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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!
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!
TracyGood morning!
He did well with his two toy game! His current play style involves getting low and chewing/looking for the squeaker, and that is fine. He is teething as you mentioned so we can go with his choice of play style until his adult teeth come in and he is more comfortable clamping on the toy. When he is squeaking one toy, you can totally squeak the other to help get his attention for the switch! He did get distracted by the car or something, but it is also possible that he was just finished with the session – 2 minutes is a long time for a baby dog! So you can keep things even short, especially when teething and toys are involved.
He is doing well with getting close to you and touching your hand! He is a little more comfy with it when your hand is a little further from you and he was doing it well for the most part. I don’t think it is his favorite thing but he is certainly happier to do it as part of training!! One other idea for you: you can use a plastic lid as a hand target, and shape the chin rest on the plastic lid on the ground. He was doing the chin rest on the ground, so you can take a plastic target (or post it note haha) and shape the chin rest on it on the ground… and eventually transfer that to your hands!
And yes – you are totally not behind! I feel like the fist several months of having a pup should be all about figuring out who the pup is, getting bonded with them, and eventually starting to train. You are doing great! And if you can get to the House Of Robert Of Sponges to train, great! If not, no worries, it is all good and he will still learn all the things 🙂
Tracy
Hi!
I totally noticed her amazing weaves in that trial run!!! She is makin amazing progress and is not even 2 years old yet, correct?!?! So she still has a few questions? Yep, that is normal, I think you are totally on the right track!! YAY!!T
Hi!
Thank you for the video! It helps a whole lot!!!>> I did these in the basement and for the most part it went better than the previous sesh in the barn.>>
There could be multiple reasons for this:
– the agility barn might be SO STIMULATING that he is very aroused and you are then trying to go faster which causes him to be more aroused so you go faster and so on and so on…. You were cool as a cucumber here and that really helped! In the barn, you should do some of the pattern games to help him self-regulate his arousal, and also just give him time in there to just sniff around so it is not always a big party 🙂
– could be that you are seeing latent learning in action. Sometimes during a training session, it appears like the dog is not ‘getting it’. The science tells us that this is fine and normal – keep the session positive, reward all the things, then let the dog have a big sleep. When you come back to the skill in a day or two (or a week haha) – the skill is locked in because the pup’s brain consolidated the learning. Knowing that this is a normal part of learning is a relief because it means we don’t have to be super concerned with what happens in the session as long as we keep rewarding and breaking things into small bits for the puppy.
– could also be that you were lumping in the barn (asking for too big a chunk of the behavior) and in the smaller space, you were splitting things into smaller pieces so it went better (because splitting always goes better than lumping!)
– also could be a combo of all of the above 🙂
On the video:
Backing up looked super awesomesauce here. You can do it in a chair so you don’t have to do more than lean over with your elbows on your legs, and drop cookies when needed. I think Bob would also benefit from beginning to add a destination, like starting with all 4 feet on a big, low dog bed or a big mat – then you lure the 2 front feet off, and let him offer putting his 2 front feet back on. Then you can work up to luring him all the way off, so his back feet are off too (you can use a cookie lure or a hand touch to get him off the destination) and add backing up so he puts his back feet on it.
The prop games also look good and we can clean up the mechanics to make them look even gooder!
One suggestion for all of them: no more clicker. Getting rid of the clicker will free up your hands to use for cues and rewards. Plus, the clicker causes the dogs to look at us in many cases, which we don’t want on these games. So the easiest thing to do is to use verbal markers (more on that below) and ditch the clicker 🙂
You can also elevate the placement now by attaching it (duct tape!) to a small box or phone book (is that a thing?) or anything an inch or so off the ground, so the prop is more salient and will slide less. His value for it looks really strong, so he is likely to be hitting it harder – and if that moves it, you will be adding in more challenge than needed.
The parallel path game looked good! Replace the click with a ‘get it’ marker and toss the treat like you did here. So instead of clicking, you will say “get it” when he touches the mat (doesn’t have to be a perfect touch – you can reward as soon as you see him about to touch and before he looks back at you) and toss the treat. Don’t say yes or anything – just say get it because that means that he is correct AND tells him where to look for the reward.
