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Turn and burn concept transfer!
As soon as he realized that I was trying to leave sooner, his commitment waned. So I changed the reward placement to help him out (2 failure rule is always in effect!)He was also definitely teething – he kept putting the toy in his molars to chew it, which is unusual for him.
Hi!
Really nice connection here on these rocking horses and good job adding the spins! You can start them sooner at :55 and 1:04 by beginning the rotation before she reaches the cone and so you are finished and connected before she exits the cone.
And definitely try my ideas about either leaving the toy in one hand or sticking it in a pocket (and adding a marker for it) so that he doesn’t have questions about the toy or looks at it (you an see his question at :38 for example, when he comes to the toy then back out to the cone).
Take a look at the race tracks – he is ready for those and they are fun!
Great job on all of these! Have a great weekend!
TracyHi!
Minny pinny is looking really strong, he really has the concept!! Nice! For the left verbal, you can say it a few times before letting go like you did on rep 2 but then keep saying it as he goes all the way around. You did this on the right turn verbals (say it a few times, let go, keep saying it) and it worked really nicely!
As you are saying the verbals, you can stretch them out and be q little softer in your delivery, which will help him differentiate these from the fast/short wrap verbals.
It looks like the footing is a little slippery so he is not quite fully coordinated going around – you might want to use 3 bumps if you have them so he doesn’t hit the bars at all especially as he finishes the turns
Because he seems to have really figured out the concept, you can add in doing a front cross and moving away to reward as he begins going around it. Your reward placement was really strong, so now we can add motion too 🙂 You started that on the last rep and he is ready for more 🙂
Go back and watch the end of the video at 2:09-2:10 and you will see him do a hilarious and adorable leap in the air with this toy as you were turning the camera off LOL!
Great job!
TracyHi!
His sit and stay looks good! Remember to movee forward away from him as if leading out past a jump, and not backing up away from him.(Side note: he is trying to catch with his feet which is adorable!)
He is ready for the next level, so now you can have him do the stays in front of his prop – make sure you line him up on both sides of you to be sure the right side line ups are strong like the left side lines up. Then lead out as if the prop is a start jump, and release to reward before he breaks.
Nice work!
TracyHi!
The rocking horses looked good here! Your connection looks really clear which totally helps too. His commitment is good but it can be even better with some toy clarity 🙂 You might not realize it, but you are passing the toy from hand to hand and sometimes he is given it when you do that, sometimes not… so he is looking at the toy first, which delays his commitment. When it is clear that it is not toy-time, he carries past you to the cone but I would like him to not look at you or the toy til it is reward time. That will get even more commitment!
So two ways to do that:
– definitely use a toy marker that is not “yes” or “good” 🙂 Use something that means: grab the toy now! I say “bite” 🙂 A distinct toy marker when it is toy-time will help him NOT look at the toy til you say the magic word.
– either keep the toy in the same hand (no switcheroos) or tuck it into a pocket. Most people find it easier to tuck into a pocket, which works great in this game. The reward doesn’t need to be a precision reward, so you can say your toy marker and whip out the toy from the pocket when it is toy-time 🙂It was hard to hear if you were using your wrap verbals. If not… he is ready for them! And he is ready for the spins and the racetracks too 🙂
Great job!
TracyOooh I would think crawfish was an excellent reinforcement!
>>wonder if I could have been a factor in Roulez’s uber arousal level.
Hard to know! But Audie is a super engaged boy with a ton of lovely drive… so we don’t need to jack him up LOL! With dogs that have natural drive like Audie, I prefer to let them be chill and even a bit slow at this age… because once that have a thoughtful understanding of the skills, it is very easy to turn on the speed 🙂 You can probably see in the demo videos how slooooowwwwwwww Contraband (the merle border/whippet) is, so slooooowwwwwwwwwww LOL!! He turned out to be crazy fast AND able to think in arousal (huzzah!) – he is a good posted child for us needing to be on Team Fake Chill at this stage so we can get speed AND thoughtfulness later in life 🙂
THi!
He did super well in a new place! Yay! And yes, I agree with your videographer/coach who wanted you to chill out a bit LOL!!! He is doing all the right things, so now we can be clearer on mechanics.I think Jamie and I will now officially invite you and Audie to join Team Fake Chill so you can focus on mechanics 🙂 (OK, Audie is fine, but you are officially invited :)) A lot of what was happening was going really fast (too fast for a baby dog) and really stimulating (Audie doesn’t need the extra giddy up, he brings plenty of it already :)), so he had errors in spots where more of a Team Fake Chill approach to start each rep will smooth things out nicely.
At the start of each rep, whether it is the 360s or the tunnels, remember to use super clean calm mechanics:
line him up at your side with a cookie, take his collar when he is at your side. Do this instead of grabbing his collar and pulling him into position – that causes a lot of neck torque, causes higher arousal, and also pulls his front feet off the ground. We want him to start balanced and with all 4 feet on the ground and you holding his collar. That way, you can say the verbals a few times then let him go (so he is not seeing the motion and hearing the verbals all at once).
