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I got my *ss in gear and got it on video! Here it is, complete with write up:
You probably just got the email about it too. Stay warm and let me know how it goes!
Hi!
>>Regarding using “Yes” as a marker, I understand the concept that you wrote about in your previous post. Unfortunately, I am concurrently training Gabby in rally and obedience since she can’t do agility anymore and I mark her frequently with a “yes”. So this is totally my issue and I will try real hard to remember to not mark “yes” with him during these training sessions. And I have to work on the hands>>
Can you add different markers to Gabby’s work so you don’t have to remember two sets of verbals? It is MUCH easier to add to Gabby (because she will figure out immediately :)) than it is to try to remember to say yes for one but not the other LOL!
>>He took off with his toy after the first wrap and it took a while for him to come back. You can hear him squeaking it in the distance and then he tried to bring it back but got hung up in a stick. You can see my hesitation – I was about ready to go help him out when he disengaged himself – then he’d lost track of what he was doing and kept looking at the toy and looking at me and actually came back with the toy. Good boy!>>
That seemed like a decompression moment, and he came back nicely! No worries about that. You can also cue him to go do it (“go for a run!”) because that actually helps reduce the running off 🙂
>>On the wraps, he was offering them on his own and then I remembered you saying to do nose touches and free cookies to keep him with me. That worked better. Hand targets need a lot more work since I have to be pretty close for him to do it.>>
Yes, that worked so much better because he was not wrong to offer when you moved towards the cone. Getting a little line up cookie going was great!!!
>>To be honest I didn’t feel like I was as far away from the cone as it looks on the video. Either my spatial awareness is way off (which is entirely possible) or the wide angle on the lens distorts distances. Regardless, sometimes he understood perfectly and other times he had questions, so we will continue to work on these after getting your feedback.>>
>> I realize it’s 7:30 minutes but there was a lot of play play play, tugging, and a pause for maybe a couple of minutes when he was off with his toy. Too long?>>I look at videos in terms of # of reps and rate of success, because using a toy does take longer than using treats. Also bear in mind that playing, running and tugging is actually more tiring than cookie training, so those sessions should be shorter because of the extra energy needed. He had 20 reps here, which might be ok or might be too many, but mainly the rate of success was lower than I would like it to be: he was at only slightly over 50% rate of success for the skill and he should be closer to 90% I count rate of success by counting the # of reps (cued or offered, because if he offers then he believes he is getting a cue of some sort). There were 20 reps, and 9 count as failures when either he didn’t go all the way to it, or you didn’t reward if he sent himself. On the reps where he didn’t go to the cone, it was mainly because the transitions were not as clear (not enough connection shift where you look at the cone, or you were too quick to get the toy and send). When you did make a smooth, clear transition, he was really strong (like at 6:05).
You did get rewards for the hand touches happening later in the video, which does keep the environment reinforcing too! But if you see 2 failures on the skill, make an adjustment so there are no more failures for the rest of the session. Bearing in mind that a failure is any attempt on the cone that does not get rewarded, you made one great adjustment (getting the hand targets going so he wouldn’t have any questions about when to start) – the other adjustment can be starting closer to the cone. Most of the failures were not going to the cone, so the adjustment can be getting closer to build up the skill even more.
The driveway was a great place to do the resilience game!!! It is distracting and that location isa bit of “forbidden fruit” because we definitely don’t want puppies running around the driveway without us or off leash!! So he was able to explore the environment and engage, in a really easy relaxed way. Yay! You can start walking up and down the driveway, and you can even include some cues to go have a sniff or a pee-on-all-the-things 🙂
Also, since we were talking about intact males: it is so much easier to get them to potty anywhere, any time on road trips! Girl dogs can be too picky LOL!
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
He looked good on both sides here! Left and right turns both looked strong, great job balancing them. Nice!
