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Good morning!
OMG he was hilarious trying to sit on the cone LOL! Adorable! He definitely likes this game!
He is driving ahead beautifully. Try to start with you gently holding his collar – the stay position is too hard for now because he is leaving the sit as soon as you begin to throw the toy and we don’t want him to break the stay off he sees motion of your arm (and we don’t want to create any tension by telling him he was wrong to move, so at this stage I avoid it entirely by holding the pups instead of using stays LOL!).
We will be building on this game tomorrow! Stay tuned!!
Looking at the wing wrap progression:
I think he is a definite righty with this game – all of the right turns were super easy and looked great! And when he didn’t quite know how to turn left… he turned to his right behind you. SMART! LOL!! So you can help him by sitting against a wall to take out the option of going behind you and get more offering of turning to his left in front of you.
It scared him when you smacked the cardboard with the toy (he had a startle response each time) but he did much better when you tapped the toy on the ground! Nice! So definitely keep the toy tapping on the ground.
I see you have the next stages below with standing up, which was going to be my suggestion 🙂 Onwards to standing up!Nice work!
TracyGood morning!
I didn’t know you did any parkour with Enzo! Fun!
Looking at the wobble board:
He did well with the lots-of-towel section! You can sit in a chair for tugging so his head is a little lower, which will get more weight shift.I can see how he was less thrilled with it when the towels started to disappear. The super high value treats were very smart!!! I think the hardest part for him was feeling secure in a relatively small space with all 4 feet on while the board was moving, so we can help build up the sense of security:
Do you have a 2nd wobble board or some discs? You can create a bigger field for him, so he can get his hind end on without scrunching up as much – which should help him feel more confident and secure about standing on the moving surfaces because he will be better able to stand with good balance.
You can have the wobble board with some inflatables around it, so he can put his feet anywhere on something that moves a bit. Over time we can shape him to put all 4 feet on the wobble board only by having him go back and forth across the things that move til he feels really comfortable with his hind end.
That can help him offer lots of hind end and all 4 feet on the moving things, without any pressure – it will be all his idea 🙂 And you can toss treats back and forth as he goes across the moving things, so he is also getting the opportunity to get off the movement which can be very helpful!
Looking at the plank: I totally agree about the needing to be sure the dogs can turn around. It helps for contact training and also it is a safety measure for it they ever lose their balance! Dogs that know this are more likely to re-gain balance or safety get off the board.
Yes, he is better to the right here, that is a trend we have seen before. The left turns will come soon as the side preferences balance out. You can get more turns with all 4 feet on by moving your cue hand very slowly for now, so he moves more slowly. When he moves that fast, his adolescent brain might be telling him that he did indeed keep all 4 feet on… when we see he did not LOL!! So slowing things down will help.
And if you have a second plank, even if it is a shorter on, you can have your planks side-by-side and touching to give him a wider playing field here too for a couple of sessions: more room for all the feets 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning again!
The good news here is that he seems to totally understand that he needs to go around the thing in this scenario, YAY!! So now you have to be prepared to reward the first offered wrap otherwise a behavior we really want will go un-rewarded.
Have your cookies ready to go before he enters the session – you can have a treat or two in your hands before you even sit down or bring the barrel in. Note how at the very beginning he offered a GREAT wrap… and didn’t get any reinforcement.
Nice tug breaks throughout, good job getting the other stuff out of the way to play!
After the tug break you got the cookies ready but didn’t reward that first – he offered another great wrap even though the bowls were not down. Same thing happened after the 2nd tug break – he offered a wrap but didn’t get rewarded.
The importance of rewarding that first offered wrap is that it is the exact behavior we want, so we don’t want to frustrate him by not rewarding as that can confuse him in the future (because we don’t reward behaviors in shaping when we don’t want those behaviors).
You can totally toss a treat even as the bowls go down or before the bowls go down. And to buy yourself extra time between the tugging and being reward: toss a treat away from you so he can go get it, then you can be ready for that first rep when he comes back.
Next step: stand up! That will lead nicely into the week 3 game for this 🙂 And based on what he was doing here, you can start to fade the bowls out by moving them more and more behind you, and just dropping the treats where the bowls used to be 🙂
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
I see zero bad trainer moments here!! And lots of good trainer moments here!
