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This is volume dial with the toy – if he was tired, this went extra super well! He was quick to respond and excellent about blocking out the noise and activity around him. This might also be something that you do as you go to the start line for your FEO runs to help get him focused and engaged in the more challenging trial ring environment. And of course the snuffle mat was BEST THING EVER, he said LOL!
Try adding these games to his upcoming FEO opportunities and let me know how he does – video al the things!!
Great job on these :)
Tracy
The volume dial with food here looked good – this is probably what you will be doing right before you enter the ring at a trial, using the last couple of cookies. And of course he was VERY happy to eat all the food from the snuffle mat LOL!!! AS you start to do FEO stuff, you can try a bit of snuffle mat before the run, and a bit after the run, and see how he does! It takes some experimenting to see what will work best for him.
He did well with the remote reinforcement with the toy here too. His only question was when you were standing still – he was not sure where to look or if he should be offering behaviors for the toy.
If you are standing still, he is fine to also stand still and look at you. So, try to keep moving away from the reward. Like with the food, you can put the toy up on something like a chair or table, to simulate what he will see at a trial. I bring my own folding chair and put all of my stuff on it, so the dogs recognize their reward station 🙂This was remote reinforcement – yes, doing it after a class is a little harder – tired brain!
You can make it more structured by putting the treat up on a chair or something, so he begins to understand the concept of a reward station. The naked cookie on the ground was a little too hard so he was focusing on it a lot. He was able to move away from it, so using a chair or something, as well as a bag of treats will begin to look more like what he will see in a trial. And, be sure there is something ing you pockets – it makes the game different if there is a bag of cookies in your hoodie because there will be no cookies there in a trial 🙂Nice work!
TracyGood morning! Thank you for the update, this is GREAT!!!!! Yay Team Levy!!!!! Great job!
>>Another lucky circumstance is that in the agility environment he will easily go back and forth between tug and food. >>
I don’t think it is luck 🙂 I think it is a combination of training and arousal level. And being able to go back and forth food to toy to for is great!
>>I built in a few catches and find its into the 2 toy game and he loved it. >>
Terrific! As the environment gets more stimulating, the food might be come more of a ‘behavior to do’ and less of a yummy delicious reinforcement but that is still fine! Keep mixing it into the 2 toy game. If you find he starts to struggle with the food, you can move further from the action to find the threshold for where he can still eat. Or, if you need to keep getting closer to the ring because you are going in for your turn, you can skip the food and use the two toy pattern game (this is what I did with brother Contraband when he was learning to be civilized around flyball LOL!)
Have you tried a snuffle mat with him, before a turn and also after it, at a distance far from the action? The snuffling does not have to be close to the ring.
>>Now I am not sure if this will be the case at a real agility trial but I am very happy with his progression with these games in practice while other dogs were running.>>
You can do field trips to local trials to bring these games into the trial environment – without the pressure of entering. That would be fun for you both!
Great job here 🙂
TracyGood morning!
>So, Sprite’s eyes were as wide as saucers in class last night. She’s moved into a new class on Wed night that’s a higher level. I was able to have her out while the dog before her ran. We did pattern games and I did use the back and forth game with a treat toss to get her out to the first jump. No grass grabbing last night. Yay! >>
This is HUGE!! Doubly huge in a new place, where the change of environment can really shift the dog into overarousal. I am so excited that she did really well!!!
>>I left in a hackberry snacking clip at the end. >>
As long as a couple of hackberries won’t upset her GI, you can always incorporate them into brain breaks/decompression. As in – good girl, let’s go eat some hackberries! That might have been what you were doing at the end. I like to incorporate natural decompression into the ‘work’. And hackberries in the grass are basically a real life snuffle mat 🙂
I liked the tug-sit-jump work! Her sitting was in a good spot (relatively at your side) and she sat pretty quickly. She struggled to sit while still holding the toy, which is fine because she does not have to hold the toy while sitting 🙂 So it might be a tiny bit harder to get the toy back (because of the arousal state) but that is GREAT because then we are getting feedback from her biologically that she is indeed in that higher arousal state (similar to what a trial would produce). So the toy release might have a higher latency for now but no worries – that will get easier for her and also serve as an indicator or where she is in terms of state.
You were ping ponging quick releases with some slightly longer stays – perfect! They were all pretty quick and you were super good about criteria maintenance (no accidental releases before she sat :)) So keep going with that variable schedule of releases, gradually adding more of a lead out – moving quickly enough to get things rolling but not so quickly that she breaks because we definitely want to incorporate the “work” of the release to the jump as part of the reward. You can also add the leash back in, but when the leash is in the picture be sure to use quick releases. The general order of festivities can be – approach jump while tugging, leash off while tugging, release the toy, offer sit, release. You can also see if she can offer a sit before the leash comes off, but I find there is more failure because the dogs often move again when we try to take the leash off (because we really haven’t trained them to hold a stay while the leash comes off).
And if you have time to get to the park this weekend- bring this game of tugging – offered sit – release to jump. I am curious to see how she does in other locations that are stimulating but where she has a long history of huge success.
Great job! Keep me posted!!
Tracy
I am glad you are enjoying the games – they will be really helpful when he brings his agility skills to new places 🙂
TracyHi!
The last day here is November 22.
>>What is the next class in the series and when is that scheduled to open?
The next class is MaxPup 3, which is actually a big class with sequencing and contacts foundations that requires big space… but the problem is everyone is going into winter! The series is supposed to run from November to November of the following year, but starting in the spring for this group puts MaxPup 3 in the dead of winter. Hmmm.
