[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

>>That sounds really good! In looking forward to him having more of a brain.>>

It will be up-and-down progress through adolescence. There will be days where he appears fully adult in terms of brain function! And there will be days where he appears that he has forgotten everything – totally normal, no worries, just part of brain development and the learning comes back quickly.

>>And it took a good five minutes to get out of the crate in the car today>>

If he couldn’t really eat, is there a way to park further away at first so he can handle the environment better? Or on that first release, just scoop him out so he can get into the environment quickly and get comfy? We do eventually want him to wait in his crate but for now, we want to avoid frustration by telling him he is wrong when he is in a new environment (because in that state of arousal he might not fully know how to be right).

He was SO BRILLIANT with the pattern game here!!!! It was a really hard environment: people, noise, the visuals, and omg the smells! The smells must have been insane! He was brilliant about being able to engage with you, even when faced with these huge environmental factors. And he looked happy and relaxed 🙂

Definitely keep going with the Resilience games. They don’t look or feel as fancy as the sporty games, but they will be the foundation that makes the sporty games easier in the competition ring. The first generation of these resilience conditioned dogs is about 3 now and they are very successful in competition!

Great job!!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

>>My plan was for Jump to be short, a little higher pitched and more rapid, while Tunnel is supposed to be longer, deeper. I need a LOT more work for that to happen more naturally….or maybe I need to switch to a different verbal for Jump, one that is more natural for me to say differently>>

I think the way you were doing it on this video was good – the tunnel verbal was lower in pitch and more urgent, while jump was slightly higher and more conversational. I’m sure when you are moving, those differences will be even bigger as long as you keep “jump” in that conversational zone.

He did really well here! And speaking of moving – the next step is to try to be moving on all of these on approximately the same line of motion. The movement makes it harder, as you can see at :18-:19
He was totally coming to the jump as per the cue, was heading that way til you moved (closed shoulders then moved the toy hand) and that is what flipped him back to the tunnel there. He looked at you, saw the motion, then went to the tunnel. The same thing happened at :51.

On the next reps, you didn’t move so he took the jump as cued (or the tunnel, except for one blooper on the first rep after a bunch of jump reps)

So now adding in the motion (just walking to start) will help solidify the processing of the verbal over the motion, which is HARD but incredibly useful 🙂 He is totally ready for it!

Great job!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

>>previously used a no reward marker, but no matter how casual or upbeat it was, it would cause her to immediately run off and chase things (real or imagined). >>

I view no reward markers differently than lots of folks – I view them as punishment markers, which actually increase frustration even if it is casual or upbeat. I think the phrase “no reward marker” was coined because positive reinforcement trainers did not want to use the term punishment so we went to “no reward” LOL!!

Here is why I call them punishment markers and why they should be treated as such, looking at it operantly: let’s say you mark a behavior with “oopsie!”in a happy voice with a smile. But the behavior was wrong, the dog gets no reinforcement, and has to come back to try again.

So technically… withdrawing access to something desirable when trying to decrease the rate of behavior just presented is negative punishment . So my smiling oopsie is a punishment marker. And there are arguments that the smiling oopsie can also turn into a positive punishment/aversive, but that is a discussion for a different day LOL!!

And lots of folks use no reward markers without looking at the rate of reinforcement – so the dog is both woking at a low rate of reinforcement and getting punishment markers then BOOM! Frustration. Yes, these markers are presented in a kinder way than the old school NO or yelling at the dog – but eventually have a similar effect.

And also, looking at it operantly is only a tiny piece of the learning puzzle – we have all sorts of other learning happening at the same time with operant learning being a relatively tiny piece (sorry, Skinner, nothing personal hahaha)

So I don’t use no reward markers. I use lots of reset markers that are consistently paired with food or toys. And when I use a marker that specifically says to the dog “that is wrong, you get nothing” it raises a red flag in my brain to be SUPER careful on the next rep, don’t use any one word over and over, and raise the rate of reinforcement through splitting the behavior.

>>I have not tried a specific word to mean “come here and get a cookie so we can try again.” I will see if that cleans up our training a bit.

It doesn’t have to be a specific word, it can be several words or phrases that get mixed in – as long as the dog is invited back, given something desirable, and then asked again if you think there is a chance of success (no chance of success means to ask for a different behavior).

