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Hi!
I am excited to hear that he is getting the hang of layering! Yay! Bummer about the lack of video but we gotta run out there to train when there is any cloud cover or coolness LOL!!!
>>Interestingly enough, he seems to like running clockwise rather than counterclockwise!
That is totally normal and something we see all the time. Just like humans, dogs are lefties or righties. It appears that he is a righty! So for the left turns/counterclockwise, you can break things down more until he gets comfortable going to that side.
T
Hi!
She was on fire LOL!! That looks like a fun snooker course! She probably assumed the course was long enough and headed for the exit LOL!
That is great news about Kaladin’s time in Speedstakes! I am sure that Min did NOT slow down to let him beat her, and .25 is a pretty significant difference. Yay!
>>He had a massage already scheduled for tonight and turns out he had some sore spots that definitely explained his recent weave issues. (esp the left trapezius which would make it hard to push back to the right for that 2nd weave entry).>>>
Poor buddy! It would also explain the contacts issues – he was probably either short-striding them or bailing if something hurt.
>>He’s skipping his class tomorrow to take it easy, but we think he’ll be fine to do the live session on Wed. (or maybe I”ll sub Min in for a rep or two…this is of course assuming we all don’t keel over from the heat first)>>
You can totally sub Min in as needed! And Kaladin can do super low heights so the sequences are easy on the body but hard on the brain 🙂
Tracy
Hi!
Super nice run here! She was a little wide on 3 here on the first rep, I think you were a little too quiet. On the 2nd rep – you said “jump” I believe, and her turn was awesome.
>>The first one I got lost but her wrap was so pretty so I left it in.
yes! That one looked great! At :50 (2nd rep on the video) – the turn looked good, you can get it even tighter if you decelerate sooner. I think you weretrying to drive to the jump to help with the turn there, but you don’t need to because it shows too much forward motion unless you are way ahead. As soon as she exits the tunnel, start to decelerate and she can pass you and take the wrap. Looking back at :18, you were ahead butas soon as she exited the tunnel, you decelerated to start the turn cues and it worked really well.
>>The next one she went to the backside instead of doing the wrap.
A couple of other dogs did that on this course,and when it happened, the handlers were doing the same thing: instead of decelerating facing the wrap wing, the handlers were drivnig in hard to the takeoff spot then rotating (no real decel) which looked exactly like a backside send 🙂 Good dogs!
The threadle 10-11 looked GREAT! You didn’t need to rotate your feet, she knows the skill. YAY!
>> A little bit of “I’m going to the toy” at the end until I reminded her there is more course to do first>>
Actually…. I don’t think that is what she was doing. You didn’t give her a turn cue on the 3rd to last jump, and had to push into the line to show it to her. So as she was committing to it, you said ‘push push push’ which dogs read as a forward cue, and will move forward to the direction they are facing (n this case, looking for the backside). As soon as she saw where you were going at 1:01, she turned to the line before you even called her. A left verbal on the jump before the backside will help smooth all of that out 🙂
>>Also, Saphira ran little sequences at her in person class tonight off leash and didn’t run away (or knock over barriers) to visit friends. We’re making progress!>>
Yay! That is awesome!!!! She is doing so well!!!
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
Very nice work on the weaves here! He seemed to have no trouble on the hard angles of entry and only a little bit of steam coming out of his ears on the really hard rear crosses. Placing the reinforcement totally helps, you can place it even closer to it is right there to see and focus on, on the crazy rear crosses.
He was simultaneously hilarious and brilliant at 1:13 – the challenge was hard, he missed, then wrapped himself back around the wing to get the entry and do the poles. Wow!!! Good boy.
You can add more speed into the 90 degree dog-on-left entry, like he very first rep and the angle you revisited a few times during the session – you can try it from a tunnel entry or a jump, with you using the verbal cue (and the helper wing :)) as you run away: can he still find that entry with basically no handling help.
