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Good morning!
I feel like we all basically spent the holiday weekend hoping our pipes would survive it LOL I’m glad your pipes thawed out – 2 days without water is rough but at least no burst pipes!
Serps: these are going well! His stay looks good if you get in position fast – he would break if things too a little too long. You can try walking to position with your serp arm out, going the long way around the jump so you move across the bar as if truly serping. That will get you to position sooner and you won’t then have to take a moment to get your arm and feet in position.
One mechanics suggestion: Hold your serp arm back and shoulder open until he reaches the cookie target (or toy, later on) to simulate what the cue will look like when a jump replaces the treat target. You drop treat in from other hand while keeping your shoulders frozen (the treat might bounce around a little, but that is fine :)) keeping the open shoulders is what cues the turn away to the next jump, and closing the shoulders is what often causes the dogs to run past the next jump.
When the toy is in play, things get more exciting! Be sure to look at your target hand when using the toy. At 3:28 you looked at him, which didn’t give him as much info about where you wanted him to be so he went to where your feet were pointing: the toy. Good job with the reset reward. Compare it to 4:17 and 5:05 where you did shift your eyes to your target hand, and he was perfect. Yay! That connection shift is helpful for the pups!
I think he is ready for the toy to go to the ground on this, so he is doing the in-and-our of the serp to the toy on the ground. You can refresh that skill on the flat because there is a lot of impulse control, and remember to look at the target hand (shake it if needed :))
He is driving ahead really well for the rear crosses, which is allowing you to show the rear crosses and get the turn both directions. Super!! He sure to throw in some non-RCs, plain old parallel path, so he doesn’t go on rear cross autopilot. But this is going well and we will add to this game soon 🙂
>> We also worked on lap turns which I didn’t get videoed. He comes to my hand and does the turn okay but then doesn’t drive forward to his prop. Should I just throw the cookie to drive him forward or throw a toy? He will move up with me if I move forward but I’m not sure that’s the intent?>>
He sure has plenty of prop value, so he might be thinking that the lap turn itself predicts reward, so he sure to be quiet after the lap turn (no praise, just stay connected and move to the prop). You can also build more value for the prop in this context by first warming up the parallel path, then add in just turning him away on the flat, next to you (not the full lap turn) then moving to the prop. Watch his head: when he looks forward to the prop, mark it and toss the treat. Let me know if that helps.
>>On another subject, I will be traveling up north next week for New Year’s to see family and won’t be home for the zoom class either Wednesday or Thursday night. >>
We will miss you!! Hoping for great weather for your travels!!
Tracy
Good morning! Hope you had a great weekend!
Parallel path – this is going well! It took her just a couple of reps to realize she should look ahead and not at you for the reward. She was a little better on your left side at first but then even in this little session, she got better on your right too. Just be sure that you are watching her, to see that same is looking at/moving towards the props. When you were a head and looking ahead of her, she was drifting out wide to watch your hands instead of looking at the prop (like at 1:23). It does sound strange that looking at her a little more causes her to look at the line more, but that is how the dogs read things LOL!
Yes, she is ready for the concept transfer. And yes, a jump panel board should be fine as a “bar” for now 🙂 I’m looking forward to seeing how she does!
Rocking horses: Amazon barrels for the win! This went really well! I see what you mean about the left turn being slightly harder than the right turn, so yes: slow that side down for now and don’t do the Front Cross until she is at least halfway around. You can do the front cross on the right turns sooner, but it is also fine to do both sides at the same timing (halfway around) so you don’t need to keep track of it when you are in the thick of things LOL!
It is also possible that you were blocking the line to the barrel a little (hard to see on the video): compare your position at :28 when she was perfect going to her left, versus 1:19 where she was wider and didn’t get around the barrel. So you can show her a full visual of the barrel by moving over to your left, when she is on your right. And when you didn’t have the full Hallmark moment, I think she was trying to offer going to her stronger side (right turn) – which is exactly what happens with pups when we don’t give the full Hallmark 🙂
I figure one more session of this like you did here, and she will be ready for the advanced version. Have you started thinking about what wrap verbals you’d like to use? She’s just about ready for those too 🙂
Looking at the blinds: these are basically connection hallmark moments too, but while you are running 😅 it was hard to see your face, but based on your shoulders on the first couple of reps, it looks like you didn’t get the connection she needed to see in order to make the side change. Even with the toy, she needed to see your eyes. Compare it to the last rep at :25, where it was clear you had great connection and so she easily made the side change.
