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Hi! Hope it isn’t too cold! Is brutal here but at least the wind has died down.
>> Tried the wing wrap with send to toy. I should have let her have a romp around before we started anything. She grabbed the toy when I set it down for the exercise and spent a lot of time having a party running around the field. Usually she comes back for a game of tug but didn’t do that today. >>
She might need more deliberate decompression built into her days, where all you do is send her to run around with a toy, and zero training. It is a good thing for an adolescent brain.
And sometimes, the youngster “just can’t” that day, and the scientist/vet types tell us this normal and the best plan of action is to stop trying, and try something else or come back later or the next day. It is a relief to know it, and less frustrating for all involved.
>>I was trying to use the more visible toy for her to “go” to and that one was hard to resist vs. the smaller toy in my hand. We worked a few turns around the barrel with “go” to the toy and I decided best to stop there because I was starting to feel a bit frustrated with the run offs.
Yes, it was too hard for that moment for whatever reason, so stopping was best. With my teenagers, if they are unable to engage from the start, then I just abandon plans and do something else.
>She also flipped herself over grabbing the toy once so I think she was overstimulated and probably should have done something less exciting first like the parallel path or rear cross. I suspect I still haven’t found the right balance of which 2 toys to use, or toys & food (was using 2 toys today) and need lots more work on the retrieve. >>
Or… it is not a training issue, not operant at all, and just how her brain is developing at the moment. The more I learn about operant conditioning, the more I understand that it is a tiny piece of the bigger puzzle.
It is also possible that you are asking for too much in one day for a teenager 🙂 if she did all of these, plus obedience earlier, and does stuff like that daily…that’s a LOT. I find that baby puppies and adults are fine with that, but adolescents do best with one or maybe two things a day because less is definitely more on their brains 🙂 I can actually do more with baby Ramen (just turned 5 months) than I can do with adolescent Elektra, but I expect that to change as Elektra gets into adulthood and Ramen hits adolescence in a couple of months. Elektra gets more decompression built in and fewer working sessions.
Add in the change in temperature – it is COLD there, which her brain has to process and that’s is a new sensation for her!
>> You’ll also see in the video where she stopped and got distracted by a car turning into a driveway down the street in our neighborhood. I am wondering if teenage sensitivity is in full force kicking in now? She never used to notice things like this and even ran to the fence and barked at someone walking past our house twice this week. Always before she just looked and stuck with me. She seems to be noticing things including noises more than she did before. I could use some advice on what to do in these situations. I know from experience terriers can get hypersensitive about things and hope I can avoid that if at all possible. >>
It is highly likely to be adolescence: the neuroscientists tell us that in adolescence, the dogs become more sensitive to noises and stuff like that, less receptive to reinforcement, more receptive to punishment (but not in a good way) and it takes them twice as long to ‘return to baseline’ in terms of stress hormones than baby pups or adult dogs. So the things you see are all in line with this. That is why we ramp up our resilience games and dial back the more intense training for a while. So you can take her out to the yard/fence line and do your cookie pattern resilience game, and decompression games, and also do those resilience walks so she can watch the world from her newly adolescent brain perspective 🙂
These are to help give her the tools to bounce back from the startle of a car going past, or someone walking by. I also give the adolescents a little less freedom in situations where they might have trouble – like being alone in the yard, or around other dogs that don’t provide social support in a positive way.
Looking at the videos:
Turn and burn is looking good! She is committing beautifully and driving ahead beautifully. And I see what you mean about twisting to get the toy – eek! So you have a bigger toy, like a jolly ball? Something bigger/taller will help her decel more. If not, try it with a food bowl or Manners Minder, and no more toy so she doesn’t pretzel herself while driving ahead.
The rocking horses are looking good, her commitment is lovely!! She did a great job ignoring the toys and treats in your hands. Yay! Once you get into 2 in a row, keep it to 2 or maybe 3 in a row then a turn and burn to exit the setup and reward, otherwise it gets too repetitive (you had 6 in a row which is a bit too many.) You can add challenge in the advanced level with different motion 😀
Strike a pose:
The portion with food went well – she was a bit far from the jump but your position and the stimulation level got her to drive in and set up the turn really nicely.