Since he wants to be explosively fast, you can balance that by moving away slowly…. that way you can move even more! What I mean by that is you can send him to the prop and slowly slide the other direction, as soon as he starts moving towards the prop, walking the whole time. If you explode the new direction, he is more likely to chase you which makes countermotion harder. And if he doesn’t hit it… reset with a cookie so he can get practice hitting the prop while you are in motion (rather than with you standing still and sending).Try to have a wider shot so I can see where you are looking in case he has any questions about connection, as you add more of the backwards sending and countermotion. And to help him as you add more of that, you can have your feet closer together during the ready dance, so you take a biiiiiig step on the send.
One other small detail about the marker: I think your toy-in-hand marker is take, and it means both “that was correct” and reward is the toy in my hand, right? Snice you have that, there is no need for a ‘yes’ before it, just use your “take” marker to indicate the correct behavior and placement. The ‘yes’ marker is less clear in that situation 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! The mats look great and he is definitely happy to find the jump here! Easy concept transfer!
I could not really see what you were doing, so be sure that you are moving the whole time. You can either go all the way to the cookie with him, so he is parallel or driving ahead of you to the jump. Or, after tossing the cookie, you can turn and be moving the other way so he looks to find the line when he is behind you., or you can move away a little more laterally so he finds it a little further from you. Mix all of this in! And at this point, you don’t need the clicker anymore – you can just use your get it marker as you did here 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi! This was great! He found the tunnel entry on both sides of you, and used his body beautifully to make the turn into it. And fast fast fast!!!! You can add in the get it marker for the toy at the exit.
>>Watching the video I can see that I am late releasing him.
I didn’t think you were late, because you want him to hear the tunnel verbal 3 or 4 times before he starts to move. On the first couple, you could have held him a shade longer to be able get the tunnel verbal going. Were you seeing the possible lateness on the threadle side, where he looked away to the tunnel pretty quickly? Yes, you can let him go on that by saying the tunnel verbal one or two more times like you did was fine too 🙂
My only bone to pick is that you were whispering the tunnel cue LOL! I could barely hear it over the background noise! So definitely be loud – because tunnel cues are LOUD and if that causes him to struggle, then we need to sort it out now. I am 1000% sure he will not struggle, though 🙂
Great job! Keep these videos coming!
TracyGood morning!
>>I wasn’t going to post this, but we’re still struggling.
Thank you for posting!! Super useful video! Here is what I see, and some ideas for you:
From the processing standpoint, there was too much to process so the finer points of the lead change and turn to her left were lost among all of the other processing stuff. There was snow on the ground, there was snow falling from the sky, there was cold, there was you wearing a lot of clothing, there was the hollee roller, there was a prop out there somewhere, there was a ton of motion. So the finding of the prop at the beginning was lost – it looked like she thought it was a chase-the-thrown-hollee roller game for the first minute, which is good insight into what the hollee roller is currently associated with in this context 🙂 Even if she has experience processing these various things at different times, she is not experiencing processing *all* of them at once especially with her newly adolescent brain, which prioritizes different things.
She did begin to “see” the prop, which is good, but then with all of the motion and processing the prop, she didn’t process that you had cut behind her (like at 1:32, which was timely but the fine detail of you changing sides behind her got lost in all of the other things she had to process so she could not process the “how to make the turn” element of it). So this session was mainly cool to see as an example of multi-sensory integration in a teenage pup brain 🙂 And my guess is that the processing of the toy and the platform in your other session with the cone, platform, placed toy was also too much to process so she couldn’t prioritize the movement we were looking for.
But since it would also be nice to teach her rear crosses, we can take a different approach. Let’s narrow what she has to process so she can focus on the coordination of making the turn the new direction:
– use food only for the next session. Let’s take out the chase potential of a thrown toy because that definitely gets highly prioritized in her brain, especially if you do a lot of throw/chase with the hollee roller. Food is not likely to produce that response, so it will help us isolate the behavior.