>>I tried the sequence again with her on my right and sending to the jump past the tunnel. I didn’t video it, but it went much better. Perhaps it was a fresh brain, latent learning, or cleaner mechanics on my part (or all 3!). I will revisit this skill in the future.>>

Could be all of the above, or any single thing, but we will happily take the success even if we don’t fully know why 🙂

Nice session here! She is not yet ready for you to peel your shoulders away from the tunnel layering (2nd rep) – distance and layering appears to be comfy here as long as you support her parallel path (the arm cue is fine to use, it supports her path nicely :))

Blind to threadle looked great! Lovely!

Blind to backside was harder and yes, it was your line as you mentioned – the line there would be to the edge of the backside jump so she lands looking at the correct side after the blind. When you had a better line, she read it really well.

Threadle slice is also going well! On this one (and the threadle wrap) you can give a turn cue on the jump before the threadle so she lands turning – then as she is in the air, you can start the close verbal. If you start the threadle verbals too early, then they apply to the wrong jump. The turn cue will depend on how much turn you want on the previous jump, so it can be any of the turn cues. In this setup, you don’t need a lot of turning so I bet a name call will work like a charm.

The threadle wrap is going well too! This is one of the harder skills and she is doing well – the bar came down on the first one because you praised while she was jumping which distracted her a little.

And the layering to the threadle at the end also looked great – NICE!!!

>>Would you do these same sequences at some point with very little connection and handling, or does that just apply to the earlier game we played? >>

Eventually, yes, you can work a softer connection and a bit of disconnection to test the verbals (dial back motion when you do this). But a higher priority is to add more speed, to see if she can read the physical cue and hear the verbals when fast exciting things are happening 🙂

Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
This is definitely a hard game! A couple of ideas for you to help set up more success – she had a ton of good reps so you’ll see it continue to build.

– try to alternate verbals sooner in the session, so the other obstacle is in play right away. You started with 5 jump cues in a row, so she was totally jump focused and that made it harder to switch gears to the tunnel. So begin alternating after the 1st or 2nd cue, or start with the tunnel, so she doesn’t get over-balanced in terms of value on one or the other.

Also, because the processing on this game is sooooo hard, clear the area of other distractions. Sorry, Tchoup, you gotta stay in the house LOL!! Having him right there is one more thing for the brain to process, so it de-prioritizes verbal cues as it processes the other things (like a dog potentially snuffling near her toy or treats :)) And make sure there are not toys n the ground – on one rep, there was a toy out past the jump when you cued the tunnel, and it was too hard.

Those distractions are not as significant when you are moving (because a dog brain will prioritize motion) but to get the verbals without motion, we want to dial back other distractions to leave room for the verbal processing. It is super hard!

I think she did a good job working through frustration at the end! To reduce frustration even more, you can try more of the standing neutral position before sitting in the chair, to see if that help? Standing might be more of a cue to her to take an obstacle, even if you are not moving. So standing plus alternating more can move this forward even more 🙂

Nice work here!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

You and Sid are looking great!!

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

>>It’s a long video bit we kind of struggled with a few things this session so I did little editing>>

I think the length of the session was actually the source of the main struggles (and without the editing, it was more than 8 minutes). He did really well for the first several minutes, no problems other than perhaps not reading the turn to the left on the serps as well (more on that below).

Looking first at anything he had questions about –
He was not bringing the toy directly back, which is not a big issue but also it is something to look at in terms of why – be careful not to take the toy away and put him back to “work” because that punishes the toy retrieve! Be sure to reward with a 2nd toy, and also give him some time to run around. He is still a baby pup and needs some yeehaw moments built in :). It is also possible that he was checking your hand to see if there was a cookie in it to trade, and when there was no cookie, he took the toy for another spin. So, separately from the jump games, work some retrieves so the trade cookie or toy comes out at variable times working up to when he brings it all the way back then you take out the trade/reward.

The only other question I saw from him was that the left turns over the bump were little struggles. He was going to your other side and looking at the toy, possibly because it was a distraction on the harder side and possibly to set himself up to turn right, which is easier at the moment. So you can help him by slowing down as you move to position, releasing sooner (and have the toy not in your hand). The other option is to throw the toy to the landing spot to help direct his focus there on those harder turns.

And if you try twice and he can’t get it? Chalk it up to adolescent brain development and let it go, revisit it another time, rather than keep asking. It is normal with adolescent dogs that somedays they wake up and cannot do something they did the day before (or will be able to do again the next day).

He ended up on the wrong side at 2:16 but that was a handling error – you were just late with the blind cross so he was correct, good boy!

