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Who can relate? Travel to family for the holiday then a VERY busy work weekend… so I did very little puppy training and no videos.
No worries! This is pretty normal – no need to feel behind. The puppy had plenty of play time, a little moment of training here and there, lots of activity. I will carve out some video time later. This is all part of the normal joys of puppy raising: sometimes you can stuff done in terms of formal training, sometimes you get zero formal training done LOL!!!
It is actually fine as it builds in some breaks for the puppy. We don’t want to do formal training sessions multiple times every day, or even every day. It is fine to have days where it is just about play and enjoyment with no training goals. So far today, puppy Ramen has gotten a big run in the field with “sister” and BFF Hot Sauce, while I took photos of the ultra cuteness 🙂
Just figured I would post this because it is a normal part of the training adventures with baby dogs. I don’t want anyone to feel time-pressured, or like they are ‘behind’ in the training (because you are not behind at all!).
Enjoy!!
TracyGood morning! This went well – he is really wanting to extend and power through his jumping – yay!!!!
I agree, I think his setup position on the 2nd rep was a little awkward so the bar dropped. He almost never drops a bar, so I am not worried if he does.
At :51 he added a stride, not sure why but maybe it was the added motion? He didn’t add it again so it is interesting to note in the ‘he will sort it out’ category 🙂
My only other thought on this session is to do the 8 inch height earlier in the session, so there is no possible fatigue factor. When you went to 8 on the 2nd to last rep, he was definitely “heavier” in his jumping which means he did it but it was harder (harder height and possibly fatigued). Save the easier heights for the end of the session 🙂
But overall, because he did so well with the front sides and backsides, I want to see if you can extend the distance between the 2 jumps: the wings were overlapped here so you can move them maybe 3 or 4 inches so they overlap a little less and see how he does 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
He did well moving through the plank to the wrap! That looked really good.
On the first wrap without the plank, two things happened: the plank was still clearly visible, plus you pushed him off the line too fast so he never had a moment to find the wing to wrap. He was fine after that!In these fading sessions, you can work both sides at this point, and also minimize reps – this circle wrap is the hardest jumping effort when a full height bar is involved, so I would limit to 5 reps on each side. That can make for a 10 total rep session with good balance (this was something like 13 reps to the left). This is especially good to limit if he had already done for or 5 reps of the zig zags, which is 12-15 jumps too. The physical therapy people have taught me to obsessively count jumping efforts during training LOL!
>> usually what would be the top jump of a spread out pinwheel where I’m running like hell for a cross and almost always I don’t see them fall, only hear them>>
Ah yes, hearing them fall and not seeing them could be contributing to the processing question he is asking – the withdrawal of connection changes what gets prioritized in processing so the jumping form takes a back seats as he tries to process your motion and handling info.
The zig zags are going well! At this height, the distance is actually a tiny bit too short so he is jumping in collection. It looks like you can replace the wingless in between each jump with a wing, maybe hooking the bar on the lattice to ad another 6 inches or so?
At this stage, jump height and motion are going well so we can focus on flattening the angles more to get more side-to-side jumping. Reduce the height challenge by going back to 4 inches and angles the jumps flatter by about 2 or 3 inches, and see how he does! You can keep your motion in there, I think that will help him.
Great job! Have fun!
TracyGood session here! I see a good improvement already!
Yes, the motion did make it harder so you can dial back the motion like you did for another session or two, or also change sides – maybe she is a righty not a lefty? These were left turns so on the next session try it as right turns on the other wing and see if that helps her. Otherwise, it is just something that will cement through practice (and sleep because she will consolidate her learning through sleep!). So you might not see things improve immediately in the session, but you will see the improvements in the next session.Great job :) Tracy
Good morning!
Yes, mechanics are a big focus of mine, I love to obsess on good mechanics LOL!! Good mechanics really help the pups and allow us to problem solve better, if that is needed 🙂
>> It’s a mystery how I’ve survived to an advanced age while being so uncoordinated.>>
Just the opposite! You are NOT uncoordinated 🙂 Dog training mechanics are really all about having everything planned and then being almost motionless while the dog is offering… and that is really freaking hard 🙂 We all like to move or help, whether we realize it or not 🙂
Keep up the great work!
