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Hi! Lots of good work here! And yes, being in the different part of the facility took out a lot of the visual distractions.
On the videos:
Focus forward is going well! She is driving to the toy really well!!! She is at her most focused on the toy when it lands, so be ready to run as soon as the toy hits the ground 🙂 No need to do a lot of ready ready ready as that seems to get her to focus up on you more than we need – she was great with driving directly to it when you let go pretty quickly after it landed. And when adding in the cookie toss before the race to the toy, you can toss the toy first then toss the cookie behind you. That will give her the toy as the focal point immediately after getting the cookie, rather than seeing you throw it.
She was very confident getting on and off the plank. You can move this to a longer plank so she can move back and forth across it more – maybe a dog walk plank that is on the ground? And you can raise it a little, so it is a few inches further off the ground to add a little more challenge.
>>She wasn’t very interested in a tugging with this exercise>>
She was more into the food for sure here, I see what you mean – looks like there was food in your hand, plus the clicker and previous associations with the plank were all food-based. So you can play with the tug before the shaping begins (and before the cookies are in your hand :)) , and have the plank leaning up against a wall or tugging further away from it, so it is not as obvious. That can help keep the tugging pumped up even when the plank is around.
The sideways sending looked really good! Nice job with the very clear arm/leg cue and also looking at the prop at the beginning here (she was on your right at the beginning, turning to her right)!
When you switched sides, your leg cue was not as clear so she was not as sure – you can have your feet together more so you can make a really exaggerated sideways step when she starts on your left (turning to her left). The left turns might be slightly harder for her, so the more exaggerated leg cue will totally help.Backwards sending: she caught onto this really well too! I think she was not quite ready for that very first send, it kinda happened as you were moving into position so it took her a moment to ‘find’ the prop. Good patience! You were clearer on the other reps so she found the prop a lot better. Definitely take a moment before you send to get her in front of you so she is standing still, make eye contact then send. That will get very snappy responses and allow you begin adding the countermotion games.
Forward sending on your right looked good, easy peasy!! She had a few questions on your left – at 1:22, your foot stayed back instead of stepping forward so she had a question – looked like she still had a rewardable behavior though, close enough 🙂 At 1:25 you were looking ahead of her a bit too much so she went where your shoulders were pointing (very literal pup!)
On both of those, you can give reset cookies to line her up again for the next rep.
The rest of the reps had more connection and arm/leg sending together so she was able to hit her prop really well. YAY!!!She is reading everything really well on the handling combo… so now you can pump it up and add more motion! No more walking LOL!!! When she is getting the start cookie, you can be running away – that way you will have more time to do the blind and also the decel will be very obvious. And then after the decel, you can throw the cookie and race to it 🙂 That will really help her understand the handling differences, while challenging you to do everything sooner because things are all moving so much faster 🙂
Wow, Grady’s run looked amazing!!! Confident and fast fast fast, totally focused!!! Well done to you both!!!
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
Very fun doodling here!!!!Looking at the different sections:
Starting with the wing wraps and wraps on the jump – he did well and his turns are looking really good! You can totally use a toy for this too, so he can drive back for tugging. The cookies will be good for lining up at your side, for a smoother start to the send and so you can use your leg too (things were a little wonky when you tried to to send when he was facing you LOL!)
Adding the tunnel and the smiley face went well – there was a little blooper at 1:01 you cued the tunnel but didn’t really connect and moved away, so he was unsure about which tunnel togo to. Compare to the next rep where you were MUCH clearer and he nailed it. YAY!
The Minny Pinny is also going really well! Two suggestions:
– Start all reps, even the easy ones, with a finger on his collar so you can say left or right 3 or 4 times before you let go and he starts to move. This will let him process the verbal before he starts to move. When he was turning towards you on the easy reps, he was guessing based on how it was set up. Things got juicier when you wanted him to turn away and he was trying to move as soon as he heard the word (like at 2:30 and 3:00). When you help him at 3:52 – he was able to process it and got it a lot better!!– Rather than try to do hand cues for the turn aways, use toy placement to help him out. The turn aways are hard! You can hold his collar, toss the toy to between bars 2 and 3, say the verbal,, then let him go. That can help him figure out the turning away element.
On the zig zags – great job recognizing the failures and going to cookie tosses rather than the stay – it is a hard game so taking out one level of difficulty and allow you to emphasize the lead changes without worrying about the stay. And he did great with the lead changes! Yay!
Great job here, lots of skills covered and he looked strong!
TracyGood morning!
Great job here! I am especially excited about how well he went back and forth between food and toys… that is unusual for young BCs and he was great. In fact, he got so fast getting the treat that you were almost late with the blinds LOL! So you can use more room to get further ahead – send him further away to get the cookie, so you are further ahead of him when he begins to drive back to you 🙂
Also, excellent connection and mechanics on your blinds! Using the toy across the body to make connection was crystal clear – he had no questions about where to be and changed sides immediately. The camera angle was perfect – note how well we can see your eyes before AND after the blind. PERFECT!!!