You raise a good point about him being excited about being in the training room – environment definitely changes excitement level, just like going into a trial building does that for our adults! The play/tugging before you start the training actually helps center his arousal (more on that later in the course) and it directs his focus to you, so definitely bring that toy and play before you start 🙂
You had good mechanics here of rewarding on the tray when he got on, then releasing him to get a cookie off the tray while you quickly snagged the tray to hide it and brought the toy out LOL! Fast! The only thing I might tweak is have you get the cookies out before you put the tray back down for the next part of the session,
The next stage with an item like this is to change the placement of reward, and toss the cookie off to the side with your ‘get it’. That will help him put back feet on because he is moving more, and you can wait a tiny bit longer before you toss the next cookie. Plus, you can use all sorts of different thigns to shape him to get on or in.
Yes, at about 4:20, he took the toy and started chewing it. No worries – That is a common decompression moment for puppies and it is actually a GOOD thing because it helps them self-regulate their internal arousal. So, rather than try to get him to bring it back when it happens (because he won’t bring it back) you can count to 5, then trade for some treats scattered around.
And you can also shorten the session as you reminded yourself, as well as build in little decompression breaks of trading the toy for a chewie or bully stick, or scattering some treats for him to sniff around. This is all great for puppies!
Nice work here!
TracyHi!
>>I want to add that the other day in class Torrin came out of a tunnel to a straight on jump for a wrap… in the past I would have expected him to jump it big… but NOPE! I actually was able to see him collect in front of the jump and take a beautiful wrap! Class paying off for the win.>>
Oh heck yeah!!! This is great! And shows ou that he is transferring the skills SUPER!!!
He was GREAT on the zig zags!! Totally agree that the toy is very motivating for him and helped produce the powerful jumping. It is possible that the MM was too close, or not stimulating enough, so he was adding strides. The toy totally helped!
When you were showing the line without getting past the 2nd jump before releasing, he was pretty perfect. He only had 2 little questions:
At :51 he went past jump 2, but I think he was correct based on your position being too far past the takeoff side of the jump so he didn’t think he should jump behind you. You can reward anyway so he doesn’t lose value for the target and also for his strong effort in trying to figure it out and pay attention to the handling. Your position on the other reps was great so he read the line perfectly.
His other question was on the other side, he added a stride – maybe he just needed to balance? But he nailed it on the next rep, so no worries. And it looked like you rewarded that rep anyway which is totally the correct thing to do.
>>1- when does class officially finish?
The last day is Nov 30th.
>>and 2- for the fading I assume it will be dog dependent if you fade the plank or fade the cue? Just trial and error to see?
I like to do a little of both, but not necessarily in the same session. Both fading techniques can help the dogs.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! Super nice session here and I agree that he can probably have the distance stretched even further!
He has a nice combination of understanding, confidence, and conditioning happening here so I bet we can challenge him more 🙂 He definitely is quicker with his footwork and reactions which is just so cool to see!!!You can choose which you want to work on in the next session: move the standards another 4 inches apart, leaving the bars low, to work on the power.
Or leave the standards where they are and work up to 10 then 12 inches on this!
You can carve out a time to try both, but I wouldn’t do them on the same day 🙂
My only suggestion is to have the reward already placed out on the line for the backsides – he is smoking you (yay!) which means he is also looking at you over the bar. You can’t outrun him LOL! So having the reward target out there will keep him looking forward. The moving target/dragging toy is still working perfectly on the front side slices because you are way ahead.
Great job!
TracyHi! Thanks for coming to the online sessions!!!!
Nice session here!!! She is doing well and yes, it was a little tighter but not too tight so she was successful. Super!!! One thing that will help is to not worry too much about helping her with handling 🙂 Just be on a straight-ish line and drag the toy – it usually works best if you are on the line closer to the 2 wings that are touching. And if he skips a jump? No worries, she can have the toy (because we don’t want to lose the value of it as a target and to reward her effort) and then you can make it a Little easier on the next rep.
You can keep tightening the line of the jumps, flattening the angle, tiny bit by tiny bit 🙂
>>Can now appreciate Changtse’s taking moments here and there during our sessions. And also, I wonder whether her sit stays are influenced by her age. Some days, she has solid sits and others, she keeps getting up from her sits. On those sits, I do lots of “catch it!” tosses to perhaps help her.>>
Yes, total teenage brain moments 🙂 And when you see it, you can switch gears to help her or to do something else with her.
