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Good morning!
>> think you have an amazing skill with finding good things to say!
That is because there is always something good to say. Sometimes the best thing is that we handlers posted the good/bad/ugly. And that is still great!
Casper is doing well here! Nothing bad or ugly at all, all good!!
One thing I notice is that the blinds (or FC on the first one) were in the middle of Enzo’s jump sequence… you might want to move the jumps because even though Casper doesn’t know them, we don’t want his first experience to be ignoring jumps in favor of chasing you.
He did really well with the blinds – I think you are not yet used to his speed LOL! He gets the cookie then he appears at your side already – SPEEDSTER! So… start the blind cross as soon as he takes the very first step towards you. He is reading them perfectly and your reward mechanics are great.
it makes sense that he would be the king of the goat games after the rehab and other classes! So we can get a little wilder with them:
On the item you were using here – have you done any cued position changes: Sit-down-stand? Cuing the position changes will help get more strength and coordination because the goat item gives him boundaries for the tight sit and tight down. If he can do the position changes without really moving his feet… then I have ideas to make it crazier 🙂Looking at the decel:
He does seem to understand that he should not blast past you, but he doesn’t quite know what to do with his hind end yet 🙂 For now, as he is coming to you, bend lower so your cookie hand is at or below your knee. This will keep his head lower which will help keep his butt from swinging out. He was pivoting nice and tight, so now you can move directly into the pivots: present the lower hand and just before he reaches you, start to pivot slowly. That can help him prepare to turn and keep his butt from swinging out.Nice work! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
Lucky pup, he got to go to all sorts of fun places!! What a fun adventure! And I hope he got some nice new toys 🙂He definitely liked the bones at the beginning LOL! He was super confident walking into the store 🙂
On the 2nd video, I think the children were a little overwhelming to him.
Part of resilience is noticing where he is comfortable and where he is not comfortable –
he was not as happy to have the children bending over him and squeaking to him – note his facial expression (big wide eyes, ears back, panting) and how he wanted to leave. If he wants to leave… let him leave and you go with him (that is the agency part of resilience conditioning and it actually builds a TON of confidence!) and don’t let the kids follow him 🙂 It was too much for now and he couldn’t really eat. He can be kid-neutral which is look at them from a distance without having them hover over him, that was a little overwhelming – note how he got more relaxed when they went away. he can meet and greet kids in a more comfortable environment and one at a time, that should be easier for him.I love how he was leading the way in the 3rd video! One thing to bear in mind is that the resilience walks are about world watching and not about engaging too – so let him lead you around the store, no need to tugging or tricks or anything 🙂 I like how he was leading the way on the first and 3rd videos, perfect! we don’t need to add tugging in because we don’t need him to get stimulated everywhere 🙂 Part of this resilience game is to let him self-regulate into a calmer state in different environments. The tugging conditions high arousal in, and we only need that in places where he has to work in sustained attention (like in agility :))
Great job!! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
Lots of great work in each session here!!Wing wrap foundations:
The tugging looked good to start! And he was wrapping really well!
I think at this point, drop the cookies rather than feed from hands because feeding from hands will be very hard when you stand up and we don’t want him looking at your hands – so either use the bowls or drop the treats next to you.Good job throwing the toy and moving away to get him engaged after all the cookies!!!!! That was a great dog training moment!
And yes, he figured out the wing wrap when you moved further away, but he still had some questions so on the next session, split the difference: have it maybe half the distance away from you than it was here.
Prop game: Super nice session here too! You might have to reward him for staying with you during the ready dance, he definitely loves his prop behavior LOL!
You can also get rid of the toy by sticking it under your shirt so you have both hands free.
