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Hi!
>>, first chiro visit today and she had a rib out and a few decent adjustments. But, she was really good and allowed the manipulation. That might explain why her left turns deteriorated. Poor baby.>>
Yes, could totally be part of why the turns changed. I hear ribs can be painful!
>>My friend built the course for me at the training yard yesterday for me to use today. Yay! However, the way she built it didn’t leave a great camera angle that wasn’t directly into the sun. So, sorry it’s hard to see.>>
YAY for friends that course build!! I will take a course build over a good camera angle ANY DAY lol!!!!!! And the camera angle was fine 🙂
The course work looked GREAT!!!!!!
The threadle slices at the beginning looked great – I was going to mention starting the threadle cue earlier but you did that with great timing on the full sequence! Really super!
Adding the backside: nice job with the opening and threadle line! A little blooper on the backside at :13:
you turned your feet and shoulder to the front, when staying on a parallel line running to where the wing and bar meet and connecting back to her would work. You must have felt it in the moment because you nailed it at :20 – that was a great adjustment!!!First full run was SO FREAKIN’ NICE – perfect all the things, great turns, great connection, great timing, great backside line, all of the above. SO NICE!!!!!!!
2nd run, 1B to the backside of 5 – also gorgeous!!!! One small detail – You were maybe too far across the backside bar at 6 (1:02) – she was wide on the bar there, lining up with your position, and ticked the bar as she was turning to find the line. I thought your timing was good, so her little question was like to be the position. You had a better line at 1:24 and she had no jumping questions. Super!!!
>.A few tunnel send disconnections bought me a serp jump! I mostly moved on so this is all that we did.>>
Yes – more connection and more tunnel tunnel tunnel verbal will help in those moments (say tunnel a bunch more times there and at 2:37 too). She will also get more experienced with staying on the line to the tunnel with more exposure to the layering skills.
The next rep was definitely better next. Also, you can strategize to not get as far ahead – stay closer to the backside by not running as fast 🙂 so she can drive ahead of you to the tunnel and that way you don’t slow down or show any sudden changes of direction. The more acceleration you can show, the easier it is to layer.
On seq 2, the opening line looked great! On the FC back to the tunnel, you were a little too far across the bar of 5 which made pushing back to the tunnel harder, and also the course build might have been slightly different so the line to the tunnel was not as natural – well done on the next reps adjusting to send her to the tunnel!
You did a nice job on the RC at 2:07 but be one step more patient before starting the go – she dropped the bar making the turn there, In that same spot on the next rep, you didn’t have quite enough turn away/rear cross cues at the 2:23, so she wrapped to her left.
Now… after the big tunnel send, you totally had time to do the blind! It is a moment to send to the tunnel, use your loud “go” and “jump” cues, run directly to the blind cross spot (you were running the line a bit with her) and barely connect so when you see a blur taking the jump after the tunnel, you do the blind 🙂 It is great training for her and a lot of trust from you!
In in on seq 3 was great! Very nice!!!!
>. On the last exercise we never got the right turn out of the tunnel. You probably can’t see it but she exited left and turned around and went right back in. Tried the blind once. Scary>>
Yes, that is super hard! Part of her question no the RC on the tunnel exit might be young dog/inexperience, I thought your timing was good on the first rep but Sprite disagreed 🙂 You can try getting closer to the jump before the tunnel to set the line to the RC and cut behind her even sooner – that is closer to what you did on the last rep, you just need to be more forcefully getting on her line right behind her tail to show her the RC (feel free to place the toy out in advance too, to help her out!)
The blind was almost perfect, actually, you had finished most of it before she landed! You just needed more connection there, to make the big eye contact on the new side to get her on your left. I think when she is more experienced, she will read it based on the head turn you did, but for now she also needs the full connection. And yes, it is scary, it is hard to see the dog there!!
Overall, this was a super session!! Very exciting to see all of the beautiful work!!
Tracy
Hi!
>> I think what “confused” me was that it was a performance goal that followed/resulted from other performance goals.>>
It might be that we can break things down into performance goals (cuing and training him well enough that he looked straight) and process goals, which are the exactly HOW you are going to cue and train him for that performance goal (timing of verbals, your handler path, arm use, etc. We talk more specifically about that in Zoom 3 and the 3rd set of articles 🙂
On the video – lovely work!
