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Hi!
Super nice session here with all the pieces! Looking at the backside sending/parallel path: you were being really good about NOT going fast because that is what the instructions said 🙂 but with her speed, let’s revise the instructions and get you moving faster 🙂 I suggest this because she did well with you slightly ahead or parallel to her, but when you were behind, she was not as sure and ended up on the front side. So, more motion from you will solve that, because you won’t be as far behind as she learns, and even if you are behind, there will be more motion to support her.
Keep your parallel path just like you had it here – that was excellent! The outside arm seemed to help her a lot, so you can keep it if you liked it, or you can fade it out by adding more intense connection as you add more motion.The counter option exits looked great! As you combined the 2 sections, it was easy to get her to the backside but hard to get her over the bar even with the well-timed toy drops. 2 ideas for you on that:
– you can angle the jump slightly, with the entry wing pulled back more towards the start wing, and the exit wing pushed more past the tunnel so she sees more of the bar as she comes around the entry wing.
– As you drop the toy, add in a big exaggerated look at the landing spot and point at the landing spot as you drop the toy. That will help guide her focus to the landing spot as well, helping her see the bar.I don’t think the tunnel was a distraction at all! Yay! The motion was what made it hard in her moments of question, so more motion on driving to the backside will help, and changing the upper body motion to indicate the landing more when she is on the backside will help too 🙂
Great job!!
TracyHi!
She is definitely super speedy!! And definitely seems to love love love the game.Since she won’t play with the toy in the ring, proceed REALLY carefully with FEO runs so you don’t build in frustration – the most important thing is to NOT stop and fix if she runs by something. She ran past a jump in each of these two runs, and you brought her back to fix it… but they were both 100% handler errors. So don’t fix – just keep going. Fixing basically tells the dog that she was wrong but it will be very confusing to her: she was reading the cues correctly and doesn’t know why you brought her back (even if you are saying good girl, the stop in action can be frustrating).
>>As we head into the big trialing season in Alaska, I’m going to be mostly working on her non agility behaviors like relax while other dogs run-or let’s be realistic-just focus on me. And maybe not bark at everything you see. She needs better handle on that before I can take her into more open environments.>>
This is a great area of focus!! That, plus more of a stay in training – both good things to play with, as well as finding things she will play with in that environment. So emphasize that a lot more and don’t do very much FEO at all because she needs more tools in her toolbox before you will want to make trialing a regular thing (FEO without playing with the toy is basically trialing). We really want to protect what you have here and not add too much, too soon, especially with a teenage dog 🙂
Have fun!
TracyWe missed you! But I am glad you arrived home safely! We have plenty of time before MaxPup 3 and now that the snow is gone, it should be easy to play all the games! Have fun!
TracyThis is a great update! Sounds like a really good resilience walk, where she got to experience the world around her in a really good way! Yay!! You can try to incorporate something like this once a week, whether it is a mall or a restaurant with a dog friendly patio or anywhere she can sit on your lap and watch the world! I don’t really recommend a lot of leash walk in parks or around the neighborhood for a dog her size because there are simply too many instances of off leash dogs running up to our dogs and she is so tiny! So, she can go to places that humans might go but other dogs are less likely to be. And she can experience seeing other dogs by tagging along to a training class or trial.
Have fun!
TracyThis looked really good too!
>>I’ve notice when she has trouble with this it’s turning to her right. So maybe she’s a lefty.
We do see side preferences in this game, which is very useful info! So keep the right turn reps easy (wing a little closer, bowl a little more visible) and the left turn reps can be harder.
For the next step: you can sit on a couch or a low chair, so you are working your way towards standing up.
And you can check out the game posted Wednesday where we add a bigger upright like a laundry basket to go around 🙂
Great job on all of these!
TracyHi!
This is going super well! She seemed very happy to get on the plank and also turned around really well in both directions. SUPER!
You can add on tossing a treat off to the side so she leaps off, eats the treat, then leaps back on the plank. That will add even more challenge in the form of balance after speed to this game 🙂Tracy
Hi!
She is doing well here too! Remember to stand still surging the shaping and let her offer behavior. You can use placement of reinforcement to reward and then tossed to the side to get her to hop off and then run back to it.For the shaping on the inflatable bone … stand still 🙂 You were moving around a lot, which actually drew her attention away from the getting on the bone (especially when you moved the bone with her on it, she felt that was a little weird). I think you were trying to get her to put more feet on the bone, but it was delaying her from thinking about her feet because you were moving around. So be completely stationary and let her offer, then reward on the bone followed by tossing a treat to the side so she gets off it then runs back to it.