TracyHi again! Really terrific sessions here too.
I love his bridge of various objects here, superstar! There was a lot of different texture and movement, but not too much difference. You were a patient momma and let him sort it out: perfect! I would revisit this setup, exactly as you had it here, at least once a week so he can practice this skill as his body continues to grow.
Feet-in-a-bowl looked good too – it is a very thoughtful exercise for a pup and the game changes every time he grows LOL! When you sat a little taller and lifted the treats, he was able to figure out to put all 4 feet in – so keep going with that little bit of help. And after that, he was greatly about getting all four feet in.
As with the other game, you can play this once a week or so because it will be different every time he gets bigger 🙂 It will get harder to fit in the bowl, but that is great because he will think about his hind end 🙂
You can also add a little discrimination game: when the bowl is placed as you had it here, he should put all 4 feet in. When you turn it upside down, you can shape him to put all four feet ON it! That is a great puppy visual discrimination game 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
The plank intro looks great! He was every happy to get on and off it, good boy! I love his confidence. He was turning around really well too – you might have to slow down the cookie hand that is helping him turn because he needs a moment to remember all his feet LOL!
So you can stop him in the middle of the board, give a cookie, then slowly lead his nose around. You can also practice these slow turns on the flat too! At 1:30, you used a very slow hand and he was perfect 🙂
Great job!!!
TracyGood morning!
I saw your note about the video marked private – darned YouTube! I will go check it and fix it.
The wing wrapping looked great! No problem with a little more distance and you sitting. Nice tug breaks! The tugging wears very stimulating so you can ace the transition back to wrapping easier by lining him up at your side with a cookie so he switches back to offering mode 🙂 You were doing some of this later in the video and it helped him a lot!
He had a little trouble with the left turns on the offering when the wing was further away. Since the little guy says he is a righty, the right turns (when he starts on your left) can have the wing further..,. But for the left turns, pull the wing in closer. One way to do this is to do a right turn, tug, set him up on you left side, do a right turn, tug, etc. Then you an pull the wing in closer and work on left turns only: do a left turn starting him on your right, tug, set him up on your right, etc.
It takes out the back-and-forth offering but that is fine because he is past that and we are going to be getting into sending soon.
And also, with the wing in closer on both sides so it is easy… try this with you standing!
Nice job with the decels – he is bending nicely and driving into your low hand and his butt is no longer swinging out. Hooray! You no longer need to deliver the treat when he arrives at your hand – you can pivot as he is arriving at your hand and then feed the treat (you can also try this with an empty cookie hand and then grab a cookie from the other hand after the pivot, as long as he doesn’t lose the precise form he has when the cookie is present.
This game is really easy, so it is perfect for getting him happier with the left turns that are hard in. the other games. You can do a few extra reps with him on your right so he practices turning left in a really easy successful way.
The position changes are definitely challenging for him! He did better when you moved your cue hand slowly with the downs – a fast moving hand caused him to want to move too fast which is very hard on a narrow space 🙂 On the stand to sit, try to take one step back – you were very close and leaning in so there was a lot of pressure which was pushing him off the board. A slow cue hand will help here too.
Having your hand on his side helped him differentiate the bow from the down, which is helpful because the verbals are similar and the hand cues are basically the same too.
Do one more session of this with super slow transitions (which is actually better for conditioning because he can’t use momentum to do it :)) And then we can add on it 🙂
Looking at the resilience walk: perfect! I don’t think he was lacking confidence in either environment, I think he was processing different things and that produced slightly different behavior.
The use a harness was great (tracking harness?) and you did a great job of letting him lead the way.