So my plan is to do a Max Pup 2.1, which will have small space handling stuff, contact foundations, and some small space weave foundations (most of the pups are still a little young for real weave training, despite what you might see on Facebook LOL!!) Then we will do a real MaxPup 3 in the spring and the 2.1 folks will get a discount to make up for any overlap in some of the contacts foundation stuff.
It will be posted later in November when I figure it out 🙂 and will start in December so we can make it through the US Open and Thanksgiving insanity LOL!! You will hear about it before it goes public.
I will keep you posted!
Tracy
Hi!
I think the tunnel threadle session went really well and also she gave you good feedback 🙂
When you were connected and moving the right direction (like towards the tunnel entry you wanted) – she was perfect every time throughout the video. YAY!!!
When you were moving the right way, but not connected? She had questions, like when you went from the tunnel to the wing at 1:54 and 1:58 and she didn’t know which side of the wing to be on. Watch it in slow motion and you will see that your arm was high and you were looking forward, so she didn’t see connection – and connection provides the info as to which side to be on.
Compare it to 2:13 with MUCH clearer connection and she nailed it!When you were connected by pulling up too short in your motion and not driving to where you wanted her to be? That was harder for her to read, so she would stop short too. For example, that is when she stopped going into the tunnel like at 2:48 and 2:59 – you were stopping short so she was not sure if she should keep moving.
So, stay connected, keep moving 🙂
>> I am thinking maybe I was crowding her on the way to the tunnel for the threadles on the later reps. >>
Yes- on those last couple, like at 3:15, you were rear crossing her line before she was committed to the tunnel so she turned.
One thing to do on these is to keep moving and watching her head – and when you see her head to turn the tunnel entry, that is your cue to also turn and go to the next spot 🙂
The tight blinds are super connected and worked really well! You can start to do the blind sooner – when she is about a foot away from the wing an looking at it/driving to it, you can start the blind so you are finished and reconnected before she exits the wing.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>With my other dogs, for an offside tunnel, I use my dog side arm and tap my leg
to pull and push. >>Something to consider- that will be effective when you are pretty ahead of the dog, but not as effective when you are behind or when the judge puts an off course jump or another tunnel there (which is currently the course design trend). So it is worthwhile to consider driving the line directly to th ecorrect obstacle because a pull or push could open up off courses obstacles as things get more complex.
>>For the running more, I don’t have much space with 18ft to run. So should I meet her at the exit of the tunnel? Or/and move the jumps out farther? Or/and use my longer tunnel?>>
You can meet her more at the tunnel exit, use as much space between jumps as possible, and use a short tunnel too!
>> If I say Left etc before a jump they are likely to turn Left before the jump.>>
Try it with them in a training session and see what they do! Maybe if you are moving to the jump they will take it and not turn in front of it?
>>So my timing for Mochi’s Verbals is new to me. But we are enthusiastic to have that kind of commitment from her. 😎>>
You will love the commitment!!!!!!
>>Will reward when I stop. She does get that Hard Angry voice. In the moment, My intuition says reward. But I must admit I’m guilty of trying to Save Time during the video…giving her the tug and getting it back for a treat takes precious seconds of our 2 min time.>>
No worries, you don’t have to be exactly 2 minutes. If you spend a few extra seconds rewarding each time? You’ll end up with a few extra seconds in the session but it is time well spent for sure.
>>Yes, she sees tunnel bags in class. Never had a need for them at home. I put the wings behind the tunnel for her because she doesn’t like it when it rolls.>>
Perfect! I just didn’t want her to be surprised by the giant tunnel bags 🙂
>Weirdly in my private today, I asked her to take a tunnel and she went to the side a few times before going in. Once she went in, however, she was fine with it, and did it multiple times. It was shorter than at home, bright blue, and brand new, practically just out of the box. She’s taken other tunnels in different class. Weird.>>
New tunnel, new smell, new color. Weird so she needed a moment. Totally normal and fine 🙂
>>On another note. I believe you once said for dogs that bark a lot, you can put the bark On Comand and then Stop on Command. Well, I finally discovered a specific noise I can make that will trigger her to bark on that noise. So can you please tell me how to cultivate that into Bark On Command and Stop on Command. And, oddly enough, it when I say
‘Achoo’. 🤪>>Oh! HAHA! I said that it is an old wive’s tale that putting barking on cue and the never cuing it will get the dog to NOT bark (it doesn’t work) and also bark – then -shut up as cues doesn’t really work either. Barking is soooo joyous for the dog that if you teach a bark on cue… you will get more barking and yes, you will say “shut up!” more but they won’t shut up LOL!! I still teach the dogs to bark on cue because it is SO great for engagement, then I tune out the extra barking LOL!!
>>Also, I’m not finding how much longer we can submit videos?
I can’t find it either! I know it is here somewhere. On my main calendar, the date is November 22 so that gives us plenty of time 🙂
Tracy
Hi!
These all look really good!He thought the first game was really easy and fun – tug like mad, eat a treat scatter. Heaven!
On the 2nd video, can you see his body relaxing as he was snuffling? High fast tail wagging to start, then his body really relaxed and he had a different (very chill) body language.
So definitely keep playing this game to ‘teach’ his body how to do this, and bring the snuffle mat with you as you go to new places to help with decompression!He was great with find my face! He thought it was super weird at first but then caught on fast and was happy to find you when you disconnected.
Good job adding the little sequence. You were rewarding him for taking the jump, but remember that you can disconnect as he is on a sequence and reward him for finding your face 🙂Great job here! You can use the decompression as part of every day training life! And keep practicing find my face so he in prepared in case you disconnect on a real course 🙂
Tracy
