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Hi!
She is making great progress with the backing up. I feel like she is very intentional with her backing up to the mat! Wow!
You can keep adding distance to this, and maybe even put the mat on top of something low so she has to step up a little bit onto the mat.
Great job!
Tracy
Hi!
It is so cool that he can come to work and teach people about this! So fun!! He was a superstar <3 He was looking at you and also targeting the dark square on the floor LOL So clever 🙂What class is this for? I wish I had a class like this in school!!
Tracy
Good morning!
>I think that the cue should function as the release to do the next thing, that is, what you just cued. So after a stopped contact, for example, I would just give the cue for the next obstacle, not a release from the contact and then the cue for the next obstacle. I think that what I just described is what you are recommending. >
Yes! I think we are on the same page 🙂 And using the obstacle name or directional will strengthen them as well.
He did great on the backside challenges! The most important element is that the dogs understand to stay on their parallel path o the backside – and he was perfect with that here. YAY!! Your connection was very strong – you used the outside arm to help support the connection (I do this in the demo too). You might not always need the outside arm but it sure does help for now!
The blind looked great! So did the threadle/pull to the other side of the tunnel. The one thing you can add is layering the jump and sending to the tunnel (instead of doing the backside).
For the next steps on this one – you can start moving your line over. On this session, you were moving up the line to where the wing and bar meet. You can gradually move your path over to where you are running to the center of the bar. It will feel more comfy to do that while still being on a parallel path if you send him to the start wing from further away (with you already lined up to the line yo want to run). You don’t want to pull away to get on your line, because that change in motion might pull him to the front side of the jump.
Great job here!!
Tracy
Good morning!
>Also, Bazinga is doing this homework too. The last 2 trials we were at had lots of “push lines” in the middle of go-lines.>
Yes, these little ‘get outs’ are everywhere lately – very useful skill 🙂
He did reply well with the wind in your hair game! The rear crosses are coming along very nicely 🙂 He seemed to have no questions on the first side, going to his left on the rear crosses.
He had a small question on the other side – right after the wing wrap, he paused. I think that was because you were doing a post turn at the wing on that side, which caused you to wait at the wing exit so he decelerated too. The FC on the wing you did on the first side allowed both of you to keep moving 🙂
Great job with the bars on the zig zag! When he needed to go to his right on jump 1, I think stepping with your leg will help. When you were only using your arms, he came to the line he saw from your feet not moving. But when you turned your feet at :51and 1:40 – no questions, he got the jump nicely. He did really well on the other side – those had him coming towards you on jump 1 and he knew exactly what to do.
Both of these games can move to the next steps. You can do the backside element of wind in your hair if you want, but it might be better to do the rear cross concept transfer or the Mission Transition game 🙂
For the jumping foundations, I think the accordion can go outside now!
Great job 🙂
TracyGood morning!
>Part of the issue is I’m running out of space. The barrel is set pretty far from the hackberries which is also the fence where neighbor dogs might fence fight. >
You can set it with as much distance as possible, but doing the FC as early as possible will give the impression of more distance because you will be further ahead 🙂 And if you run out of room, throw or drop the toy before she leaps up. Can you take it on the road (maybe to Sprite’s class?) and try it with more room?
She brought the toy directly to your hand! 3 times!!! So fun! Great job making it super fun for her o bring it back 🙂
The open bag of treats was a nice level of challenge: she was definitely aware of it (especially with the rewards thrown that direction) but she was able to ignore it and keep hitting the hat really well. You can add something else as the novel-exciting game, keep switching it up 🙂 I thinking that her blue ball (that she went to during the toy races game) might be a good one! It is definitely exciting and it will be good to start incorporating exciting toys visible on the ground but not part of the cue for the game.
Great job! Have fun at the reunion!
Tracy
Hi!
>I think that might be a slight misrepresentation due to editing for time.>
Ha! The magic of video editing 🙂 The parts you left in looked really good 🙂
>He rounded behind the tunnel to the fence line a couple of times to try to get involved. I was happy when I was able to get him back and working, but it definitely seemed harder than the other night and we took longer breaks in between reps when activity level was especially high on the other field and just worked on not getting involved in the excitement.>
Do I remember correctly that he is a bit of a ball freak? You can save his favorite balls for when he is training and there is a class in the other ring, so the reward value is super high and exciting!
>but he seems to be pretty responsive to cheese, so I started using that more toward the end.>
Cheese is yummy! You can bring out amazing food early in the session, before he loses interest in the tug toy.