Take this to the barn so you can add more distance 🙂
Countermotion also looks good! His prop value looked great! Yes, you can move away VERY slowly for now, almost a weight shift more than actually moving away. Be sure to keep looking at the prop (and not at him as you move away). Get rid of the clicker on this one too, and move to reward markers.
If you are using food (tossing it) you can say “get it” when he hits the mat and toss the treat. If you are using a toy and tugging, you can say a “bite” marker so he knows that it is ok to come back and grab the toy.
These clarifications might seem minor but they will be HUGE to him because it tells him where to look and how to earn reinforcement. If he doesn’t know when the toy is available, for example, he is more likely to look at it and follow it.
>> (I think I’m traumatized by him concisteny pulling away in reaction to my motion when I try to leave sooner.>>
Yes, and you also can reward effort. His prop hits don’t need to be perfect. If he gets almost to the prop but not 1000% hit it? Reward anyway, good effort, and get closer or move slower on the next rep. Withholding reinforcement will make him frustrated and frantic.
>>(This doesn’t happen with a toy, but that’s not the exercise now, is it, Keith!?)>>
Correct, it won’t happen with a toy on the ground or a MM… but in that case you are not training the countermotion concept, you are training a ‘get the thing’ concept. You would then have to leave the lure of the toy or MM out when you add a wing or jump to the skill, which can be super frustrating to the dogs if we move to the wing or jump without the understanding. So it is far better to sort it all out on some rando placement on the ground than it is to lure but not really teach the concept 🙂
OK, the good news for the rear crosses is that you were late so he was correct every single time. You did a great job rewarding everything though, because he was giving you good feedback about timing!
To get him to do the RCs, you might need more room so you can start a lot further back (and no need for a clicker here either). Then as you both start moving forward, you need to cut in behind him when he is about halfway from the starting point to the prop. You were starting to cut in after he arrived at the prop, so he never quite understood that you wanted a turn the other direction. Starting 15 feet away will help you have time to be fully on the other side of him when he is still a stride or two away from the prop – and baby dogs need us to be fully on the new side because it is a hard cue to process.
To give you a visual, I grabbed some screenshots. You can see when he is arriving at the prop, you were still on the parallel path side so he was not being asked to turn the new direction. Ideally you would be on the other side of him already, having completed the side change, before he arrived at the prop. On the document, you will see screenshots of Elektra from the demo video, where I am fully on the other side of her when she gets to the prop:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YcDskxrf_7wBI4gSqgArvsT8mDoI33ieuDoC_DREn6M/edit?usp=sharing
Great job on these! Let me know what you think! And I will see you tonight in class!
Tracy
Busy morning with all of your fabulous videos, so I am bumping this up so you can find tonight’s link easily 🙂
TracySounds great! She probably picked up the bite cue really easily because it is probably something you’ve been doing for a while (all it needed was the new cue :)) and also because she probably really liked it a whole lot :))
T
Hi!
Lots of excellent value for his prop here!! He is doing really well in terms of hitting it and wanting to drive to it, which is super!!!! This value will allow you to really stretch his understanding of handling in the coming weeks, which will be super fun!
I have a couple of ideas for you and one big recommendation (with apologies to the MM haha) to go to the next level on all of these, because he is totally ready for the next level of all the handling fun 🙂
Since these are all handling games… let’s ditch the MM because it muddies the waters (especially when someone else is using a MM nearby) and have all of the rewards be from your hands (for turns on the countermotion game) or tossed out on the line for the parallel path and rear cross games. Save the MM for the RDW training – if we use it for the handling stuff now (front foot target) and then ask for a different behavior when you start training the RDW (split rear feet target), he is going to get big mad at us LOL! And we never want to make a Papillon have the Big Mads LOL!
Here are more specifics:
Looking at the 2 countermotion videos: try to start from a stand in front of you, no sit stay, so you can work on the handler engagement switching to line engagement while he is moving (and not in a control position) – you might need to reward him for staying with you until you send him so he understands the exact “when” to go rather than offering it. This also creates a really nice fast drive to the target when sent, and allows you to start moving away even sooner because he is already in motion and super pumped up from your ready ready games 🙂
He had a little distraction at :33 on the first video (seemed like there was someone talking about cookies very close by?), good job getting closer to the prop to help him! He had a lot of looking around on this session, so if the environment is really hard, you can get much closer to the prop so it is easier for him to see the cue and the prop.
