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3rd video:
This was the lap turn without the prop – he reads these really well! He did better when you waited til he got almost all the way to you before turning him away. Those tended to be the right hand reps (turning to his left). You were earlier on the left hand reps and he was wider on those, so keep totally still with your magic cookie hand extended, til his nose is almost at it: then you can turn him away.Hi!
2nd video: This is lap turns advanced (with the prop), but I think one of the videos further down here is the baby level.As you add in the rewards with the prop where you are moving forward, you can reset for the next differently: throw the treat, then tug with him as you go back to your starting position, then start the next rep, That will allow you to be set up for the lap turn, rather than moving backwards into it.
The prop position should be slightly different here, think of it as a sandwich with him in the middle 🙂 If he is coming to your left hand, the prop should be on on the other side of him so he passes it on the way to you. And then when you turn him away to his right , he will see the prop on a straight line ahead of him and will drive to it. It was a little in front of you here, so he had to cut in front of you to get to it.
For the tandem turns in the 2nd part of the video – think of these as a ‘u-turn’ so you both end up going a new direction. So in this setup, you would start heading away from the camera with him on your left, then do the tandem turn to flip him away to the his left, then you both turn and head back to the camera with him on your right. You were heading towards the camera and pulling him across your front so he would end up on the other side. Try this without the prop to get the mechanics then add the prop back in in a different session, with the prop on the other side of him as it would be in the lap turns.
Hi! There are a lot of sessions here (13 in total, i believe)! I think the number and length of sessions had an impact on the results, so I have more ideas for you below (last reply) on structuring things to really get the best results in the training).
Video 1: This is strike a pose 🙂 As you work this, remember to look at your hand target very directly, and have your hand more fully extended away as far from your body and not next to your leg. Your elbow should be locked – you might have bend over a little to be able to have the arm extended and locked, and still low enough for him to touch (eventually we do fade out the touch :))
He had some questions about the toy (whether to grab it or not) – you can definitely use your marker for when he can have the toy, so he understands when it is in play for him to grab, versus when he needs to ignore it. When you didn’t give permission, he waited at the hand target (good boy!) so you can use your toy marker as soon as he hits the hand target. You can also do this against a wall if he at all thinks it is similar to the “go behind the momma” style of reinforcement that he has learned (he asked that question during the session). You can also have the toy a little more in front of you, so he knows it is definitely not the go behind you reward.
Because this skill is pretty repetitive, you don’t need to do as many reps. You can set a timer for the session to 2 minutes, or just do 3 or 4 reps on each side. That will keep him better focused and faster on each rep.
Onwards to video 2!
Good morning!
It is possible that the only reason she doesn’t want to be super tight to your side os because she doesn’t want to be super tight to your side 🙂 It is possible that you could have done things differently in her puppyhood and she would still not totally love this game yet LOL! So, no worries at all – my Voodoo was the same way, and we see this in many many many pups especially herding dogs and very small dogs.
When you started the session by tossing the treats directly back for coming to you, that was great! That has helped a whole lot ion teaching these skills. You can do a lot more of that with treats but also, does she like toys or balls better? For example, have a ball on your hand and just as she arrives at your hand, step back and throw it back like you did with the treats.
Do 2 or 3 more short sessions of that before you try the lap turns so she drives hard to you. She was a little stronger driving to your left hand here, which is good! And when you did add the lap turns, be sure to step back with your leg (especially on the left side). You were tending to use your hand only, which makes it harder.
You can also skip the lap turns for now and go directly to the tandem turns which might be easier – there is less pressure because you are not facing her or standing still, and she does really well when you use that style of movement in the decel gamers. Try those and see how she feels about it 🙂
Nice work!
TracyHi! This is the same link as the first one from yesterday – was it supposed to be different? Either way, she is ready for the week 4 handling combos where you can make up your own variations. Her barrel commitment looked good, so you can send to a barrel, do a FC, run away fast, big decel, pivot, throw the toy for a GO GO GO… or send to the barrel again, or any variation you want to make up 🙂 Have fun 🙂
TracyHi!
Rear crosses… this is why we teach it on a prop nowadays rather than on a jump – there is a lot to hash out! You are just a little late on the cue (not really late, but late enough) so she did not know there was a direction change, and she is too young to anticipate it. You had a little too emphasis on the arm send forward and then by the time she was committing to the prop, you were not yet on the new side so she did not turn the new direction.At 1:45 and 1:53 and 2:24 you did more of a tandem turn so she got it – yay! For the regular RCs, a couple of ideas for you:
Start further back and work up the parallel path driving to the prop from at least 15 feet back from it. Then when she is happy with that (should take all of 3 seconds haha), start driving forward close to hear and cut behind her when she is halfway to the prop. Then keep moving forward on the new side. Normally I ask people to walk when doing this…. yeah, I think you will need to run or at least jog 🙂 The goal is to be fully on her other side (having completed the rear cross) while she is still a stride from the prop. That both teaches her that rear crosses like that exist, and also simulates the timing you will need on a jump when she is a grown up.I will out together a couple of screenshots to illustrate the timing when I get on the desktop later this morning, so you can see how early the timing needs to be.