And starting with all 4 feet on the ground is more balanced so he can move forward. When you have his front feet off the ground, the first thing he has to do is shift all of his weight forward to put his front feet down, which puts him off balance and makes the turn games harder as well as the tunnel games.
On the 360s, this will translate to him standing at your side, your hand on his collar (you can be one or two steps further from the barrel at this point). Say his backside wrap verbal 3 or 4 times, then simply let go of him (you sometimes throw him forward LOL!) And the calmer mechanics will also get rid of the READY GO you were using before each rep (which Jamie gets a click/treat for pointing it out LOL!!)
And on the harder tunnel entries, the smoother mechanics and letting him hear the tunnel verbal a few times will also help him find it. He was having trouble on the backside tunnel approaches because his front feet were up in the air and you tried to rush away with the verbal and motion all happening at the same time 🙂 You were more zen on the last rep so definitely keep going that way.
I think he is also ready for you to add the tunnel threadle verbal when is in on the threadle side! Be sure to hold him and let him hear it 3 or 4 times before you let him go, so he can find it with the verbal getting added as the cue.
Nice work here! And I hope Jamie paid up that chocolate reset cookie she was offering hahahaha!
TracyBaby Ramen’s first parallel path concept transfer! He was a good boy! The main goal was to get rewards in early so he would look straight ahead and not at me. I used food and a toy in this session.
When he was on my left: perfect!
He had a harder time on my right, for whatever reason: maybe I have a lot of value for training on my left and not enough on my right? Or because he is probably a righty, being on my right requires him move with a left lead leg more? Not sure, but no worries: I helped him out and he was getting it by the end.
Good morning!
>>Quick question, can I use cones for the rocking horse exercises or do I need something bigger. Don’t have barrels.>>
Are the cones super tall, like those big traffic cones? Those should be fine – ideally the top is taller than her, so she cannot see over the top. If they are smaller, something else would be ideal – a laundry basket or garbage pail or anything like that 🙂 You won’t need it for long because we go to wings shortly.
Looking at the minny pinny left/right game:
Her commitment looks really great here! She is also really thinking about bending through the line, which is great 🙂 My only suggestion is to hold her for longer so she can hear the left and right verbals 3 or 4 times before you let her go – that will attach the verbal so it becomes the cue, separately from motion. When you say it and you both run simultaneously, she is more likely to prioritize processing the motion and not the verbal. And holding her for a bit longer will help you stretch the verbals a little: lehhffft lehhft lehhffft instead of leftleftleft 🙂 That will help her differentiate these soft turn verbals from the wrap verbals, which are shorter and louder.Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
He did really well with the left and right game here! No trouble adding the bars 🙂 As with the tunnel game – try not to say the verbal and move all at once, because then he is processing your movement more than the verbal. Instead, line him up at your side, hold his collar, say the verbal 3 or 4 times… then let him go. And for now. you don’t have to move until after he is at hte 3rd wing – then you can FC and run away for the reward. Doing it like that will really help solidify and attach the verbal to the behavior, separately from your motion.
Nice work on all of these! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
Tunnel game looks great! Try to hold him a few seconds longer before you start, so he can hear the tunnel verbal 3 or 4 times before you both start moving. That will help solidify the verbal as the cue. And, he looks ready for you to now put him on the inside (between you and the tunnel) so he learns the turn away for the tunnel threadle entries 🙂
Great job!
TracyGood morning! He is doing well with his wraps!
>>I just want to get a perfect session on wraps.>>
No need to be perfect 🙂 Instead, be connected and precise, and plan the reinforcement to build up the value on the harder side. The harder side is the left turn side (harder for both of you :)) so you can reward all of the left turn wraps in the next session, t build up the value. Then you won’t have to be as perfect 🙂 Ideally, you would throw the reward out past the left turn cone as he moves to it, so he gets more value for going past you to the left turn.
And when doing so, you don’t need to do as many wraps in a row – I like to keep each rep to 2 or 3 wraps in a row, maximum, so I can maintain my own focus and also get lots of rewards in. When we get past 3 wraps, we mess up or the pup messes up. For example. the error at :32 was the 5th wrap in a row, after several really strong ones. Compare to :26, which was the 3rd wrap in that rep, where you both nailed it – that would be a good one to reward by throwing a toy out past the cone (instead of near you).
Nice work!
TracyGood morning!
The threadle is looking good, she is definitely getting the hang of the in-and-out behavior (and even caught herself from going to the wrong side a couple of times! Yay! Nice timing of the MM click too!
