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Hi!
>>Most of my novice jumpers run took place after 6 pm when we had left the house at 6 a.m..
OMG that would make me want to get out of Novice asap as well! That is a LONG day!
>>Forgot to add… she was checked by a Chiro two weeks ago. She checked out pretty good.
Perfect! She drives really hard, so it is great to know she is feeling good 🙂
Looking at the tight sit – either she has a lot of floof or she is a little wide in the sit (I think it is floof, but you can also video from the front so we can see where her toes are). The side view looked good in terms of her position when she was sitting sideways… but also it was interesting that she was not coming in straight from the harder angles – aha! She was not squaring herself up, and we need her to do this as part of the jumping education. Note how she is sideways to varying degrees, a little off center. Ideally, she would be centered to the zipper on your hoodie, with her tail centered as well.
So when you do the harder angles around the clock, use a little hand cue/cookie lure to help her straighten up – this straightening up simulates how we want her to use her hind end when approaching the harder jumping lines. She is unlikely to offer straightening up at this stage, so we can totally help her out and then gradually fade the help as she gets used to adjusting her hind end.
Adding motion – this will be even easier when the step arrives. The sit verbal totally helps her, and you can also change the placement of reinforcement: rather than release forward, you can go back to her and deliver it to her mouth 🙂 Also, don’t up the ante too quickly – you went from a slow walk to a jog in one session and that caused questions, so you might need to go from slow walk to slightly faster walk LOL!
>> She was either mentally fatigued or she was just tired of playing non racing games😂. It may have been the non racing!>>
When the toy came out, there was barking in the distance so I think that was part of the distraction (more than the toy) – she got right into the sit as soon as the barking stopped. But, in case it was mental fatigue or lack of running around, you can give her run-around breaks in between reps! She will like that 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyYou can put it parallel to the plank, on the takeoff side – so as you release him to go around the wing, he wraps it and goes to the reward target without looking at you. That should help keep him straighter mainly because he won’t feel the need to watch your magical cookie hands as much LOL!
Good morning!
The zig zag session was good for figuring out what he needs to get the power in the jumping! I don’t think the distance between the bars was an issue – I think it is more about convincing him that he does indeed have the power to bounce those slices. When the angle was a little harder, he wanted to add the stride but I think we can tweak the moving target to help him feel the joy of power bouncing side to side 🙂
My favorite rep was the one that started at :11 – you put the toy down, started moving it… then released. Boom! So definitely get the toy moving for a few steps before the release. Also, you can try a slight tweak to his start position by puttig his head right next to the wing, so he is even more parallel to the first wing (just past the foot of the jump). That can help him “see” the line through the 2 jumps a little better.Adding the wing to the organizers – Really strong session here!!!
Sometimes it is hard to see where his back feet are due to floof overflow LOL! But I think he did really well getting organized here, even with the added speed. He was pretty quick about it too, and he will get quicker as we continue through the progressions.Yes, it takes them all a moment to figure out what to do around the wing when we face them, so the physical cues really helped him 🙂 Then he was happy with the concept for the rest of the session, once you showed it to him 🙂
You can add an empty food bowl target (or Manners Minder) to help get his head down as he rounds the wing – I suggest it because he was leaning to the side and kind of looking up at you when approaching the wing, so a bit more of a reward target will keep him straighter.
Give him one more session of this with the wing wrap to the plank, then around the next wing to the reward target: then move this to a jump 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
I am liking his organization here! LOTS of independent hind end use and he was quick about it too – he was immediately able to tuck his hind end under himself while moving into the sit. Yay! And he did it really well both from the various angles AND when you were moving. Super!!!
>> Definitely noticed that he needed that extra help of the sit cue BEFORE the platform.
Yes, you had plenty of good early timing of the sit verbal, so keep going with that timing. You can delay the click timing a bit more, don’t click til he is fully sitting. The clicks were sometimes early, when he was just getting on the platform or just starting to move into the sit. And since we are going to move this to the wing – you can drop the clicker entirely and just use verbal markers and releases.