Also, we can start planning the wing fading: do you have a smaller lattice? Maybe half the size of the wing here. Then we can go to a pool noodle after that.
Great job here! Fingers crossed for a bit of cooler, wet weather for your agility field to get refreshed!! I would happily send you some of our buckets of rain and 1000000% humidity 🙂
Tracy
Hi!
>>I was getting frustrated with us not getting it right….but in watching the videos, I wasn’t being fair to Artie.>>
Yes, I just always assume errors on course are handler errors, and I keep going where possible, and if not – reward all the things. My dogs are very patient with me because they know they will get a nice paycheck no matter what happens hahaha
On the video – no worries about cutting off the beginning, I am sure they went well! These courses looked good, and I am sure you were hot as heck running them! Good for you for staying in motion the whole time, that was really excellent!
And yes, on hat first tunnel send at :10, you said go tunnel but your running line changed to the far side of the tunnel, she was being a good girl. In those moments either reward or keep going (you can swing her back to the correct tunnel entry here to keep going).
At :14, you maintained your running line for longer and she got it. Yay!
On the backside after the DW at :25, she was not sure of the next line (straight or turn) so pulled the bar. Maybe a quiet name call as she approaches the jump is all she needs to make the turn with no questions.
Good job on the close close and the in in after the frame! She read both lines really well – on the tunnel threadle, keep saying close close til she gets locked onto the tunnel. She head checked when you got tired
She hesitated on the in in jump because you praised her – that is a big distraction, so no praise allowed on course LOL! I am bugging Nelci about the same thing, so you can de-praise each other hahaha You were very quiet there on the 2nd rep and she was perfect, you were even able to give the weave cue over the bar. Nice!
I liked the layering on the way to the a-frame at :55! You can actually set that up by going closer to the backside after the DW, which helps her turn better on that jump. Then she will drive ahead to the tunnel so you can easily layer.
Great job on the ending line!!! Yes, the arm pumping (ear pocket!) really helps when the legs and lungs are exhausted from the rest of it all !And on the last rep in particular, you got past the blind in time to set up a great decel for the collection on 19. SUPER!!!!
2nd video: You can definitely be throwing rewards for a lot of the tunnel sending, especially off the dog walk – she was not entirely convinced she should go to the tunnel after the DW in the beginning here, so rewarding that with a thrown reward more frequently will really help.
Great job getting down the line to the backside! At :22, freeze the video right after she lands from the backside jump – all she could see was your back, so she guessed about which side to be on (she guessed the cookie side, smart dog LOL!)
When you re-worked the beginning section (at the end of the video) – the slice on 3 looked good and set you up nicely to get the line 4-5-6! I think you can release her sooner after the teeter so you can stay in acceleration and so will she there, heading into the circle wrap.
The blooper at 1:03 where she came off the jump after the weaves was a connection blooper – all she could see was your back as she exited the weaves (I can tell that because we could see all of your front, which means she could not see it :)) In those moments, you can keep going to maintain flow and speed, and fix it later (or, if it is hotter than the surface of the sun, reward immediately if you stop :))
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
I totally see it and I agree with the sentiment of “YER KILLING ME” hahaha I have run a lot of the UKI at home courses, and it is definitely harder when the dogs don’t drive ahead. She was pacing you all the through – when you could get all the way ahead, she was chasing your line beautifully. When she caught up, she stayed at your side. She was happy to send but sometimes it would be nice if she would drive ahead.So – when you are doing course work, have a total shift in how reinforcement is used. Let’s put her into “YER KILLING ME” Boot Camp, where all reward gets thrown on the line. If you have someone else to throw it? PERFECT! If not, you can throw it but it needs to be early, or place it but we would then need to fade that quickly.
So when she is on a line that you want her to drive ahead, like a speed circle or a GO line or driving to a tunnel, as soon as you accelerate and say go, throw it (or have a helper throw it) as soon as she looks ahead. throw it LONG so she races to it, and use something that she loves (ball is her favorite, if I remember correctly?) At first, the throws will be really early to get the behavior going, but then we will get them later and later, progressively, to shape the driving ahead behavior.This of course assumes she will drive to the ball… if she will not, we can change the game a bit. Let me know how it goes!!
