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Hi!
Lap turns rely on mechanics, and you did a GREAT job with the mechanics here!!! You were VERY clear with the arm position, connection and timing, plus you also had your eyes following your hand as you moved through the turn. Lovely! She nailed it each time.And you get bonus points for doing it in sleet, I think! The camera was fogging up!
You can add in the advanced level of this (tandem turns) as well as add the wing wraps before it to get more speed 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi! Actually, this went really well! The airplane arms were not too bad LOL!! But you will definitely feel more comfy with these blinds if you keep your arms in tight to your body (I bend my elbows and tuck the elbows into my ribs). I think you will also find it a little easier if you spread the wings out so you have a heartbeat more time to do the blind – your feet really wanted to rotate towards her, then your brain had to convince your feet to rotate away from her (the brain won! Yay!) but another bit of time will make it feel more comfy.
Excellent job with the connection!!! That is the most important element and you nailed it 🙂
Nice work!
TracyHi! This session looked great!
Perfect transition from the loud drops to the stealthy drops, to the offering and getting the upright in. And you were stealthy about inching it away: I looked down to type something and when I looked up, it had moved! Ha! That is great!
She is a little more fluid moving to her right than to her left at the beginning when you had the upright in place, but then things evened out and she was fluid both directions. Yay! And she had no problem when you pushed the upright out further and further away. Super! The hardest part was keeping her searching for treats while you tried to reload – she likes the game so came back very fast LOL!!!!!
So since this went super well – next step is to have you repeat the process, but the big change will be you are sitting on the couch. Do a quick warm up/refresher with just the bowls, then get the upright in nice and close, and her response will tell you how quickly you can progress with moving it away: either it will be the easiest thing ever so you can move the upright away, or the change in your position will be very challenging so you will want to keep everything else simple 🙂 She will let us know 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi!
He did super well here too! The hardest part is for him to let go of the toy at the beginning of the session – you can totally trade for a cookie there, so he lets go easily. He doesn’t have that same question in the middle of the session, he lets go of the toy right away.He was touching the target really well. You can play with this with you standing up and with your arm fully extended away from you as well.
Since he did so well, though, this is a low priority because we don’t use this for a couple of weeks 🙂 You can move to the other week 1 games and we will revisit this later.
Great job!!
TracyGood morning!
This went really well – you were emphasizing the transitions from toy to food to prop and it looked great! He was able to touch the prop really precisely with his foot (that is one of the joys of slightly older puppies – they know where their feet are LOL!!). Halfway through the session, you had more cookies in your hand so you didn’t need to grab more while he was working, that helped a lot! And he was great about switching to the toy during and after the cookie moments (and also great about eating the cookies after tugging :))
Since this went so well, you can go to the next game – the Prop Sends from Week 1 🙂
Have fun!
TracyHello! Great to see you here! I think you win the award for Best Dog Name Ever. I love it!!!!!
Looking forward to more Brisket 🙂
Have fun!
TracyHi! Could be a teething thing, or could be that she shallows it whole and then pukes it up 🙂 tiny tiny bits of cheese or meatball might be great!
And no worries about how far along she is – the more we learn about puppy development, the more we understand that going VERY slowly at this age is far better because we can set up so much more success!
TracyHi!
>>I was trying to move more slowly, like you said, but I think maybe I wasn’t giving her enough handler motion for a lot of the wrong entries?
I think the reps where she went to the incorrect end still had handler support to them (shoulders and feet facing them) even when you were not moving that fast 🙂 The correct entries had you turned to the correct entry a lot sooner 🙂
>>Also, she has learned to love tunnels, LOL, so we’ll have to do a bit of unlearning.>>
She will get it! We want the big tunnel love nowadays because there is so much distance work involving tunnels.
Starting with just the tunnel element was a good refresher for her – when you started with the wing, your shoulders were late and pointing to the tunnel entry you didn’t want (same at :45) so turn faster and sooner on those to NOT be facing the wrong end of the tunnel. A this stage we want body language and verbal to match more like 1:31 when you were turned and lateral.
