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Hi!
The one and done reps with Yuki looked great! She seems to understand the turning away and layering really nicely! The only thing I would change is have her turn to her left no the white jump before the tunnel on each rep, rather than wrapping to her right – the left turn will give her a better line to the tunnel. Everything else looked great – you were really connected and timely with the verbals and her commitment looked really strong!>>You may go ahead and laugh when she stops to eat grass. This has been a life-long issue, and it’s why I don’t do outdoor trials with her. She’d be in the midst of a fast run to a jump, would screech to a halt right in front to of the jump, grab a hunk of grass, and then leap over the 20″ bar from a stand-still.>>
Yes, she is definitely an opinionated dog LOL!! She had the grass-eating moment and the standstill moment later on – both seemed to happen when she thought she was supposed to go one direction, but then you told her to follow the line of the jumps. The a-frame as a big visual draw in the grass-eating moment, she was totally heading that way – so keep looking for the big off course obstacles, especially contacts if she loves those, and call her more as you move away so she doesn’t lock onto them.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
Yes, totally understandable that she felt it was too much repetition, and it is great to move along – I like for the dogs to see the setup or course no more than twice, and it seems Keiko feels the same way LOL!
>> I was surprised at how effective the off-side arm is on the pull to the side jump. You’d think a dog wouldn’t see it, but she did and she did respond.
Yes! She totally read it – the off-side arm changes the handler mechanics and the dogs see it pretty well. When you are working the jump versus tunnel discriminations in upcoming sequences, cue the obstacle names sooner – she should know if you want the jump or the tunnel before she makes a takeoff decision for the previous jump, for example, which means handling & directionals & obstacle names should all be underway. I think these were a bit later here, probably because you were starting on one jump, so she was turning on landing (or committing the the tunnel after landing). So when you add them to sequences, you can totally start telling her when she is still about 10 pr 15 feet from the previous jump, so she will read the cues and respond even sooner.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! I’m really excited that Coal is getting so many in-person training opportunities!!! Have fun with the seminar!
You can probably do some of the smaller challenges while he recovers from the neuter like the threadle wrap wing stuff. 🙂
TracyHi!
Are the weave problems showing up on course? I watched this clip a few times and she seemed to do well. Was this session before or after you saw weave questions? She didn’t seem worried about the wing and this session went well. Let me know what you are seeing; hopefully it is just the heat or she’s a little ‘out’..
TracyGood morning!! The weather has been pretty icky!!! This was a good choice to work on – less sweaty and helpful for commitment 🙂
I loved the energy that the frizz brought to the session, he was so funny trying ALL the things to get the friz. The food got a bit more success but lowered the energy, so I think we can have a middle ground:
Rather than jump versus tunnel, let’s do jump or tunnel but with directionals and the friz. That will accomplish the goal of discrimination of cues as well as help him look for the obstacle when there is something that focuses him away from it (the friz in this case, your motion on course).
Start with just simple “take the obstacle” cues like jump or tunnel, then you can build to directionals.
I am not entirely sure why he kept offering the backside on the jump, but it is rewardable if you said jump. My guess is that he was pushing off of pressure with the bar at 16 and you being close, so he was lining up to take the jump AND look at you and the friz. Smart! LOL!!
So a lower bar can help and you can also turn the jump 90 degrees so there is a better angle to the front when you are up close.Great job!! Let me know how it goes. Stay cool!
TracyGood morning!
I am so jealous of that arena, it looks SO NICE! It is rare to find a big ring with great footing like this. What a great place to train! And looks like the instruction is really strong too. YAY!
About the FC versus BC on this course:
If you take a long lead out like you did at the beginning, the FC make a lot of sense (BCs don’t make sense when we are standing still to begin LOL!). Just be a little more close to his line – your lead out position was a bit past it and had to push him back to it. I couldn’t hear what your instructor was saying but based on her position and gestures, I think she was saying something similar to your position needing to be a bit further over. A BC is something to run into in these openings and has to start pretty early otherwise it is harder for the dogs to read. The FC here looked really great.
However… the FC versus BC when running? That will almost always be a bind cross, like at :21 after the first tunnel. The FC was late and it takes longer to finish the rotation – a BC will work better there and you can start it before he even goes into the tunnel and finish it as you continue to your position.
The distraction of the other ring is hard, so rewarding each time he is successfully ignoring them is GREAT!
The line from the 5 jump to the 10 jump looked AMAZING – he was SO fast and focused, I don’t think I have ever see n you have to run that fast! He was on fire! Great job maintaining the connection and cues for him, it looked beautiful AND he ignored the other ring. Yay!!!
Great job here!!!
Tracy
Good morning!
Lots of good work here!!! Starting with the harder skills parts is a good way to start, especially if you know they will be really hard in sequence. It also means that there might not be enough left in the tank to run the full thing, so be careful of that too. I think you both ran out of steam a bit towards the end of the video here.
