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Good morning!
The threadles looked great! He totally has the in-then-out idea – so smart!! Just be sure to keep your shoulders open til he gets to the reward, so you don’t rehearse closing your shoulders too early. You can start adding different start angles for him, and also move to the advanced level where he sees the serp and threadle cues in the same session 🙂
He is also doing a super job of finding the backside! You were really good with letting him see the whole barrel and rewarding him nice and fast 🙂
Since that went so well, now you can add more motion. Instead of being at the barrel, you can be moving up the line on a parallel path to his path. So start further from the barrel, about 10 feet away. Toss the treat about 5 feet behind you or put him in a stay about 5 feet behind. Start to move up the line to where the barrel and bump meet, then you can start saying your backside verbal – keep moving forward til he passes you to the backside, then reward like you did here. If that goes well for a few reps, you can move over a little bit so he sees a little more of the bump but still goes to the backside 🙂
Nice work here!!
TracyGood morning!
>>This sequence also had a double lead change. They exit the tunnel on a left lead, have to switch to a right lead to get to the jump and then back to a left lead to turn left and present jump 6. That’s a lot of fast footwork.>>
Truth! That is a lot of processing for young dogs! It gets easier as they mature but the latency is a little higher and responses take a little longer at this age.
>>I’ll dig out the zigzag exercises. That’s a hard task for Sprite to keep changing leads. Is there another exercise to help with that? She is organizing herself better overall. Yay!>>
The zig zags eventually build up to a jump grid, like this, then eventually more jumps get added:
>>It’s doubtful I’ll get back to the park before Friday. So, I’ll see what the lives bring Thursday or try the agility pop outs at the park.
The lives might be perfect for the park – you can do a bunch of work on just 4 jumps! Stay tuned!
Tracy
Good morning!
>>it was one of those Tom can’t run because everything hurts nights.>>
Sorry to hear that, and also totally relatable. Placed rewards and thrown rewards will help expand his skill set without making you run faster.
>>My Go go and his Go Go can both use a bit of work – need to trust him more, he’s getting better with the distractions>>
I had already put that on the list for the next set of sequences and courses!! Stay tuned for more go go go next week 🙂
On all of the tunnel exits, you can place a reward (or ask your instructor to throw it early) so when you accelerate, he exits straighter.
His stay looks AWESOME at the beginning!!
The serpy stuff out by the other ring is hard in terms of distractions on the first run, but he is definitely getting better and better. It is a hard environment! He got a little distracted but came back to focus very quickly.
The serp line the 2nd time looked great – you did a great job sending to the first jump then leaving to get the blind. Super nice!
There was a big go go go on the exit of the tunnel at :47 – great line of motion and acceleration (you can push into his line even more there). You can add the verbal before he enters the tunnel but also it was hard for him to find the correct jump through the box with the jump on either side – he thought it was the white lattice jump closer to you. That is where a placed reward or an early throw can help him understand to drive through the box even if you are behind and there are other jumps nearby.
You did a great job of staying in motion and the switch went well! One more step to the red & blue wing would have gotten him out to it. We have been talking about looking for timing windows and the dogs giving us “cues” to go to the next line. The spot at :50 is a good opportunity for that – to get the correct jump, you need to keep moving to it until he looks at it, then you can move to the next line. At :50, he never quite looked at it, which is why he went past it when you moved away. So his cue to you there would be when he looks at it 🙂
When you went back up the line to the tunnel at 1:30ish, to get the RC on the jump after it, you can use a ‘right’ verbal to get him turned towards it – he keeps getting faster so there is no way to consistently be ahead of him when he exits the tunnel. The verbals will help, and you can start using “right – jump” and then ask your instructor or a classmate to throw the toy. That will also be a great distraction to have other people out there and his reward out there 🙂
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning! Welcome back!
I think she really really really liked this! Yay!
>>I guess I should have been tossing a toy instead of food, but she was high as a kite, and I was hesitant to add the toy. I may do it again with the toy, perhaps that would have been fine.>>
I think using the food was fine! Since it went well, you can try it with a food & toy combo: food for line ups, do a toy for the sequence, then trade for food, etc. the toy can be in a pocket so it is not visually stimulating or a distraction (for you both 🙂 ) as you run the sequence.
Thank you for posting that spin/bark on the first jump (and also at :24) especially since you mentioned it is something that happens sometimes.
Because she is so explosive AND she is inexperienced, she wants the info VERY FAST but also needs to see it very clearly or she gets BIG MADS if she doesn’t know what to do LOL!!!!
