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Good morning!
She did a great job offering to get on that cool watermelon object! And you did a fabulous job mixing in the toy place after every few treat rewards: massive click/treat for you, for keeping the game arousing but also having great mechanics of toy play to food/shaping. It was almost like you had 3 arms!
Since this went great… what other random things do you have that she can get on? It can be a cushion from the couch, or boxes, etc – you can set up a few of them next to each other for her to walk all over and balance on.
Great job here!!!
Tracy
Good morning!
>I’m a little disappointed with myself this week – wasn’t feeling well and didn’t record as many of our practices as I think would be helpful. I’ve worked this weekend to set up a schedule for recording next week, but I think I need to push past some recording nerves as well >
No need to be disappointed! You got lots of good video this weekend and it sounds like you ave a plan for this coming week – love it!
The focus forward video looked great.
Nice transition from the tug to the cookie to the tug! She was focusing on the thrown toy and driving to it brilliantly. It sounds like you were able to already be adding in your motion with no problem, so you can add more and more of your running. Then add the toy race element where you try to get to the toy first and win 🙂 That will get even more speed 🙂>My only concern is that she loses interest in toys pretty quickly when we are doing training games – hopefully we can capture this a bit better in videos next week.>
This is pretty normal and might have something to do with her age (she is only 5 months :)) so keeping toy sessions super short and super exciting will help! Longer sessions with toys at her age might tire her brain out, leading to less tug interest. But definitely try to get it on video and we will see what is going on.
She definitely has value for the prop!!! Yay! Nice warm up to refresh the value here before the sending.
Try to send with an empty hand so it is easier for her to pass by your hand without checking it for treats 🙂
I agree, the backwards and sideways sending looked great! You can add in using your leg on the backwards sending too – give a big step back with the leg to support the arm cue.You can add a bit more distance here – we build up this game more in the 3rd games package, so it is something you can revisit here and there this week and next week.
Wrap shaping went great! She immediately got into the back and forth rhythm between the bowls. Super! You can break it up a bit more with tugging – every 5 or 6 treats followed by a tug break will keep her passion for the game high and it will also let us see why she might not tug as much
She did well with the cone too! When she stops moving to look at your hands – try to let her solve that puzzle and don’t help her. Let’s see if she can put herself back on the line around the cone (I bet she can!)
For her next session, you can start with you sitting on the ground and get a little more distance between you and the cone. And in a separate session, you can bring the cone back in close to you but change your position to sitting (the couch behind you here is perfect for that!) Our goal is to work you up to standing while maintaining the high rate of success you had here.
>I’ll start reaching out to dog sport friends to see who might be willing to assist.>
Perfect! I am sure there are plenty of neutral dogs that would be great helpers!
Nice job here!! Have fun with the new games this week!
Tracy
Good morning! I am glad the snow is melting!
>She wasn’t super excited to go, but it could have been partly because earlier we had done the set point and she had raced around in the yard with my others, and she’d never done this sequence before. But I’m feeling like I need to work on her starting enthusiasm, or maybe it will come as she gets more experience.>
I have learned that my sighthounds tend to have short bursts of high speed then get tired and conserve themselves – so you can save the racing around with the others for after the training, to being able to save the high speed for the training 🙂 I bring the whippets into handling training sessions totally fresh so they are a bit wild LOL!!
But she did really well here overall!
The angle of the tunnel entry was really hard for her – she was pumped up on that first rep but couldn’t quite coordinate ducking low into the tunnel.
She found it really well after that and had lovely speed – great job continuing even if there was a little blooper. On the exit of the ‘Go’ reps, add more connection to her eyes as you move up the line – that will help her see the line to the wing out ahead even better. You did that at 4:50 and she drove to the wing really well!
The wrap speed on the start got better when you held her collar and it looks like you were talking to her a bit – you can give her a little ‘ready-set-go’ when holding her collar there. And to get more speed when starting from the standstill, you can sometimes mix in rewarding the wrap by running with the toy for her to chase – I think she will like that 🙂
She was a bit fried by a little after 5 minutes or so was wanting a break – to keep her speed up, you can cut this session into 2 minutes, take a break (whether she wants one or not haha) then come back a few minutes later and do another 2 minutes or so.
Great job here! You can flip this setup so the wing after the ‘go’ exit of the tunnel is on the other side, so she can practice it on your left too 🙂
Tracy
Good morning! Hope you had a good weekend!
