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Wow great run!!!! Who was the judge? Nice big spacing and flow on this course! And that spacing & flow plus his speed made it hard to do anything other than that flip away to the tunnel 🙂 Glad you had it in the toolbox!!! And the spacing was too big to do any layering after the flip to the tunnel, so going into the box to show the next jump worked nicely (yes, a go jump verbal would take out his one little question there).
Great job!!! He is looking fantastic 🙂
TracyYay! She definitely likes the tunnel here too 🙂 Super!
And since she is doing so well with the barrel, you can transition this game to a jump wing to match the visual she will be seeing on course in those jump versus tunnel discriminations.Great job on all of these! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
She did really well here too – she is a rockstar!!! Fun!!! Your mechanics are really good too which helps her be a rockstar 🙂
She found the wrap on the first rep, easy peasy. On the 2nd rep, it looked like she was looking at the tunnel so you didn’t let her go right away. That helped set up success! On the next session, you *can* let go even if she might be looking at the tunnel. She will either surprise you and do the wrap, or she will do the tunnel and get a reset cookie at your side to line up for the next rep (which basically says to the pups: “nice try, you are cute, but that was not quite right”). So it is ok to allow her to possibly choose the wrong obstacle once or twice – she won’t get in trouble LOL! and she will get that reset cookie to line up… it is when she chooses the wrong obstacle more than once or twice that we can help her more. Because she is doing so well, you can see what she does even if she is looking in a different spot 🙂Great job!!
TracyHi! This also looks great! She found the jump very easily and the timing of your reward throw was really good! You can switch to throwing a toy, because I think it will be easier for her to find and will help her continue to accelerate over the jump.
On this rep, you were ahead of her, no problems at all. So keep sending away to the barrel and getting ahead. You can also add starting super close to the barrel, so you close you can touch it – and don’t run til she is finishing the barrel wrap. Then you can run, which challenges her to drive ahead of you.
Great job!
TracyGood morning Gayle and Maya!
The set point here is looking great! She has a nice tight sit, and her form was great! The only thing I would do is move the reward target further away, so she can take a powerful stride or two after landing from jump 2. It is possible her reward target will end up being 15 feet past jump 2 🙂
Have you played with the moving target pre-game? We are going to add that to the jumping games soon, as long as she is comfortable with it. Based on her performance here, I am sure she will be great!!!
Tracy
Hi!
He is also doing really well with the wrap proofing! I don’t think he made a single mistake. Super!!!!
You can add in emphasizing the verbal more and handling less – to do that, you can hold him by the collar while you start saying the verbal for the wrap or tunnel…. then let him go after he hears it a couple of times. You can move a tiny bit and then work up to not moving at all – the challenge is to see if he can do it independently with the verbals only with little or no handling (because he was perfect with the handling, like when you turned towards the tunnel or when you did the front cross on the wing.And you started a rep at the very end of the first video that was 2 tunnels in a row then the wing – but the video cut off so I didn’t see how he did. I am assuming he was great 🙂 so you can add in ‘meeting’ him at the tunnel exit and moving forward to the wing wrap, so he sees motion but no ta lot of handling help. The goal is to get him processing the verbals really well, even if you are not close to the wing to help with handling.
Great job on all of these! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
He looks awesome with this Wind In Your Hair game, on both sides! Yay! You can definitely add more motion now (as much as possible in a small space) – you can take off and run, and keep running as you throw the toy. He was happy to have you start in different positions (near the wing, or near the jump) so now you can challenge him and see if he can still find the jump with you hustling as much as possible in a smaller space.
This game will go outside soon too, but for now try to be able to move past the jump and keep movin. In the smaller space, you were getting caught behind the wing a little of the jump and having to decelerate (you can see the position better on the 2nd video). So you can alter the position of the start wing to allow you to move in a straight line past the wing of the jump (rather than stopping near the wing).
In a bigger area, a 4 or 5 foot bar is great. But indoors until the snow melts, you can use a 3 foot bar or a weave pole to give yourself more room (and it is also a good challenge for him to find a smaller bar!
Nice work 🙂
TracyGood morning! All the jumping foundation skills are going well!