> he still wanted to come over the jump instead of to the inside.>
He probably hasn’t used the skill in a while so it got a little rusty. And you’ve put a lot of value on the front side of the jump, so it makes sense that he would go to it. No worries, the threadle skill will get harp again when you work it a bit.
>I’m curious, when running, is it just the verbal that cues the threadle if the arms are the same?>
The threadle arm actually can swing back a bit (like opening a door) and the serp arm is more stationary. And threadle position is a little different relative to the jump – the threadle is nearer to the entry wing, and the serp is more across the bar.
Tracy
Hi!
>2nd turn he seemed off but afterwards I took him outside and found he really needed to go pee. He hasn’t figured out how to tell me that all the time.>
Ah yes, his brain was probably focused on NOT peeing in the ring 🙂 Good boy!
> I can share runs if ok. I know this class is for Dublin though so I get it if not.>
Send me the runs on Facebook messenger! I want to be ready for the weekend 🙂
See you soon!
Tracy
Hi!
>Well that makes me feel better – click and treat for you!>
Ha! An outside eye always sees things differently than how it feels in the moment. Plenty of good stuff in that session (along with some of the usual puppy madness LOL!)
> I wish I had video of him last night – that was my future agility dog! Short session and cooler temps >
SO FUN!!! Yay!
> He wrapped around that laundry basket full speed! Even did some toy throws for the prop game and got a running puppy. >
This is exciting!!!
>Makes a lot of sense that we are teaching him how to learn>
Yes, we are working with a really immature brain with waaaayyyyyy too many neurons, and his 5 month old brain is trying to sort out which neurons to keep and which to prune away. The science behind it all is actually really cool and more importantly: keeps us from freaking out when things go sideways 🤣😂
One of the most important things to remember is that even if the session didn’t go according to plan, he is still learning. And he might even be learning the skill we wanted! Our role is to fire the neurons we want (incredibly immature neurons!), teach his brain how to wire them together including engaging in that new environment, ignoring distractions, regulate arousal, and oh yeah – maybe a sports skill LOL!! And it takes hours, literally, to encode it and consolidate it all. So the first 90 seconds merely gets the ball rolling on the learning, then we need to sit back and let the brain do the rest (including sleep on it). The mechanisms are amazing and ok maybe a little nerdy 🙂 But we might not see the behavioral output we want until the next day or even later than that.
>and I’m trying to remember that I struggled in the early stages with Phaede- and she is brilliant now. >
Yes! This is good to remember – we are basically starting over with each new puppy, so we need to sort it out and then it will come together really well.
>so just having momentary panic when it isn’t working. Must remember he is a baby!!!!>
I can relate to the panic. Intellectually, I know why we might not see the behavior during the session. Emotionally, I feel like everything sucked and it is all terrible LOL!! Intellect wins out because in the next session everything is great (like you experienced).
Puppy brains are challenging but fun! Adolescent brains are challenging and maybe less fun haha! But we will be prepared and it will work out great 🙂
Tracy
Good morning!
>then a week at dog camp in Lake Tahoe. Not much real agility, but lots of hiking, trick dog training, k9 fitness conditioning, swimming, kayaking and paddle boarding.>
That sounds fabulous and a great break from actual training. Breaks do as much to advance training as actual training does 🙂
He was very good at turning away on the flat, and was happy to do the turn aways on the wing. He was predicting them a bit – heading to the turn away on the wing before you cued it with the hand movement. But that is actually a good thing in this era of course design, because he is recognizing the context & early parts of the cues and blasting into them. That will be SUPER useful with threadle wraps 🙂
Speaking of threadle wraps: these more mostly lap turns on the wing when you did the rocking horses (with you facing him) and we can start moving forward into morphing that into threadle wraps. Since you do a lot of the high level UKI stuff, I think the threadle wraps should be our focus.
For the next visit to the rocking horse turn aways, try the turn away as a tandem turn where your feet are not facing him (but you do turn with him as he turns away to the wing). If that goes well – try it with threadle wraps 🙂 where your feet are facing forward the whole time (remember to use decel to show it to him).
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
>We worked a few sequences things to burn his energy so didn’t think would share unless you want to see class stuff. >
I am glad you got to class! Burning off energy is a good thing for a teenage dog LOL! Did everything go well?
>Then over the weekend I trialed with Brighton. Saturday we did one feo run and it went great. Sunday did feo 1st then two master runs. The last master run he checked out on me. Hopefully Saturday when we see you can get some ideas for him.>
I am looking forward to seeing you all! When did he check out – at the very beginning? Or later in the run? Did the FEO runs go well?