Great job here! You can definitely take this to a bigger place so you have more room and more time, and you can add in the handling combos now too 🙂
TracyHi!
Congrats on the wedding! I bet it was lovely!!>> He’s fast and I’m going to have trouble keeping up with him >>
I think he found a whole new gear of speed since your last video. Holy WOW!
Distance will be your friend, which is good because that is the trend in course design lately anyway! On the first rep, you were too close to the start wing and tunnel, so he smoked you 🙂 On the 2nd rep, you were already adding distance and got to a better spot than the 1st rep… and the 3rd rep was even further ahead so you got to a great spot AND got the turn away. SUPER!!! Same on the 4th rep, moving away from the camera. Nice!!!
After that, things went super well. You were able to get the turn aways really well (especially to the right, that seemed easy for him) and he also drove out of them beautifully back to the tunnel.
The only errors were handler errors 🙂 At 2:05ish you were a bit early on the cue so he didn’t take the wing (he got big mad when you said it was his fault LOL!) and then you were also a little early at 3:14, by being on his line a bit before he could get past you. Good reward there! And you tmiing was much better on the next rep. Connection looked great overall!! So you can add on more of the sequences here now, including getting the wing on the other side of the tunnel after the turn away 🙂
>I realize after watching the video that I got the wrong wrap verbal on the last reps >>
It is a good reminder to do a quick run through of the verbals in your head before you start the rep, just to make sure you have the correct words ready 🙂
>>Any suggestions on how to deal with his “freeze” or “hesitation” before coming in to me?
I thought he came back pretty fast on this video, pretty immediately when you called him to line up. It is possible he hangs out a little further away during the in-between moments because he can see you better! He didn’t seem stressed and he was quick to come back, so the line up cues seem to be helping. Stick with that for now and let’s see how he does with it over time.
Great job here!
TracyHi!
>>Dexter came to me with a noise sensitivity issue. We have worked through it and is soo much better. >>
Poor little guy! I am glad he is doing better!!!! Be sure to have him checked for any possible pain sources, even something simple like a UTI – over the years, we have seen noise sensitive puppies struggle because there is something simple happening medically.
And since he has some noise concerns, definitely pay extra attention to the resilience games – those are incredibly useful for pups with questions like noise sensitivities! I know most are food based by you can totally play them with toys (I have video somewhere of my BorderWhippet playing the pattern game with 2 frisbees, one in each hand :))
>>I tried other night to use clicker and he lost it and now my training room is evil.. I know we will work through that too. I just change things and try again.>>
Eek! Ok, so no clicker needed (you really don’t need to use a clicker, ever, so no need to try to work through that – let’s just get him happy in your training room again. Probably lots of toys and play and hanging with the other dogs would do it. Burn the clickers! LOL!!!
>>I have to switch up to toys alot because I have not found the right high value food for him. he disengages with me during training very easily, but never during play time..>>
This is pretty normal for a lot of BCs – food value is lower than toy value. And the right high value food probably doesn’t exist yet, so it is more a matter of building up the food value.
So for now, you can do as much as possible in terms of training with toys only, and when you do use food – give him a cookie then play tug afterwards with a toy he likes 🙂 And when shaping with food, try to deliver only one or two treats and then break things off for a tug break. The cookie is more of a behavior (“eat this thing”) and less of a reinforcement, so pairing it with the toy will pump up its value and also help teach the skills. and since it is more of a behavior and less of a reinforcement at the moment – that is why you are seeing disengagement during training. You can modify all of these games to add in a TON of toy play as we very gradually add in a cookie here or there. The goal is to keep things very engaging as the cookie value gets built up.
Now, if he is disengaging when training with toys too… that might be because there is too much failure or the environment is too challenging, so you can make things easier 🙂
>>What is interesting is he will not disengage and tries even harder if there are other dogs around trying to do tricks for cookies. For the last few sessions, I have used that to my advantage and had successful trainings.>>
Yes, social learning is very useful and also the higher arousal of having the group around is helpful too! You can use social learning and social support to increase food drive for sure: I do group sits and downs and tricks for treats every night (especially when I am feeling guilty fo rnot having trained anything else that day LOL), and it is amazing how good the behaviors are getting with very few individual sessions 🙂
>>My question is what do you think?? Should I take advantage of this “group training” with Dexter?? Or is it a bad idea.>>
As long as there is no pressure, it can be very helpful particularly in building up food value. There is a LOT of science (particularly the neuroscience) that supports it with puppies! And you can balance in private time with toys and silly games, or maybe just one other dog. the only thing that I don’t think is helpful is if the other dogs are getting in the way, or if Dexter doesn’t get the rewards, etc. As long as he is having a good time, the group training can definitely be helpful!
