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Hi!
Super nice timing and exit connection to all the blinds here! And you did it while getting closer than needed to t he 2nd wing AND while running in boots… impressive!!!!
I was happy with the timing of starting the crosses here – you were starting shortly after he exited the wrap and he was seeing the new connection before he took off for the jump so he seemed to have no questions. YAY!
>I just needed to support the 2nd wing more on the first rep or just send him there first so he knew it was there. >
Yes – you didn’t need to go as far up to the wing, you can add more connection to him on the send and less arm. Looking at him very directly will propel him away, which makes it even easier to get back up the line.
You can try this with him on the other side, and also move on to the 2 jump games.
Great job!
Tracy
Hi!
>Mini Rough Coat Piebald Belgian Malinois>
HA! Perfect description. His noises were impressive in this session 😂
The session went really well! The bloopers were all connection-related bloopers (remember to reward for his effort because he didn’t always get the info he needed).
On the reps where he did not take the jump before the blind, the main reason was that you were actually too early for what he was seeing 🙂 You were disconnecting a stride or two after the wing wrap to start the blind, but also the high arm was blocking his view of your connection which put him even more info handler focus there.
On the reps where you started the blind later, he committed well and your exit line connection was great and timely too!
To get him to commit sooner, you can make ore connection to his eyes as he exits the wing wrap: keep the dog side arm down and back so he can see the connection. That will commit him sooner so you can start the blind sooner too.
There was a little blooper coming around the start wing, and that was a bit of being disconnected – he was behind you when you looked forward and pointed, so he was not sure where to be. Compare that to the reps where he got it really easily and those were all super connected.
I grabbed a bunch of screenshots for you to see all this! They are marked as too early (for when he didn’t take the jump) and you can see how high the arm was and where you started the disconnection before the blind And there are a bunch that went well so you can see the timing of those too! They have you disconnected because that is the first part of the blind.
And a couple of screenshots of coming around the start wing so you can see where he didn’t see the connection versus where it was really clear.
Here they are:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1zERY_i5wyQgk7w6KFv7yrUdXyxxDpZ_NfWJ-iMYwuWc/edit?usp=sharingThe trial run looked great!!! I am not sure all of those UKI distances were actually legal – the jump to DW opening looked like 35 feet! But you ran it really well! And he could easily be the poster dog for the teeter class – WOW!!!! Good boy!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Great job here 🙂
Tracy
Good morning!
Overall, I think these went well and you were really emphasizing connection: looked great!!!
The best reps where the ‘death zone’ reps where you had to pass the exit of the tunnel to the other side of it. Each of those has good timing and clear connection: zero questions from Casper!!
On the exit of the tunnel for the other reps, a couple of thing that will make it smoother:
– a lot of the reps had what I call “reverse motion” where you are decelerated (walking into the send) then you accelerate to do the blind. It creates a flurry of motion that adds too much ‘go’ cue to the tunnel, so you were getting wider exits. If you stay in steady motion (jogging, for example) that won’t happen and it will be even easier.
– on the blinds after the tunnel exit: he was reading them as soon as he saw them, but you were very close to the tunnel exit (5 or 6 feet) so he didn’t have a lot of time or room to get to the other side (and was sliding a little bit). You can send to the tunnel from further away so you are 15 feet or so past the tunnel exit – that, coupled with your clear mechanics and staying in motion, will help a ton!
– for the blinds before he goes into the tunnel, yo can send a bit further away too and stay in steady motion so he doesn’t see you accelerate right before the tunnel. And trust his tunnel commitment – you can set the halfway point between the jump and tunnel as the time to start the blind (or front), so he sees it before he enters. They were a shade late (like at :36 and :49, where his head was right at the tunnel entry so he might not have seen the cues).
And of course – keep moving after the blind rther than stop because that will make it even smoother to get the new side.
But overall really nice work here!!! Onwards to the jump games 🙂 Let me know what you think.
Tracy
Hi –
Yes, teenage dogs (and humans LOL) will burn up a lot of bandwidth simply by traveling to new places even if the ‘work’ is minimal compared to what they do at home. And the bounce back takes 2-3 times longer. So what it adds up to are teenage dogs that try to bite our ankles sometimes LOL! For example, with my adolescent dogs – we are on a road trip for a week. We get back on Tuesday next week, which means they will need a couple of days to decompress because just the travel is a lot even though they are doing very minimal work. And for the older teenagers who are competition-eligible, I chose to skip the trial that weekend and enter the following weekend when I know they will have bounced back. It gets easier when they are adult – my adult dogs regulate all of the travel/training/competition with no issues at this point.
