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Hi!
>Do you have thoughts on what I should work on? We said the deceleration part 2 with go and maybe the parallel based on your feedback from today. Would the pattern game be too soon?>
Anything that you think he does well with at home and that you both enjoy is perfect for the rental! The environment will be a bit harder so keep the sessions to 90 seconds or 2 minutes to avoid him getting brain tired.
I do think the pattern game is perfect to bring to the rental, as well as any fast-and-fun wrapping or baby handling games.
He did really well with the parallel path game! He had a harder time on your left side – looking at you more. You might be putting a lot of value for walking on your left, maybe? So he might have thought that looking at you is more valuable (at first) then he remembered to go to the prop. He didn’t have that question on your right, he was happy to find the prop without looking at you as much.
You can also build in more tug breaks so he stays pumped up and the game is not too repetitive. That will get even more speed especially when you want him to drive ahead of you 🙂
Your timing of waiting for engagement was good with the pattern game! This game is one of the ways we get engagement in a new place, so waiting for him to look at you is key. He definitely liked it – check out how he started to wag his tail and engage faster once he figured out how fun the game is 🙂 The next step is to add a leash to this game, so he get used to engaging while on leash (and so you get comfy having the leash and cookies).
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi!
>’m going into our sessions without as clear a plan as I normally have with Ripley because I don’t know where our toy drive and food/toy switching will be day to day with Vibe.>
That is a really interesting observation! And I can totally see how that makes planning more challenging. From the view of getting to watch the videos, I think you are both doing GREAT.
>Some of it did show up but not super cleanly YET.>
To clarify, I am also a big fan of dirty training LOL! By that, I mean adding in arousal, goofy noises, not looping, etc is all good! I tend to look to avoid things that we might tell the pup they are wrong to do in the future – such as sending themselves to the prop or obstacle. So it is a bit of inserting that engagement to be able to cue starts more, and the rest can be fun fun fun and a bit wild/freeform in some ways. Being tooooo precise or loopy can suck the fun out of the puppy games.
I think we are totally on the same page, and the video lets us see different things in his movement and his thought processes 🙂
>Another milestone that might or might not be visible in the video, but we’ve got “ears up” this week – they’re big and adorable.>
OMG SO CUTE!!! They fit his face perfectly.
The handling games were a fun way to see how well he could go back and forth from food to toys to food. He did great and was happy to do all of the elements: driving away to the cookie, driving back to you, pivot, toy play: all look lovely! My only suggestion is to decelerate after the blind – if you didn’t decelerate, he was not prepared for the pivot and was a bit wide. When you did feel he was nice and tight to your leg.
It is fun to see how much he really loves the hugs-and-kisses interaction – that is going to be a fun thing to use in sport as well as a great relationship builder in life 🙂
For the taking-of-the-toy moment when you asked him to take the toy from your hand, you might need to be out of hugs-and-kises position 😂 he was like “why take toy when we can do hugs-and-kisses?” LOL!
Having the toy off to the side was a bit clearer and you an also sit on something low, just to present a different picture.
Retrieving went really well and he got the hugs-and-kisses reward too as part of that 🙂
He loved the long toy at the end! You can get more hind end weight shifting (like he did when tugging with Ripley) by ‘fake pulling’ on the toy so he can really pull back. What I mean by ‘fake pulling’ is using a hand-over-hand motion and sliding your hands up the toy, so it looks like you are really pulling on it (but you are only adding a little bit of toy tension). He will likely see it as really pulling and will tug harder with a good weight shift. I have a video *somewhere* of the fake pulling if the description doesn’t make sense 🙂
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi!
The proofing game went great after the first rep 🙂 She was definitely surprised that the tunnel was not the right answer there LOL!!
But then she locked in and was brilliant on the serps and with the tunnel cues for the rest of the session on both sides. Super!!
Only one suggestion: You can have your serp arm already up and back while you walk to position on the serp reps, so you don’t move it and release at the same time (protecting the stay release so she doesn’t think arm motion is the release.