The jump versus tunnel at the beginning looked great! You did a great job breaking it down and showing him the difference between the jump and the tunnel there!On the full sequence:
Excellent job with your early “GO” cue before the tunnel and the motion to support the layering on the 2-3-4 line. He found the jump behind the tunnel with a queation (bar down). The question could have been that the jump cue was a little late (it was after landing from the previous jump, maybe he needs it before takeoff?) or that the organization for the layered jump at fulll speed was hard!
You gave the “jump go out” cue before takeoff of jump 5 on th e2nd run (nice timing!!) and hekept the bar up. It could have been the earlier timing, or he sorted out the mechanics of the layering, or both. Either way – keep that early timing 🙂 and wewill keep showing him these lines so he gets used to the layering skills and then doesn’t have to think about mechanics at all.
Great job here!!!
Tracy
Hi!
>>When JJ did her CGC test, and they dropped the chair for a noise distraction, JJ was really startled. >>
Sounds like a big distraction!!
>>>Unfortunately, when they do the testing at the club, they set up stations and two big open rooms. Because of this, the dogs are exposed to the drop in chair over and over even though they have moved onto the next station. >>
Yikes! That seems extra hard for younger, inexperienced dogs.
>>It was really disturbing for JJ.
I stand with JJ! It is really disturbing! It sensitizes the pups to the noise in a situation where they are already a little on edge.
>>I was thinking I should probably bring her to the club and try to desensitize her to this. Should I instead have tried to remove her from this?>>
This is where the back-and-forth pattern game comes in: something startling happens, and you immediately go into the pattern game. It can work really quickly for her to bounce back and stop worrying about it. You can use food between stations for CGC, right? And if it is too hard – yes, get her out of there. We would start desensitization in a less challenging way.
We had that situation arise today in a live zoom class for the MaxPup 3 crew: a sweet little BC was working outdoors and there were loud bangs (probably firecrackers). She was really disturbed and wanted to leave the area. We used the pattern game and she bounced back immediately and got right to work! I am going to grab that portion of the video and post it – it was really cool to see the resilience in action!
Tracy
Hi!
I am glad your parents are moved in! Yay!
>>For Flyball Foundation Fun: Ball Retrieves And Toy Trades I thought that this session went really well. JJ is retrieving a disc when we play outdoors (semi consistently although not to hand) and toys in the house (more often to me although not perfectly to hand like on obedience). She seemed to really like this game.>>
I am glad she likes it – so fun! It takes a challenging skill and makes it really fun, then you can shape it to being a perfect obedience retrieve.
>>I am not sure how you were able to play tug with the ball in your dogs mouth though.>>
Carefully, very carefully LOL!! I have a finger on each side of the ball in their mouth, holding it gently, and gently tugging. You did it in the video, like at 1:40 for example.
On the video – Greta job here! She definitely likes the ball! It can be a very useful reinforcement!! Interesting that on the first rep, with the ball rolling to her left, she still turned to her right LOL!! And that is fine. We can set up the angles or throw to get left turns (like throwing it into a corner so there is a wall and she can’t turn right).
The retrieving looked great – using a toy is fine here because she loves her toy too! You can alternate ball throws with toy throws, so she is retrieving both! And you can add in a bumper or dumbbell or anything you want her to retrieve.Looking at the crate video – is this her normal crate? And if so, do you normally cue her to go in it? She might have been waiting for a cue and not knowing you want her to offer. You can also use the crate in the ‘normal’ location, so it is more recognizable as the thing to go into 🙂
On the 2nd video, at 2:26, you got some good shaping reps in and she was getting the idea for sure! Keep going with the shaping like you ended up with here – successive approximations for the win!
I agree that this crate was a little small and the element of ducking to get in it was making it harder. So you can try a really big crate and see if that helps – she is likely to be more comfy getting all 4 feet into a bigger crate where she wil be turning around to go to the MM.
>>so I was not sure what preceeded the dog making the choice to go in the crate. >>.
