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Good morning! I love unedited videos because we get a BIG picture!!!
I think Roulez answered our question about being indoors or outdoors… she was barking for much this session which distracted you a bit and might have distracted him too: lots of sniffing and trouble getting back on the toy might be more of a distraction issue or him feeling the pressure of running directly towards the barking, especially when her bark was a litle more frustrated. It is especially challenging for him, because she is literally his mother LOL!
You can see on the 2nd video he was taking a longer time to run towards the barking – yes, he did do it but I think it is too much pressure for the baby dog and he can now have all of the training sessions to himself, no momma out there barking.
Your blind cross mechanics were awesome 🙂 And he transitioned back to the tug at the end of the first video really well (note: no barking momma at that point LOL!) and also at the very end of the 2nd video, when Rou finally quieted.
So keep all of the good mechanics, connection, and focus on him and toy/treat balance – and Roulez can hang out indoors (sorry Rou, not sorry LOL!!!) and then she can have a turn while baby Audie is resting 🙂
Tracy
Hi!
>>and I just realized there have been no ‘accidental blood lettings’ from her!!
I LOVE that there are no bloody sessions!!
For tugging after the plank – moving further from it was GREAT because the plank is heavily associated with food and that makes the transition harder indeed. You can use a longer toy so you don’t have to bend over as much, so she can chase it as you drag it. She prefers the chase and also likes to move towards you with the toy. She does not appear to like it when you touch her a lot – she either moves away or doesn’t tug as hard. So go with her preferred play style for now – chasing and driving to you, rather than touching or tapping her.
>> but then after food I can almost see her trying to brake her food brain to refocus on toy.>>
This might be exactly what is happening! There is definitely a good processing challenge happening here!
Two other things to consider as you build up the tugging:
– try to avoid using the tunnel as a stimulator because we don’t want to build in extra arousal to the tunnel or rely on it because it is not always available. Instead, you can get the tugging going by dragging the toy and having her chase a long exciting toy. Note how at 1:30ish you dragged the toy and she was really engaged! Yay!– to get the toy back, you can relax your hands and keep them low, then trade for a cookie. The order of festivities is tug tug tug, relax your hands for 2 seconds, then take a cookie out and put it on her nose 🙂 This will help develop the out. When you get it out of her mouth then lift it, she jumps up for it at 1:06 (which could result in accidental blood-letting :)) so the cookie trade will help her relax and give the toy back.
Great job on these!! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood job on the plank game here! She definitely has strong value for interacting with it!!! Yay! And you were being super good with quick rewards and not using too much body language to help her.
>> She doesn’t seem deterred to me if her hind end slips off.>>
I think that the low food delivery for the turns was causing the hind end to slip off a bit, so you can try a higher delivery: for the turns, it is 100% fine to lure her 🙂 so you can show her the cookie at nose-height (neutral head position with her chin parallel to the floor: neither lifted up or pointed down). The slowly lead her nose through the turn. That might help he rkeep all 4 feet on – but reward her anyway if a foot slips off, because our teenage pups are still learning how to use all 4 of those feets 🙂
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
Only 5 hands required? That is great LOL!!! I love working mechanics on these types of games!
One suggestion is to get rid of the clicker – now that we have reward markers, we simply don’t need it nd that will open up more hands to use.
Before she enters the training session, have the cookies ready in your hand – even if it is only 2 or 3 cookies, you want them to be ready for delivery so that you can reinforce the targeting immediately (and if you don’t use the clicker, you will have hand space available).
You might notice in this session that she was looking at your hand/pocket a lot, even pacing a big near your cookie hand/pocket – that is because of the reward timing. Everything that happens between the marker (or click) and the reward delivery gets built into the behavior (I have learned this one the hard way LOL!) So after the click, you had to reach into the pocket to get the cookie, which drew her over to the cookie and pocket… which is a couple of seconds of delay and builds in looking at the cookie and pocket 🙂 an not as much looking at the target.
So if the cookie is already in your hand, you can be super quick: she touches the target, you say ‘get it’ and toss the cookie away. She will then look more at the target and less at the cookie hand.
Nice work! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi again!
He definitely did well with the wobble board! Super confident little dude 🙂 Look at that weight shift while tugging!!As he grows, two suggestions for the wobble board stuff:
– get a bigger one 🙂 He will need one that is probably 36 inches on each side big enough that he can stand fully on it without scrunching up. It doesn’t have to be fancy, just big LOL!
– add a yoga mat or carpet or something to the surface of the wobble board so he can really grip it and not slip at all.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>WE live isolated, if we would not get out – he would see no one!
I can totally relate! You are doing a great job of finding ways for him to get out and about. This flea market was an amazing place for a resilience walk: SO MUCH TO SEE AND SMELL AND HEAR!!!! WOW!!