Since this went so well, you can move to the advanced levels by adding the threadle cue and also adding moving into the serp and tunnel cues (releasing while you are walking, so definitely have your arm up before you start walking on those).
She is looking really good with the grid – the jumps being angled were not a problem at all. Super!! She definitely understands the concept, so now move to using the moving target as the reward. T
he stationary target is great for teaching the concept, but she is spending her time after jump 2 sorting out how to slow down to a stop 🙂 And we want her to continue to power with her rear over 2 and 3, so you can drag a toy for her to drive too. She has worked the moving target (the video is posted on Jan 27) but you can use a higher profile toy so her head doesn’t get quite as low. A really big hollee roller would be perfect!
I am glad her in person class is also showing her this grid – I totally recommend the moving target for the in person class too 🙂 Yes, they might think you are NUTS but you can blame me for it – it produces outstanding, powerful jumping and dogs that don’t struggle jumping when the handler is moving 🙂
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi!
>I’ll decrease the distance, for now, on the Go work, but keep the distance when doing the RC. Hopefully that will help her drive forward.>
Perfect! The initial Go work can be a warm up with a slightly shorter distance, then I bet once she is mentally warmed up the bigger distance will work well for both the Go and the RCs 🙂
>I’ve been working on tugging for 30 seconds after the recalls so either I edited that part out in the previous video, or I spaced out that part of our recall work.>
You can also let her win the toy at the end of the session so she can keep it (and eventually we trade for something else, or she brings it back or leaves it when you go back into the house).
The jump session went well! I think the distances might be a little too short at this point (she is getting more power!) so you can add 6 inches to each gap for the next session and see how it goes.
She had a couple of questions about the stay when you took the cookie out of your mouth – and also she might be predicting a rhythm to the release after you stop moving (the # of seconds before the release, for example). Great job adding in rewards for the stay! And mix up the amount of time before the release so she is not guessing – we humans are so predictable LOL!!
The rep at 1:38 – 1:44 was ideal in terms of her start position (nice and close!), excellent connected lead out, cookie in the bowl before the release, and she jumped it really nicely.
For the next session: add the moving target! She is ready for it and it will add more power as well as keeping her head position over the 3rd jump. The moving target will also help her deal with handler motion while she is jumping. I don’t predict she will have any struggles with her jumping with the moving target but you will probably want to continue rewarding lots of stays 🙂
> I think I may have had the dish a bit too close the the 3rd jump as it looks like she is having to pull up before she takes that “jump”. What do you think?>
What you were seeing was that the target was not moving, so she was indeed preparing to stop by pulling up. The moving target will smooth that over 🙂
Great job!
Tracy
Hi!
I agree – looking GREAT! YAY!!!
Stay looks great, he is powering into the grid, and he is also consistent: not losing his balance or getting too forward. Really lovely!!All the reps here had the stationary target… time to add the moving target, no more stationary target. Yes, I know that many people only ever use the stationary target but I add th moving target for two reasons:
– if you watch in slow motion, his takeoff and jumping of 1 and 2 are repeatedly lovely. But because the target is stationary, he is changing his form consistently on jump 3 (to slow down and stop). You can see I more clearly in slow motion. The moving target maintains the great form on all 3 jumps!
– the moving target adds the challenge of maintaining good form when YOU are moving too! That is hard for most agility dogs so we add it now 🙂
You can use a big hollee roller on a long toy as the moving target, or you can put the Treat n Train on wheels and drag it (yes, I have done that, piano leg wheels work great for that LOL!)
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi!
I don’t mind using balls (I use them all the time :)) as long as they are landed and not moving so the dogs don’t drive their shoulders into the ground or leap into the air trying to chase them if they are bouncing around.
Her ball retrieve looks great here, so I am sure the Fetch event will go well! She even retrieved with target practice happening in the background (although that might be part of why it took her longer to find the ball on that rep – the brain gets distracted with gunshots in the background even if she is not afraid).
