Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Sounds great! She probably picked up the bite cue really easily because it is probably something you’ve been doing for a while (all it needed was the new cue :)) and also because she probably really liked it a whole lot :))
T
Hi!
Lots of excellent value for his prop here!! He is doing really well in terms of hitting it and wanting to drive to it, which is super!!!! This value will allow you to really stretch his understanding of handling in the coming weeks, which will be super fun!
I have a couple of ideas for you and one big recommendation (with apologies to the MM haha) to go to the next level on all of these, because he is totally ready for the next level of all the handling fun 🙂
Since these are all handling games… let’s ditch the MM because it muddies the waters (especially when someone else is using a MM nearby) and have all of the rewards be from your hands (for turns on the countermotion game) or tossed out on the line for the parallel path and rear cross games. Save the MM for the RDW training – if we use it for the handling stuff now (front foot target) and then ask for a different behavior when you start training the RDW (split rear feet target), he is going to get big mad at us LOL! And we never want to make a Papillon have the Big Mads LOL!
Here are more specifics:
Looking at the 2 countermotion videos: try to start from a stand in front of you, no sit stay, so you can work on the handler engagement switching to line engagement while he is moving (and not in a control position) – you might need to reward him for staying with you until you send him so he understands the exact “when” to go rather than offering it. This also creates a really nice fast drive to the target when sent, and allows you to start moving away even sooner because he is already in motion and super pumped up from your ready ready games 🙂
He had a little distraction at :33 on the first video (seemed like there was someone talking about cookies very close by?), good job getting closer to the prop to help him! He had a lot of looking around on this session, so if the environment is really hard, you can get much closer to the prop so it is easier for him to see the cue and the prop.
On the 2nd countermotion video, having the MM out there was just too hard especially if it happened after the parallel path where he was rewarded for going to the MM when you faced it. Yes, you got him to do it, but he was slower and had a lot of failure in that first part of the session, which builds in frustration. The countermotion games are tight turn games with handler interaction, so using the toy will be better than the MM because it is a little easier and also creates the ‘drive to handler’ that we will want on the tight turns. He wasn’t quite sure where to look when he finished the turn on the prop: at the momma? At the MM? So we can clarify that by having you use a toy in hand (no MM present at all) and a marker word for the toy.
The parallel path game is going well too, but let’s create a loop here with the cookies, rather than a stay then the MM as the reward. There are two reasons for that:
– the loop of toss a cookie, move up the parallel line, toss the cookie, turn and go the other direction back past the prop, works both sides pf you without needing a stay behavior. That allows you to add more lateral distance really easily. add more speed easily, and gets him focused on the prop really nicely!
– by taking the MM out of the parallel path game, you won’t muddy the behavior on the RDW mat when you eventually go to it. On the prop game, he is allowed to hit with a front foot only, no problemo! But the RDW games will have a different criteria and that is not quite the same as these games… but the mat-to-MM might look very similar to him and we don’t want him to ask questions about it.Looking at the RCs… yes, the MM needs to come out of this one too LOL!!!! The MM is too much of a lure here, he was doing the prop and going to the MM but not really perceiving it as a rear cross (you had not changed sides when he was turning to the MM, or a couple of times in the 2nd video you were early and pushed him off the line (which was correct, good boy!)
Also, the MM takes out any options for him to give you feedback on your timing by turning the ‘wrong’ way – and that feedback is important as you teach him the RC and time it so he can read it. On these RCs, you were still on the parallel path side as he was arriving at the prop – so it was the MM that created the RC, not the handling. Without the MM, he probably would not have done the RC which is very useful info to have! So on the RCs, start further away and cut in behind him when he is approx halfway between the starting point and the prop (then keep moving forward on the line after you’ve changed sides). That should give him the info soon enough that he can adjust and turn – then you can throw the toy or treat.