You did an excellent job of keeping the leash loose, letting him set the pace – stoppng when he needed to stop, moving when he wanted to move. Perfect, a big click/treat for you because we humans like to help too much sometimes LOL!!
It was really interesting to see his body language tell us where he was very confiden and where he had to explore more! He was definitely a little more into the need to explore indoors (note the lower tail that got higher as he walked through the indoor section).
Also a great moment was when he saw people – they greeted them, he greeted them… then he walked away and that was GREAT! It happened twice. He prefers that strangers do NOT bend down or lean over him (makes sense, I don’t like it either haha) so you were great about letting him step away as needed. This is perfect for emotional regulation!
And taking him on a hike is great for clearing his brain – perfect 🙂
Monday morning puppy play videos? YES PLEASE! So cute!!!
Play has SO MANY benefits!!!!
With puppies, we look for well-matched play meaning that they reverse positions a lot (sometimes one puppy is on the ground with the other on top, then the switch!). We also look to see if one puppy is overwhelmed and trying to get away, or if a puppy gets over-stimulated.
I saw only good things here, and Charlie was showing different play styles of match the different puppies:
With the Corgi, he was a little more laid back and beginning to do some of the reversal – and we saw more of that with the cattle dog pup! And with the BC in the 3rd video, there was more side-by-side play. So fun to see and also SO CUTE!!
And this type of play has a lot of benefits in terms of resilience. These seemed to be great play partners for him! How old were the other pups?
Very fun to play tug at the flea market! Because it is a really challenging environment, you can bring a MUCH bigger crazier toy. And if he disengages for a moment to look at something? That is perfectly fine and actually a very good thing in terms of processing the big world around him – so let him do it, wait til he re-engages, then offer the toy again.
The treats were very high value so he was nicely focused on them!!! I think if you are going to ask for tricks or behaviors, just ask for the same one a couple of times then be finished, rather than ask for a variety because it is hard for him to distinguish them all. The paw tricks are perfect here because there are easy and the cue is clear. The backing up is harder, because he was just following the cookie so wasn’t really sure what to do. His engagement was fabulous and it is so fun to see!
Great job 🙂
TracyGood morning, hope you had a good weekend 🙂
>>I think you mean Prop Game 1: Building Sends… in week 1? I haven’t gotten that far yet but will add it in.>
Yes – the Prop Game 1 from week 1. She is ready for it 🙂
>>I think this is the session where Mai said she was done. It went like this: after a stare-single bark-stare, she went around one more time and we ended the session.>>
I rewatched that video and can see the ‘clack’ (beginnings of the bark?” at the very end 🙂 I think you might have reached the limit of the distance she could do at that moment. When building up distance, we can take a pinp-pong approach to variably reinforcing short distances then longer distances then back to short then longer and so on, with the goal of eventually getting the bigger distances over the course of multiple sessions.
>> When she barks at me, I ignore it though I noted she was ready for a change. Happy to show something similar if/when it happens again.>>
I like that approach: note the feedback from the dog, help the dog if needed, end the session. That allows you to figure out if the session was to long, or the challenge to difficult, so you can come to the next session with tat in mind.
Very nice job on the decel and turn foundation! PERFECT low hand set up a solid neutral head position for her – that is the head position that will work well for her agility turns. You were also really good about benig solidly decelerated well in advance, so she had plenty of time to make the transition into collection. Super!! You can see it most notably on the last rep starting at 1:03, and you can also hear it in the footfalls on the mat! Very cool!
You can bring this game to different surfaces, such as grass or dirt, so she can practice this on different substrates.
I know you mentioned that you might not ever do agility in terms of competing, but you sure do have the great mechanics and training skills needed for it if you ever decide you want to!
>>I also did a quick blind cross session this morning. I will send a link later.>>
Yay! Looking forward to the link! And if you have more thank one session ready to post, you can totally post them together.
Great job!
TracyWho can relate? Travel to family for the holiday then a VERY busy work weekend… so I did very little puppy training and no videos.
No worries! This is pretty normal – no need to feel behind. The puppy had plenty of play time, a little moment of training here and there, lots of activity. I will carve out some video time later. This is all part of the normal joys of puppy raising: sometimes you can stuff done in terms of formal training, sometimes you get zero formal training done LOL!!!
It is actually fine as it builds in some breaks for the puppy. We don’t want to do formal training sessions multiple times every day, or even every day. It is fine to have days where it is just about play and enjoyment with no training goals. So far today, puppy Ramen has gotten a big run in the field with “sister” and BFF Hot Sauce, while I took photos of the ultra cuteness 🙂
Just figured I would post this because it is a normal part of the training adventures with baby dogs. I don’t want anyone to feel time-pressured, or like they are ‘behind’ in the training (because you are not behind at all!).
