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Hello and welcome!!!!
How big is Tiki? I’m guessing similar to my Elektra, so her demos should give you an idea of what Tiki should do in terms of form. Have fun!!
TracyBummer about the weather but also hopefully Rayven is ok!! I’ve seen dogs make those jumping choices – usually it is all front end decision work based and the hind end never gets organized for proper liftoff. These games will be good to help her get herself better organized for the jump!
TracyHello and welcome!! I can’t believe Sly and his cohorts are 3!!!! Fun times ahead – I agree that he us a really good jumper, so now we can add more skills to his toolbox. Have fun!
TracyHello and welcome, it is great to see you here! I totally remember him, it has been so fun getting to see him at our summer adventures at Argus!!!! You and Street are a fabulous team – I am confident he is going to sort out these games really quickly 🙂
>>First question, is there a way to copy and paste pictures into this forum? I wanted to have you check to see if the platform I have would work for sit exercises.>>
Sadly, no – the software is annoying in that it won’t allow anything with any decent size to it. So you can email it to me (agilityuniversity@gmail.com), or message on facebook!
On the video:
Good clicks here!!! He looks great! He clearly has experience doing more than one wrap in a row which is great, and he is definitely beginning to lead with his head into the turns. YAY!!!!One thing to do to progress to the next steps is to have him start each rep (the very first rep, then also after each click) at your side: you can line him up at your side, send him to go around the upright – then cue the head turn so he can get the good click/treat. Then reset at your side to start the next rep (a reset cookie helps, so he doesn’t hang out by the upright LOL!)
That reset will accomplish a couple of things:
– he will get tighter on the wraps because you can cue the super tight head turn before he looks at you (when he is offering multiwrapping and not resetting, he tends to look at you and ends up being wider, or sometimes guesses about which way to go)
– after each reset, you can then click/treat the great head turn on that very first approach before he arrives at the upright (which is really what we want :)) But if he is out by the upright looking at you, then he is not making that first approach to click – the resets set him up for the all-important first approach, where he can be sent and add speed to the head turn, and you an click and treat it then reset him for the next rep 🙂Also, by resetting him at your side, you can add more distance to the send to the upright… which he is totally ready for because he can learn to lead with his head with more speed (and he is SPEEDY so we need to isolate the head turn *before* he arrives at the upright, when he is going fast :))
You can totally do the next session of this game on a a jump wing – he will have to turn his head more with an actual wing, and he is ready for it! Plus it helps us transfer the skill to a jump.
Great job here! Let me know how he is doing with the other games 🙂
TracyHi!
>> Left to my own devices I tend to just start running around doing little sequences without a ton of specific skill focus.
I totally feel this! The classes give me a good framework for my dogs too 🙂 And with the MaxPup 1 starting, I will have a program for the new puppy too LOL!!
Great start here with the games:
Head turn refresh looked great, I like how you quickly moved to clicking the first approach. Just as I was typing that you would probably get a more obvious head turn on one of the big wings on that first approach (as opposed to the upright pole), you switched to the big wing and got the more bovious head turn on the first approach 🙂 Yay! When you were cuing the 2nd wrap from more of a distance, he did a better head turn when you were a little later with that little hand flick. When you were too early (doing it as he was on the backside of the wing), he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to go around again. So, you can let him basically finish that first wrap, show him your hand, then flick him to the 2nd wrap for the head turn.
Moving target refresh is also looking strong – he wants to grab up high on the toy like my Voodoo does LOL! He is focusing down to the bottom of the toy the way we want him to, the comes up a bit on the toy. To kep him wanting to keep his head don while jumping: when you add this to the more complex zig zags, move the toy very slowly so he locks on the toy at the end (like you did on the 2ndrep at :32ish) rather than the middle of the toy. The other thing you can do is throw the toy forward past you after he lands from the jump so he moves past you to get it.
Great job here! I am looking forward to seeing how he does with the other games!
TracyHi!
The sit work is really interesting to watch her work through, I love dogs work through this – she is adjusting her hind end a lot to get into the sit platform – on the first video, there was one rep at :17 where she had her right foot off the platform and had to adjust it back on, good girl! Then at :49, her left hind was off the platform. The pace of the session slowed down a little and that helped her seem to think about it after the 1 minute mark and she had some GREAT organizations, and also some moments where she wanted the right hind out to stick out. A couple of the reps looked like her right hind was off the platform (like at 1:05 and 1:15) It is possible that the foot was not off the platform, but instead she had the leg a little looser under her so that her fluff was off the platform LOL! Either way – it is showing us where she is organizing and where she is having a harder time. .
Having the yoga mat under it on the 2nd video definitely helped – she also had some good organizing practice here, note how at :17 her left foot came off and she put it back on. Nice! This second session went overall better because she looked more centered and tight in the sit.
