Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Hi! He did well on these!
On the wraps, he did well – the only question he had was more about a noise in the background, I think, and not a jumping question. At :15, there is a rumbling that gets loud, like tennis balls in a dryer LOL!! The rest were really good!So for the wraps, you can go to the fading steps – I like to use both methods to fade the sit and fade the plank, but not in the same session.
On the slices, he had a couple more questions about the sit – they were largely when he was on your left for the serp or threadle and especially when you are past the jump (he had a question on your right but I think that was more about a late sit cue). So it is possible he needs you to move more slowly when he is on your left so you are not quite as far ahead yet, so he doesn’t get as frozen especially in the face of the glorious PT out ahead LOL!
He will probably only need one more session of these as well, and then you can start the fading on the slices too. Yay!
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
The stays with the catches and OK releases all looked good! I liked her attitude here: relaxed, solid in the stay, and keen to play. Super! You were really good with the lead outs, connection, releases. Try to vary your duration more: dogs are brilliant about figuring out patterns and anticipating, and you took 3-4 steps away on every rep except 1, where you took a couple more steps. We don’t want her to think that the stay means “mom takes 3 steps, settles into position on step 4, then looks at me and releases” because she will start to anticipate, self-release, then get confused & frustrated when told she is not correct.
So the way to avoid this is to be a lot more variable: take 3 steps. Then on the next rep, 5 steps. Then on the next rep, 2 steps. Then 7 steps, then 1 step, then 3 steps, then 2 steps, then 10 steps, and so on. Count to yourself so you don’t end up in the 3-step pattern 🙂
I like that she was offering the sit, it tells us where she is in terms of engagement and arousal. It was like you did an unspoken: “are you ready?” And she responded with the sit, saying “yes I am”. Sure, you can add the sit verbal as long as you are sure she will respond like this the first time you ask for it.
Handling combos:
Ah yes, snow sliding off the roof would definitely be worrisome, it sounds like a tornado! The pattern game that we add today can help with that, to relieve any concerns she might have about new/different/possibly scary things. When she is worried, there is need to try training skills; it is more important to do resilience games and support her (or get her out of the environment if it is all too hard).Two things we know about adolescent brain develop:
– they are more sensitive to sounds and movement than they were as puppies and they will be as adults, so it is important to help her relieve any worry or get her out of the situation if it is too hard.
– it takes them twice as long to ‘return too baseline’ after a stimulation of the HPA axis (stress hormones) so after something worrisome, she might need to go home and sleep it off and have some decompression time, far more than she did as a wee puppy or any of the adults would need.The joys of adolescence! We can’t change the brain development, but we can sure support the teenagers 🙂
Looking at the games: try to edit them less so I can see more of the reinforcement happening 🙂
On the first couple of reps, you had really nice connection after the FC and great timing of the go verbal. I think the toy was too far away and she was like “GO WHERE MOM” and had to slow down to find it. So as you add the GO verbal, you can have the toy closer.On rep 3 at :08, you were super late with the blind to your left side and so she didn’t see the info in time and continued on her line to the toy. Hopefully you told her she was 1000% correct and had a party… because she was.
You were not as late on rep 4, so she found the side change but had to do a zig zag to get it. And on the last rep, she was on to you did less of a zig zag.
So to get the timing sooner, you can start further from the barrel now – that way you can start the FC before she even arrives at the barrel, and the do the BC before she exits the barrel. She is really fast (yay!) so we can start looking at timing.
I think you also had your wrap verbals happening there: click/treat to you!!!!
Ladder work: Yes, she wanted to do the whole thing because going slow is HARD and uncomfortable (look at her ear set and tail set LOL!) – so going faster uses momentum and she doesn’t need to think as much about her hind end. You can see her hopping her back feet along a little as she got faster. So, try to have her go back and forth across the center, sloooooowly. It is only one gap but slow is hard – but totally worth it for balance and also so she gets happy to touch different surfaces.
Tunnel threadle: While yes, she might have been a little distracted by her buddy Sid making some squeaky noises 🙂 I think it was more of a lefty versus righty issue here. Note how she got every single right turn threadle send here (unless there were other errors you edited out. And she had questions about every left turn tunnel threadle.
I think you were too far from the entry on the threadle side on the left turn entries. She seemed fine with the right turn entries with you in the center of the tunnel, but definitely not on the left turn entry side. She was fine sending to the left turn entry here, but the processing is different on a sed versus a threadle. The send is pretty natural for the pups and the threadle is a turn away which is not as natural and requires more coordination because she has more lead changes to do.