– take the prop out for a bit so we can narrow the range of what to look for even more
– try this, ideally indoors for now:
– start her on your left side, with your right side relatively close to a wall
– hold her collar
– toss a treat 2 or 3 meters ahead of her
– let it land
– let go of her to go get it
– as she is on the way to it, you will step behind her (rear cross) and call her and keep moving the new direction. And here is the trick to tap into her inner whippety-ness:step behind her at a walk then when you are fully on the new side, run run run the new direction and give her a cookie for coming to you. So you are running away from the wall that yo uare next to.
She may or may not turn correctly at first but she will be able to process the info more clearly (fewer things to process that might get prioritized) and she will figure it out pretty quickly. If you need a visual, can get it on video today with my pup who has not started the RCs yet and is full on whippety 🙂 )
And since I don’t think we really know if Muso is lefty or righty (I scrolled back to try to see what we thought she was LOL!) – you can start with the left turns (that was the most recent theory of her stronger direction) and if she can’t do it, flip your set up and try it as right turns on the rear cross.
As soon as we crack the code of what helps her, then it will be clear sailing. Let me know if that makes sense and I will totally get this on video with Ramen!
Tracy
Good morning!
>>We’ve been working on things, I’m just failing at editing video and posting 😆>>
I can totally relate LOL!!!!!
Video 1 – good shaping session and good tug break (otherwise it gets boring for dogs that are spicy and like a lot of action LOL!!) I liked that you moved the MM further away, I was going to suggest that it was too close – the added distance gave her room to turn around and find the tunnel more easily, and choose the tunnel rather than go around it.
Another good thing you stealthily added here was going back and forth from the MM treats to the tug toy, using the offered tunnel as a construct to make it happen. That MM-to-toy skill is SO useful for fancier things later on down the road!Video 2 – nice job adding the verbal here! She definitely likes the MM 🙂 After she gets the MM cookie, call her past the on your other side (placing yourself between her and the tunnel) and reward her for NOT going behind you as you reset – so she doesn’t keep offering the tunnel between reps LOL! This also begins teaching her that “just because you see the tunnel does not mean you always take the tunnel” 🙂
The first tunnel threadle rep looked strong! Then she offered one LOL so you were quicker on the transition for the next rep, which was also good! And on the last rep, she was a little further away from the tunnel and could easily see the MM… she could have gone directly to it but made the decision to do the tunnel first: SUPERSTAR!
>>. As I was watching the tunnel threadle video I realized I was still giving her the “tunnel” verbal. At this point, based on her position, I’m sure it’s fine? But, I assume I should start using her “pass” verbal for this?>>
Yes, fine for now, and very soon we change to the pass verbal… but I like to wait to be sure we have the behavior with some motion from the handler and even the arm you want to use for it before we add on the real verbal. It should only take a session or two, then it is really easy to add the real verbal.
Great job here!
TracyGood morning!
She did well with getting on and off the plank here! I agree, you can elevate the plank a bit next time which will also help it be more stable when she jumps off (rather than sliding out from under her). And, if is it elevated and more stable, you won’t need to use your foot to hold it in position 🙂 So you can stand up and help her turn around. So to get it more stable, are there two cinderblocks to put it on? Or you can use a dog walk plank on the ground, which is nice and heavy so she should be feeling pretty stable on it too 🙂
I think Julie was suggesting getting her to back up onto the plank – yes! That is a good one too, once she knows how to back up on the flat, so you can definitely add that.
Great job!!
TracyHi!
Loving the explosive sit-tug-sit game here in the trial environment!! He was completely engaged even with SO MUCH distraction all around. I look at the pup’s arousal state in these situations: too low? Too high? Nope! He seemed to be just right! Optimized arousal and fabulous engagement. You did a great job of recognizing that he might have been releasing on the toy motion, so definitely keep the toy motion and release separate.He did try jumping up to grab the toy a bit after you got it back from him to help him understand to not try to climb up your body to get it 🙂 You can keep the toy low and in front of you when he releases it, rather than lifting it up high. Keeping it low and in front of you adds one more level of impulse control, because he has to move away from it to sit. Lifting it up high takes that option out but also stimulates him to want to jump and grab it. If it is low and he tries to re-grab it, just be patient and let him release it and back himself off of it.
