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Hi!
>> Ok it is getting better. Toy seems to put her in overdrive now so I am using food at first.
This sounds good – we can develop the impulse control on food then move it to toys (more games on that coming later). We don’t want her to get frustrated because she doesn’t quite know how to ignore toys yet 🙂 Is there any toy that she considers boring? LOL!!!
>Quick question. For the start line work. Mitre is a really good catcher and seems to actually catch a lot of the cookies. I am trying to throw behind her. Is it a big deal if she catches most of them. She does not appear to be releasing before the catch cue. I probably answered my own question.☺️ >>
Ha! I am not surprised that she is quick enough to catch it. I think it is fine if she catches it, as long as you are careful with the mechanics and don’t pair the throw with any like stopping or looking at her. You can be variable with it: sometimes do the catch throw while you are still moving, sometimes you will want to stop, praise, then toss the reward. I also mix in releases forward to a toy or treat.
Keep me posted on how she is doing!
TracySo true! Every one of them is an individual 🙂 And I like to let them express their individuality like that 🙂
Good morning!
Nice job keeping her moving slowly through here so she could isolate her footwork! The spacing in the cavalettis will change as she gets older, but this is great for her current size 🙂 My only suggestion is to reward sooner and more frequently in the cavaletti – she was starting to anticipate being through it and getting the cookies, so she was wanting to look at you. Rewarding sooner will help her look straight (and you can also have a visual target like an empty food bowl) to put the treat in. But if the food bowl makes her rush and lose her footwork, you can drop a cookie from your hand for now.
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
The barrel wraps with the toy are going well! This is also a good impulse control game – we stealthily add in impulse control on the toys by asking him to choose:
Jump for the toy (which gets no toy)
Or
Wrap the barrel (which totally gets the toy!)He was totally figuring it out and wrapping the barrel more than jumping for the toy. Yay!!! Another factor her could have been that the barrel was really close to the xpen and the other dog watching intently. That is a bit of pressure that he would have to rub but I, so he might have been having a little trouble with that. It might not be possible to move the xpen but it can be empty so there is less pressure, and you can keep the barrel in the center of the rug for a little more room.
The threadle game looked good! It is hard to ignore the empty bowl but he did a great job (it is another stealthy impulse control game :). I couldn’t see where you were looking, but be sure to look right at the target hand so he knows where to go. When the target was in your left hand, he was going pretty directly to it (more than in your right hand). So either he is more comfy on that side, or you were looking at the target more in that hand (or both 🙂 ). You can try this game with a toy now!!!
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
He did really well on the first part here, but it was definitely hard, it looks like he was twisting a little – then I think he realized that there was not a lot of distance to power through it, so plus the setup & height change and he added strides to get it back to being comfortable. He did get the bounce on the last rep when you added to lot of motion to support with momentum.
Because of winter space limitations, I think the main thing will be to either move the PT further so he can land in extension, take an extension stride, then start to slow down, or keep the bars low. With the PT close (since I am guessing it is as far away as it can go LOL!), the 10 inch bar lands him a little too close so he was changing his stride to accommodate that. And if you have a ring rental, I bet you can set it up at 10” with more room and it will be no problem for him. 🙂
Nice work! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Here is Ramen’s first parallel path game:
You might notice that I’m marking and throwing a little early. My goal is to keep him looking forward, so I am marking his intent to go to the prop here. Hitting it is not as important 🙂 You’ll see where this goes with the concept transfer posted yesterday!
Hi!
Great job on this session: it is a really hard skill because it is all about handler timing and not natural to the pups at all! So if we are late… then don’t make the new turn. Great job adding in lots of parallel path straight lines, and also rewarding everything even if the RC wasn’t perfect.
You got a couple of really good reps in with great timing! I will say that most of us cannot get it right in the first session, so you get a massive click/treat!!!!
I grabbed some screenshots to show you when it was good and when it was late. When you were good, you were on the new side before he arrived at the prop. When you were late, you were still on the original side. I have your screenshots and at the bottom, 2 screenshots from the demo video where I was on time: you can see how early the pups need the info, and that is why it worked nicely when you were early.
