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Good morning! She did really well here!
The blind cross looked great! Yay! The mechanics were spot on.
Her gator roll is so cute!
With the prop – nice job with the ready dance moments! Very engaging and helped make a nice transition from handler focus to the prop. She did grab the toy on one rep but I think that had more to do with her question about the cue:
>Toy stuff with the prop changed the picture. At times I felt like she didn’t know what to do, sit, grab toy or what. >
Correct! The toy changed your mechanics, which created the question about whether to go to the prop or not here: it was because there was conflicting info in the cue. Your leg stepped to the prop which says ‘hit it’ but your hand/arm stayed in front of your chest… which says ‘don’t hit it’. So she took a step away and looked at you as if saying “waiting for more info, please”. She didn’t get mad or frustrated, she was just waiting for more info.
She did hit it especially when you got closer, but using your arm as part of the cue will really help especially on these rotated sends: after the ready dance, your arm and leg can move together to send to the prop, and the other hand can hold the toy.
Then you can mark the hit and party with the toy like you did here, that was super!!
One other suggestion: don’t say ‘go’ when you cue the hit 🙂 We will want ‘go’ to mean full extension on a straight line, and this game sets up a turn cue. So you can either send without a verbal, or you can say something like “hit”. I personally have trouble being quiet (shocker!!) so I make noises LOL!!!
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi!
She is doing really well with going around the upright with you close to it: nice and fast!!!I see what you mean by her having more questions when you add distance No worries, she is only 16 weeks-ish! The distance will come pretty easily soon.
Two suggestions:
– Stand with your back against the fence, to take out the option of going behind you. She started offering that when she was not sure what to do, so not having that as an option will help her be more successful.
– Instead of moving yourself away, you can stay where you are and can move the wing away from you by an inch or less 🙂 That can help her understand that is not about going back and forth in front of you – it is about going around the upright. And moving the upright keeps it salient for her.
It is also possible that the thin upright is not salient enough for her, it fades into the background as compared to you and the bowls which have more value. This week we add “bigger” objects to go around, so we might find that a bigger, more obvious object is what she needs 🙂
So try this week’s game and let me know – there is one other option where we keep the bowls closer to the upright/barrel to really emphasize the value of the upright/barrel. But we can see how she feels about a bigger object first 🙂
Nice work! Keep me posted!
Tracy
Hi!
She is doing well hitting her prop here!! She also really likes her ‘ready’ word 🙂
I think we are seeing a slight side preference on this game, with the right turns (sending from your right side when you are rotated) looking easier for her than the left turn (sending from your left side when you are rotated).
So for the left turns/rotated left side sends, get closer to the prop so she doesn’t have to go as far. You can be maybe 2 steps away from it for now. Since the right turn sends looked easier, you can be a little further away on that side, maybe 3 or 4 steps.
You can also position yourself off to the side a little and not on a straight line – she was sometimes turning the other direction (away from you instead of towards you) and I think that was because she was seeing you almost changing sides behind her (like t :08 and 1:11) She was reading them like rear crosses, good girl!!!
One other idea: the ‘ready’ word works perfectly here, but try not to say “go” for the sends. We will want “go” to mean running in a straight line in big extension, and this is setting up turn training. So you can say something like ‘hit’ if you want, or no verbal needed at all 🙂
Great job here!
TracyGood morning!
Have a blast at the seminar!!!
DASH did great here with the forward focus to the toy! This is a fun game to take on the road and do with short distances 🙂She was avoiding the collar grab that starts each rep at the very beginning – it might be that you were moving her around by the collar to get her into the position next to you and most puppies find that uncomfortable and avoid it.
On your last rep you tugged her back to the start spot, gently took her collar while tugging… then moved yourself into position next to her to start. That was PERFECT and she was very happy to line up! Yay!
Nice work here! We build on this game with new stuff posted today.
Tracy
Hi!
This is going well! Part of the reason we start with random things like a pillow is to sort out the questions like he had here:
>I am having trouble finding something that does not slide. I can try outside in the morning, but . . . there are deer tonight.>
Yes, definitely better to not have to worry about deer in the yard!!!
For indoor training, I got some cheapie rubber-backed rugs that I can roll out to train on, then roll up and put away. I also have some cheapie fake turf in one area (yes, in my house haha) so the pups can move without slipping. You can also try putting the pillow on a rubber-backed bath mat from the bathroom – that will probably not slip either.
I think the arousal regulation and mechanics elements of this are also going really well, with Gruffudd giving us really useful info!