Your position was slightly better on the left turns at the beginning and a little too centered on the bar for the right turns, so she didn’t turn quite as well. Being one step further towards the wing so your Serp hand is not centered on the bar will help.After the 2 minute mark, you went to toys and didn’t reward the first rep (she broke the stay, from what I could tell, but I think you withheld the reward because the hand touch was not strong). Bear in mind that we are training in approximations, so when one variable increases we can dial back criteria expectations on other variables. Plus, this game does fade the hand targeting as the pups predict reward placement: we want them to start to come in over the bar, slide past the hand (not touching it) and head to the next line (where reward is… so she was 100% correct to do that LOL! Having her go back to hit the target is not needed at this point – if she begins to side swipe it as she creates the serp chain, perfect! Reward that 🙂
>> but when I tried using a toy she kept doing drive by’s past my target hand. Can you give me some advice on how to work through that?>>
So basically, go with it as long as she comes over the bar, because it is the correct next step. If she does NOT come over the bar, then you can moves your hand to get her to look at it more.
The wobble board video was really interesting! She was perfectly happy to get on the board and move around on it – you can use a low hand for her to follow when you have her turn or change positions, to keep her head lower for better balance and weight shift (chin at spine level is probably the best head position for her). Her tugging is what was interesting! Instead of tugging, it was more like thrashing… which is more of a decompression behavior and less of a play behavior. I generally see her playing and not doing the prolonged thrashing. This can lend support for building in more decompression moments before, during, and after the training so she can sort things out better during training.
Great job on these! Let me know what you think! And have a great holiday weekend!
TracyGood morning!
I’m glad she is zipping around her barrels! She seems to train like a sighthound: perhaps the first session isn’t perfect as we humans sort out mechanics, then BOOM! She has it and she is fast. So fun!For the mechanics on these crazy games, try doing it at a walk or ask one of the older dogs to play if they know how to go around barrels. I think the baby dog handling games are harder than real courses sometimes, because everything happens so darned fast and we have to be pretty perfect for the baby dogs 🙂
Have fun! And have a great holiday weekend!
TracyGood morning!
Yes, I think you’re right that the steroid is making her extra hungry. The toy drive will be back when the steroid is gone 🙂
The parallel path looks strong. She is nailing the concept of driving to the prop on that parallel line, from ahead of you or parallel to you or a little behind you. For the next steps:
We will get her looking at you a little less. She’s only looking at you after she arrives at the prop, so a timing change will help: Switch from the clicker to a “get it” marker. Instead of marking the hit of the prop, we are going to fade that and mark her intent to go to it. So when she is on the way to it, a stride or two away, say “get it” and toss the treat ahead so it lands before she looks back.
She might not hit the prop but that is fine because it sets us up for the next thing:Try out the concept transfer for this game, where we take the concept to a jump. Yay!
Rear crosses to the left were working pretty well, and also she was HILARIOUS at 1:38 when she got to the prop and just stared at it: “I’m not sure which way to turn yet, so I’m just gonna stare at it” LOL! Brilliant!
The reason the left turn RC worked was your timing: you were in her left side and appearing in her line of sight. The right turns are harder because she isn’t a righty, so getting into her line of sight as early as possible will help. I think that alternate RC game will help because it makes it harder to run left and easier to turn right (theoretically, because RCs are HARD!)Turn and Burn looks amazing! The left turns were just about perfect. The right turns required more patience – it looks like her current commitment on the right turns is that you can start to move when she is halfway around. Any earlier pills her off the barrel for now, but that is fine because you can keep expanding her commitment inch by inch.
I think she is ready for the rocking horse game we posted on Wednesday! That will help balance the left and right turns, as long as you are patient on the right turns as you start.
Great job here! Hope you have a wonderful holiday weekend!
TracyHi! I think overall your mechanics are going really well! I have a couple of suggestions but overall things are going well.