Getting the blind cross connection is harder with small dogs than big dogs, so 2 ideas that can help:
Keep your arms in really tight to your ribs (I bend my arms and tuck them into my ribs)
Or
Try dipping your new dog-side shoulder towards her after the blind, as you look for her eyes. That can give her a fuller visual of the connection.She did a great job holding her stay, but you can use a helper to hold her if you want more of a head start – that should give you more time to make the connection.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
This was indeed a lovely Christmas gift LOL! And the barrel games that I saw on Facebook looked great too 🙂 I am glad you have access to the club, that must be so nice in the winter!!!All the reps looked really good (two bloopers, more on that below)! You can try using a Manners Minder instead of a cookie toss to start the game, so you can better predict when she will begin moving towards you. And, one mechanics suggestion: keep your serp arm out until she has arrived at the reward bowl, to simulate what the physical cue would be if there was a jump there instead of a bowl. That arm back & shoulder position is what cues the line to the next jump, so it is good rehearsal to keep it back and out here too. You can drop the treat in with the other hand or you can delay the treat drop a tiny bit – the timing of the reward is less important than the arm position on the serp.
The 2 bloopers were timing issues (1st rep and at 1:28). On both of those, you started moving too soon so by the time she committed to coming towards you, you were past the exit wing (so you got a threadle based on the first angle, and she ran past it because of her angle at 1:28). So stay in position til she is on her way to you, or:
>>what I really need now is stays. So I’ve started working on that. I can do that at home too.
Yes – if she doesn’t have a stay yet, it is time to prioritize it especially if you’ve started sending entries out.
>>Warning-very unhappy terrier in the background.
Ha! Barely noticeable LOL!!! Just the sad song of the terrier people.
Great job here!!!
TracyGood morning! Hope you had a great holiday weekend!
She looked awesome on the zig zags! Were the bars 16” at the end here? She looked really strong on all of them. Yes, there was the one bad line up but also on that rep: it looked like it was the only rep where the toy was stationary until AFTER she was landing from 1, then you started to move it. The distraction of the toy starting to move was probably a contributing factor to the bar down. But it definitely goes on the list of good distractions to show her! If she was planning on the toy remaining stationary then it started moving, it makes sense that she couldn’t process it at her speed. But that is a common human error that we all make: sudden shifts to acceleration. So you can take an easy version of the zig zag (lower bars, easier angles) or even on one jump: and show her the sudden accelerations 🙂
Organizers: these are looking great too! Clear mechanics from you, and her latent learning kicked in so it all looked strong. Yay! I suggest adding in 3 more things over the course of the next session or two:
– using food, more motion from you: move in and out of FC wrap handling while she moves in and out of the sit on the plank. This should be easy for her.
– get a toy involved so she is more stimulated. The challenge is: can she be this organized while more amped up? So when you add the toy, use the calm mechanics and minimal motion you used on the video here.When she is happy with more motion using food, and more stimulation with the toy… use the toy AND more motion. Yay! You might be able to add more motion with food for a couple of reps, then less motion with the toy, all in one session.
When she is happy with that… start fading the organizer. I use both versions of fading: using the wrap verbals to let the pups run through the plank, and removing the plank and asking for the sit on the ground.
Backside zigzags:
These are the hardest version of the zigzags for sure! Looking at why she was ticking the bar (she ticked a little when it was on her right and a lot more when it was on her left), 3 things stood out:– it is definitely a harder skill, so keep the bars lower for now. When she was jumping to her left, she started with the higher bar (she started with the lower bar on jumping to her right at the beginning of the video). And latent learning will kick in too, and her brain will wire in the organization to help her out.