Nice job warming up with the forward sends
He did well with the sideways sending and then you made a pretty seamless transition to the backwards sends! SUPER!! So on the next session, start as you did here (warming up with forward then sideways then backwards sending) and you can add a tiny it more distance away from the prop. Remember that he is VERY small LOL so one step of distance for you is multiple steps of distance for him 🙂Goat games: He is definitely a confident little goat 🙂 This looked good! You can reward by tossing the cookies back and forth rather than feeding on the object for now, so he practices his coordination and goat skills with more speed 🙂
Have you introduced anything that moves? He is probably ready for that, as long as it is a gradual introduction and not a big change or lots of movement added.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
It sounds like the resilience walks are going well! Bear in mind that they are more about world watching and not about interacting with people/dogs, or tugging or doing tricks. Just world watching 🙂 I don’t even bring a toy with me and I might have cookies (or not :))
>> As they hopped down and came running towards us Hola got really excited so I moved her farther away and gave these kids a hand signal to stop. They came closer slower, and I asked them to wait until Hola could calm down a bit and then I let her visit. She was good, no jumping or mauling and the tail was going a mile a minute.>>
The excitement response might be happy, or just stimulation. In the world watching category, you can just move her away and let her watch from a distance, no visiting, so she can self-regulate a bit.
>>On the way home we stopped at a busy WalMart and tugged in the parking lot where forklifts were zipping around with boxes they were removing from a truck. We went into the garden center to see the pointsettias and tugged there, then walked around to the other end where there were bicycles and other things lined up for sale. People walking by also pushing carts, she tugged with me everywhere.
I am glad she did well! But… you don’t have to tug everywhere. That can build in arousal/frustration/stimulation in situations where we want her to watch and self-regulate. She doesn’t have to focus on you or respond to cues, she can look at the world 🙂
>>I do try to hit the local agility trials and get her where she can see the dogs running and engage in tug with me but don’t get very close to other dogs/people or to the ring. Now that the weather is decent (not HOT) and trials have started up again we can get back to doing this. If you have additional advice for Hola visiting trials I’m all ears!>>
More chill, less tugging LOL!!! We don’t want to condition her to be stimulated everywhere she goes. We want her to be able to be near a person or store or agility ring and she can calmly watch – without tugging or tricks 🙂 If she struggles, just move further away rather than try to stimulate her or get her to tug.
Let me know if it makes sense why we don’t want to have conditioned arousal everywhere – the emotional self-regulation is an important piece of resilience because she can rely on herself and won’t rely on arousal or tugs or treats (or you :))Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning! He is looked really good on both of these videos!!
He was a very good boy getting on his plank! Turning around was harder (it is harder for all the pups) – you can keep helping him out with the slow lure your were doing, or you can find a second plank to put side-by-side with this one for a wider playing field. If you have access to a longer plank, you can try it too! And since he did so well, you can also raise this plank a little bit more 🙂
He is definitely getting a good understanding of the backing up! Try to separate it from the plank session – after the first backing up cue, he was confused as to which to offer: plank or backing up. So to cue the backing up, remove the plank and you can have him back up onto the Cato board – start nicer and close so he can use his feet independently – when yo were a little too far, he was not using his feet independently as much as he was tossing them back to find the board 🙂 So, starting one step away will help him lift each food independently, which is what he was able too do when you were closer.
On the 2nd plank video:
Super confident here too!
He was SO FUNNY when you asked for the sit: “wait, what? We sit on this thing?” LOL!!! But then he was perfect. Good boy!!You can add more tugging before the plank session, to challenge him to be coordinated while he is more stimulated 🙂 And I think since he is also doing well with the backing up, you can add more tugging to backing up too! The more we can teach him to maintain his coordination while he is excited, the easier agility will be for him 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
To help her bring the toy back, you can try shaping it: move away and encourage her, but don’t present that 2nd toy til she has carried the toy a step or two. Then you can gradually expand the # of steps she takes with the toy before you reward her.
If that doesn’t work, you can take a toy into a small, enclosed space, and just do some short tiny retrieves with you sitting on the floor and encouraging her 🙂Her decel game is looking good!
Try to bend over a bit to get your cookie hand at your knee or just below it, so she can come in with her head a little lower rather than looking up at you. That, plus standing still earlier, will help her stay balanced through the turn on the pivots – you can see she slipped on the first one because her head was up and she was surprised. She did well on the next couple! Yay!You can also add more distance – throw the cookie even further away so she has more distance between you and her. That will mean she is coming in with more speed, which means you will need to decelerate sooner (after she takes the first step towards you) to get her ready to turn.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning! Lots of good work here!
Blind crosses:
Good mechanics! Good connection!