So you can help her out by setting her a little further back from the jump in her stay, giving yourself at least one step of a lead out, or 2 steps. Then when you release her to the jump, step forward with your arm and leg and make a MASSIVE eye contact (don’t look at the jump, look at her) – and hold that send until you see her lift her feet up to jump, then you can get outta there 🙂 You will be slow and precise and connected, so she can be fast and accurate.
When you reset her with the treat (which was a GREAT decision to help get rid of THE BIG MAD lol!!!) – note how being ahead to show the send and the added connection helped her get the jump perfectly at :11. Yay! At :27, she also found the jump really well when you were a little ahead and connected. At :38 you were maybe a half step ahead and connected, and she found the first jump perfectly!!
Looking at the sequences: SO MUCH GREAT STUFF HERE!!
Gorgeous connection :11 – :17!! She read the line really well.
Also gorgeous connection :28 – :34! The FC at :31 was a little late mainly because she is super fast and there was not a lot of space between the jumps, but your connection got it done and she was happy to read the line !
Wow, I really liked your blind at :42!!! That blind is hard to get even on a full sized sequence where you can send more – and you got it done here really nicely! You started it basically as soon as she landed from the middle jump. Because of the smaller distance, you were the tiniest bit late but you nailed the connection and line of motion, so she happily found the new line. YAY!!! It will be so much easier on a full sized sequence – well done getting it in the smaller space!!
Good morning!
Holy wow he found a new gear of SPEEEED!!!! Love it! You didn’t need to do more than what you did here – he was great and you don’t want to push it when things are going so well 🙂He had some good stays happening but you can also start without a stay by wrapping him around the other side of jump 1.
I think you need to spread the pinwheel out a bit so he can run with a bigger stride as he navigates these (more below)
1st rep – nice jump supporting him to the 3 jump after the tunnel. A stronger eye contact and less arm will help too.
The wrap looked great there! He went past the 7 jump there because he just couldn’t fit himself into the smaller space. No worries!
2nd rep – loved the connection to support the #3 jump after the tunnel!
The wrap cus at :57 were a little late, you started them as he was almost at the 5 jump preparing to take off so he ticked the bar.On the fluffy blind reps – it was harder to find the balance of the sending and motion to get you to the blind. You can go in deeper to the tunnel so he drives ahead of you then you can go directly to the blind – this is more like what you did at 1:27-1:28 and he read the line really well!
When you do the fluffy blind, bring your arms in tight to your ribs so he can see your eyes (Wings in!). At 1:29 your arms were very obvious but your connection was not so he was trying to read motion – and came off the jump when you stepped sideways (he was not chasing the toy, he was correctly following motion)
Look at his distance to the jump at 1:37! Wow! That made for a great blind – note how he came to the jump immediately when you showed your connection. He got lost in a distraction after that (maybe he needed to clear his head for a moment?) but he really did a great job on these sequences!
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
This session was really cool to see and helps us understand how Synnie reads cues. Most dogs have a hierarchy of cues, in terms of how powerful a cue is. Usually motion is the most powerful, then connection, then verbals, then timing (funny how timing is low on the hierarchy LOL!) She totally falls into that hierarchy 🙂 Here is what I see on the video:The first 2 reps (:07 and :37) were really good – your timing and connection at :37 in particular were GREAT but also looking at these first 2 reps: note your line of motion. As you were doing the blind, your motion was heading towards the tunnel entry you wanted (your feet were pointing at it while you were doing the blind, and you were moving forward towards it).
Now compare to :59 where she ended up in the other side of the tunnel:
I liked your connection and I liked your timing! So why was she so confident about driving into the tunnel entry behind you?
Your motion was heading directly to it from when she landed from the middle jump and through the blind (your feet were pointing at it even after the blind and after finishing the blind, your motion was still moving towards it. If you watch her there in slow motion, you can see her look at you for more info, even do a quick lead change towards you – then see the info and decide that the tunnel entry behind you was correct. Good girl!
The same thing happened at 1:45 – nice connection and timing, but backwards motion towards the tunnel entry behind you. The backwards motion happened when you opened up more to get connection and ended up taking a step or two backwards. Plus you were right near the tunnel entry, so motion plus location sealed the deal for her LOL!
At 1:59 and 2:16 you did the blind even sooner (yay!) so you had more time to stop your motion and make a huge connection, so she didn’t go off course but you can see she was still reading the motion line to the tunnel entry behind you.