Side note: with such a lovely ball retrieve (along with her other lovely skills) you should totally consider flyball training with her 🙂
Looking the parallel path game:
>Parallel Path transfer concepts went okay; she wanted to be very close to me (because I had the cookies!). >
Yes – the 2 instances where she did not get on the line were when you were walking but had your hand in your cookie pocket, or when you had a cookie in your hand but no connection to her eyes as you walked forward (when we disconnect, the pups look at us more).
>She seemed to do better when I was able to point on the line versus letting her walk herself.>
When you were throwing the treat, she was following the cookie and then when you were pointing – it looked enough like a cookie throw that she was looking forward.
But also, she had plenty of good reps where you were not pointing: on those reps, you were looking at her and you did not have your hand in the cookie pocket.
>Should I be pointing (I assume I could be doing that in agility but also she needs to learn to go on the straight line if she is ahead of me).>
I agree that we want her to look at the line as you move. So try not to point – instead, have the treat in your opposite arm (ready to throw). Move along the line looking at her, with the dog side arm pointing at her or relaxed at your side. Then when she moves to the jump, you can use your ‘get it’ marker and throw the cookie out ahead. That can help lock her on. The line for sure!
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
She did really well here! Part of the challenge was processing the environment (distractions in general plus some jealousy barking in the background) but she quickly figured out getting on the plank. Yay!
When turning her, she was losing her balance a bit because your hand was moving fast so you can slow down the hand movement and I bet she has no questions about turning around.
Do you have any blocks that you can put under the plank to raise it up a bit? 6 inches off the ground would be a perfect height to raise it, because she will get even more practice balancing on it and hopping off. You can also cue position changes (sit, down, stand) with a cookie lure so she can use her body even more.
Great job!
Tracy
This game went well! Thankfully you have the big piece of shaded area in your yard – I guess you are getting into the late summer heat.
He worked really well in the heat here! He found the prop nicely on the parallel path, but I think he preferred the action of the sending 🙂 To add more action to the parallel path, you can move faster. And you can start close to him for him to drive ahead (and then you can add rear crosses).
The sends were super fun! The clearer the send cue from you, the better he drove to the prop: when you were doing the ‘ready ready’ before the send, he was at his best. Fast and snappy! Holding the sit was a bit harder, so you can lead out to your start position then throw a reward back to him for holding the stay. He is developing lovely commitment when you are moving away, as long as you don’t pull away too quickly. Keeping the motion steady will hero you be able to move away earlier and earlier.
Great job here!
Tracy
Hi! I hope the coming weeks are easier!
>Will we be layering that control into the training in maxpup 2 or am I doing something wrong?>
You are doing nothing wrong 🙂 We will be layering in the stay element of holding the stay and looking forward, so he doesn’t blast into the work without you 🙂
Tracy
Good morning! These games are going well!
Good job starting with the warm up & getting her to hit the prop! And the parallel path game is going well!
>until I started adding distance. >
I see what you mean, she had a little bit of question about whether to stay at your side or go to the prop. That might have been because you were holding the cookies up high In front of you – that might have been accidental cue to focus on you. You can try it with your arms more at your side and even swinging naturally as you move.
The sending looked great! Strong commitment and value!
Of note: she turned to her left here on all of the reps. When she was sending from your left hand, that was the ‘correct’ turn because it was turning towards you. When she sent from your right hand, she turned away from you to turn to her left. That is good to know about her turn preference! To help her turn to her right on the sends, you can be further from the prop in the right turn direction to help encourage her to turn to her right more.
For the backing up – getting her to come forward between your feet was perfect! We can change the reward placement to get her backing up even more:
After placing the start cookie between your feet, keep your hands down low, just below your knees. Then as she backs up, toss the cookie back between her feet so she keeps moving away to get it. When you were standing up after the start cookie, her head was coming up high to look at you and then when the reward was delivered to her mouth, she figured you wanted her to stand or sit right there. So keeping the cookies low and throwing them to keep her head low and keep her moving will make a big difference 🙂Because there is a lot of bending involved to keep your hands low for her head position and treat throwing, you can totally sit on the couch that was behind you in the 2nd video!
