Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Hi!
>>I’m not sure how Annalise convinced bouncy Prytty not to bounce, but I’m suspecting telepathy, lol!
Maybe telepathy, but also really fabulous low placement of reward and slow hand movement on the leg bumps. Looked great! Click/treat to Annalise for excellent mechanics!
On the cavalettis, Prytania wants to look at you (especially when she was on your right side) so you can use a target like an empty bowl – something kind of boring – close to the end. That way she can (ideally) keep her head straight, then you can put he cookie in the bowl. If she starts to rush and hop or touch the poles, just use 2 of the poles and not the whole thing so she can retain her form 🙂
>> However she did it, they got prytty good at it!
Ha! Love it!!!
T
Hi!
>>https://youtu.be/CFPp1HO9DW0
This is SO COOL! Thank you for posting it! And those new toys are amazing 🙂
Annalise did a great job adding the verbals. The 90 degree line of exit at :28 and :40 and after that was perfect and a good challenge for Prytania! She did well, committing beautifully so Annalise could start to do the FC and run away a little earlier each time. Just remember to use your dog-side leg to step to the barrel when you cue her to start. For example at :59, you had your right leg back when she was next to you, which is great! Then as you let go of her, you can step forward with the leg to support the send. You kept it back, so she had some questions about whether she should go to the barrel or not.
Great job! Keep working this here and there, so you can keep starting that FC sooner and sooner 🙂
T
Hi!
>>Circled back for Annalise to do rears on the prop (that I was never able to get right, haha!)
I added a new game for it just now! That might make it easier. The cookie throws here were really earlier and Annalise was really fast which is great – but I am not sure if Prytania was reading them as rear crosses or just following well-placed cookies LOL! Either way, she did well, so you can try this new hallway/pajamas game and see how she does.
The parallel path looked great, and yes, it was much better to just walk 🙂 At this point, Prytty figured out the concept transfer SUPER fast, so you can start to throw the rewards earlier: when she is approaching the jump and before she looks at you, say “get it” and toss the treat. You don’t need to wait til she is between the uprights, because she might start to look at you. Throwing early when you see her intend to go towards the jump will help her keep looking ahead.
Great job!
TI am glad Annalise came back inspired! She did beautifully there! And she did a super job with these sessions!!
The start line work is going well. Ideally, Annalise does not return and feed from her hand, because that is when puppies make a mistake and get up either in anticipation of the cookie, or after the cookie. The catch game worked really well! Now Annalise can turn around and walk forward, like an agility lead out, rather than backing away 🙂 And you can totally add the toy in too! And yes, Amy is paying careful attention to the mechanics of staying in motion then saying catch, then tossing the treat 🙂 Super!!!
THe might be familiar with the environment, but he was still fabulous with the new distractions. As he goes through adolescence, you’ll see that sometimes even familiar environments can be hard. But having this framework in place makes it all so much easier 🙂
TracyI got my *ss in gear and got it on video! Here it is, complete with write up:
You probably just got the email about it too. Stay warm and let me know how it goes!
Hi!
>>Regarding using “Yes” as a marker, I understand the concept that you wrote about in your previous post. Unfortunately, I am concurrently training Gabby in rally and obedience since she can’t do agility anymore and I mark her frequently with a “yes”. So this is totally my issue and I will try real hard to remember to not mark “yes” with him during these training sessions. And I have to work on the hands>>
Can you add different markers to Gabby’s work so you don’t have to remember two sets of verbals? It is MUCH easier to add to Gabby (because she will figure out immediately :)) than it is to try to remember to say yes for one but not the other LOL!
>>He took off with his toy after the first wrap and it took a while for him to come back. You can hear him squeaking it in the distance and then he tried to bring it back but got hung up in a stick. You can see my hesitation – I was about ready to go help him out when he disengaged himself – then he’d lost track of what he was doing and kept looking at the toy and looking at me and actually came back with the toy. Good boy!>>
That seemed like a decompression moment, and he came back nicely! No worries about that. You can also cue him to go do it (“go for a run!”) because that actually helps reduce the running off 🙂
>>On the wraps, he was offering them on his own and then I remembered you saying to do nose touches and free cookies to keep him with me. That worked better. Hand targets need a lot more work since I have to be pretty close for him to do it.>>
Yes, that worked so much better because he was not wrong to offer when you moved towards the cone. Getting a little line up cookie going was great!!!
>>To be honest I didn’t feel like I was as far away from the cone as it looks on the video. Either my spatial awareness is way off (which is entirely possible) or the wide angle on the lens distorts distances. Regardless, sometimes he understood perfectly and other times he had questions, so we will continue to work on these after getting your feedback.>>
>> I realize it’s 7:30 minutes but there was a lot of play play play, tugging, and a pause for maybe a couple of minutes when he was off with his toy. Too long?>>I look at videos in terms of # of reps and rate of success, because using a toy does take longer than using treats. Also bear in mind that playing, running and tugging is actually more tiring than cookie training, so those sessions should be shorter because of the extra energy needed. He had 20 reps here, which might be ok or might be too many, but mainly the rate of success was lower than I would like it to be: he was at only slightly over 50% rate of success for the skill and he should be closer to 90% I count rate of success by counting the # of reps (cued or offered, because if he offers then he believes he is getting a cue of some sort). There were 20 reps, and 9 count as failures when either he didn’t go all the way to it, or you didn’t reward if he sent himself. On the reps where he didn’t go to the cone, it was mainly because the transitions were not as clear (not enough connection shift where you look at the cone, or you were too quick to get the toy and send). When you did make a smooth, clear transition, he was really strong (like at 6:05).
