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Whoa, that is a Graduation With Honors video! Great job – that run truly showed off your connection, your planning of the run, your timing, and all of the trained skills. HOORAY!!! The future is bright! And I am sad there is no JWW run, I bet it was AWESOME!!!!
Hope to see you soon, either online or in person!
TracyOuch! That sounds painful, but hopefully it will improve very quickly!!!!! You can totally do the sitting down game of tunnel-jump on verbals, or tunnel-weave, etc. That way you can sit and the girls can have fun!
Keep me posted1
TracyHi!
These went well! One thing to add now: have your toy stuffed in your pocket, so that you are not changing it from hand to hand as you are doing the crosses… Ronan is just moving too fast now so you simply don’t have any extra time to switch the toy around LOL!!
And you can also spread the distances out even more – the bars are higher, he is going really fast, so the bigger distances will give you more of a ‘real feel’ for running bigger courses 🙂 while letting him open up more and more. You can go for a minimum of 23 feet on the dog’s line now to see how it all feels 🙂
Seq 1 went well with the wraps!! He is turning beautifully. Both of you can stay more on takeoff side of the jump – you were both a bit on the landing side which creates a wider-than-desired turn. Also, Mike’s position nice and close to the wing set a better line to the jump after the wrap. Karena, you were a bit far from the wing at :38 which set off a chain of events resulting in the dropped bar: he was wide on the wrap based on your position, then had to come back to find the next jump, then I think he was scrambling a bit at :42 to catch up (bar down). Better connection at :47 helped with the bar for sure, and so will tucking into the takeoff side of the wing.
On the ‘fluffy’ crosses – they work better when the baby dogs are slower and less confident hahaha! He was full force here, so the timing was trickier 🙂 On the shorter distances that might encounter, you can probably start the FCs and BCs before he lands from the previous jump.
Yes, FC at 1:00 was late because you are still sorting out the timing (and switching the toy to the other hand) then you freestyled a FC to a RC, he figured it out LOL! Good boy!
The next rep at 1:13 was much more timely and was much smoother. You did the post turn on the wrap, but a spin (FC-BC) would be fine there too.
Blind crosses: At 1:22 – watch his butt elevator 🙂 Be sure that his butt is squarely on the ground before the release. And at 1:26, yes, he must have seen the connection breaking and was anticipating the blind so came off the jump. As he gets more experienced, that will not really be an issue because your motion was pretty clear but definitely the added connection on the next rep helped him out a lot.
About the verbals – yes, you can use your dig instead of the right for the wrap. And you don’t need an “over” cue before it, because ‘dig’ means take the jump and wrap-right.
On the line after that wrap, remember to turn sooner and resist the temptation to say “go” so that he is turning nice and tight to the ending line (6-7). You were driving forward as he was committing to the 6 jump so he was (correctly) jumping it in extension at 1:36, 1:49 and 2:02. You can send-and-go on that line, rather than round the curve with him, so set up a nice turn to 7-8.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
I am glad the heat wave is done but wow, the fires look bad 🙁 I am glad you were able to get some training in!!!Holy monkeys she was great on that first sequence! SO FAST! And you did a great job cueing that backside at :03 – note how as she is approaching the takeoff spot, you were already turned, super connected, arms low… and verbals in place. And you maintained that connection through landing so she could power back to the tunnel.
She had no questions about jumping the wall jump. She did have a question at :29 about which side of the 2nd jump to take. You said “left” for the wall which would theoretically mean the threadle side of the next jump – but then your body didn’t say threadle, it said backside. So she was coming in on the left then scooted herself back out with lots of little front end adjustments to sort it out (good girl!). So in this scenario, the left would make the most sense to be followed by the threadle verbal. And to get the backside, you don’t need a left on the wall and you can just say ‘jump’ then your backside cue.
The serp looked AMAZING! She smoked you LOL!! Fabulous job with your running line to set the serp, and with your low arms and super clear connection. That allowed her to really think about the jumping effort (and it is a challenging line!) so she nailed it and had a great acceleration on the go line at the end. SUPER!
>>Let me know what’s next!>>
After this class officially finishes, we are going to do a series of ‘short’ classes that begin with a Zoom and then turn into 2 or 3 week classes – they will cover handling sequences for the youngsters to help get them ready for trialing! And we will begin to add in things like the weaves or contacts. I figure doing short-form classes with a live seminar will give folks the ability to work around their schedules and without getting overloaded, as well as pick topics to focus on. I will have those topics/dates posted later this week 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
Nice work on the video – keeping in mind the reinforcement options, you can definitely add in staying in motion, as well as reset reinforcements here if something went wrong in the handling and there was no option to continue. More below!