Add more of your running now which also means he will be running, so start the blind as soon as he takes one step towards you 🙂Go wilder with the toy and use a crazier toy to get the toy and food balance – you can lower the food value so he can play tug. He probably needs a longer, flyball style tug for now rather than a shorter calmer agility-style tug 🙂
Upright wrapping
This one might be better for indoors, so he doesn’t want to lounge in the shade under the chair or root around. Plus, if this was after the blinds, he might have been tired. Higher value treats might help, but I think the environment was a little hard for him at first. Moving the bowls in closer helped – when you break it off to play tug, you can stand up and run around a bit – try tying that’s toy to another 2 or 3 toys so it is long and insane – we don’t want to offer a toy to him and then have him say no thanks, and get cookies instead. Ideally we can get him to play, so moving away from the cookie smells and using a crazy exciting toy will help.The other option for training outdoors is to reduce the grass distraction for now by getting a big outdoor mat (like the one RVers have) and do this training on the mat so it is easier for him to engage.
Also, if Roulez will be asked to lie down in the “momma really means it” voice, then don’t have her near the puppy’s training – the puppy hears the voice too and can be negatively impacted by it even though you are not talking to him (he doesn’t know that
Indoor wrapping session: there are fewer distractions here so he did much better! Try to have several treats already in your hands for quick treat drops – that way you won’t have to dig into the bag each time, which delays the drops a bit. As he gets to know this game better, you will need to be faster 🙂
Drive to handler is looking really good! You are bending over really well to keep his head down, and this Weill get much easier as he gets bigger 🙂 Try to have the cookie hand down low sooner so that his head is lower before he even arrives a at your leg.
Targeting: He was touching really nicely! This looks to be right after the wrapping, so be sure that you have had a big tug break and a long-posh mental break for him – he is too young to do one after the other or his brain will get tired out 🙂 Also, for this and for the prop game after it, be sure to clear the environment of anything else that might be a cue for a behavior, like the bowl on the ground and the upright 🙂 We don’t want him to ignore those, so move them out of the training area during the break between sessions. He did go over to the bowl during the prop shaping, didn’t get rewarded, then got a little confused for a moment.
Prop shaping is going well. You can use the ‘get it’ marker to replace the ‘yes’, as it means “yes, the cookie is over there”. The “yes” tends to get the pups looking up at us, and we want them to keep looking at the prop here, ideally 🙂
All of these are going well! Before the next steps… add in more tug breaks. For any cookie game, do 4 or 5 cookies then break it off to play tug. The toy might need to be crazy wild, and you might need to move away from the cookie spot – but now is a perfect age for him to really solidify that balance.
Great job!! Let me know what you think!
TracyYes, she was interested in the treats and the work at first, so you can go to a higher value toy to offset the very yummy treats 🙂
Looking at the prop game: She definitely has value for it! You can stay closer to to it for longer: she was going to it but she was going slowly to it, which is usually caused by adding distance too quickly. Also, be sure to engage her with that little ready dance moment before you send her each time: that is a bit of toy-free engagement training, helps teach her to go from handler focus to obstacle focus, and also gets a lot more speed 🙂 So when you reward her after the prop, reward her in front of you (rather than looping her around), do the ready dance, and then send her again 🙂
Also… after the send – stand still 🙂 til she hits the prop. I know, I know, I am a pain haha!! The cookies should be in the other hand already if that is what you are rewarding with, rather than reaching for them. Reaching for them brings too much focus on your hands and pockets. At :34, she was going but you reached for the cookies in your pocket so she came back and didn’t get rewarded (you can still reward the dog if mechanics are what messed her up – if you aren’t sure, reward her :)) Reaching for the cookies can quickly become a ‘click’ and get too much focus on your pocket from the pup, which causes what we perceive as errors but really are not errors.
After the no-reward, she offered other behaviors. You were good to get closer to help her out, but the clean mechanics will also help her out.
Wrap game:
She did well with the cone here!!
Note how your hands were pretty stationary for more of this and she was focusing on the wrapping. Yay! She can look at her work MUCH better when your hands are not moving in and out of your pockets.On all of these games, try to build in tug breaks to keep arousal high and keep food & toy drive balanced. You might need to move away from the shaping spot and use a higher value toy for now, but it is worth it to keep things in balance.