At the park he showed a great balance of exploration and ‘world watching’ . So you saw more standing upright and looking around, more sniffing, etc. At the store, he was interested in the people so was definitely very waggy for the most part. What happened just before the whoa Nellie/hug moment? He might have noticed something and come to you for some social support. Then he bounced back (which is why we play these resilience games :)) and carried on – having the opportunity to meet people (something he seems to really enjoy) produced a different body language in the store, but I think he was great for both!Nice work! Let me know what you think!
TracyYour resilience walk was GREAT. I think Bazinga was perfect (and I totally relate to how hard it is to be quiet). She had appropriate responses to everything: interest in the other dogs and person without losing her mind in excitement, confident leading the way on the walk, sniffing some interesting spots, transitioning to different parts of the facility, processing them moving on to the next part of the walk – it was really cool to see her visually process something (or give something a good sniff to sort it out), then be fine with it and move on.
You did a great job of giving her the agency to do that (and videoing too, that was impressive LOL!). If you can do this once a day at a trial, I think it will be perfect for future training and trialing! She looked pretty relaxed!The Any toy game is perfect for trials! It was interesting to see the videos after reading the description. She started off great with the toys, tugging hard on the pink toy at first then eventually switching to the blue toy. Then *something* happened in the environment and she couldn’t tug… if you listen to the video, there was a change in intensity of the barking in the background: first a high pitched bark then a burst of deep barks that were reactive to something. That was indeed distracting to her and she needed a moment to process it. Tugging is hard when the dogs are feeling concerned about something (and deep reactive barking can be concerning, especially for adolescent dogs who are more likely to notice those things). It looks like you just stayed calm and let her look around. If you have a handful of treats, you can scatter some on the ground for her to sniff/eat. And if she still seems concerned about something, you can move her away from the distractions.
>> I think I needed to let her acclimate to the spot we chose to play before trying the game. >>
I don’t think it was an acclimation issued, she started off feeling just fine – I think it was something weird/hard in the environment halfway through. You can do more resilience walks in that section of the trial to help her sort it out, bout you also don’t need to try to help her acclimate to anything that might be worrisome because her teenage brain might not be able to yet (the neuroscience behind this is fascinating and explains a LOT)
She is just about 8 months old, so she is full on adolescent – and we know that from their brain development they can be a bit more susceptible to noticing scary things like reactive barking. So at trials, you can protect her adolescent brain by keeping her a bit further from the distractions than you needed to as a puppy (puppy brains are not as susceptible to the things that adolescent brains are :)) And then when she is post-adolescent? She will have no trouble in that environment 🙂
Great job here! Have fun today!
TracyGood morning! Hope you are having a great weekend!
She was great here! That is a LOT of distance for an offered behavior and she nailed it. SUPER!! I love the excitement in your “yes” when she was able to do it even as you got further away. So fun! It looks like on the very last rep she stopped – do you recall if she offered on that last rep, or if you had reached the limit of the current commitment?
Either way – the distance from the wing here was perfect for our needs. And she looked balanced in both directions (hooray for your work in teaching her that!).
Since this is going well, you don’t need to add any more distance. You can shift focus to the prop send game, adding more distance there. Pretty soon these 2 games merge together to get into some fancy sends 🙂
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>> The tug breaks that I did do are mostly edited out of my videos but I definitely should do more often tug breaks.
You can totally leave the tug breaks in because at this stage, the mechanics of the transitions are probably more important than the actual skill. Plus, it helps us track the length of session. For example, a good session length for my 16 week old puppy is 3 minutes total… which includes the tugging.
>>The outdoor videos were long– but I did rotate working Tchoup and Roulez after Audubon,as well as incorporating several recesses where they all had free time to sniff and play.>>
Rotating is good! I have found the puppies do best when they can rest between their sessions, so they are crated away from the other working dogs. I will put Ramen back in the house, or in the car in a crate, so he can rest during his sessions and maybe even catch a little snooze 😴 If the pups don’t rest, the fatigue will catch up and the session quality will deteriorate.
>>“probably needs a longer, flyball style tug for now rather than a shorter calmer agility-style tug”.- I have just the toy, actually several, that should work. Kibble is the lowest value and I can stick with it as we build his tug drive.