>I was looking over the backside videos. Are you using your off arm a little to push the dog to the backside?>
Yes, a little 🙂 It is very European 🤣😂 but I sometimes use it to be able to rotate my shoulders to the correct line to show the backside.
See ya soon!
Tracy
Good morning!
>Congrats at CanAm! I have been trying to follow along, it’s been really exciting to watch! >
Thanks! It is REALLY fun, he dogs love it, and it is definitely a family sport – our team has multiple kids and one extended family made up of grandmother, parents, 5 year old. So fun!
>You might notice our new fence/wall in the background lol. We wanted to block out the neighbors yard and we have, It’s 8ft and somehow I didn’t realize it was going to be that tall but we love it.>
Oooooh I like it! Nothing personal against the neighbors LOL but that is a lovely fence!
>I think my daughter will start with me on max pup 3 when that one starts, to keep it easy. She’s excited.>Perfect!
The jump session went well! After you showed him the idea of taking all the jumps while you are out there moving with a toy, he really locked it in. Then he sorted out his striding – he has a lot of power so controlling that power is harder at this age. But I was really pleased to see him be able to extend his stride but more importantly: to compress it when you were moving the jumps back together. YAY!!! Also super happy with how well he held the stay even with all the excitement for the toy.
He hit the first bar on the very last rep – I think that was mainly due to you releasing at the same time you looked back at him while leading out, so he was surprised and rushed a little. The other 2 jumps looked good!
You can revisit this every now and then, adding more and more distance to the 3rd jump to add more challenge.
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
He really liked the tunnel exit game – lots of speed especially when you were hustling to show the next line.
The timing was really good in some spots and late in others. One thing you can do to be more consistently on time is to put a marker on the ground to get the directionals and physical cues for the exit to him before he goes in. A cone or something can be out on the other side of the line, about 6 to 8 feet away from the tunnel entry – so when you see him passing it, you start the exit cues. Your connection was really good so I am sure you will see the little marker too.
The timing of the left at :35 was really good! Compare to the timing of the right verbal at :45 (he was already in the tunnel so exited straight, based on your acceleration before it)
When you have a ‘go’ exit on the tunnel, you can send to the tunnel from further away laterally so you can be ahead on the exit to help support the line to the wing – the GO verbal and acceleration will happen before he enters the tunnel, and then you can switch to the dig dig wrap cues before he exits to he hears them when he exits.
Find the jump: it is good to have the distraction of the class! He seemed to have an easier time of it here in terms of ignoring the class. If the distractions are really hard, you can use a ball reward.
He did well finding the jump with you in all sorts of different positions including with you behind him. Super! This means you can move to the rear cross concept transfer, where we add rear crosses to the jump 🙂
Serp versus tunnel: this went well with all the added motion! It is much harder with motion, of course, but he was largely perfect and only had a blooper or two, here and there. Yay!!
On the threadle – good job slowing it down so he could see it. If it has been a while since you have done threadles, he might need a refresher because the value is on the jump (serps) and not on the threadle side. Also, you can choose which arm you want to use: dog-side or opposite. On the first side, you used dog-side arm and the 2nd side you used opposite arm. The dog-side arm is generally easier to run with (less twisting for us humans LOL)
Great job!
Tracy
Good morning! Great to see you back in action and hopefully we have lots of good weather ahead!
The accordion went really well. He was adding strides between jumps 2 and 3, but I think that was mainly because you were decelerated at jump 3 so he was reading a collection cue. To get him to open up his strides, you can move the Treat n Train another 10 feet away from the 3rd jump and you lead to parallel to it and not the jump.
You can also try this with the moving target (dragging toy) because his stay looks really solid!
His commitment to the jump on the lateral lead outs looked great on both sides. He was taking the jump AND turning which is exactly what we want. SUPER!!! You can keep adding more and more distance – as the distances get bigger, you can throw the toy back to the landing of the jump to keep the commitment really solid.
>I need to be consistent and earlier with my directional verbals on the Lateral Lead Outs.>
Now that we know he understands the behavior, you can decide on the verbals: You were using his release word then the directional, which does indeed make it harder to get out with good timing. Another possibility is to release with the directional only: when it is a left turn, you would lead out and release with “left” and not “ok”. That gives the info to him sooner and helps as you add more and more distance.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Good morning!
