[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi! I am glad you are enjoying Savannah! It sounds like a great city! And I am happy to hear he was a good city dog 🙂

The Diamond game looks fabulous.
First rep looked great! He didn’t take the wing after the blind because you said “yay!” And for a moment it looked like you were going to give him the toy. Compare to the 2nd run, where you didn’t say “yay” after the blind and he kept going 🙂 Clearly “yay!” Means the toy is coming, so be sure to NOT say yay until you are ready to deliver the toy 🙂

You did a great job with the verbals! My only suggestion for the blinds is to start them sooner: no later than when he is halfway between the tunnel exit and the wing (he can probably still commit if you start it one stride after he exits the tunnel). You were tending to start them late, when he arrived at the wing (like at 2:33), so he was a little wide because the info was delayed.

>>I find it awkward to present the toy from across my body. I’ll keep practicing


Keep practicing to really emphasize the connection. He is looking great!

The racetracks look great! You can probably start saying “go tunnel” as soon as he gets around the middle wing (closest to he camera) so he can drive way ahead directly to the tunnel.

Great job here! See you on Wednesday!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
Hopefully any snow in the forecast goes away FAST! Ugh!!

The layering session went really well! She picked up the concepts really well and it was great that you could put them all together so easily. A couple of ideas:
You can decel and turn sooner when you are going from the layered jump to the tunnel to help get a better turn from the jump to the tunnel. The decel can be happening before liftoff for the jump so you can start the FC – but since she has a lot to coordinate, do it with a jump bump and not a bar. She hit the bar twice on that, so take the bar out til she has more experience on the layering.

You can also cue the start wing and throw a reward for it to help maintain the commitment. 🙂 if you tried to leave early, she was coming with you so more reward will help support commitment. She was pulling off the wing commitment on the RC video too, so definitely a good spot to refresh the value.

If you wanted to play with this more, you can add a little distance by moving the jump a little further from the tunnel by maybe a foot or so.

Rear crosses are hard because they are just really hard LOL! And coming from a tunnel, where the dog is blind, is even harder. I think part of the struggle was that she had to make a slight turn to get to the jump, so if you were saying go go go or you were too early on the RC diagonal, she went entirely past the jump.

On those reps, she was correct. Go means “go straight” so she did, and when you were early on the RC line at the beginning, she was following your line of motion. She’s very literal at this early stage LOL!

So having to get her to see the jump before you could start the RC was making you late for the RC, so she had a lot of turns to her left when you wanted right.

Three things to do to make it easier:

-move the jump over so it is completely straight from the tunnel exit and that way you don’t have to turn to it to get her to see it.

– change the start wing position so it is not as far away (it can be in the smiley face position, so it is easier for you to be a little ahead at the tunnel exit to set the RC line, and so she isn’t moving quite as fast.

Those 2 ideas should make it much easier, but if she still has questions, here is idea 3:
– place the toy before each rep on the desired exit line, to give her a visual aid for the turns. That should help especially on the harder turn side.

Great job here! Fingers crossed for zero snow accumulation!!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

>She might be just going through some adolescent phase, but I think she has been showing some stress. >>

This is interesting – what stress signs are you seeing? And when do yo see them? Good for you for noticing changes and trying to help her out before anything bigger happens. Is it mainly car-related, or are you seeing it in life and/or training sessions?

I don’t see anything in the training videos that would produce stress (high success rate, lots of play short sessions, lots of running) so definitely try to catch the stress moments on video so we can see what might be causing it. Or it might be some adolescent thing (how long ago was she in season?) or she might be having a pain response to something?

>>I have a vet appointment with her next week to rule out any issues.

Smart! A physical exam and maybe a little bloodwork? I know your area is not known for ticks, but a tick disease can show early symptoms as a stressed dog who is more anxious, or more noise sensitive, or less interested in play or work.

Also – are your other dogs around when you are seeing this? Is she on her own (this is just informational, it could be meaningful or not meaningful!). Sometimes it is helpful for another dog to be around, or it can create anxiety if the other dog is displaying and anxiety. Young dogs do a lot of social learning!