Tracy
Hi!
This session went really well!
When she is approaching the hard entries on your left, add motion now. You were stationary fo ra lot of them, but now you should be moving the whole time. As soon as you cue her to go to the poles, you can turn and start moving down the line. Start by walking, for now, nd if that is all good – build to jogging then running.She did well on everything else, including the countermotion! That one was really hard, so you can leave a target out as a focal point past the weaves as you move the other direction, then throw the reward to the target.
Great job! Let me know how she does when you add the weaves to course work!
TracyHi!
Ah yes, I think I have heard of John and Ida (I also have Papillons).
I don’t think we can blame the weave question here on John hahahaha! Either he was having trouble weaving towards the ring crew person (definitely have people in the ring at classes so he practices doing things going towards them), or his mid-back hurts. I have seen dogs stop just like that in the poles (including some of my own) because they are sore in the T12-T13 area. He looked a little stiff on the way to the next jump…
I mean, it might have been a bitch in season but I have a feeling he has know of many bitches in season at classes and trials (they are there all the time, whether it is legal or not LOL!) so I think it might have been a different distraction.Thanks for the jumpers video, it looked great! All the good pieces were in place – my only suggestion is to try to layer the 3-4-5 section, because it helps yu get closer to 6 and 7, plus it is a good skill to have. Leading out less will make it possible – lead out just to jump 1, so he is driving ahead of you as he exits tunnel #2 , and then verbals can help propel him around that line. The rest looked great!!
Tracy
Hi!
>>Yes, I totally remember “the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat”. That’s an accurate description for sure. Especially when I sat on the ground out in the field to work on backing onto the teeter and all of sudden realized I was getting bit by red ants. Lol. Or when I drove 3 hours to go train with friends and it poured rain the entire time I was there. Last week was an odd one. >>
OMG!!! Let’s just pretend that last weekend never happened. Yikes!!

>>Adolescent dog brain accurately describes him. I never experienced it with Zane, but I know lots of people have talked about how slowly the boys mature and I think I’m getting a chance to experience it firsthand now. >>The youngsters have ups and downs, we were due for a down with Dice because everything for the last 10 months has been up up up LOL! And this is not even a down, really – it is more like he has questions and we are answering them 🙂

Also, he is hilarious – did you see him try to sand on the plank on the first rep when he went to the MM?This session went well!
I think his question is about motion: “Mom, do I chase you when you run for real, or do I take jumps?” So the MM will definitely help this! When were you clicking it? I was hard to hear. You can click to mark the moment of him looking forward to the 2nd jump, after he lands from the first one on the straight line. And if he was running around the jump – move the MM in super close so ti is almost in his landing spot.
>>One question, I was thinking I’d just leave this game alone for a bit now that we got him having some success doing two jumps in a line and come back to it later in the week or next week. But when we do, should we just concentrate on keeping him driving ahead for now, maybe seeing if I can get a little lateral distance from the jumps, or would you start mixing in the turns again?
I was going to agree with leaving it alone until I saw the video…. He is on the right track! So do it a bit more, just moving the MM in closer on the harder side and letting him find the line. Then we can get you more lateral as well – do 2 more short sessions just like this one, and if he is looking good then you can add in the lateral line.
Nice work here!!!! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
For real, it has been HOT and now it is monsooning outside. Crazy summer weather!
YEs, the countermotion was hard on the RCs so making it simpler was the right thing. Rear crosses are hard!!
