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Good morning!
I agree, he is definitely part Mountain Goat. Yay! His confidence is just outstanding! We will keep playing these random goat games all the way through adolescence to make sure he maintains that confidence during all the brain changes that come with adolescence. So for now, keep doing all of the random rewards for getting on this when asked, and finding as many different surfaces as possible.
>>The other day he launched himself onto my rolling office chair and then parkour-ed onto my desk.>>
OMG! And I bet he gave himself 5 gold stars and told you he nailed it LOL!!!!!
>>Stillness on the other hand is a struggle.
He is just about getting to the age where the pups have enough development to start learning stays and stillness, so we will be adding that in soon. I train pups to stay by using motion and action, so they like the stillness and will offer it. Stay tuned!
>>Going back to toy from food was a no-go.
No worries – he was probably in a pool of cookie smells, so you can leave the room and throw a toy around in a different room to get the toy play. The toy play here is mainly to keep the arousal really high, so you can run to a different room, tug a little, then come back to shaping. It is worth it to do it because then the body awareness transfers so nicely to the ring when he is more stimulated..
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning! Hope you had a good weekend!
The driving ahead is looking great! The long line was harder to manage but you did a great job of giving him just enough agency to drive ahead and play with the toy, without soooo much agency that he was Abe to take the toy on a tour of the field LOL! Good job keeping the line loose so he was still feeling the freedom without being reeled in too much. Really fabulous!
O the 2nd video, he was actually moving back to you with the toy even faster and you made it worth his while by having a MASSIVE play session when he got back to you. So excellent!!!! You were great about play play play play rather than just taking the toy away to do the next rep. The other thing is that he found a new gear of speed when driving ahead of you đ
The only thing I would add is if he doesnât come right back and needs to stop and chew the toy (he did that a little in the first video), you can let him chew the toy for 3 to 5 seconds⌠and then start to call him back to you. He might need that 3-5 seconds to self-regulate the excitement of running outside with the toy. If you give him those few seconds before encouraging him to come back with it, he will be more likely to come back and he will get great practice with the self-regulation!
He was a rockstar with the prop games! I think we are seeing latent learning in action here: in the live class, he was good but the food in your hand was definitely something he had to think about. So we didnât see the full behavior in that first session. But then through the magic of latent learning, here it was! Yay!
He had some questions on the reps where he turned to his right (starting on your left) so at 1:07 on the 2nd video, you started him closer and got GREAT hits and you were also able to ad countermotion (which looked terrific too). Compare to the first video when you asked for some left turns with him starting on your right: he was able to do those with more distance.
Video 3 with you moving into the countermotion was really strong too – it took a rep for you to get your mechanics going but then you had it! Same with the new side – one rep to get your mechanics going then you had it. What worked best for him was when you rotated and did the countermotion and changed hands and pointed backwards and looked at the target. So if he started on your right, as he was passing you, you were rotating and then indicating the prop with your left hand and looking back at it (like at :28). When you kept him on the same arm with it crossing your body, your connection and indication was not as clear so he had some questions (:48) unless you stayed closer to the prop (:52). So to build up distance, the changing arms and pointing behind you should be super effective.
The wing wrapping with you in the hair went really well too! There is a definite element of self-control getting built in, because he REALLY wanted the cookies in your hands LOL! Plus, he had free access to the great big work! And yea, he figured out really quickly to go wrap the cone to get the rewards. Yay!
Watch the video in slow motion: look at him bending around the cone, turning his head to slide around it⌠that is an indicator that he is going to be able to turn amazingly well! I am excited!
So the next cone session can be with you getting closer to the cone and standing up, so he sees the picture of you standing. Then you can go to the turn and burn we added this week (you might be able to add that in the same session where you show him standing up.
Great job on these! Onwards to the goat games below đ
TracyGood morning! Hope you had a great weekend!!
>>Found it made a difference in MY arousal level and the work/play session because my attention wasnât split.
That is really interesting! Maybe it felt good and was a relief to just enjoy the time with one dog. I am sure that they enjoyed it too đ
>>>> If he is in a stimulating situation, it can be all about him and then you can help him with the arousal regulation. <<< What is it I can do to help him with his arousal regulation? Definitely a lack of knowledge in this area on my part. Itâs something that is a struggle for Roulez and I donât want to repeat history.>>
We are actually building in a ton of arousal regulation without the pups (or humans haha) even realizing it. All of the back and forth between toys, and using toys before/during/after is about teaching the pups arousal regulation (using food-only in training does not work that as well).