You can sit on the edge so there is enough room to place the start cookie – and have your elbows rest just above your knees with the cookie hands hanging in front of you. That can make it easier to get the rewards in low and tossed, without taking your back angry from the bending over.
Nice work here!
Tracy
Hi!
>also being cooped up for weeks since the ice storm.>
Yes, this winter has been NUTS. And also yes, the FOMO can lead to the frustration in the session because puppies are not great at arousal regulation yet. Will he chew a bone or lick cream cheese from a toy while his sister is working?
He might have had trouble tugging in the first video because the toys were small and he didn’t want to grab your hand by accident! We appreciate that, Moth! So maybe try a really long fuzzy toy and see how he does with the tugging. Pivoting at your side looked lovely – nice and tight in both directions!
If you have a long hallway with rugs or carpet (or mats) you can add in more distance: let him chase a cookie to one end of it while you move the other way. That way you can let him see you changing your motion to decelerate, so he sets up his mechanics to collect for the turn. And you can take this outside whenever the weather is decent enough to do so.
The foot targeting went really well as soon as he realized that was what you wanted. When the shoe was on the floor as he jumped off the chair, he kind of interacted with it but also looked at you.
But then as soon as you made the shoe more of the focal point and officially started the game with the cookie toss: game on! Good boy!!
His value for this is really strong, so you can move to the other prop games now (sending and parallel path games).
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
Oh yes, this is looking lovely!! The reward placement and focusing on the lower hands made a big difference, plus having the target mat lower helped too!
The only thing I would add here is to give him breaks after every 2 or 3 reps. This is a workout! And there is a definite ‘feel the burn’ factor for the pups where it gets physically tiring. After the first 90 seconds, he was actually pushing with his front feet more than backing up with his back feet – probably because he was tired 🙂 So do a rep or two, then let him move around freely so the ‘burn’ (lactic acid build up) goes away, then do a couple more reps. His form looks great so you definitely don’t need to do a lot of reps here – it is something to revisit maybe once a week as he grows. We will also soon be adding having him backing up onto something that moves.
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
>We have rental at Dash on Saturday with our friends again so I can try any of the games with more room.>
Fun! I bet he will have a blast!
>Countermotion: duh. I keep forgetting the little dance before>
That is the hardest part for us humans LOL!
>So I had video fail today. Tried to do part 2 deceleration. We had tried the bc to turn before but was going to add on the go to see if I have right idea to try it at the rental. Sad to say my video zoomed in.>
Darned video! I bet it went really well and he will do well adding the GO in at the rental.
Excellent job with turn and burn! You were very patient with letting him get to the line then doing the FC to the reward. He had no questions when you moved the line – it is very impressive to get it more than halfway around in just the first session! Wow! He was brilliant and your mechanics really supported that. He was great on the rep the other direction, just be sure you don’t forget the line so you don’t turn too early or too late 🙂
>Not sure why I didn’t think to turn our path the other way so I could move more >
Yes, you can turn it so you have more room to really run 🙂 And you can use a toy as the reward and add your wrap verbals too!
>I added a fun clip from my class last night. It was a movement puzzle through a noisy curtain and baby tunnel. His cavalettis skills need some work but he had a blast. This was our 2nd time through the puzzle. We thought about doing a video later so Dublin got an extra turn.>
OMG! That is such a fun puppy class game!! Dublin was very happy to get a 2nd turn LOL! Curtain and tunnel? No problem at all. He thought the cavalettis were baby jumps (a little too high and too far apart to truly trot) plus the allure of the food bowl was very exciting 🙂 I also love how comfy he was working around all the people and the other pup, even driving to the other person. It was a great confidence booster of a game 🙂
Great job here!!
