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Hi!
It was fun to watch the video at the beginning – I would have thought that the toy in your left hand was really fun! She disagreed LOL!!! So you can approach this in a different way: play with the first toy, ask her to give it back, then reward with the second toy. That might help smooth out the process (but I am so excited about her toy drive!!)
The cone game is looking great!!!! She is fast and happy to wrap the cone and the other objects. Fabulous!! No questions from her except when the BCs were barking, but then she got right back into the game. She was considering going over the top of the box LOL but that might have been simply because the box had the flat top, which could look like a couch or something to hop up on to.
She did really well with you standing at the end, which means you can now move forward to the turn and burn game. I think the cone is the best object for that. It will add toys and more action, which I think she will really like! One suggestion in advance: since she is o little and you will be standing and moving, tie several toys together so you end up with a toy that is at least a meter long. That will be easier to move and drag for her to chase as part of the reward.
Great job here! Keep me posted on how she does with turn and burn!
Tracy
Hi!
>this dog is going to be the death of one of us! Absolutely no sense of self preservation. After she recovered from her leaf pile spins injury she wacked her other shoulder on the trailer hitch on the truck. 🤪. Anyway…….>
Sounds exactly like life with a whippet. Sending support to you HAHAHA!!! Bubble wrap that dog! 🤣😂
The goat games are going well! A couple of ideas for you:
When working the jungle gyms 🙂 You can place the reward straight ahead of her and not back at you – when she turns to face you for it, her hind end was slipping off. So placing the reward straight will help her stay more balanced.
You can also change up the configuration more frequently – that all be a great challenge for her, to approach each new configuration and think about how to use her body over it.
Since she was happy to go fast for food, you can add arousal in the form of tugging before each rep – can she still work her body with balance while she is in a higher state of arousal? That is a very useful game for agility 🙂
The barrel wraps went great! She is offering with speed and accuracy, no problem with you sanding and more room between you and the barrel. She had one moment of a question but that might have been more related to almost losing the cookie then perhaps losing her train of thought. The rest looked great!
She is ready for the turn and burn game! That will fade out the bowls and add more running, countermotion, and toys 🙂
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi!
45 degrees! Shorts weather!!!!
The blind to decel game is going well! Because of his speed and stride length, you can add decel sooner: as soon as you finish the blind, start to decel without taking an extra steps. The decel was happening a couple of steps later, so he didn’t shift his weight as well into the pivot. Decelerating sooner will help him process his mechanics sooner too.
You can also add in running! Since he is starting from a stay, you can release when you are further away then start to run – blind – immediate decel. If something can hold him, you can start to run even sooner! I don’t know if his stay is strong enough to allow you to run while he is still staying, so be careful to maintain the stay criteria before adding running.
To keep things spicy, you can also do this with the barrel sends for the new handling combo games 🙂
The tunnel game looked great! The hardest part for a big dude is lowering his head to get in, and he did it perfectly. The angles were no problem at all. He drove forward to it and out of it to the toy beautifully! So you can add the threadle side where he is turning away from you to get in. Start on easy angles so he can get the hang of the bending required, then make it harder if he says it easy. And start with the tunnel verbal at first and if he has no trouble, add your tunnel threadle verbal to name the behavior.
>I was going to use the Manners Minder but we had done such a good job of hiding our D batteries, that I had to use a toy instead – which he prefers anyway. After I was done, we found the batteries.>
HA! Of course the batteries appear after the training is done. Hilarious!!! But he was great with the toy so it all turned out well. No need for the MM in this game.
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi Sally and Joplin! Super nice training session here!!
She really thought through the puzzle of having to hit the target and ignore the cookie hand! It was hard! She was so funny – I could see so much concentration in her face and body! But she got it 🙂 Yay!
You can have an extra cookie in the reward hand, and toss a cookie away to get some distance between you and her. That will add more speed and give you a couple of extra seconds to get your hands and feet in position (she is speedy!!)
You can also start moving to the advanced level by putting an empty bowl out were you are tossing the reward – that way she can hit the target and then go to the bowl, making that in and out behavior super smooth (then you drop a cookie in the bowl after she hits the target :))
Great job here!!!
TracySo…. she loves the tunnel. YAY! These reps looked super! You can straighten the tunnel out a little and go to the tunnel threadle game, having her between you and the tunnel. That way she can turn away into it. Use your tunnel verbal for that at first, and if she finds it easy? Switch to your tunnel threadle verbal.
It is really fun to hear she was such a good girl crating during the party, and she was great doing her tunnels while people were moving around. Super! So fun!!!
