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Good morning! Great session here!
>> I could see in some of the reps I said “break” before her fluffy butt was completely on the floor, but sometimes it’s hard for me to tell.>>
Sometimes you can release on that intent-to-sit 😅 but also, you can wait to see a weight shift to more of an settled sit. And, if you can see her tail, watch her tail: when she is fully in the sit, her tail relaxes too LOL!
But overall, great session. She was engaged and stimulated, like she will be at a trial… but never broke the stay. Yay!
Two things to add now, along with gradually increasing duration using the ping pong method you used effectively here:
– walking forward like a lead out rather than backing away from her
– doing it on a surface that won’t slide under her when she releases explosively. She is powering out of her releases, which is great, so we want her to be able to trust that the footing won’t move.Great job! Have fun!
TracyGood morning!
>> For the running contact training I have a question about front feet vs back foot targets. When I started this training with my last puppy (who is now 2 but not fully trained… partly a COVID issue) my trainer and I were doing front foot targets in the box, but you are suggesting rear foot. I guess my question is what’s the difference, is one better than the other and why, and does stride length make a difference in choice of front vs back foot target?>>
Good question! A couple of answers for you:
The “traditional” way to work running dog walks lately is to train them behavior as a split-rear-foot Target, meaning that both rear feet hit the contact zone in a running stride. This was developed for and works best for those “traditional” agility structures and striding styles found in breeds like border collies and Shelties. It worked great to teach my 2 females and my Papillon, who stride more like BCs and Shelties.
It did not work that well for my lurcher (BorderWhippet). He is not that tall, but his structure and stride length lean more towards whippet (definitely not what the “traditional” RDW methods were developed for) so he couldn’t go fast AND do the split rear feet. So his is a front foot hit 😀
For the running aframe, all of my dogs do a front-then-rear pattern, and get marked for the rear feet. They have to use their rear feet correctly on the frame, or they end up leaping or doing something dangerous like sky diving lol!
So back to why train the rear foot target – as a tool for the RDW if needed, as a definitely needed tool for the aframe, plus it is great for hind end awareness for the dog. And it dramatically improved my “eye” for seeing the dogs’ footwork!
Two other reasons: it is a great balance for all of the front foot targeting we do on the prop 🙂 and it is also useful for training flyball box turns!
So to teach the concept, use something different from what you are using for the front foot hits. If the front foot hits are using a box, you can use a mat or something else for rear foot hits.
Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>the only thing that could make it better would be a little nicer weather so I could do more outside.>>
True! We need some warm weather!!!
>>I am so addicted to saying “Yes” that I don’t even think I realize it and I am not sure I noticed how much I was saying it in the videos. I will keep working on that because I can totally see how it makes her look at me and that is an issue I have struggled with so much with Jackson.>>
I think it is a planning issue for all of us! But we can shape ourselves 🙂 as you plan you cookies and toys and what you are going to do… also plan what word to use. So if you are going to toss treats, for example, plan the get it marker.
>> I have experimented with using both arms to cue it, the dog side arm, and the offside arm. I feel unsure about which arm to use. Are there handling moves coming up that could make one arm a better choice for the tandem as far as avoiding confusion (hope that makes sense) or are two arms always the way to go.>>
I use both arms for the tandem turn because it looks more like my threadle-wrap cues – and different from any other hand use. But, it is a matter of what feels right to you. I have found that dog-side arm alone is not salient enough, outside arm alone involves too much twisting or looks too much like my tunnel threadle arm – and two hands down low seem just right 🙂
>>One other question – in your videos, you have those white plastic gates that you can move around. I have looked on-line and not sure I am finding the same thing. Do you know where you got them?>>
I think you mean these:
Stay warm!
Tracy
Good morning!