If he does not make the turn the correct direction… then you were not soon enough changing sides and he was already committed to the turn on the prop. If that happens, reward on the side you wanted (it helps the pups learn to predict the RC pressure even when we are late) and then be sooner on the next rep. Ideally, you would be fully on the new side when he is still 2 strides from the prop. Rewarding even if he is ‘wrong’ (but understanding that he was not wrong) will keep him in the game while allowing you to hone your timing on these. And on the RC sessions, you can mix in parallel path (go straight) and the RC turns if you are throwing the reward – the MM would make that way too hard for now.
These ideas should help him have some lightbulb moments on the harder handling, as well as help you begin to look at timing the cues on the harder stuff – he is ready for all of that.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
He reads all of the handling really nicely! Excellent side changes on the blinds! And you can get a better turn on the pivot by moving faster through the blinds, then letting him see the transition into the decel. When you were moving all at one speed, the pivots surprised him (no transition or decel) so he was a little wider. You can run m ore during the blinds so after the blind you can make a big decel, and he will collect better: that is what you did more of on the last rep and he was able to make a great collection and turn super tight! That was my favorite one!!
Two suggestions for these games, about the environment:
try to do this in a clear environment with no jumps near his line, because we don’t want to build in ignoring jumps on lines (like the yellow jump that was right there). When jumps get added to his world, we want him to drive to them and not default to handler focus, so it is better to clear them all away for now for the flatwork games.Also, clear the environment of other dogs that might barge into his session! I know the BC who was running in was not trying to eat him, but it made Stitch uncomfortable – he had to split his focus between having a fast, fun game with you versus watching to see what the heck the other dog was going to do. So you can see him trying to deal with being uncomfortable at 1:29 when he took a moment to hold the toy and look at where the other dogs are… and then not coming back at 2:03 to keep playing. It was subtle in the moment, but it was clear to see on the video: The other dog was just too “extra” to come running in and that was Stitch’s way of telling us that. I respect the way he told us (I mean, he did have other options!) so if he is training out on the floor, do it far enough away that there are no visits or uncomfortable moments. And if other dogs are nearby that might come cruising in, put up a gate so that Stitch feels more comfy about it all. We don’t want Stitch to feel a lot of pressure when he is training, and a BC bounding into the session or even watching him will add pressure (sorry BCs, but y’all can be a little ‘extra’ hahahaha)
Nice work!
TracyHi!
Plank work – super nice! Nice balance between toys and treats here, and all of the back-and-forth and position changes. He seemed super confident with it all.
You can also have him hop on in the center and turn around in a circle without the momentum of going back and forth to make the turn arounds happen – it is great for balance!
You can also use the toy for a hop on, hop off in excitement moment (this basically teaches him to bail from the contacts if he ever loses his balance, which is much better than falling off).Do you have access to a longer plank, especially something that can be a little higher? He is definitely ready for that!
T
Hi!
All of the wing wrapping foundations look really strong! He seems to turn equally well in both directions rather than having a strong side preference. Super! And he is already doing the turn and burn really nicely, so we can use this game to look at two things for mechanics that will serve you well as the training gets harder & more exciting (more games for this coming tonight!!):
I know I am bugging you about markers, but one more marker to add: a “toy in my hand” marker 🙂 So when he is seeing the toy in your hand, he can understand when it is good to bite it versus ignore it versus chase it (‘get it’). So one more toy marker will help and also it will help him differentiate when he should get the toy versus a cookie (like at 2:00 in turn and burn, it seemed unclear if he should eat the cookie or play with the toy or none of the above after the out cue).
The other thing to incorporate, especially as the games get harder, is to reward his effort and live by the 2 failure rule 🙂 If he fails once… reward rather than withhold or mark the error to reduce frustration, and depending on the level of challenge, you can either make it easier right away, or you can see if he can get it but if he fails a second time – definitely make it easier because we don’t want more than 2 failures per session.