It was his crate in the usual location, so he just took a really good guess and started offering 🙂
Nice work here!
TracyHi!
>>Question about the switching-toy-hand-to-hand issue…I’m happy to practice with the toy in my pocket for now, but it made me curious if you ever run with two toys, one each hand? If I wanted to break my habit but also have the toy ready to throw at the perfect timing and not fish it out of my pocket, is two toys a viable option to try?>>
Yes! You can totally run with 2 small toys, one in each hand, as long as you don’t get distracted by both hands being full 🙂 Either way (2 toys or empty hands) works great! Definitely try empty hands sometimes, because that also helps the pups learn that the reward is not always visible, and makes for an easier transition to trials.
Find My Face looked great! My only suggestion is to make it more of a back-and-forth pattern by tossing ut the opposite direction from where you started after he finds you – you were tending to toss back to the start stop on most of the reps, but the pattern of moving back and forth is very helpful!
And if it seemed easy: perfect! We want these resilience games to be very easy because we want the dogs to be very comfy with them when needed in the real world (in a stressful moment, for example).Moving threadle:
He likes his board to sit on! Super!This session went well! You have it marked as threadles but they were serps (because he was coming in over the front of the bar , not going around to the back and jumping th jump back towards the camera).
>>I think I was maybe a bit two forward pointing with my body even though I did have my hand back, but what do think? Should have I had more rotation towards the jump?>>
I thought your were good here! Reacher gets the final say, though – he was happy with this (based on how well he read it) so you can add motion: when you start walking faster or jogging, he might need your shoulders to face the jump more (or not :)) He will let us know 🙂
>>but the second I added a little bit of motion towards the wing he totally got it and started turning around it easily and quickly. I was surprised that he didn’t do that when I was motionless, but perhaps I was too far from the wing at first and he was pretty fixated on the toy I had also.>>
Adding a little step to the barrel or wing on turn and burn is great! It is possible you were a little too far, and at this stage adding the cue (the motion to it) is great. And you can add your wrap verbal too!
And sleeping in the tunnel is the CUTEST THING EVER!!!! Adorable!!!!! 🥰
Great job here!
TracyHi!
>>Fingers crossed we don’t get rained out for class tonight!>>
The weather gods promise good weather tonight!
On the wingin’ it countermotion game: He wanted to stay with the momma and the toy 🙂 So you can drop the toy back by the wing, so he can leave you for the wing and – surprise! – the toy is there while you leave 🙂 Or, you can drop a giant cheese ball. Either reward dropped back there will get him more focused on the wing and less focused on you and your hands (the toy from your hand as very exciting!)
I think you were doing some threadle wraps in there (getting him between you and the wing then turning him away) and that made it harder – so remember to let him go around the outside of the wing (turning towards you).
He was a superstar with the teeter!!! Good boy! So for the home teeter, get it to not move at all, even if it is lower to help repeat the success here. And since he is such a teenage boy… don’t get too excited til he is all the way off the board, because he falls off sideways when you are excited as he is coming down the plank LOL!!!!
Great job here! See you later!
TracyHi!
Great job in class today – those games are WICKED and you both looked great 🙂The teeter games are going well! On the first video, she was happy to drive across the board to the food at the end. It bounced a little, but a lot less than before so she didn’t seem to concerned about it.
Were you playing with a toy in between reps? You can incorporate more excitement but tugging – then doing the teeter rep like you did, then when she comes off the teeter, throw a toy, then tugging, and repeat 🙂 That can help get more speed across the board on this game.PLENTY of speed on the mountain climbers game! YEAH!!! And tons of confidence. She didn’t seem to care what you did in terms of handling or motion – she was happy tp run up the board. You can add crosses (like a BC or FC) at the end of the board as she gets to the top, while she is eating 🙂
Keep adding tip very very gradually – if she changes her speed or enthusiasm, you can make it easier. Are you also doing the bang game with her?Great job :)
TracyHi!
Nice work on these!She looked at you a little on the Go rep at the beginning – you can start saying the GO verbal as she exits the tunnel. Also, a pre-placed toy will help her to look forward the whole time especially on the bigger distances.