The self-control element of ‘leave the cookie hand’ to touch the prop is a good challenge! He was thinking hs way through the puzzle and did great! He was looking at the send hand as you cued the prop hit, so you can play with cueing with a more open hand. The closed upturned hand might look the same as a hand that isholding or throwing a treat, which has a longer history for him and would naturally draw his eyes up to it. So a more open hand or even a finger point can be different enough to look more like a cue.
>I brought the toy in midway, but felt it was over-arousing him; I’m interested if you agree with the decision.>
I am glad you brought the toy in because working out how to use the toy and help him optimize arousal/regulate is definitely worthwhile at this stage. He loves toys and loves treats!
The toy definitely brings the excitement/arousal to a different level than food – I think he doesn’t really know how to transition back and forth yet, in terms of ending the toy play and getting back into the next rep.
No worries – he is only 5 months old, so that makes sense that he has not yet learned all of the transitions. He is doing great! I don’t think it was an overarousal question as much as it was a ‘let’s clarify how to end the tugging portion of the festivities’ moment 🙂 if it was a lot of overarousal, he would struggle more with getting back to hitting the prop and we might see other behaviors such as more toy grabbing, barking, jumping up, etc.
Since an element of this game is about arousal regulation (great job with the ready dance part of it, because that is all about arousal regulation!) you can add in a treat after each aus cue because when it was toy alone. The treat can be tossed like you did in the decel session transitions. That should set him up for deeper understanding of how to transition from the toy back to the next rep in a couple of ways:
– the treat can help reset the arousal that the toy brings, while giving you time to tuck the toy away to be able to be ready for the next cue. Tossing it so he can sniff for it for a moment is also great for arousal regulation.
– the treat can also be a context cue! What I mean by that, it can help him understand to be ready for the next cue (such as the prop send, or even a cue to get the toy again) and not try to continue the toy play moment. Context cues are hugely helpful!!
So I would still use the tug, adding in the food rewards for letting it go and resetting for the next rep. It would go something like this: tug, out cue, cookie, cue the next behavior (ready dance then send in this case) then you can cookie reward, tug, cookie for the out, next cue, etc.
And as his body develops the ability to regulate, you don’t need to use the toy on every rep. The regulation is not operant at all, it is neural pathways and brain development and history, so it takes a little bit of time and short bursts of training 🙂
>On one he failed to go. Did I wait too long to reset?
>I think you were really good throughout the session – he was working at a really high rate of success!
When he had the one error (perhaps he just lost his train of thought?), he did not get frustrated or change arousal state which generally indicates that your reset time was good: you waited a few seconds, he said “wait, what was I doing?” Then you reset happily with a treat and restarted, and he was very successful on the next rep. That last rep was great because he did not try to investigate the cookie hand or toy on the table – he went directly to the pillow. SUPER!!!! Sometimes the single error makes the biggest difference in learning, especially when handled happily like you did.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Good morning!
The lower hand position was perfect! He was really driving in and decelerating when asked. Super nice! Great job on the reps where you ran then decelerated – you did the deceleration early enough that he was able to drive in and make the pivot without going wide. This included when he was more stimulated from the tugging – the decel was still lovely. Super!
The toy exchanges are going well – he is definitely excited about the toy and your “get it” during the toy exchange showed the marker does have strong value: he let go of the toy to look for the tossed treat. So much better than leaping for the toy! And it got smoother on each rep.
Since the running is looking really good, you can take this outside if you have space and good weather!
>For a bonus, we added a collision into my tripod and me out of enthusiasm!!!>
He sure loves to play with you! I don’t think he realized the game was “over” so he was continuing to play LOL!! One thing you can do at the end of each training blast is to bridge him back to ‘baseline’, meaning help him chill out after the excitement of toy play and running. You can do that with a snuffle mat or lickimat if you have one. I generally toss multiple treats in the grass or on a rug, so the last 10 or 15 seconds are spent sniffing for treats. That assists with internal regulation and helps define the end of the session for the pups.
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
He definitely recognized the cot as a thing to climb up on! Super nice! You can totally find different random objects. We have more ideas for that posted today.
You can incorporate a toy into this, to ask him if he can offer climbing on things even when he is more pumped up and the toy is visible. But first, let’s work out how to alternate the toy and food more easily:
>The one thing that is not easy is switching from food to toy! I have recognized this so honestly I haven’t asked for a lot of it because I didn’t want it to become an “issue”.>
I see what you mean! Tugging when the food scents were around was hard! He did get into it but it took about 15 seconds – that is not a long time, but it is a long time LOL!! And good for you for not making it an issue, and for not having the food around while asking for tugging.