Now scroll back and compare to :37, where your motion was all forward to the correct end of the tunnel and you were not anywhere near the tunnel entry you didn’t want. That is what makes the difference for her: motion and position on the line. So try to get all your blinds on the line heading directly to the next obstacle, with the same timing and connection you had here (which were great!!)
And when she goes off course, you can totally reward anyway even if you are not sure why it happened. 99.9% of the time it is handler error, so when running my dogs, I just assume they are all handler errors and reward. That keeps the dogs in the game and reading me correctly with no questions. Usually in the moment I can figure out what I did wrong. But sometimes I am not sure, so I reward the dog and then watch the video before the next rep, that usually clears it up 🙂
And if it is the .1% of the time when perhaps the dog actually had an error? No big deal, one reward won’t build a behavior 🙂 But withholding reward when they are reading me correctly can build frustration, which I don’t want (because I screw up FAR more often then they screw up LOL!!!!!)
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyYay! She is a good age for all of it and I don’t have plans to run the weaves or teeter class soon – and since I believe you already have both of them, feel free to slide in some videos 🙂
T
Roast beef is good stuff! If that was not a powerful motivator, then definitely yes – lower the teeter all the way down and start there 🙂 We have new teeter games coming today that can help too!
Tracy
Hi!
This went really well!
This was much easier when she ate the cookie fast LOL!! It was harder on the reps where she took longer to find the cookie, so you can start from a stay instead of a cookie toss, or you can have the MM out there to send her too, instead of a cookie toss.
Overall, though, she read the line really well and stayed on her parallel path to get the backside wing – very nice! You were able to get further away from then entry wing pretty easily – you will need a longer bump 🙂 or maybe put two bumps together to create more length so you can be further away.There was only one blooper, where you were moving diagonally towards the center of the bump (perhaps trying to get to a better position) so she came to the front side.
So keep adding motion and being further away on the parallel path, to keep building up the independence. Great job!!
TracyHi Team Prytania!!! Great sessions here!
>>On the sends, susan and I wanted to toss the reward to encourage timeliness of the reward. When doing something new for Annalise, I think it helps her focus better on her handling task when I/we remove the element of tossing the reward too. I know I am always happy at a seminar for the instructor to take my toy away and toss it for me lol!!! I have enough circulating in my brain usuall>>
Oh yes, that was great! It is hard enough to handle a baby dog and then add in throwing the reward? It is enough for brains to explode LOL!! So having a whole team help train is really great.
And yes, I agree that Prytania is definitely starting to get this agility game sorted out: she was fast and focused and her commitment is looking great!!
Annalise, you were terrific with your connection and you made excellent adjustments to your timing! Here are some details:
Looking at the wraps video:
Great job Annalise! Your connection looked great and that is the most important part! Tmin gis tricky when running a young dog, so you can pretend she is experienced and run harder 🙂 You can keep driving around the line with more acceleration (especially since you don’t have to worry about the reward throws :)) and that way the sending will be easier (because she will be moing faster too) and when you decelerate to start the wrap cues, it will be really obvious to her. No need to be careful and help her with all the jumps – it is totally fine to challenge her more with more speed from you 🙂On the wraps: yes – a little too much connection which made you too early at :42. Very nice job at 1:01!!! Prytania’s commitment is looking really strong, so you can totally push her harder by running faster 🙂
The big blinds are going really well! On the first two reps, you were figuring out where to be and what timing you needed then BOOM! Nailed it on rep 3. SUPER! You don’t need to send to jump 4 on the blinds (the pinwheel jump), you can just keep moving and tell her to jump, so you can get to the blind nice and early.
You didn’t send to 4 on the 4th rep – she found it beautifully thanks to your motion and connection – and that made the blind REALLY strong there!
At :48, she didn’t take 5 – that was a baby dog moment because you were stepping out of it before she was totally sure about taking it. Since she is so young, you can stay at the jump til you see her lift her front feet to jump – then you can move to the next line.
That is what you did at 1:01 and especially at 1:10 and it looked great!When you started the FCs reps – Prytania had rocket fuel in her belly there and was going a lot faster, so you had to hustle – that was great because both of you were flying! You can definitely add more that hustle because it great to have her go that fast. The FCs looked really good but I think the blinds are MUCH easier here when she is moving fast like that!
As with the blind cross reps on jump 5: be stationary there til you see her lift her feet to takeoff. You moved away just before that at 1:37 and 1:50, so she didn’t take the jump. So hold your position til you see takeoff there, then you can run to the next spot. It will get easier to time these when Prytania is more experienced.