Great job here!
TracyGood morning! I love unedited videos because we get a BIG picture!!!
I think Roulez answered our question about being indoors or outdoors… she was barking for much this session which distracted you a bit and might have distracted him too: lots of sniffing and trouble getting back on the toy might be more of a distraction issue or him feeling the pressure of running directly towards the barking, especially when her bark was a litle more frustrated. It is especially challenging for him, because she is literally his mother LOL!
You can see on the 2nd video he was taking a longer time to run towards the barking – yes, he did do it but I think it is too much pressure for the baby dog and he can now have all of the training sessions to himself, no momma out there barking.
Your blind cross mechanics were awesome 🙂 And he transitioned back to the tug at the end of the first video really well (note: no barking momma at that point LOL!) and also at the very end of the 2nd video, when Rou finally quieted.
So keep all of the good mechanics, connection, and focus on him and toy/treat balance – and Roulez can hang out indoors (sorry Rou, not sorry LOL!!!) and then she can have a turn while baby Audie is resting 🙂
Tracy
Hi!
>>and I just realized there have been no ‘accidental blood lettings’ from her!!
I LOVE that there are no bloody sessions!!
For tugging after the plank – moving further from it was GREAT because the plank is heavily associated with food and that makes the transition harder indeed. You can use a longer toy so you don’t have to bend over as much, so she can chase it as you drag it. She prefers the chase and also likes to move towards you with the toy. She does not appear to like it when you touch her a lot – she either moves away or doesn’t tug as hard. So go with her preferred play style for now – chasing and driving to you, rather than touching or tapping her.
>> but then after food I can almost see her trying to brake her food brain to refocus on toy.>>
This might be exactly what is happening! There is definitely a good processing challenge happening here!
Two other things to consider as you build up the tugging:
– try to avoid using the tunnel as a stimulator because we don’t want to build in extra arousal to the tunnel or rely on it because it is not always available. Instead, you can get the tugging going by dragging the toy and having her chase a long exciting toy. Note how at 1:30ish you dragged the toy and she was really engaged! Yay!– to get the toy back, you can relax your hands and keep them low, then trade for a cookie. The order of festivities is tug tug tug, relax your hands for 2 seconds, then take a cookie out and put it on her nose 🙂 This will help develop the out. When you get it out of her mouth then lift it, she jumps up for it at 1:06 (which could result in accidental blood-letting :)) so the cookie trade will help her relax and give the toy back.
Great job on these!! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood job on the plank game here! She definitely has strong value for interacting with it!!! Yay! And you were being super good with quick rewards and not using too much body language to help her.
>> She doesn’t seem deterred to me if her hind end slips off.>>
I think that the low food delivery for the turns was causing the hind end to slip off a bit, so you can try a higher delivery: for the turns, it is 100% fine to lure her 🙂 so you can show her the cookie at nose-height (neutral head position with her chin parallel to the floor: neither lifted up or pointed down). The slowly lead her nose through the turn. That might help he rkeep all 4 feet on – but reward her anyway if a foot slips off, because our teenage pups are still learning how to use all 4 of those feets 🙂
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
Only 5 hands required? That is great LOL!!! I love working mechanics on these types of games!
One suggestion is to get rid of the clicker – now that we have reward markers, we simply don’t need it nd that will open up more hands to use.
Before she enters the training session, have the cookies ready in your hand – even if it is only 2 or 3 cookies, you want them to be ready for delivery so that you can reinforce the targeting immediately (and if you don’t use the clicker, you will have hand space available).
You might notice in this session that she was looking at your hand/pocket a lot, even pacing a big near your cookie hand/pocket – that is because of the reward timing. Everything that happens between the marker (or click) and the reward delivery gets built into the behavior (I have learned this one the hard way LOL!) So after the click, you had to reach into the pocket to get the cookie, which drew her over to the cookie and pocket… which is a couple of seconds of delay and builds in looking at the cookie and pocket 🙂 an not as much looking at the target.
So if the cookie is already in your hand, you can be super quick: she touches the target, you say ‘get it’ and toss the cookie away. She will then look more at the target and less at the cookie hand.
Nice work! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi again!
He definitely did well with the wobble board! Super confident little dude 🙂 Look at that weight shift while tugging!!As he grows, two suggestions for the wobble board stuff:
– get a bigger one 🙂 He will need one that is probably 36 inches on each side big enough that he can stand fully on it without scrunching up. It doesn’t have to be fancy, just big LOL!