A couple of ideas:
– use lower value food for the shaping elements. For something easily and already reinforced like getting on the cot, you can use the most boring food possible (if such a thing exists for him haha)
– use fewer reps for treats before breaking off for toy play. Making food-to-toy a priority, you can do 2 boring treats then break off to play with the toy before he goes into foodie mode.– use an insane toy. This toy was good but maybe tie a couple of toys together. I also have some wild fur toys that override food for my foodie dogs.
– introduce the toy into the session with you getting excited about it but not yet offering it to him. What it mean by that is you can pick up the toy and play with it, talk to him about how cool the toy is, hiding it from him a little (they always want what we are hiding from him) – and when he is showing interest, you can slap it down on the floor and start dragging it fast like a squirrel running away 🙂
– when going into the tugging, step out of the cookie spot where he just go some cookies. He is probably still smelling the pools of scent from the treats right there, so you can move 10 feet away and ask for tugging. And moving away can be when you get all excited about the toy, without yet giving it to him.
It will take a little bit of experimenting to see what the right balance but I think he will catch on really quickly 🙂
Nice work here!
TracyGood morning!
>He struggles with finding food.. even bright white pieces but as we did more we just needed to find the food worth finding !>
Good point about the higher value food! And for some pups, we might need to take a short detour into teaching them to find the tossed treat. I do that by tossing a visible treat and then when the pup gets it and re-orients to me, I reward with a favorite toy. That usually convinces the pup to track and find the tossed treat because it is the gateway to the toy 🙂
He did really well with the stealth self-control (until he was releasing farts, I think that is what you said LOL!!!! 😂😆 )
He seemed to be aware of the novel-neutral object – no need to have the start cookie right near it or tossed over it, simply having it in the environment is perfect for what we need.
You can keep switching up the novel object, and change up the simple game you add it to (whatever he really likes to do and is good at). It is something to revisit every couple of days.
The blind cross session went well too! You were having trouble convincing yourself to do the blind early enough – he is speedy and you need to start as soon as he starts moving to you. Your mechanics were super good (exit line connection so he saw the clear side change). And I love how carefully you and Christine lined him up for the restrained part of it – he seemed to be perfectly happy to be lined up and held. Yay!
It was smart training to do a normal recall (no blind) because yes, he was not changing sides when he was starting on your left and moving to your right – he was heading directly to your right as you saw on the regular recall.
Why he wanted to be on your right side so much? Could be that he is a lefty and migrating to that side… but he went from your right to your left really well on the first rep. Could be that he was anticipating the side change – it looked like your connection to the original side was clear but after the first 2 blinds he was not locked onto the original side. Could be that the jump was visually interesting so he was drawn to it? But he still tried to go to your right even after you moved the jump. It is a small puzzle. He will tell us in the next session, no worries at all.
Fo now we can go with the anticipating theory – and to avoid him anticipating, you can do more straight no-blind recalls, and throw in a blind very occasionally so he doesn’t anticipate. The normal recalls can also have exaggerated connection with your dog-side arm pointing back to him so he sees which side to be on and stay on 🙂
Great job here!
TracyGood morning!
>Not sure if posting 2 videos in one post is going to work so we’ll see.>
Worked great! You should be able to post multiple videos with no problem.
Looking at the bowl video:
I agree with your assessment that it went well. A big click/treat to you for having your training area set up brilliantly before he got involved – it was a VERY easy transition to toss a treat for him and reach back to get the upright. NICE!>I may have committed a cardinal sin by not picking up the food bowls for play breaks :-)>
Ha! Forgiven LOL because you had really good mechanics: he was very engaged with the tug and you were ready with that first treat when it was time to offer the bowls again. And we are getting ready to fade the bowls.
The error was probably because there were 2 variables that got changed: you standing up, and the upright being moved further away. He only had one error but generally change just one thing at a time – and then another variable can change in a rep or two.
We have a new challenge added to this game today! One more week of adding challenge to the bowl game then in week 3 things get even more fun 🙂
Drive to handler: your decel looked really good here! You can see that Brioche was able to collect to get right into the turn without any butt swinging wide or popping up. Super!!!! This is a fun easy game that can burn off puppy energy, so you can revisit it here and there with longer distances. That will mean more speed and earlier decel needed.
>which was never my forte as a handler if you remember…>
Ha! I remember that but it seems you are now excellent at it! YAY!!
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
Super nice session here!!!
