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Hi! The start line games are going well!!
First video – remember to ask for tricks and thoughtful behavior as you are getting him ready – his responses will give you an idea of his frame of mind. And that way we can help him focus if he needs more help! He was definitely stimulated (leaning forward in the sit and went Ito the down at one point) but he held the stay really well!!He had more trouble lining up on your right side in the 2nd video, so definitely practice that so he is comfy on both sides. He held his stay really well here too!
Since this is going so well, you can do this in front of a wing or jump or barrel – the pole is fine but I don’t think he really sees it as an obstacle of value 🙂 Sp practicing in front of the other stuff will help transfer it to start jumps 🙂
Nice work!
TracyHi!
>>Ah…the magnet fingers. I remember hearing this concept once or twice before
Yes, the connection affects all the things! And it helps dogs turn tighter, which is high on your priority list 🙂 so ramping up the magnet fingers will help!
>>I actually reviewed each video after trying it and then looked at the next map.>>
YES!!! Click/treat for you!!!!
Here is some boring feedback for ya:
First run looked great, I saw some awesome connection!!!
Second run looked great! More awesome connection and you really drove her through it. She has gotten even faster since I last saw her run sequences!!
Third run looked great!!! Awesome connection, handling timing…. More of that all the time, please! Woot! Hopefully this is a great warm up for your seminar weekend!
Well done on these – and doing it as “one and done” is great because there is really nothing to improved it is great to hit the home run on the first rep 🙂 Yay!
If you wanted to work on these more, you can try sending to the wing from further away to see if you can cue the line from past the tunnel entry (or the opposite – get very close to the wing to see if she can drive ahead of you into the discriminations.
When you are back from the seminar, though, week 2 will be posted 🙂
Great job here and have a great weekend!
TracyHi!
Yes, this weather has been GREAT!
The heel position line up is working well!! He did nicely finding the jump and the tunnel without you moving. YAY! So the next step now is to try it as the discrimination with both. The jump and the tunnel visible to him.
The handling game is going well too! He was able to find the jump and the tunnel according to the cues really well, so the next step now is to add the other positions: either starting really close to the wing so he drives ahead of you, or sending from really far away so you are past the tunnel entry when you are cuing the jump or the tunnel.
>>rarely can get a front cross in with Forrest (same for blinds – only in very rare situations) but I will try with a better send to the wing (now that he no doubt has patterned this exercise). >>
I think with the added distance skills, the fronts and blinds will be much easier! You can work on sending to the start wing from further and further away, so you can get way up the line for the handling.
Great job!!
TracyHi!
>>Should I do the sitting in a chair discriminations next? Re-do the Handling Challenge 1? Try the Combos or all 3 – hahaha? Just wondering if I should approach them in a certain order.>>
You can try the chair game next, and then try the combos 🙂 That way you alternate challenges to give her time to sort them out 🙂
TracyHi!
>> Long fast lines she loves. Turns….not so much.>>
That is good – I would rather have great commitment at this early stage than a dog that runs in collection too much. The turns will come! And also at some point soon, you can work a sequence a few different ways to see exactly what type of turn (extended, moderate, collected) is fastest for her. This is something I do with all of my dogs when they are between 2 and 2.5 years old, to help define how I need to handle them.
This session looks really good! You had a lot of big successes here!!
All of the position 1 starts looked great. She had some trouble when you starting from way ahead, like at :36 – there was not enough connection with you waaaay ahead and moving fast and you felt it in the moment.
The connection at :55 was a little delayed. One way to get he connection right away is to point your fingers all the way back to where her nose actually is (miles behind you) rather than down on the line to where you would like her nose to be (near you). Pointing all the way opens up the connection but pointing down at your side closes it off. At :55, you were pointing to your side so she was not reading it until you pointed your fingers to her actual nose at :56 then she immediately came to the correct side.
I call it magnet fingers 🙂
Starting close to the wing was very easy because you could set the line with connection and motion, she did really well! Yay!
Disconnection with you in position 1 went well!!! It is so lovely to see that she can get it even when you are not perfectly connected – that will help when you are way ahead too. So from the same position, start to add more motion (moving faster.) And also try the disconnection when starting very close to the wing (I don’t think she is ready for it quite yet when you are miles ahead.
Great job on these! You can add in handling game 2!
Tracy
Hi! This session looked really good – she was able to read the difference between the cues when you were connected and then at the end with no strong connection. Super!!!! Most of the reps where big successes.