Great job here!
TracyGood morning, hope you had a great weekend!
When I saw this video start and saw all of the weird things in the environment (like the grinch LOL!) and the other people and dogs, I was like: oh please oh please let this be a pattern game video… and it was! YAY!!! He was SUPER because this environment was WEIRD lol!!! Think of all the things he *could* have done in that environment, as an adolescent boy… but he was confident and perfectly engaged – not worried, not hyper aroused, just a good happy pup ready to do stuff. I am doing a bit happy dance for you! Great job choosing this game for that environment!!
Nice work!
TracyHi!
Oooh I like this giant wobble board with the matting on it!! He did really well with the wobble board, his only question was about the toy 🙂 He really liked that toy but it is hard to bring back and tug with because it is so small (maybe he thought it was just a normal toy, not a tug toy – puppies do differentiate LOL!). So maybe tie it to something else so you have a big long tug. That can keep his lead lower, which helps with the weight shift and getting comfy on the wobble board.Looking at he handling games:
I swear I laughed out loud when Jamie asked if you were supposed to be more timely with your blind LOL!
Yes, you need to be sooner 🙂 Send him to the cookie from further away and don’t wait for him -because then he smokes you 🙂 So you an be moving away and do the blind as soon as he takes one step towards you. The other thing that will help is to keep your arms in super tight to your ribs – that will make you even quicker on the blinds (he is quick, so you need to be quicker). Your decels looked great! And the go go go looked strong too! His toy races and and retrieves looked good: definitely NOT a victory lap moment, he just needed to figure out how to carry the giant toy 🙂 I think you can now fade the cookie from the decel and go directly to the pivot and driving ahead for the go go go
At the very end you did a strike a pose moment… he was like “wait what? so you ended up moving your hand to him LOL!! To get him to go to the hand target, try sending him away from use with a cookie toss, then as he is coming back – let him see your connection shift from looking at his cute face to looking at your target hand. That should et him driving to it.
Great job here!!!
Tracy
Good morning!
>>My cue hand was empty. You can’t tell from the video, but I believe he was getting distracted by my long sleeve moving at my wrist. Believe it or not, but that was probably the first time he had seen me wear long sleeves and the movement caught his eye.>>
That could totally be it! Puppies see All.The.Things!
>>We worked the prop with me throwing the treat sooner and he shifted his focus forward pretty quickly.>>
Placement of reward is magic!
>>Yesterday, I took him to practice in a new place with a few friends. In between the “big” dogs working, he had a few turns working lap turns, parallel path, turn and burn. He did awesome even though my friend had her 1 yr old pup on a leash near where we were working.>>
Brilliant boy!!!! YAY!!!!!
>>We also let them have a couple of off leash sessions of play. Intermittent recalls with treat and release back to play– He ROCKED it!!!!! A few times you could tell it took him a second to process it before he would start running to me and other times where he immediately ran to me. Best part of the day- besides watching how cute they were playing.>>
Awwwww what a good baby!!! SO FUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Tracy
Good morning!!
Wishing you a speedy recovery from the ablation today!!! Take your time coming back to it, we have plenty of time here. And you can do the resilience pattern games, that won’t take much movement on your part at all – you can hang out on the couch and play it LOL!
>> Casper is different from all my other dogs, as, of course, all dogs are different.
Yes! And also…. different breed, different learning style. My terriers are different from my BC-ish dog who is different from the Papillons, and now the whippety dogs…. SO DIFFERENT! They have lots to teach us about different learning styles, but the end result is so fun!