She is just so cute, falling over while tugging at the beginning. Adorable!The session with the bowls went really well. She was definitely interested in the duck nibs, at a good level: yummy and worth offering behavior for, but not brain-exploding to where she couldn’t offer behavior or go back to the toy. Duck nibs for the win!
She was definitely figuring out the back and forth element here – thinking her way through the puzzle. I love that! You had good timing of getting the treats to ‘plunk’ into the bowl. My only suggestion is to either delay the treat drops a bit, or move the bowls further back… but not both at the same time. One variable change is good but having 2 things happen slowed her down. For now, I think the delay so she can start offering the back and forth on her own is probably the priority over moving the bowls back – that will be easy to do once she has the pattern locked down.
If the next session goes well like this and she is going back and forth – you can add in an upright and see if she can go back and forth around it.
> She’ll touch it. Come off and then stand at the edge and stare. I’m using the bath mat for place training so I tried something else today.>
Stare which direction – at the target or at you? It might be a placement of reward thing, and we can make one tweak to change it. And if the object is too similar to the bath mat for place training, she might be having a question about which behavior to offer. Pop in a video and we will sort it out.
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
We are still here til the 17th!
She was fabulous driving up the board and nailing the end position! Wow! I think that table there was a perfect bridge to help her get into position with the almost-full drop of the board. Then the full teeter was easy peasy!Most these reps had you behind her as she was arriving in position. She was very successful! You added jogging that took you past her at 2:26, still fabulous.
>You will see a rep where I said “stay” probably too soon and she stopped short and sat down. This also could be because it was hot and she was getting tired. Because she didn’t sit again at the end of our session.>
I think part of it was that you said “touch stay” (or something like that) and the early stay cue confused her. She might not have needed the stay at all. Then a few reps later, she hit position standing up but then sat as you kept moving past her. That6 mighyt have partially been because she was tired, and partially because it was more comfortable to hold the sit as she waited for you to come back to reward. To balance that, you can sometimes mix in releasing her forward for the reward.
The other thing to add is seeing if she can drive across the board to hit & hold end position when you are ahead of her (not behind or parallel). Starting her in a stay will give you a lead out, then keep walking past the teeter as she gets on it. You can then add more and more of your running as she gets more comfy with you being ahead.
Great job!
TracyHi! He is definitely fun!
This session looked great in terms of forward focus! He really really loves his toy toy and was more than happy to look at it. And you were super fun, smacking it on the ground 🙂 He is ready for the next steps: You can throw it a little further and delay the release to go to it – that way you can connect to him and see where he is looking, and he will look at the toy longer before being sent to it.If that goes well… then you can start to add your motion too, and move forward when you release him to the toy. Based on what he did here, I bet adding your motion will not be an issue at all.
> I struggle with him dropping the toy when asked. We are also playing with 2 toys on either side of the body which helps when one is active he drops and goes. But one toy he isn’t ready to give up.>
Yes, he does appear to think that dropping the toy is stooooooopid LOL!! I love love love his toy drive and we can teach the drop while maintaining it.
One of the ways is to do exactly what you did here: patiently let him drop it, then throw it to start the next rep immediately.
Another way to get the out is, separately from trying to train anything else – use a long enough toy that you can fit both hands on it. Then get tugging going. After a few seconds, put both hands on the toy (one on each side of his mouth) and get very passive: no tugging, no pulling on the toy, no cues, just boring. When he relaxes his grip and lets go of the toy: tell him he can have the toy and re-start the tug game. That way we are rewarding the out with more tugging.
Here is an example:
Another option is a cookie trade – tug, then whip out a cookie and when he releases the toy, toss the treat to the side (then he can come back to tug or play a different game). But I would only recommend this if he still has a high toy drive even when there are treats in the picture. If he loses his toy drive when food appears, let’s maintain the toy drive by getting the out using the other options above.
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
>I put them together because I saw other were: Let me know which way is better for you>
Both of these videos looked good! I am happy with whichever is easiest for you – putting the whole video in requires less time editing, and also lets us see the in-between moments which are important too. So if that is easier: great!
On the video:
He was more than happy to go get the start cookie then drive to you and pivot in both directions 🙂 Easy peasy! And he loved the toy being added too.