>>Adopted your “juuuump” cue and slowed down:>>
The jump cue sounded good, make sure to keep the tunnel cue big and loud so it is totally different 🙂
When you are waaaaay ahead like at :27, it is harder for her to get it right because the visual of both obstacles PLUS the motion is very challenging. Be sure to have an exaggerated connection and try it with just walking with you miles ahead 🙂 Then you can add more speed but maintain the big connection.
You can add more motion/speed when you are not as far ahead, she is ready for that.
She had the hardest time on the releases and sending to the start wing! I think it was really hard for her with the jump and tunnel behind her to ‘find ‘ the wing, which is less obvious and far away,so she got sticky with her releases and her commitment.
So, two approaches:
You can move the wrap wing closer for these games (for now) to get her to commit more easily (and tossing a reward to it something will help).
And separately, without the other obstacles nearby, work on sending to the wing from15 or 20 feet away, so it doesn’t feel as odd 🙂 Then we can put it all back together 🙂
Great job!
TracyGood morning! This session went really well!!!
It seemed like the handling challenges were easy:
– starting halfway between the jump and tunnel, with connection? Easy!
– starting near the wing, with connection? Easy!
– starting at the tunnel entry, way ahead, less connection? ALSO EASY! Yay!!So if you want to play with this again, you can try getting even further ahead – send to the wrap wing from further away so when she exits the wrap wing, you are well past the tunnel entry and running FAST! Start with a lot of connection at first, then fade the connection. The goal is that you are almost at the tunnel exit and well past the jump, before she gets to either of them.
(And don’t tell the puppy class people, but Keith can take a spin with Bob on this as long as he promises to be SUPER connected and use tons of reward)
>>The verbal only is so much better tonight , smart girlie.>>
Super!!! That verbal-only game is something to revisit once or twice a week, in between the handling games.
Great job!!!!
Tracy
Good morning! He did well here!
>> I am looking at Forrest and standing sideways to avoid my impulse to indicate with my body which jump he is to take. >>
I think you did a GREAT job with NOT moving (it is SO HARD to stand still, I totally relate!!!)
You can be facing the jump-tunnel setup and line him up at your side – that will help him even more because when you were sideways, the other obstacle behind you come into play (like at :45, he was correct to take the jump on the other side of you LOL!!)
About lining him up at your side:
>> WILL NOT let me grab his collar when he thinks we are about to have some serious fun.
That is something you can play with separately – put a hand near his collar and then throw the ball or deliver a cookie, working up to a finger on the collar then holding his collar.
For this game, you can use a cookie to lure him to your side…. then stand still and look at him like you did here. He did really well!! The cookie lure will help for the neutral position too 🙂
> I will combine this exercise with the neutral position on (I did do that afer I stopped filming and he did much better with OVER than yesterday). I also will set up the first handling sequence and include that in the video.>>
Perfect! Definitely do the handling game, it is important and also he will like all the running 🙂
>>we can submit a total of 5 min of video per week,>>
It is about 5 minutes per game, so it is more like 15 minutes per week total – but that is a lot of training, so don’t feel pressured to use it all.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning! She did really well with the handling game!!
Interestingly, you stayed in motion on every single jump cue and your connection was great on all the jump cues. On the tunnel cues, you were tending to stop your motion and send, with less connection. That made finding the tunnel a little harder, especially when there was not enough connection at :23, :42, :46. So when you are moving fast like you were on those reps, give her a little more connection like you did at :58.
>> my arms are both out so my body language is (a) sloppy and (b) overriding my verbal.>>
I think the arms were blocking connection a bit on those, so for now make a little more eye contact and she will read it better.
When you reduced connection (on purpose), you slowed your motion down which really helped her process the verbal (1:22 and 1:33) and she got it!!!!
So since the tunnel is harder for her than the jump cue, if you are running, try to give big connection. And when practicing the softer connection or disconnection, slow down your motion.
All of her responses to the jump cues were perfect, so you can add more disconnection to that 🙂
She was amazing on the jump with the verbal only! Wow! Latent learning in action!!! Very cool! You can start adding in the discrimination a bit more too 🙂
Great job on these!
TracyGood morning!
>>The hardest part was getting her to line up between my legs. We haven’t done that much.
I do a ton of cookie lures for this 🙂 One of my dogs has the line up behavior (not one of the demo dogs though haha) so for the others, I lure it and feed feed feed to get them into position efficiently without wrestling 🙂 It looks like you had some good cookies happening and she was happy to get into position.