So for example: with my new baby puppy, he goes new places with big brother Ramen who is always the happiest, calmest dude. The buddy system really works in this case! He does NOT ever go new places with Crusher who is a bitch on wheels and anxious and barky – I don’t want him to think that maybe he, too, should be stressed or anxious or barky.

>>I don’t know if I get too serious and not keep it light enough so if you see something let me know.

All of the videos are edited to only show the training reps, so to look for something in training we will need to look at the complete session. So, set a timer for 4 minutes, turn the camera on, let it roll the whole time, and turn it off at the end of the 4 minutes and post it. No editing needed! The training reps are looking really great so if something is causing stress in training, then it is happening between reps or on sessions that are not videotaped.

>>She started showing reluctance getting in the car about 3 weeks ago and I think it was worry about going to do agility (the most we have been doing it in the last month is twice a week). This week we did lot of trips that ended with fun, low key non-agility things and she has been much happier about getting in the car.>>

That is really interesting! On your low key trips, have you been doing short car rides or long car rides? I am pretty sure the trips to Suzie & Keith’s place are long car rides, yes? It might be that something is a little ouchy in agility (physically or mentally), but it could also be that she doesn’t like the longer car rides. Maybe a bit of motion sickness?

I will tell you that 2 of my girl BC-ish dogs hate getting in the car or RV (Elektra used to hide, Hot Sauce used to slink around like she was about to be murdered) and it has nothing to do with where we are going 🙂 They are happy to do their sports but they don’t love the vehicles. That might be the case with Caper too, so if the vet doesn’t find anything ouchy or off, we can add some fun car games.

Looking at the video:

Well, she certainly figured out the layering easily! Yay! You did a really excellent job of structuring the session by breaking down each skill and building it all up, then putting it all together. As Brad said at the end: “Wow!” So nice!!! I mean, many experienced adult dogs can’t do what she did here 🙂

Did you hurt your thumb at :22? Or you ok? We don’t want to break you!!!

You were able to progress this game very quickly to having the tunnel entries visible and adding the layering. So you can totally reward the “close enough” efforts like at :50, where she started halfway up the tunnel and you sent her past the tunnel exit to find the wing – she didn’t quite find the wing perfectly but wowza, she was able to figure out that it was “go past the tunnel to find a thing” – you can totally reward that as part of shaping this skill. You gave a reset cookie which is great, but it is still great to have thrown the toy out past the wing to affirm that yes, she was good to go look for a “thing” on the other side of the tunnel 🙂

She did a great job finding the tunnel after the layering too – super nice! When she is more experienced, you will be able to do the FC and cue the tunnel sooner but this was really a great session!

>>this was our first try with any of it, so I am very pleased with how she did. She also did not react to the cat being out there and to one of our neighbors many rabbits who have decided living at our place is good.

I am super pleased to, she looked great and figured out the whole puzzle in just one session. Yay! And ignoring cats and bunnies? Well that is pretty awesome too!

So the big question is: did you see any of the stress you were mentioning during this training session. I didn’t see any stress behavior from her, and you were light and happy, and the rate of success was very high, and there didn’t seem to be a lot of pressure. Let me know and we will keep sorting it out – the trick to figuring it out is to track some data and see what correlates.

Great job here and keep me posted!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

>>Am having difficulty with changtse’s wanting to play with me except for the open channel WPs!>

Do you mean she seems slower and less enthusiastic? It might be related to the sudden change in weather – it looks like it got warm there! She probably needs a bit of time to acclimate to the new temperatures after the winter, so make sure the sessions are really short and super fun! The ball *definitel* helps accomplish this.

>>on the race track sequence, Changtse is heading for me instead of the wing. Should my path be more explicit to the wing, eg, step to the wing when she exits the tunnel and then move in new direction when she commits?>>

I think she is seeing a little too much deceleration on the race tracks, meaning you are getting far ahead and then waiting for her, so she is slowing down to come to you. That is correct, she should prepare to slow down and turn when you decel. So to get more speed and power on the race track, you can run closer to the tunnel then accelerate away just before she exits, so you are showing acceleration the whole time. That can get her driving around the wings with more speed.