So on the shaping foundation stuff with the 2 toys, you were a little too far from the barrel so he had several failures. Rather than physically reset him or withhold reinforcement, you can use a reset cookie or tug at your side to try one more time. One more failure? Make it easier. Sure, dogs sometimes figure it out after multiple failures but they are frustrated when that happens – and we don’t want to condition frustration into these skills.
And on the turn and burn, if he doesn’t go all the way around the barrel, chalk it up to a handler error, have a laugh, tell him he was a good boy, and reward anyway so there is no frustration. For example at :30 on the turn and burn session, you did the FC WAY early and moved super fast… so he never even really had a chance to get the barrel, which caused an error. it was a handling error (too soon, too fast) and you marked it as a puppy error and didn’t reward… you are only allowed to withhold reinforcement if he is allowed to bite you when you have a handling error LOL!! So in that moment, just reward the effort immediately (rather than tell him he was wrong and tug before the next rep) and fix the handling error on the next rep like you did by waiting til he got to the line on the ground before you moved into the FC. By moving away too soon and too fast, there was no way he could have gotten it right at this stage so rewarding the effort goes a long way to maintain engagement and reduce frustration.
And he is doing well in a really challenging environment!! You gave good cookies for ignoring the other dog (like a 1:04 in the 2nd video). Because the environment is really challenging as he is learning new things, be sure to mix in a ton of super easy peasy sessions so he doesn’t have to think as hard, sometimes it is just easy, simple and fun 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi –
He did well with the nose touch here! Next step is to hold the target further away from you (arm fully extended away, elbow locked, nowhere near the rest of you) and look at the target, so he moves to the target and doesn’t want to stay in front of you. Looking at the target and not at his cute face will help too 🙂 You don’t need the target below his nose at all, he can be coming to it straight or lifting his chin a little (you can also do this with you sitting on a low chair or inflatable peanut or something because eventually you will be standing.
You had good get it markers here! You don’t need the yes at all, because the get it means both “you are correct” and “the cookie is over there”. Having “yes” before it will dilute the get it and will get him looking at you too much. And when you use the toy, be as precise with the markers as you would be with cookies – just say get it without all of the other verbal giddy up before the get it LOL!! Then after a good clear ‘get it’ you can add in all the verbal excitement to get him to bring it back 🙂 then get quiet again for the next rep 🙂
Onwards to wing wraps!
THi!
Backing up through the leg channels worked nicely! One small detail which will actually help in a big way: Try to be quiet when you reward, if you intend the session to continue rather than give big praise in that moment. When you give effusive praise, he is not sure of what is coming next and looks around a bit. But if you mark, deliver the reward, then cue the next thing, he will have more clarity and keep going. Then you can give the big praise when you break off for tug breaks. For example, he was not always sure about the release to come forward for the treat, so you can mark the moment his back feet hit the object with the marker to come get the treat – that can set up a nice little loop by telling him what to do next 🙂
And, since this environment is really hard for him (hard for any puppy!), you can totally give him the toy break when he asked for the toy break – it is a decompression skill of self-regulating his internal state and I LOVE that he asked for the toy break as opposed to all of the other things he could have done. It was not a naughty moment or anything, it was a “mom I need a moment here” moment – that environment is hard, he is doing a challenging behavior with a ton of distractions so plan for more frequent toy breaks and build them in… and if things go too long and he asks for it, give him a toy break to decompress then get back to the session.
His doing well with the pivoting! A couple of ideas for you:
So now it is time to pick markers for the reward placement. You were using “yes good” or no marker, and a marker can clarify where and how to get the reward. I think a “get it” or simple marker will really help him know where to look for reward when you throw it, versus when you hand it to him (which should be a marker different from the tossed treat marker).To get more steps around the perch, you can move to a variable schedule for the # of steps before you reward. That will look like rewarding 1 step then 3 then 2 then 1 then 3 then 4 then 1 then 3 then 2 then 5 and so on… that way you are gradually increasing the # of steps. When you were waiting for more and more steps, he got confused and offered less, so you changed reward placement which caused a few more questions from him. The variable schedule works well to increase the duration of the behavior (as in, more steps 🙂 ) and we can also add in some destination work to this to clarify it as well.