So to get the left turn threadles going, you can start much much closer to the entry, almost in front of the entry, so she really doesn’t have to do a lot to get into it. You were halfway down the tunnel here, which was too hard for the left turn entries and not hard at all with the right turn entries. Eventually you can get to the same spot for both threadles, but for now the left turn entries will stay closer. If you see a question or failure from her, start closer to the entry to help her out. I don’t think you need to use the 3 foot tunnel if you start closer to the entry, but you can certainly use it is you want to! Bear in mind that the 3 foot tunnel might make the threadle harder because the “wrong” entry is far more visible no matter where you stand.
Looking at the lap turns: she is doing well! It was hard to tell is she didn’t have a lot of speed coming to the hand because she didn’t love driving in to the hand… or if she was basically starting so close to the hand there was no reason to run hard. So on all of your get it cookies tosses that start the next rep, throw them much further away so she can turn and run to you. When you tossed them 2 or 3 feet away, she turned around and you were right there, so there was no running that could happen.
For the prop – it should be further out away from you, so she has a more direct path to you without having to go over the prop. Ideally, she would have a straight line to you then after the turn away, she would be further from you (because she has turned) and then has a relatively straight line to the prop. Because she was ignoring the prop to get to you, she was also ignoring it after the turn. So if you are facing her and using your left hand to call her to you, have the prop 4 or 5 feet away from her line to you, on your left side. Let me know if that makes sense!
Great job!!
TracyGood morning!
I am so glad you are having fun! You and Sid are rocking these games; thank you for being so receptive to playing these crazy games 🙂>>The boy always seems to feel the need, the need for speed, so I loaded the extended ladder with cookies, and added a slow walk through with him. Was better.
Yes! These pups are alike: slow and coordinated? That’s DUMB! Let’s go FAST FAST FAST hahahaha so we have to figure out ways to slow them down to get them to be coordinated and balanced, rather than just using their momentum to fly through things.
The longer ladder and cookie use was effective here – he was putting his feet in each gap, and I think he was beginning to feel the difference between the balanced trot and going too fast/being off balance. He tried to go faster in the middle of the video, and stopped himself, almost as if saying “well that felt icky”. So, keep doing this maybe once a week (eventually we add harder things like backing up through the ladder :))
>>The resilience game, LOL, right now the cookies would get lost in the snow! Sid is LOVING the powdery snow! I need to coordinate taking it elsewhere, finding a fairly cleared parking lot would be okay?>>
Yes, a parking lot would be good, or even a car trip to a place like PetSmart if you have one close enough. More ideas on what to do with this game coming today 🙂
The bigger tunnel looked great! He only had one question when he found a cookie on the floor 🙂 He was easily able to drive to the tunnel, and yes, I agree that a tunnel verbal will be clearer than a get in verbal. He also did well when you put him on the threadle side at the very end, no trouble turning away from you. That will eventually be an entirely different verbal 🙂 He was a bit tired by the end, so it was fine to let him be done. He has done a lot of training lately and might have needed a brain break, especially because his friends were there and that makes it hard 🙂
One other thing I notice… He is an interesting character: he can’t quiet look at you when you say ready, but he is for sure ready. I had a dog like that (couldn’t look at me when I was doing the ready set before a send) and it is fine… it is the pup’s way of coping with the excitement and pressure. But he always gets it right, so he doesn’t have to look at you or the tunnel.
>>He’s SO fun to work with, my other BC was sooooo serious about everything, Sids just a clown! He keeps me from taking everything too seriously!>>
Yes, he is so fun to watch! So many adventures ahead!!
Great job here :)
TracyGood morning! I am so glad he had a fun time at the trial, he sounds like such a confident little guy 🙂
Strike a pose was looking really good! I was thinking you would need to be sitting on something because he is so little, but you got it done beautifully while standing. His drive to your hand target was great! When you went back to the original side (target in your right hand) in the middle of the session, he did consider skipping the hand target to go to the cookie hand 🙂 but he sorted it out and did it well. He was perfect with the target in your left hand!
Your reward delivery was great in that you used your hand position to draw him across your feet, just like he was finishing the in-and-out of a threadle. Super nice!!! You can try this with a toy if you think the toy will be enticing enough without you moving, but it might be better to try it with an empty food bowl on the ground past your feet (in the direction that your feet are pointing). That way he can hit his target then you can drop the treat in the bowl. This sets us up to eventually add movement and fade the reward from your hand. Let me know if that makes sense or if I need more coffee to explain it haha
Turn and burn also went well! You are structuring your sessions really well: nice warm up, reset to get the toy but lifting up the barrel so he could have a fresh start, then into turn and burn and exciting toy play. Click/treat for you!
