looking up at Sandie here and not always taking the wings – that was a connection question too. Note how well JJ found the line around the wings at :25 – :27. That was when Sandie was running parallel to the line, and had a low arm and lots of connection, so JJ had no questions. Yay!
Compare to :34 and :38, where Sandie was pointing forward to the wing (and ahead of JJ) which was pulling her feet and shoulders away from the line to the wing… so JJ followed the feet and shoulders. Good girl!!!!
So overall, her understanding of lines is great and she is reading feet/shoulders/motion pretty perfectly. The next step on this game (or any of our wing/tunnel games) is to try to run them with sustained connection and low arms the whole time.
I am not sure if I showed you this game? It is a super fun way to get and maintain connection without needing to sprint:
It is a good one to do with the wing/tunnel games!
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHello! Mr. Pesto is doing really well here!
He is doing well with the wing/tunnel discrimination game! We can clarify a couple of things for him:
He was thinking really hard here! To get him exploding to the wing or tunnel, start with your hand on his harness (just holding him not moving him around), say the verbal 3 or 4 times… and THEN let him go. That will clarify when he should start moving and also gives him a moment to process the verbal before he starts moving.Also, don’t use check check (which means wrap) and then tunnel all on the same rep – check means come all the way around the wing and don’t take the tunnel, so either use the check only or the tunnel only (he can go past the wing to get into the tunnel, that is fine. You were clearer with this in the 2nd half of the video.
>>Proofing – are there ways to progress this?
You can add more of your motion (turning to the tunnel, stepping to the wing, and on the combos, you can meet him at the tunnel exit and move towards the wing). We will also be adding more to this with other games in coming weeks 🙂
Looking at the set point:
>>Set Point – Is this the right distance apart? I think the last one looks the best.
I agree, the last one looks the best! I think the distance can actually be about 6 inches further apart that it was here, maybe more.
But more importantly: no more manners minder for this game, because it is inducing leaping 🙂 It is not that unusual to get leaping in the presence of the MM, take a look at the beginning of this video LOL!
So for Pesto, switch to the moving target toy that you used in the pre-game (more on that coming tomorrow). We might eventually be able to go back to the MM and have it much further away, but for now, let’s get the mechanics of head down jumping going with the moving target. His stay looked fabulous so the moving target will be easy to add to the game!
The smiley face game is going really well – he is showing lovely commitment to hte wing and tunnel, and his focus and tugging are great!
One tweak – you need to spread these out so you can move more rather than be stationary and sending. The deceleration and sending was a little confusing to him and there was not a lot of connection with the sending, so getting you running will really help support the lines (and less pointing ahead :)) And moving more will get you to use your dog-side leg more: when you send with your dog side arm but not with your dog-side leg, he has big questions (like at :16 and :53 and 1:49, where your dog side leg was way back and he was not sure if he should go past it). So when in motion or when sending, use the dog side leg to step to the wing or tunnel you want as part of the cue.
>> is it possible to increase clarity going from wing to wing or is just him learning?
It is your lack of motion that is causing him to not drive to the 2nd wing, because the decel and send reads more as a wrap. Think back to the MaxPup 1 race tracks where we were running wing to wing – you can do that here and he will drive to the 2nd wing more 🙂 Also, using the wrap verbals when you sometimes wanted wing to wing and sometimes wanted wrap to the tunnel might be why he had questions – more on that below.
Remember that he is really small so your arm needs to be low and always pointing down to his nose rather than up high and pointing to the obstacles. When your arm gets up past your shoulder, you are blocking his view of the connection so he is not as sure of where to be when you are sending and ends up looking at you for more info.
Also, assume any and all dog errors are caused by handler errors… so either keep going or reward him because he is reading you correctly 🙂 For example, at 1:47, you cued a wrap but your dog-side leg was way back and you started rotating away too soon, so he didn’t take the wing and he was correct to take the tunnel. You can (and should!) reward with the toy not just praise, that because he was following handling correctly, particularly at this very early stage where the pups don’t know enough to save our butts 🙂
You got closer to the wing on the next rep and didn’t move away as early, so he got it – but I will keep bugging you to get your dog-side leg involved because that will make a huge difference to him.>> I don’t have a soft turn cue so I used check which is my wrap cue. Thoughts?>>
You are doing a great job adding all the verbals here! But… you will need a soft turn verbal and you can’t use the wrap verbal for the soft turns 🙂 The soft turn and the wrap are entirely different behaviors (especially when we get jumping involved) so you will need to add your soft turn verbals from the Minny Pinny work we did in MaxPup 1 🙂 It is totally worth it to do so! And since the wrap is going really well, now is a good time to add the left/right verbals for soft turns to begin rehearsing using them 🙂
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