T
That is awesome that Jaakko has evolved with the sport! The last time I worked with him and the other OMD folks, they were stubbornly not evolving 🙂 It sounds like it was a fun, informative seminar!
T
Good morning!
Her commitment is looking really good on the circle wraps!!!
She is going a little wide to get to them, and it looks like there is a little too much converging motion and that is pushing her off the line. What I mean but that is you were running to the wing and almost blocking, so she pushed away. You can think of it as running forward to where the wing and the bar would meet, then as soon as she passes you, you run forward to the next line. That will tighten it up really well!
And because her commit looks strong, you can add in a little more countermotion – move forward right behind her when she passes you, but support commitment by look back behind you to the ‘landing’ spot and even pointing to it with the opposite arm – which will help keep you from rotating your upper body too much.
Threadle wraps are lookin SUPER independent! She is turning away without a lot of help and that is fabulous!
You can add in driving towards the wing to get a little closer… but then decelerating to set up the TW (the deceleration is a critical element when we add it to courses). Then as she as she turns her head to the wing – run away and see if she can maintain commitment!
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
>Skizzle asks me what that word means many times – by not moving >
Ha! These dogs keep us so honest LOL!!
>Do you use any specific verbal cues for this?>I don’t have a verbal that means serpentine – because serps come in too many variations lately. So I either use the applicable directional (left or right or sometimes wrap for the really crazy serps) or just a name call.
On the video:
He is doing really well and also giving feedback on the cues!
If he goes to the backside of jump 2, it is entirely cued 🙂 An example is at 1:34 were you were standing on his line to the front side and then stepped directly into the ga p between jumps, which put him on the backside. Good boy! Reward that. As he is chasing the ball, freeze in position and see where your feet are pointing and the line you are on. Compare to 1:55 where you were not blocking the line to the front so he got it.
Ideally, the serp position (arm back, shoulders rotated to him, feet moving parallel to his line) remains visible until he turns his head to the 2nd jump – that is the cue to both come in and go back out. 2:38 and 2:57 were excellent examples of you doing that – and he had no trouble with the serp line at all! Yay! That also helps prevent the accidental backsides. Angling the jumps did help for sure! And the serp cues on the last several reps were really spot on as well.
>So next time, I plan to use the correct verbals, maybe angle the jumps a little less – and/or add a tunnel for added challenge.>
Sounds good! Keep me posted!
Nice work here :)
TracyGood morning!
Sounds like you had a busy weekend!!She did great with the ladder game!
At the beginning, the successful reps on the circle wraps where when you sent with the dog side arm but didn’t let it swing across your chest – instead you shifted your outside arm up to help support the exit of the wing (:05, :22, :28 for example).
When your arm came across the front of you (“18, :32) she had questions because that turns your shoulders away from the wing a bit.
But then she locked it on and the specifics of your arm position didn’t matter as much when she realized all she needed to do was finish the wrap. Super!
You can add more countermotion, meaning moving right behind her up the line to get a bit further ahead – the way to do that is to use your connection. As she is arriving at the wing, shift your gaze to look at where the landing spot would be (behind you as you move forward). That will support her commitment as you move forward more, so you will ideally be passing the wing as she is turning her head to it.
>we only got to the blind cross at the end once.>
That rep was really nice and you were in a good position to show the clear connection. If she was not seeing the BC info on the other reps, it might have been that you were not far up enough on the line – the connection shift to get even more commitment to let you move forward should help that a lot because you will be past the wing and have plenty of time to do the BC.
>she left to go get a toy and then used that. >
That was funny – she was like, “Hard work like this calls for a toy toy!” She gave herself a pay raise haha. Be sure either give the next verbal if you are continuing, or give the toy marker if you are rewarding – I think she heard “yes” a lot so was not sure if she should look at the toy or keep going. She is really enjoying the training so I think the next cue is also becoming a reinforcement for her!