Yes, he wanted the cookies at first – an easier way to get him on the toy is to tie 3 or 4 of your toys together into one super long toy, so then you can easily drag them around for him to chase, without the pressure of you leaning over or him needing to come in really close (neither of which are his favorite thing).
He did a good job offering it: part of the challenge is getting him to ignore the toy to do the barrel wrap, and he did it! He seemed to want to start it on a right turn (you were asking for a left turn) so on the next session, start with him on your left so he can turn right, and see if that is easier to jump start it. It is a hard behavior at first but then it will lock into place and be super easy 🙂
At the barn today, start off easy, maybe 50% easier than you think he can do. There are two reasons for that:
– to be absolutely sure that he gets a high rate of reinforcement and trying to avoid errors or frustration entirely, mainly so that he gets a happy, relaxed conditioned emotional response to being in the training environment. If we push puppies too hard and they fail and get frustrated, they end up with a more negative emotional response to being there, which we definitely don’t want!
– he has far more things to deal with in the environment and might not be able to do the fancy things he can do at home. The space, smells, cold, jacket if he is wearing one, the car ride, the texture of the footing, his brother barking in the car 🙂 and so on…. his puppy brain needs to process all of that and try to prioritize training. So hard!
So keep it easy at first. If he says he is ready for more, you can go to the harder stuff, then towards then end: make it really easy again for his brain and body, because he is going to be tired. We generally try for the hard stuff at the end but I like to put the harder stuff in the middle or towards the beginning, so the pup is less tired 🙂
Great job here! Let me know how today goes!
TracyHi!
The leg bumps with treats went well. It was a good intro to it – I think he thought maybe it was a little odd, and he was like “Ok, this is different, but I am happy to eat your treats” LOL!!!!Adding the toy was a whole different game! It got him really stimulated and that is great, because he can learn to use good body awareness even when he is really stimulated. The only thing I would add is gently holding his collar as you move to the toy to the other side of you, so he can’t start til you are ready. When the toy is past your other leg, let him go 🙂 That will help get the game set up, and also add a little extra challenge because the anticipation will cause him to want to explode forward, but he will also learn to have body awareness even when he is amped up 🙂
Ladder work – this ladder is really tall which made it really hard, so he was trying to go faster to get through it – and that changed his balance. Try to slow him down by having your hand near his nose – then hand him a cookie after he puts a foot in each gap between rungs. It will be really hard, but he is ready for that. We don’t want speed here, we want to convince him to put a foot in each gap, slowly. Cookies will help him want to do that 🙂
The resilience game looks really good! He did well without distractions and you were patient when you added the distraction: you let him investigate then tossed the treat when he re-engaged. Perfect! Then the distraction was no longer a distraction 🙂 If it is not too cold or snowy, take this game outside and on leash. The next step coming tomorrow takes the game on the road 🙂
Handling combo: I love the energy here! So fun! It sounds like you added a wrap verbal (noise) to the barrel: perfect! He was also great about ignoring the toy to go to the barrel, then driving to the toy after the wrap. Super!!!
Two things to add for your next session:
– You were doing post turns here (starting on your left and turning with him so he exited on his left), You can add in a front cross, where he sends to the barrel from your left side and as he is committing, you rotate towards him and pick him on your right side (and vice versa, starting on your right and ending on your left). That challenges him to pay attention to side changes (and challenges you to be early and connected :))– you can replace the ‘get it’ for the toy with a GO GO GO verbal. Since he is driving straight so nicely, we can begin to add the directional that you will use on straight lines on course.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning! Lots of good work here!!
Looking at the 2 strike a pose games:
He definitely has strong drive to the target hand! Super! You can add in having your target hand extended even further from your leg – have your arm out and elbow locked in as much of a 90 degree angle away from you as possible (you might have to lean over so your hand is low enough for him to hit it, for now :))With the cookies, when you rewarded from your other hand out across you like at 1:00 and 1:11, that was really great to get the full come-in-go-out motion of the serp. Yay! So keep rewarding like that (from your hand) and then you can toss another cookie to start the next rep.
With the toy, you can use the toy in the other hand so he comes across you like he was doing with the cookie and wih the toy here, then toss a cookie to re-start the next rep. When you didn’t toss the start cookie, he was not always sure where to look or go.
You can also add in a ‘toy ni hand’ marker like “bite” – when you said get it, he was a little confused as to whether you were going to throw it or not.Tunnel games – He definitely likes the tunnel! Yay! You will want to get a bigger tunnel soon so he can go even faster. He had no problems turning away to get into it. Super! One question: what is your tunnel verbal cue? I think you are saying get in but it sounds like get it. He didn’t have any questions but we want to make sure the verbals are clear.