>>My wraps still suck. LOL It’s hard with so much distance.>>
I think this session proves that your wraps do NOT suck! The distance makes it hard but they were really nice!!!Timing of starting the wrap at :15 was good, she just needed a little more connection there – and you actually started rotating too soon 🙂 Great job turning and going as if it was perfect – she didn’t get frustrated.
The wrap at :30 was great! She looked at you a little over jump 3 but that might be because the distances are huge. Nice timing on the wraps cues!!
Wrap at 1:17 also good, maybe the rotation was a tiny bit late (she ticked the bar) so you can try to decel sooner so you can rotate sooner, but just one step.Last wrap looked like a RC or backside push for a moment, you can see her pushing away on her line for a moment there – the wraps don’t need any pressure into her line so you can run straight parallel to her path without needing to drive to the wing or takeoff spot.
Nice RC! You had to work hard to get the diagonal because you ran forward between the tunnel and 3 – you can run more directly to the RC line so she sees it before she takes off for 2.
The Push was really good! You got directly on the line and made great eye contact as you gave her the cue. You can be direct about getting on the RC line like this too, no need to go parallel to jump 3 at all)
On the countermotion video:
Great racetrack at the beginning!
She was super explosive on the countermotion sends here! Great job with your rotations and backwards sends – the connection shift to the wing rally helped her and she was able to easily find the wing behind you. SUPER! And the balance of the wraps and the racetracks at the end looked great!>>I’m thinking I’ll try to do some more tomorrow and then move on to the week 4 games?>>
Because your life is about to get very busy, you can move to the new handling games posted today! They build off the countermotion games and are easy to set up.
Great job here!!
TracyHi! Prytania and Annalise were great here! They definitely liked have the crowd around 🙂
Annalise: Nice job with the mechanics of the countermotion: arm, leg, eyes, verbals. Lovely!
Also great job adding distance away from the wing to start and adding in moving forward before Prytania got to the wing!
When you did two in a row, you did a REALLY fabulous job of making sure you looked behind you as you moved forward. The timing of your rotation towards her to seen to eh 2nd wing was great – really early so basically you were facing her. That is really hard for pups and at 2:55 she had a little question. You made a great adjustment at 3:16 and had a clearer connection shift to look back at the wing as you moved forward. PERFECT!!
Doing 3 in a row is hard because things happen so fast, but you nailed it. Yay! The last rep was particularly excellent with your quick rotations and your clear connection shifts back to the wing as you moved to the new direction. YAY!!!!
And Prytania thought it was really fun – great tugging and great focus throughout!!! Bummer about the storm that came in, but this session was really excellent an you can tackle the racetracks next time 🙂
Well done!!!
TracyHi! I hope you are feeling better today!
Doing this with you moving more slowly was really good for getting more and more distance and allowing you to rotate sooner – all while she committed with confidence, speed, and nice tight turns 🙂 She didn’t seem to mind that you were not running during the wraps – she was very happy to just drive to them independently. Super!!!
Only one suggestion: when you do the race tracks, keep your dog-side arm lower. Your hand was way up high, so it blocked your connection and she had to look at you a bit (especially at the beginning of the race tracks). Try to have your fingers pointing down to her nose (so you hand will end up below your hip) – that will allow her to see the connection and you will also be able to show the line nicely.
>>I have never taught right and left before. I wasn’t really using any verbals with this, just held her out with my arm. Do you have a good resource that I can refer to for teaching right and left cues?>>
If I remember correctly, you also did the MaxPup 2 class? You can find more about the left and right here:
Great job here!!
TracyHi! Great to see you here!
Sorry about the recordings – I forgot to click the Post button! Eek! They should now be visible here:
Thanks for the reminder!!
TracyHi!
>>For the outside arms, hold it up like large jazz hand style? I’m having a hard time picturing.
Jazz hands would be hilarious but it is more like this:
(The full video has more explanations and some demos at the end)>>His focus has been better and I feel like I’m jumping through significantly less hoops to get him working. Im probably being too critical about speed because I just want all the things >>
His focus and speed are looking stronger and stronger each time you post!!!! Your hard work is paying off!