One other suggestion, you might chuckle: do you have soft treats you can use, that he doesn’t have to chew? He was multi-tasking the chewing and moving into the sits LOL!!! We don’t want him to have to multi-task that so a soft, easily swallowed treat might be better 🙂
>>Still thinking this plank set up needs tweaking if I intend to use it in front of a jump. first I need to officially connect the two blocks but before I do that, is this set up even long enough for the future jump work?>>
Yes, you can duct tape them together but you might find this easier on a longer plank – I agress that this might be a little too short for his length and speed. The width looks good, so you can add a 3rd block to it if you have one, or find an aerobic step. I bought aerobic steps at local Goodwill stores for $5 or something, before I succumbed to purchasing the Cato plank 🙂
>>At the end of the video I show one rep to each side of me handling the wrap… then as I was re-reading your comments realize it was directed towards our multi-wraps not the send and go version. Oops, we can try that again tomorrow. I assume we should still be trying to isolate that head motion.>>
yes, we are trying to isolate the head motion so you can re-visit that if you like on the double wraps. But the send and go looked great and he seemed to REALLY enjoy the excitement of it all! Plus, he was turning his head beautifully.
>>Looking forward to also maybe trying the first zig zag exercise.
Yes – he is ready for that. And you can move the organizer to the wing (game 3) when you have the longer plank ready to go.
Great job here!!! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
The lead-with-the-head session looked really strong! The reps when he started on your left and turned to his right were all good, I think that is his stronger side no this game. The left turn reps on the other side didn’t look as fluid, so it is probably not his stronger side. You were a little earlier on the cue for the left turns – it was probably the same or similar timing as the cue for the right turn, but it takes him a fraction of a moment longer to process & coordinate the left turns. With that in mind, you can delay the cue a tiny bit (let his nose get almost all the way to your hand) then you can cue the turn.
The broad jump boards were a clever addition to help him get the sit concept!! Yay! That plus the hand cue – much better sits and no offering of other behaviors.
>.I can probably get Jim to cut me something on the table saw to use as a little bit wider platform if you think that would better than the broad jump boards, just might take a few days to get it on his “To Do” list 😉>>
For now, I think the broad jump boards will be great and Jim is off the hook (for a moment haha) – you can fade the boards by moving them further away while continuing to reward the sits on this platform. The next step after that is actually a slightly more narrow platform: Now that he has the concept of ‘get on and sit’, you can move to a more narrow platform to tighten the sit (when you move to the more narrow platform, bring the boards back in nice and close, to help refresh the concept and give him guidelines about where to put his booty 🙂 Ideally you will see him start to bring his rear legs a bit more underneath him – this will take some time, so no rush at all.
And while that is happening, you can start the zig zags!
Great job, let me know what you think!
TracyHello and welcome! The party can start for real, now that you are here 🙂 Yay!
Great job finding the pattern of the jump questions! It sounds like it is really one jumping question from her, so we can totally work on it! Is it almost always on a left turn? The video had all left turns except one right turn. The pinwheel jump is kind of halfway between a wrap and a slice, it is closer to a backside wrap in some ways – we will coverall of those so it should really help her.
The moving target video looked good! She did better when the target was in motion right after the release, as it helped her set up her collection really well on the turns!
Since that looked good – take a look at the organizers. Those will help strengthen her hind end and begin to add angles of approach – and those angles will really help the pinwheel jump! And you get to sit down the whole time LOL!!!
Also, be sure to have her checked by a massage person and chiro person, just to be sure she doesn’t have a trigger point or “out” spot that is making things harder.
Have fun! I am looking forward to seeing more!
TracyHi!
The jump proofing looked really strong -you were mainly doing late handling and calling him over the bar, which is great because he might see that at some point LOL! You can also add in disconnected or reaching for a toy in your pocket or decelerating and cheering as if it was the last jump – those are also thgs the dogs might hypothetically see 🙂 He didn’t seem distracted at all! You can revisit this game here and there, gradually raising the jump height.
Good job with refreshing the zig zags on the flat – the line up was perfect and he had no trouble with the game even when the wings were soooo close together It is funny to see how coordinated he is here in his mostly-adult body, as compared to back in the ealry stages of this game from MaxPup!
Now that the flatwork has been refreshed, onwards to the jumping games! He is definitely ready for the 2 jump game 🙂
Great job! I am looking forward to seeing how he does with the jumps added to the zig zags.
Tracy
Hi!
You were fabulously distracting here!!! And she had a really high rate of success.
>>Observations on why the bar comes down at trials.
1. Overuse of Wink’s name (OH THIS IS A BIGGIE).
2. Too big of physical cue for what was needed (you’ve witnessed this).
3. Late turn
4. Crowding the jump/in her way>>These are excellent observations – all the things we really shouldn’t do but we do anyway. Plus, based on how the sport is evolved, I think we DO need to call the dog or deliver verbals over the bar nowadays, so the dogs need to get used to that. You can also add in a little disconnection on top of it, like the cherry on a sundae haha!