At 3:34 he broke the stay when you did a big arm movement. His stays up til that point had been really good! And I think at that point in the session, he was mentally done. There were a LOT of reps (16 reps of stays and releases to the collections on the jump, on the video), and most of the reps were control reps (stays and collected turns). So he was probably fresh out of mental energy at that point – plus all of the control makes it less interesting to stay engaged, so his arousal level dropped – and there were an additional 4.5 minutes on the video!

Scrolling back to recent sessions – he has all done a lot of these collected/controlled turn videos and a ton of stays – there is the potential that there is just not enough action or play, and it is all about the control and the stay.

Be sure to balance everything with run run run play silly goofy NO STAYS lol!!!! Even though there is a lot of reinforcement being delivered, there is a lot of repetition and that can negate the effects of the reinforcement.

At 6:30 – he was done. Definitely had ordered up an uber to go do something else LOL! That was why it was getting harder and harder to get toy play (a Golden is likely to be able to keep eating not matter what haha)
And bear in mind there are edits, so you were actually there for more than 6.5 minutes.

So my biggest suggestion? A timer! Even if this was not all done as one session, it is too much rep on the same control skills for one day. Set a timer for 2 minutes then be done – you had 10 reps in the first 90 seconds or so here, so that is a great session length where he was till engaged and successful 🙂 And, if you work control skills on one day (anything that has a lot of stays and collections), the next day or two should have sessions that don’t have control skills – make those sessions a party! The rocking horses are fast-moving and don’t need stays, so those are good games to alternate with the control games.

The skills themselves here look good! So keep an eye on the clock as you train and I think you will see more amped up sessions without losing the precision :)

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!

>>Which arm do you think I should use for the tunnel threadle (or all threadles, I guess). I think I was using my offside arm, same with the backside slice that I tried today but wondering if using my dog side arm back might be easier for me or more obvious? >>

I think for the tunnel threadles, you can use the opposite arm up high by your shoulder. For threadle wraps, you can try a low 2-handed cue. For the threadle slice on the jump, I personally train both the one-arm swinging back, and the opposite arm – there is a time and a place for each! On the intuitive, international-style threadles, the one-arm threadle is easy. For. The harder ones, or the one where you are out of position, or the Premier-style threadles – the opposite arm can be very useful!

>>I did the backside slice exercise today and I
This looked really good!! Try to be 100% consistent about moving *then* releasing – you did on several of the early reps, but then you moved and released at the same time. Moving then releasing sets the line really well so you will be able to add distance ore quickly. Moving and releasing at the same time delays the motion cue so you ended up not being able to add lateral distance as quickly.

>> don’t think my arm is all that obvious and I think I was rewarding in the wrong place or late. I felt like we were on a path to collide into each other.

For the backside slice, there is no specific arm cue to use – it is mainly dog-side arm to get her to go to the backside, and no arm needed to bring her over the bar (eventually, she will automatically take the bar and you can handle it however you like 🙂 )

With that in mind, about the reward – you can now switch away from rewarding from your hand to dropping the reward:

Try to drop the reward in behind you, so she is not looking at you for the reward and looking at the landing spot as you are moving away. The timing of the reward drop should be as soon as you are sure she is going to the backside wing, so it is there when she finishes coming around the wing. That helps create the default take-the-jump behavior.

>>I saw you are headed down to Florida! The WEC in Ocala is only about 40 minutes from me. I am actually meeting a friend (also a MaxPup graduate) in Ocala tomorrow for some early morning nosework with our dogs. If it’s not too hot by the time we’re done (since we’ll have the dogs) maybe we’ll take a quick peak inside the expo center and see if we can spot you!>>

Yes! I am at the WEC – nice place here LOL!!! I think racing starts at 10am? You can definitely stop by and bring the dogs in – it will be hot but I am sure they are welcome in the stands 🙂 We are in Expo 2 – that is the full extent of my knowledge hahaha

Great job here!
Tracy


[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!

I am sorry about the additional snow 🙁 I hope it melts SOON!!!!

Great job on the take a breath game!!! It looks like he was actually doing it – that is unusual for the first time. Yay! And you taking a deep breath is a great cue – when you do that, you can sniff the cookie deeply (I know, weird haha) and then let him sniff it 🙂 He looked pretty relaxed and happy to play this game – he kept trying to lie down to relax more!

What a cool place for his Sniffari!!!! I bet there were some AMAZING smells in there, and unusual ones. Nice! He definitely had a good long sniff. Someday, the snow will melt and you can do this outside, but this worked perfectly for now 🙂 He looked to be finished at about the 1 minute mark, and that is fine – if he is asking to leave, you can leave 🙂

Going back and forth over the prop for the flyball box foundation looked great – easy peasy! You can definitely go to the next step, where you start him close and cue him to hop over then immediately back to where he started (only reward when he gets back to the start point). It is a good coordination game!