– add a yoga mat or carpet or something to the surface of the wobble board so he can really grip it and not slip at all.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>WE live isolated, if we would not get out – he would see no one!
I can totally relate! You are doing a great job of finding ways for him to get out and about. This flea market was an amazing place for a resilience walk: SO MUCH TO SEE AND SMELL AND HEAR!!!! WOW!!
You did an excellent job of keeping the leash loose, letting him set the pace – stoppng when he needed to stop, moving when he wanted to move. Perfect, a big click/treat for you because we humans like to help too much sometimes LOL!!
It was really interesting to see his body language tell us where he was very confiden and where he had to explore more! He was definitely a little more into the need to explore indoors (note the lower tail that got higher as he walked through the indoor section).
Also a great moment was when he saw people – they greeted them, he greeted them… then he walked away and that was GREAT! It happened twice. He prefers that strangers do NOT bend down or lean over him (makes sense, I don’t like it either haha) so you were great about letting him step away as needed. This is perfect for emotional regulation!
And taking him on a hike is great for clearing his brain – perfect 🙂
Monday morning puppy play videos? YES PLEASE! So cute!!!
Play has SO MANY benefits!!!!
With puppies, we look for well-matched play meaning that they reverse positions a lot (sometimes one puppy is on the ground with the other on top, then the switch!). We also look to see if one puppy is overwhelmed and trying to get away, or if a puppy gets over-stimulated.
I saw only good things here, and Charlie was showing different play styles of match the different puppies:
With the Corgi, he was a little more laid back and beginning to do some of the reversal – and we saw more of that with the cattle dog pup! And with the BC in the 3rd video, there was more side-by-side play. So fun to see and also SO CUTE!!
And this type of play has a lot of benefits in terms of resilience. These seemed to be great play partners for him! How old were the other pups?
Very fun to play tug at the flea market! Because it is a really challenging environment, you can bring a MUCH bigger crazier toy. And if he disengages for a moment to look at something? That is perfectly fine and actually a very good thing in terms of processing the big world around him – so let him do it, wait til he re-engages, then offer the toy again.
The treats were very high value so he was nicely focused on them!!! I think if you are going to ask for tricks or behaviors, just ask for the same one a couple of times then be finished, rather than ask for a variety because it is hard for him to distinguish them all. The paw tricks are perfect here because there are easy and the cue is clear. The backing up is harder, because he was just following the cookie so wasn’t really sure what to do. His engagement was fabulous and it is so fun to see!
Great job 🙂
TracyGood morning, hope you had a good weekend 🙂
>>I think you mean Prop Game 1: Building Sends… in week 1? I haven’t gotten that far yet but will add it in.>
Yes – the Prop Game 1 from week 1. She is ready for it 🙂
>>I think this is the session where Mai said she was done. It went like this: after a stare-single bark-stare, she went around one more time and we ended the session.>>
I rewatched that video and can see the ‘clack’ (beginnings of the bark?” at the very end 🙂 I think you might have reached the limit of the distance she could do at that moment. When building up distance, we can take a pinp-pong approach to variably reinforcing short distances then longer distances then back to short then longer and so on, with the goal of eventually getting the bigger distances over the course of multiple sessions.
>> When she barks at me, I ignore it though I noted she was ready for a change. Happy to show something similar if/when it happens again.>>
I like that approach: note the feedback from the dog, help the dog if needed, end the session. That allows you to figure out if the session was to long, or the challenge to difficult, so you can come to the next session with tat in mind.
Very nice job on the decel and turn foundation! PERFECT low hand set up a solid neutral head position for her – that is the head position that will work well for her agility turns. You were also really good about benig solidly decelerated well in advance, so she had plenty of time to make the transition into collection. Super!! You can see it most notably on the last rep starting at 1:03, and you can also hear it in the footfalls on the mat! Very cool!
You can bring this game to different surfaces, such as grass or dirt, so she can practice this on different substrates.
I know you mentioned that you might not ever do agility in terms of competing, but you sure do have the great mechanics and training skills needed for it if you ever decide you want to!
>>I also did a quick blind cross session this morning. I will send a link later.>>
Yay! Looking forward to the link! And if you have more thank one session ready to post, you can totally post them together.
Great job!
Tracy