Nice job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
>So I’ve been working on those by going back to having her extremely amped up taking a jump to the tunnel and throwing the toy after the jump after the tunnel. I do this with me running with her hardly at all. I thought that would help with both issues at once. >
Sounds like you were working on getting independent commitment really exciting!! Yay!
>This leads to grand zoomies in between reps so I only do a few and haven’t videoed it.>
Were the zoomies basically toy victory laps (there was a bit of that here) or was it before she got the toy? Toy victory laps are inefficient in terms of getting to the next rep but joyous in terms of making it really fun for her 🙂
Looking at the video:
A little hesitancy going into the tunnel at the beginning but she did well with the rest of the tunnel entries!
>We started having some trouble with taking the jump after the tunnel and coming in to me instead. >
This video had a lot of success and only one blooper that seemed to be what you were describing:
At :16 and 1:26 and 1:50, you had successful commitment to the jump after the blind because you got connection on the tunnel exit, and maintained it to commit her to the jump. SUPER!
Compare those connections to the one blooper moment at :32-:33 where she did not take the jump: you got connection on the tunnel exit, but before she could lock onto the jump, you looked forward and pointed forward – so she no longer had a clear indication to the line you wanted and he was not sure where to be and came to you.
When that happens, you can mentally note that she lost the view of connection and keep going to the next jump and reward for a jump rather than rewarding at your side. That is to help convince her to take jumps even if the connection is not perfect 🙂
Let me know if that is what was happening in the other sessions too! The successful reps here were really strong!
Nice work :)
TracyGood morning!
>I am leaning towards slice or push for the backside slice and then using my around for the backside wrap since I think that is what I had used it for the most.>
Those are good choices!
>When do we add the verbal for the backside wrap?>
You can add it in the Advanced level of the head turn game, where we add the 360s with you moving. That is the backside wrap 🙂
The threadle wraps are going GREAT! He definitely is the king of circling things! He is pretty balanced in both directions too which is unusual with baby dogs! He might have been a little smoother to his left (on your left) but both sides were really good.
Since he did really well here, the next step for the threadle wraps is to fade out the little hand cue that turns him away – you can be in the same position you were here and your hands visible (with the verbal) – and let him offer turning away instead of you giving the hand help. It might take him a moment to calculate how to do it but I bet he can do it!
And yes, you can do lots of parallel line games to balance the wrappy stuff but he has been great with those games too so I think he will have no questions when you ask for the extension stuff too.
Great job!!
Tracy
Good morning!
I am glad you liked the adolescent webinar! It is a bit of a survival toolkit 😂>It was just the start with a bowl. I’ll wait until I see it here with the games>
Yes, that is a more ideal place to use the focus forward.
>Tried the suitcase first then put a heavy detergent bottle in the suitcase >
Ha! Clever! And it definitely made it more obvious when she moved it. The session went GREAT! It definitely got her thinking about wrapping around the object without touching it.
It was 100% expected that she would try to push the suitcase on the first rep, after her epiphany that the fastest line back to you was to push the barrel out of the way.
Look at her face when she pushed it on the first rep – she was like WAIT WHAT. She actually looked back at the suitcase.
It is what happens NEXT that is important: and she did not touch the suitcase at all. She pushed it a little bit when you changed sides but I think she wanted to NOT push it – she offered doing it on your other side for a moment, then on the next reps did not touch it. Good girlie!!!
> When she hit I did reward her for effort -only 1 kibble and when she got it she got a handful. Is this the right approach, if she hits, still reward or withhold reward?>
Rewarding for effort than taking a moment to adjust the suitcase (even if it doesn’t really need adjusting) can enhance the “hey, you just touched that thing, now we gotta stop and fix for a moment” is a good approach! And big rewards for NOT touching it were appropriate too. You can also try it with a big heavy cone because those are harder to push.
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
Hopefully she was nice and tired after she got to work on the wing game and not bouncing off the walls LOL!! 9 month old dogs are normally full of energy and add in being segregated and hormones… she was feeling like she needed to move around a lot 🙂 She did really well here.
The dog on leg reps left looked great and so did the exit of the FC when you put her on your right. Lovely connection, nice tight turn!
>I have two herniated cervical discs and my right side is my bad side. My blind spot is right about where she’s cutting in when she’s onmy right. I’m sure I’m doing something here to pull her in.>
When she was on your right – I think you were sending and turning away/breaking connection a bit too early so she came with you.