>>I’ve done some obedience work with Wink so she has done sit on a platform from different directions to work on a front so I adding tossing the treat in various directions. Should I be rewarding straight sits? You can see in the video, I correct her and I wasn’t sure. She was on the platform but just not straight. >>
The angles were good and lead nicely into the ‘around the clock’ version of the game. And the straight: think about it more as “tight” and not as much about “straight”. She doesn’t have to line up in front of you like an obedience front, but we do want to get her pretty tight in the sit. You were feeding her nice and high which helps! The one recommendation I have is to slow the pace of the session a bit so you don’t click as quickly – you can wait, look to see that she has aligned her back end (and give her an extra heartbeat to get her hind end aligned), then click and treat. That tiny delay will give her a moment to kind of do a self-check to make sure everything is in line, and also you won’t click simply moving into the sit – you will be clicking the tighter sit and it gives you more time to look at where she has placed her hind end.
I think that one slower-paced session like this with the yoga mat and adding those around the clock angles will be great – and if you feel she is looking ‘tight’ in the sit, you can move to the longer plank 🙂 And if you think she is not tight, or a leg is off… wait and see if she fixes it herself. And if a couple of seconds go by, you can help her with a cookie up high, or toss a cookie off to the side for a reset.
The head turning is looking good!
>>You can also see she is better at turning to the right.>>
Yes, but I think her left turns looked strong too! This is good! I use this game at the warm up jump before a run at a trial (on the wing of the warm up jump) to wake up the skill before running a course – she is good at this so you can totally add that in as part of the warm up.
You can do another session with you sitting, so the ‘turn away’ hand is lower and she doesn’t look up as high. And since she is better to the right than the left but she is pretty strong in both directions, you can alternate directions – one to the right, one to the left, one to the right, one to the left. You would just reset her at your side like you did here, but n a different side for each rep. One other tiny detail is that can send her on the first wrap, I think she was not sure that she had permission to go to the cone 🙂 You can step to it if that helps her know it is OK to go (she might be waiting for a verbal?).
On the next session, start like you did here. After a couple of good reps, take a step back so there is more room between you and the cone, do a couple more reps with that added distance. Then,if that is looking good on both sides… take another step or two back, and send her to the cone and watch for her head turn as she approaches the cone on the first rep. If she has a great zippy head turn as she approaches it? Click/treat 🙂 If not, you can cue the head turn like you were doing in the other reps. Definitely start that on the right turn, so she can get that concept before you add it to the slightly harder side.
Great job! I am excited to see her progress!
TracyHi!
The sit work is really interesting to watch her work through, I love dogs work through this – she is adjusting her hind end a lot to get into the sit platform – on the first video, there was one rep at :17 where she had her right foot off the platform and had to adjust it back on, good girl! Then at :49, her left hind was off the platform. The pace of the session slowed down a little and that helped her seem to think about it after the 1 minute mark and she had some GREAT organizations, and also some moments where she wanted the right hind out to stick out. A couple of the reps looked like her right hind was off the platform (like at 1:05 and 1:15) It is possible that the foot was not off the platform, but instead she had the leg a little looser under her so that her fluff was off the platform LOL! Either way – it is showing us where she is organizing and where she is having a harder time. .
Having the yoga mat under it on the 2nd video definitely helped – she also had some good organizing practice here, note how at :17 her left foot came off and she put it back on. Nice! This second session went overall better because she looked more centered and tight in the sit.
>>I’ve done some obedience work with Wink so she has done sit on a platform from different directions to work on a front so I adding tossing the treat in various directions. Should I be rewarding straight sits? You can see in the video, I correct her and I wasn’t sure. She was on the platform but just not straight. >>
The angles were good and lead nicely into the ‘around the clock’ version of the game. And the straight: think about it more as “tight” and not as much about “straight”. She doesn’t have to line up in front of you like an obedience front, but we do want to get her pretty tight in the sit. You were feeding her nice and high which helps! The one recommendation I have is to slow the pace of the session a bit so you don’t click as quickly – you can wait, look to see that she has aligned her back end (and give her an extra heartbeat to get her hind end aligned), then click and treat. That tiny delay will give her a moment to kind of do a self-check to make sure everything is in line, and also you won’t click simply moving into the sit – you will be clicking the tighter sit and it gives you more time to look at where she has placed her hind end.
I think that one slower-paced session like this with the yoga mat and adding those around the clock angles will be great – and if you feel she is looking ‘tight’ in the sit, you can move to the longer plank 🙂 And if you think she is not tight, or a leg is off… wait and see if she fixes it herself. And if a couple of seconds go by, you can help her with a cookie up high, or toss a cookie off to the side for a reset.
The head turning is looking good!