To help her out, you can make your position and turn cues even clearer by starting yourself in the positional cue (laterally towards the correct entry and further from the incorrect entry :)) and send her to the wing from there. That way there is no accidental turning to face the incorrect end of the tunnel – you are already in position and won’t need to move fast to get there. You can also move the wings further away, to buy yourself an extra heartbeat of time to show her the cues 🙂 She is going faster than ever, so even one more moment to show a cue can really help 🙂 This is closer to what you were doing on that last rep, and she looked great!!
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning! The cool part of these skills is that he seems to understand them nicely, so it is all about handler timing to show him the difference. That is exciting!! Everything looked good here, just some timing to sort out.
One general thing to add: you can say the left/right and push verbals several times instead of once – that will help them break through the other things that are happening so he can respond even better.
On the first video – the first RC at :37 was late because you were too polite in setting the line LOL! But the rears at 1:08 and 1:28 were great because you got right up on his tail to set the line. Yay! The last one on the video was also a little late (3:17) – you ran forward a few steps then got on the RC line, so he tried to adjust in the air and hit the bar.
For the push backsides on this video: you were setting the RC line at 1:52 even though you said push – so he took the RC. At 2:36 and 3:40, you started by showing the RC line then switched to the backside and he got it. You can be moving towards the backside line the whole time, from the instant you pass the tunnel exit – and if you get there before him, you can tuck in where the wing and bar meet til he passes you. You were running the line really well in the next video, and he was perfect in getting to the backside.
On the 2nd video on the other side:
Good timing on the RCs, right from the start. Super!!!!! I think 1:03 was your body showing rear and your brain thinking about backside so he was correct to take the rear cross line.
Your push lines here were all great –
At 1:22, 1:56, and 2:33 you never showed even one step of rear cross and he went directly to the backside each time. He is still learning to commit to the jump on the left turn backside wraps, so definitely keep dropping the reward on the landing spot, that was terrific placement! And as you move through – keep moving like you did but maybe more slowly and also look at the landing spot (not his cute face haha) after he passes you – all of that supports commitment to the bar.Great job! We are getting more rain this weekend but hopefully you can still enjoy some outside time to play!
Tracy
Good morning!
Nice work here – this game is hard!!!! She seemed to only have a question on the first rep of each thing: first rep of serp (took the tunnel) first rep of tunnel (wanted to take the jump). But she sorted it out nicely and your cues looked and sounded different, which really helped. The other reps looked really strong!
On the threadles – try to use less handling and let her find the jump without you handing to it by closing your shoulders after she comes in. Ideally, the in in cue means come in AND take the jump without extra handling needed, so you can remain stationary with your shoulders showing the threadle cue until she takes the jump (then reward of course :)) And then when you add movement to the threadles, keep your shoulders in threadle position as you move so that she offers coming in and taking the jump on the threadle side, without waiting for your shoulder movement. This can help create even more independence on the threadles.
Great job here!!! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>>I kept the reps short and she stayed engaged. I didn’t do any more than you see on the videos but did take out video dead space while she retrieved the ball, etc. I asked her to lie down in the grass in between exercises which she was fine doing while I reset the tripod and a few things. We took a slow walk around to make sure she had cooled off enough (it’s humid today) and then did the 2nd exercise. I think she’s still hormonal from her season so I’m going to keep on doing things this way.>>
That is great – and I think it is a good training lifestyle, regardless of whether she is hormonal or not: short sessions, fast, and fun!
The zig zags are going well! She is definitely sorting out her footwork! My only suggestion is to keep the reward in your hand til she arrives st it – because it is being thrown, she sometimes lifts her head up to track it (rather than keep her head down to look at the bars. Keeping the reward in your hand will keep her looking downwards more 🙂
This game can go into the general rotation – what I mean by that is if you want to work on a jumping exercises, you can pull this one out maybe once a week. No need to do it daily or anything at this stage.