Tracy
It is really interesting!! There is a high percentage of dogs that turn the same way their tail goes. We have to take out the answers from all the people who have dogs that do not have the curled-over tail set LOL!!!
Good morning!
>He tends to be very focused and serious when we train so it’s still hard to get him to go from “work” to toy play, but getting better.>
This is such a good thing to balance in these early stages, because it is definitely easy for pups (herding breeds in particular) to get very locked into the reward value of ‘work’ and not switch to play or other rewards easily. Your efforts here are definitely going to pay off!!
>We’re still working on fluent arousal mobility.>
Yes, it is great to be playing with that too! Trying to install it at every level of brain development is also going to pay off in sooooo many ways: regulation, resilience, improved access to what he has learned when he is aroused, and more.
Looking at the video:
Oooh that big new toy is COOL! So much great stuff here! His value for the prop is exactly where we want it, which will let you build up even more fun variations to add to a jump in the future 🙂 And he was adding distance by sliding it further away on the countermotion game LOL!He was definitely switching from toy to work to toy nicely. One thing to start adding now is a clearer bit of info about when that switch should happen. What I mean by that is proximity to or availability of the work is not the cue, but rather than progression of toy out on cue then wait for cue from da momma to do the work thing.
Two examples of what I mean: Lovely toy play at the beginning! When the prop went in at :17 ish it was a little unclear about whether the tugging was going to continue or he should go to the prop. He stopped tugging but was looking at the toy then you sent to the prop. So you can actually slow down the moment a bit by asking for the toy back, then sending to the prop.
At :28 when you were tugging near the prop, he left to the toy to go to the prop because you were near it.
So you can keep the toy play a little further from the work for now, get the toy back so there is a clear moment of tug-over, work-start. That will make it even easier for him and more predictable in a good way 🙂 and will also reduce errors in the future, where he might offer work if he is near it but not when it has been cued. Let me know if that makes sense or if I need more coffee haha!
Parallel path game looked great here, easy peasy! You can take the clicker out now an replace it with just using your ‘get it’ marker – the clicker was creating looking at you even when you did use the marker, because the click draws his focus to you, then he tracks the reward throw. The marker alone will keep him looking forward nicely.
And you can add more distance away from you on that parallel line. If the weather is cooperating, you can totally add in taking this outside to get more distance! You might need to start close to the prop to make sure he has the same value for it outside – or you might not need that at all because he is really good at generalizing things already. I bet if you take it outside and ask him what he knows, he will happily smack the prop.
Looking at the countermotion: He is again showing a marvelous ability to ignore the distraction (you moving away with the toy) while continuing to work. Good boy!!!! Very nice ability to continue to the prop while you are moving the other way.
Next steps on the countermotion game is to clarify the cues to start moving to the prop and expose to it – that will give a clear start to the work which will increase the speed to the prop (he was slowing down a bit on the way to it) and also let him know that the presence of the ‘work’ does not mean it is actually available.
To do this, add more of an antecedent (or a slightly different one) to go to the prop after the cookie reward – in the video, you were moving after he ate the cookie so he was looping right back to the prop.
Instead of that, you can ‘expand’ the loop by calling him too you for engagement – can be tugging, can be a bit of the ready dance, anything that is rewarding because we don’t want him to send himself and get called back (that can be confusing/frustrating) – then take a moment of engagement before doing a big rotated send to the prop.
What you will see by adding that is explosion to the prop and even better commitment (he already has really good commitment) which will let you use countermotion too!
By staying in continuous motion, he was slowing down on the way to the prop: trotting to it then galloping back to you. The moment of engagement allow us to get the gallop to the prop and maintain the gallop back to you as well 🙂 It is how we get the tremendous drive away from us (even in collection) along with the drive back to us.
This also folds in arousal regulation because the quiet engagement moment is stimulating 🙂 He is ready for that!
He did really well tugging with the milker toy even with the big new toy on the ground (and eating treats too!) So fun!
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
