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Hi! Good question!
The cue to take the prop is your movement forward on the line like the parallel path game. Just like a jump: if we are moving towards the prop and it is on the pup’s line, the pup should go to it without us needed to do anything else. So it is the lap turn then move towards the prop, and reward for interacting with the prop.Tracy
Hi! The barrel wraps looked great, and I swear he got faster and more jazzed up when you stood up! It was like he said: wait, what? ….. OH YEAH I GOT THIS! Fun!!!!
So yes, you can move to the turn and urn game, but:
>>I’ll try the turn and burn later today when I head out to the barn>>
Be sure to bring this barrel, and also if he has never been to the barn before, you should ‘warm up’ the game with the barrel wraps like you did here. And if he ‘remembers’ them, you can try turn and burn. We don’t want to add new location AND new game at the same time. If he has ben to the barn and is comfy training there, then you can do a quickie warm up and move to turn and burn very quickly.
Keep me posted! Great job!
TracyI am glad you took the Puppy Plunge! Pry is amazing and it is so fun to watch you and Annalise play with her 🙂
T
Hi!
He did REALLY nicely with the tall cone! Super!!! When you move the cone further, the bowls can stay where they are (near your feet) because this adds even more distance to the wrap. And when you reward, drop in just one cookie 🙂 If you drop in several, it takes a longer time for him to eat it all and go to the next rep. So you can continue to play this sometimes, getting the cone further away.And yes, you can totally add your movement in the turn and burn game next! yay! Now things get FUN FUN FUN 🙂
Great job! Let me know how he does with Turn and Burn!
TracyHi!
I love the line up of objects here!! He was interested in the toy in the first video, but when it was just right in front of him it was not stimulating enough. So you can try having him chase it as you drag it along the ground (a longer toy can help). If the toy is wiggling in front of him, he doesn’t seem excited but I bet he would love to chase it!And yes, the game is highly associated with food yumyum! LOL! So he looked at you a lot – and stumbled a little because he was looking at you and not at the objects. So to help him. you can use a cookie on each on, placed down on the object – that will help him keep all of his feet on an not slip off. When he was looking straight and looking at the objects – he was great with his balance. When he was looking at you and the cookie, he would sometimes forget his hind end 🙂 On the 2nd video, you moved more slowly and that worked out better in terms of keep all of his feet on.
And then after a back-and-forth with the cookies, you can give him a break and throw the toy around for him to chase, away from the cookie area.
Great job!
TracyHi!
The backing up is looking really good – he is smooth and accurate, going step-by-step and not flinging himself back. Super! I couldn’t see you in the video, but it looks like you were getting increasingly further away. You can have more of a variable approach to increase the distance: sometimes be close, sometimes be further, then start close again – so the distance gets harder very gradually and not always getting harder. That will actually help to increase the distance!
You can also shorten the session – at the end, you went into a down and that was probably fatigue. It doesn’t seem hard to humans or adult dogs, but this is quite a workout for baby dogs 🙂 So you can keep the session to 3 or 4 reps, then let him take a break 🙂
Nice work!
TracyHi!
Great question about the barking:
>> This is a bit odd: we’ve been wrapping wings, with motion, in sequence, for a long time now, and she has never barked at me. I’m not sure why we’re getting barking with this exercise. She rarely barks when we work outside, even with Frisbee (her favourite), she will do tricks prior to sending to a tunnel or a wrap or just a throw. Why is she barking now?!>>
I can think of 3 reasons why a pup would bark in work or play: Arousal, frustration, genetics.
Genetics…. um yes, both of her parent have been known to be a little vocal in work haha particularly when frustrated (which is why we look carefully to make sure she is NOT working in frustration because we do not want o build that in. We are building resilience!)
And since we are working in arousal, you might get the barking sometimes, like you did at the end on the ready, ready moment at the end of this session. That is fine and gives us a good barometer of where she is on the Yerkes-Dodson curve (high, and also maybe a little tired). But that bark at the end was not a frustration bark from what I can tell, just a “yeehaw!”
There was one bark here that I would consider a frustration bark, right at the beginning (:10). You sent to the barrel but did not have strong connection (you were looking forward at the barrel and not at her). So she barked: “WHICH SIDE MOM” – she almost turned to the right then went to the left. Good info from her!!! You were wonderfully connected on the rest of the session, no more barks.
Also, the session had a SUPER high rate of success – no barking. If you scroll up, you can see a session from earlier this week (Prop game you posted on Dec 6) where she had some frustration barking when she had errors and didn’t get rewarded. Rewarding effort and slicing the behavior into smaller slices (especially if she has had an error) will help reduce the barking.The whole session was really mostly silent and really awesome! On the handling around the barrel you were doing BCs instead of FCs which is fine as long as you sometimes do FCs too to build that skill- your blinds had SUPER nice connection! The toy on the ground was hard at first then she did great with that. When you have more room, you can add more running too the toy by placing it further away. I am pretty sure she will love that LOL!!
