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Hi!
This is going well too!
One suggestion at the start of the session and in the in-between moments: Have your cookies and bowls and toy with you (maybe on the klimb or near it), so you can end the tugging and go right into the training. He seemed a little confused as to why you walked away after the tugging or when you walked away to get the upright. Everything should be nearby so you can make quick transitions.He is doing well with the bowls – no sits or downs here! Yay! So the next step is to quietly place the treat in the bowl, so he is not following the sound of the cookie drop. You can lean in and place it there, or use soft treats. Then, you can wait til he offers going to the next bowl before adding the treat to the bowl.
Adding the upright went well! So definitely emphasize fading the sound of the treat so you can get him offering even more.
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
The nose targeting is going well – you can help prevent the default sitting by rewarding sooner – mark and toss the cookie as he is moving to the target rather than waiting for him to touch it.He did well going back to the toy after the cookies! Super!
For the toy play – a longer toy that can move more will help get engagement. You can slide it across the floor for hims to chase, which will get better engagement than waving in front of his face where he is less likely to engage.And remember to listen to your timer LOL!! If it goes off, end the session within a rep or two. In that last minute, you ended up getting more sits and not as much targeting, so remember to keep the sessions short and sweet 🙂
Nice work here!
TracyHi!
>>We struggled in the early stages of this, as standing as you directed, as she’s been taught to go around, then through my legs when I stand that way.>>What you did here to get her started was perfect – You had a great start to this here!! One thing to change – rather than reward from your hand, you can toss the treat before she stops moving (and pitching the treat on the ground so it kind of rolls through her front feet will help her keep backing up). It looks like she was stopping and offering other behaviors (the bowing and stretching was adorable!) because she was getting rewarded from your hand, which was causing her to stop moving.
>>she came back and offered up a couple more. This was very exciting for me.>>
Yes! She was terrific, that was a superstar session. And letting it percolate for a few days will help grow the behavior so she will be even stronger in the next session.
Great job!
TracyHi!
>>For now I’m letting it rest>>
Yes, I like to let things rest and try again in 2 days or so – whippets in particular are amazing latent learners, so letting things rest and percolate is always a good idea.
The plank work looked great – she was very happy to get on and turn around! You don’t need to click this, because she likes the motion a lot – you can just deliver the treats and also do tug breaks between reps. The tug breaks will help her body awareness when in higher arousal (like when she is eventually running across the planks :))
Great job!
Tracy
Hi!
She is hilarious with her play style – she loves it when you mop the floor with her LOL!!
Great job with the wing wrapping! 2 next steps:
While sitting on the stool (which was perfect), you can slide the bowls further back by your heels, so she has a wider arc on her wraps and has more room to turn around to find the upright (I think that is why she had the one little oopsie moment – the upright had moved out and was harder to see).The second thing to add is, after a couple of back and forths with you sitting on the stool – bring the upright in closer to you (so that variable is easier), and change your position to standing 🙂
>>. First I tried with an inflation toy on a bungee, but after the first rep, she wasn’t picking up the toy.>>
She drove to it really well but then either she doesn’t like the inflation or she got a little turned off when it hit the wall on rep 2. Try it in a different location to see if she likes it again 🙂
She TOTALLY loved the other toy, driving ahead to it beautifully and even bringing it back (mostly LOL!)! So using this high value toy, you can move to toy races (posted today). Have fun!!
Great job here!
TracyThis is an awesome update! he sounds like a really good pup 🙂
And yes, at his age, the amount of energy (brain and body) he uses in a short session will certainly set him up for a good nap 🙂 I don’t guarantee that will continue through adolescence LOL! But it sets up a good routine, happy crating, and good learning.
Great job with your structure – it sounds so perfect!!
Keep me posted on how he is doing!
Tracy
This is good to know at this stage! And we will use this game to help teach her self-regulation.