For the moving target on the flat – he is definitely happy to focus downward to the moving toy! Perfect! Because we are going to be using this with jump grids, we want to make it a little more dull for him since he loves his toy so much. He was holding his stay but starting to move and lean forward. To prevent the forward leaning and foot movement, try not to build up too much anticipation. Make it a little more boring LOL!!! When the toy is on the ground and moving, release pretty quickly so he doesn’t start to lean forward in anticipation of the release to the toy.
Same thing on the jump – there was a bit of a proofing element (extra toy movement before the release) which I don’t think he needs because it draws him into a forward lean. Snice we will want him more on his hind end for the jump work, you can be a little less exciting here too 🙂 When he has seen this combined with the jump grids and he is doing well – then we can add back the extra excitement level 🙂
On the set point:
The rewards on the first video totally helped him hold the sit and not move into the down (the sit is the better position for these jumping grids). If he does move into the down, you can reset him ino the sit (as Vicki suggested, it is great to have a training partner!).About the sit versus a down… for the jump grids, a down will put him in an awkward spot relative to the jump, so a sit or stand are better positions. But for regular full course agility you can totally use a down as your start position – that is because there will be at least 15 feet between him and the first jump on course, as opposed to the 6 inches we use on the grids 🙂
He was really good when you started him at jump 1 too! What was the distance between the jumps? It seemed to work well for him. And yes – definitely get him to line up straight and not move into the down. So you can throw back treats as you lead out to remind him.
The other detail to add now is to put the toy down on the ground before you release him so he is looking forward and not at you at all.
This will need to go outside soon or into a building with turf or dirt if you have any access to one – we will want the toy target to end up being about 15 feet away from jump 2 (and also moving) so more room will help! Fingers crossed for the snow to melt ASAP so you can work this outside soon!!
Great job on these!
TracyGood morning!
That is SO interesting! I think the biggest change in dog sports in the last year has been having the neuroscientist/veterinarian/behaviorist join the field. She (Dr. Murphy) has been SO educational, especially with the adolescent dogs! And she tells us that, biologically, there are really no such thing as “fear periods” but rather, these normal stages of adolescent brain development that you saw. Tide was having an adolescent day and you did the right thing by joining Team Chill hahahaha!!!And since there is nothing we can do about it, and obsessing & adding pressure is the wrong avenue… being relaxed and meh is better for everyone!!! We all need a support group to survive canine adolescence LOL!
Keep us posted on what you see with him!
Tracy
Good morning! I am excited to see this posted!
She was great here!She was super about finding the jump while you were meandering (correctly) up the line. Then when you added running? She was even more fabulous!!!
And yes – other dogs, farm animals… and she was completely focused.
She was pumped up for the toy when you started adding motion and was leaping up when you were transitioning from the toy to the next wrap start. If you use a cookie in that transition (ask her to drop the toy, line her up at your side with a cookie, then start) will she still have the great toy drive? If so – definitely use the cookie to help line her up so it is a smooth transition without leaping up.
Since she was so terrific here: you can move to the advanced level where the toy is placed out past the jump and you do the wrap then race her to it. You can refresh that toy race skill on the flat and on the jump, then if she is happy driving to the placed toy, you can add in the wing wrap.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
The set point is going well in that you have taught her the understanding of what the game is… but in this space, there is not enough room for the next steps. Her form on jump 1 is good, but she is a little leapy on jump 2 because the toy is so close (it needs to be about 15 feet away from jump 2 for her, and then we will be moving the toy so you will need even more room). The stay looks good and her understanding looks good, so now save this game til you can be outside on grass or inside on turf. (The mats will not give her as much grip when the speed comes up and the bars start to come up too) The 5 foot distance looks really good for now (we might go to 6 feet, we will decide that in coming weeks). So for now, hold off til you have grass or turf 🙂 Everything she is doing looks good, so we don’t need to rush anything.
WIYH also looked really great!
>>When I hold her collar and say her verbal – she gets a little nuts. Should I keep holding and saying it even if she is super aroused or let her go when she starts pulling and going a little nuts?>>
I thought she was only a little nuts on the very first one 🙂 So hold her til you can say the verbal a few times – if she excited and looking forward, let her go. If she is flailing like a nut monkey…. Stop the verbal and keep holding her til she stops flailing 🙂 She won’t have good mechanics if she is flinging herself and we don’t want to let go if she does that because then she will keep flinging herself LOL!