>I did notice he wasn’t super tight, but really just thought he’s still learning the cues. He definitely looks like he can keep speed around the curves this way though!>
Small dog handling is different than big dog handling 🙂 We want to see the collection and tight turns with our bigs… but the smalls get more freedom to set up their own turns. We still teach the collection and at some point with the smalls, we set up timing lights to see what is faster: cueing that super tight turn with collection, or letting the dog set his own line. The results might be surprising in that the ‘wide’ line is dramatically faster! That is the case for my 15.75” tall dog. We have that on the radar with Aelfraed when he is older 🙂
>On Friday he had made a huge game out of stealing my mitten from the car and running away with it.>
That is hilarious!!!! Fun!! And I am glad he liked it as a toy on a string too! He was tugging on it like a madman during the first pillbug game! He did the shadow handling the brilliantly. I think it was hard for him at first so he had to really think about it (note the silence LOL) but then he figured it out, added speed, and added singing 🙂 Great job with your connection!
>I think perhaps because he was rather offended by the holding start. After the 3 reps at the beginning, he absolutely refused to go back to be held again and started to take himself around the circle instead. >
He does get bonus points for wrapping her like a barrel on the 2nd rep, though! LOL!
Yes, he seemed to be avoiding being held and that might be why he also didn’t want to tug, because the tugging was near her. Is not wanting to be held a relatively new thing? I remember him being happy to be held but maybe I am remembering wrong. Either way, no worries, adolescence might be to blame and he was feeling sensitive about being touched or restrained. You were smart to not push things or force it.
He did well with the inside turns! I think the first rep of bind to inside turn surprised him and happened fast with the blind a little late, so he jumped up . Exaggerating the connection and starting the blind sooner (like at 1:10) really helped him sort out his footwork to do the inside turns and it got nice and smooth after that! You can add in going to the 2nd barrel too!
>t definitely feels like the stay is precarious right now. He wants to do it but it’s very hard for him and I can tell he can’t do it for long.>
For a young dog that likes to move, the stays might be mentally expensive right now which is why they feel precarious. You can mix in having him stay on a platform – the visual aid and structure of the platform can help support the stay so you don’t need to use a real stay all the time at this point.
>He was enjoying the mitten inside which was great and also said it was very hard to see the mitten move away from him.>
Maybe shopping for mittens in other colors? LOL! Or put a ball inside the mitten so it is higher profile on the ground? He did appear to be tracking it when it was moving though, with good forward focus to it!
He had trouble holding the stay with the mitten on the ground but he was keen to keep trying – I think the mitten was super motivating and exciting, so he was a little twitchy with the stay. But he had a ton of lovely reps here!
He liked the smiley face with more distance! Running is FUN! And his commitment was lovely to the tunnel and the wings. The soft turns had even better commitment than previously, he was really flying from wing to wing!
He also doesn’t let you off the hook with connection and motion 🙂 At 1:2 you didn’t quite have full connection back to him as he exited the wing (you were looking more at your side which closes your shoulder) so he was not sure which side to be on went with th subtle line of motion to your right side. That type of thing is 100% of the time a handler disconnection, so if it happens just keep going to the line he is on and reward.
Compare to the next rep at 1:23 and 1:26 (and the reps after that) where the connection was so obvious that he had zero questions.
He is ready for the next wing-tunnel game (Tunnel Exit Turns in week 2)
He did really well with the proofing game too – he needed a tiny bit of motion support to the tunnel, but he wrapped really well even with the tunnel right there! We will keep working to get him to take the tunnel (layering the wing) without you needing to move at all – you can use this setup again but we are also adding new games this week!
Great job :)
TracyHi!
Your new training space is coming together beautifully! This session went really well.Getting a smooth line to the wing straight ahead after the tunnel is probably the hardest part of this! After those go reps: you had really good connection on the tunnel exit, but give him one or two more steps to get commitment – your decel was a little early and overriding the drive to the wing a bit so he looked at you when he exited the tunnel.
Sending to the tunnel from further away will help get you ahead of the tunnel exit even more: based on what he was doing here, I bet you can send to the purple wing (the wing closer to the camera) and tunnel from further away, even with you near the pink wing – that will ask him to find the tunnel entry with you pretty far up the tunnel which puts you way ahead of the exit. And being that one or two steps further ahead so he sees more motion makes a bit difference to create a smooth line, like at 3:52 and 7:01.
The tighter tunnel exits and the soft turns on the wings all looked great! He is committing and finding the wings really well. You can flip the setup a bit to put the ‘go’ wing on the other end of the tunnel so he practices the go on your left side as well.
It will be fun to see how he does when you are able to take this to bigger spaces and he can open up and run run run!
Great job!
Tracy
Good morning! Hope you are staying warm!