Rewarding all the things is a great way t start teaching it too!
And check out the resilience game each week – the resilience wall helps, and the games we add each week are great for it too, even if you only play it once or two (they don’t need a lot of training đ )
let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
Boring feedback for you today because once again, this looked great.
The reps where you made a little extra eye contact and less âhereâs my handâ were better, and Rogue was quicker to change sides. This was generally when she was going from your right side to your left side, and both of you might be more comfy turning that direction.
Her only question was at :27, when you made eye contact a little late so she didnât quite get the side change. You had your new hand (right hand) out and in position, but blinds re eye-contact based particularly for small dogs, so she was staying on your left side til you made the big eye contact. You were a great trainer in that moment to reward her anyway because that was a handling error and not a Rogue error đ
So two things happened in that oopsie moment:she learned a bit of resilience to handler errors because she didnât have all the info to respond perfectly, and you were like âthatâs cool, you still get rewardedâ. It might seem like a small thing but it is a BIG BIG thing because so many people blame their dogs and donât reward, so the dogs then get anxious when something goes wrong on course.
The other thing was that you then aded more eye contact on the next blinds for the rest of the session, so it went really well! Youâll find with a dog her size that you want to keep your hands behind you as much as possible for blinds so you can seek out her eyes – that makes for great blinds with small dogs.
Lovely work here! You can totally try this with toys too!
Tracy
Good morning, hope you had a great weekend!
I am so glad you are enjoying the live classes! The puppies are all so amazing!The plank worked looked great and I loved Rudyâs âhold my beer, I can do this betterâ moment! Ha! Baxter looked confident but also maybe that it was a little boring LOL! He was happier when you were moving faster and that is fine đ Will Baxter play with toys outside too? If so, you can use toys for this now rather than treats to see if we can get him more amped up about it (although having Rudy get the cookies certainly seemed to get Baxer amped up LOL!)
On the back up video: this is a really good first session!!!!
>>Iâve always had difficulty training my dogs to back up because theyâre small, coated, and I have a hard time seeing their back legs move from my position.>>
I can see how that would make it harder to mark those small movements that are easy to see on dogs without coats! Working on the light colored sheet was very clever and definitely seemed to help with the cookie finding.
I think you marked plenty of good behavior here and he was definitely backing up!!
Have you tried this with you sitting in a chair or on a stool, so you can be lower to see better, plus your back with thank you because there is less bending đ Plus, he will keep his head in a more neutral position (less looking up at you) if you are lower, which will produce more backing up too!
>>Iâm wondering if having him back up to a âthingâ very close would help me visualize and mark his foot movement?>>
Yes, totally can, and it is a game we add in the advanced version and the week 3 version. You can do something like start all four feet on a big flat dog bed, lure his front feet off, then reward him for stepping back on (front feet, because that is part of backing up :)) Then work up to luring back feet barely off, then letting him step back on.
I thought you did a good job on this video but yes, a âthingâ can totally make it easier to see the behavior for both of you đ
Great job!
TracyHi!
We missed you this weekend!! Next time we will figure out a way for you to come đ
She did really well on the wobble board! Yay!
Before you add noise, I think on these shaping games, you can add in more arousal in the form of more tugging before, after, and between the cookies đ She is doing well with her body awareness so adding the arousal will help her understand how to do it when she is more aroused đ Plus, I think she will think it is more fun LOL! So basically you can get her really high and excited with tugging, then let her offer on the wobble board for a few cookie rewards, then back to tugging. If she struggles at all with the added aroma (like loses her balance) then you can add in more stability to the wobble board (like putting towels under it) so that she remains in high arousal but has more body control in the moment.
Then when she is more aroused, you can add in the noise – and the arousal will help her not even hear the noise đ
Looking at the backing up video – she is doing tis really nicely too! She seemed to resisting the temptation to âhoistâ her hind end up onto the board, and was inserted working it foot-by-foot, step-by-step, which is what we want đ So⌠same idea as above: add more tugging before, after, and between cookies đ That will challenge her to be able to do that same great form in higher arousal, which will translate to better hind end use in the trial ring when she will undoubtedly be in higher arousal đ
The prop game for the parallel path is also looking good! She is ever-so-slightly better when she in on your left side (in terms of the coordinated prop touches while moving), so she is probably a bit of a righty. When she was on your right, she was committing to the line of the prop but not quite hitting it as well as when she was on your left. That probably indicates a tiny side preference, which is fine – it is very subtle! So when she is on your left, you can be a bit further away. When she is in your right, stay a bit closer for now so she doesnât have to press any added distance.