The opening looked good- did you want her wrapping to her left or to her right? The cue looked like you wanted to her left but she went to her right so I was not sure. VERY nice line to the 3 backside each time! 4 is supposed to be a backside too but you handled it nicely as a front side so the flow was still strong.
She had a little trouble turning away from the course on jump 5, wanting to turn towards the teeter. It might have been hard for her visually to turn away from the rest of the course, but on the different angle at 4:54, it looks like you were stepping into the bar of 5 which can also set the accidental rear cross. Those were both places where it was easy to keep going and that was the best option.
The line to the dog walk needs a turn cue for 7 to get the dog walk entry – at :17 she had already made a takeoff decision, so she went past it. In this situation, it is really hard to carry on so you can acknowledge the handler error with a reset cookie delivered immediately which will work to keep the frustration down, then re-start her at the base of the a-frame. Your left verbal & physical cues had much better timing at 2:48 and 5:11! Nice!
After rewarding the contacts, give yourself more of lead out so you can time the next cues – the reward on the DW made the BCs a bit late at 9-10 at :41, 2:59, 5:25.
You had a couple of extra cues at :46 (outside arm and a here cue) which pulled her off the teeter, but the next reps were much smoother there.Getting out to the #14 tunnel was definitely hard: because it requires a significant turn away from you, stay in motion and make a big connection until you see her head turn and she takes a few strides towards the tunnel, then you can relax the cues and move to the next thing. If you moved away before she made the turn to it, or stopped moving, she was not sure if she was supposed to take it or not.
It presented a good opportunity to keep going: you can either keep moving to 15 (the next jump) or keep her on your left and send her back over 13, or do the shadow handling cirlce on the flat and back into 14. All of those will keep you both moving and reduce the barking/spinning rehearsal.
The layering skill was a good one to work on! Putting the MM into the tunnel totally helped but she needed more reps of you being closer and not pulling away so fast. Think of it as a shaping exercise, breaking it down more into successive approximations, making it harder only very gradually. You want her success rate in shaping to be 90% or higher (this was probably more like 50-60%) so you can invoke the 2 failure rule: If she fails twice (doesn’t have to be twice in a row, it is twice in the sessions), make it easier by slicing the behavior thinner so there is no more failure = adding in moving away more gradually so the added challenge is barely noticeable.
And, on the reps where she ran past the 16 tunnel while you wanted to layer? You can totally keep going, cue 17-18, reward. Then go back to the layering. Otherwise, if you stop to try again, she will get frustrated and then get stickier. Bearing in mind that the dogs perceive the stopping as a negative punishment (withdrawal of availability of reinforcement), you can either keep running, or immediately reset with a reward so that you can shift the condition response to stopping to a more positive reinforcement space.
Being able to layer helped get the ending line, so definitely keep building up the layering skill! At the end, you were a little past the line at 5:51 so you had to push back to the 2nd to last jump (19) so the turn info to 20 was late and that is why she dropped that bar. But she read it all very smoothly and it was a really hard sequence! Yay!
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>I understand the value of continuing on and the impact it can have on her frustration level, but I do struggle with it.
You can reframe coursework and think of it differently: not as an opportunity to run the course, but as an opportunity to reinforce the dog.
Correct line? Reward. Reset? Reward. Getting back on the line after continuing on? Reward. All good! Most of the reinforcement during the video below was being delivered at the end of the contact (and during the layering work) – yes, it is valuable to deliver rewards for the contacts, but it is more valuable to deliver them out on the lines to build more commitment and extremely valuable as well to deliver fast reset reinforcement.>>Partly, it’s because it’s such an ingrained habit to fix it (one I’ve bene trying to work on but it doesn’t always happen in the moment).
Yes, it is a habit for sure! You can also do a reset cookie at your side, then carry on. Anything that gets reinforcement rolling in so she doesn’t rehearse the barking/spinning.
>> However, it’s also because I don’t know how to keep going with her.
>> but in a trial, that’s obviously not possible, so it would be nice to be able to do have the option of continuing on.Yes, in training, you can do quick reset reinforcement. But you can also practice carrying on to keep going. There are a couple of ways to keep going, all of which involve motion:
– don’t let on that something has gone wrong. Don’t stop, don’t mark it, just keep running to the next obstacle.
– if the next obstacle is not immediately on the line, run to *any* obstacle to get her back on a line, any line, as if it was totally intended
– do a bit of ‘shadow handling’ on the flat, have her run a circle at your side, then back onto the line.All of this will work to continue the flow without stopping or re-sending from a standstill (because if you are not moving, she tends to not resend after an error).