>>You can also see she is better at turning to the right.>>
Yes, but I think her left turns looked strong too! This is good! I use this game at the warm up jump before a run at a trial (on the wing of the warm up jump) to wake up the skill before running a course – she is good at this so you can totally add that in as part of the warm up.
You can do another session with you sitting, so the ‘turn away’ hand is lower and she doesn’t look up as high. And since she is better to the right than the left but she is pretty strong in both directions, you can alternate directions – one to the right, one to the left, one to the right, one to the left. You would just reset her at your side like you did here, but n a different side for each rep. One other tiny detail is that can send her on the first wrap, I think she was not sure that she had permission to go to the cone 🙂 You can step to it if that helps her know it is OK to go (she might be waiting for a verbal?).
On the next session, start like you did here. After a couple of good reps, take a step back so there is more room between you and the cone, do a couple more reps with that added distance. Then,if that is looking good on both sides… take another step or two back, and send her to the cone and watch for her head turn as she approaches the cone on the first rep. If she has a great zippy head turn as she approaches it? Click/treat 🙂 If not, you can cue the head turn like you were doing in the other reps. Definitely start that on the right turn, so she can get that concept before you add it to the slightly harder side.
Great job! I am excited to see her progress!
TracyHello and welcome!!!! I love her name and I love her mix – this is going to be FUN!
>>Marvelette is 26 months and latent learning is her game.
That is probably her whippet element 🙂 My BorderStaffy learned more like a terrier. My BorderWhippet, BWxPap, and now my tiny full whippet are amazing with latent learning. My BorderWhippet’s retention makes my head explode too – once he figures it out, it is cemented. So cool! Same with the BWxPap. I have barely trained her… but here she is, competing in agility and flyball.
>>She’s a hoot and is my first dog whose grasp of concepts takes a bit, but once I figure out how to explain stuff and then let it sit and stew, she totally friggin gets it.>>
It took me a minute to figure out how to work with the whippetty dogs – they thrive on clear reinforcement procedures so we can see if there is something we can do to help Marvelette in that regard.
>>I’ve been unable to get her to turn her head over a jump. I think it’s a little bit of anxiety over possibly knocking a bar. So I’m hoping this might help explain things to her. And, well, she also really enjoys NASCAR lines so…vroom vroom.>>
NASCAR lines rule! Plus, she is really young so I would rather than the go go go NASCAR approach than too much turning. But with that in mind… let’s get her head turned and hind end engaged for turning because these whippety mixes are amazing turners! She might simply not know how to organize herself to get her head turned, with all of her speed and power. Check out the head turn foundation game and let me know what she thinks of it 🙂 I am so excited to see her – the Whippet/BorderStaffy mix is high on my radar as a future puppy for me, they are such cool dogs!
Tracy
Hi!
>I am not seeing the moving target game in the Foundations section. Is it somewhere else?
It is the 2nd one in the Foundations section. Let me know if you can’t see it here:
>>And the video for the 2 jump zig zag is for the 3 jumps. It was late so I didn’t check to see if the 3 jump video was the 2 jump or if the 2 jump is just MIA.>>
That was my screw up, sorry! Fixed now 🙂
TracyHi! Great job getting the first video posted!! She definitely likes going around the cones 🙂 And this is a good improvisation since she ate the noodle 🙂 You can move it to a jump upright so she recognizes that the jump upright is part of the cue to lead with her head.
The leading with the head is very different than the H360 game, though – on the leading with the head foundation, we don’t want her to keep going around and around. You can see she was a bit confused about where to look at times here (where the reward was place and why) and what to do after the reward. So instead of around and around, reset her at your side to start each rep like you did at :13. Then send her to it but don’t click for going around it: as she comes around it, cue the little head turn away and click that moment, tossing the treat to the other side after the click for the head turn. Then, call her back to your side, reset her with a cookie facing it, and cue the next rep (so she only goes around twice before coming back to your side). You were starting to get more into the groove of resetting, sending, and clicking the head turn as isolated reps in the 2nd half of the video, so definitely keep going with that 🙂
The reason I suggest this is that by eliminating the round and round, you will get sharper behavior on the head turn because we can isolate it better – and since we can isolate it better, we will be able to fade the double wraps and move to isolating the head turn on the first approach. And it is that first approach that will make the biggest difference to the jumping skills when we add a jump to it.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning! Great seeing you in the zoom last night!
Some answers for you:
>>When you are doing the organizers work with the jump, are you saying “sit” each time the dog approaches the plank?>>
Yes – I was saying sit each time. You can probably hear it in the video but it is a relatively quiet word. A hand signal is fine too!