Great job! let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
This is a really good item for her to get on! And she did really well :)To help offer more behavior and sharpen mechanics for the future, 2 ideas for you:
– have 4 or 5 cookies ready in your hand, rather than reaching into your pocket or leaving your hand in your pocket. This will speed up the reinforcement placement, and also keep her from watching your hands the whole time. Then when the 4 or 5 treats are finished, break off the session for a little tugging, reload the treats, then do some more.– also, stand totally still and let her do all the work 🙂 You were walking back and forth and also leaning, so she was trying to follow you for cues… but because the cues are not really consistent, she is unsure of what to do. So, make it just shaping with no body movement from you at all. You can reinforce small bits rather than waiting for her to get all four feet on.
To keep her from going into the down, you can click then toss the treats off to the side. That will keep her standing 🙂
Great job!
TracyThat would explain why he has confident value going behind you 🙂 lots of balance in your training (not focusing on just one skill) and the wall behind you will help.
TracyHi!
She definitely did better when the food was out because she was a little slower and your cues could be later 🙂 When she was more excited by the toy, she was faster so your cues ended up being late enough that she didn’t hear them in time. So definitely go back to the toy, and start the sit cue before she even rounds the backside wing 🙂 This is GREAT because you will get the hang of earlier timing when she is in trial mode, and she will have more time to coordinate herself for the jump 🙂>> I cannot see her having any issue fading the board, lol.
Totally agree LOL!!! I think you can start fading as soon as she can do 2 successful sessions with the sit, and with the toy 🙂
Nice work!!
TracyHi! Thanks for the cooking ideas, I love it! Hope the Turkey was tasty!
This session went really well – the big thing now is to keep moving forwards and not facing her. On the reps going towards the street, you were good about facing the street and that cues the extension jumping we need here.
On the reps coming towards the camera, you were facing her which is a turn cue, so she was collecting and ready to turn…>>Then C skipped jump #2!!
That was when you were facing her and moved too soon, so she turned. If you are facing forward (facing the camera on that side), you can move forward to set the straight line.
Great job here! You can keep closing up the angle to make it harder, bit by bit!
Tracy
Hi!
The handling elements here are all looking really good! The wraps and slices looked really independent with both the push and threadle versions of it! I think the only suggestion is to do the threadle slide from the other side (do a blind cross then a threadle slice, on the same side as you did the blind to threadle wrap). You did the threadle slices as more of a ‘forced’ threadle (standing on takeoff side of the jump) which is a fabulous skill to have, so the suggestion of a blind to threadle slice on the other side is just to add to the toolbox 🙂
The only thing I will ask about is the verbal cues: It was a little hard to hear it all, so what are your 4 cues for these (I know, you might not have 4 cues, so I will now try to convince you to have 4 different cues hahahah). Ideally you have one verbal for push slice and a different one for the push wrap, because they are totally different. Using push then a collection cue for the wrap will delay the info and in a trial setting or when you can’t show the physical cue as well, he might not get the info in time.
Same with the threadles – I think they were different (in in for the slice, and something different for the threadle wrap) but the threadle wrap verbal and the push circle verbal sounded similar.We want them to be incredibly distinct because pretty soon, we will be asking him to do them without you on the picture at all 🙂
Great job!!
TracyHi!
I feel like you needed 3 hands for this: one for each toy and one for the pop up crate LOL! For the toy game, it might be easier to use something free-standing like a laundry basked or the fully open crate like you did later in the session.One important thing to note here is that when the toys were involved… he did not offer going behind you at all! YAY!! So definitely keep using the toys so keep him wrapping in front of you 🙂 Something about the cookies tends to get him wanting to go behind you (maybe an obedience behavior? Maybe a lower arousal?) so do the cookie sessions with you near the wall.
Great job on these! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
He was able to do this behavior, but he was not entirely comfy with it… note the turning around to get on straight. So two ideas for you:
for the getting comfy with things that move, do a couple of sessions of him getting on a field if balance discs with all four feet and standing (you can toss cookies off to the side so he runs off then runs back to get all four feet back on).Separately, work the backing up with the same mechanics you did above – but use something easier like a folded towel or low dog bed, so he gets really comfy stepping back onto a different surface (and one that doesn’t move).
When he is happy with both, we can put them back together and back up onto a lower disc 🙂
T