On the 2nd countermotion video, having the MM out there was just too hard especially if it happened after the parallel path where he was rewarded for going to the MM when you faced it. Yes, you got him to do it, but he was slower and had a lot of failure in that first part of the session, which builds in frustration. The countermotion games are tight turn games with handler interaction, so using the toy will be better than the MM because it is a little easier and also creates the ‘drive to handler’ that we will want on the tight turns. He wasn’t quite sure where to look when he finished the turn on the prop: at the momma? At the MM? So we can clarify that by having you use a toy in hand (no MM present at all) and a marker word for the toy.
The parallel path game is going well too, but let’s create a loop here with the cookies, rather than a stay then the MM as the reward. There are two reasons for that:
– the loop of toss a cookie, move up the parallel line, toss the cookie, turn and go the other direction back past the prop, works both sides pf you without needing a stay behavior. That allows you to add more lateral distance really easily. add more speed easily, and gets him focused on the prop really nicely!
– by taking the MM out of the parallel path game, you won’t muddy the behavior on the RDW mat when you eventually go to it. On the prop game, he is allowed to hit with a front foot only, no problemo! But the RDW games will have a different criteria and that is not quite the same as these games… but the mat-to-MM might look very similar to him and we don’t want him to ask questions about it.Looking at the RCs… yes, the MM needs to come out of this one too LOL!!!! The MM is too much of a lure here, he was doing the prop and going to the MM but not really perceiving it as a rear cross (you had not changed sides when he was turning to the MM, or a couple of times in the 2nd video you were early and pushed him off the line (which was correct, good boy!)
Also, the MM takes out any options for him to give you feedback on your timing by turning the ‘wrong’ way – and that feedback is important as you teach him the RC and time it so he can read it. On these RCs, you were still on the parallel path side as he was arriving at the prop – so it was the MM that created the RC, not the handling. Without the MM, he probably would not have done the RC which is very useful info to have! So on the RCs, start further away and cut in behind him when he is approx halfway between the starting point and the prop (then keep moving forward on the line after you’ve changed sides). That should give him the info soon enough that he can adjust and turn – then you can throw the toy or treat.
If he does not make the turn the correct direction… then you were not soon enough changing sides and he was already committed to the turn on the prop. If that happens, reward on the side you wanted (it helps the pups learn to predict the RC pressure even when we are late) and then be sooner on the next rep. Ideally, you would be fully on the new side when he is still 2 strides from the prop. Rewarding even if he is ‘wrong’ (but understanding that he was not wrong) will keep him in the game while allowing you to hone your timing on these. And on the RC sessions, you can mix in parallel path (go straight) and the RC turns if you are throwing the reward – the MM would make that way too hard for now.
These ideas should help him have some lightbulb moments on the harder handling, as well as help you begin to look at timing the cues on the harder stuff – he is ready for all of that.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
He reads all of the handling really nicely! Excellent side changes on the blinds! And you can get a better turn on the pivot by moving faster through the blinds, then letting him see the transition into the decel. When you were moving all at one speed, the pivots surprised him (no transition or decel) so he was a little wider. You can run m ore during the blinds so after the blind you can make a big decel, and he will collect better: that is what you did more of on the last rep and he was able to make a great collection and turn super tight! That was my favorite one!!
Two suggestions for these games, about the environment:
try to do this in a clear environment with no jumps near his line, because we don’t want to build in ignoring jumps on lines (like the yellow jump that was right there). When jumps get added to his world, we want him to drive to them and not default to handler focus, so it is better to clear them all away for now for the flatwork games.Also, clear the environment of other dogs that might barge into his session! I know the BC who was running in was not trying to eat him, but it made Stitch uncomfortable – he had to split his focus between having a fast, fun game with you versus watching to see what the heck the other dog was going to do. So you can see him trying to deal with being uncomfortable at 1:29 when he took a moment to hold the toy and look at where the other dogs are… and then not coming back at 2:03 to keep playing. It was subtle in the moment, but it was clear to see on the video: The other dog was just too “extra” to come running in and that was Stitch’s way of telling us that. I respect the way he told us (I mean, he did have other options!) so if he is training out on the floor, do it far enough away that there are no visits or uncomfortable moments. And if other dogs are nearby that might come cruising in, put up a gate so that Stitch feels more comfy about it all. We don’t want Stitch to feel a lot of pressure when he is training, and a BC bounding into the session or even watching him will add pressure (sorry BCs, but y’all can be a little ‘extra’ hahahaha)
Nice work!