He did really well here on such a hard game. It took him a moment to sort out the framework of the game but then he was really solid: fast & accurate! He had a couple of questions about the tunnel because you were stepping back away from it on a couple of reps so he checked in to be sure you really wanted the tunnel – but when you faced the tunnel, he was very smooth to it and also got the wraps when you asked for them.
He did really well when he did the tunnel then wrap in flow! He didn’t consider a second tunnel on those at all (unless you cued it). Super!
Most (all?) of any bloopers were because the physical cues and movement started before the verbals.
So for he next session, remember to start by holding his collar and saying the verbals 3 or 4 times, so he can hear the cues before he sees any physical motion and before he starts to move. That will allow you to add more understanding to the verbals as we fade out the physical cues – this will be really helpful down the road when we add more distance and he is faced with tunnel-jump discriminations.Great job !!!
Tracy
Hi!
>Tough day as I try to make sense of the current events. Have to motivate myself to continue to do the things that bring me joy – hard right now – way to much anger in me. >
Same here, it has been brutal to follow the news even a little – after a sleepless night, I was able to get to a whippet/lurcher racing event. Sunshine and dog stuff with like-minded people has been restorative so now we can get back to working towards better things ahead. Good for you for getting outside and playing with Jazz!!
>This went much better than the previous session so the few days off helped her regroup. >
Latent learning is magic! She did great here!
>I am still stalling out on her tunnel sends, which make it hard for me to be in a helpful position for wrapping the barrel. >
Yes – I think that was why she was freezing early in the session rather than driving to the wing: you were stationary at the wing with your arm up, so it didn’t make sense. But then when you stayed in motion on the last few reps: brilliant!
She might have also been freezing a bit because she was expected a reward after having it there a couple of times.
If she does freeze up, you can get her going again by continuing to handle and head to the next obstacle.
>I think I need to work on having more distance with the send to the tunnel so that I’m not racing to show her the tunnel entrance.>
One of the things you can do to help that is curl the tunnel entry a bit, so that as she exits the wing she can see directly into the tunnel. With the straight tunnel here, she has to find the entry and decelerate into it, which makes for a delayed commitment. A slightly curled entry will be easier. And if you are going straight, you can keep the exit pointing straight to the next barrel, so only one end is curved towards the wing.
And yes, when she is committing to the tunnel more easily it will be easier for you to be more lateral on the send to it and get ahead of her at the tunnel exit to show her the correct side of the ‘go’ barrel. The good news is that she is VERY fast so it creates challenges early on with staying ahead, as we keep building up distance 🙂
>Also need to revisit the left/right exercise from MaxPup 1 as she doesn’t appear to understand these directionals. >
I think you will see that come together with another session or two – right now she was figuring out the framework of the sequencing so the verbals were not as prominent to her.
>Started the session with Set Point and rewarding moving target stays (she was awesome on all of these)>
Yay! That is terrific!
>Had her at the trial yesterday with Jack (who went 2 for 2 for a second place overall in the Biathlon). Had to brag a bit on him. >
Super!! Biathlon is hard – well done to you and Jack!!!!
>Still working on focus with Jazz – mostly I let her explore things on her own (leashed) with some rewarded recalls, redirecting, and interacting appropriately with other dogs (seemed to be a lot of puppies there today – got to meet Vibe, Cindi’s pup.) >
Very fun! This is really good exposure for her.
>Still working on tugging in that environment >
You can try using your longest, craziest toy and be as far from the ring as possible to be able to swing it around for her to chase.
>and getting her familiar with the measuring stand. (She really doesn’t like it moving over her.) >
Do you have a clothes hanger? You can use that to simulate a wicket and give her a zillion cookies for the hanger being above her.
>Was pleased to see her wrapping a trash can to the right and the left!>
Super!!! That is fun!!
Great job here! Keep me posted!
Tracy
Hi!
>Monica is here and I’ve done a lot of training with her in the past and hope to continue.>
Great! Hopefully she will have some classes coming up or something when the weather is more reliable. Snow is annoying LOL!
>I was able to do some of the simple things like you mentioned with Carmen when we were at my friend’s, so that was good. And after that I took her to a large busy used book store and walked her around. She was definitely curious about everything but seemed comfortable and was also happy to take treats, do some sits, downs, nose touches, and turns, and of course say Hi to people. There were some small stuffed animals there and she played a little with those.>
This is great! It sounds like she was pretty relaxed which is exactly what we want.