Here is the link to the screenshots:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OzlBC_pJ3AbUAVAEgYaLJtAVC3TFf2HKSZw1dokvCIA/edit?usp=sharingHe was slowing down a bit heading to the prop because you were feeding from your hand so he wanted to stay near your hand. If he has trouble finding cookies in the grass and you don’t want to throw them, you can switch to a toy that is thrown as the reward, or move to a non-grass area for cookie throws as long as you still have a lot of room like you did here, otherwise you will end up being late 🙂
Great job!!
TracyHi!
>>Wing wrap , turn and burn
It starting slow. He is a thinker>>It is because he is so young and just learning the foundations 🙂 He will definitely make fast progress! Same thing with my pup, who is just a couple of weeks older – it is hard at first but then they figure it out 🙂 Here are some ideas:
My main suggestion is to be closer to the cone so he doesn’t have to go as far away from you – it might not look like a big distance away, but he had questions about it. As soon as you go closer at 1:30, he was able to offer the wrap – but when you moved further away again, he had questions. So start very close to the cone, so he only has to thin about goin around it and not the distance between you and him.
On the 2nd video, you had a lot of physical cues to help…. we really want to fade that out so he can be independent. If you need to help him come around the cone, it will be harder for him to learn the countermotion.
So to help him with the independent offering (and because he is so young) is to add one more step on the wrap shaping with the cone, before you go to turn and burn: stand up in front of the cone, and reward him from your hands for offering going around it (without you helping and without you doing the FC yet). This step will help clarify for him to offer the wrap when yo uare standing and when there are no bowls out 🙂 I did this with my puppy yesterday and it made a world of difference (video coming soon :))
Nice work!
TracyYes! He is totally getting the feel for backing up! He is doing a great job of lifting each foot independently which is what we want (instead of flinging himself backwards, which is what we don’t want LOL!) great job to you to let this develop slowly so he could get it all figured out.
Keep your reward hands low like you had them here, at about your knees, to keep his head in that natural position – as he grows, you won’t have to bend over as much 🙂
He is a bit sideways sometimes backing up, and it might be because there were multiple targets behind him. So do only one target at a time, so he continues to back up as straight as possible 🙂
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
Strikes a pose is going well! I don’t think the toy was gonna a distraction, it was more of a connection issue (too much looking at her :)) it was great feedback from Caper about what she needs in terms of connection – this is good, because you should not be looking directly at her on serps anyway. Here’s what was happening:
At the beginning, note how she comes almost to the center of you then goes back out to the hand target (especially when it is in your right hand): this is because of where you are looking. On the cookie section, you were looking at her then when she was about a stride away from you, you looked at the target, so she went to the target.
When you went to the toy visible at :43, you looked at her the whole time until :45, when you looked at the target, so she went to the target. Same thing happened at 1:07 and 1:19- you looked at her the whole time, never looked at the target, so she went to the toy.
At 1:36 you shook the target and had the toy a little further out of this picture which helped!
based on what we see here, she needs you to look at the target hand and not at her, which is the same as looking at the landing spot as you move through a serpentine. So after you toss the cookie, look at her only until she turns back towards you: then let her see you shift from looking at her to looking at your target hand. That should make a pretty massive difference for her!
Nice work getting more of the “bite” markers in (I think I heard a couple!!) You don’t need the ‘yes’ before it, but that might be habit 🙂 I feel that pain!
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
The lap turns on the flat looked really strong, you had a nice loop going with good timing and clear cues! Then after all those cookies, he went back to the toy: SUPER!
Looking at the session with the prop:
Feeding from the hand was good when you got started! Also you can move further away from the prop so it is clearer that you want him to come to your hand and not the prop (you were pretty close to it).