Enjoy!!
TracyGood morning! This went well – he is really wanting to extend and power through his jumping – yay!!!!
I agree, I think his setup position on the 2nd rep was a little awkward so the bar dropped. He almost never drops a bar, so I am not worried if he does.
At :51 he added a stride, not sure why but maybe it was the added motion? He didn’t add it again so it is interesting to note in the ‘he will sort it out’ category 🙂
My only other thought on this session is to do the 8 inch height earlier in the session, so there is no possible fatigue factor. When you went to 8 on the 2nd to last rep, he was definitely “heavier” in his jumping which means he did it but it was harder (harder height and possibly fatigued). Save the easier heights for the end of the session 🙂
But overall, because he did so well with the front sides and backsides, I want to see if you can extend the distance between the 2 jumps: the wings were overlapped here so you can move them maybe 3 or 4 inches so they overlap a little less and see how he does 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
He did well moving through the plank to the wrap! That looked really good.
On the first wrap without the plank, two things happened: the plank was still clearly visible, plus you pushed him off the line too fast so he never had a moment to find the wing to wrap. He was fine after that!In these fading sessions, you can work both sides at this point, and also minimize reps – this circle wrap is the hardest jumping effort when a full height bar is involved, so I would limit to 5 reps on each side. That can make for a 10 total rep session with good balance (this was something like 13 reps to the left). This is especially good to limit if he had already done for or 5 reps of the zig zags, which is 12-15 jumps too. The physical therapy people have taught me to obsessively count jumping efforts during training LOL!
>> usually what would be the top jump of a spread out pinwheel where I’m running like hell for a cross and almost always I don’t see them fall, only hear them>>
Ah yes, hearing them fall and not seeing them could be contributing to the processing question he is asking – the withdrawal of connection changes what gets prioritized in processing so the jumping form takes a back seats as he tries to process your motion and handling info.
The zig zags are going well! At this height, the distance is actually a tiny bit too short so he is jumping in collection. It looks like you can replace the wingless in between each jump with a wing, maybe hooking the bar on the lattice to ad another 6 inches or so?
At this stage, jump height and motion are going well so we can focus on flattening the angles more to get more side-to-side jumping. Reduce the height challenge by going back to 4 inches and angles the jumps flatter by about 2 or 3 inches, and see how he does! You can keep your motion in there, I think that will help him.
Great job! Have fun!
TracyGood session here! I see a good improvement already!
Yes, the motion did make it harder so you can dial back the motion like you did for another session or two, or also change sides – maybe she is a righty not a lefty? These were left turns so on the next session try it as right turns on the other wing and see if that helps her. Otherwise, it is just something that will cement through practice (and sleep because she will consolidate her learning through sleep!). So you might not see things improve immediately in the session, but you will see the improvements in the next session.Great job :) Tracy
Good morning!
Yes, mechanics are a big focus of mine, I love to obsess on good mechanics LOL!! Good mechanics really help the pups and allow us to problem solve better, if that is needed 🙂
>> It’s a mystery how I’ve survived to an advanced age while being so uncoordinated.>>
Just the opposite! You are NOT uncoordinated 🙂 Dog training mechanics are really all about having everything planned and then being almost motionless while the dog is offering… and that is really freaking hard 🙂 We all like to move or help, whether we realize it or not 🙂
Keep up the great work!
TracyHi again! Really terrific sessions here too.
I love his bridge of various objects here, superstar! There was a lot of different texture and movement, but not too much difference. You were a patient momma and let him sort it out: perfect! I would revisit this setup, exactly as you had it here, at least once a week so he can practice this skill as his body continues to grow.
Feet-in-a-bowl looked good too – it is a very thoughtful exercise for a pup and the game changes every time he grows LOL! When you sat a little taller and lifted the treats, he was able to figure out to put all 4 feet in – so keep going with that little bit of help. And after that, he was greatly about getting all four feet in.
As with the other game, you can play this once a week or so because it will be different every time he gets bigger 🙂 It will get harder to fit in the bowl, but that is great because he will think about his hind end 🙂
You can also add a little discrimination game: when the bowl is placed as you had it here, he should put all 4 feet in. When you turn it upside down, you can shape him to put all four feet ON it! That is a great puppy visual discrimination game 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
The plank intro looks great! He was every happy to get on and off it, good boy! I love his confidence. He was turning around really well too – you might have to slow down the cookie hand that is helping him turn because he needs a moment to remember all his feet LOL!
So you can stop him in the middle of the board, give a cookie, then slowly lead his nose around. You can also practice these slow turns on the flat too! At 1:30, you used a very slow hand and he was perfect 🙂
Great job!!!
Tracy