If you slow down to step to the wing, she will (correctly) read it as a turn cue on the wing which we don’t want on the race tracks. You were showing good decel on the wing when you wanted the turn (line on the blind at :47 – nice connection too!!) so she did well with those! You sometimes did a spin (FC-BC) instead of a blind so be sure to keep reminding yourself to turn away from her on the bind and not towards her.

Great job here! She was getting faster during this session, so I am confident she will continue to get faster as she gets used to the warmer temperatures.

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Ha! Well, he IS a B&W BC but also he doesn’t move the same as a lot of them LOL!!! It is probably related to structure – do you have a stack photo of him and we can compare him to BCs, BWs, and Whippets?

T

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
Hope you had a great week in Wyoming!

What we are looking for in this grid is that he consistently does the same thing, that he is organized (no legs flying every which way), that he has good form, he is powerful, and that he looks comfortable. He checked all the boxes here! Yay! And he looked really strong even when you added more of your motion. Super! I liked his set up spot the best on rep 2 (:06) where he was a couple of inches further from bar 1 – it gave him the sweet spot of that organized liftoff.

The next step is to keep everything the same except angle the bars, to change the visual for him. That might be super easy, or crazy hard, he will let us know 🙂

Great job!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!

>>I was going through your post on the verbals you use. Do you use the same verbals for directionals off of contacts? ie. left/right for the 90′ turn and your wrap verbals if it is a tight turn back?

Yes, same verbals because they were taught as commitment cues as well, meaning “finish the job and make the turn” so it has been easy to apply. Left/right off contacts and out of tunnels are very useful! We are (thankfully) not seeing the wraps on the exits of the contact any more – it is just unsafe with fast dogs and running contacts (the left and right are not great but they are still popular in AKC). That wrap off the exit of a contact to a tunnel next to it? Not legal in UKI (unsafe challenge and illegal distance) so I don’t have it trained with this current crop of dogs. It is also an illegal distance in AKC but somehow we still see it crop up…

T

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good session on the grid here!!! I am not sure which distance will work out to be the sweet spot yet, because his coordination is still developing. The 6 foot distance here looked a LOT more comfy than it did the last time you worked it!! And in all honesty, he moves more like my whippet and my BorderWhippet than like a Border Collie, which is good because that style of motion fits his body structure and is also incredibly fast and powerful (I mean, no one outruns my BorderWhippet on course when I get around clean LOL!!)

I think the main thing here I that he just needs to see these exercises a few times to sort out his form, and his form will continue to develop as he gets his “adult body” over the coming months and year. So what to do as far as distance? Split the difference, try 6.5 feet and we will leave it there for now. That is an arbitrary distance, but we have to pick one to hep make it predictable LOL!

His is sorting things out really well, so the distance is not a big issue because he is figuring out the form. Even over the course of this session, we can see him making adjustments particularly for the first jump. And since they are good adjustments, we are going to stay out of his way and let him do it 🙂

So keep this grid in the rotation maybe once a week (we build on it in coming weeks too :))

Great job!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

These are looking really good! Getting on the RC lines is tricky on such a small setup, but you were really nailing most of them! You were a shade too early at :12, where he kind of had to push you out of the way LOL!! And on a couple you took a couple of steps straight before getting on the RC diagonal and that made them harder to read.

Look at the difference in your position at :37 (and 1:23 later on, when the bar came down) as he was taking off, versus :08 on the first rear and :56 on the first rear to the left: you were further across the line at :08 and :56 because you got on the RC line immediately. At :37 and 1:23, you were not across the line yet because you took those two steps forward on the Go line.

As he develops and gets more experienced, I bet you will be able to show that line from either further ahead, because he seems fine with the pressure here. Yay!!