>I can’t seem to get the ready dance part right. We’ve done some CU classes and she has a bit of a stand by going on.>
When she is indoors and there are fewer distractions, she explodes out of the stand by really well. In the outdoor sessions, it is possible that the prop is a little too far away as compared to indoors, so maybe start with it closer (even a shade closer than it is indoors) and see how she leaves the standby.
But also, we aren’t going to worry toooooo much about it. She seems like the type of dog who thinks things through as a young dog, then when it locks in: boom! We have all the speed in the world. We don’t need to see it at this age, we know it is there 🙂 Most of my dogs have been like this and then became really fast AND accurate when we started putting things together.
> I’m still getting toy leaping. I’m not sure I was consistent with the verbal in this clip. Danika wondered about a lotus ball. Thoughts? I think she needs the arousal boost with the toy.>
There is definitely a place for the lotus ball! But we do want her to learn to not touch your hand (or cause your brain to going into self-protection mode when the toy is being presented) when approaching the toy while running
Part of that will be taken care of when you are presenting the toy from further ahead and letting her run through it when dropped or throwing – more repetition to build the learning while we get rid of the leaping.
Also, when you do feel teeth on flesh… you can yelp and stop the game for a moment (or two or three moments :)) I have found that dogs consider that useful info: a high-pitched yelp and stop, because it does indeed hurt! Leaping without touching your hand is more matter of timing/building understanding of the toy presentation and release, but the teeth on flesh hurts so we can communicate it and be like “Dude, that hurts!”
Looking at the video:
Her commitment looks great and you were able to leave sooner and sooner!!! Yay! And she was really engaged even with the noises from the neighbor’s yard.
Some ideas about the toy leaping here:
She is definitely excited about tugging with you! So the leaping up is a prep for that, based on the toy being in your hand and the marker (any marker LOL) I don’t think she got your hand here but I can see it possibly happening – ouch.
And part of the leaping is because as you are letting go of the toy, you are also stopping your motion and quickly lifting your hand up. I don’t think that was a conscious decision, I think that was your brain avoiding the possibility of teeth on flesh because… ouch! That lifting of the hand draws her upwards – and it will stop happening when your brain is not trying to protect your flesh.
So keep leaving earlier and earlier for the FC, but also when she is maybe halfway to you as you run away: either drop the toy or throw the toy ahead, all before she is even close to leaping up for it. Use a bigger or heavier toy so it is easier to throw or grab after you drop it.
And I think unpredictability is our friend here: sometimes you drop it, sometimes you throw it. The predictability of the tugging from your hand is part of why she is leaping up to get a good spot for grabbing.
Take the markers off for now – she is leaping up with both the strike and get it markers, so the leaping might be getting conditioned into it a bit. For now, use a random interim marker if you want with no real meaning or importance. Can be something like “woooooo!” as you drop the toy and keep moving. She will grab the toy due to the context. And when we are happy with the leaping being gone, we can add back the real markers.
You were letting go with good timing, but we need to change the conditioned response to the toy presentation so she is driving through it to chase it or grab from the ground, rather than leaping up to prep for tug.
It might require a bit of a ‘please bring the toy back’ plan 🙂 Food or toy lures are perfectly fine for this because it is still better than hand grabbing 🙂
Great job here! Have fun at the reunion!
Tracy
Hi! Great seeing you this week – you two looked fabulous!
Lots of good stuff here in these sessions. Violet is cute and smart!
Her tugging looks strong, and the toy trading went well!
Drive to toy: the forward focus when you tossed it looked terrific . She was very happy to maintain the forward focus as he drove to the toy, so now you can add more distance on the toy throw and add in the toy races, so we can add your motion too 🙂>she was really excited until she had a couple of wandering away moments.>
This happened when you transitioned from the toy game to the good game. She was eating the food, but it was not as exciting as the toy so her attention wandered a bit.
We can pump up her food value and that will help maintain the attention during food-based games.
Using the prop game, for example: She was hitting the prop really well, so we can use the prop as a way to increase food love. You can start with tugging, then get 2 or 3 treat rewards in, then back to tugging. That way eating the treat gets paired with tugging and movement (both of which she seems to really like) so the food will be more valuable and exciting 🙂
Her drive to handler and decel looked good – she doesn’t need to sit for this game, because we are going to add in a toy throw after the pivot in the next steps. This is also a really good game for building food love: tug tug tug, toss a start cookie, reward her for driving to you and pivoting with you with a cookie… then tug tug tug.
And since she did so well here, you can move to the next game (Collection Sandwich) 🙂
As the food value builds, you will be able to increase the amount of food you reward with before taking a tug break without her disengaging.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