At :28 on your right, you sent her to the middle wing but stayed connected to her eyes – she had no questions. Your shoulders and feet were facing forward to the wing like they did when she was on your left.At :35, you were not as connected so as you sent her with your arm, you also turned away – so your feet and shoulders turned her away from the wing and she ducked in at the last moment. She is very nimble!!!
So facing forward to the wing on that side for longer with a bit more motion towards it and keeping connection as you send her past you should smooth that out.
I don’t think you need to twist more to connect, because we do want to protect your back! But facing forward to the wing with your arms nice and low like they were here should get her the line info.
Great job!
Tracy
Good morning, good afternoon 🙂
>Thank you, this game looks great. It looks like a lot of fun for the dog. I am pretty sure that Jazz will enjoy it. He knows already how to circulate me from RallyO and frisbee. >
It is SO MUCH FUN and now she enters the ring bouncing off of me in excitement LOL!!
Since he knows the idea from Rally and Frisbee, then I think it will be easy to teach for agility.
>I always try to Jazz push up before we start. When I am leaving him for a lead out I have the melody of “Pink Panther” in my ears as you told in one of your course videos;-)>
Yay!! That is such a fun way to get him excited 🙂
>I am wondering whether I may ask you a question on another class of you?
Of course!
>In your “Say What” you show “On the flat: Turn away after obstacle exit” with many examples, but not how to teach it. Is there any other class of you which goes into these details?>
Do you mean like when the dog exits the tunnel and we turn them away, to a jump behind it?
>I assume that the body cues are equal to the tandem turn, correct?>
Yes – and that is how I teach it to the dog: getting the tandem turn cues away on the flat (like turning at my side) then I put the dog at the exit of the tunnel and turn them away… then I send them through the tunnel but meet them at the exit and turn them away. Basically it is all tandem turn work that varies depending on the situation and the timing.
We mainly teach it in MaxPup classes, and then apply it in the CAMP classes. I don’t think I have a specific class for it because we apply it in so many different ways 🙂
Tracy
Good morning! These are going well and you are getting the most important part super nicely: connection!
With the smaller space and the 2 jumps, you can put the bars at 8” so you can still get the timing and he has room to keep the bars up.
On the first video:
On the reps where you were a little late – your connection was really good and he still got it! Yay!
The thing that will help make this feel easier is to send him to the previous line more (the wing, in this case) so you can get further ahead – and start the blind as soon as he exits the wing.
Starting from the stay helps get ahead but you can get further ahead on your lead out 🙂 Don’t release him until you are well past the first jump and getting close to the 2nd jump, because the blind will start almost immediately after the release. And you can release him while you are moving, rather than stop – release – run. That will make the blind even easier feeling.But keep the great connection going, that is really helping him!
On the 2nd video – you dod lead out further and that helped with the timing. And the connection was strong so he as finding the new side nicely! His question on this side was about the line – you were running a little past the ‘mouse line’ so he was going a bit wider and then having to come back to the next jump (which is why he dropped the bar at 1:44). Running more directly forward on the mouse line to the 2nd jump will smooth that out 🙂
Nice work here!!
Tracy
Good morning!
>I’m going to work on starting my transitions even earlier. A few times I made the mistake of trying to start a blind and run and she was like where are you going?!>
This was good info from her! The key part of the transition is the decel – when you decelerated, she committed every time. When you were in steady motion and turned like at 1:19 & 2:03 it was too much of sudden turn so she came back to you.
Compare to the reps at 1:32 and 2:19 which were lovely because they had decel – after she exited the tunnel you slowed down but continued facing forward. That locked her into the wing and told her it was a tight turn – which also made the rotations earlier for both the FC and the spins 🙂
The reps on your left at the end were all great in terms of getting the decel and not turning too soon.The tight blinds went really well! Your line of motion supported the wing really well and so commitment as easy. Because they are tight turns, you can add some decel into this too – decelerating into a blind is going to feel weird, maybe, but it is super useful.
The FCs on the middle wing looked good too and so did the connection back to the tunnel after the first little blooper.
And she is being such a good girl with her stays – nice job getting all the rewards to her!
Great job here!
Tracy