Great job here and keep me posted about the tunnel threadles 🙂
Tracy
Hi! I agree, his confidence grew with each run! On the first run, he seemed engaged but was doing the young dog “go fast but not always be organized o take the obstacle” 🙂 That is fine – great job keeping him in motion and showing the lines and the teeter.
That choice to going and make it fun directly helped his next run – he was finding lines and obstacles like a pro! Yay!!
>He didn’t particularly want to leash up after that run. So the mom voice came out.>
That is a great takeaway from the weekend – when he is all pumped up from the run, he is hard to convince to get the leash on – so get him WILD in training (10 tunnels in a row or something hahaha) – then convince him to leash up, and use your marker and grab a jackpot for him! That should really help.
Also, sine leashing up indicates to the end of the fun, you can mix it up – get the leash on then immediately take it off to go back for more fun! That will help him learn that the leash is not the end of the party 🙂
I am so glad you have fun with the class! I had fun watching you two!!
>I’m going to miss sending you our videos for review when this class is over!>
Stay tuned for some type of young dog starting to trial support group class thing… I don’t have details yet but I will sort it out after the holidays 🙂
Congrats on a fabulous debut weekend!
TracyHi! Looking at the videos, I agree – they went great! Yay!!
Reward station video 1: really good! Looked easy peasy for her! And yes, the ball at the station is hard! The sparkle ball is the highest value, so if it is in play as the reward, keep it as the reward for when you are working the remote reinforcement skills. Otherwise it might be distracting and that is a can of worms you don’t need to open when working on the other challenges like remote reinforcement.
Video 2: Barking mom distraction? No problem! The sequence looked really strong – nice connection !! And nice teeter!!! One thing to be careful of is not always going to the reward station when you run towards it on course – many courses run towards the exit and then loop back around into the ring, so you will want to show her that in training. That way she will be prepared for those courses that loop past the exit but don’t actually go to the exit in that moment. She seemed to anticipate going to the reward station because you were running towards it, so we can definitely add in the looping past it.
3rd video – as you were walking away, she was still engaged with the reward station. So be sure to engage with her as you walk away rather than pull her away 🙂
At the end of the first run, you can see her thinking that running towards the reward station meant it was in play, so definitely add in looping past it fora few more obstacles and having the sequence end somewhere else.So since this went really well, a few ideas on what to do next:
Remember that the remote reward skill is useful and getting the leash back on before rewarding is a great skill to work! But mix in lots and lots of training on sequences without the challenge of remote reinforcement or getting the leash on, and rewarding right in the moment on course. That will help maintain a high value for agility!
>Ok tomorrow the U is planned with Ginger I was planning on having her outside the “ring” watching for a first rep and then maybe sitting in the ring and then standing.
Maybe that is too much?>It might be lack of caffeine, but I am not sure what the context at the U is in terms of the ring – an agility opportunity where people are added? But definitely add in people: that is the big thing that challenges her and the piece you can definitely add to agility with the reward in your hand, and then when that is smooth – add people to the remote reinforcement games. I think that is the last piece of the puzzle to put into play: being able to work successfully around people 🙂
And that can start with pattern games through crowds, or simple agility stuff with people *right there*. The more you can add in that challenge with immediate reward, the easier it will be to add them into the remote reinforcement elements too!
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! Let me know which ones I missed – I did reply to the last videos but maybe I missed something?
T
Hi!
>I’ll be honest I’m struggling a little organizing all the material into a training plan but I think we’re doing ok over all with the games themselves, just trying not to “leave any behind”! Currently doing 1 training session per day is working best for me.>
One session a day is great! One way to organize things is to categorize them:
– handling on the flat
– barrel wrap stuff
– body awareness games
– prop games
– SSC/resilience gamesAnd you can pick a category and work it on that day, then do a different category the next day, and so on.
What will start to happen is that the categories will begin to combine. For example, handling on the flat will combine with barrel wrap games. And pretty soon prop games will combine with those too, so it will be all be one category. Rotating through categories will mean everything gets touched on and you won’t feel like you are missing anything, plus it keeps things in balance.
There will end up being fewer categories, so you can even spice things up by picking one came from each category which will total to about 3 games per session.
I think it is great when your mom makes appearances in your videos!!! And it is also good for him to learn to ignore distractions of family members 🙂
Turn and burn is going well. Really strong session – great warm up to make sure he had it outside, and you had a lovely balance of being quiet while he was offering then exploding with excitement when he got it right 🙂
He was able to sort out going around the barrel really nicely, which is going to be the foundation of a whole lot of things coming up 🙂 I *think* the right turns are the easier side for him (seemed like left was a little harder, but maybe that was because you did the right turns first?). So for the next session start with the rights turns again (dog on left) and try to do the FC even sooner. You will find it easier to time the FCs if you have a line on the ground, so you can lay a light leash down to give you the visual focal point to get the FCs sooner and sooner (as the line moves).