And I use social learning to help dogs who might be concerned about things too – my younger pup is concerned about the vet’s office, for example. So I bring my whippet pup along to all visits, because the whippet models perfect happy social behavior… and then the baby pup also presents perfect happy social behavior. Which of your dogs can help Dexter out like this? It is really great for building confidence 🙂
Tracy
Hi!
Her retrieving looks great! You can totally add a GO to this but also be sure you move so the physical cue gets build in too 🙂She drives away to the toy really fast and brings it back at a different speed – so since she is bringing it back, we can work to get her driving back to you with it faster. The most fun way to do that is by making it a double retrieve game 🙂 You throw the toy so she goes and gets it in one direction. As soon as she is arriving at it, you can be running the other direction, calling her – then as she starts chasing you in the new direction with the toy, you can whip out a 2don toy (surprise!) and throw it ahead of you in the new direction for to get. Then you turn and run the other way again so she chases back to you with the 2nd toy. It should get her running back to you with it for sure 🙂
Great job on these! Le me know what you think!
TracyHi!
This is going well – it is really hard so might feel weird in the moment, but there was lots of good stuff! You can move away sooner and throw the treat further to give yourself a more of a head start 🙂 You did not have much lead out then she was smoking you 🙂When using shorter distances between you and her, the timing of the blind or decel individually can start as soon as she starts moving towards you after she gets the cookie. More distance gives you more time of course 🙂 and in that situation the blind or decel would start no later then when she is halfway to you.
I thought she read all the blinds here pretty well, but the decels can definitely be sooner and more exaggerated – she did make the turns with you but you were accelerated so she didn’t have time to really organize a collection. So, let her see you go from moving fast to a more exaggerated moving slow, as soon as she starts turning back to you after the cookie toss, or immediately after the blind if you are doing the blind then the decel. That will definitely help her predict what it coming and response sooner.
Nice work here!
TracyHi!
Good job starting with the parallel path here (same thoughts as above about having the prop in yur hand ad not on the ground until you are ready to start, so it doesn’t fade into the background)
When you wanted to start the RCs, you put your left hand into a heel position so she paid extra super attention to you (which made the RCs extra super hard LOL!) and because you were limited on space, you moved slowly… so she moved slowly which also makes the RCs hard 🙂So to help get the RCs rolling more easily, a couple of ideas:
– use a lot more space, so you can be moving up the line at a decent speed and she will have room to get ahead of you. You’ll probably need at least 15 feet between you and the prop to start.
– with the parallel path warm up, add in starting with her so she is getting more and more ahead of you on the parallel path games. When she is happy to get 8 or 10 feet ahead to the prop as you move forward, the RCs will be much easier because then you will have plenty of time to scoot in behind her 🙂 Getting her to drive ahead will involve tossing the treat for the first prop hit, then going to her and starting with her on the next one so she has room to get ahead. The parallel path looks good, so it should be pretty straightforward to build up with more room 🙂Nice work!
TracyHi!
You might notice that she offers a lot of attention to you and behaviors involving you here (and not the prop). Having the prop on the floor before the session fades it into the background and then when you enter the room, it makes you more prominent… which is why she pays more attention to you than to the prop especially in the early reps here. You can see all of the offering revolving around you and less about the prop. So we can reverse that – keep the prop in your hands until after you are entirely ready to start… then put it down. That helps make the prop more salient and so she will interact with it more readily (rather than offer thins involving interacting with you).As with the parallel path, you can take the clicker out of the picture now and just use a marker for the reward delivery. Do you have ‘reward in hand’ marker? I use “bite” for a toy (and you can totally use a toy for this game!) or “yesss” for a cookie in this scenario. And before each rep, take a moment to engage with her, ask her if she is ready, get a little eye contact, then do the send (arm, legs, eyes to the prop). Adding that engagement before hand can really help get snappy behavior of her moving to it as you move away, because she is more ready for the cue. That will really help build up the countermotion because she will be driving to it a little more.
Nice work 🙂
TracyHi! Glad the countermotion and wraps went really well!
Thanks for posting the combo videos! There are one or two tweaks we can make that will make them go more smoothly 🙂
In both videos, he had trouble finding the tossed treat so he either spent too long trying to find it, or he didn’t bother trying to find it and came back to you. That caused your timing to get off with the blinds and the decels, because it was hard to know when he would start moving back to you. So, you can use a food bowl or manners minder as a visual target for him to get that initial treat from, and that will make the blinds and the decels all easier because you know exactly when he will be moving towards you.