She was a good girl finding the weaves at the beginning! She had trouble finding the tunnel after the weaves at the beginning her and later when you ran the full course, so that is a good spot to take on more step to make sure she has it – you were pulling away a bit which set the line to the jump.
Looking at the section after the DW – the teeter is on her line there so she was correct when she took it – reward that! I reward partially because she was correct and partially to keep the arousal levels in a happy state. Telling her she was wrong will make her more aroused which will make processing information harder. My philosophy is that off courses get rewarded because I somehow showed that line.
As you can see, the right verbal on that jump could set the line to either the jump or the teeter, so the name call helped turn her. When you run the full course, try to just use the directionals there – you said “go jump” as she exited the teeter which is more of an extension cue – the right verbal should commit her in collection.
She has a little trouble understanding the commitment on the serp #9 with countermotion, so a good training element would be to drop the reward in on the landing side as you move through it – first without a lot of motion, then gradually add more and more motion but till dropping the reward on the landing side to help her default to taking the jump.
A cross on the landing side of the jump #8 will also help get the turn and get you up the line sooner for the backside – you did that at 1:04 and she totally turned! The timing of it would start right after she exits the DW, and the position is easy to get to with the layering as she was on the DW.
The Backside at 12 is a tricky discrimination, especially coming up that big line! The ideal handler path and position is to where the backside wing meets the bar, so she can see the whole wing. If you are too far across the bar, she will either. Take the front of slice the backside. If you block the wing, she will take the tunnel (like at 1:51). So that is the position that will help, with your shoulders open too (arm back and lots of connection) because that also shows the whole wing.
One other thing to ad to your training sessions:
On the resets and restarts – ask her for a position to hold (either a stay, or the end of the contact like you did at 3:29) as you take one step ahead to show the line, then release her into it. When you try to resend her from your side, the line is not clear enough and you get lots of frustration barking and not enough smoothness 🙂Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>>When I face her back towards them, should I face her all the way back or sideways first as a transition?
Sideways! That plan should help add challenge in small pieces while keeping her highly successful.
On the video:
One general thing about the start:
turn her to her left on jump 1, rather than to the right. Wrapping 1 to the left pts her in a straight line to the tunnel, and turning right puts her on a much harder line.For the setup for rear crosses, you will want to start closer to the #1 jump and move into them. Sending from far away and getting way ahead worked nicely for the wrap to the left (a FC) but didn’t work as well for the RC, because you were ahead and end up running out of room especially when you want to show her the difference between the tight RC and the wider one into the layering line.
For the jump tunnel discrimination – try to run the same exact line on all of the reps here, on the landing side of the jump and heading towards the 10 jump of the sequence (the #1 jump of the line you just ran). That means you will layer the jump when cuing the tunnel and also serping the jump when cuing the jump.
When you did the full sequence:
I think you were actually early on the RC at 1:26 – you cut across her so early she might have questioned whether she should take the jump or not (she looked surprised when she landed LOL!) Being that early to cut across did put you on the wrong side of the tunnel, so you had to step around it to get back onto your line which delayed the info on the 6-7-8 line.
On the 2nd rep at 1:45, I think the timing was clearer but stopping near the tunnel definitely caused her to ask questions: the decel and position didn’t match the verbal cues there.
On the 3rd rep, you were earlier citing behind her again and ended up standing still at the tunnel and using the outside arm – that rotates the body and caused you to have to move backwards to get up to the 6-7-8 line.
So to smooth this section out – strategically, start closer to the #1 jump and turn her to her left (starting her on your right. That way, as she exits the tunnel you will be parallel to her or only a tiny bit ahead – then you can run forward to the center of the bar to set the RC line – by setting the line with motion like that, you will also be able to move up the next line (without needing to stand still or getting caught on the tunnel line). And as she turns, especially for the layer, your motion should be parallel to her line with lots of verbals 🙂 You can use an outside arm but only if you keep running forward while layering. I don’t think you need it here if she understands the verbals and layering.
Speaking of the outside arm:
If you are going to use the opposite arm for the 6-7-8 backsides, you need to leave it up the whole time – by putting it down at 1:31, she correctly read it as a straight line to 8 and not a backside, and by the time it went back up and you said the verbal, it was too late for her to adjust her line. That 7 jump is a serpentine, so turning your shoulders to face the jump and making a direct connection will help, with or without the opposite arm.
Also, keep moving through that line – at 1:48 you stopped then started again – the stopping changed the line info so she couldn’t quite adjust when you moved forward so dropped the bar.
On the last rep, you kept moving really well and had great connection, so she got it perfectly. See if you can handle from the landing side of 9 rather than takeoff side, to present her with the jump-tunnel discrimination 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracySorry to hear about the rain! Fingers crossed that it all dries out soon.