Great job here. Stay warm!
Tracy

• This reply was modified 2 years, 10 months ago by Tracy Sklenar.

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi! This went well too!

The big layer to the tunnel looked great, and it is really nice to see that even though he definitely has high value for the tunnel, he doesn’t grab it when you haven’t cued it 🙂 Yay!

The FC on the 2nd rep was a little late so I was not sure if you wanted the front or back of the jump (hard to hear the verbal). The BC at :14 was very late but you had the threadle verbal going so he got it. Yay!

The timing of the FC and BC as still a little late on the next reps but your cue as to which side of the jump you wanted (front versus back) was very clear. This was especially true at :3 when y started your backside verbal while he was in the air over the previous jump – perfect!

So about the timing of the physical cue – you can send to the wing and the first jump from further away, so that you are in position and starting the FC or BC so that he sees it the cross finishing before he takes off for the jump. You were trying to get to position then start the cross, which was making it a little late.

On the threadle slice – he is reading these nicely, following the body language! Try not to go as close to the first jump so then you don’t have to pull back at all, you can keep running on a parallel line as you cue the threadle (instead of running backwards then moving forward again).

Threadle wrap – this is a good one for more decel into it, so you can set the big collection and rotate your lower body. So as he is landing from the jump, you can be decelerating and showing him a big arm/hand/shoulder cue – try to use a lot of upper body and very little motion/feet to show the jump. It will feel like you are grabbing his attention with your hands then turning him and sending him away to the jump with your hands, not with motion of your feet 🙂 The extra motion was why he ended up in the tunnel because that was the line that the motion was supporting.

The mini sequences at the end looked great – the big tunnel distance allowed you to get to the threadle really easily, and he committed to that at a distance and allowed you to stay way ahead! Nice!

Great job here!!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
This session went really well! Yes, he seemed happy to take the tunnel any time, any place LOL!! That made the little sequence really easy (one little blooper where your threadle cue was late but the 2nd rep of it was perfect).

>>I tried to speed it up, but I couldn’t get far away from the jump for him to take the backside.>>

He did well here and actually having to help how the backside makes the tunnel more tempting…. But I don’t think he took it at al when you wanted the backside!

So you can approach the backside training 2 ways:
– yes, without a tunnel discrimination right there 🙂 gradually inch over closer to the center of the bar so that you can cue it from the center of the backside bar.

– for this setup, you can angle the backside jump so when he lands from the previous jump, he can see the bar more (so the wing closer to the tunnel gets angled towards his landing spot from the previous jump). You can start it on maybe a 45 degree angle from its position here, then work the way back to the flat angle you had it here.

Nice work!!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning! I am getting an error message on these (an exclamation point in a triangle). Usually the iCloud shares work well, so I am not sure why they are misbehaving today LOL!!! If I can’t get them to work, can you load them on YouTube?

Thanks!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning! I am glad she is reading the soft brake easily – it is intended to be intuitive, so we don’t have to train more – we can just do it LOL!!

The combo games looked awesome!!!! She read everything really well, no questions about if it was the jump or the tunnel, and she ignored the neighbor dog. Wow!!!!

On the 2nd video, she was perfect about reading the change from the tunnel on go-rounds 1 and 2 to the wing on go-round 3. Yay!

Since that all went well and I believe you are in for hot weather… here is a game to practice keeping your hands low 🙂 Use a cold drink which feels good in the heat LOL! The smaller the dog, the lower the hands should be – and I bet you can get even more success with lower hands so she sees connection better, especially as we add more distance 🙂

I play this game all the time to keep me hands calm LOL!!

(And if you are anywhere near Ocala this weekend, come by the WEC, we will be there helping with the ESPN Flyball Invitational!!)

The chair-verbals game is definitely going better! The main thing is that she has figured out that it is about responding to verbals and moving away, even without you moving. Good girl!!! She had a LOT more success!! I think the hardest part was when you wanted her to go to the tunnel after a series of jump verbals, so you can mix in more alternating so the jump doesn’t get too much more value than the tunnel here. And on the way to the jump, she was stopping to look at your hands, so you can definitely throw the rewards. And if you want another level of challenge: put the MM out there past both obstacles, and you can use it as the reward for both!! It is a hard visual for the pups but I think she is ready 🙂

Great job! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

>>Well, this was hard! I don’t really have enough space, so the wing and jump are closer than ideal and at a very flat angle.>>

You made it work! You got it set up so that all of the challenges were maintained (it is supposed to be hard :)) and you and Sprite looked great!