Onwards to the video!
TracyGood morning!
>>When I walked this, I had trouble figuring out how to send to the tunnels 3 and 6 and still keep my shoulder from rolling forward. Maybe it isn’t a problem? >>
The main thing I see with running smaller dogs is that we need to keep our hands as low as possible on the sends – I would say no higher than our knees or past our knee til the dog passes us, with connection. On this sequence, it didn’t make a big difference to have a higher arm/rolled shoulder on the 3 & 6 tunnels because the lines were very clear, but it might make a big difference on harder lines (as it did for the 8 backside on the first run and the 7 jump on the 2nd run, see below).
So the main goal for handling the smalls is to either always keep moving towards the obstacles, or send with a ton of connection and low arm, especially when we are ahead of the dog and need the dog to pass us.
For example, looking at jump 4 after the tunnel at :27 & :48 – you were sending forward with a higher arm on both of those. On the first run, you kept moving better but on the 2nd run, you didn’t move as much (you stopped and pointed forward) so you can see he was a bit hesitant at :48. The arm never going higher or past your knee til he passes you will make a big difference.
>>Then on the second run, I must have had a lapse in concentration so I was in the wrong place and totally lost connection after 6 and Buccleigh let me know it!>>
Yes – on the first rep you had better connection and kept going. On the 2nd rep at :53, you were stationary then as he was exiting, you pointed forward and high, so he read it correctly as a blind cross at :55.
>> I wanted to keep going but he was barking and dancing around.>>
Yep – the fix moments don’t work for him because he read it correctly and stopping is basically a negative punishment (withdrawal of access to reinforcement). So he got BIG MAD, super frustrated. Ideally, you never fix an error and just keep going with him – you might not know what caused the error in the moment, but fixing always gets him into the BIG MAD zone. In this case, you can have him stay on your left side and go to the other side of 7, rather than a ‘hey’ moment and getting him back on your right side. If you do end up with him barking at you, you can ask for the sit, but you MUST reward the sit in training, otherwise it becomes a punisher as well (stop in the action) and might increase frustration. The other option is to run him back to another obstacle then pick up the line again: for example, run him back tp jump 5 or tunnel 6, then pick up the line again.
>>Was the timing of the cue for the push better here?
I think the timing of the cues for the 8 backside were pretty strong on both runs… it was the style of delivery of the physical cues that made the difference:
On the first run, your verbal could have been a stride sooner but it was generally good. More importantly, your voice said backside but your motion/feet/shoulders all said front at :35 because as you said the backside verbal,. you pointed forward ahead of him. The high arm/connection break turned your shoulders to the front side, and you didn’t move as much, so the motion showed front side too,
Compare it to 1:09 where you were more connected with the arm lower and not pointing forward and you kept moving to the center of the bar, and he got it nicely! Yay! I think the timing was a bit earlier on that rep, but more importantly, the style of delivery was MUCH clearer and he knew exactly where to go. Yay!Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
I am glad you hurband is doing well after his hip surgery! It sounds like he is almost back to normal! Yay!
>>but got in all the skill sets and Zooms which I LOVED !!!!
Terrific! I had fun watching people do the Zoom sessions – and I think they turned out to have 2 levels: the more advanced groups of dogs (who can give you insight into Mookie and Buddy) and the younger & less-experienced dogs who needed things broken down more (perfect for the pup!!)
And good work teaching the dogs the various tunnel turns – that is a BIG trend nowadays, so we need the dogs to have independent tunnel skills fo rall of the various challenges we will encounter.
>>Mookie tended to knock the bar for the backside jump #8 and he needed me to “clap” to get his attention after jump #8 to get through the box to tunnel entrance #9
That is a HARD turn. I used a soft turn verbal and a brake arm AND a shoulder turn, starting after landing of 7,so the dog was seeing & hearing the cues before he made a takeoff decision for 8. The tunnel skills helped me be standing right at 8 to help the dog too 🙂
>>In his defense my jumps were probably closer than they should have been due to limited space. If I really supported jump #8 he kept the bar up but then I needed to turn his head to go throught the box.>>
If the jumps were closer, you probably needed to start the cues as he was in the air oer 7 so he coud see/hear them when he landed. And, use your position to support the jump as you also deliver the turn cues – too much support will send him off course after it 🙂
>>On a different note, I signed up for Terrific Teeters Introduction for my puppy and looked through the course. It looks great for us.
Fun! It has a ton of different games – if he doesn’t like one of the games, you can skip it and move to a different one LOL!
>>And since my puppy is one class behind your live versions for puppies due to when I got him and his age, when will your MaxPup 3 Agility Foundation Course 047 become a Self Study ??? Please let me know.