On the turn away videos:
He is doing really well in both videos of the tandem turn on the flat! You were using less luring/less hand in front of his nose on the 2nd video as you moved down the line, so keep going with fading out the hand in front of him the whole time. You can still use your hands right in front of him for the actual turn moment, but I don’t think he needs you to have them in front of him the whole time. You can also add more speed by starting with a cookie toss so h get the cookie and drive back to you… and as he is approaching you, your hands can get low and visible, as you decelerate, and you can then turn him away.He did really well when you added the prop in too! He was at his bst whne you were moving on the line towards the prop after the turn away, rather than stopping and sending (and then tossing the reward out ahead for the prop). Then after that reward, you can reset yourself on your line, and start the next rep with another cookie toss. When you tried to get into the next rep using the reward as the start toss, you were ending up a little out of position so he ran over the prop to get to you: idally, you would be set up on your line before he starts moving towards you, so a cookie toss to start will help (and he won’t be sad about extra cookies LOL!)
One other suggestion: when you switch sides, move the prop to the other side so he can see it on his line when he finishes the turn away, rather than cutting in front of you to get it.
The stays are going really well!!! I think he was not sure if you wanted a sit or down, so we can clarify that for him. If you are going with whichever position he offers, be sure to release forward or toss the reward back before he changes position. The other option is to cue a position – but still release/reward before he changes position. Rewarding position changes on stays can be a slippery slope LOL! so we want him to be successful and stay in one position.
If the down is the more comfortable and successful stay position, the down is a great option for a start line stay!
And he really liked it when you tossed the toy back to him – it helped him ignore the distraction he was looking at and he did well with the stay!!
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyI am glad you are having fun! I love that you post the blooper videos too because they teach us a whole lot!
THi!
>>Didn’t you mention on the Wednesday call that to help bring them into you, you can throw the toy back past you?
Yes – for the herding types (cough cough BORDER COLLIES cough cough) yes, we throw a treat or toy straight back.
>> I was wondering if it’s better to throw the toy or if I should up the food reward so it’s more valuable for coming into my pressure.
Throw it, to relieve the pressure that he doesn’t naturally love, and to add the movement which he DOES naturally love.
Have fun! Great job on these!
TracyHi!
He definitely loves his tunnels and did really well! Just be careful of the dog walk legs there when you throw the toy, and also when there is another dog out working. I was worried about collision potential when the other dog was running to the table and he was exiting the tunnel, or when the dog was running towards the weaves as you were cuing the tunnel. Both dogs were aware of each other (even if the handlers weren’t), and both were a little uncomfortable: one error or slip, and there can be an injury or collision. He is an adolescent so likely to make a bad decision at some point… I don’t know the other dog, but we don’t want the other dog to struggle with it or potentially make a bad decision.It is also super hard for him to process the mechanics of going fast through a tunnel, and being aware of another dog running towards him… so while he was able to do the tunnel, he was having it split his attention in terms of processing, which makes it much harder and sent him into higher arousal. Also, it risks building in high arousal and even some anxiety into the tunnel behavior that we don’t want. So help him feel more secure by not asking him to do these behaviors while another dog is running, more like what you did in the 2nd session.
Also be aware of how tight the turns are on the tunnel entries here, and do fewer reps total across the 2 sessions: if he does 15 of these tunnel entry wraps, and 15 reps of turn and burn, and 15 reps of handling combo games….it doesn’t seem like a lot within each game but it totals out to a lot on repetitive turning on his body.
Because it might be hard to fit the tunnel in your hallway 🙂 or get a lot of room for the handling games, another way to plan your training is to do all 3 of the games, for example… but a maximum of 5 reps of each (not each side… total, both sides). So using my math from above as an example: 5 reps of each game is 15 reps which is fine, as opposed to 45 reps. And if something is easy (like the tunnel game), you don’t need to do 5 reps. And if something is harder, you can do more than 5 reps but that means you skip one of the other games. Planning puppy training is hard in that way!!
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
This is also going well because his commitment is good. One thing to think about with him: he is super fast…. so you need to NOT try to go faster than him LOL!!! I think that was happening here a bit. The places I see that are:
– on the initial send to the cone, you were sending and leaving and he had a little zig zag: should I go, mom? Or chase you? So you can slow the mechanics down: if you are starting from a stay, take one step ahead of him, make connection, then release and send. That will be smooooooth so he can go fast AND have no questions.