Nice tug break in the middle when you changed sides! You were further away from the prop and so it was clearer to him to come to you hand. He was nailing the drive to you!I think his confusion about going to the prop after the turn had to do with the marker:
After the turn, you were moving towards the prop, pointing with the cookie hand, and saying “get it”. Get it means “go get the cookie I have tossed” which is why he froze for a second: “am I hitting the prop mom, or getting the cookie?” Your verbal and your physical cues didn’t match, so he waited for more info. So after the lap turn, don’t say anything til after he hits the prop, then mark the hit with a ‘get it’ and then toss the treat.Also try an empty hand now on the lap turn so there is no confusion about where to look. On the last couple of reps, you didn’t say get it but there was a cookie in your hand and you said yes… which generally means ’come get the cookie in my hand’ so he didn’t know where to look. The good news is that he is super smart and already knows a lot of words. The bad news is that he is super smart and already knows a lot of words LOL!!! The smarties keep us honest and clean up our mechanics for sure, and it is well worth it because they are brilliant sport partners!
Tandem turn: going well! These are not easy with little dogs but he did really well! Both sides looked easy for him, so my only suggestion is to start this with a cookie toss so you are ahead of him and he catches up. That way you can be showing the turn hands before he gets to you (along with some decel) – that will set up the turn sooner and he won’t come in front of you as much.
If that goes well… add the prop! You can reward from your hands for coming to you (start 5 or 6 feet from the prop) and then, like with the lap turns, move towards the prop with an empty hand and don’t say get it til after he has hit the prop.
So fun to hear that he is leaving you in the dust on the toy races!!! And I am glad you revisit those a lot, because they are the way we get the most speed and commitment, especially with the littles 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyAwwww, I love this walk! She was able to explore the environment and her body language tells us she was thinking about a LOT! Her tail set and ears were interesting to watch, and the big shake by the door (maybe she was ready to leave when she did that? Or maybe it was a turning point in her getting comfy with the environment?) There were a TON of interesting smells and people and noises. She relaxed and built confidence – note the change in the tail and ears from the first minute (low tail, ears back in “whippet” position LOL!) and the 2nd minute: high waggy tail, ears forward.
Her interaction with the person was interesting, it was a true resilience moment! I think she liked when the stranger talked to her! I don’t think she liked it as much when the stranger bent over her (note her body posture when that happened, it was a little stressful). But then she shook it off when the person went away – it was a GREAT resilience moment of “that was stressful, I am fine, I feel good now”. Without us being able to see it, her stress hormones fired then started to return to baseline (I call it a resilience flex) and that is GREAT!!!
When the person said “Is that a rescue” hahahahahaha I feel that pain – “No, she is a purpose bred mix with 8 working generations behind her” haha
Great job here! I am glad she is loving her resilience walks!
TracyGood morning!
I totally feel the pain of teething puppies! Backing off tugging a little is great – yo can still throw toys, but reduce the tugging and just do little toy dances with her instead. My pup is teething too, so we are using very soft flat toys, not as much tugging, and still I end up with blood on my hands (his, not mine LOL!)This tunnel session went great! She figured it all out really fast: through the thing, to the cookies, back to momma for more cookies and so on LOL! And adding in the Threadle side entry was easy for her at the end.
I think you can add the tunnel cue now, by gently holding her collar while she is facing it, say tunnel 2 or 3 times, then let go. I am 99% sure if she sees the entry clearly and the MM is on the other side, then she will go through the tunnel so adding the verbal is fine 🙂 And then you should be able to add the angles with the verbal easily too!
Nice work here! Hope you did not get hit with all those storms!!
TracyHi!
>>I decided not to go today, since it’s been snowing for two days and I didn’t want to make the drive, so I rescheduled for Friday.>>
I totally don’t blame you!!! Agility can wait til the snow stops and it is less brutal out there in terms of weather!!!
>> When I watched myself, I thought my feet weren’t pointing in quite the right direction, but I will work on that more next time.>>
Your feets were good! It is hard to stand still with your feet pointed that way and will feel much better when we add movement.
Lovely barrel session here 🙂 I love how he came into the barrel session tugging on the toy!! The whole sessions looked really good – he was definitely in fast forward, running around the barrel to the next tuggie! The next step for indoor training would be to have you standing up – you can still have the 2 toys as rewards, or reward with treats. This is a good prep for turn and burn when you will be standing, and I bet you can get some turn and burn in at home too, just don’t move too fast and run into anything 🙂
Great job!
Tracy