And be sure to break off for frequent tugging when you are working in that environment – it will keep his arousal state higher and he won’t split his attention between the other things happening in the environment and the training. At home or in a quiet environment at LU, I am confident that he can do a 4 or 5 minute cookie only session. But when there are other distractions added in, he had some questions about the environment after about :30 seconds (fewer steps, more looking around, especially when he was not getting rewarded for what he had been previously getting rewarded for). Tug breaks and the variable schedule will help that a lot 🙂
T
Hi there!
Parallel path on the prop looked good! Do you have a yoga mat you can put under it so it slides less? I want her to go fast without thinking she should ride it like a skateboard hahaha!You read my mind about going to the toy when you started the countermotion 🙂
She is incredibly task-oriented, as in “I AM GOING GO HIT THAT TARGET!!” LOL! So I think you can also add in some rewards for NOT going, meaning when you are in the ‘ready set’ moment you can reward her for NOT going before the cue. This will add a tiny bit of balance in terms of impulse control and self-regulation (she doesn’t need much of this, only a little).
One big thing to remember is that you can (and should) reward the effort of the ‘almost’ hits when she is going to the prop and within and inch… but doesn’t quite hit it as perfectly as the other reps. This was happening particularly on the left turns (2:10, 2:39, 3:12, for example) and she was getting frustrated (barking, as her parents will do, which we want to avoid).
The 2 reasons to remember to reward the effort of the oh-so-close moments are:
– it is entirely possible she thought she nailed it (the joys of adolescent dog processing!) so telling her she is wrong is confusing and frustrating. We want to build in the joy of the effort and make sure there is no frustration conditioned in, so if she is oh-so-close, reward her and then get closer on the next rep (see below about that). The arousal regulation and frustration reduction is why we do this all on a foot target rather than starting with a wing: that way, all of the kinks are worked out before we move to the actual wing, and the conditioned responses are all relaxed and happy in high arousal, which translates to amazing behavior on course 🙂– it is also possible that you reached the edge of her current commitment bubble when she had the almost hits. What I mean by that is you were just at the edge of where she was comfortable going past you, particularly with you rotated and working in some countermotion. So, reward the effort and get a little closer to the prop for the next one, so you are in her sweet spot for longer and get better behavior. You can also ping pong distances, rather than always getting further away: sometimes be closer than you think you need to be, sometimes add a little more distance, then get close again… making it variable like that will actually help expand her commitment bubble 🙂
Great job here! Let me know if it all makes sense – it is fun for me to be able to look at Muso’s training from the perspective of knowing her parents and her lines! I have been fortunate to see what helped her parents really excel, and what frustrated them. So we can take the parts that built the excellence and reduce the parts that created frustration to have some amazing results. Yay!!
Tracy
Hi!
Good session here too! If toy-only was too hard, you can use the toy before you switch to cookies, and after every 4 or 5 cookies, to build in the arousal work in every session. You made the cookies pretty darned excited too, which is great!
Using the yellow mat over the wobble board was very clever and worked nicely!!! That wobble board is definitely harder – a bit small so to stand on it without compression she really only can put her back feet on… but then it was moving a lot so she was sitting to stabilize it. That will all get easier with experience and when she gets her adult core strength (it is easy for forget how young she is because she is such a superstar!)
So using the wobble board, just add in some tugging before, during, after and keep using the cookies as the in-the-moment rewards.
Super job! I am really enjoying watch you and Muso work!
TracyGood morning! This was actually a perfect session for our purposes! And laughing while training is always good LOL!!
She was working hard to do the backing up AND self-regulate her arousal, which is great. You were helping a little bit by giving a known cue and getting closer, which is also great (and you rewarded all the things, which is also great because adolescent dogs tend to think they’ve nailed a movement even when we can see that they have not LOL!!!)