That will also allow you to be sooner on the FCs and spins and BC, because he will commit sooner (no questions = earlier commitment!).– the decel before the pivot has to be sooner and more obvious, so he can set himself up to collect. As he exits the cone wrap, let him see you transition from running fast to a massive decel. The decel should happen no later than when he is halfway to you. Then do the pivot slowly. You were not really deceling and the pivot was fast, so he was scrambling a bit to chase you through the turn. If you decel sooner and more clearly, you will see him collect into his hind end and be super tight through the pivot.
As with the other cone wrap games… do fewer reps and don’t do more than one cone wrap game per session (per day). Otherwise, the wraps add up quickly and it is easy to end up doing 40 or 50 repetitive wraps, which is too much for a baby dog.
Great job!
TracyStrike a pose is looking good:
Really nice stay rewards!
You were really emphasizing the mechanics of where to look, how to stand, how to reward, etc. Really super!!
he had super strong drive to target hand, and impulse control on the toy (nice toy markers!!)
Also super good job to him for ignoring the other stuff that was happening in the background 🙂Only one minor tweak: when the toy is on the ground, don’t close your shoulder forward to it t tell him to get it, keep your shoulder open so he goes to it without a physical cue – you were better about keeping your shoulder open on the last 2 reps, so be sure to hold your pose til he arrives at the toy.
Excellent!
Hi!
This is also going well – strong commitment and really nice impulse control on the toy behind him, followed by excellent drive to it! You can use a bigger toy, like a hollee roller, so he can just scoop it up as he drives to it – that makes it easier on his body.When he is turning to his left, he did well with all of the motion through the FC. When he is turning to his right, he has a harder time and needs you to be closer and not quite as fast. At :20, he was wide trying to sort out the right turn, so you can help him by staying closer (to show more connection) and not moving as fast so he can process it without it getting covered up by all the motion. The right turns will catch up to the left turns, but for now it is fine to help him out.
Nice work!
THi!
Turn and burn is looking great too, in terms of commitment to the cone. Yay! He is probably a lefty but he looked great in both directions here, pretty balanced! That is unusual but in a really good way 🙂 Nice job working systematically to do the FC and run away soon and sooner.Two suggestions for you:
– start closer to the cone, this game ideally has the handler so close you can almost touch the cone 🙂 That is actually MORE challenging for the countermotion, because you (and your motion) are RIGHT THERE, so tempting LOL!!! And he will see the countermotion more clearly which is more challenging. The furthest from the cone you want to be for now is 3 feet.– particularly since he is coming back to fitness after a long break and he is young, do far fewer repetitive turn reps – there were about 15 here (most were cued and a couple were offered on his own). Limit to 4 or 5 on each side, maximum, then be done. If he is doing well, you should end the session rather than do more 🙂 If this was the only training session he was doing that day? Ok, 15 reps is fine…. but this was not the only session and the total number of repetitive movement really adds up. I find turn and burn to be a human self-control exercise: it is super fun for me and the dog, so it is easy to do a lot of reps… but we don’t want to do that many tight turns with a baby dog.
Great job! Onwards to the handling combo!
TracyHi! He definitely likes his prop games! Yay!
Since he likes these so much, and he doesn’t need any extra help getting jazzed up: slow down your mechanics so you can very clear, so he can be correct more. He had some questions and I think mainly that things were just moving very fast so it was hard for him to process it all.
With this countermotion game – set yourself up closer to the prop more to the side of the prop, so he has a clearer idea of which way to turn when he exits. On the first couple of reps, he turned to his left when based on your starting position he should have turned to his right. But, your send and then your line away had a lot of fast movement and you were directly behind him, so when he got to the prop at :13 for example, it could have totally been a left turn cue. I think he is a bit of a lefty, so setting up those right turns definitely needs to be clearer and slower: motion muddies the water, so use less motion so you can show him the line.
And, starting closer will help too: when you send from further away, his brain is prioritizing chasing motion and he doesn’t see your position as clearly – so he will default to turning to his stronger side and higher arousal state because there is a little frustration. I think that higher arousal state played a part in his grabbing of the prop and also in the perpetual motion/running around he was doing here. So, don’t go for big distance away from the prop til he is more solid with you being close, in terms of turning the correct direction and not picking up the prop. Stay within 4 or 5 feet for now.
Now that he is cleared to tug, you can try this will a toy (and a toy-in-hand marker like ‘bite’) instead of treats – it might help him to *not* pick up the prop 🙂 The other reason he might have been picking up the prop was that in the higher arousal state, the treats were lower value and he wanted something to tug or run around with. A toy can totally help that!
Nice work! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