You did get rewards for the hand touches happening later in the video, which does keep the environment reinforcing too! But if you see 2 failures on the skill, make an adjustment so there are no more failures for the rest of the session. Bearing in mind that a failure is any attempt on the cone that does not get rewarded, you made one great adjustment (getting the hand targets going so he wouldn’t have any questions about when to start) – the other adjustment can be starting closer to the cone. Most of the failures were not going to the cone, so the adjustment can be getting closer to build up the skill even more.
The driveway was a great place to do the resilience game!!! It is distracting and that location isa bit of “forbidden fruit” because we definitely don’t want puppies running around the driveway without us or off leash!! So he was able to explore the environment and engage, in a really easy relaxed way. Yay! You can start walking up and down the driveway, and you can even include some cues to go have a sniff or a pee-on-all-the-things 🙂
Also, since we were talking about intact males: it is so much easier to get them to potty anywhere, any time on road trips! Girl dogs can be too picky LOL!
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
He looked good on both sides here! Left and right turns both looked strong, great job balancing them. Nice!
Since he wants to be explosively fast, you can balance that by moving away slowly…. that way you can move even more! What I mean by that is you can send him to the prop and slowly slide the other direction, as soon as he starts moving towards the prop, walking the whole time. If you explode the new direction, he is more likely to chase you which makes countermotion harder. And if he doesn’t hit it… reset with a cookie so he can get practice hitting the prop while you are in motion (rather than with you standing still and sending).Try to have a wider shot so I can see where you are looking in case he has any questions about connection, as you add more of the backwards sending and countermotion. And to help him as you add more of that, you can have your feet closer together during the ready dance, so you take a biiiiiig step on the send.
One other small detail about the marker: I think your toy-in-hand marker is take, and it means both “that was correct” and reward is the toy in my hand, right? Snice you have that, there is no need for a ‘yes’ before it, just use your “take” marker to indicate the correct behavior and placement. The ‘yes’ marker is less clear in that situation 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! The mats look great and he is definitely happy to find the jump here! Easy concept transfer!
I could not really see what you were doing, so be sure that you are moving the whole time. You can either go all the way to the cookie with him, so he is parallel or driving ahead of you to the jump. Or, after tossing the cookie, you can turn and be moving the other way so he looks to find the line when he is behind you., or you can move away a little more laterally so he finds it a little further from you. Mix all of this in! And at this point, you don’t need the clicker anymore – you can just use your get it marker as you did here 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi! This was great! He found the tunnel entry on both sides of you, and used his body beautifully to make the turn into it. And fast fast fast!!!! You can add in the get it marker for the toy at the exit.
>>Watching the video I can see that I am late releasing him.
I didn’t think you were late, because you want him to hear the tunnel verbal 3 or 4 times before he starts to move. On the first couple, you could have held him a shade longer to be able get the tunnel verbal going. Were you seeing the possible lateness on the threadle side, where he looked away to the tunnel pretty quickly? Yes, you can let him go on that by saying the tunnel verbal one or two more times like you did was fine too 🙂
My only bone to pick is that you were whispering the tunnel cue LOL! I could barely hear it over the background noise! So definitely be loud – because tunnel cues are LOUD and if that causes him to struggle, then we need to sort it out now. I am 1000% sure he will not struggle, though 🙂
Great job! Keep these videos coming!
TracyGood morning!
>>I wasn’t going to post this, but we’re still struggling.
Thank you for posting!! Super useful video! Here is what I see, and some ideas for you:
From the processing standpoint, there was too much to process so the finer points of the lead change and turn to her left were lost among all of the other processing stuff. There was snow on the ground, there was snow falling from the sky, there was cold, there was you wearing a lot of clothing, there was the hollee roller, there was a prop out there somewhere, there was a ton of motion. So the finding of the prop at the beginning was lost – it looked like she thought it was a chase-the-thrown-hollee roller game for the first minute, which is good insight into what the hollee roller is currently associated with in this context 🙂 Even if she has experience processing these various things at different times, she is not experiencing processing *all* of them at once especially with her newly adolescent brain, which prioritizes different things.
She did begin to “see” the prop, which is good, but then with all of the motion and processing the prop, she didn’t process that you had cut behind her (like at 1:32, which was timely but the fine detail of you changing sides behind her got lost in all of the other things she had to process so she could not process the “how to make the turn” element of it). So this session was mainly cool to see as an example of multi-sensory integration in a teenage pup brain 🙂 And my guess is that the processing of the toy and the platform in your other session with the cone, platform, placed toy was also too much to process so she couldn’t prioritize the movement we were looking for.