You asked about rewarding incorrect attempts: yes, you can keep reward flowing in the form of reset cookies;: if she gets it right, she gets the MM and then call her back for a reset at your side (and a cookie) for the next rep. If she gets it wrong, no MM but still call her back and reset her with a cookie at your side for the next rep. And if you start to get into more than 2 or 3 failures, abandon whatever is causing the failure (in this case, RCs with lot of countermotion) and work a piece of it to get high success (like just the easier RCs or the countermotion without the RC).The other thing you can do for the hard things is to open up the weaves so the weave challenge is reduced (meaning, it is easier to get through the poles) because the handling challenge is increased (crazy rear crosses LOL!) I can’t remember how she was originally trained – I scrolled back but can’t find it – but if you used channels or 2x2s or something similar, you can open them back up so it is very easy to run through to the MM while you add the other handling.
>>She doesn’t have great form or speed when I’m not moving forward with her.
Don’t worry about that, her for & speed will improve with more experience.
>>I did move the Manners Minder farther away from the end to try to get her head down, but I’m not sure if it worked, even in the beginning when I was going with her a bit more.>>
I like where you put it! I think it will definitely help; she just needs to see it a few times.
Jump-tunnel discrims:
You can use reset cookies here too, it is a really hard skill! So, right or wrong, she gets a reset cookie – calling her back and using a cookie to line her up should be happy-making 🙂For rewards – she was doing well here with the MM out past the obstacles! So you think she would be able to find a treat in the grass past the jump? If so, you can use cookie tosses for the jump and the MM in the tunnel.
Yes, I said in the tunnel LOL
>>but she didn’t want to do the tunnel even when she was right in front of it. She would run up to it and turn and bark at me.
A lot of herding dogs are not tunnel lovers! So you can shorten the tunnel so it is very short (as short as it will go) and put the MM right in it, closer to the end. That can help her out out going to the tunnel really independently, and then we will keep extending the tunnel more and more.
This is definitely on the right track! I think the 2 things to add are the reset cookies each and every time, and the shorter tunnel with the MM.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
These both looked great!!!!! Lovely connection throughout and you ran aggressively!Course 1:
Very nice run here!!! I can totally hear the difference in your verbals!! I think that really helped plus he loved running at 20” 🙂 Very fast and it is probably similar in feeling to what you do at trial. It was almost perfect except for one thing:Don’t praise him on the backside after the DW LOL! He dropped that bar twice when you praised him… but then when you were quiet at :47 he kept it up 🙂 That is a really hard jumping effort! Silence is golden in that spot 🙂
Course 2: Also looking fabulous!
On the backside at 3, and the backside after the teeter – trust him more and go to the blind sooner. You were watching longer than he needs, which delays the blind which delays the next cue. So as soon as you see he is getting to the backside entry wing: run and disconnect and do the blind as quickly as you can after passing the exit wing.
He did well finding the weave entries!!
Send and run away on the jump before the DW – you don’t have time to decel with the running dog walk, so you can just start the verbal, send with an arm and leg (you can totally flail your arm to make a big motion here :), and run away 🙂
The “de” for the tunnel turn at 1:50 was late but you knew that in the moment LOL When you repeated it and then in the full run at 2:50 it was on time AND sounded totally different: click/treat for you!! He had a nice turn there.
It was odd that he didn’t take the jump on the closing line at 2:08 – too quick to leave perhaps? You can leave that soon, probably, but you would have to look at the landing spot as the rest of you ran forward. You waited a bit longer there on the next run and he was perfect.
Great job on both of these! I think you can move to the next set of courses 🙂
Tracy
Hi!
>>I have split my channel weave set into two sets of 6, moved both into the little bit of shade we have in the mornings, opened up the poles, and have the correct entries marked with a wing on each set of 6.>>
This is looking good!!! He did well here! Since he was happy with his ball, you can jump start this by putting the ball on the base right after pole 5 – then bring him to pole 1 and send hi through to the ball. That can help him get the idea of looking down the channel. That is how I got my dogs started (frisbee on the base :)) And then faded it out pretty quickly to where I was holding the reward and could throw it.