The other thing that will help with the inflatable is to have it less inflated. This was really inflated, which makes it harder to get on and really hard to balance on (puppies don’t have a lot of core strength, and we don’t really do conditioning work with puppies). So inflating it maybe halfway will make it a lot easier for her to get on.>>Before your class, we used to do the bone with smooth side up and she was better at staying on.>>
Maybe it was less inflated, maybe it was easier because she was smaller, or you were standing still – hard to know, but at her size now it was hard to get all 4 feet on and stay on.
For the disc –
>>The wobble disc used to be one of her favorite things, so not sure why she didn’t want to get on and stay on. I tried using her tug for play on the disc and she seemed to like that, or be able to tolerate what was bothering her about the disc?>>
Probably just as her body develops, she I thinking more about it all and she wakes up in a slightly different body each day. But she provided great info here!
I also think the is a little too hard for her to want to get on it and be able to balance She did put her front feet on it but was not as interested in getting back feet on it (there was some avoidance too when she would circle around it). These discs are really hard because of how much they move and how high off the ground they are, so she is (smartly) being a bit careful.
So, because of her age and size, make the wobble board a lot easier to get on by stuffing towels all the way around underneath it, so it barely moves. Do a couple of sessions of playing around on it with cookies and toys until she is 100% on board with putting all 4 feet on it. Then you can fade out one towel to add more movement of the board, but proceed slowly so she loves it 🙂
Nice work here!
TracyGood morning! The looked great! Very nice start to the backing up game! And we will keep building it up over time, based on her success here.
>>To me, rear end awareness, using her back feet seems hard for her. And when she does, separately or picking them up very far also seems hard.>>
Backing up requires a lot of coordination, and she is doing really well! Bearing in mind that she is REALY young, she is 100% on the right track with this. She will look a little uncoordinated for a while longer, simply because she is a baby dog 🙂 But I am super happy with how she did here – several good reps of backing up in a short happy session. Nice!!!!!
T
Good morning!
Young Lu are off to a good start on this!! She is using her back feet independently and that is great 🙂
In the first part of the video, one thing I notice (which will help get her backing up straighter) is that she is not really targeting the plank or foam square with her back feet – she might actually be avoiding it a little LOL!At 1:04 she did touch it with her back feet and you nailed the click, then you used a little body pressure to get another rep of that. Yay! So that resulted in more back foot targeting.
So that is where I recommend starting, to get her backing up straighter and more back foot awareness in general: have her begin each session with her back feet on the target that is flat, not angled (the foam square is better because it is lower and easier to step up onto). And then you can lure her back feet to step off by one step, then do a couple of up close click/treats for stepping right back up onto it. That will get things rolling so then you can ask her to step off a little more each time, to back up a little more each time.
Try not to use a lot of body pressure of leaning towards her, because that was adding the down you were getting (as opposed to when you did not lean towards her and she would back up more regularly.
>>. I’d also like to add more distance to this as part of warming up etc. Am I just lumping too many things together?>>
For now, don’t add a lot of distance – just get her using the foam square more regularly as a target, which will make adding distance easier. You can do more short reps in the warm up and get the same warm up as you would with distance, so distance is not a huge worry. You can also play with using an x-pen to make a channel for backing up, but no need for that now – I prefer that he continues this lovely foot targeting!!!
Great job!!
TracyGood morning! These games also looked great – she is brilliant and adorable!
I admit to snorting and laughing on her very first foot hit of the target – she was SO adamant and precise LOL!!! And yes, she got it right away 🙂 Good girl! It was super easy for her to get both feet on – amazing how her brain locked it in from the last session and made this session really easy :). For the next session, add 2 thing:
– you can be standing
– try a bit of tugging beforehand so she is in higher arousal when you shape this (you might have done this, and edited it out). We definitely want to add little bits of arousal here and there, to see what she needs from us in order to help her learn to regulate her arousal and not lose herself to arousal 🙂Once she can hit it with you standing up, she is definitely ready for the next prop games!
Ok, I got a big chuckle out of her getting on the Cato Board before you even finished putting it down LOL!! She was like “I GOT THIS” haha! Good girl! You can toss a treat to the side as you are putting it down, to give yourself a moment to get it to the floor. She looked super confident here, getting all four feet on the board! Yay!