So even though there was not exactly backing up perfect on all reps, there was plenty of good backing up and more importantly – an arousal regulation session where you both seemed to not be feeling any frustration 🙂
You can remove some of your help next time by starting her with all 4 feet on the bed (having the bed up against a wall so it doesn’t slide when she pushes off) – use a hand touch to help lure her front feet off, and see if she will offer front feet back on with the higher arousal state. Then if that goes well, you can move away and use a hand touch to get all 4 feet just barely off the bed, so she backs up onto it.
Let me know if the goals of this kind of work make sense – yes, we a can teach her to back up but the arousal self-regulation is the much more critical piece and she is doing AWESOME with that!!!
Tracy
Ha! She is so funny! And you were like… that’s a good girlie, why don’t you come over here instead LOL!!! I promise she won’t think the broad jump is a goat game when she is running courses for real LOL!
Tracy
Good morning!
I am glad the plankrobatics wen well even though the video didn’t work – the best sessions are never caught on video LOL!!!! And your clip of the plank looked good – wider is better for baby dogs – you might want to use a yoga mat and some duct tape (fancy, I know haha) to give him more traction because if he is already super confident, then he is going to want to move faster so we can provide the traction for him!
Backing up: I think you mentioned trying it from a chair at the very end, and I think that would be a perfect next step! You need to do this from a chair so he doesn’t look up at you as much (and so your back doesn’t get angry). I can do it standing up in the demo because I am really short and my puppy was tall by that time LOL!! He is very short and you are tall, so we put you in a chair with a frosty beverage 🙂 That way you can be totally still and let him offer. You were moving back and forth, which draws his focus to your motion so he was just following motion and cookie hand more than offering. By sitting, he can focus on your low hand which keeps his head in a little more of a neutral position, which will make it easier to offer backing up.
He is very confident on the board, so it is now a matter of letting in choose the behavior more with a little less help from you – he is ready!
Rather than go outside with xpens, try it in your inside training area with you sitting in a chair and letting him offer, starting with all four feet on the board, luring his front feet off, then letting him offer with you stationary so all he needs to do is offer putting his front feet back on. Yes, the xpens will help him get the backing up behavior and that is totally a good game to play! But trying this in a chair will encourage more of the body awareness and offering we are looking for 🙂
For the tugging, getting the toy moving helped! He was a good boy to get on the toy so nicely after all the cookies! And you can run him away from the cheese plank to help jump start the tugging – getting tug near the cheese plank is like asking me to do push ups near a charcuterie board LOL!!! He did awesome and was a tugging fiend once he got on it after 2 or 3 seconds. Yay!
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
I love the world watching video!!! Pickle ball is exciting! It was interesting to see him: it looks like he was breathing fast, and definitely lots of air scenting – all is great! And it was SUPER cool at the end where he got up, wagged his tail, and was ready to move on. That might seem like a small thing but it is actually huge in terms of teaching him to flex his resilience muscles: he got to observe, process, then have agency over what to do next. Good job to you for allowing that!!!!
>> attempted a food scatter in the parking lot next to my car as an experiment – absolutely no interest. Food is just not important enough to him to override other distractions.>>
Ok this is interesting!!!! I think part of what we can do is figure out where he will eat, and what he will eat (in terms of type of treats and value). For the treat scatters, what type of cookies where you using? The reason that this is worth looking at is that not eating gives us a little insight into how he is feeling about the environment (that it was challenging!) and also about value of food (not that interesting, as you noted). So if we can figure out what/when he will eat, we can use that to help him learn about the world and transfer his sporty skills from home to other environments too!
He did well with the sandwich game! Yes, it is a rainy gross week here in the sunny South so indoors is perfect 🙂
Looking at the sandwich video: This was super fun to watch!