You also can drop the click now and use your âfind itâ marker, which will really help ensure that she doesnât look at you at all and keeps her eyes on the line.
And since she did so well here too⌠onwards to working this in higher arousal with toys too!
She was snappy and crisp and fast in the countermotion game – really nice! The toy play helps this skill a lot by raising arousal đ
And remember that you can reward for the âalmostâ moment. For example, at :48 she *almost* hit the prop – you can reward the effort of that and get a little closer on the next rep (that was the only rep in that session where she really was not looking at you when she started – it was like something caught her attention for a heartbeat). When you didnât reward, she did go hit the prop again but then turned the âwrongâ way (away from you, to the right). It was good to reward that but rewarding the rep before it will get her to turn the correct way.
The rest of the session was strong! As you went along in the 2nd half of the session, you did less of that ready dance and more of the send following the toy release⌠and her responses were faster and more accurate following the ready dance. So definitely keep that ready dance in because it gets her primed to drive away from you with as much speed as she drives towards you đ
Turn and Burn – her commitment is looking really strong and you made very fast progress around the barrel here! She definitely loves the chase element as you mentioned – in the early turns and burn reps, she was slower going to the barrel, looking around a bit. But as the session continued and she realized that you were going to run the other way: she started heading to the barrel faster and faster (and with less looking around), possibly because heading to the barrel was predicting the chase-da-momma game which is very exciting!
Towards the end she had a little trouble fuzz-in-mouth-drama LOL and then lost her train of thought – it is possible that the session was just a tiny bit too long and she had trouble maintaining that level of focus in arousal – so you can do two things:– Time the sessions to 2 minutes or less so she doesnât get tired
– Add in leaving earlier and earlier (doing the FC and running the other way), just as she is arriving at the barrel đ That will be SUPER fun because she will drive to the barrel faster to get on with the chase game exit đ
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
She is doing well here too – as she gets more stimulated, she if shifting her weight to her shoulders and hoisting her hind end up to smack it down on the bed LOL It is adorable! But she is losing form of backing up as she gets more excited. In normal sport-mix style, she is working how how to go REALLY FAST without maintaining the form we want LOL!!!
So this goes back to your question about the toys⌠we can use her fabulous toy drive to help her learn to go fast AND maintain form, which is so important! For this game: replace the cookies with the toy, and you can use a release for tugging from your hands (between your feet) as the reward and reset for the next rep, or you can toss the toy to her if she will bring it to you to tug (I believe she will).
To start, go with the toy in your hands and REALLY close to the bed: we are ultra-stimulating her so we want to make form easy (just one step backwards) because internal state is much harder. The goal of the session is not to add distance, but to get her more stimulated and maintain the good form đ
Over the course of several sessions, you can add more distance but keep an eye on form: if she goes to the hoisting of her rear rather than the stepping back with her rear, remove some of the distance so she can maintain good form.
Great job on all of these! It is really cool that we can start working in higher arousal states at this early point in her training!!!!!!
Tracy
Looking at the plankrobatics. She is happy to get up there, happy to leap off it, and definitely improving with turning in a circle. So thinking about your toy question above: you can do this with a toy! Hop on – release to hop off to tug. You use a hand cue to help her turn around – release to hop off to tug. This helps her learn to be coordinated and thoughtful about her body even in moments f higher stimulation.
This will going to have more power from her, so you will want to stabilize the board so she doesnât push it or have it slip out from under her or scare herself. You can switch to a longer, heavier board that is less likely to move, if you have access to one!T
About the tugging – you can add it to games that would be normally food based (like the goat games) and also we can add it to the resilience games. That helps her build her self-regulation of going from high arousal to optimal arousal. That is critical for all dogs! So on the resilience game I posted this week, you can start with food but you can also replace the food with two toys and a ‘you can have the toy in my hand’ marker đ
T
Good morning!
Nice goat games happening here! She seems super confident here so we can try different things. A couple of ideas for you:
You had her approach the same way, every time. Have her switch up which direction she approaches the âthingâ from so she practices that coordination of approach from all the different directions. If she is waiting on a bed or something, you can use a cookie toss to move her to a different starting point, or you can move your position so she approaches it from a different side and different angle each time.
So the next challenge: using relatively stable objects, try the goat games with a toy only đ Can she be coordinated when she is in a higher state of arousal?
And you can also string together a series of these objects into a goat game safari where she walks over them all in a row đ
Onwards to the next video:
Good morning!