– some of the ticking was because she was looking at you (nothing else to look at in a short grid so it was easy for her to watch you and the toy throw :)) so have the toy on the ground as a focal point. Place it about 10 feet past jump 2, so she can power through with a straight, lower head.
– I think the footing played a role here too – mats are fine for most things (like all of the other games you do with her here :)) but the mats were not really giving her good grip to set up the power jumping on the backside on this angle. The focal point of the toy on the ground might help, or you might find it more successful if you can get to dirt or thick turf at some point. You might need to wait til spring for the tighter angles on this, but that is fine because she is doing really well and you can keep it to simpler angles in mats because the simpler angles don’t need as much “grab” of the footing as the harder angles do on the backsides. Once she learns the high speed organization, she should be able to bring it back to mats but for now, she has to slow herself down to get it on mats and that doesn’t seem like something she will do hahaha!!!
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! Hope you had a great holiday weekend and also hope for NO travel or weather issues!!
For the backside circle wraps – he did well sorting out the organization of it all through the various stages. Yay! I think the hardest part was ignoring the food bowl 🙂 So the next step is to treat this as a full circle wrap, with you moving past the wing to takeoff side as he sits on the plank. This might be hard for the first rep or two, so move at a slow shuffle 🙂 til he gets the concept, them you can move a little faster.
The food bowl placement will be a little trickier – we want to give him another stride or two on the landing side so he wraps the wing (lots of bending on this turn effort!) You can place the bowl at the end of the plank (the part further from the bar): that way he goes between the jump and the bowl to get on the plank (the bowl will be behind him when he is sitting) and after the release, he drives all the way around the wing to get to the bowl. That can give him more room to bend as he takes the jump, and less distraction as he is heading towards the wing (theoretically haha)
Great job here!!
TracyGood morning! Hope you had a lovely weekend! It was very cold here but no snow/ice and we made it through with only a brief power outage. Whew! Hope it is warming up a little for you too!
She did really well with the barrel-to-toy game! She wrapped beautifully and drove ahead beautifully. Super!!! And i think you were also using your wrap verbals – nice!! The straightest path for her was when you did the spin (FC-BC), that created the tightest line. When you did a post turn, she was wider but that was the correct ‘reading’ of the cue and line. So instead of post turns, do FCs and spins to rehearse the super tight lines around the barrel and to the toy. And keep adding distance between the barrel and the toy, so she really gets the feel of driving way ahead of you 🙂
She was not entirely sure when to drop the toy, because you were quick to trade. So it seems like she is not running off with the toy, so you can take another moment to tug with the toy that she has in her mouth then trade for the next one (or fade out the trade, if she is happy to give the original toy back :))
Turn and burn is indeed a hard game, but she is doing really well! There is a LOT of countermotion in this game but she is sorting it out nicely. She does best when you are totally stationary until she gets to the line on the ground – if you move too early, even a little, she looks at you. On most of these you were totally stationary until she got to the line, which really helped her! She seems to be a righty and did better on the turns in the 2nd half of the video. She didn’t seem to lose focus when she investigated the DW – I think she was just investigating the dog walk because it was right there 🙂
And I agree – the more action there is with the toy, the more she plays with it. She was GREAT here with the toy! And it is a good choice for this game(using a toy) because it is high enough in value that it is a reward, but not sooooo high that it is a distraction 🙂
Keep working this turn and burn so you can keep moving sooner and sooner. You can also move to the rocking horse games, which will add the 2nd barrel and more action (she likes action!) and you don’t have to move as early as you did here.
Great job! Let me know how the next steps go!
TracyGood morning! Hope you had a lovely holiday weekend!
He did really well with the beginning retrieve game! Definitely strong tugging and you were great about the pressure-then-release of having him tug on you then letting him “win” the toy and letting him have it. You were also great about resisting temptation to touch him LOL!! I really liked how he drove back to you when you asked him to jump up for it. Super! The next step can be in a small area (bathroom!) where you can toss the toy and encourage him to bring it back (because in a small bathroom, there is no place else to go :))
And since he is a foodie, you can also go to the next step of shaping him to retrieve something using a clicker and food rewards. The item doesn’t have to be a toy, it can be anything that is easy to pick up. That can help give him the idea of bringing things to you.
