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And here is the very first head turn session. I would have bet $100 that he was a righty… but he insisted on starting with a left turn. OK…. so I went with that LOL! And then later on he insisted that he was a righty LOL!! This is pretty normal as the pups grow up. It all eventually evens out 🙂
Since I have been putting Ramen’s videos in the demo videos recently, I figured I should get my b*tt in gear and video some of the other games too! He is 6 months old as of yesterday, so we are in a good spot in terms of letting him grow up a bit and letting him figure out how to use all of his legs 🙂
Here is the first session of rocking horses on 2 barrels, with me adding the verbals. And it was first time I took the barrels outside 🙂 He was great! I had trouble figuring out where to put the giant toy I was using (note to self: SMALLER TOY NEXT TIME haha) and also I needed to be a little more patient and not start rushing away until he has turned his head to wrap the barrel.
Hi! The platform was helping for sure, he was a good boy here!
He was not always sure if you wanted him on the platform, so you can cue him to get on the platform, and then stand still and let him fully sit on the platform – the first couple of clicks were too soon, he was not yet sitting which is why he stopped offering the sit. He was great when you helped him out and asked him to sit on it – that really got him a whole bunch of great reps in a row!
You can make it more ‘formal’ now: start next to him, ask him to sit on the platform, then start to move away (like a lead out in agility), being sure to release to reinforcement before he breaks. He seems ready for that!
And yes, as you mentioned in the video… be more consistent with your verbals 🙂 “catch” means the cookie is coming back to him. And I think you use “ok” for him to release towards you. After you reminded yourself of that, you were much more consistent 🙂 Super!!
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Hi!
Parallel path to the baby jump is going well! For the next session, switch to a thrown toy (or his ball) so that he can add more speed! With the MM and the click/treats, he was happy to do it but I think a toy will get even more speed (and he is definitely ready for that :))
For now, let’s keep the parallel path to the jump and the ‘get out’ to the prop separate. He was not sure where to look after the jump, because the wing kept you a little too far away – so you ended up using motion to show him the prop, but we want him to respond based on the upper body and verbal and not your motion towards it. So, easy fix: just use the prop without the jump 🙂 That way you can gradually add in more and more distance away from it and not get too far away with the wing in the way 🙂
Nice work!
TracyHi!
The backsides are going well and they are super fun 🙂 He did really well going around the cones to get to the backside, so we can add/tweak some things to make it even easier:
Since we want you to be setting the line with motion and moving before he is moving, you can toss a treat back to start the rep so you are moving and ahead of him when he starts moving. When you were starting next to him, you either had to move towards the cone more than we want, or he slipped in front of you to the front side. So, you moving before he starts moving up the line will really help set the line.
And to make sure you don’t move too much towards the cone, you can put a leash on the ground so you are moving straight and not converging towards the cone 🙂 Teaching him to go to the backside without you needing to go close to the cone will make the skill even more independent 🙂
One suggestion: don’t use the MM here, for 2 reasons:
– having it straight ahead looked too much like the parallel path to the front side, so he had some confusion.
– also, we want to get him to look for the bar on the backside as a default behavior, so we can train it by dropping the reward on the landing side of the bar (instead of rewarding him for going straight after the backside cone).So with that in mind, you can use a reward from your hands, either dropping it on the landing side as soon as he gets to the backside cone, or delivering from your hand 🙂
Nice work!!
TracyHi!
These are looking strong too 🙂You had one transition that was too soon at :10 and ended up running backwards so he had a question. Compare that to the much smoother transition you did when turning earlier at 1:27 – that smooth transition really helps him, when you decelerate then rotate. At :10 you were fast then suddenly rotated, so he had a question.
The race tracks were super good – great connection! Looks like he was having fun fun fun! You had a little connection break at :58, but you fixed it and kept going, which is exactly right.
My only suggestion is to try to not to have the toy switching hands. He is moving fast and you don’t have time to switch hands before you give the next cue, plus it causes him to look at you more than we want. So, either keep it in one hand the whole time, or you can stick it in a pocket it and whip it out after a couple of wraps 🙂
Tracy
Hi!
The wraps looked really food here! You had much smoother transitions on the sending before the rotating, so he committed beautifully! Yay!!! I heard the verbals too, YAY! Great job! I see more wraps below in the next video, so we will move to that one 🙂Tracy
Good morning!
He is doing well here!
Looking at the remote reinforcement game – yes, it was hard with the cookie right there 🙂 Since we want to be able to do this with nothing in your hands or pockets, you can start with something easier like a bag of treats that is sealed or in a container (less tempting that way :)) or using something taller to put the reinforcement on so the reinforcement is not at nose level. That way you will have an easier time convincing him to move away without having anything in your hand (he was not as sure about where to look because of the cookies in your hand and on the chair). Plus, if it is in a bag or something, you can hand it to him rather than him grabbing it when you get back to the chair.
When you do this with no food in your hands or pockets, remember use your marker very quickly and not just after a few behaviors. You can mark that first step or two away with your let’s go then go back to the reward station – having nothing in your hands or pockets wil be harder so we want to reward sooner.
Thanks for leaving in the part where he lost a tooth – hilarious!
The retrieves are defintiely improving!!! He had a little too much freedom with the great toy at first! But then he got better and better especially when you moved to the other toy that was also high in value. Yay! Having two equally-matched toys in terms of value definitely helped – so now you can start to delay presenting the other toy, so that he brings the first one further and further back. You can bring out the second toy when he is on the way back with the first by only a step to get started, then gradually build up to bringing it out when he has brought the first toy all the way back.