On the backside wraps, be sure to run to where the wing and the bar meet so he can see the full wing – and if you are ahead of him or parallel to him, decel and stay there til he can get pat you can turn his head to the wing. On the first reps where he was turning left, you were too quick to move through and ended up blocking the wing, which is why he looked at you as if he was saying “what wing?!?” LOL! y.

Compare that to your MUCH better position on the backside wraps on the other side, the wing was VERY clear so he was a lot more successful there, no questions. As you move forward on both sides, be sure to look at and point at the landing side to help support commitment.

Great job!!!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
The Diamond is looking really good!

Nice timing on the blinds (:37 to the left, and :50 and 1:09 to the right, for example), nice commitment on the FC wraps, and great commitment on the race tracks! The earlier you turn your shoulders on those, the better his lines are (:40-:44 for example). You also had a sweet spot of connection for those race tracks: connected clearly but not so much that you were over-rotating your shoulders. Nice!!!

He had a question at 1:10 about the wrap commitment: you’re decelerating and rotating at the same time. Separate them: decel then rotate more like what you did at 1:20.

Great job spitting out all those verbals too! This game requires both wraps, the left and right, and the GO verbal. That is NOT easy but it is great practice for course work!!

My only other suggestion is about the tunnel. Because of his size and speed, you need to become really strict about tunnel set up – be sure the tunnel is stretched all the way about and you have a bag every 2 feet on it. Otherwise he is slamming himself around in there. This tunnel was a little squished in the middle and that section was not bagged, so you can see how much it was moving under him. Since we don’t want to have him break himself, stretch the tunnel out and bag the wazoo out of it 🙂

Nice work!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
Yes, the 5 foot distance is much better! She was trying really hard at the 6 foot distance but it was a little too long and she had to ‘reach’ to get hit rather than power off her rear. On both distances, though, her head position is great and her mechanics are great!

>>I assume as she grows and gets more muscled and coordinated this spacing will change?

Yes! If my memory is correct, she is slightly younger than my baby Whippet (he was born July 23rd) and I will tell you that there is nothing coordinated and muscled about him haha!! And as an adolescent, some days he is very coordinated and some days he is a spider monkey with legs everywhere. But at this stage, the goal is to introduce mechanics and no real jumping is needed til they are well over a year old. I have found that by waiting to work on actual real jumping, it all comes together a lot more quickly because we haven’t asked them to do any real jumping before they were ready, so they didn’t have to ‘unlearn’ any baby dog mechanics.

So my guess is that she will go to a 5.5 foot distance sometime before the end of the class in the next month or so, then we stay there for a while. And in late adolescence, she will end up at 6 feet when she gets her ‘grown up body’ 🙂 But she doesn’t need to end up at a 6 foot distance, because the goal is to get great form which can be done with whatever distance is her sweet spot 🙂

Great job on these!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
>>Annalise is quite an awesome handler with Potter! He’s a very experienced dog, but working with Prytania is so hard because she is totally naive, working in situations where *everything* is new.

Yes! And trying to connect with a new, young dog is really hard. It is great that you able to train Prytania in their yard!

I like that sit game for the RC that you did at the beginning, it is one of the ways to get the pups to turn to the new direction for sure!

She did really well with the wind in your hair “go” line and also finding the jump on the rear crosses there!

>>Prytania had quite a bit of trouble taking the jump when I put pressure on her line – sensitive girlie wanted to ‘give’ to me and flare around the jump, hence the double wings. >>

She didn’t push off the jump entirely on any of the reps here, but I do she her moving off the line at first at :50 and 1:03 before coming back to find the jump. If you watch those 2 moments in slow motion, you were actually a bit early with the change of direction of your feet: your feet were already pointing to the new line before she passed you, so she had to run across your feet to find the bar (this the question she had on those reps). To help her drive more directly to the jump, run with that pressure but keep your feet running forward to the center of the bar until she is fully past you… then you can turn your feet and run to the new line. That can help get rid of the giving way or pressuring out, and it will also help her learn the difference between the rear cross pressure and the backside cues.