Glad you had fun at the UKI trial – the video you posted on FB looked FABULOUS!!!!Slices looked good! You can start the fading process here too: Do a short session where you cue the sit on the plank but click the PT as soon as his butt hits the sit position (you can release with a verbal too, if you think he won’t release when he hears the PT do the beepbeep :))
Then, keep the plank in and fade the sit – switching to your real verbal for the backside or threadle and staying in motion should make it happen really easily!He had a little confusion about where to sit relative to the jump on the wraps – you can help by using a hand signal with you standing stationary in wrap position to get it started. Motion and timing made it harder – he was sitting but he didn’t know where to put his butt specifically. It might be easier to work the backside slices with the sit first, because it is easier to tell him where to put his butt (you can be on the landing side helping with a physical cue). And the plank can stay in there for the front wraps for now.
Great job! Let me know how the fading sessions go!
Tracy
Good morning!
Perfect mechanics on the new rear cross game! I kinda made it up yesterday so I am glad that Ramen AND Baxter now have rear crosses happening LOL! The only challenge for Baxter was making sure he didn’t drop the treats 🙂 You might need softer treats, I was using tiny bits of cheese.
He turned a little better to his left but you had good position on the right turns and he was able to get them successfully. Super!
And yes, when he cookie was lined up wrong, you were correct to say “get it” and let him move forward without a rear cross.
So to build this to rear crosses on the prop – do one more session with treats just like this… then using the same hallway, we put the prop in the same spot as we put the treats here, everything exactly the same except we toss the prop to where you tossed the treat (towards the wall) and see how it goes. Let me know if that makes sense!
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
His collection looks really good! His reading your deceleration pretty perfectly, and the pivoting is nice and tight to you. Yay!
So with that in mind…. let’s put more value on acceleration to you, and ahead of you 🙂 You can put the decel games on the shelf for a week and put a lot of value on the acceleration games:
– toy races! Let’s let him have a rip-roaring good time of leaving you in the dust to run ahead of you to a toy. Wheeeee! Just do 2 or 3 reps per session (because it is exhausting LOL!) with a great toy.– chase da momma! You can either have someone hold him while you run away, or toss a treat to start – then let him chase you while you run HARD (no decel at all) and then when he catches up to you, let him have the toy and run around with it 🙂 Just be connected so he knows which side of you to be on.
This should swing the value to acceleration – then next week, we balance the acceleration with the deceleration 🙂 Fun!
Great job! Let me know how the acceleration games go!
TracyGood morning! Nice work with these games!
You had lots of really good clicks on the retrieve games, he is doing well! Just be sure to not click when he looks at you. If you miss a click and he did something great but is looking at you, you can wait til the next offer before you click anything 🙂
On the 2nd video, he had a lot of good lifting of the toy! You can click when it hits your hand – that can be a clarifying targeting moment for the pup to target the toy to your hand (doesn’t matter if you can’t catch it LOL! You can click as long as he gets it to hit your hand) I think you were reaching for it or wanting to grab it but you can click for him targeting to your hand without you reaching for it – eventually he will place it in your hand 🙂Running contact foundation is going well – at this stage, you can replace the clicker with a get it marker and cookie toss – keep marking the front foot hits for now (so we can condition him to look straight), but mark with the ‘get it’ and toss for now. If he stops on the mat, just toss a treat so he doesn’t think he should offer sits or downs 🙂
Parallel path commitment is looking really good! You can toss the rewards sooner – get the reward thrown before he reaches the uprights, so it lands as he goes through the uprights and he doesn’t look at you. For this game too, you can replace the clicker with a get it marker, so he doesn’t look back at you (clickers tell the dogs they are correct but don’t tell them where the reward is placed, which is why they often look at us when we click :)) We will be emphasizing “don’t look at the momma” with all the pups now 🙂
You can add more lateral distance to this too to see if he can commit when you are a few feet away!
Rotated sends are also looking strong, his commitment is good! You can start a little further away now.
What is your “reward in hand” marker? He is ready for you to use it on this game, to replace the ‘yes’. When using the toy, you will want to have the toy in the hand that is not next ot he barrel so you can use your hand to send him to the barrel, not just a foot step.