Cone wrapping is looking really good! The next steps is going to be her wrapping the cone while you stand up, so you can start the session with you sitting like you did, then after a couple of reps you can move to standing up.
When she is in these shaping games, be very quiet while she is offering and let her self-start and offer. The more you talk to her, the more she looks at you and we donât want to build in looking at you for these commitment games. It is confusing if we talk to the dogs a lot in these games: âwhere do I look, mom? At you or at the cone?â So if she gets stuck, be quiet and let her try to unstuck herself đ And if she canât un-stick herself, you can move the cone in closer or sit down again. You can talk to her during all the play breaks because that is where we want her to happily look at you and engage with you.
Backing up is going well and she is doing it FAST!! She did well when the board didnât move and then also when the board moved. I think she was surprised that the board moved, because she had just done a session on that board where it didnât move. So you can make a more gradual transition to the movement of the board by stuffing a bunch of towels under it, so it moves a tiny bit rather than a whole lot as you go from the stationary board to the moving board. At the end of the 2nd video, you had moved one step away to get more backing up steps and that is great- you can keep adding a step or so each time you train this, to build up the distance, Add it gradually so she doesnât lose her form đ
You might notice that she was looking up at your hands a lot during the backing up sessions, which slows down the backing up offering: It was because you were a little late getting the cookies to her, so she was watching you get the reward out of your pocket.
So have multiple cookies in your hands so you are not having to go into your pocket to get it. What is happening is that she is doing it, you click really well and then you get the cookie out of the pocket so she is lifting her head to watch that happen. And since everything between the click and the reward presentation gets reinforced, she is building in that head lift and watch your hands. That can actually reduce the backing up because it is hard to back up with the head high – so if you have 3 or 4 cookies in your hand already you can click and get the cookie in really fast, so she doesnât look up. Then when your hand is empty, break off for a tug break and reload the cookie hand đ>>On our parallel path â we are having a hard time with her watching me. Any suggestions there?>>
She definitely has value for the prop, so the looking at you was a product of reward timing and placement.
A couple of ideas:
– mark and toss the reward sooner: when you see her locked onto the prop and just about getting to it, click and throw the reward really fast and out ahead of her. You are clicking her commitment to it, rather than waiting to see actual arrival.
– You can also use a verbal â get itâ marker instead of the click, which might be better than a click for two reasons: first, a click tends to get the dogs whipping their eyes around to look at us. And second, the get it marker tells her that you are tossing the treat ahead and the click does not give her that information.
– have several treats in your hands (both hands, ideally, which is another reason to not use the clicker – more hand space for treats!). That way you can mark and toss fast without having to reach into your pocket. You had your hand either moving to your pocket or already in your pocket here, so she is watching the hand-in-pocket action for the same reasons she was watching it during the backing up sessions (the timing of reward gets late when the cookies are not in your hand, so the looking at your hands & pockets gets built in).
This prop game is a great way to help the dogs learn to NOT look at us (and a good way to practice handler mechanics so the dogs donât look at us :))
>>I just could not engage my brain for the send to prop & move away. I clicked as I was moving instead of when she got to the prop.>>
The countermotion is really hard for us humans!!!! Definitely donât use the clicker – it is one more thing you have to coordinate and it isnât necessary for this. So you can just use a marker and a cookie or toy in your hand, and very slow movement away for the countermotion.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHer sending is looking really good!! Great job with the verbal energy of the ready dance moment before the send, to help her understand the switch from handler focus to obstacle focus.
You can make the object even more salient by having it a little lifted, maybe attach it to a book or a small box, to add height to it. She could see it here, but as we add more motion we want to make it easier to see so she can easily process the object and the motion.
She did really well sending, I think her only questions where when you are accidentally on the prop at :26 and the right at the end when you were sending her backwards – she froze for a moment then offered the behavior. That is pretty normal at this stage – I couldnât see your face, so just be sure you are looking at the prop and not at her cute face đ I think one more session of these sideways and backwards sends will set her up nicely to move to the countermotion game we added this week.
Blind cross video:
She did a marvelous job of going from cookies to toy in terms of switching value & type of reinforcement. I think the hardest part was that she might have been doing it too fast, and was coughing up a cookie. So you can wait til you see her get the cookie and open her mouth (usually a sign of swallowing) and then you can start the running away for the cross element of the game.