>>Forrest loves tennis (and any other kind of ball) the best, so after getting him over the excitement of the treat, I was pretty happy with the three tries we did today and shown on this video.>>
Yes, he is figuring this out really well! It definitely helps to get him lined up before you send him – without the line up, he was not thinking about the entry. But when you lined him up, he got it really nicely. Super!!
>>We also have layering set up, but I didn’t get a video of that as the morning was heating up as were we. Will try again to get that taped. Forrest has not made it around the complete circle yet with me behind the tunnel, but we’ll get there!>>
Terrific! Keep shaping it by throwing the reward out there while you are on the other side of the tunnel – it will be a totally useful skill 🙂
Great job!!
TracyHi!
Your poor mom, she needs a break!!!! Wishing her a speedy resolution to this so she can get home again.T2B looked GORGEOUS!!! Bummer about the jump after the frame – what happened was you swung your arm shoulder and broke connection, so it changed the line for him. Compare that to how you kept your arm back after the blind after the 2nd frame, and he read that line. Gorgeous run, though!
The FAST run looked amazing – you were really driving him, I love it! And I agree, the teeter seemed fine here. Side note – does that same man (John) leash run at all the trials, wearing the same shirt? LOL! I am starting to recognize him 🙂
2nd T2B run – yes, he did NOT want to teeter that direction and was very deflated about it all. Hmmmm.
You were good during the delay, interacting with him and asking him to speak, to keep him engaged. I think maybe he doesn’t like turning towards the crowd and doing the teeter towards the crowd? That is a lot of pressure, and he was totally looking at the crowd before and after the teeter. The teeter on the other runs where he was confident was going away from the crowd. So if you encounter a teeter at the front of the ring going towards the crowd, an FEO run might be a good option. And definitely turn the teeter towards the crowd in training.
Standard course 2:
The opening looked good on the first video! You can try adding layering into it, layering the 2/11 jump so after 3 you can send to 4 and get away ahead for the 6-7-8 line!Standard 2 middle: also really nice! He is definitely the Class King of the crazy weave entries!!! When he is approaching 8 (the jump after the teeter), start calling him – he was locked onto the off course tunnel for a bit. You called him after he landed, but a call as he exits the teeter and heads. Towards 8 will really help.
WOW, the layering to get past the a-frame looked awesome! You got were you needed to be pretty easily and he totally found his lines. NICE!!Video 3:
Looks like you added the layering here in the opening to get ahead on the dog walk! Nice!!
He was really flying off the DW, so you can give a soft turn cue before the teeter, like a right verbal or his name when he exits the DW and is approaching the next jump.You got the bonus tunnel instead of 9 here – he had more speed and the verbals were late, so he stayed on his line. Much better call when you want back through there, but still a little late – you can do it before takeoff. You added a shoulder pull which sent him to the 13 tunnel when you opened back up to get the weaves. The set of the line to the frame looked great, even with the “judge” hustling to get out of the way LOL!
Jumpers 1: Fabulous run! You smoked it!
SUPER nice opening! Very aggressive connected handling – that is what you were doing in the trial runs too and it looked great!
He had a little question on the ‘out’ at 8 at :17. Have you ever tried an outside arm for those out cues? That can turn him away more easily than the dog-side arm.
That little hesitation at 8 and 9 made you one step let for getting the blind on the backside 11-12, but you worked it and got it done. YAY!!! And The Weave King nailed his weave entry, good boy!!!! (So far, he has the best weaves of anyone in this class, thought you’d like to know :))
Watch :32 landing of 14 to :34 takeoff of 15 – you pointed forward and he had a question, kind of jumping up a little. That little connection break is what caused him to go past the jump in T2B. So on those sends, try to keep your arm back and look at his eyes when you tell him over. It will point your shoulders to the line and he will pick it up nicely.
Jumpers 2:
This video is the same as jumpers 1 – totally fun to watch it again 🙂 can you re-post jumpers 2? Can’t wait to see it!!!Great job here!
Tracy