>>Does it matter whether your release out of the sit (on the plank) is a release cue (break) or a “get the cookie tossed in the dish” (eat it) cue>>
It will depend on the context – when it was just the plank, it doesn’t matter as much if you use break or get it. That will depend on where your dog naturally looks (at you, or ahead at the reward). We want them looking at the reward, so if it is out ahead, you can use your get it.
When I used the plank for wrap on the jump, I used “break” to indicate taking the jump because the reward was behind them so get it might have been confusing. On the plank with the slices, I used “get it” because the reward was ahead on the line (in a bowl) and I wanted the dogs to look down at it. The ‘get it’ there implied taking the jump on the way to it 🙂
>>Is the idea to go through all the jumping positions with the plank at a low height (I was thinking about 8in for Kaladin)
Yes, all start at a low height, maybe intro at 4 or 6 then move to 8 inches.
>>including adding the motion and then circle back at a slightly higher height for all the jumping positions. Rinse & repeat?
Yes, to an extent – maybe up to 12″ on the plank for a dog his size, then work the fading… then up to full height using the fading techniques. That iswhat I have found to be most successful for the dogs.
>>Do you wait to fade the organizer until after you’ve gone up to his regular height? (You don’t fade at a lower height and then add back in when you move up in height do you?)>>
I fade when the height is not yet all the way up (or, at least fade the sit on the organizer). Then I will use the fading ideas to build up the height – generally the sit without the organizer but also moving through the organizer has been effective.
>>And I”m assuming it’s not a problem to continue to trial during this work since you are deliberately not using your jump verbals when working with the organizer!>>
Correct! As long as you don’t use your verbal directionals and get the dog to sit… it is fine to keep training sequences, trialing, etc. There has been zero confusion from the dogs – and that is part of the reason why I help them with the sit, using the sit verbal and hand cues if needed.
>>Does it matter if you do both directions in a single session if it’s going well? (I’m assuming you may be doing 1 direction per session for clarity in the demo videos)>>
Let the dog tell you 🙂 it is possible that is it easy peasy to do both directions in one session. But it is possible that it is too hard and one direction is ready for more challenge and the other is not. For example: if the dog can wrap left at 8 inches but cannot wrap right at 8 inches, you can either work only the left, then in the next session simplify it for the right. Or, in the same session, simplify the right and make the left a little more challenging – but beware of the fatigue issue because that doesn’t help on the harder side. I only did one side for clarity, and did the other side in the next session which may or may not have made it onto the video 🙂 The zig zags are easier to work both sides because you can literally go back and forth, but be on the lookout for a strong side and a weak side so there are very few questions from the dog.
>>And don’t worry – I’m not thinking I’m going to get that far all before the Open – I just want to know where I’m headed.>>
Even if you just get through the early stages, you will see a change in the conditioning that will carry over nicely. Having done these to put on video, Contraband’s conditioning for the flyball national was really great and he posted a new personal best time… even though there is nothing specific to flyball in this class. If you try to hit on the first 2 levels of the organizers and zig zgs before the US Open, you will set him up nicely for success!
>>I think my goals for this class before the Open are:
yay goals! I love goal setting!
>>1) Foundation work (lead with head & jump distraction proofing) which can be done concurrently with Organizers Steps 1 & 2>>
Yes, sounds good – but I think you might not need jump distraction proofing a sa high priority unless you have seen something in training/trialing where he might touch a bar when there is a handler error. You might want to look at the moving target game instead, so that he can organize jumping in a more stimulated state, which is good for trials!
>>2) Start working through Organizers steps 3-7 at low height (8in). I’ll probably try a little bit of each spread out over different sessions to just touch on all the positions. Even if we don’t get too far, it’s good conditioning work>>
Sounds good!
>>3) Zig Zag work (flatwork can be done on same day as organizers, but alternating sessions with the low jump organizers)
Yes – or since he did the flat work in MaxPup, you can do a ‘refresh’ with his adult body and let that serve as a warm up for the 2 jump zig zags.
>>I’ve also got to mix in an ISC & AKC Nov trial this weekend (1 day of each), UKI (with Ashley Deacon’s courses) at the end of the month, some RDW work and a bit of crazy weave entries while making sure I don’t overwork him or stress my calf which I strained a bit 2 weeks ago when I pushed my transition to xero-drop shoes a bit too much (back to the old ones until after the Open!)>>
Busy busy!!! And don’t forget some quality rest time. You can also bring the organizer or plank on your drive to the open, as a fun way to keep his conditioning sharp and as a good warm up too!
Looking forward to seeing Kaladin work these and seeing you both at the Open.
Tracy
Welcome back!!!! I can’t believe he is almost 20 months – baby dog is growing up beautifully!! Have fun with these games!
TracyWelcome!!!! Fingers crossed for an easy winter. You can upgrade if you like, working spots are not limited 🙂
Tracy