In the 2nd video, she was not coughing up the cookie so things moved faster which is GREAT – she did a great job switching focus on the 2 tasks here (get the cookie, follow the momma) and that sets up a great foundation for all of the task switching we need in sports đIn these sessions, you were doing front crosses with your feet rotating towards her – it is a valuable cross to rehearse for sure! So on the next session, you can change to the blinds to rehearse those too. For the blinds, your feet can be moving towards the camera the whole time as you look behind you to see her over one shoulder then disconnect by looking forward for a tiny heartbeat moment⌠then look behind you to see her over the other shoulder.
That disconnect moment is NOT comfortable for us humans đ as we work with the puppies, so keep reminding yourself to look forward away from her for that heartbeat before looking back for her on the other side of you. It is that switch in eye contact from one side to the other that cues the blind cross side change for her.
Great job!! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>>Ha! Still working on that! Seems like all of the progress that we had made on her start line has disappeared since pregnancy. The first few times we trialed, not so bad. The last 2 â horrible. Going to UKI next weekend and the plan is train, train, train! To be truthful, there have not been a lot of rules in her life since pregnancy and she needs consistent boundaries. And I think having another dog added to the pack and training , even though it is her pup, has been an adjustment for her.
>>Yes, pregnancy and puppy rearing is probably hard on the body and brain, so it might take her a while to get back into the sport groove and that is fine! Lots of rewards and fun times will help.
And yes, I agree that adding another dog to the pack does require an adjustment period.
>>The humping did come during a high energy play session. Yes, I do need and will start bringing them each outdoors by themselves for play and training. It used to be Tchoup that I worried about hurting him in play, but with the frisbee Roulez goes off the chain>>
So since we know that arousal regulation is a key component that train early on, it sounds like the humping was a high arousal moment where he didnât know how to self-regulate because he is so young. At this stage and through adolescence, the best thing is to just not have him in situations like that where he is not the sole focus. If he is in a stimulating situation, it can be all about him and then you can help him with the arousal regulation. Otherwise, he canât regulate, does something like humping and might end up in a time out which can be very frustrating for a puppy. So, we help the baby dogs or we play with the adults separately (which the adults appreciate a LOT lol!!)
On the parallel path, you can do more back and forth. You donât need to always start one direction. That can get more reps in on both sides of you so he works both sides.
For the parallel path, you will get more clarity of hits with food rewards – the toy might be a little too stimulating as the thrown reward, because he is a looking up at it a little bit rather than to the prop. So you can toss the cheese as the reward then go back and forth after the cheese toss, breaking out some toy play after every 2 or 3 cookie tosses. When he has more experience with the parallel path game, you will be able to go back to the toy reward.
The sending game looked strong! Remember to walk away as you add the countermotion, and not run away (everyone wants to run, we all ned to be on Team Chill hahaha). When you ran away, he was anticipating that and the hitting of the prop was diminishing. If you are walking the whole time, he will be able to commit to the prop better – then we will build it up to running over time. Motion is distracting!
Also, letâs quiet the environment: when you are moving on your line past the prop, be quiet đ Your verbal excitement can come during the tugging breaks đ And also, he will do better if he learns this without the barking dog (Roulez?) nearby. You can see at the beginning in particular that the barking splits his focus and he had a harder time doing the game. Plus, she barks when YOU get excited, so he doesnât get a chance to learn that the verbal praise is a good thing because it predicts frustration barking.
By comparison – in the wobble session, no barking and you were relatively quiet while he was offering – and he was able to offer immediately!! Perfect! He didnât have to split his attention. Looked great!!!
>>I really ha to work hard to get him to tug after using cheese but I used cheese (higher value treat) >>
Yes, the cheese made a big impact on him in a VERY good way! But that is good, it was a very smart training move!
And yes, it is harder to get back on the toy when he is surrounded by the cheese smell, so you can use motion to your advantage there: it was a great long toy, so you can run around dragging it so he chases it – that can really match the value of the cheese! And tugging on the wobble board at the end was great too, you did it in flow of the game and he looked like he was having a great time!!!Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
Wow, she is offering that wrap at a pretty significant distance! Impressive!!! All of this will really build to amazing commitment on course. Good girlie!!!
You found the edge of the ‘bubble’ when she stopped offering for a heartbeat (“mom, I forgot what I was doing” hahaha”. The edge of the bubble is the distance where she is not as comfortable moving ahead of you. That happened twice, and both times she was able to get back to wrapping which is really impressive resilience!
Upcoming games will help expand the bubble even more, so for now the best next step is to move to the turn and burn game that we added on Wednesday. That game involves you starting close to the wing again because it adds in a send and doesn’t use the targets – but she will be fine with that and we will eb able to move you away again.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