>> And he’s fun, and I do want to give him the best start possible! I go back and forth between really wanting him to play with the toys, and realizing he will do it at his own pace. So thanks for reinforcing that the toy play will come back as he grows more accustomed to working around distractions. And yeah those teeth, poor guy can hardly chew kibble right now>>
Yes, he is doing amazingly well and also remember how young he is… a baby baby baby dog! He is doing great.
>>Today I took him to another agility training place, and there were other people and dogs, and that totally blew his mind! 🙂 He couldn’t play with toys at all. I tried for half a minute just to see what I’d get from him, and nope, toys were not interesting at all. He just wanted to watch what was going on. We did walk around at first so he could see things. And say hi to a nice man sitting in a chair watching. The next area over had dogs running agility full tilt and that was super hard!>>
It is definitely hard!!! As you recover from the ablation, you can emphasize the pattern game and I guarantee he will be able to enter new environments and engage more quickly… and then the toy play will come back too! I took my pup to a seminar this weekend (working spot) – so I taught Ramen the resilience pattern game at home to prepare, and used it when I entered the environment (2 instructors, stuff everywhere, and at least 30 auditors lined up right there watching) – as soon as Ramen started his pattern game, he was able to comfortably engaged and learn 🙂 Casper is basically the same age as Ramen, and so the pattern game will be a massive help to him too!
He did SUPER well with the barrel – there were many added things to process (the leash on him, the nearby dogs working, people, etc) so you can see latency is higher (more time between the offered responses). He didn’t seem worried by the leash or the other distractions, but he was aware of it all (and probably aware that *your* internal state was different :)) But it is still a massive win of a session, in two ways:
– he was able to process things clearly, which is hard for baby dogs and great for resilience!
– he was able to produce the behavior – also fabulous!Great job keeping this session to less than a minute and to being super patient to let him process. And what I mean by internal state being different is that you might have been a little tiny bit worried about the distractions, or feeling the need to be quick, or to be quiet… but that is ALL GOOD and an important element of teaching our sports pups: sometimes da momma will be nervous and it is all good! Our job is to make it super fun for the pups even when our internal state is different, so the pups think it is all fun 🙂
Threadle session went well, another short fun session! My only suggestion is to plan your markers: you were saying “yes get it” when you handed him the cookie from your hand, but I think ‘get it’ is a tossed reward marker for him? So you can say ‘get it’ when you toss the treat to start each rep, then ‘yes’ for the hand delivery of the cookie after the target hit. He had a little bit of time between getting the cookie and re-engaging (sniffed the turf a bit). This is a great opportunity to teach him the pattern game (the resilience track) so that he learns the framework of re-engaging even when the environment is more challenging.
On the 2nd barrel training, you were clever to start the game with the cookie on the ground, just like at home
At :15 you moved the barrel pretty far away, so he needed a moment to process that change – good patience on your part! Also good patience to let him have that extra heartbeat after eating the cookie to process and offer behavior. There were slight delays because of the environment: turf smells, or the person in the other ring waking around. But your patience allowed him to process and then re-engage, without you stepping in or bugging him 🙂 YAY!!!!>> Just super short and things he is pretty good at at home.>>
Perfect! This is 1000% the right thing to do in new environments 🙂
Great job! I will be thinking of you today and wishing for a perfect procedure and speedy recovery!
TracyGood morning! Pomegranate margaritas sound AWESOME!!!!
The any toy game looked good! He really likes the fluffy moving toys 🙂 He did well going back to the toy after the cookie, but you can make that transition even more exciting by throwing the toy, or having him chase you for it 🙂
Working in the barn for the first time AND wearing a collar: GOOD BOY!!!
Plankrobatcs was a little hard with the board angled like that and moving… he couldn’t really get on and off it cleanly especially when you had to stabilize it with your foot, so put it back on the ground and have it a little elevated but a block under each end – that way you can help him turn around in place as well as move back and forth with you along the plank, and he can focus on getting coordinated.