Tunnel sends – looking great! You can add even more distance for bigger layering. That tunnel send distance is a HOT TOPIC right now in agility (I am sure Loretta presented some of that last weekend!) so the more distance, the merrier 🙂 And she was a super good girl because she never ended up in a tunnel unless cued to it (there was one accidental cue, see below LOL!)

Looking at the crosses:
The first FC was late (:08) but you recognized that and the next FC at :14 was PERFECT – nice adjustment!!!!

Your blind cross timing was also great – she turned a lot better on the blinds than on the FCs. Was it because she already knew the sequence? Or because the blinds work better for her? Not sure, so the next session of this type of thing (even if it is a different setup) should start with the Bus so we can track what she reads better when she doesn’t know the sequence.

Fabulous job getting the threadle side versus the backside of the jump after the blinds and the fronts – great connection and verbals! I saw no questions from her on those.

The threadle wrap was a harder skill for sure, but that is fine because it is a lower priority for a 2 year old dog. The FCs and BCs are the higher priority skills and they looked great!

For the threadle wraps – you can. Fade some of the rotation you were doing at the first jump, it was putting you a little too far from the threadle jump. Instead, you can be moving towards the threadle jump wing and as she is coming over the first jump, then you can rotate, get her on your hands, and do that pull and circle move with the hands that cues the actual threadle.

By already being closer to the threadle jump, it will be less motion for you which helps her in 2 ways by setting up more of a collection cue, and also taking out any extra motion in a direction you don’t want. That extra motion is why she took the tunnel at 1:09 – you were definitely moving that way as she was taking off for the jump, so she was being a good girl. Compare that to your decel and foot rotation and she never looked at the tunnel after that.

Also, click/treat to you for seeing things in a rep and making an adjustment in the next rep (like timing on the FC, and decel/foot rotation on the threadle wraps) to get success. Yay!!!

>>Saw the wrong hand on threadle wrap on the video afterwards and we didn’t do one of the threadle slices… that’s what happens when you don’t check and are in a hurry!>>

Yes, I use a low 2-hand threadle cue for the wraps (as well as a turn cue on the jump before it, if needed – a name call would work here). But the hand cue is personal preference, lots of folks use one hand here like a flick. I have found the low 2 hand cue looks different than my other hand cues, which helps the dogs. And yes, when you get a moment, try the threadle-slide 🙂

The confident tunnel sends made the little combo sequence look great, you easily got your right verbal in on the tunnel exit and picked her up on the threadle side of the jump. Lovely!!!!

Great job here!!!! Fingers crossed for more good weather ahead in your area!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

>>Left in a blooper where he slammed onto and rolled my ankle, then showed very little regard for my injury. >>

I thought you meant he hit you during the handling! But hitting you during the tugging looked really painful, OUCH!! It was very helpful of him to bark at you while you were trying to soothe your ankle LOL!!! I am glad your ankle is OK!

The session looked good! He responded really well to everything and it looked like you had plenty of hustle and excitement happening too! Even in those moments where you were trying for the ‘rushed’ feel, he was still really good about reading the lines. Yay!

The only time I thought he might have had a tiny question was when he was wrapping to his right and you were picking him up on your right for the jump: he was a tiny bit wider on those turns than on the wraps to the tunnel or the left wraps to the jump. An example would be at 1:18, but he had similar lines in that context throughout. Was it because he was looking at the tunnel? Was it because he was following your running line? Or both 🙂 ? Not sure! Either way, he still took the jump and we will look for any wideness questions in the upcoming sequences.

The other thing to do with these setup is to move the jump closer to the tunnel (5 feet apart) but the week 2 games have that, so feel free to move to those (they also have more variety in handling challenge, which he is totally ready for :))

Great job!!!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi! This session went really well!!!

Nice job building up the distance on the layering to the tunnel – she was getting a lot of distance there by the end of the session!

Very nice connection on the blinds, she never looked at the tunnel 🙂 Getting the front side was easy after the blind. Nice! The backside push went well, nice job helping her come in over the jump on the serpy line there.

For threadle slice – you can cue the jump sooner t help her take it after pulling her into you, but also work separately so you don’t have to cue it and she automatically goes out to it.

The threadle slice and the serps are both from the strike a pose games in max pup, so you can revisit those!

Great job here – keep adding some distance on the tunnel send, and you can move to the next game as well!

Tracy

[Author]

Posts