Ladder:
She is doing really well with the ladder! Try to keep her moving slowly and have your hand nice and low – on the rep at :32ish, you had a low reward and a hand in front of her, so she was straight, accurate, and didn’t look up. Yay! When she was moving faster (sometimes when she was behind you, or when she was not sure of where to look) her feet would click the ladder or fall out of the ladder, or she would look at you. So you can drop the reward in the ladder itself, that will help her move more methodically and look straighter.Handling combo!
Nice toy release at the beginning! As she got more stimulated, she got more leapy for the toy – so you can leave the toy low and still as she releases it, and toss a treat on the ground as a reward. The higher the toy, the more she leaps, so definitely keep the toy low as she works through the impulse control and arousal.And nice wrap of the stool, she has good value for these!! And your handling is looking good 🙂
The FC to BC looked good! Nice connection and rotation! As you add the decel and pivot:To make the pivot more smooth, do the blind and decelerate immediately (not time to keep running forward :)) Keeping your hands in tight to your sides will really help too, because you can be super quick with the blinds when you have your arms in tight. But overall, looking great!
Rocking horses: Also going well!!!
The toy is really big and she really likes it, but it gets in the way 🙂 so you might want to stuff it into the pocket of your hoodie as you do the handling. It is not a precision reward in terms of timing or placement, so you don’t need to have it immediately available. One other thing that will help is more room between the stools: give yourself another foot or two (or three) between the stools because she is really long.
Overall, the handling and connection looked great. There was one blooper of no connection (1:04) but you kept going and had an adjusted to great connection again at 1:08. Yay!
Remember to use your leg on the send: arm and leg move to the stool, and let her offer. Don’t help her with your arm to draw her around the stool 🙂
Nice turn and burn with the toy at the end!Lap and tandem turns:
She had a little trouble getting into the toy at first, but the dragging of the toy for her to chase really helps.Tandem turns at the beginning looked good – putting the toy in your pocket will help because otherwise you can’t use your arm fully 🙂
You were doing the tandems with one hand which is fine, but if it felt weird, you might want to try using both hands so you can turn her more easily. One other detail of the mechanics is to decelerate as she is heading towards you on the tandem turn, so she is prepared to turn.On the lap turns… these might have felt awkward because you were too early 🙂 You were doing the arm and leg movement while she was still several feet from you, which is why it was hard for her to get close and make the turn, and it was why your arm ended up high. Hold the position (feet together, arm extended towards her at her nose level) until she is literally about 2 inches from your hand… then you can step back and draw your hand back to pull her through the turn. That should feel much smoother!
Strike a pose: this looks great! It might feel weird because there is no motion, but it went well! You can have your reward hand hanging at your side in a more natural position, you were holding it tight and that might have felt weird too 🙂
One mechanics detail:
You are too far from the jump, so she is coming fully across it before turning. Be a relaxed arm’s length away from the jump upright so she starts to turn before arriving at the jump.
Since this is going well: Next time you can try this with a cookie bowl on the ground (to drop the cookie into) or a toy in your hand (then a toy on the ground).Great job here!!! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
I totally understand the feeling of needing to go slowly with the baby pups… all of the 4-5 month old pups in this class are in about the same place (weeks 3 and 4), including my pup who just turned 5 months old today 🙂We’ve got 6 more weeks of class games, then a few weeks after that so folks can finish things. Once you get past week 5, you’ll find that the games build on each other really quickly. The first 4 or 5 weeks of class is all about value building for a zillion different things… then the next 7 or 8 weeks are all about concept transfers which are easier than value building. So we’ve got til the end of February, which should leave the pups with being able to have played all of the games 🙂
Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
The play looks fabulous! Keep mixing in tons and tons of driving ahead of you and toy races, especially as we add more and more turning. 🙂Great job on these!
TracyHi!
First video:
This was a fun, high energy session. I love that the play was longer than the training 🙂 you were doing two things really well:– Doing the FC and moving away sooner
– Helping him less with the toy on the other side of the cone and letting him offer it more.Because of this, his commitment is definitely expanding and he is turning nice and tight!
Only one suggestion:
When there is an error, don’t whip the toy away… play with him then be more patient on the next rep. We want him to trust the toy placement so if you show it to him then whip it away, he will get confused: presenting it tells him he was correct on the cone, whipping it away tells him that he was wrong to come to you. So no worries, play anyway then reset and be one step more patient on the next rep.