>>I hope I’m not moving my threadle hand too much? Do I need to stay totally still?>>
Yes, that threadle hand was moving too much and being too helpy 🙂 She was heading to the threadle hand correctly but because you were moving the hand, she was using that as the cue to go take the bar. Since we want her to go take the bar as a default behavior on her own, your hand/upper body needs to be frozen in place until after she arrives at the MM (your MM clicker finger can move but that is all LOL!!!) You will see as we add motion that the upper body holds position the whole time even as the feet move, because if we turn our shoulders or move our arms forward on the threadle or serp, we inadvertently cue the dog to go past the next bar or we create a handler dependence to jump the jump.
Tnunel threadles are looking really good with the right turns and the verbal + motion!! The left turn double whammy looked good! On that first right turn double whammy, you needed to ‘catch’ her on the tunnel exit with more connection before starting the threadle – she was very clever to still find the other tunnel entry (definitely rewardable!)
VERY nice adjustments on the next reps to get that clear connection! She did get a couple of correct turns to the right with the double whammy but I think 2 things were happening – there was a lot more motion coming from the first tunnel pass, plus she might have been getting tired. So good job rewarding her, now we let latent learning work its magic 🙂 And also at the start of the next session in a day or two, start further down towards the opposite side of the tunnel and work the threadle to the right with a little more motion and distance coming into it.
The minny pinny is looking really good! She seems pretty independent with it already, so for the FC & turn and burn, you can do the FC and move away even sooner. You were doing the FC then taking a step towards the exit wing before moving away – you can add challenge by not taking that step towards the exit wing (we humans tend to not even realize we are taking that extra step LOL!!)
Rear crosses:
>> but I wasn’t sure we were headed in the right direction on progress.
You totally are! It was a good session!!! She was able to read the rear crosses in both directions. Yay!
>>She was really bouncy & was not hitting the prop. I did some refreshing on sending to the prop and side sends to the prop (not pictured). I’m thinking we’ll need to keep the value for touching the prop for the Get Out game.>>
No worries that she was going over the prop but not really hitting it. The prop is a jump replacer so now that there is more speed and more complexity to the handling, it is find to run over it without the paw hits. The paw hits will happen on the turning games like the rotated sends, but not necessarily on the games where the pups stay in motion without tight turns. You might find that she hops over it on the on the get out game too, which is fine – the goal is that the pups use the props to go towards and over, and we only need the good paw smacks on the tight turns 🙂
Her only question on the rear crosses here was at :11 when you were a little too early and pushed her off the RC line too soon. And I think her bouncy bouncy approach happens when she is not entirely sure – but as soon as she is sure, the bouncy bouncy goes away. It is a processing thing: she is trying to process the rear cross (which is HARD) and her movement to the prop – so she is prioritizing the rear cross and then it is normal to see a young dog lose a bit of coordination 🙂
Great job on these!! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>Other people and dogs are also great, but to get him to focus on me without distractions I think is also great.>>
yes, totally agree! Sometimes we don’t want to think about distractions, we just want to do some fun games LOL!
The perch work is going really well!
>> I was clicking for the rear-end movement or for putting his feet on the box, since they both seemed to happen at the same time. >>
Small dogs and their darned fast feet LOL!!! But it was all good, he was getting some good hind end movement going! Two ideas for you to add to the next session:
– add more angles to the cookie toss, so the cookie toss causes him to end up parallel to your legs then even a bit behind you. That will allow him to get on the perch from a different angle and then pivot all the way back to center, so you will see more steps.
– when you click, toss to the other side immediately rather than feed in position then toss – that will start to get him to pivot past center, in anticipation of the toss the other direction 🙂
On the 2nd video – you’ve got a stay happening here! Woot woot! He did best when you started next to the platform, let him off his sit, then moved away – he rocked all of those 🙂 He did consider offering the begging but was SO CUTE when he reminded himself to get his feet down and slammed his butt into position. Good boy!
So keep going this route for a few more sessions, adding more distance & duration. And if you so someplace to train, throw the platform in the car so you can use it there too 🙂 After a couple more sessions, you can start to replicate this game on the ground/without the platform, so he transitions the stay to the ground and we can start to fade te platform.
Great job! Stay warm 🙂
Tracy
Hi!
He did really well here! All good sessions today!When you are sending him around the 3 wings, you don’t need the arm cue to help him all the way around -I think he did just fine by himself 🙂 The cookie hand was a little distracting LOL! And he was great when you didn’t have the hand helping him.
Good reward placement!!!! That really got a lovely turn after the 3rd wing.
When you add the verbals, start with empty hands and gently hold his collar. Then while holding him start the verbal, say it 3 or 4 times… then let go and step/point to the setup. And keep saying the verbal (left, left, left) so he hears it as he continues his turning. That will really help solidify the verbal as a cue and attach it to the behavior.
When you switched to the toy, he did really well with the toy because he was not watching a cookie hand 🙂 And it was great to see him get onto the toy even after eating a few treats! Yay!!! That was a big moment!!
Nice work here – do you have some jump bumps you can use to add to this, or some pool noodles cut in half? He is ready for the next step 🙂
Great job!
Tracy