You did a great job of continuing to reward her even when the RCs were not quite as planned, and trying new things. So even though the session did not have 10 perfect rears crosses, it was NOT a big mess!!!! It was super strong both in terms of rewarding effort, reducing frustration, and figuring out the needs of the pup! So I classify it as a big success. And on the next session, the rear crosses will fall into place too 🙂
Great job!
TracyGood morning! Hope you had a good weekend!
I really liked your transitions into deceleration here!!! Yes! Note how she never blasted past you – she turned really well on all the reps. The last one was my favorite because it looked like she was beginning to lead with her head (turn her head into the turn). Super! And that means she is getting more and more comfy with your deceleration cue and timing. She’s ready for the next step, which I see you posted below 🙂
Great job!
TracyGood morning! Lots of good work here! No worries about post it all at once: you got your training in and she is looking strong! And she gave us some good feedback about what she likes and doesn’t like, which will help us set up future sessions.
Movement and noise: she was keen to work here but she says the wobble board is toooooo hard by avoiding it and then not wanting to really get the toy either. Let’s make it easier for her to offer by making it a bigger playing field and also less movement/noise. I think you can put that wobble board in that dog bed that was behind you in this video 🙂 That gives her more room to offer getting on it, and it will move less/ be less noisy too. If the wobble board still moves a lot, you can stuff some towels in there too. And try this with food, tossing food back and forth so she can get on it, get off it, get on it, etc. That should help her want to get on it more, and then eventually we can start fading out the bed (no rush, though!)
She really liked the plank! Once she got rolling, she was offering beautifully and seemed super confident. I think when you started the session, sitting down and leaning over seemed like more of a down cue, so you can start by standing and tossing a cookie so she is moving right from the very beginning. The treat tossing worked great on the rest of it! On the next session, you can see if she can turn around on the plank (use a slow cookie lure for that to help her out :))
Backing up is also going well!!! Two ideas to get more distance from her:
– start with the couch right behind you, so when you put the cookie between your feet she doesn’t go all the way through LOL!!! She will back up immediately because a couch is there 🙂
– you can change the placement of reinforcement for backing up now, to get more and more steps. Instead of handing her the treat, toss it low and between her front feet so she scoots back more to get it. If you hand it to her, she will want to stay close to you. But when you start tossing it, she will want to back up more and more because the cookies will be further back.Focus forward is going well. I will divide it into 2 things: the focus forward and the collar holding.
She did well with the driving ahead! Your timing on the 2nd rep of letting go was perfect: you let go for her so she could drive forward just as the toy hit the ground, and before she looked back at you. Perfect! More of that!
About the collar grab – the transition on the first rep was AWESOME: tug tug tug, cookie, collar hold, game on. So definitely keep doing it that way, but also you can have a one-and-done approach to the session so she doesn’t start to overthink the collar holding. Do that one rep, then go do something else, then maybe come back later. When you were not doing the transition, then when you tried to do it again later in the session, she got anxious about it. So, one-and-done will go a long way to helping her not be anxious. Don’t worry about the driving ahead game, we have other games that work the driving ahead without a collar grab 🙂
And if she worries about the collar grab elsewhere: don’t use the collar grab or restrained recalls. It will poison whatever you are trying to train, and we don’t want to build anxiety. So you can start from a cookie toss then run away for a recall, or you can skip the game, or you can start with the barrel wrap that we use in other games. We want her to LOVE training so we can take out the collar grab for now. Just to let you know, my Contraband (the blue Merle in the demo videos) had the same concerns at the same age as Flux, so I took it out of the training and let him slowly learn to love it with a lot of one-and-done, and now he is happy with it 🙂
The wing wraps are going well!!!! She took a moment to remember with the toys… but then she rocked it. Super! I think you are ready to move to the turn and burn game in week 3, which is SUPER fun. Just remember to be patient and don’t move til she is all the way around (at the beginning).
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning! Lots of good work here!!
Backing up looks terrific. It looks like she was sometimes stopping before the click, so can be more variable in your clicks, sometimes asking for fewer steps and sometimes asking for more, ping ponging back and forth (and also you can keep moving if that is part of the cue).
Since she is so great at this, you can add an arousal element! Either add a little tugging before and during, or getting her amped up with cookie chasing. Then ask for the backing up 🙂 this challenges her to produce the form and body awareness in a state closer to what she would be in at trials.
I would only do this for short bursts because it is hard! And this is not a conditioning game, it is a multi-sensory integration game 🙂
Backing up to the plank also looks really strong. Did I read it correctly that this was her first time in this context? NICE! My only suggestion for now is to deliver the food lower so her head stays in that lovely neutral position she had it in when she arrived on the plank. When you rewarded with her head high, it was throwing off the balance a bit and that might be part of why she did a sit on the plank towards the end (anticipating a high reward?)