>After I wrote this we went out and did the set point with the long toy so thought I’d add it here. >
This went well! The stand stay seemed to be a nice balanced position for her, and easy to get her into the right spot. And the jumping form looks good – there were a couple like at 3:38 which were not as good but I think that was distraction more than anything else because she finished strong!
The low long toy did bring her head position down and it worked really well! Great job adding some stay rewards too. I think the 2nd jump can go up to 10″ – and now that one bar is definitely shorter than the other, you’ll always want to start on the short bar and go towards the taller bar. That will make it easier as bar 2 gets taller and taller 🙂
>Also, I think I need to say stay less.>
No worries! Say it as much as needed 🙂
> Oh, and we got a few inches of snow yesterday afternoon.>
Hopefully it melts soon! If she slips at all, you can hold off with this til the snow melts so she can really push off with her rear.
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
Nerd alert ⚠️ but I think you’ll like this:
In these early stages of training, we are getting a lot of Reward Prediction Error dopamine spikes when the reward arrives (because it is all so happily unexpected). The brain shifts, though, to having the big spike when the brain knows the reward is coming (not when it arrives) so basically we want to get the markers before anything else – even if he doesn’t fully understand them yet, we are capitalizing on the dopamine spike that will be paired with them, which is great for long term plasticity, positive CER, all good things 🙂
If you are in the mood for further nerding 🤓 check out the Wolfram Schultz monkey RPE experiments where the door lifting became what elicited the dopamine spike. The actual arrival of the reinforcement didn’t necessarily elicit it because it was expected. Very cool stuff!
The mat video is listed as still processing so youtube won’t let me see it. Can you repost?
The wrap video was filled with great stuff! The wrapping went great, of course! He’s driving to the cone beautifully and bending really well!
But the environment was the really cool part to see – he was able to ignore the crates and the dragging leash, ignore the stray dog (poor dog!) and shift into a bit of a pattern game when the new black dog appeared. So many things happening and his brain didn’t seem to “notice”. I mean, I’m sure his brain was aware but it looked easy for him to filter them out. Good boy!!!Great job here! Enjoy the rest of the weekend!
Tracy
Good morning!! He was absolutely fantastic here!! And it looks like he is just so much fun. 🙂
His focus for working/playing with you was amazing – especially since he’s a baby pup and he’s never been the DASH before. Wow!!
The forward focus was great! He was happy to drive ahead and was locked onto the toy. My only suggestion is for the in-between moments: try to keep your hands lower when you are tugging , down by your thighs or knees. When your hands come up high, he has to crank his neck up. The best tugging was when you kept the toy basically on the ground, swishing it around for him to grab and pull back on.
You can also ask the holder to hold him for this game too, so you can get far enough ahead to see if he will pass you to get to the toy 🙂
The blinds looked great! The toy might have felt weird because the holder let him go a shade early, but when she held him longer I thought your timing was lovely!
He was also really good about ignoring her, after the first bit of hugs and kisses 😆 He is a very happy social dude, so having to ignore a person and drive to you is great for self-control!!
To do the decel and pivot after the blind, you can lead out even more and start the blind as soon as he starts running to you. That will give you more time to then slow down and show thr cookie hand next to your leg while he is still several strides away from you – then slowly pivot when he gets to you.
Great job here!!
Tracy
Hi!
>Our personal play is going well…so well I have a black eye. I knew better than to get my head close. I appreciate all the tips. It’s such a valuable tool to have.>
Eek!! Ouch! When playing without food and toys, it all has to develop over time, and also it requires that both dog and human understand how each likes to play. And some good arousal regulation on the part of the pup so we don’t get tooth hugs, for example 🙂 I don’t really actively teach it at this stage (beyond the ready dance :)) because it is really too soon and adolescence is an unpredictable time – plus it develops organically really well 🙂 So feel free to protect your eyeballs and engage but don’t worry too much about play without food or toys for now.
>I was singing your praises on FB and a friend with dobes was just at 2 of your seminars in FL. It’s unanimous that you’re wonderful!>
Awww that is too kind!! Was it Carol? She didn’t work her Dobe, I feel robbed 😂
>Here is our stealth game with a novel object already placed in the area and our resilience food to toy to retrieve>
The SSC game when great! The object was pretty obvious I the environment so I am confident that her brain was aware of it and processing it while she was engaging with you. Super!! The more different random novel objects she sees, the more she will develop the neural pathway to ignore distractions.
She definitely loved the toy in the retrieve game! She had a grand time killing it LOL! She was bringing it back pretty well but we can convince her to bring it back more immediately.
The cookie toss was fine and all but she was happily locked not the toy. You can increase the value of the food to use something really delicious or use a lower value toy so she is less likely to try to kill it as much 🙂Great job here!