Great job here – and watch your mailbox on Thursday, something should be arriving for you!
Tracy
Hi!
He is doing great with the teeter game!!! Very nice! And yes, he does like the squeeze cheese 🙂Two suggestions:
When he arrives at the top, stay with him at the top longer so he doesn’t rush to turn around to get back down (I don’t want him to slip or scramble).When adding speed like the wing before it, stay which him or be alongside him til he is very very comfortable. He slowed down when you were staying back, so for now we want to maintain the speed and have you alongside or a little ahead.
>>sing this, is there a piece or game you use to help them manage a weight shift back so they don’t fly off due to momentum with running straigh up?
The teeter eventually gets more and more tip, and the reward is always always always always on the target plate using this teeter helper device. So between the very gradual adding of tip and the placement of reward, I have never had a dog want to fly off the teeter with this game. The weight shift gets built in very easily. And the other games like the bang game help develop the end position, which also reduces flyoffs 🙂
Great job here!
TracyHi!
I think there were 2 questions from him on these one: the send to the pinwheel jump, and the BC to the tunnel. We can totally smooth those out!!First up, pinwheel jump, he had some questions and bars.
I think part of his question about the bar on the pinwheel jump was that you were cuing a left/right collection but your motion/position cued extension. Yes, was turning to his left or right but it is not the 90 degree collection associated with the left/right turn, so he was trying to work out what it was. You probably don’t need the left/right verbal, I think a jump verbal will work perfectly as you send and leave for the BC.So about the BC – this is a good spot to suggest that if something goes wrong, you look at the video before the next rep. That will tell you what happened and what to adjust. We agility people are so bad at that LOL!!!! We look at the video later on, but looking at it before the next rep will make a huge difference.
The reason I suggest it is that on the BC at :31, you sent beautifully to the pinwheel jump, and started the blind when he lifted his feet for the pinwheel jump. So it was really early, and he was correct to not take the jump and drive directly to you. Good boy! And your position was really good – you were just early and he never committed to jump 5.
But rather than change the timing and keep the good position, you changed the position and that is when things went a bit sideways:
Better timing on the BC at :44 but you were now on the line to the wrong side of he tunnel so he ticked the bar because you were on his line after the BC. At :54, you were even more on his line so he almost ran you down. On the other side, you got further away from the line so he found the other side of the tunnel (1:04) or took the bar (1:13).
So definitely keep the good position of heading towards the correct tunnel entry, and don’t start the blind til you see him land from 4 and look at 5. That should make it smooth!
Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
On these, we can really get into the details of timing the cues. He was a bit wide and having some questions because the blinds were late (:19, :31, :44) – you were starting them as he was lifting off for the pinwheel jump and ideally the blind would be finished by then.
So a couple of ideas to move up the timing:
definitely use more lateral distance away from jump 3, so you can get into the gap between 4 and 5 sooner. And watch himas he lands from 3 and as you are giving the verbal for 4. If he lands and looks at 4? That is your cue to start the blind 🙂 It doesn’t even fully matter where you are when you start the blind, as lng as you are hustling to the 4-5 gap, but the timing if being that early is really key.He is showing great commitment so I figure this will be super easy to do with the earlier timing! He will cue you to start the blind by looking at the pinwheel jump – and you will be in great position because you will be using a lot more lateral distance (closer to 5) to support 3 and 4 🙂
The ending line (5-6-7-8) looked fabulous!
Let me know how it goes!
TracyHi!
>.When I watch it I feel like I’m not showing him enough fast-forward, slow-forward, rotate. Should I run in deeper so I have more room to show him a bigger difference in the smaller space?>>
You can definitely move in closer to the tunnel and to the pinwheel so you can be more accelerated on the speed circle lines, and that way you can make the decel more obvious when you need it. I thought your transition and wrap at :11 was really good. You can start it sooner (feet up over the pinwheel jump) to practice for what the timing will be when the bars start to come up)
And be sure to stay accelerated when you don’t need a turn 🙂 The line at :23 – :26 was a ‘handler who cried wolf’ moment of decel without a real turn on the pimwheel. He collected then looked at you, and we don’t want him ignoring collection, so stay accelerated there.
The wrapat :30 was good too, but you were were running sideways a bit there – you can be more forward facing and decel as he is taking off for the pinwheel jump to make it super clean and smooth.
Nice work! Let me know how he does when you go in closer to the lines to show more acceleration!!
Tracy