Great job here! Let me know what you think about the barking ideas.
Tracy
Hi!
Very nice mechanics on the lap turn! It was actually hard for her to play with the toy after the cookies at the beginning, good job clarifying that for her. She was definitely seeming to think that the prop = COOKIES LOL! So this was more of a session about the back and forth between cookies and toys in the presence of a toy-based object. She did great!
After the cookie toss, when she turns back to you, let her see a bigger picture of the lap turn cue: have your magic cookie hand fully extended towards her and you are leaning over. And hold that position til she is just about at your hand. When you did that, she was really perfect (like on the very last rep). When you were a little more upright or later in showing the magic cookie hand, she had questions about where to be (like at 1:29).
Great job here! Next step is to use a bigger space so she has more room to go past the prop, and also add in the advanced level which will look more like the fancy threadle wraps 🙂
Tracy
Good morning!
Great job with the Strike A Pose game! She showed some lovely self-control to hit the target first and not grab the toy – that is hard!
Try not to use a stay here – she was either breaking the stay (too many failures in one session, at least 5, and remember that failures can condition frustration into the game and we don’t want that especially when stays are involved!) or pushing the bed out from under her. So use a cookie toss start instead: she starts in front of you, you send her away with a cookie toss (tossed from whichever hand is easier for you) and then you strike the pose so she can drive back without any potential stay breaks.
The other reason to use a cookie toss start is that you can toss it on a variety of angles, so she learns to drive into the game from all sorts of different approaches, like she will see on course eventually!
One more next step to add here: have the target hand out like you did, that was super, and add the toy dangling too. HARD!!!!! So when she hits the target, you can use your toy marker and she gets the in-and-out going without you even needing to move your shoulders at all. I think she is ready for that!
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>>-I really get lazy with reconnecting after a blind and I really need to be more mindful of that with all my dogs, but especially with a puppy.
I don’t think you were being lazy, I think it is more about using a soft connection as you move (which works for most adult dogs) and a puppy needs a ‘hard’ connection in the form of very direct eye contact. When Rogue is older and more experienced, she won’t need as much connection.
>>>I’ve been bad about actually posting videos, but we are working on stuff and having so much fun with this class!
You are posting more videos than I am with my own puppy LOL!!!! The training is easy and fun, the video editing and posting is a pain in the patootie sometimes LOL!
>>Here’s a bit of goat tricks with a slightly moving object. The problem I’m having with goat tricks is that this dog is super serious while she’s working (with food particularly) and I don’t feel like I am getting “play” out of her. She is definitely progressing with toy play when I play with toys only, but isn’t quite ready to integrate that with work, and especially not with food involved.>>
This is not a problem at all! You were using the cookie in a fun playful way which is great: the reason for the toy play is to get her amped up for the shaping, and you were using the cookie really well here to accomplish that.
And yes, she is a foodie when she works and that is great: she offers behavior immediately, and she offers with confidence. That is what we want. On the disc shaping, you can toss the reward to the side after she offers, so she gets off it to get the cookie then runs back to it to get on it. That will add a little challenge to her balance.
I think the disc is a little too small for her to get all 4 feet on right now, so do you have a 2nd disc? You can put both discs down on the ground next to each other, or the disc and a couch cushion or dog bed (or whatever things you have that she can offering getting on :)) That will give her a bigger playing field for getting her hind end on. The objects don’t need to be the same; in fact it is better if you have a field of different surfaces and textures and movements for her to interact with.
About the toys: I can already see a massive change in her approach to playing with toys. So, keep going with what you have been doing: saving the toys for the toy-only games. And do these shaping games with cookies. And down the road (probably somewhere in adolescence, maybe when she is a year or older) we can gently merge the cookies and toys. The trick is that you keep things playful and happy just like you have been doing, and not add pressure to either the food or toy play. She is doing awesome and you are 1000% on the right track 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
I love watching Prytty and Annalise work (and I love Prytty as a nickname!!) My only concern is that these clips are too short, it is so fun to watch them both hahaha!!!
Annalise did a GREAT job with her decel on the first video – there was a SUPER clear difference between “I am going fast” and “I am slowing down”, plus the reward was low, so Pry was able to sort out her mechanics of collection. Pry was a typical puppy with legs everywhere on the first couple of reps… but then check out the coordination on the last rep!!! Lovely! Great job to both of them.
Turn and burn looks great – so adorable to hear all of the praise for the puppy and kiddo members of the team 🙂 The patience to let Prytty get to the line is the hardest part. I can relate – it is VERY HARD for me to stand still LOL!!! Annalise got better and better at standing still til it was time to do the FC and run, which resulted in Pry getting better and better with the wrap. So keep reminding yourselves to stand still til you see her arrive at that line.