>>This was a lot harder to do than I thought. I am really bad actor and I felt like I had to pull off the super bad handler. In the moment, I am sure I would win an Oscar but not here.>>
I thought you did great!!! You were pretty much nailing all the distractions LOL!
The name calling over the bar and getting in the way in session 1 was perfectly timed for all the things we are not supposed to do. Nice late FC there too haha (that was the one with the bar down) followed by a successful jumping effort on the late FC.
The 2nd and 3rd videos also looked good, with a bit of barking added in as an arousal increaser (more ideas for you on that below). I think in these 2nd and 3rd sessions she was savvy to the game, so you can leave it at one session (like the first one) then spread out the rest of the sessions on different days/locations, or add environmental distractions.
The outdoor sessions also looked good! You showed her some high quality distractions and she did really well. So now… this game can go into the rotation of maybe one session each week or two, and you can add more internal arousal (my guess is that it is harder for her to organize her jumping when she is more stimulated internally, and you are presenting distractions (although sometimes the handling is perfect and the internal arousal is what creates the challenge). And then the bar can start to come up too. Ideas for adding arousal to this game, first using the 12 inch bar you had here and all of the same distractions:
– make her wilder during the game by running with the ball you were using to get her barking, rather than leaving it off to the side
– setting her up closer to the jump, less room to organize – the level of difficulty makes it more arousing!
– add things to the environment to get her more stimulated. For example, I often have some of my dogs running around on the other side of the fence or someone holding them on leash & playing tug (I don’t ever have other dogs running loose during training sessions because of collision concerns). And if I am training alone, I play the 10 tunnel game of running the dog through the tunnel 10 times back to back to back with no reward in between til she is really wild… then do a behavior. This video has visuals of the distractions with different contexts (Voodoo as a baby dog learning the 2o2o and a stay after 10 tunnel arousal):
– fade out the food and the stay, replacing them with a bit of ready ready ready insanity at your side and then taking off and running to the jump 🙂
If she can still jumping cleanly with arousal and distractions? Yay! Then the bar can go up 🙂 There is no rush on this, because the game can be put into a training rotation of once a week or every couple of weeks, to keep the “I might be very distracting but thank you for not touching the bar” concept fresh 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>>So funny story, Mochi and I both like to move fast, as it turns out. 😐 I SWEAR I thought I was going slowly yesterday and again tonight. But I watch the videos and… nope. I definitely need to slow it down, because she’s going fast enough for both of us!
Yes, welcome to Team Fake Chill hahaha you will need to pretend you are slow and basically shuffle instead of walk at first, then you can speed things up.
Looking at the organizers:
>>I think speed is causing us some challenges here too
That is exactly why we are doing this class LOL! All of the dogs in this class are VERY speedy and somewhere along the way, we neglected to mention to them that they needed to organize that hind end for takeoff, while we are going fast. Oops! So these games will help 🙂 and we do add more speed for everyone further down the progressions.
The platform is a good size for her! It might be a little slippery, so maybe add a yoga mat on top? You can be a little closer to it so she is not tempted to offer a 2o2o. The challenge here is the tightness of the sit required – the 2o2o is easier for her because she doesn’t have to be as tight LOL! So keep going with this platform 🙂 And watch the cat’s expression in the background, so much judgement LOL!
The cato plank was easier for her, because she had a little more room to pop her back feet out past the line of her front feet on some reps. Watch the first rep – her right hind is nicely lined up but looks like her left hind is a little wider. The foot position at :10 also looks goodm but she was a little sideways on the plank (might have to do with her line of approach from the side). Then on the last rep – she sits tight then adjusts to give her right hind more room. So fascinating to watch!
So the tight sits on the smaller platform will help strengthen her so she can hold herself in position, then you will see her get nice and tight on the Cato plank too.
>> I wanted to see what would happen with a wrap beforehand. You’d think I could have predicted it… But it was very hard for her to 1) stay straight and 2) stop.
Yes, but I think that will be solved with a couple more sessions on the small platform then on the Cato plank.
So for a progression in the next day or so:
using the small platform, you can sit close to it and work the tight sits, adding in the angled approaches.Then if she is all like “I got it now!!” , give her a rest day (and let latent learning kick in) and then you can move it to the cato plank. Once she has it on the plank, the wing will be easy to add in.
And on the in-between days, you can work the zig zags because those work on different things 🙂>>I suspect we’re going to have to work this for a bit because she is sooooo motion responsive>>
Yes, but it is a good thing to work on because of the conditioning elements (I use the tight sit conditioning stuff all the time, even if I am not specifically working on jumping skills) and also because of how it isolates the hind end – the goal would be that she doesn’t have to think about proper hind end use, she just does it. At this stage, she is thinking about it 🙂 but it will get easier and easier.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning! I am glad you are enjoying this, I have been really enjoying watching the dogs play these games: fascinating to see what they do!!!