You might not find a suitable class, so you might need to find *any* class 🙂 You can put her in any sequencing/course work class as long as it is kind to young dogs – and even if it is below her level or above her level, you can work lines and skills around other dogs which is soooo valuable! I put my dogs in the wrong levels all the time to get them into classes – I usually put them into lower level classes because that way I can work on handling them at high speed 🙂
TracyGood morning!
I understand about the weather! I had to drive to upstate New York to handle a property issue and it is 62 degrees here right now. Coming off a 98 degree weekend, I had to go to Walmart to buy warm clothing LOL!!!! I was the only wackjob walking around in long pants and a hoodie LOL!!!
Great job on the course here:
The opening went great! She was happy to layer and happy to work tighter on the jump/tunnel discrimination. Nice bind cross to the next section and she was perfect on the out jump after the tunnel – which then got rewarded by two tunnels in a row LOL!
>>My attempt was to rear 16 and then do a push to the backside… well we never made the backside lol as she has huge value for weaves the same as tunnels too apparently >>
For the rear cross you would need to push to the center of the bar more – you were stopping a bit at the wrap wing, which is why she kept wrapping to the left, overriding the right verbal. Rear crossing at 16 does make the backside at 17 much harder and not necessarily faster, so the other option is wrap 16 to the left (which is easy to get, as you can see LOL) and do it was a spin so you do a blind and exit on your right – then slice 17 from the side closer to the 8 jump, and slice toward the 18 weaves. I think that will work really nicely!
Everything else was pretty darned perfect and she looks ready for her weekend adventures.
OMG Annalise was the funniest! Her run was great! The beginning cracked me up – I was just like that as a kid and perhaps I a still am, and the difference is that I edit out the faces I make at the camera hahahahaha
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyWhat are the training in the ring rules there? Can you bring a toy in and just show her the weaves, then reward?
Good morning!
Mission accomplished on the one and done! The walk through was pretty thorough and produced a really nice run the first time. Yay! That is what we want!! Good handling choices, rehearsal, and execution! 2 things to consider here as you work the walk throughs:
I think you can get to the speed part of your walk through sooner, so you can rehearse the connections more and verbals more, at speed. And do it several times (which is easier if you add speed to the walk through sooner). You will feel connected while walking but the running will let you know if you can actually “see” the invisible dog or not 🙂 For example, you had a little disconnect on the run from the first tunnel to the backside, so he had a little zig zag line – one my mental checklist is to always look for the dog to connect on tunnel exits.
Plus, the verbals sound different walking versus running – as was definitely the case here, comparing the last walk through to the run 🙂 So in that last walk through, work the verbals as if Sly is in the ring with you, so the first run is *not* the first time you work the verbal like that. So many people ask me how to remember verbals during the run, and the answer is to work them fully during the walk through. Yes, you might be the only one out there properly saying your verbals in the walk through, but that is a good way to stand out!
Great job!
TracyHi!
I am glad the weekend went so well!!!!On the videos:
I see a line on the ground – yay!!! Your job is to be on one side of the line or the other, til he passes you. On both videos… he was 100% correct on every rep, based on your motion relative to the line 🙂 I didn’t see the rewards in the video because of the quick edits, but be sure to reward every single one of his efforts because he is highly likely to be correct even if he is off course, according to your plan 🙂 It is important to reward because BCs will keep working when they don’t get rewarded, but they will get more frantic and less thoughtful, which doesn’t help with the verbal processing skills.
So what was happening was that you would lead out to the line, then release… then cross the line and block the backside path before he got past you, so he would go to the tunnel, good boy.Even with the backside verbal, he would have to choose to go through you, literally, to get to the backside – so he is taking the tunnel correctly. If you are at the line/wing ad he isn’t past you yet, hold still at the wing til he gets past you and that will get the backside.
He did get it a little better on the 2nd video because you moved past the line a step or two later – but he was definitely asking questions and doing little zig zags, so wait longer til he is totally past you before you move forward past the line on the ground. He needs to see the full wing til he is past you.He dropped some bars on the videos, but those were handling-induced more than anything – at the end of the 1st video, you cued to the tunnel with a high energy release and he was set up very close to the jump, so he didn’t quite get organized for it. On the 2nd video, the toy drops were close to he bar so he was hitting it as he went for the toy.
For the jump-tunnel discrims:
>>I am not sure where to go from here to add the two together.
You can pull up a chair to just a tunnel or just a jump and see if he will take the obstacle with the verbal only. And if so? Try that with the jump and the tunnel in the picture, maybe 6 or 8 feet apart and see how it goes 🙂
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>es I do a lot of plyometrics when I don’t have the pool up, in the summer is all swimming time, since I have not time for other stuff (works gets in the way hahaha).
Work is annoying like that sometimes LOL!! I will get that ploy game filmed so you can try it, it has really helped my dogs with the hind end organization stuff.
>> I don’t say the verbals allowed since I don’t want people to hear me talking while I am walking the course 😉
That is something to work on! It is important – people might think you are nuts but that is fine, because you will then kick their butts haha!!
T