It is finishing on the 15th and will become an independent study in the week or two after that.
I hope to meet your pup someday soon too! Great job with summer CAMP this year, and thank you for the updates 🙂
Tracy
Good morning!
>. What else could I have done? I could leave him on the DW & get on the landing side of 3 for a blind cross & picked him up on my right, but that is a long way to go to get around the wing on 4. >>
Thanks for the maps! It is the AKC version of 3 of the challenges we have been wrestling with this summer:
a) a jump-tunnel discrimination
b) a spot where a RC is the absolute best option
c) obstacles in the handler path so you either need to layer or choose a different option than normalDoing a blind on the landing side of 3 would have set him up to turn left over 4 and go into the exit of 6. A blind between 4 and 5 is a possibility but the teeter is your way so you would either need to do a MASSIVE layer while he is on the DW to have any chance of getting to the blind (I don’t see that as a good option here) or have him hold position on the DW while you keep running for a couple of seconds.
So the best option is to set the RC at 4 with a decel and brake arm if needed, then drive a RC on the takeoff side of 5. This is what you did when you did the fix and go after the off course. The other option is to do a landing side RC after 5 and do a switch away to 6.
The RC on takeoff side of 5 actually put you in great position to be ahead again for the 7-8-9 line!
>>As far as just decel for turns, I can see I was late on it (esp when I sent him back to the tunnel to the turn 7 to 8 😉 ) But it seems like decel would just have me standing there through or have me way behind.>>
You don’t need to decel for all the turns, it really will depend on the context. For hte 7-8 turn here, you were facing forward and moving straight as he was jumping 7, so he was correct to go to 3. You probably didn’t need a decel at 7 – I think less forward motion to 7 will help, and you can turn your shoulders and use verbals – you did that after he landed from 7, so the timing needs to be starting the cues at exit of 6.
So looking at the decels:
yes, the RC on the 4-5-6 line would need a decel to get him turned to face 5 and set the RC line.
No, the turn 7-8 would not need a decel to get him turned to face 8.>>I plan to work through the sequences from the last zoom class >>
the last 2 zooms have useful stuff for this scenario, specifically: the rear crosses and the switch aways! You will be able to sort out which ones need decel, and which don’t 🙂
Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning! Sorry for the delay, my internet access has been washed out by storms til this morning. Lots of good work here! I think he was being super responsive to the various cues!
About the dog walk:
It is pretty normal that youngsters have trouble with turns off the RDW. Plus, he was a little off balance on the up ramp on the up ramp on each rep, all sorts of lead changes, so helping him by breaking it down like you did at :55 was perfect. My guess is he doesn’t quite know how to stride this one (it is very bouncy) so he is processing the striding and the whiplash of the board, and not your position or any turn cues. Can the DW be braced? When you watch the video in slow motion, you can see how much it is moving and how he is changing his striding to try to handle the movement.Looking at the opening:
He was reading things really well! A couple of handling suggestions to get tighter lines:
For that first jump, you can either start further back so he can see the wrap info sooner, or start “backwards” by sending him with your left arm & leg to the jump, with you facing 2 – it is like sending him to 1 with you already finished with the FC and on the new side. It is a countermotion game that he will sort out really fast, and then you will get a much tighter turn on 1, which then makes 2-3 and 3-4 even easier. At 2:07, for example, sending him forward got him scoping the line to the tunnel and he didn’t see the rotation til after takeoff, so he adjusted when he landed.For the 2-3 turn: you know I love Blinds but I think the FC at 2-3 (:03, :13, 2:08) is better for him, because it turns your feet to 3 sooner than the BC does. The BC turns your feet and shoulders to the a-frame for a heartbeat so he was wide. A FC instead will then make the turn to 4 tighter because 2-3 is tighter too.
Good job getting the backside at 4! He has some strong independence on that, so try to move forward past the exit wing rather than parallel to the bar – that is why he was heading to the frame on that first rep. You were moving forward a lot better at :17 🙂 His right turn at :19 and later at 2:15 was probably related to the placed toy after the dog walk? It is possible that you were stepping in too much and not turning soon enough… or it is possible that when you stepped to 5, he saw the toy and turned to it. I thought you were VERY early at 2:21 which helped for sure! In slow motion it looked like he might have still had an eyeball on the placed toy?
Nice distance and layering to the dog walk! He needs a soft turn cue on the jump after the frame to get on the DW at :26 (couldn’t really hear what you were saying). And if the verbal alone doesn’t help enough, try a brake arm (opposite arm) to cue more collection too. You had the opposite arm going at :36 and :50 but it was after he landed and was already going wide – the brake arm timing would be no later than exit of the aframe so he can turn before takeoff of the jump.