One thing with these games at the early stages is that these are all cued behaviors, not offered behaviors (because the dogs are not likely to offer specifically what we want and then the rate of reinforcement will be lower because we have less to reward). I find it fine to cue just about all of these skills for two reasons:
– gets the behavior a lot faster with more guidance to the dog about what we want
– we cue the behaviors on course, so we are building the response to the cue from the get-go 🙂So with the leading with the head – after sending to the upright, use a hand cue to flip him back to the upright for the 2nd wrap – that will produce the behavior to click/treat. He was offering it here, eventually, but it was happening after he looked at you, then decided to wrap again. So it is possible he was thinking: “Ok, I will wrap again” rather than “I will turn my head”. The hand cue gets the head turn isolated – and after that, you will see him begin to approach the wing on the first wrap with his head turning like it is on the 2nd wrap. It will probably take just one session to do 🙂
The sit session was really interesting: I think that he naturally wants to sit a little wide (knees and back toes outside the line of his elbows) and the platform makes that hard – so he was not sure of how to set himself up to do it. When he did get into into the sit on the flat and then on the platform, his toes were outside his elbows which is challenging to keep everything on the platform. So I don’t think he was offering because the cookies/clicker were very stimulating, I think he as offering because he didn’t know how to get his entire booty properly on the platform LOL!
He reminds me of the first time my Contraband saw this: legs everywhere! LOL! So he needed to sort out how to do the tight sit. And as soon as I helped him out with that, things moved along very quickly.
Simple solution to help: Wider platform to start with for now, an extra 2 inches, so he gets the concept of get on and sit 🙂 And, cue the behavior of the sit (reward wit his head higher, so he reaches up for the cookie a little, which helps the sit). As he gets more comfortable and stronger – you can go to the narrower plank.
Also, if you click – reward anyway even if it was not a great click – you can use reward placement to help bridge the gap on those by either rewarding up high to get him to organize better, or toss it off to the side for a reset 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! Congrats on a superstar weekend with Ripley!! Did you need to rent a truck to get all those ribbons home? LOL!
This session went well! And after the goldilocks moment of trying to get the plank just right, it was really smooth sailing for him.
OMG the moment when he sat facing away from you was both adorable and hilarious! Same at 2:57 when he was in revese heel position LOL!! I would have totally rewarded that too 🙂The cheeseball magic was definitely more stimulating but also produced some *snappy* sits LOL!
Since he was able to be organized coming in from the various angles and was able to do it with you standing, you can now begin to add your motion (using the full plank) as well as a wing before the plank. My guess is this will go very well, so you will be able to add it to the wing very quickly.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>.I need to get one together for my puppy who’s a wee noodle compared to Marvelette.
Yay for wee noodles! Do I remember correctly the pup is a Grifter/Smidgen baby? FUN!! You can start the foundation stuff with the pup: tight sits are a lovely foundation tool.
Looking at the moving target video… I think she liked this game LOL! SO FAST AND POWERFUL! (Side note: do you do any flyball with her? She would be amazing in that sport too!) The choice of toy was perfect, and you can add in the flirt pole later on down the road if you want to challenge her with more stimulation.
Because this was so easy for her, you can start the zig zag games! The first 2 levels don’t use the moving target at first, but we will be able to add it into the 2 jump game.
Great job!!! Let me know how she does with her zig zags 🙂
TracyHi!
Nice work – he had a really good session here! The first sit was a little off balance but then he fixed it and the rest were great!!
The only thing to add here is a non-slip surface like you mentioned, so the blocks don’t move and also so you can add more angles without him slipping. That way he can add more of his own speed and still organize into the sit like he did so well here.
I also have wood floors, so I work outside on grass a lot, and I also bought some fake turf from amazon LOL! That added good grip 🙂 When you get the angles going, you can move to the plank game (Organizers 2) and add your motion.
Great job!!! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
Very strong session with the plank and the wing! The left turns looked great: very snappy organization!!! Yes, the right turns definitely looked harder. Why? Could be that she is a lefty, or could be that she was tired of the sit nonsense LOL!!! Or maybe a bit of both 🙂 But she seemed to be very happy to do the sit on the left turns so my guess is that she is a lefty and the right turns were harder. You can test this theory by doing another session like this one… but start with the right turns and see how it goes.
Based on what she did here, I figure she only needs one more session of this then you can move to adding this to a jump with a low bar.