The prop game also looked great! He is able to take these skills into the great outdoors brilliantly! You can bring the prop to different places too, to help him learn to work/play in all sorts of new places!
>I tried to add countermotion but my brain couldn’t quite clunk into gear there.>
I think you will find the countermotion feels easier when you send sideways or backwards to the prop, because you are already facing the new direction and more easily able to slide away. You were sending forward here, which is great but also probably why the countermotion didn’t feel natural.
So that is a good next step: adding sideways and backwards sends outside, which should make countermotion really easy.
On he BC to decel video: you can decelerate as soon as you start the blind. He is a speedy little dude and so if you do the blind then take a couple more steps, you are actually a bit late in the decel and he is a little wide driving into you. If you do the blind and as you reconnect, you also decelerate – you will find that he collects super well into the pivot!!
I am glad you brought the toy out – we don’t want him to think that being outside is all about treats! He did get into it which is great!
The next step here adds the barrel, and he is ready for that!
Great job!
TracyHi!
This was a great walk! She seemed very comfy! At least until she tried to greet the little kid that screamed LOL!
Then she was like “that was weird” and carried on. It was a good bounce back!
The store had a LOT of big distractions, so you will want maybe stand in one spot and let her watch the world, or stay in the less noisy aisles.
And if something weird happens (like a scream LOL!) then you can give her treats so there is an association that screaming kiddos = treats! Yay!
Great job here! Hope you bought her a nice Christmas gift 🙂
TracyHi!
An earthquake notice? Holy cow!!
>Send right and left. We struggled.
Did you think there were struggles in these videos? Because I think they looked really good! He was sending really well! And your markers and rewards were clear too.
First video looks good (right turns) – he was pushing the prop away so you can either move forward to stay at the same distance to it or pull it back to its original spot.
The 2nd video was the left turn sends: he did great! He was grabbing the prop with his mouth too LOL!
So let me know where he was having trouble – sideways sends, or more distance? Or with a toy? He was super here so we can sort out what his questions were.
Great job!
Tracy
He did great here too! Great job bracing the donut and egg so it was more stable. He was super brave here: the foundation you’ve already done is really shining through! Yay!
I loved his trail of “stuff” to run over 🙂 The inflatables and pillow were easy 🙂 The wobble board was harder to balance on, sports this is another spot where you can reward him a lot lower – by reaching up for the reward, he was losing his balance. You can also put a couple of rolled up towels under it, so it wobbles a lot but doesn’t slide around as much.
You can also see if he will play tug on the wobble board – keep the toy nice and low, to see if he will pull back on it 🙂
Great job here!
TracyHi! He did really well here on the plank!!!
Only one suggestion: when you reward, reward lower so that he doesn’t have to reach up to look at you or get the cookie. That was part of what was causing him to get a little off balance.He was not slipping off here, but I can see that if he is going faster and looks up at you for a reward, he might skitter right off the plank 🙂 So getting him to look down a little for the reward will help him stay balanced.
Great job here!
TracyHi!
Thanks for resetting the videos! YouTube definitely does weird things sometimes : )
Turn and Burn to the right went well! You were able to do the FC really early so his countermotion and commitment were looking great!
My only suggestion is to begin with him at your side, facing the barrel. When you were sideways to it and he was facing you, he was not always sure about where to go on the send and would jump up on you. So facing the barrel with him at your side, also facing it will make it much smoother. You can hold his collar and start saying his wrap verbal before stepping to the barrel to begin adding that.
I think his questions on the left turn send had to do with 2 things:
– the sideways start (where he was facing you rather than facing forward), so you can both be acing the barrel to start.
– Your yes marker is taking on a meaning of ‘come to reward right now’ so when he was in the midst of wrapping you would say ‘yes’ exuberantly… which would pull him off the wrap. Then he lost a little confidence about when he should follow you or not.
So, you can start the FC when he gets to the marker on the ground… but don’t say “yes” or get excited about it until he finished the wrap. That way he can see the countermotion but not have any confusion about when the reward is available.You can also replace your ‘yes’ with toy-specific marker (I say ‘bite’ for the toy in my hand when the dog knows that marker) so he doesn’t start to think that yes is a come to you right now marker 🙂 It might be in other situations, so you definitely don’t want to use it here.
Nice work! Let me know if that makes sense!!
Tracy