My only suggestion for the mechanics of the game is that you can have your cookie hand a bit lower, just about level to your knee. For now that will probably mean you will lean over to get your hand there, and that is perfectly fine for this stage of the game. That will keep his chin/jaw parallel to the ground. which makes for easier turn mechanics (and better collection as we add more speed, see below 🙂 )
The only part he had trouble with was switching back from the toy to food for the next rep. He re-grabbed when you lifted the toy, then had an excellent “out” at 1:40 when you kept the toy low – then as you hid the toy behind your back, it became very enticing so he got leapy/grabby for it. Two ideas for you, so he can make a smooth transition from the toy back to food:
You can bridge that moment with a food reward for the out, and toss the food reward away. That redirects his mouth away from the toy and your flesh 🙂 then you can reset the toy and get ready for the next rep, without having to pull the toy away. Pulling the toy away makes it even more interesting to puppies than it already was 🙂 When you used a cookie to get the next rep going, he immediately re-focused on the game, it was great!
You can also add a marker which means “you may now grab the toy from my hand” which will help him learn when the toy is available for grabbing, and when it is not available. My marker is “bite” and I say it when I want the dog to grab the toy that I am holding. If I don’t say it, they should not grab it – and they learn that pretty quickly if we are reasonably consistent with markers. You’ll see more about markers coming up soon! And that marker has been GREAT for teaching the dogs to not grab for toys or accidentally grab my flesh or pummel me 🙂
He looks ready for the next steps, where you are moving away from him (fast walk then building up to running) and as he starts to come towards you, you then shift into a big decel. He looks like he can move pretty fast 🙂 so you can take it into a long hallway if you have carpet or a rug so he can run, or outdoors so you both have plenty of room!
Great job here!
TracyHi!
>I … once again… need to set my timer. I sped up the bits where I’m tugging with him. Let me know if that’s ok. It goes pear-shaped at the end and I realised watching back that he was probably tired.< Yes! I love timers as you know! And I would totally bug you if I thought the session was too long. But… I don’t think the session length was the question here - even with the sped up tugging, it looks like the session was under 3 minutes (unless you did 30 minutes before it hahahaha) I think it was more about him figuring out which reinforcement was in play: He was really engaged with the tugging but at first, he didn’t seem to entirely understand that he was supposed to go run to grab the toy. I was not sure if he was expecting you to go with him to play tug, or he didn’t want to leave the treat pouch that you were wearing. He caught on and went to grab the toy at 1:30 and 1:43 - perfect! That was after a series of reps where there were no treats coming, only the toy. Then he had a question on the last rep and didn’t want to leave you for the toy. The difference I saw between the reps where he went to the toy and where he didn’t go to the toy were involved the food - on the early reps, he saw your hand moving after the release and might have been checking to see if food was coming (you were not reaching for food, but there was food present so he was possibly thinking about it). But after a series of only toy reps, no treats, he really locked onto the toy. Yay! Then on the last rep, you had just fed him a treat, which brought the food back into the picture so he did not leave the cookie hand. So for this game - don’t have any food in the picture, in terms of being in a treat pouch on your for now. It is right at nose level for him 🙂 You can have a treat in a pocket, or up on a table of you want to reward the ‘out’ of the toy, but not having the treat pouch right there will really help him focus on the toy. He and I are similar in that we both love to focus on food and eating LOL! Great job here! Let me know what you think! Tracy
Good morning!
Prop sends are going really well.
She is doing great with her value and accuracy for hitting the prop! Yay!!Rather than hold her at the start of each rep – do the ready dance 🙂 That will engage arousal in a good way (arousal regulation is a big part of this :)), and also teach her the difference between when you ask for handler focus to stick with you (ready ready ready) and obstacle focus (the send).
For next steps: You can also get a toy involved now tugging before each rep, and you can also add in the sideways and backwards sending. She is ready for more challenge 🙂
Looking at the blinds: nice shirt! LOL!
The first rep and the rep at 1:04 on the blind cross video were the perfect demos of it being the connection that creates the side change, not the toy. Good girl Bella!!!! And good for you for continuing to reward her.
Even with the giant toy dangling, you did not show clear connection on the new side so she did not change sides. And she really loves that toy, so she was being extra good to not change sides without the connection. Baby dogs are the best for keeping us honest about connection!
She got the correct side on the 2nd rep but she was not driving to you as much as running forward. And on the last rep, you were correct – she was already on that side LOL! So how to get the blinds?
The key is not about using the toy to show the side change – instead, you can do the blind and point your dog-side arm back to her, so she can see your eyes very clearly. The toy should not be in that dog-side arm on the blind – it should be in the opposite arm, and resting on your dog-side hip as you make the big connection. So you can start with the toy in the dog-side hand (before the blind) and then leave it in that hand so when you do the blind, it is now in the opposite hand and you can show it across your body (exit line connection). That way, she will see very clear connection and eye contact on the new side, and drive right to you for the toy.
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