Later on down the road, these 2 steps will merge and huge will bring you the toys 🙂
You can end the session like you did here – he wins the toy, you trade for a treat scatter. Or, you can let him win the toy and cue him to take it on a run! Or trade the toy for a chew bone. All of these approaches allow him to decompress, which is great after tugging because the tugging is very stimulating and intense so a bit of decompression is needed.
He is a great age to start the stay games: old enough to be successful, and not yet a true adolescent haha! And you are correct: this game is HARD – the concept of NOT moving when the momma moves away is a mind-exploder for puppies. He had a good rhythm going then got lost in a smell for a little bit but then came back strong. Nice session! It is actually one of the only games where a clicker can be super helpful, so in the next session you might want to add a clicker: begin by click the sit then say “catch” and toss like you did here, for 3 or 4 reps. Then, delay the click for a heartbeat, then click/stay catch/toss. You can start delaying that click more and more, in a variable way: sometimes 2 heartbeats, sometimes 1 heartbeat, sometimes click immediately, sometimes 4 heartbeats, etc. If he moves before the click, no worries, make the next rep easier. I have found that the small, fast-moving dogs find the click immensely clarifying for this game 🙂
About the release word: I also use “break” to mean “move forward towards me” which in agility also means to take the obstacles on the line (although releasing with an obstacle name is cool too). I think wait and break sound pretty different, especially in context: BREAK! Is high energy, fast, with an emphasis on the BR. Wait is usually longer and drawn out and lower in energy, with emphasis on the “ai” diphthong, so the dogs don’t mistake the 2 words. And catch is totally different in meaning and delivery, so it should make sense to him.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>> how do you teach your dogs to bark on cue?
I get them super excited, get my other dogs involved because they will bark and add some competitive spirit… and show the dog something they all want like a toy or food. Then I use trigger words like “ready ready” or “cookie” and whichever dog makes the first noise, gets the the thing. It is shaped (amidst the chaos haha) so I reward mouth movement, tiny noises, sneezes, etc. it eventually builds to full on barking and/or clacking, with the trigger words as the cue. Let me know how Casper does!
T
Good morning! I hope Casper had a great birthday and the rest of the family had a lovely Christmas!
MASSIVE PROGRESS on the retrieve! Yes, his toy races look amazing but the retrieving was the real stand out of that session. Even on the very first toy race, note how his first impulse was to turn back to you (he did take that toy on a short run but the other retrieves had shorter and shorter runs, looking like real grown up retrieves! So mainly the toy races can be a fun framework for retrieve games at this point 🙂
The any toy any time game was great too – partially because we could see what appears to be a true motivator/reward, and what definitely is not LOL! That ring toy is a definite win for him. As you saw, the sock monkey toy that was a big NO. He knew it was there, but something about it (texture?) was something he wanted to avoid. He knew it was there when you asked him to get it (looked at it) but definitely did not want to touch it. Good to know! The smaller toy was somewhat fun but in the face of the other 2 toys, not as interesting. Good to know! And retrieve in the game being weaker than in toy races makes sense, because there isn’t as much action as compared to toy races, so he might be created some of his own action or perhaps the retrieve doesn’t predict more action like toy races. Either way, no worries, the retrieve is progressing nicely so it is fine to not worry about it in this context.
The lower hierarchy toy will come up in value with a little more use. And the icky sock monkey toy is good for shaping a retrieve so it is a behavior when that toy is involved, and the toy is not a motivator or reinforcement (just an object to pick up).About the hand grabbing when playing with toys… longer, bigger toys can sometimes help (like tying the rubber ring to a longer toy) but sometimes the pups just need to learn to NOT grab out flesh. I have found a specific marker to give permission to grab a toy in my hands helps a LOT: when I added the “bite” marker (as in, bite the toy in my hand), the dogs are all so much better about not grabbing flesh. I also did some videos a while back about teaching dogs not to bite our hands during tugging:
Part 1
Part 2
Have fun!