Perfect! He has plenty of tug drive… the question is can he tug in the face of delicious cheese, and also teething will start soon, plus there are outdoor distractions, etc. So the higher value toy will really help 🙂
>>Ooh, didn’t think about me fussing at Roulez confusing Audie. Do you think when we are outdoors that I should leave Roulez indoors or that crating her further away would be ok?>>
It depends on what she will do in the crate outdoors – will she bark? If so…. indoors is the best option. That gives him a nice quiet playing field to focus on the task 🙂 if she is quiet and can chill? Then she can be in her crate. Also, be sure to do lots of outdoors sessions with Audie without the other dogs, so he doesn’t come to rely on the social support of the others being around.
>>On another subject, I tried to sign up for several sessions of the seminar this weekend. I knew I couldn’t “audit” live but wanted to be able to access the recordings. Would it be possible to purchase them post seminar?>>
Yes! You can get the recordings from us in the next day or two, and then after they they will be available on Clean Run :) Have fun!
TracyGood morning! Really good session here!!
Hand targeting is going well! You can do a little tugging before and after it, to keep the game exciting (we don’t want her to think that the hand targets are dull haha)
The focus forward/driving ahead is going well too! My only suggestion there is that even when you are trying to win, you can release her sooner: as soon as the toy lands, the game can start. You were holding her for a bit longer and doing a lot of ready and pulling her back, which actually caused her to look around a bit and not explode to the toy as much. So with that in mind, the toy race can begin as soon as the toy lands, no need to add any “ready” to it yet.
>> Tarot’s retrieve and her toy release is not consistent yet so if you have any suggestions, I would love to hear them, as I don’t want to introduce conflict while playing these games.>>
I think she did pretty well here with the retrieve! She is a teenager so we do indeed sometimes see inconsistent retrieving, and that is fine 🙂 You made it EXTRA fun by sprinting away from her when she got to the toy! And on the rep where you raced her a bit and turned towards her when she got to the toy… that is when she moved away. So keep going with moving away from her. You don’t always have to sprint away, but you can back up and clap and encourage her to bring it towards you. It might take her a couple of seconds but I am confident she will 🙂
And then when she gets to you, you can take a couple more seconds before reaching for the toy: you can clap, cheer, encourage, but don’t reach for the toy right away because she was moving away on that moment too. After a few seconds, you can reach for it and tug tug tug, or you can offer a trade for a different toy 🙂
All of this should help build a strong and consistent retrieve – she is already on that road.
Great job!
TracyGood morning! I just love her!!!!
Great job with pre-game 1 with the prop – you set up the whole session really well! Good transition from the tugging to the shaping and back to tugging. Also, it was a great training environment for a baby pup: the other dogs were not around, the floor had good puppy rugs for grip, and you were nice and low to the ground. That allowed her to get lots of good touches to the oven mitt haha!! Perfect choice of prop.
So for the next session, do one more bit of value building and see if you can work your way up to standing up (the prop might have to be a little further away to do. that so you can see each other). That will lead us nicely into the next games. Also, you can use a ‘get it’ marker to toss the treats rather than ‘yes’ because ‘get it’ will her her learn to look for the treats and ‘yes’ causes her to look at you 🙂
OMG how clever are you to use a drink holder and cover your whole hand with it!! I love it!!!
She was a good girl about touching the target and it was interesting when she stopped and looked at it when it was in your right hand rather than continuing to touch it. She continued touching it when it was on your left hand… so maybe she lost her train of thought?
Also, it is possible that the response cost of moving away to the tossed treats was causing the touches to get softer. So try a session of rewarding directly on the target and see what happens. After she touches the target, you can tilt the target hand so your palm is pointing up to the ceiling, and plop the cookie right on it to build more value.
And adding more tugging in between every 2 or 3 cookies reps will strengthen the touches by adding more excitement.
Great job here! I am looking forward to seeing her play the games :) T
racy