Do a minimized version of it, like a slight bend in your knees like a “game on” crouch, just the tiniest bit… and then use a ‘get it’ marker and toss a cookie off to the side (the movement to get the treat will be a nice way to help regulate arousal.If that goes well, you can gradually build up to adding more arousal and stimulation, a quiet ‘ready’ word, etc and continuing to deliver food for the absence of jumping up/grabbing.
We definitely want the arousal regulation to be one of the biggest pieces, so for now you can use a toy for the prop sending, which will include some arousal regulation but will also give her an outlet for her mouth 🙂
Tracy
Yay! Thank you for the update! It sounds like everything is going really well 🙂
The blinds are hard because we have to turn away from the pup (hard!) and reward across the body (really hard!) so yes, adding practice without her is smart 🙂 Keep me posted on how it goes!
Tracy
You can deliver cookies to him for staying in handler focus, that will help if he has trouble with it. 🙂
Hi!
The Decel is looking good! And there were some crazy-sounding distractions in the distance! The only hard part was getting enough of a head start. Yes, you can put the cookie in a dish to make it more visible on the grass. Or, you can do it as a restrained recall where someone holds him as run away – then you call him and the person lets go so he can start running to you.When he gets to you, try to have your cookie hand even lower so his chin is parallel to the ground or even pointed slightly down. I know, you will half to bend in half to do it LOL! But he will grow fast so you won’t have to bend as much for long 🙂
Great job!
TracyHe was great with his driving ahead outside, what a good pup!!! You can let him start running to it before you start running to it, so he gets used to being ahead of you. Then you can check out the new version of it added today – now, with that in mind, you will be able to win the toy races because he is so small, so you don’t want to win a lot – maybe just once – then let him win all the time to keep his confidence high like it was here.
Great job!
TracyHi!
>>No, she likes being held and is cool with doing flyball recalls, why I thought this would work. I’m just not fast enough, plus Paul’s timing was off on the release *and* he was trying to video. Lots of misfires. >>
Think of it as a flyball recall, with a side change 🙂 While he is holding her, you can give yourself a massive head start. Then when you are really far away, raise your hand and call her (the hand raise will cue Paul to let go) and then when she starts moving, you can start the blind. You might not be able to get it on video, but it will be good to get her to read the cues while she is more stimulated with the running and tug.
Tracy
Hi!
The stays looked really good here, which helped set up a ton of success with this game!
First video:
Very nice reps on the first video – lovely! She was lined up straight and you were very clear with your release, cue, and reward placement. Lovely!Good stay reward when you went to the other side of the wing – she had no trouble finding the jump there and had a gorgeous turn. YAY!!
2nd video –
>>If I didn’t line her up facing the jump we didn’t have success, video 2.>>
Yes – she was lined up sideways, from what I could see, so it made sense to her to stay on her line (because that is what the jump cue means). If that happens (where she does not take the jump), you can assume that the handling was not clear, give her a cookie for her effort (rather than walking away from the jumps) and then try again making it a shade easier either by setting her up straight to the jump, and/or moving her closer to it.
Third video: she was straighter here and could see the bar more clearly, so she found jump 1 really well and that allowed you to handle jump 2 3 different ways, and she read all of those really well too! Super!
>>When we moved back in my yard she was distracted by a noise, which turned out to be a bird playing in the roof gutter. I couldn’t get her attention back until we went to the corner and investigated together. Then got her back by tugging/playing. But after that you can see she kept looking in that direction while holding her sit>>
Yes, the weird little things in the environment can require a detour into looking at them before returning to work. More toy play can help and even the pattern game, but she seems to have worked through it and that is great!
>>We have a dickens of a time trying to get her to work with me at Amy’s. We end up just playing pattern games trying to get her focus on me. >>
Bearing in mind that she is an adolescent, you will want to take a less-is-more approach to getting her to play. The agility skills are not that important – the no pressure, big fun approach is more important. Can she chase a toy that you are dragging on a line? Can she run through a tunnel (maybe Amy can hold her) and chase a toy? Be careful to NOT put pressure on her to engage, because that adds stress and causes less engagement.
Think of it as a series of questions: can she chase this toy you are dragging around? Can she chase you and the dragging toy? Can she eat a treat then chase the toy?