The 2nd day video looked even better! This is very exciting! And his tugging looks really strong too. One thing I really like is that he is going to the cone FAST which is what we want (no slow walking LOL)
Since this is going so well, 2 ideas for you:
Use the cone for the harder games, but also add a barrel of some sort so he has more experience going around different things, and it will also give him more room to run around something because it will be bigger.
Since he loves this, it is time to a line up 🙂 you can try giving him a super boring cookie to get him to come to your side to set up the next send. That should get him in position (he wanted to hang out near the cone :)) and also keep the toy value really high.
Super job!!
TracyHi!
His backing up looks really good!! And if this was after tugging, then gold star for being so good even when more stimulated.You can revisit this game, just like this, maybe once a week as he grows. You can add in different things to back up to, but don’t make it too hard: he is growing a lot so he will have to find his back feet every day LOL! When he is fully grown, you’ll be able to add harder stuff very easily.
Onwards to the wraps!
Hi again!
The baby dog plank work looks great – she’s confident and fully engaged, in a new location 🙂 Super!!!
It took her a moment to find all the treat crumbs but I think that was crumb hunting and not stress. Something unexpected did happen about halfway through, the board moved in a surprising way or something but she recovered immediately – big resilience moment!!!
Walking across and turning around and the sit and the down looked great. For the next session, add in hopping off the middle (to rehearse bailing off the DW if she ever loses her balance). And, you can raise the board or use a bigger/taller board 🙂The decel game was so easy she looked shocked on the first rep: “thats all there is to it, mom?” LOL!
Nice timing with the decel and solid connection during the pivots, so she was perfect <3 For the next session, you can make it super spicy by adding in tugging, so she's faster which requires you to be earlier with decel 🙂Great job!!!
TracyGood morning! I just saw the videos above this, I’ll look at them right now 🙂
I think maybe the problem with the blinds was that you were standing still, like on the 2nd rep – then it will feel super unnatural.
When you were in motion on the 3rd rep, for example? Perfect!
So the more you move, the better it will feel – just keep reminding yourself to start on one shoulder then look back to her across the other shoulder and run forward the whole time. If the toy placement across your body ends up being a pain in the butt, don’t worry about it 🙂 just worry about moving forward the whole time. 🙂 and don’t walk, try ro jog or run because moving faster will actually make it easier.And if things were going wrong and you kept motivating her with cookies and toys so she stuck with you? That’s a great resilience exercise. 🙂
The hardest part of the wing wrapping might have been releasing the toy LOL!! You can add tapping the other toy to help at first, as a bit of a lure. When she dropped the toy, she needed a moment to remember what she was doing, so tapping the other toy can totally jumpstart the behavior after the tugging moment.
As she gets quicker to go around the barrel (lower latency, as in not faster in her speed but quicker to move around it after the toy release :)), you can change your position to standing. That will lead us in nicely to the turn and burn game 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!!
TracyHi!
>>I did some latent learning overnight myself LOL. When thinking about this (in the middle of the night LOL) I’m envisioning how this will look on course and it clicked with me that I don’t want to be bending down while moving forward so to fixate on him hitting the target in my hand isn’t possible. With the fixation in my head of not worrying about him hitting the target the whole exercise started to make sense to me.>>Yes, another proven psychology thing about learning: we stop thinking about it actively, but the brain continues to process it passively – so latent learning gets involved and we also remember things (I think that sudden recollection in the middle of the night is called “passive search” but I need to look it up). Either way, the brain is amazing!
>> I want him coming in to me and then continuing on in whichever direction our motion will be carrying us.
Correct! Which is why we are using something salient like a target and the consistent placement of reinforcement – and it doesn’t matter if he hits your hand or not. That is why we could lump – I mean, fast track – to have you standing up and using the jump last night 🙂
He did a great job on the session here! The hardest part was eating the cookie at the beginning LOL! He definitely has the in-and-out of the serp from the different angles. He did fine with the cookie rewards and REALLY likes the toy reward! You can now move the reward to the ground, placed out a step or two from your feet (close to where you were tossing the cookie reward). It can be an empty food bowl to start, the toss the treat to it. Then try the toy on the ground! That will be a lot harder but it really helps mvee the behavior to the next level.