>>Treat + toy in same rep no worky – doesn’t care about the toy in that case so will try something different next time>>
I think he did have some interest the frisbee but it ended up in the same spot where there were probably still treats on the ground, so that made the toy play harder. Sothe clearer start so he can find the cookie will help, and also you can try to fade out the cookie from your hand on the decel – just use and empty hand as a focal point, and turn slowly, staying connected.
That should also help him stay on the correct side of you as you pivot after the decel – you can finish the turn with connection, then throw the frisbee. He was ending up on the wrong side on a couple of reps because you were too quick to turn and start throwing, which broke connection.
On the rear crosses – he did really well with those left turns! Latent learning definitely kicks in!!
He did have lots of questions here, though. Be sure to warm him up with several straight parallel path reps to get into the groove of finding the line to the prop, and to help you set up your timing. And mix in parallel path reps throughout to keep the value of driving to the prop really high. You were a bit early on several of the first reps in the video, so then he started sticking to you more because several were not rewarded.Bearing in mind that the goal is to have no more than 2 failures for the entire session (he definitely had more than that here, I believe he had 8 failures out of 17 reps), you will want to really pump up the driving ahead to the prop with lots of parallel path before the RCs and mixed in after RC reps. Because he had failures (no reward moments) he ended up looking at you more and driving ahead less, which made getting the RC harder at the end even on his stronger side.
And if you do end up with 2 failures, make the rest of the session easy enough that he won’t have more failures. It can be something like finishing the session with a couple of simple parallel path reps where he is highly likely to hit the prop. More on that coming later today, but in general we wan to watch the failures like a hawk, in order to keep his rate of reinforcement really high 🙂
Nice work! Let me know what you think!
TracyYou can totally post the lovely ones! But *definitely* post the ones where things go awry – those are the most helpful ones!!!
Hi!
I am glad he is doing great out in the world! Yay!! Sounds like he is doing really well in Boston!!!Looking at the backing up video: Look at him go! Yay!! Good boy!
>>Sometimes he is backing up not on to the mat – my gut is to still reward.>>
Your gut is correct 🙂 That mat was moving a lot, so I am not sure he is feeling comfy about stepping back onto it with all the movement. So you can stuff a bunch of towels under it so it moves a little and is more stable in general (it was in a different place each time here and flapping around a little LOL!)
Also, when it is more stable: start the session with him standing on it with all 4 feet (it is fine to lure him onto it with a cookie) then refresh the skill (of backing onto the mat) but having his front feet come off, then click treat for stepping front feet back on. Then you can draw all of his feet just off the mat (a cookie lure is fine for this too) and c/t for back feet stepping on.
>> Because of his size, I’ve found that sitting in a chair works best – should I start working this into a stand?>>
Yes, you being in a chair was spot on! And there is no need to work this to standing up – he has great form so we don’t want to change his head position. Keep sitting in the chair as he works out the rear footing targeting.
Looking at the prop video:
First up, parallel path!
>>In one direction it looks like he needs more distance – or does he not understand the game? >>
I think he understands it but is also trying to look at you… so he is trying to give himself more room to do both LOL!!! Clever LOL!
So a couple of ideas to get him to stop looking up at you the whole time:
– you can get rid of the clicker and just use your ‘get it’ marker. Clickers are great but they do build in a lot of looking at us in a lot of cases.
– you can change the timing of your ‘get it’ to earlier: as soon as he turns his head to look at the prop, before he gets there: mark and throw the reward past it. (No he doesn’t have to hit it: you are marking the intention to hit it, which includes NOT looking at you 🙂 He did look forward plenty of times here, so I think you will have plenty of behavior to mark. So watch his head as you move (not the prop) and mark/toss as soon as he looks at anything that is not you 🙂
Looking at the sending section: A couple of ideas for you to help him hit that prop more decisively:
– Shorten up the distance between you and the prop for now. I think you were too far from it, and there was no break in the session, so he didn’t know what you wanted for a few reps. You did get closer at 1:38 (good job recognizing that you were too far away). And that really helped!
– You can make it more salient but not having it on the rug there – the pattern is busy so it is possible that he loses the visual of it on top of everything else that is there. This will also help the parallel path game. The other rug is less busy in terms of pattern, so maybe it will eb better? Or you can do a couple of sessions somewhere that has more of a ‘blank’ floor color?
You can also make it more salient by getting it a little higher. If it was a few years ago, I would recommend taping it to a phone book but I don’t think phone books exist anymore LOL!!! So what do you have that is maybe an inch tall that you can tape it too? That will make it a more obvious target.
– You can definitely add more engagement before each and every send: gather up his attention by calling him too you, asking him if he is ready… then doing the send. There were some sends that started before he was ready here, so he was a little confused 🙂 And after every 3 or 4 treats, add in a toy play break to keep him pumped up! This was a solid 4 minutes without a toy, so he lost a little steam. In fact, you can play the send games with the toy as the reward and not cookies 🙂
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