You might also see a side preference cropping up on the rear crosses – I totally saw that in my own dogs and plenty of student dogs. So you can totally put a reward target out on the harder side, to give her a focal point to drive through (putting it past the bar and on the line of the new direction after the RC).

Great job!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
This is an excellent point – two youngsters learning hard new skills and they can’t really help each other out the way an experienced partner would. Plus, add in distractions (and pressure) and it is HARD!!!

Good for you and Amy for sorting it out! If there is a dog that is experienced that Annalise can run on the drill, that would be helpful too! If I lived nearby I would have Annalise run the drill with my Hot Sauce who is fast but also will help out a new handler (as long as there is a frisbee involved hahaha!) so maybe there is a good schooling dog Annalise can try it with to get her timing and connection going before trying it with Prytania.

Excellent job setting your priorities for your session with Prytania and then executing them!! She did REALLY well and had a high success session! Her commitment looked very strong here!

3 suggestions to add to the next session:

If something goes wrong – keep going like it was right and connect more on the next part of the sequence. That will be a huge confidence booster for her! At the beginning, you had too much arm and not enough connection for the first wing so she missed it, but you can keep going to the next wing then reward. I don’t think she was looking at the toy, she was looking at you for info.

She does look at the toy when it is in your hand sometimes, especially after the blinds, as if asking “toy now?” So be sure to use your ‘strike’ verbal for toy-in-hand very consistently so it is clearer to her when it is available (rather than using praise then the marker).

She read the blinds really well! The blinds can be a shade sooner: Start them no later than when she is halfway between the t new exit and the wing.

Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!

The zig zags looked great! The cues were very clear and she was rally strong switching in and out between the wings in both directions. Yay! Super!

>>Should I try this with less exaggerated arm movement next?>>

You can, but it is a low priority for now. It is more challenging to move the wings in tighter to see if she can switch her leads faster. Try them at 4 feet apart 🙂 But again, it is a low priority because we revisit this differently later on down the road.

>>Distance between jumps still at 56″ & height 6″ but used a moving toy this time as you suggested. What do you think?>>

Really good! She powers over 1 and 3 a little better than she powers over 2, in terms of placing herself evenly between the jumps – but that might just be her making sure she gives herself room to takeoff for jump 3. Good choice! So leave this set up here and we add to it next week, no need to do it again before then.

She was great on the Minny Pinny too! She didn’t need any movement from you and was able to get it all really nicely! And I agree, the toy was really exciting but also she was not overly aroused – she kept her brain and footwork together perfectly!

These all look really strong, so you can put them on the back burner for now and move into the new games 🙂

Great job!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
Based on this video, I’d say she is going to be one of those dogs that is great at flyball AND agility! This was gorgeous!! (And no snow – happy dance!)

The wrap-tunnel-wrap games looked great. On the first rep it looked like she needed a little more connection to the wing right at the very end, but then the rest of the reps were perfect. And it is possible that you don’t need to connect quite as much from the wing to the tunnel – look at her but don’t overrate your shoulders, because you don’t want to slow down.

When you added the race tracks – the first round with the soft turn looked great! I think you were saying left though, and it was a right. But I could have heard it wrong. It is a relatable mistake: things were happening VERY FAST so be sure you walk the sequence before you run her on it, to help plan the verbals.

You got a little disconnected at :42 – if you watch it in slow motion, you looked forward and it actually looked like a blind, so she changed sides (good girl!) Compare that to 1:06 were you had awesome connection and she nailed it.

And the last sequence where you did a longer sequence – perfect! She is SO FAST but also accurate and has a great balance of fast on the line and great turns. Wow, the future is VERY exciting!!

The only thing I would add is wrap verbals on the wings that you wrap on – now, if you can’t get it all spit out because everything is happening so fast, that is fine 🙂 Just maintain that connection and keep moving like you did here, and add in as many verbals as you can 🙂

Great job here! Now that the snow is melted, you can try the Diamond games!
Tracy

[Author]

Posts