>>I’ll work on trying to put the toy in a different hand but it usually makes my brain glitch. In the pants might be better.>>In the pants is great, it doesn’t have to be a precision reward for most handling stuff.
T
Hi!
These runs went well!! There are definitely hard parts to this which rely on a lot of handling plus skills.I think the main parts to handle more aggressively are the threadles (at 3, at 8, and at 16). You were tending to move far from the jump so she know it was not the front side, but she didn’t really know if it was a threadle or wrap or slice. And it was hard to tell based on the upper body, so she had some confusion. So keep moving towards the threadle jump while threadling, which will really help her find the line. And make the upper body cues look dramatically different – high single arm for the slice, maybe 2 low hands from the wrap.
At 3 (:08), that works really well as a threadle slice so that she then has a straight line to the weave entry (plenty of room between the jump and the wall there :)) She had a few questions and ended up wrapping so you went with it, but I am not sure if that is what you intended 🙂
Nice weaves! The layering is hard for sure! It was probably easier after the tunnel at the 10-11-12 section because there is so much more speed from the tunnel. You can help build more distance by placing a reward to drive to out past the weaves, gradually getting closer and closer to the jump then between the jump and tunnel, and so on, so you can build up the layering based on your verbals and not needing to move in close to the line.
She had a questions about the #8 threadle at 1:36 – it looked like you were slicing based on upper body but you were pretty far from the jump so it was hard to tell. AS she is exiting the #7 teeter, you can be threadling and moving towards the threaded side of the bar, until you see her head turn to the bar (that is your cue to takeoff to the a-frame).
10-11-12 tunnel-jump-weaves was great! And the flip from the DW to the 14 tunnel also worked great – to get further ahead to the 16 threadle, you can hang back more and also be further away from the bottom of the DW, so you can handle 14-15 from further away – that will allow you to be past the exit of 15 to show the threadle to 16, moving towards the jump and not hanging back or pulling away.
As soon as she looks at the 16 jump – get outta there and run for home (jump 20) with big verbals and some connection 🙂 you helped a bit too much hat 18 by stepping in to it, which changed her line and the bar came down.
On the 2nd video, you ran the 1-2-3 line going the other direction but I think it sets up a harder line (and she ended up off course in the tunnel . The weave entry is easier if the dog wraps the 3 jump closer to the wall, which means the left turn on 1 sets up that whole line better (for a slice on 3).
>>My 2nd try on the course we struggled getting the teeter. Seems easy until it’s not. Then we get into a shouting match and we both get frustrated. >>
That was late cuing, so if you get behind, it biomes more important to give early verbals and accelerate to the line. On the previous video, you were further ahead so she saw motion to the teeter. On this run, at :17 you were behind her as she entered the tunnel and you didn’t give any additional info til after she exited – so she exited looking for you since she had no other info. And you were near a jump, which made it harder to get back to the teeter.
On the reset, the verbal was late at :30 but you were physically in the picture so she got it.
The main thing is that before she enters the tunnel, she needs to know what is next especially if you are behind and there are other options – she gets super BIG MAD if it is unclear and then if you slow down. So in this case, as she was approaching the tunnel, you can use a “go” or “get out” verbal and a teeter verbal as you accelerate – all before she enters so she knows what to do when she exits (then keep saying it when she exits so you can get commitment). Your tendency is to give forward cues when she exits the tunnel, which will cause her to ask questions if you are behind.
After that, you did long stops and rewards on all the contacts but I don’t think it is a contact issue – I think it is a flow issue when you are behind her, so keeping her in flow will be really helpful to practice the timing.
The threadle on 8 worked better there (you stepped to the bar better!).
She had a question at 1:43 – before getting into the tunnel, she didn’t hear any cues so she was not sure what to do – the threadle cue was a but ale (after she exited) and then you stepped to the jump before she got to the threadle side so she ended up on the backside. Be sure to keep threadling til you see her head come to the correct side AND look at the jump – then you can take off.
>>That’s very much trial like behavior but usually it happens after the teeter.
So for this frustration moments at he trial, my guess is that your “what’s next” cues are late and you are not ahead enough to be setting the line. You can make those the top priority: always telling her what’s next especially before a tunnel, and setting the lines with motion as much as possible.
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
