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Yes!! That is awesome, Kris and Allie are fantastic 🙂 Allie is a sportscar!!! I love her!! You are in for a FUN ride with Obi!!!
T
Hi!
You and West were fantastic in class last night – what a fun pup! And you are doing a great job with him ❤️>>our biggest struggle is becoming overstimulated and jumping and humping me if the games get exciting. >>
We saw a little bit of that last night! No worries, it is normal, and we are going to start teaching arousal self-regulation right away 🙂 Two things to add to his games:
– when you do the ready dance, dial it back to be a little less exciting. Mayne just bend your knees and look at him. And if he can be engaged and not jump up or hump? Hooray! Food or toy rewards. We can add in more craziness to the ready dance games, but we can teach him to self-regulate a bit more before we do that 🙂– a snuffle mat! We can use it to teach his physiology to come up in arousal, then regulate back to baseline. It is VERY cool and we start it really young to create the neural pathways. And it is easy: tug tug tug tug, then just put a snuffle mat down so he snuffles for cookies. Do that in little mini sessions, and you can also incorporate the snuffle mat into any game that is very stimulating (like driving ahead/toy races, or the send to the prop). You can do a rep or two of stimulating stuff, then let him snuffle for a minute or so. You will start to see a difference in arousal level!
>>And he can be hot and cold about tugging – I’m trying to get better at predicting that.
No worries! He likes food and tugging, so you already have a great toolbox. If he seems ‘cold’ about tugging, you can try throwing the toy or dragging it for him to pounce on or chase. And he is struggling to tug when there is good food nearby, you can tug further from the food.
Keep me posted now how he is doing!
Tracy>>Oh, and this morning, treat for tug swap, 100%. 🤷♀️ Puppies ☺️
Yay! That is so funny, she must have been reading the forum here and decided that salmon and beef hearts were worthy of a swap LOL!!!
T
Hi! Thanks for the update!!
>>The first game, well that’s already her strong suit!
I figured she would love that one LOL!
Sounds like all the games are going well!
>> trying to engage, jazz her up gets me 100% hand biting 🙄🙄 This is a bitey litter. >>
And that is why we work in the arousal and engagement really early… so we can teach them self-regulate their arousal and NOT bite us. So try this: Using food, do a tiny tiny tiny bit of jazzing her up, then stand still for a heartbeat. If she also stands still (not biting!) she can have a yummy treat. So you will be barely jazzing her up, maybe just bending your knees and saying the “R” of ready LOL!! And so we are basically saying to her: we know this is exciting, but it is better to engage without teeth then it is to engage WITH teeth 🙂
Over time, you can add more and more engagement with lots of rewards for the self-regulation of NOT biting you 🙂 And we will also eventually add a toy, but for now I figure food is better to start with because it is less exciting.
For the sending game to the prop – don’t do a full on ready dance yet, if there might be tooth hugs… just do a little standing still, eye contact, freeze for a second… then send. That will get your sending going really well without her accidentally bubbling over in excitement and biting.
>>I may gather more from that. I’m thrilled with the material so far!>>
I am glad you are liking it! And there are other games posted on the course syllabus page that we didn’t do last night (and some have baby whippet demos too!)
Have fun!
TracyA Beaglet! I love it! Beagles puppies are SO CUTE!!! I am glad you had fun playing last night! Keep me posted on how she is doing!!
Tracy
Hi!
The pre-games are going really well!
He was definitely sorting out that touching the ‘thing’ is what would get the cookies to move out of your hand (he seems to really like the cookies :))
If he likes to tug, mix in some tugging and some action after every 3 or 4 cookies, because otherwise he gets very chill if there are a lot of treats without much movement. The tugging will help keep him in a nice active state even with all the cookies 🙂
You can also go more “get it” tosses and less feeding in a stationary position. You were working towards that here, so definitely keep adding the ‘get it’ so he can start adding in the more speed back and forth to the target.
Next step: standing! Start the next session as you left off here, then move to standing and see how he does. If he is happy with that, you can then move to the new game where we send them to it. And you can definitely use a toy for that too 🙂
For the hand target, try it standing up and see if that helps – you can play a little tug, have the cookies ready then BOOM! The hand target appears out in your extended arm. It seemed to get a little lost, visually, by having it right in front of you so he was offering other behaviors but not really targeting. So, standing then having it all the way out to the side with you looking it can jumpstart the behavior even more 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! You can see the gradual widening of the turns here too when he was very little motion input – he is waiting for more info and that contributed to running past the jump at :50
You even motioned it at 1:02: “More motion from mommy” LOL! Yes!