But since it would also be nice to teach her rear crosses, we can take a different approach. Let’s narrow what she has to process so she can focus on the coordination of making the turn the new direction:
– use food only for the next session. Let’s take out the chase potential of a thrown toy because that definitely gets highly prioritized in her brain, especially if you do a lot of throw/chase with the hollee roller. Food is not likely to produce that response, so it will help us isolate the behavior.
– take the prop out for a bit so we can narrow the range of what to look for even more
– try this, ideally indoors for now:
– start her on your left side, with your right side relatively close to a wall
– hold her collar
– toss a treat 2 or 3 meters ahead of her
– let it land
– let go of her to go get it
– as she is on the way to it, you will step behind her (rear cross) and call her and keep moving the new direction. And here is the trick to tap into her inner whippety-ness:step behind her at a walk then when you are fully on the new side, run run run the new direction and give her a cookie for coming to you. So you are running away from the wall that yo uare next to.
She may or may not turn correctly at first but she will be able to process the info more clearly (fewer things to process that might get prioritized) and she will figure it out pretty quickly. If you need a visual, can get it on video today with my pup who has not started the RCs yet and is full on whippety 🙂 )
And since I don’t think we really know if Muso is lefty or righty (I scrolled back to try to see what we thought she was LOL!) – you can start with the left turns (that was the most recent theory of her stronger direction) and if she can’t do it, flip your set up and try it as right turns on the rear cross.
As soon as we crack the code of what helps her, then it will be clear sailing. Let me know if that makes sense and I will totally get this on video with Ramen!
Tracy
Good morning!
>>We’ve been working on things, I’m just failing at editing video and posting 😆>>
I can totally relate LOL!!!!!
Video 1 – good shaping session and good tug break (otherwise it gets boring for dogs that are spicy and like a lot of action LOL!!) I liked that you moved the MM further away, I was going to suggest that it was too close – the added distance gave her room to turn around and find the tunnel more easily, and choose the tunnel rather than go around it.
Another good thing you stealthily added here was going back and forth from the MM treats to the tug toy, using the offered tunnel as a construct to make it happen. That MM-to-toy skill is SO useful for fancier things later on down the road!Video 2 – nice job adding the verbal here! She definitely likes the MM 🙂 After she gets the MM cookie, call her past the on your other side (placing yourself between her and the tunnel) and reward her for NOT going behind you as you reset – so she doesn’t keep offering the tunnel between reps LOL! This also begins teaching her that “just because you see the tunnel does not mean you always take the tunnel” 🙂
The first tunnel threadle rep looked strong! Then she offered one LOL so you were quicker on the transition for the next rep, which was also good! And on the last rep, she was a little further away from the tunnel and could easily see the MM… she could have gone directly to it but made the decision to do the tunnel first: SUPERSTAR!
>>. As I was watching the tunnel threadle video I realized I was still giving her the “tunnel” verbal. At this point, based on her position, I’m sure it’s fine? But, I assume I should start using her “pass” verbal for this?>>
Yes, fine for now, and very soon we change to the pass verbal… but I like to wait to be sure we have the behavior with some motion from the handler and even the arm you want to use for it before we add on the real verbal. It should only take a session or two, then it is really easy to add the real verbal.
Great job here!
TracyGood morning!
She did well with getting on and off the plank here! I agree, you can elevate the plank a bit next time which will also help it be more stable when she jumps off (rather than sliding out from under her). And, if is it elevated and more stable, you won’t need to use your foot to hold it in position 🙂 So you can stand up and help her turn around. So to get it more stable, are there two cinderblocks to put it on? Or you can use a dog walk plank on the ground, which is nice and heavy so she should be feeling pretty stable on it too 🙂
I think Julie was suggesting getting her to back up onto the plank – yes! That is a good one too, once she knows how to back up on the flat, so you can definitely add that.
Great job!!
TracyHi!
Loving the explosive sit-tug-sit game here in the trial environment!! He was completely engaged even with SO MUCH distraction all around. I look at the pup’s arousal state in these situations: too low? Too high? Nope! He seemed to be just right! Optimized arousal and fabulous engagement. You did a great job of recognizing that he might have been releasing on the toy motion, so definitely keep the toy motion and release separate.He did try jumping up to grab the toy a bit after you got it back from him to help him understand to not try to climb up your body to get it 🙂 You can keep the toy low and in front of you when he releases it, rather than lifting it up high. Keeping it low and in front of you adds one more level of impulse control, because he has to move away from it to sit. Lifting it up high takes that option out but also stimulates him to want to jump and grab it. If it is low and he tries to re-grab it, just be patient and let him release it and back himself off of it.
Great job here!
TracyGood morning, hope you had a great weekend!
When I saw this video start and saw all of the weird things in the environment (like the grinch LOL!) and the other people and dogs, I was like: oh please oh please let this be a pattern game video… and it was! YAY!!! He was SUPER because this environment was WEIRD lol!!! Think of all the things he *could* have done in that environment, as an adolescent boy… but he was confident and perfectly engaged – not worried, not hyper aroused, just a good happy pup ready to do stuff. I am doing a bit happy dance for you! Great job choosing this game for that environment!!
Nice work!
Tracy