>> The first couple of times he went shooting past me in the collection part >>
That was handling timing, not lack of puppy response 🙂
At the beginning, definitely decel sooner and let him see more of a transition from you moving fast to slow. That will help him set up his collection because he was going fast fast fast then he was surprised when you pivoted. For example at 1:03 you were fast then pivoted (no decel before the pivot) so he was wide on the turn because he never got the cue to collect til after the pivot started.He read the blind cross addition really well! And you did better decels after the blind like at 2:18 and 5:38, and look how tight he was on the turn! Super!! So keep that big moment of slowing down before he gets to you (he should still be at least 6 feet away from you when he sees you decelerating).
And adding the go after it was strong too – I couldn’t see the blind or the pivot on most of those because you were a bit off camera, but the driving to the toy looked great 🙂 And based on what I could hear, he was doing well on the blinds and pivots as well. Super!!!
>> About his laying down. I haven’t worked a lot of downs with him so I’m not sure why he’s offering them. I have worked with him on a place station but that’s always on an elevated bed station. He does like motion, there’s no doubt. He did it again today when we were working inside on the connection sandwich drill. Any suggestions?>>
Looking at the down behavior again, I think that 2 things were happening:
Part of the down was with the toy, so he might have been taking a bit of a decompression moment by chewing the toy for a few seconds. Perfectly fine to let him do this, count to 5 and if he looks like he is ready for the next rep? Call him and do the next rep. Pups (and adults!) need those decompression moments for self-regulation of their arousal when they are working these types of games, so we let them do it.
The other down was an offered down at 4:25, not a decompression moment. You got the down because your hand was right where he wanted to bite the toy (at the squeaker) so he was actually being pretty polite LOL!! Good boy! So you can squeak it then toss it to get engagement.
>> About the wing wrap foundations and you suggested a taller prop for him to go round, would a big traffic cone work? I’m looking around the house and can’t find much else >
A tall traffic cone would totally work! I think they are 3 feet tall or something, which is perfect. Of a pop up laundry basket, if you have one (or if you end up at a dollar store or walmart, you can get one for a dollar or two but definitely not worth spending more money than that for now 🙂 )
>>I could always use a wing stanchion
Soon…. but not yet. LOL! We want the behaviors to be soooo solid before we move to a wing so that the sessions with the wings have almost no errors or questions.
Great job here! See ya tonight in class!!!!
TracyGood morning!
I am so sorry to hear of your back pain!!! Ouch!! I am glad it is down to a more manageable 4-5 level but we can still protect your back by doing all the things that don’t require a lot of back movement. The barrel games are fun, yes, but we have plenty of stuff that doesn’t require running or tugging. You can do the rear crosses on the prop, for example, as that can be fully cookies and not tugging. And we build on the patterns tonight and that will be easy to do without tugging.
The backing up looks really good – you can totally do this from a chair so you don’t have to bend up and down for food delivery. And then yes, from a chair, you can just drop the treats down at your feet. So she would back up, you mark and drop the cookie at your feet so she comes to get it… then she backs up again.
When you were outside, she was backing up past the platform and ending up with front feet on and back feet off LOL! You can put the platform with a fence to wall behind it so she has a stopping point. The big disc at the end of the video had stuff behind it, so she didn’t want to go past it and that is fine! You can reward her for the 2o2o at this point, as it really isolates the hind end and also provides a good 2o2o contacts foundation :). You can work the big disc from a chair too, having her back up then releasing her forward to the cookie you drop at your feet.
She did well with the pattern game! I can’t hear if you were saying a ‘get it’ or not – if not, definitely say it 🙂 You can also toss the cookie sooner, as soon as she looks at you. You were waiting longer, so she was moving back to you and then she was offering other behaviors because she was not sure what was going to get the cookie. So, the cookie moment here is for just looking at you – yes, it is really easy LOL!! We build on it with today’s new games, which is why the first level of it here is so easy 🙂 So, when she looks at you – toss the cookie the new direction rather than waiting for her to move back in front of you (because in harder situations, she may not be able to offer moving back in front of you :))
Great job! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