Sometimes on the sideways sends with your left (like at 1:32 and 1:54) you had him come between you and the barrel – he is correct to be on the other side of the barrel on those, so on the backwards sending when you send with your left, he will go around the other side of it to his left (coming between you and the barrel is a threadle which looks different, more like a tandem turn or lap turn)
Have you decided on wrap verbals? He is ready for you to add them 🙂He is doing really well with his backing up! So fun!11 Interesting that he often carries his right hind – you can reward for him touching the ground with it rather than carrying it 🙂 And you can see if he will do all that backing up with you totally stationary 🙂
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning! Lots of lovely work here, all of these skills are coming along so nicely!!!
Starting with the lap and tandem turns: bearing in mind that both are tight turns cues, you can move more slowly into both of them. For the lap turn, things go better when you are standing still and not backing up, because backing up makes the turn cue unpredictable (in terms of when the pup can expect to turn). If you are standing still, feet together and arm extended, she knows that the turn cue will begin just as she arrives at your hand.
With the tandem turns, things worked better when you decelerated, got connection to your hands, then turned her – those were nice! On the first few, you were moving too fast then trying to turn her: moving fast is an acceleration cue, so she accelerated and that made the turn cues late. The decel then the turn cues with your hands made it much easier to read.
On both of these, and any time you toss a treat… say “get it”. That will condition her to look ahead. If you say “yes”, she is going to look at you and see you toss the treat – which conditions her to look at you more 🙂
This will be really helpful when you add the prop, because she won’t look at you as much. On the lap and tandems with the prop, I don’t know if she was seeking out the prop or juts incidentally moving over it because you were near it and she was looking at you. So when using the prop, be a little further from it – do the lap or tandem turn but don’t mark anything and don’t move the cookies until you see intention to move to the prop: then say get it and toss the treat ahead.
***
Tunnels – looking great! Remember to say ‘get it’ on this one too, because you want her to drive ahead to the toy and not look at you when you praise or say yes.She only had one question, at :18 – you let go of her and moved backwards, so she thought you wanted the tunnel entry next to you (smart! LOL!). You were more patient on the other reps to let her commit, and she was great!
The threadle entry also looked great, plus she slept on it from last time and was like “I GOT IT, MOM!” Super!!!
**** handling combos
Looking good here too – your timing on the 1st and 3rd rep of moving away from the barrel was really good (you started moving away as soon as she arrived at it). On the 2nd rep, you were too early when you moved away (she was still several feet from the barrel) so she came off of it – good reset cookies!! So for now, her commitment allows you to leave just as she is arriving at the barrel – the commitment will continue to expand, but be patient for now 🙂
All reps looked good with you accelerating and connecting to the toy out ahead after the barrel: she was driving ahead nicely (note how you said go go go get it and never said “yes” :))*** running contact foundations
Nice job building value!!! On the next session, you can start marking for when her back feet get in (ideally, that 2nd back foot) – those clicks were for the front feet. The trick is to stare at the box and not watch he – just watch for feet to hit the ground in the box 🙂
At that level of precision, two other ideas:– have the cookies in your hands and ready to throw, no moving them around so she doesn’t look at you (and if you need to reload, break out of the session for a tug game which is a good thing to do anyway
– you can swap out the clicker for a “get it” marker to help condition her to keep looking ahead. Definitely do not say “yes” LOL!!*** concept transfer: parallel path
Super good click timing here! And keep those treat tosses as immediate as you can – when she was on your right, you were VERY quick. When she was on your left, you were later with the tosses even though you were tossing with you right hand. So click/toss should have basically no time in between them, so she doesn’t look at you at all. You can also use a ‘get it’ marker to replace the clicker here too.