OMG that teeter at 1:21, perfect 🙂 Ice cream for everyone! Also at 1:37 – that rep can be harder because he knows where you were going and yet: PERFECTION. Double bonus ice cream points for him holding position while you did the BC then released him at 1:51. He *might* have released early at 2:47, so keep throwing the reward back for those great teeters while you are moving.
Wow, the layering after the teeter also looked great – it was a little harder because you were coming in off a RC on the tunnel and he had no questions. Super!!!
The closing was strong! Threadle wrap at 1:59 looked good, add a little more decel so he can collect even more for a tighter turn. But, and you can see this at 2:53 too – I think the threadle wrap to the post turn widened the turn a bit and presented the possibility of going back to the tunnel. A threadle wrap and then a blind cross will tighten the line perfectly.
Great job!!! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>Basically I can drop by an inch at a time and I insert the yoga mat to reduce that a bit and then take it out for the next session if seems ok.
Sounds good!
>>She has been a little concerned about the bang game – at least the version that has me holding the teeter in place at a low height and ask her to hop on and do the target behaviour trom there that we have been doing in class. I don’t think she is comfy with me being over her like that so working on that separately.>>
I call that one of the elevator game, and it is the very last game I add because it is the hardest. For me, the bang game involves the teeter being propped by something else, like this:
She might like it better, less hovering to hold the board.
>>I noticed her doing that standing in place, thought is was very odd.
You call it odd, I call it brilliant LOL!!! And definitely not worrisome. The dogs work out the fastest route and sometimes this self-v-setting is fastest (believe me, I have timed it over and over). She will sort it out 🙂
On the video = yes, the 14″ bar totally makes a difference and that is good! She is doing different behavior turning right versus left as you noticed. She made very good adjustments on both sides, so I am happy with how she did! We want her to be a thoughtful jumper and she is indeed being a thoughtful jumper. YAY!!! So, you can revisit this little decel game maybe once a week. 3 things to add for next time:
– 16 inch bar
– lock the jump bar into the cups, so it doesn’t go flying out if she makes a mistake. She is doing her best to NOT touch the bars, so we can help he rout
– add the ‘turn and burn’ exits, but doing the complete rotation. Rather than having her do the FC back to the tunnel, do the tighter exit. When she is turning to her right, you will FC and run towards the fence. When she is turning to her left, you can do the turn and burn to the left side of the screen LOL! This will be very fun for her and also help encourage her to turn her head into the turns even more.Nice work! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
The warm ups looked really good! She did well in both directions, didn’t seem to have a side preference. She was definitely zippy when you added the frisbee 🙂 She likes these distance games, so you can add in the motion of the layering right away, so she can see you moving and she will like that too!
>>One of the problems with throwing her discs is she sort of loses her head and will just skip parts – or sometimes all – of the exercise just to get the disc thrown. Of course, that doesn’t work, and we have to try again. However, I do wonder sometimes if that defeats the purpose of getting out her highest value rewards?>>
I agree that throwing the frisbee is harder for mechanics: hers and yours 🙂 But I think it is worth it, because she works with a lot more speed and also she is learning to think and respond, even when super excited. Try to keep you hands lower on the switch aways with the disc, maybe use a softer disc that you can squish up in your hands so it is not as visible or hard to toss?
The first sequence went really well! She had the extra jump at :09 before the tunnel, it is possible that you turned a little later than you needed to, or the jump was set really close due to mud puddles LOL! But the switch away looked great! “Away” is a great choice of verbals, it is very distinct and I think it matches the arm motion really nicely.
On the 2nd run, you turned sooner at :31 so she did not pickup the bonus jump but you were early at :34 with the ‘away’ signal (I know, most of us are never early LOL!) You did the hand signal while she was still in the tunnel, so she had a question. Doing it a step later, when her head and front end are out, will set up a better line. She had no trouble letting you layer and show her the #8 tunnel. Nice!
On the next sequence, she was also good at :55 finding the tunnel, nice shoulder turn there! She was good with the switch away but then missed the 8 jump at 1:03. I think she was reading that as a layer cue, because your shoulder was closed forward. She might need you to open your shoulder to her and make a little eye contact, so get her to come in because it is a bit of a serp line. Nice FC 9-10 there!
I think the timing of the last “away” at 1:10 was the best timing on these – it seemed to make the most sense to her and she was fast & tight there. And also, ignoring the off course and missed jump was great, she stayed fast and focused!
Great job! Fingers crossed for dry weather ahead!
Tracy