>>Jump was much harder than tunnel for her.>>
We kind of knew that was going to be the case 🙂 Do you have more tunnel bags? She is getting even more powerful so needs the tunnel to not move 🙂 To avoid spending a zillion dollars on tunnel bags, I have used bags of sand in garbage bags with rope tying them together – works really well!!
Knowing how hard this game is, I think this was an incredibly successful session!!! She got them all mostly correct and the blooper moments were still really strong efforts. YAY!!!! Happy dance!
>>One time she took a bonus tunnel after the jump. >>
That was fine 🙂 It was on her line, and she was locked on before you said ‘bite’ and it only happened once LOL! And it might be the product of a small brain-explosion-this-is-really-hard moment. But it was correct to reward and she didn’t repeat the behavior.
>> Also, I know you are going to tell me to toss the toy on the other side of the jump. However, she tends to jump long and in extension and I’m stationary and not moving which SHOULD be a turn cue. I really don’t want to dilute that as she tends to ignore it in general. So, I tossed the tunnel ones so she’d turn back and mostly had her come back for the toy after the jump. >>
Looking at her approach to the jump keeping in mind your concerns about collection – yes, your placement was fine. Interestingly, she was collecting a bit before takeoff (yay!) but not necessarily turning to drive back (not so much yay). This might be what you see on coursework with her – a bit of collection before takeoff but she doesn’t complete the turn.
So a couple of ideas:
– you can slow down your ‘jump’ verbal and stretch it out (“jummmmp”) so it is not as exciting (“JUMP!JUMP!JUMP!). That can help get even more turn. At 2:07 you the longer, slower “juuump” verbal and it was really good!– ‘jump’ is a soft collection verbal, so reward on the line back towards you is fine (GO! would be the verbal for very long placement throws)
– you can also play this game with your collection verbal 🙂 I start this the general obstacle name -partially because on course we don’t need the wraps in the context we see these discriminations, and partially because it is such a hard game that addin a wrap verbal makes it harder.
But since she did really well, you can add in the wrap verbal (to replace the jump verbal) – and reward from your hand (no throw on the wraps, only throw for the tunnel).
<>>are we allowed to use our wrap verbal on the wing in exercise 2 and 3?
Yes, definitely encouraged to use them. I was using them but they are very quiet so it is possible the camera didn’t pick them up 🙂
Let me know what you think! Great job here!
TracyHi!
Great session here, he had a super high rate of success in both directions. He was really seeing the bar. Yay!
When you moved the threadle arm back as part of the cue (like at 2:30 and 2:50), that really seemed to help too. Threadle arms do swing back as we handle (serp arms are more “frozen in place”) so feel free to use your threadle arm motion too!
>> If things look good then I’ll work through the sessions of changing the angle for him.
Before changing the angle, let’s add a little more motion so you are moving faster (if he struggles, you can make the angle even easier). If he is happy with that, then you can slow your motion down again and make the angle a little flatter.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyThis is also going really well!
As you add more countermotion, throw the reward sooner – think of it as rewarding the choice to move to the jump, rather than arriving at the jump.
For example, at :50, you moved away sooner and he was heading to the jump. And in one tiny heartbeat, you shifted your connection from the landing spot to his face, and that is when he didn’t commit. So you can throw it a lot sooner, while he is still a stride or two from the bump (and try to leave your connection on the landing spot in a very exaggerated way, like you did on the last 2 reps of these – those were super clear and he nailed it. Yay!!Tracy
Hi! He did really well here!!
>> He was like “seriously????, you want what???…. really???? you’re just standing there???”>>
Haha! Yes, that is why we play this game – so the pups can understand that decel means TURN and not launch 🙂 He did beautifully! You can start adding more distance so he comes in with more speed. And on the next session, start with the decels and maybe after 2 or 3 of them, do one parallel path – then back to the decels to see if he can balance back to collection.
One suggestion:
He looks up at you a lot as he is approaching the jump, probably because it is a relatively small toy in your hand. Try it with a long toy that you can drag so he looks down as you move away rather than up at your hands.>>I realized when watching it that I fell back into the habit of a “yes” marker instead of reward placement. I’ll try and remember to clean that up next time. >>
Yeah, we all do it when we get excited haha! The “YES!” generally means “reward from hand” which is fine as long as you don’t say it when you don’t want him to come to you 🙂 You ‘bite’ marker would be more effective, or you can throw it after he makes the turn with a ‘get it’ marker.
Great job!
Tracy