So about the cookie in the beginning…. as soon as the food starting movon when you tossed it, he was happy to eat it. So at the beginning, try tossing the food for him to chase as a motivator (rather than rewarding in position after the sit) and see if that turns him on to the food faster 🙂
>>Enjoy my wet mophead puppy LOL.
He is adorable as a mophead but I am ready for this rain to be gone! Ha! But it is still far far better than snow 🙂
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! I am glad you are feeling better each day!!!!
>>Usually, I use Get It for everything cookie related, whether it is in my hand or on the ground. So I will modify my words and work through the resilience games.>>
Perfect! I learned from my dogs that if I use the same word for a variety of placements, they will default to looking at my hands or coming towards me. That caused too many errors 🙂 The different verbals help the dogs know where to look and it totally speeds training 🙂
>> I will have to keep a note by me for a while to remember which position goes with which word.
I can relate! I have a google doc with all the words in it LOL!
He was VERY HAPPY to participate in this session 🙂 All sorts of free and easy cookies LOL! And each one will eventually get paired with the word, so now it is all about being as consistent as possible with the words.
>> And… how do you teach a puppy to catch? Casper has no clue. LOL. I’ve never thrown food toward him before to have him catch. And with toys I’ll toss a small light toy but he doesn’t catch it yet. I’m thinking he may need to mature and have more coordination to actually catch. I use a slow arc so he can see the treat coming.>>
I don’t require the catching, I just use the word LOL! So when I say ‘catch’, it is more of a ‘the reward is coming to you, don’t move forward’ marker and not a ‘you have to catch the thing’ moment 🙂 For flyball, I do try to teach a catch: I start with the dog in front of me. show the cookie or toy, and do a 1-2-3 count before I throw so the dog can predict when the throw is coming.
Great job adding these markers!!! Hope you are back to feeling 100% soon!
TracyThink of the rear cross line for you as a line that creates an extension rear cross, as if the flag as a jump. That can help!
Since she has a solid stay, you can show her that parallel path side change in a way that takes out the motion so there is less to process. Note the 2 dogs in these demos are spicy girls like Muso LOL!
Have fun!
Hi!
This was a good choice to balance the turns! His parallel path commitment looked really strong, and you were able to add more distance pretty easily. Nice!My only suggestion is to mark and throw sooner: you were saying get it as he arrived between the uprights, so he was looking at you and watching the throw. In the interest of getting him to look straight the whole time, you can say “get it” when you see his intention to drive to the jump (might be 2 strides before the jump, or more!) and throw the reward so it is landing before he arrives at the jump. That should keep him looking straight 🙂 This will be especially important when he is driving ahead of you.
Great job on all of these! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
This game is going well, you were smooth and clear, and he was reading the decel just fine on both the lefts and rights videos. Super! Two things to keep in mind:Be sure to mix in a lot more reps where he does get to drive to the hollee roller as part of the combo! Otherwise, it just fades into the background and loses value. You did one toy race to it on each video, but he didn’t get to see it in the context of switching from handler focus to line focus. So you can do a FC on the cone and sometimes just accelerate to the toy. Or, do the FC then a decel and turn… then send to the barrel, FC, accelerate to the toy. Or sometimes do what you did here and do the FC on the barrel, decel/pivot, and reward. Mix it all up and keep it spicy! We want him to be on edge for the thrown toy, not thinking it gets ignored when you are playing the game.
The other thing is to keep the reinforcement for the decel/pivot out of the picture until just before the moment of delivery, after you mark the behavior. You were tending to cue the decel/pivot with the toy presented the same way each time: two hands, up high at around the center of your chest. That was becoming the cue, and we want him reading the motion change and not looking high for the toy. So, easy fix: keep the toy in your pocket the whole time and just use physical cues for the decel and pivot – that will DEFINITELY be spicy because the only visible toy will be the one on he ground 🙂 I think he will do fine with it!
Great job!
Tracy