Toy races: he definitely likes that toy! Yay! I think you were throwing it too far here (especially considering it was the first time in the barn) – he is still learning to confidently drive ahead especially in this environment, so drop it maybe 2 feet from you and let go of him, so he drives to it without you. Don’t add you motion til he is flying to it a couple of feet away, then 4 or 5 feet away. When you were moving, he was distracted and looking at you so we can take out the motion for now, then put you motion back in when he understands driving to the toy in the harder environments.
>> Also the parallel path and counter motion was hard cuz he was convinced there was a cookie in my pointer finger. I’m not sure how to help fix those. >
Parallel path – he was doing well finding the prop and the cookies in the dirt! Don’t say yes as your marker because that causes him to look at you (also, have your cookie ready to throw and don’t have your hands in your pockets, both of which cause him to look at you :)) Instead of yes, say “get it” then throw the cookie so he looks at you less. If you say yes and he looks at you and then you throw a cookie, you will get more looking at you. So you can also mark and toss the reward sooner: as he is on the way to the prop, before he arrives – when you see his intent to go to it (even if he looks at it instead of at you), you can say “get it” and toss the reward. Touching the prop is not super important – the drive to it is the important part for now.
On the countermotion – you can use the yes marker and feed from your hand on this one because after a tight turn we do want the pup to drive to us. About looking at your hand too much instead of going to the prop – I could not see where you were looking, so be sure make a clear transition from engaging with him, then sending with your arm, leg, and eyes. As you send, shift your connection to look at the prop (and not at him) when you point to it with the countermotion here. It is also possible you were too far away from it, because he was starting to go but then stopped himself. The added challenge of the collar and the barn environment add layers of distraction, so you can make the behavior easier by starting closer than you would need to if you were in a more familiar environment.
He is reading his blinds and decels really well!! The hopping was happening when you didn’t decel enough (and he was hopping up to stop his forward motion) – when you decelerated sooner, he didn’t hop. So be sure you run to the blind then make a really massive, obvious decel as soon as you do it, you can exaggerate it so he can really see it. Also, was that his prop on the ground? He was running over something – try to clear the field for these so he doesn’t ignore whatever is in his path 🙂
And if the other dog is there and causing a ruckus, you have to ignore it – telling her ‘no!’ in a harsh voice or engaging with her can be something that causes him to get concerned, because it adds a harsh voice and disconnection from you to his training environment.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>>Nope, those were the only reps we did, and I was actually embarrassed to post them. Especially the drawn out ready ready ready………..ugh! 😀>>
I am glad you posted them! It was a very high success rate session, totally nothing to be embarrassed about!
>>>It didn’t feel good because I felt like I was manhandling her to look at the barrel. She wasn’t staring at the toy but she was pressing against me to turn her body that way. (I may have edited out the parts where she was struggling to turn and look at the toy to keep the whole video shorter). When I saw the reps where I kept saying ready it was because I knew she was going to flip away and go for the toy. When I woke up this morning I was thinking to myself. Should use a less enticing toy, should place the toy instead of throw, should maybe use food in a feed bucket instead…>>
If you do a rep or two and it doesn’t feel good or you feel like you are micromanaging…. then change something 🙂 Either let her go sooner and step to the barrel even if she is not looking at the barrel… she will either go to the barrel, or she will not go to the barrel, it will be one of those 2 things LOL! Then you can make an adjustment if needed.
>>I agree, I hated the length of time I waited for her to focus on the barrel, it felt pretty yucky which is why I thought the whole exercise was HARD. So let her go even if she’s not looking at the toy, even if she’s struggling against facing the barrel?>>
Yes. Either she will surprise you and go to the barrel, or she will run to the toy 🙂 Either way, she has a great time and you have a laugh. And if she runs to the toy, you can make an adjustment for the next rep: easier toy, change how you place the toy (put it down instead of throwing it), or use an empty food bowl. If is fine to make an adjustment in the moment – I recommend watching the video if you don’t know what happened. But if you do know what the challenge is, you can totally make the adjustment!
Have fun!
Tracy