TracyHi!
>> While I envy Susan Garrett, Ann Braue and others who can train one dog while another one waits patiently, I do not envy the amount of time and attention to detail that this training requires.
Totally relatable LOL!!!! And I also teach all of my dogs to bark on cue, which contributes to the sound effects when they offer it gladly 🙂
And hey, if memory serves: Happy birthday to Casper, tomorrow! Christmas puppy!!
Looking at the video – his target sending was really good especially in the face of a high level of distraction! He either hit it perfectly, or hit it really well, and had a couple of “almost hit it” mixed in there. The almost-hit moments were close enough to hitting it (in that distraction level) that they were rewardable for now and also in his adolescent brain that was processing a lot: it is entirely possible that he though he hit it LOL!!!
I think the weaker link was the motivator/reinforcement. He drove to the target on both the sending and parallel path, but the click didn’t drive him back to you on the sends, for example – possibly because he knew that the available reinforcement was food and that was lower value in terms a of handling the Enzo-distraction (Enzo was not that loud at all, really!). So in this situation, try a toy, even for the games that initially start with cookies. The toy will change his arousal state and probably help him ignore the Enzo distraction in favor of the training. You won’t get as many reps because toys take longer to use, but the quality of reps will be terrific.
He sometimes ended up on the wrong side of you on the reinforcement after the backwards sending, for example, so a little more connection will help there too.
For the rear crosses: it is probably the hardest skill we are showing the puppies to this point, so try it again after you have another barn session on the parallel path where he drives ahead of you to get it. Then you can add in the RC: cut in behind him ridiculously early to get into his line of vision on the new side, and reward if he turns the correct direction (and even if he doesn’t hit the prop). The trick is to get into the pup’s line of vision on the new side when he is still 2 steps away from his hat – that often produces the rear cross. I say “often” because sometimes the pups don’t even know that such a thing as a rear cross can even exist! So we can try the cookie toss game, or I have one other game up my sleeve for it 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think, and have a great Christmas!!
Tracy
Omg! What a great photo of the one and only Patt ❤️
>>I am finding that it is a challenge to find training time but the bigger challenge is getting my videos ready>>
I totally relate!!!! Especially at this time of year, with multiple dogs, more than one sport, when life is busy and there are significant weather challenges.
I like to prioritize – top one is carve out time with the puppy, without or without official class work 🙂
And I will watch/edit/ppst any videos that had trouble spots. The others can go into the feel-good pile – and those can get edited/posted for those times we just need to show off our puppies strutting their brilliant selves 🙂
Have a great holiday!!!
TracyHi! Hope you are enjoying a great weekend with the family!
For the zig zags – having the PT further definitely helped. I think the initial question was also motion based – you are relatively stationary between the 2 jumps on the release on the 1st rep, so he said “collection!” then after that, he was like “oh yeah, on this one, we bounce”. So to get that very first rep in a situation where you can’t be running the whole time, try leading out as far past 2 as possible and see if that helps.
The fading looked great! He was nice and powerful, and organized 🙂 You can add more motion to this, and then a higher bar… and then bye bye to the plank 🙂
On the 2nd video:
>>He sits as soon as I say it so when I delayed the cue he started sitting closer to the bar. >
Boy dogs LOL!! I love them: “MOM I SIT RIGHT NOW BECAUSE YOU SAID SIT RIGHT NOW”. Girl dogs sometimes just ignore us and do what they think is correct LOL!
Also, it shows how well he is recognizing the setup and processing the cue. We used to have to be super early because the dogs all needed the processing time. But with the plank there, he no longer needs the processing time and sits instantly.
By contrast, without the plank – processing time DEFINITELY needed LOL!! I saw some “WTH” and “Wait, what??” thought bubbles happening and that resulted in a little bit of a delayed response (fascinating to see the difference in response time with the plank and without the plank). You did a great job of being patient to let him sit! On the reps at :54 you were a shade too quick to turn after the release, but the rest were great. My guess is that when you get back and try it again, he will be quicker to get the sit (latent learning) and then you can fade the sit too.