She had good mechanics on the reps where she was pumped up but not nuts 🙂Speaking of mechanics – her understanding of this game is also super strong and so now it needs to go to footing that she can grip more. Mats are slippery in general, so she is shortened up to prevent slipping or falling – and we want her to be able to open up and go go go 🙂 So, since the weather gods have promised only good weather from now on, move this outside when the snow melts, or onto turf so she can grip as she drives.
Great job!! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning! He looked great in class last week!!! And I love the background about his name – very cool!!!!!!
And also very cool that the snow is gone. Yay!!!
The set point is looking really good. He seems organized and consistent, which is exactly what we want. Yay! 6 feet seems like a good distance. His only question was at 1:40, where he was not sure of the release. It is possible that he is anticipating the catch reinforcement more than the release sometimes, so you can clarify for him by ding the catch before you put the toy down, and when the toy goes down, he is allowed to focus on and release to the toy. Now, if he starts to anticipate and break the stay, we can re-visit that 🙂
WIYH – He looked great here! And the lousy throws were indeed hilarious LOL!!!
One detail, especially as you add more motion (which he is ready for): make sure you are moving straight and not towards the bar. – you were pressuring in towards the bar especially when he was on your right, which will be part of the rear cross cue eventually. So, you can move the wing to whatever angle give you a completely straight line past the jump.
>>I was also wondering if we care how tight he is when he is wrapping the wing and if so what I do to help him.
Yes, he was little wide on the wing but I think he was waiting for ore info before committing to a line. All of his efforts were wraps, but he was not sure exactly where to be. So to help him out – when you are way ahead, add more connection with your arm way back and very direct eye contact. That will tighten him up because ti shows the line better.
>>On one of the left wraps he goes to the wrong side, was that me and the direction I indicated?
That was at 1:14 – probably too far away to send backwards, better to send forward to the wing when you are that far away. The backwards sending doesn’t show the line as clearly at that distance with a youngster. You got it on the next rep, but had to over exaggerate the line which widened it a little.
Time to add more motion! And the tunnel games (he will need a thousand tunnel bags LOL!) Have fun!!!
Great job 🙂
TracyGood morning!
The moving target pre-game is looking good – the goal is to get her moving with her head over and that is exactly what she is doing. Yay! She is getting better about focusing downwards to the hollee roller – sometimes she grabs a little higher up on the toy but overall she is focusing lower which is great. We will be adding this to the jump stuff shortly.
The WIYH game is looking good, so keep adding in more and more of your motion. She was great about driving ahead to the toy (but ignoring it when asked to wrap, and also bringing it back 🙂 The only thing I would add is saying the “go” verbal sooner, so that she is hearing it as soon as she finishes the wrap (you were tending to start it when she was catching up to you, which was a little late on some reps.
On the set point – the focus on the toy especially with you pointing at it produced REALLY good form, much better than the previous session! And also, her form was consistent which is also good -s he was not experimenting with different footwork each Time, which means she was feeling comfortable and powerful. She does leap on the toy a little as she arrives to it, but that is not that important. The next step is to add a very slow moving version of the moving target game – you will lead out, put the toy down, release and slooooowwwwwlllllly drag it forward. That might be super stimulating at first so it make take a rep or two to get the form, but she will sort it out, so do maybe 5 reps and see how she does.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>>e’s actually barking in the trailer if people or dogs walk by so I’m just trying to keep him calm and give him treats for his diligence. It seems to help. Any advice you have for keeping him calm and quiet is appreciated!>>
Is there a way to park further away in these situations? I also make sure the dogs are not looking out the window (covering crates, for example) and I leave music or a TV on when I am not in the trailer. I also have chew bones, snuffle mats, etc to give the dogs something to do.
He did really well with the resilience game here! When he is comfy in an environment, you can move the game closer to distractions but also increase the value of the motivator (better cookies LOL!!).
>>And you can still see how he shies away from me at the end when I touch his harness.
Yes, it looks like he was almost anticipating being picked up and was avoiding that? It was almost reflexive. He didn’t seem to mind the initial harness touch and cookie, so definitely keep doing that and make sure it doesn’t get paired with being picked up 🙂
Nice work!!
TracyHi!
The only barking that stood out was the arousal/frustration barking towards the end of the jump-tunnel discrimination game – long session, a few too many failures, and not enough clarity on the cue in the moment. So definitely shorten the sessions – they can total up to the same amount of time, but you want to split them with big breaks in between.T