For now, don’t start from a stay because she looks at you the whole time when you do the stay and release. To work the skill from further ahead, start nearer to the jump and toss a start treat further away so after she grabs the treat, you are way ahead 🙂 And you will need more room for this game soon, so you can add more lateral distance 🙂
If she misses, you don’t need a reset cookie on this game (although she was not sad about it LOL!) you can just keep walking, turn around, go the other direction (no need for a verbal mrker or anything). A miss is good info, as long as she doesn’t have too many misses.*** concept transfer: rotate sending
>> I have never had her do little barks before while working. I think she thought this was loads of fun>>
Yes, I think she liked it a lot!!!! She was super with the food and she definitely liked the toy and was able to maintain her precision even in higher arousal which we like!
I think the little barks were when you remained too close to the barrel… I believe she was giving feedback that you were in her way 🙂 She is SPICY! HA!
She did not give any little woofs when you moved away or you started a little further away. So with that in mind, you can start a little further away and add more moving away 🙂 But be sure to maintain the clarity of your cue to go to the barrel, and the clear connection to the “landing spot” 🙂 Both of those were great!
Great job with the wrap verbals! Try to be consistent with the markers – with the toy, for example, I think you had “bite” “yes” and “good” all happening 🙂 Try to emphasize the bite marker.
Great job on all of these! Let me know what you think!
Tracy>>Was my blind cross timing ok on those reps? Should I now try some sending a little farther away from the barrel?
Yes and Yes! Have fun!!!
Tracy
Good morning!
She was awesome here! Was that a toy on the ground, placed but not thrown? It worked really well!
>.Should I make it a toy race to the toy on the ground when I combine the barrel with the other?>>
Yes, as long as the toy is still on the ground and not with you throwing it (because she will watch you throw it and that promotes more looking at you, which we don’t want). To mak eit more of a toy race, you can start closer to the barrel and/or have the toy further away, so when you accelerate to it, she can leave you in the dust 🙂
>> As much as she loves her toys she was less interested in the toy when I had a piece of hot dog in my hand.>>
Hot dogs are great because they don’t need to be chewed… but the high value of them makes the value balance shift a bit. So you can go to the highest value toy in the face of such a high value food reward… or you can split the difference and find something lower value that doesn’t need to be chewed… like a small kibble mixed in with hot dogs in a bag, so the small kibble smells good but is not a full on hot dog 🙂 Balance of value of challenging and will probably take some experimenting.
One other thought: On these games, it is safe to assume that all dog errors are caused by human handling errors of timing, connection, etc. For example, 1:25 when she blew past you… it was because you were really late with the decel and she was past you already before you even made the connection for the decel 🙂 She smoked you LOL! So you would need to start the decel while she is at the barrel when you are close like that – more like what you did at 1:45. It is perfectly fine to play for real when that oopsie happens and either adjust your timing/connection, or look at the video in slow motion to figure out what happened.
Nice work! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>>I can always rely on Jamie!!!
Ha! Training partners are so valuable 🙂
Strike a pose looked good at the beginning! I could not see where you were looking but he drove straight to the target hand for the first part, so you were probably looking at the target and not at him. At :48ish, he started looking at you and not targeting: so my guess is that was when you were looking at him and not at the target. Try to get your face in the camera shot so I can see where you were looking to test the theory, and on the next session: when he turns towards you from getting the tossed treat, let him see you switch from looking at him to looking at the target.
And if he has a question and a couple of seconds go by and he hasn’t gone to the target, you can reset with a cookie toss to start the next rep and exaggerate looking at the target hand.
And remember that you don’t need to wait for a perfect hit of the target, you can totally can totally reward “roughly right”. I would have rewarded at 1:07 – it was not perfect but it was still correct enough to get a cookie especially after the previous rep. Withholding reinforcement there was confusing: you could hear him chuffing then offering other behavior. Since we are shaping, you can reward the approximations that aren’t perfect, especially if he had a question.
He was super about going back to tugging here! You can also play this game with the toy as the reward – just be sure to look at the target 🙂
>> I had trouble on parallel path getting him to have forward focus.>>
A couple of ideas about your mechanics to get him looking forward (because this game is all about handler mechanics to learn how to get the pups looking forward :))
Two of the most critical things are:
– have the cookies ready in your hand (so you are not getting them out or delayed in your tosses). If he starts the behavior and then you have to get the cookies out of your pocket, he will look at you… then when the cookie is thrown looking at you gets built in. So, in the transition from the tugging to the prop going to the ground, get the cookies out and ready before you put the prop down. That way, on his very first motion towards it, you can mark and toss before he looks at you.