I think more motion might help her a lot. And you can gradually add treats in, but they don’t appear to be a high value motivator there which is why I suggest moving toys or balls for now.
>>She likes being in her chair, but sometimes we put her in an expen to give me and her a break and she learns to self regulate. But she definitely doesn’t like the expen and settles better in her chair.>>
What does she do in the xpen? If she doesn’t like it and can’t settle… then you are potentially making it harder for her because the xpen might be stressful, which bleeds over into how she feels about the environment as a whole. Does she like a crate better?
>>The night before I had worked her before group class, then went to group class where we also had trouble focusing at first, but then got her away from the group and had better success. Then the next morning went to Amy’s and she was mentally exhausted. >>
Yes – her brain needed time to rest and replenish. That can take a couple of days, so be sure to spread out her training and also if she has gone someplace new, you will want to let her rest after that too because it is far harder than it appears for adolescents.
>>When it was our turn we did recalls, pattern games etc. Sometimes the pattern games don’t work. But recalls and finding me do.>>
Motion is definitely something she likes! If she is not engaging in the pattern game, move further from the distractions and she where she is willing to eat treats, then you can start the pattern game there.
>>It gets discouraging that we can do all this stuff at home but not elsewhere.>>
It is entirely normal. The training you do at different places needs to be a lot easier than what you do at home, because the environment is so much harder. So for the lateral lead outs you posted above, for example – she probably can’t do that yet in a class setting, so ask for stuff that is much easier. It is important that she is very successful in the harder environments, so she has a happy and relaxed conditioned response to being there.
It sounds like she did well with the trial environment! And double hooray for Posh!!!
That is a hard environment for Mochi, so keep the training short and successful. Try not to expose her to dogs barking and lunging at her – even if she does not seem affected by it, there is a physiological response and we don’t want her making any association that scary things might happen. She is indeed resilient, but we don’t want her to have to make withdrawals from that resilience bank account in her brain!
>>yet remains hyper-vigilant in our back yard. And has trouble in class or at Amy’s.>>
When there are fewer distractions in the environment, the distractions that are there will pop out more. That is why we want to carefully introduce her to those environments and start as far as needed from distractions, with no pressure.
I personally put my young dogs into classes and seminars that are at least 2 levels below what they can do at home, all so I can really make it a happy, successful, place while sorting out the environment. That is key 🙂
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Wow, big congrats on all of your successes at Nationals!!! JJ was brilliant, and so was the entire family! That is so impressive and so exciting 🙂 You must be floating on Cloud 9 🙂
That is a great team at your local facility – JJ is getting plenty of top notch education there, especially from Jen who is fantastic. She is going to be an amazing agility dog!!!
Thank you for the update, and keep me posted on how the games are going!
Tracy
Good morning!
Doing the proofing from a chair was definitely harder but he was great! He had an error on the first rep of the left turn video and then it looks like he got it right on all other reps (including the last one, but the video ended a little. early
He also did really well on the other side – perfect here too! Yay!
On both sides, try not to move the cookie hand on the wraps til after he makes a decision so that way he is not cuing off the subtle movement of your hand.
You can add your motion back to his one, and do the advanced level where you start with a tunnel and then as he exits the tunnel, you can either cue the wrap or another tunnel.
The tunnel game is looking good too! Your verbals were timely, so we can look at what was happening in the left versus right turn exits:
>>is he not turning left as well as he turns right?
The left turn was definitely a little harder for him, but it might have been more about the information and not as much about a side preference.
When you were cuing the feft tunnel exit – I think he was hearing the left verbal but seeing you step forward as he as entering, so the forward motion (which looked the same a go cue) overrode the verbal and he was straight on his exits on that side.
On the right turns, you didn’t move forward. Instead, you leaned to your right side which supported the right turn verbal – so his turns were really good on that side! Yay!
So for the left turns, try letting him see you moving laterally away from the tunnel and not forward, to help support the verbal.
The GO reps looked great!
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