The zig zag session also looked really strong!
>> I am not sure if she uses her rear on the zigzag if she starts from a stand?
For this game, she can start in a stand: those reps were spot on! Yay! You can lead out a little further with the moving target to add a little more challenge. You can also see how she does with the same angle, but with the wings touching end-to-end and not overlapped. Based on what she did here in this video, I bet she is going to do well with it! And if she has a good session of that, we can start moving the angles a bit.
Great job!! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>I took her out today to work her in a VERY challenging location with the family. The golf course across the street causes a huge level arousal along with my husband’s b/c there.>>
Perfect!!! She looked stimulated but not insane, and that is great! It is really convenient to have relatively easy access to such a challenging location.
>> I did a huge amount of foundation jumping with a stationary toy.Tervs are very handler focus/up right jumpers so I used it to create more forward focus, obstacle drive and more extention in jumping. I think I did achieve that to some degree but perhaps I could have gotten better results with a moving toy. I do think she has pretty good form for a Terv but obviously there is room for improvement:-).>>
I have also done a TON of foundation jumping with stationary targets (toys or food targets) and while it seemed to work, there was always an element that I thought was missing… then I started doing some flyball and wanted to improve my dog’s flyball jump work and I did that with a moving target (dragging toy). So a small lightbulb went on and we added that moving target to the traditional jump grid work and young dog training – it has been great fun to see the results! The dogs have more powerful organization and are better able to organize when we are running (I do begin with the stationary target to get the concept going, though).
Looking at the 2 videos in slow motion, she is doing well with driving to the moving target! That will be useful when we get the jump bars into the zig zags.
Looking at zig zags 1:
This went well! Her line up position at :38, practically touching the wing was the most ideal because it simulate where she might want to approach the bar on a serp or backside slice. And you can put yourself more on that line too, close enough to the wing to casually touch it: that position will tighten her line, which adds challenge.>>I put the stanchions 5 feet apart. I am pushing it?
I liked the 5 feet apart, I think it was easy for her so next time… 4 feet apart! She is going to run into 4 foot bars on hard jumping efforts, so we definitely want her to be prepared for that.
>>Also, looking at my video, I am not sure that my delivery of R+ is correct.
It was good! It might have looked a little off maybe because you were a little further from the wing, laterally? But throwing the reward so she carried through on the line works well for this.
So you can keep visiting this game with both of you closer to the wings for very tight lines that will require quicker lead changes. And, you can totally go to the 2 jumps zig zag with low bars.
Plank organizers:
>>Probably not an approved surface.>>
Ha! It was fine for this game because we aren’t going fast or jumping LOL!
This is overall going well – my only suggestion here is to dial back your motion to a more casual, slower walk. I think your motion here was a bit too brisk, because she had some organization questions (stepping off on the first rep, right hind off at :16, some foot pattering to get into the sit when she was on your left). Interestingly. she seemed to tuck into the sit a bit better when she was on your right but she was definitely producing some good quick tucks into the sit later in the session on your left as well. So to get that more consistently, dial back the motion. And that will help when you add the wing too, because the wing (and the jump) will add a layer of arousal that will challenge her so we don’t need to have motion challenging her there as well until later in the progression.
Looking at the leading with the head videos:
>>Not sure I am delivering R+ correctly on this one. Normally, I would toss away from me to encourage a tighter turn around the wing. Assuming we are still just mark/reward head turn.
Yes, we want to mark & reward that head turn before she arrives at the wing. You were using the rewards to also reset her into the loop for the next rep, which is good, but I have one suggestion to add to it: give yourself enough room to throw the cookie back hat she can get it and turn around, so you are cuing the wrap with her head facing the wing and not her butt LOL!
By having her already facing the wing before you cue each rep, she won’t have to turn around then try to turn her head – the turning around is causing a delay in the head turn (it is happening after arrival to the wing). If she is facing the wing before the cue, she can turn her head sooner because she doesn’t have to first turn and then try to get the head turn in with limited room.So you can click and toss the reward the rest of the way around, then call her back to you for a reset cookie where you use a cookie in your hand to turn her around to face the wing. Or, you can give yourself more room and toss the cookie further back behind you, so she gets it and turns around before passing your chair. (Or, click and reward from your hand while also turning her back around to face the chair). Any of these will work nicely because you have good timing with the clicks and then she will be facing the wing for the next rep, which presents the opportunity for more good clicks 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think. You can definitely start the 2 jump zig zags, and I bet you can add the plank to the wing after one more session of getting the sit on it with you moving a little more slowly.
Tracy