TracyHi!
Plank work – super nice! Nice balance between toys and treats here, and all of the back-and-forth and position changes. He seemed super confident with it all.
You can also have him hop on in the center and turn around in a circle without the momentum of going back and forth to make the turn arounds happen – it is great for balance!
You can also use the toy for a hop on, hop off in excitement moment (this basically teaches him to bail from the contacts if he ever loses his balance, which is much better than falling off).Do you have access to a longer plank, especially something that can be a little higher? He is definitely ready for that!
T
Hi!
All of the wing wrapping foundations look really strong! He seems to turn equally well in both directions rather than having a strong side preference. Super! And he is already doing the turn and burn really nicely, so we can use this game to look at two things for mechanics that will serve you well as the training gets harder & more exciting (more games for this coming tonight!!):
I know I am bugging you about markers, but one more marker to add: a “toy in my hand” marker 🙂 So when he is seeing the toy in your hand, he can understand when it is good to bite it versus ignore it versus chase it (‘get it’). So one more toy marker will help and also it will help him differentiate when he should get the toy versus a cookie (like at 2:00 in turn and burn, it seemed unclear if he should eat the cookie or play with the toy or none of the above after the out cue).
The other thing to incorporate, especially as the games get harder, is to reward his effort and live by the 2 failure rule 🙂 If he fails once… reward rather than withhold or mark the error to reduce frustration, and depending on the level of challenge, you can either make it easier right away, or you can see if he can get it but if he fails a second time – definitely make it easier because we don’t want more than 2 failures per session.
So on the shaping foundation stuff with the 2 toys, you were a little too far from the barrel so he had several failures. Rather than physically reset him or withhold reinforcement, you can use a reset cookie or tug at your side to try one more time. One more failure? Make it easier. Sure, dogs sometimes figure it out after multiple failures but they are frustrated when that happens – and we don’t want to condition frustration into these skills.
And on the turn and burn, if he doesn’t go all the way around the barrel, chalk it up to a handler error, have a laugh, tell him he was a good boy, and reward anyway so there is no frustration. For example at :30 on the turn and burn session, you did the FC WAY early and moved super fast… so he never even really had a chance to get the barrel, which caused an error. it was a handling error (too soon, too fast) and you marked it as a puppy error and didn’t reward… you are only allowed to withhold reinforcement if he is allowed to bite you when you have a handling error LOL!! So in that moment, just reward the effort immediately (rather than tell him he was wrong and tug before the next rep) and fix the handling error on the next rep like you did by waiting til he got to the line on the ground before you moved into the FC. By moving away too soon and too fast, there was no way he could have gotten it right at this stage so rewarding the effort goes a long way to maintain engagement and reduce frustration.
And he is doing well in a really challenging environment!! You gave good cookies for ignoring the other dog (like a 1:04 in the 2nd video). Because the environment is really challenging as he is learning new things, be sure to mix in a ton of super easy peasy sessions so he doesn’t have to think as hard, sometimes it is just easy, simple and fun 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi –
He did well with the nose touch here! Next step is to hold the target further away from you (arm fully extended away, elbow locked, nowhere near the rest of you) and look at the target, so he moves to the target and doesn’t want to stay in front of you. Looking at the target and not at his cute face will help too 🙂 You don’t need the target below his nose at all, he can be coming to it straight or lifting his chin a little (you can also do this with you sitting on a low chair or inflatable peanut or something because eventually you will be standing.
You had good get it markers here! You don’t need the yes at all, because the get it means both “you are correct” and “the cookie is over there”. Having “yes” before it will dilute the get it and will get him looking at you too much. And when you use the toy, be as precise with the markers as you would be with cookies – just say get it without all of the other verbal giddy up before the get it LOL!! Then after a good clear ‘get it’ you can add in all the verbal excitement to get him to bring it back 🙂 then get quiet again for the next rep 🙂
Onwards to wing wraps!
T