The backing up looks fabulous. There was the one moment where Pry ended up too far forward following a cookie and kinda forgot to back up LOL! But the rest were great. Annalise was very quick with the reinforcement, and kept her cookie hands low which TOTALLY helped. And it is brilliant for us old people to have a junior handler do this, because her back is still flexible enough to remain bent over for the rewards LOL!!!! You can gradually add more distance, in a variable way: do a close up rep, then get a step or two further, then get close again, then get further, and so on. This can build distance without continuously making it harder.
Great job on all of these! I am going to ask Amy if she wants me to add her to the class, so she and Annalise can see the videos and read the feedback about Annalise’s brilliance 🙂
Tracy
Good morning!
I love watching Prytty and Annalise work (and I love Prytty as a nickname!!) My only concern is that these clips are too short, it is so fun to watch them both hahaha!!!
Annalise did a GREAT job with her decel on the first video – there was a SUPER clear difference between “I am going fast” and “I am slowing down”, plus the reward was low, so Pry was able to sort out her mechanics of collection. Pry was a typical puppy with legs everywhere on the first couple of reps… but then check out the coordination on the last rep!!! Lovely! Great job to both of them.
Turn and burn looks great – so adorable to hear all of the praise for the puppy and kiddo members of the team 🙂 The patience to let Prytty get to the line is the hardest part. I can relate – it is VERY HARD for me to stand still LOL!!! Annalise got better and better at standing still til it was time to do the FC and run, which resulted in Pry getting better and better with the wrap. So keep reminding yourselves to stand still til you see her arrive at that line.
The backing up looks fabulous. There was the one moment where Pry ended up too far forward following a cookie and kinda forgot to back up LOL! But the rest were great. Annalise was very quick with the reinforcement, and kept her cookie hands low which TOTALLY helped. And it is brilliant for us old people to have a junior handler do this, because her back is still flexible enough to remain bent over for the rewards LOL!!!! You can gradually add more distance, in a variable way: do a close up rep, then get a step or two further, then get close again, then get further, and so on. This can build distance without continuously making it harder.
Great job on all of these! I am going to ask Amy if she wants me to add her to the class, so she and Annalise can see the videos and read the feedback about Annalise’s brilliance 🙂
Tracy
Good morning! Lots of great work here!
The blinds look great!!! Nice timing and nice connection! He did well going back and forth between food and toys. You can definitely take this game someplace where you have more room to run… has he been to your barn or to any of the training buildings yet?
For more toy play, try a much much longer toy. The toy is very short so he has to reach up to get it, which is hard to tug on. And when you bend over, it is a bit of pressure on the puppy. So, take this toy (it is a good toy) and tie it to another toy or two so it is 4 or 5 feet long. That way you can scrunch it up as needed then let it drag for him to attack 🙂 as a reward.His little tail wagging on the wing wrap game was adorable!!! He did really well – his main question was about where to look: at the upright or at you! Try to be quiet because every time you talk to him, he focuses on you and we want him to focus on the wrapping and be silent until you end the game with the tugging. You were pretty quiet towards the end of the session and he was great about finding the wrap! The upright was a little far for now, he had a little trouble going to his right, so keep it a couple of inches closer til he gets it then we can move it back out. You were kneeling here and that was perfect!
Goat tricks were super fun to watch 🙂 He was great! The paw pod at the beginning is really hard for pups, because it is relatively small and I think the hard, knobby texture doesn’t feel great. So far all of the pups here have said “no thanks” when working on the paw pod in isolation and that is fine. But the disc was much easier for him to interact with and he got his back feet on almost immediately. You did a good job of rewarding ALL interactions. Be sure that you also use a lot of objects that don’t move – everything here was moving so we want him to also build confidence to know that most objects wont move. He was particularly happy on your wobble board!
The next thing you can do with the goat games is to take ALL of your things and blanket the floor with them: set them up very close together and reward him for moving around on it, touching all the things. That helps him learn about different textures and surfaces.
Great job here!!! Looking forward to more!!
TracyHi!
Superstar puppy added the big barrel as if he had been doing it for years! YAY!!!! In fact, I think he liked it better than the other steps of the game. SUPER!!!! I like how you had the variable approach happening: sometimes the barrel was close, sometimes it was far – all times he was perfect.
The turn and burn with motion is crazy fun! There is one more step before you go to it: he wraps the barrel like he did here, but with you standing up. Try a short session of that (start sitting then move to standing in the same session, staying close to the barrel). And if that is peachy keen? Give him a break then come back and try the turn and burn a few minutes later or later in the day. If he has questions with you standing, stay at the standing level for a session or turn. I’m guessing he will be happy with you standing but we want to be sure.
Great job!
Tracy