And not using a lot of motion is what made the BC harder – when he lands from the yellow jump at 1:52, you need to send to the pinwheel jump and accelerate away to the BC – but if you are not using a lot of motion, it gets aa lot harder to do that 🙂
>>One thing I noticed was he was less interested in the let’s go than before. I thought it might be because it was the last runs after a break and he/I were tired or perhaps it was arousal from the longer runs?>>
I think it was a combination of fatigue and a lot of reps (the sequence is a lot of the same, from the dog’s perspective). Plus, he likes the interactiveness of a live toy, so he probably won’t drive to the reward station without you. You can run to it then present the reward to him 🙂
>>Do I need the brake hand on the directionals when the tunnel is in play? >>
Do you mean a brake hand before the tunnel entry? Or when the tunnel is an obvious off course? I think it depends on the context – he might not need it if your motion is clearly indicating the next line.
>>And….. how do I keep the brake hand distinct from the tunnel treadle hand? >>
The brake hand is part of a low, 2-handed, palms down, downwards moving cue (belly-button height or lower), shoulders turning away a bit. The tunnel threadle is one hand and very high (a move shoulder height) with palm to the dog, upper body rotating towards the dog. It should be quite distinct looking.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi –
He is doing well with the tunnel threadle work! Remember to be showing more motion here so he can read transitions rather than staying in extension with you decelerated. You were taking little small steps so he should be considering collection, and we don’t want to teach him otherwise 🙂 I think by the 2nd rep, he had stopped following turn cues and was waiting to see where you were turning to, which made the turns a bit wider. So… run! No standing still in the middle LOL! Let him see changes in motion as part of the turn cue as well as hear the verbals.He did well with the ‘let’s go’ at the end of the sequence! It is a good thing to mix in sometimes, to help prepare him for what will happen in the ring 🙂 And be sure to run to it with him to get really active engagement on it.
T
Hi!
>>I haven’t really formalized an end-of-run behavior yet.You will want to have a toolbox, in case the leash is not where you expect it and need to find it LOL! The environment is fluid, so we need to be fluid too 🙂
>>gradually work through rewarding with the toy within a sequence versus remote reinforcement either with leash tugging or let’s go behavior? Obviously, right now, he’s getting all three.>
Because dogs are masters at context, if I have a toy in my hand during a sequence, they do not expect remote reinforcement. The RR and leash work is all about the trial environment, and they figure that out pretty quickly 🙂
>>How do you determine if you should use jump or a directional on the middle pinwheel jump? You’ll see I was inconsistent as I really wasn’t sure which verbal I should use.>>
It depends on how tight the turn is for the dog in question 🙂 I think this pinwheel is spread out enough that you just need jump verbals. O the first run, you used “right” and he collected and then extended again (because the next jump was a bit of an extension), ticking the bar both times.
He dropped the bar on one of the reps with the jump verbal, but I think that was more that you need to turn your shoulders sooner – if you are facing straight while he is jumping, rather than facing the next line, he is likely to have to adjust in the air an that might pull a bar. So try to send and leave so you are facing the next line, rather than round the line with him. The same thing happened at 1:31 – you were facing straight so he took off straight, then you turned and he dropped the bar trying to turn in the air. So as he exits the tunnel, send to the next jump and keep turning your shoulders.
T
Hi!
He seemed happy with his snuffle mat! And if this was before the above run, he was in a good arousal state! Plus there was a lot of activity around him including dogs barking and dogs running courses!) and he seemed perfectly happy to keep snuffling! Super! Keep on snuffling!T
Hi!
He did really well here, and it was a noisy busy environment!
Find my face is looking good! You can add it to wandering around some jumps and reward him if he takes jumps on the way to finding your face 🙂1st run was really good!!
The Kiss kiss was good on 2nd rep – you can help even more by giving hm a turn cue before the jump (name call or right verbal) so he can set up the turn before the tunnel threadle.
You had the right on the 3rd rep where you did not want the tunnel and that looked good!The bar on the pinwheel jump came down, I think the more you do the pinwheels the less you turn your shoulders, so the info gets a bit late and the bar comes down. So remember to keep moving and turning the shoulders so when he lands from the previous jump, he knows to set up the next turn.
T
Hello and welcome!! Berners are so fun!!
Who are his parents/breeders? I know some seriously amazing agility Berners in Minnesota and I’m wondering if he related?Looking forward to learning more!
Tracy
Hi! I am sorry to hear about Juno!! And yes, you can totally switch to Synergy, that will be fun!!
Tracy
Hello and welcome! It was great talking to you in class tonight!!! I am looking forward to hearing more about Djinn. And I will post up definitions and videos so you know what the terms mean 🙂
Tracy