Lookin at mission transition – on the fist decel on your left, she was looking straight for the GO toy, but the other decel reps were great! You were turning away from her on those rotations – try to turn towards her for a FC after the decel.
When you changed sides – you handled differently when she was on your right side here, driving harder to the jump and accelerating later…. Too late for her to collect so she was wide on those turns. I think what was happening was that on the other side (dog on left) you were decelerating when she was passing the 2nd cone. On the dog on right side, you were decelerating when *you* were passing the 2nd cone… but she was already ahead of you and taking off, which is why her turns were tight to the right and wide to the left. So remember to decelerate no later than when she passes that 2nd cone, and her turns will be lovely on that side too.
>>Since I never got to the get out in MaxPup1 should I go back and do that first?>>
Yes, before going to the proofing, work the Get Out from MaxPup 1 so she understands it.
Great job here!
TracyActually – if she is on your left, throw it slightly to your left so she goes in a straight-ish line to it. And as you let her go, you are going to move to your right, to encourage her to get the toy and turn right to get to you. Let me know if that makes better sense 🙂
TracyHi!
>> I did start initially with a little higher object but she was just going around it. I wanted something she could just run across. I’ll try something a little higher when she gets this better.>>
Starting with it low was the correct way to start – and thanks to her feedback, we can raise it to help encourage a little bit of feet on it LOL! Part of this early shaping stuff is trying to figure out how she thinks so we can plan for future shaping stuff 🙂 Going around it and stopping in front of it is great feedback from her, so now we can help her realize that she can use her feet to get on it too 🙂
She did really well with the wrap foundation games!!
The food game looked great – you might want to do 5 or 6 treats then break it off for a mental break – she would sometimes forget what she was doing (like at :40) because she is so young, so 5 or 6 treats, then maybe 10 second of play, then 5 or 6 more treats, etc should help her out with that.
I think she is ready for the upright (Advanced level) to come in now! Start with a quick refresher of the pattern with the bowls, then after a few treats, bring in the upright. It will be right between your feet with the bowls still very visible. I am sure she will have no trouble with it 🙂She did well with the 2 toy game! To help her begin to go back and forth like she did with the food bowls, you can let the toy in her mouth get passive for 2 or 3 seconds before bringing the next toy out – the passive/dead toy will predict the next one is about to be available, so she will begin to offer going to the other side before the other toy begins to move. She is a smartie!!!! And for now, keep the toy sessions very short (30 seconds) because she is so young and wants to lie down and chew LOL! Now, that might have been because of time of day or when the session was done relative to the other training, so you can also try doing the toy sessions first.
When she is going back and forth with the toys like she does with the bowls (probably in the next session), you can add the upright to the 2 toy game as well.
Great job!!
TracyHi!
It looks normal now – glad it was not any excessive caffeination that caused it 🙂Generally, I tell handlers they are late in their handling and that is what is causing the dog to ask questions… but in this video, all of her questions were because you were too early LOL!!
By too early – you were moving the arm & leg back for the lap turn when she was still pretty far from you, so she either zig zagged or (correctly) read the cue as a throw back.
So to be later on the timing, remember the 2 inch rule: don’t start the cue til she has gotten to about 2 inches from your hand (and looking at your hand/following the hand with your eyes as you move it) will really help her drive right in for the turn too). That will get rid of the zig zags and also help her know which side of the wing to go to.
She was sometimes ending up on the other side of the wing because when you are really early and looking at her, the cue looks like a throwback (countermotion FC) like at 1:16 and 1:24 and 1:58. When that happens, just reward like you did at 1;26 because it is handler error especially when there are no verbals attached. Note how she got a little frustrated at 2:04 and grabbed a tunnel: ‘human, you keep cuing a left turn on that wing then you tell me it is wrong, so I need a moment right here in this tunnel’. LOL!
So try the lap turns being later – done correctly, you will feel like it is in slow motion and quite late 🙂 but she will read it beautifully 🙂
Nice work here!
Tracy