Great job! Have a wonderful (and not-too-cold) holiday weekend!
TracyGood morning!
Get out:
>>Does the off side arm work to send the dog away even if it is a long ways a way or would you use something else?>>Yes! It is a really visible cue and works well at a distance too. But when the dog has to go a LONG way away, it will be the verbals that do all of the heavy lifting for you 🙂 as well as the trained understanding to stay on the line. The parallel path game is a really important piece.
The get out with you stationary looks fine and dandy so I am glad you added in the motion. And now that you know that you can consistently produce the behavior… adding the verbal was correct! She did super with it and you were also getting a lot better about using your thrown cookie marker. Super!!!! And the balance reps were no problem at all for her. When you have more space, you can add more distance to this.
The rocking horse game looks great too! I think at :06 you wanted her to stop and eat the cookie in your hand, but she continued to the barrel. What happened there was that as she exited the first barrel, she saw motion to the 2nd barrel and did not get a clear indication to come eat the cookie (the cookie-in-hand marker would do it, along with a more more obvious presentation). So…. good for her! We do want her to ignore food & toys in your hands and look at the lines instead 🙂 so you were correct to reward her then get more obvious with the next reps. What is your “reward in hand” marker? Definitely add that in at this stage.
She had a little trouble on the right turns when you sent a shade too early. She did better when you send her to right turns a little later. It sounds strange, but she needed to get almost all the way to you before sending her to do a right turn on the barrel next to the pole – that will get easier as she gets more experienced, and she was already improving in this session! She did NOT need you to be later on the left turn wraps, those were smooth like a fresh jar of Skippy 🙂
And SUPER well done to you, adding in the verbals and the mechanics of the sideways sending – that is some seriously challenging stuff and you made it look easy! Woohoo! My only suggestion is to do it with empty hands: you were switching your cookies back and forth between hands, which delayed the cues and was causing her to look at you (because cookies were moving and nothing else was happening). The rewards on this game don’t need to be ultra precise, so empty hands are fine then you can pull out a toy or treats from a pocket.
She definitely liked the action!!! So you can add a little more distance between your barrels 🙂
Strike a Pose – She had no trouble coming in over the bar from any angle here. She also appear to think the reinforcement was dullsville when you were using the cookies – the toy was more fun for sure, especially when it was on the ground! Wheeee!
Also remember that we are fading the target touching so if she comes in and goes out without hitting the target? Reward! That is closer to the eventual end behavior. When she did that at 1:26, she was not cheating 🙂 2 things happened:
You didn’t look at the target til she was already over the jump, and your position was too far from the jump so she didn’t realy have to turn. More about position:I think you are a shade to far from the jump on these which is why we didn’t really see the turns happening: she was able to fit her whole body straight on the landing side. At :15 you fully extended your arm and couldn’t really put your hand on it. Your position should be close enough to put your palm on it with a slightly bent elbow – that will cue more turning for her and you will see her begin her turn before arriving at the jump so she “lands” pretty much turned.
This is also dramatically harder for our herding dogs LOL! A terrier is going to drive right in and hit you but a BC is going to want to move away from the pressure. So since we know that she doesn’t already love driving in with you are stationary with cookies, start this with the toy in your reward hand rather than treats. She will like that 🙂 And then you can do the toy on the ground again – when you are closer to the jump and the toy is on the ground, any behavior where she comes over the bar and turns to put herself between you and the jump is rewardable, even if the target hit is not perfect, because we are fading it out anyway. Two behaviors she offer are going around the jump to the toy, or going over the jump and behind you to the toy 🙂 You can use a reset reward on this – either a cookie as you bring her back to the start position, or a gentle short tug is she has the toy then a cookie to the start position. A BIG tug party should erupt when she gets it right.
Great job on these!! Let me know what you think. I hope you, Brad, and the dogs all have a fabulous holiday weekend!
Tracy