– about the marker: “yes” is built in already as a ‘look at my hands for the cookie’ marker (it is not entirely intentional yet we all do it, and that is how he understands it based on his reaction here and in other games). So…. don’t say yes. Plan to say get it and toss the treat. He is beginning to understand get it is a ‘look ahead for reward’ marker so using get it (along with having the cookie ready) will really help!
Part of the parallel path game is that you can reward sooner: reward his intent to move to the prop rather than after you see him hit it. When he is moving to it. you can say “get it” and toss the treat (the actual hit is not entirely important because this develops into jump commitment, the looking forward is more important). And to be able to see intent a little better, you can be a little further away, more like 2 or 3 feet so he has a more distinct choice of what to look at and you can more easily see it. When you are close, he can easily move to the prop AND look at you! So being a little further away will help. And the earlier timing will help too – if he touches the prop, he will look at you because there is nothing else to look at (“Mom, I nailed it!” haha) so the earlier timing will get him moving forward without looking at you.
And while he is sorting that out, resist temptation to help by luring with a hand or calling him, with you in the picture 🙂 that actually gets him looking at you more, because it asks for more handler focus. So for more line focus, move yourself out of the picture so he can show intention to move to the prop, then you can say get it and toss the reward.
Nice work here! Let me knw if the parallel path ideas make sense!
TracyHi!
>>So I can use yes with counter motion but stay close and say get it with parallel path is that correct?
Ideally, the marker words match the reward placement:
yes means ‘cookie in my hand; so you can use it with the countermotion as long as you feed from your hand 🙂 If you are going to toss the cookie past you, use your get it marker. The parallel path is always a tossed treat, so definitely only say “get it” for that one and not yes.>>Also no it wasn’t his prop it was Maples bumper in the dirt that she had grabbed and ran around with.>>
Ah! Got it LOL!
>>But on that game do you mean when you say bigger decel like to stop and then turn? So he knows?
Yes – make it more obvious that there has been a change in pace: let him see you going fast, then slowing waaaaay down to a stop so he can slow down too… then pivot. And that decel starts pretty early, so he has time to get coordinated 🙂
>> Sorry for the questions I just don’t want to practice wrong.
No apologies needed for the questions, I love questions! Keep ’em coming!
>>He LOVES the barn btw!!
Yay! He looked super focused and happy!!
TracyHi!
The lap turns are looking great – I think you were a tiny bit early stepping back with your leg, so you can wait longer with the step back (the arm was good, it was he leg that wanted to move early LOL!). Let her get almost to your hand (keeping your feet together) then as she arrives at your hand, you can step back and draw her through the lap turn.I think the tandems probably felt weird when you are standing still – when you added your motion of walking forward on the last 2 reps, it was much smoother (hopefully it felt smoother :)) You can also use both hands for these (definitely the opposite arm, but you can play with adding the dog side arm too, so both hands are involved in getting the turn away as you move forward.
You can definitely go to the next level and add the prop!
And seeing Annalise and Prytania playing in the grass at the end filled my heart with joy 🙂 Love them both!!!!Great job on all of these! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
I agree, they rocked the tunnel games- fun fun fun!! Prytty made good choices about going through the tunnel and not just running to the MM LOL!! Turning to her right was a little harder than turning to her left to get into the tunnel but she figured it out (she had to think HARD about the right turns! She also did really well with the the threadle side entries – great job starting close and systematically working your way further and further back. Super!! Have you started thinking about what you want your tunnel threadle verbal to be?
Next step… add a toy!!! You can throw a toy (to replace the MM) or you can send her into the tunnel and run run run run (she will like that a whole lot :))
Great job!
T