Tracy
Hi! I hope she is feeling better!
>She doesn’t always come back for the second toy. I’ll try that when she feels better. Yes, she does like lining up between my legs! You are remembering correctly!>
It is possible she is suspicious of the 2nd toy because it means she has to give up the first toy? The line up might be more of a blank slate in terms of it being fun and not paired with giving up toy 1. She can bring toy 1, or not – as long as she lines up, the game can continue with toy 2!
She did really well with the new object to wrap! She was watching your hands a bit at first but then got back to the business of wrapping. Super! The next step is for you to stand up 🙂 This will all come together nicely for the new game added on Monday.
Great job!
TracyHi!
>I have the jumps at 6 inches here because I thought a little height would get her to put more power in. She’s almost 10 months so I think some height should be okay, but tell me if you think I shouldn’t.>
6 inches is great! She is a big dog and 6 inches is really low 🙂
>I have a hard time getting to sit 6 inches from the bar. It might be because I think when she sits she usually rocks back instead of tucking under. >
She can do a stand stay for her jump grids! The exactness of the sit spot won’t be an issue when she is doing sequences. At :27, though, her sit spot was great! You used a cookie lure up high to get her to sit in that spot.
>Sorry there’s so much down time in the video. Hopefully you can forward through that. I’m learning how to clip those out now.>
No worries! It is easier to scroll through it than it is to edit it out 🙂
Nice reward for the stay at the beginning! And I am happy with what she is doing on her jumps. She is actually really organized for such a big young dog!!
My one suggestion is to have a longer toy, so it drags on the ground. The toy was a little high – she was targeting it really well but that was getting her head position a little high.
> notice her front feet don’t hit in the middle of the jumps, but she’s still not taking an extra step before jumping the second jump. I’m wondering if her first jump is shorter because of being close to the bar. >
Usually that is because she is sorting out pushing off from her rear – she is young and I know she will sort it out (and being exactly in the middle is not a requirement, though :))
>Do you think I need to adjust the spacing of the jumps or set her farther back since she’s big? >
Nope! You are all good! That stand stay is something to try and you can also raise jump 2 to 8 inches. She will sort out her hind end push with practice, especially as the dog is dragging on the ground.
>Practicing at the friend’s was tough because she wanted to run off and play with her puppy friends, so we’ll keep trying that. I live in a small town, Flagstaff, AZ, and unfortunately we usually don’t have regular classes we can go to and get practice working around other dogs.>
You can play simple games with her like tricks for treats or tugging around the other dogs. And we have more engagement games coming up here too! I am glad she is friendly so it is fine if she is a little distracted by her friends for now. We will work her through that. Is Monica Bush a local instructor in Flagstaff? I wonder if she has any good puppy classes?
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi!
>I want to use the bar with the go jump as I have an issue with promise looking at just the wings.>
You can use a jump bump so he has a bar visual but it is not displaceable – that way he can’t drop a bar as he learns to find the line. We don’t want to be in the conundrum of whether to reward or not: what if he finds the line but drops the bar? Jump bump for the win LOL!
>His inclination is go so he is not so sure on the verbals yet. >
This will serve you well on course, due to how things are evolving now! We can use stronger cues to get the turns: when you say right, for example: the timing of your verbal was spot on! You were still moving straight which contributed him to going a little wide on the first rep on each side.
Add in turning your shoulders to the next line and use both arms (brake arms) all before he goes in and I bet that gets the perfect turn. He committed to the wings really well, especially when you had countermotion going!
>He’s not totally committed to taking jumps yet and that’s why I had the toy placed out before the go jump.>
That went really well! And on the last rep here, you gave yourself a head start and got a gorgeous GO line with a thrown toy – perfect! You can mix in placed rewards if you are not ahead, and use thrown rewards when you are a little ahead and can set the line clearly. That way he won’t rely on the toy being placed.
Great job!
Tracy
Hi!
This went great! Sitting on something tall was no problem and that cone got pretty far away!
Phire had a short moment of looking at you when you stood up – having the cone that far and standing was kind of a double whammy, so you can bring the cone in closer to get her going with you standing.
She had a pretty easy time going to her left on the wraps. The right was definitely harder – if she slips through and doesn’t wrap, silence is golden (no need to mark it). The silence will equal no cookie (gasp!) so she will fix it fast (because she wants the cookie LOL!). Then the big party you gave her when she got it right was fabulous!!
For now, you can remain standing and just try wrapping different objects – suitcase, box, laundry basket, etc. to help generalize the behavior.
Great job here!
Tracy