After she sees this game one or two more times, you can add arousal to this one too!
The wobble board game is the only time she seems a bit “I don’t like this” (her tail set tells a fun story here LOL!!!) She wasn’t entirely comfy, so two ideas for you:
you can expand her playing field by spreading out the discs and stuffing other stuff under the wobble board so I barely moves.And, rather than feed her in position of being on the wobbly stuff, you can mark the interaction then toss the cookie ahead of her so she moves across the rest of the stuff to get the cookie. Then you can have her approach from another direction and get a tossed reward for interaction, then run across it the other way.
This will also allow you to increase arousal (which helps get her ignoring the movement) and the tossed treats build in an element of relief, where she feels empowered to interact with it because she isn’t required to stay on it 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>>Here’s a little retrieving outdoors this morning.
This looked good! She is definitely faster driving to it than driving back to you, but she was getting faster and faster by the end 🙂 I think that you were standing still and she will drive faster back to you if you run away from her, and maybe even present or throw a second toy the other direction when she gets back to you.
>>We worked on parallel path, rear cross, countermotion this afternoon but I want to redo tomorrow. At first when we were doing parallel path I was marking her hit on the prop with a “yes” which made her look at me. >>
A get it replacing the yes or click will totally help, plus you can mark and toss sooner: just as she is arriving, a little early, and before she looks back at you.
>> The rear cross was more difficult because of the looking at me and she was stopping on the prop. Maybe I was slowing down and I’m wondering if I was too slow to toss the treat or not tossing it at the right moment. I realized after we did a few that I wasn’t doing a 90 degree turn eithe>>
My guess is that you were late 🙂 it is easy to be late at this stage, which is why we train it on a prop. So start further back, 15 or 20 feet, and get the parallel path going… then cut in behind her when she is halfway to the prop and keep moving forward after the rear cross to support the line to the prop. And send video of it, in case I’m wrong about it being a timing thing 🙂
Nice work!
TracyGood morning!
>>do I still pop the ready treat open if it isn’t correct? I called her back and gave her a reward.
Target position was probably off on this I’m guessingYes. And also, yes 🙂 if something goes wrong, you can still click the ready treat and then try another rep. If she has the same question, adjust things for the next rep (or stop and look at the video or phone-a-friend LOL!)
And yes, I think part of the question was the reward placement – it required a turn, and this should be a straight line for her. I think the setup was fine but the questions were about how to stride based on the target. So try the target on a straight line, 10 feet past her landing spot, and see what she does.
The wrap organizers look great! Next step…. Fading the plank 🙂 the video shows 2 ways to do it, I suggest working both ways in separate sessions and then we will be able to fade it out entirely 🙂
The backsides are also looking good! The reward was in a better position on these so she was straighter.
My only suggestion is that you stay in motion the whole time, til after she gets to the toy. You were stopping between the 2 jumps, which should cue a decel, and she did have questions on that (like at :35 when she collected and looked at you). So on the next sessions, try jogging forward the whole time and see how it goes! If she is fine with it, you can go faster. If she thinks it is too hard, you can dial back the speed to a walk.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
The first part of the session with the softer angle looked super duper! Using that softer angle, we can add in more distractions that he might see on course. Normally I’d say “run faster” but that’s hard in a smaller space. But, we can add other distractions like talking over the bar (because he might be hearing his verbal over the bar and needs to remain organized). And you can also swing your arms, disconnect, etc – anything he might see on course as that will add challenge.When the angle got harder, we saw the added strides.
It is possible he was fatigued, so it was smart to let it go and finish. It is also possible that his start position angle was awkward so he had to add a balance step? Next time, start closer to the wing if possible, with his hip right at the wing. If he doesn’t have room, try going the other direction with the same angle and let me know!
Nice work!
TracyHi!
Yes, I think he was uncomfortable with the barking because it was more of a frustration bark which can be anxiety-inducing. Some barking is perceived as cheerleading and can be exciting, but in the case of that session that’s not how it seemed to be.
He did great with the blinds! Yay! You can totally do them sooner, as soon as he takes one stride back to you after the cookie eating. And since you have a nice long ring, you might even be able to get 2 blinds in!
And good job allowing him to decompress after the session. Even a highly successful session in a quiet environment can be really hard and require a decompression moment 🙂
>>Lanna also worked hit the target in high arousal. This is part of her running contact issue and hopefully this will her to put the missing pieces together.>>
It is possible that the behavior was encoded in a lower state and so she can’t retrieve it in a higher state! You can go back to square one and fly through the progression again, doing short sessions in super high arousal 🙂
Great job!
TracyThe chomp chomp chomp was adorable but she was totally losing her train of thought LOL!!! I can totally relate. 😀