For this game, you can add tugging before it and also, after every 4 or 5 treats, break off for a tug break. That increases arousal a little which helps her learn to work her body when she is more stimulated, and also helps us with state dependent memory – that is basically that the dogs will remember skills better when they are asked to remember them in the same state they learned them. Since, she will be asked to remember body awareness in the higher state when she is running agility (eventually :)) you can teach it in a higher state and then it will be easier for her in the long run.Lovely work with the decel and drive to handler! She was perfectly happy to decel at your side and get cookies 🙂 You did a great job getting your hand nice and low to help her out. When you add more motion, you can decelerate sooner so she is more prepared for the turn, then turn nice and slowly so she can stay really tight to your leg as she turns. I was going to suggest trying it outside, but it looks like you already did! Yay! Onwards to the next video!
The drive to handler outside looked great! The hardest part was getting her to go find the cookie on the board while giving you enough time to get ahead of her. She is very small but already very quick!! You can try placing the cookie on the board while holding her, then move further from the board, then send her to the board so when she gets to the cookie, you are already further ahead. That will allow you to run more, then dramatically slow down, then start the turn when she arrives at your side. She was reading it all very nicely, especially that last rep! So adding distance so you can add more speed before the decel is definitely the next step.
She did really well with the decel game outside and with the toy for focus forward outside as well! She is already more engaged outside – that didn’t take long at all! Yay!
The long toy here was perfection, and now you can hold her longer (maybe a second or two) when it lands before letting her drive to it. Then, as soon as you let her go, you can add in walking forward while she is running forward – and over a session or two, you can build up to running forward. She will let you know how fast you can go to running – if she looks distracted by your motion (slowing down or looking at you or hesitating to get the toy) then you can keep your speed nice and slow. But if she continues to drive straight and fast? You can keep adding more and more of your speed too.Great job here!!! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
She is SO CUTE!!!! Love her!!!!
Both of the pre-games are looking good! And her toy play is looking strong too 🙂
Looking at the prop video 1 – I think the hat will get more attention and more offering from her if you flip the mechanics a bit: start with the play but with the hat tucked into your arm pit so it is not on the ground. Then, when you transition from the play into shaping, take the toy away and put the hat down… that should get her really seeing the hat as the object to offer on. She seemed to know you wanted her to offer behavior here, but she was not really “seeing” the hat because it faded into the background during the play by already being out there.
On the 2nd pre-game, you had the paper hidden til after the toy play and she immediately went to it. Yay! Then when your hand stayed out in position, the target kind of faded int the background again. Then on the other side, when you put it out, she hit is pretty hard (full body hit at 1:25 LOL!) – you can totally reward that 🙂
So for both of these targets, for now – have them both hidden during the play then after you put the toy away and get the treats ready, whip the target out. That should get an immediate interaction that you can mark and reward. Then you can pick the hat up or move your hand away, then put it back out – boom! Another reward. That can really help build up the value of the target, to the point where it will be easier to leave out for her to hit repeatedly.
Her focus forward is looking really good! On the first video, she was happy to drive to it with great focus forward and was basically retrieving it too! And you made a big happy fuss over the retrieve, to help make it really fun. She said the session was over at about 1:00 by leaving – it is a high energy behavior for a puppy (she is running!) so about a minute is all she can do at this age, so set a timer for 45 seconds then give her a break.
On the 2nd video, you added a lot of your motion (running, compared to standing still on the first video) and it was too big of a leap for now – when yo dialed it back to walking, she did a LOT better of continuing to run straight to the toy. Note how on reps 1, 2, and 4 you were moving faster so she was looking at you a lot on those. For the next session, try to do it all with you walking, and keep it super short o she doesn’t tire out easily.
The decel to handler is going well! The hardest part of the exact placement of the hand – I think close to your leg, touching your knee and even turning her nose towards you will help! She did especially nicely on the 2nd video when you added the turn – nice! You can add more distance and ore motion by tossing the treat further away so you can run a few steps – then you can make a dramatic slow down when she is halfway to you, let her decelerate to your side, then you can do the circle.
Great job here!!! She is looking wonderful!
TracyHi!
Both of these jump sessions looked really good- the transitions, tay reward, and in between moments all looked solid!
And the jumping element is looking really good – he is powerful and balanced, and he seemed to have no questions when you angled the jump. YAY!! My only suggestion is to use the moving target, to keep hi head down and balanced over the last jump and no slowing up. You can move to the according grid though, adding the striding challenge and moving target to that.Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyThe decels are looking super – both in terms of your handling and his response!!! I was going to suggest that you didn’t need to wait for him at the wing like you did in the first part, but you could get ahead and then decel to see if he could drive past you… and that is what you did on the 2nd part of the video. Super!! He was GREAT about reading the decel and setting up the wrap. YAY!! So keep doing what you did here 🙂
You can use this setup to show him 4 different cues: Go, rear, wrap, and backside circle, all in one session!
Nice work :)

Tracy