Stays – He is definitely is getting the idea, especially when you adding moving away after 5:33. He did a great job holding them! For now, there is no need to push your luck by adding the crouch and temptation before teh release (like at 6:01). Just be chill and release, he has plenty of internal temptation to break and we don’t want to set him up for an error 🙂
The stays with the prop were harder at the very beginning but then he did well both facing the prop and facing away from it. This was mainly because you started with lots of short stays, quick reinforcement. Perfect! Keep that up when he is presented with new distractions.
Great job!! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
The wider gaps looked great, she was using her body really well! I was going to suggest adding the countermotion to do the turn&burn exit so she gets a bit of the feel of turning away from you on these too… but you already added them and they looked great. Super! Plus she was working in pretty high arousal (tugging and barking) but still quite accurate. Yay!You might not need the ready word unless you are holding her, because she takes it as a “get started” cue (then gets a little mad when you don’t want her to start). So you can hold her, say ready, say the verbal, then let go so she can do the thing. Or you don’t need to say ready, because she seems to be always ready 🙂
The only other thing to note on this session: either Youtube or your camera mirrored the video… or you were saying left when she was turning right and right when she was turning left. It sounded like you were saying left or right based on which side of you she started on, but I believe you use your verbals to mean her turn direction and not your side. No worries either way – I have had my camera mirror things and I have also done an entire minny pinny session at this stage with my verbals backwards LOL!!! Oopsie! Definitely double check that before the next session.
Nice work here!
TracyHi!
>>To make sure I understand, should I have a physical cue for Julie (like a raised arm) and then when she releases tell Caper to come or does the physical cue to release and the verbal to come happen at the same time?
Usually there is a lot of noise when these recalls are happening, so the raised arm helps the holder – but also, at the same time, you should be calling her (just use her name, no need for a Come cue).
>> In regards to the other dog, Caper loves other dogs and the dog we used is also lovely. My concern is how motion sensitive she is when other dogs are moving, she has poor recall when heading to another dog and once she has noticed them can get stuck watching them.
Well then this is the perfect game for her LOL!! The other perfect game is the pattern game – she needs to learn to play that game while other dogs are moving, and while she is moving past other dogs. Start as far as needed so she can be successful then gradually get closer. You will end up being able to play it ringside with other dogs running, and she will be able to ignore them.
Have fun!
TracyHi!
You were definitely wild and fun on the recalls! Yay!!!! He was perfectly engaged. Even the holder seemed to be having fun LOL!! Great job letting him run through the toy as the reward then bring it back to you 🙂 It was a perfect choice of tug toy, too! And yes, you will be VERY out of breath haha but it is worth it, to get this level of engagement and excitement 🙂My only suggestion is to ask the holder to gently hold his hips too, so her fingers don’t get twisted in his collar. He is powerful and was very excited , we don’t want him to break her fingers off haha!
If you have other people or other dogs around, you can add them in as distractions 🙂
Great job on all of these!
TracyHi!
This is minny pinny with directional verbals – super!! YAY!!!I want to add one more thing here so the verbals get stronger: before each rep, line him up at your side, hold his collar, start quietly saying the left or right 3 or 4 times… then let go of him so he can move through the setup. That way he can hear the verbal get attached to the setup before he moves. When you were moving and doing the verbal all at once, he was only really processing the movement. And also, if you start with him at your side, you won’t say go by accident 🙂 I think you were trying to get him more ramped up and faster on this, but bear in mind that this is a turning/collection game. When he was faster because you were trying to get more excitement, he was wider. So let him be chill on this so he can work on his collection skills 🙂
T
Hi!
This is a the rocking horses plus some race tracks and a little turn & burn 🙂
As with the earlier rocking horse video – make a bigger connection after the crosses and before the send, so he knows where to be – very direct eye contact will help a lot.For example at :48, you had clear connection, so he knew where to be and did not look at the toy. At :51, your shoulder was closed forward and you were not looking back at him so as he exited the cone, all he saw was you back and ended up on the wrong side of you. You marked it as him being wrong and whipped the toy away… but in reality it was handler error (no connection = no side info).
So he was not being naughty, he was just guessing – you should reward those moments. The dog ended up on the wrong side of us indicates a connection issue, which is a handler issue 🙂 The same thing happened at :58, but he had slowed down and was being careful. The video at :58 is a great view of what happened. Your arm is at your side and your were looking down towards your side, so you could probably see him in your peripheral vision. But he did not see the connection clearly (he can really only see your back there). Seeing him and being connected are two different things 🙂 So to be connected, have your dog side arm back, fingers pointing to his nose, and look directly for his eyes. And if he ends up on the wrong side, don’t mark it as wrong (the oops marker is a “you’re wrong” marker). Either keep going and give more connection, or reward him for trying to figure it out, then give more connection on the next rep.
As with the earlier rocking horses… time for wrap verbals so you don’t end up over-using the go verbal. 🙂
Great job!
TracyAdding the bump/bars to the minny pinny:
He was great here too, easy peasy 🙂 and that is exactly what we want. Nice reward placement! So now we need to get you to stop saying “go” and use your directionals 🙂 what do you want to use for left & right soft turns? The GO directional will be used only for the big straight line extensions, and before you get into the habit of using it on turns, we will get into the habit of turn directionals. This is a really easy one to add the directionals too – just be sure to hold his collar, say the directional a couple of times, then let him start moving through the turns.
Nice work!
TracyThis is minny pinny part 1 with just the wings: easy peasy! He did great! Nice job with the reward placement here. My only suggestion here is to always line him up straight and hold him til you are ready – that way he doesn’t end up offering the wrong direction or turning away into the setup. I see you added bumps below! Yay!
