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Hi!
Great job on this session: it is a really hard skill because it is all about handler timing and not natural to the pups at all! So if we are late… then don’t make the new turn. Great job adding in lots of parallel path straight lines, and also rewarding everything even if the RC wasn’t perfect.
You got a couple of really good reps in with great timing! I will say that most of us cannot get it right in the first session, so you get a massive click/treat!!!!
I grabbed some screenshots to show you when it was good and when it was late. When you were good, you were on the new side before he arrived at the prop. When you were late, you were still on the original side. I have your screenshots and at the bottom, 2 screenshots from the demo video where I was on time: you can see how early the pups need the info, and that is why it worked nicely when you were early.
Here is the link to the screenshots:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OzlBC_pJ3AbUAVAEgYaLJtAVC3TFf2HKSZw1dokvCIA/edit?usp=sharingHe was slowing down a bit heading to the prop because you were feeding from your hand so he wanted to stay near your hand. If he has trouble finding cookies in the grass and you don’t want to throw them, you can switch to a toy that is thrown as the reward, or move to a non-grass area for cookie throws as long as you still have a lot of room like you did here, otherwise you will end up being late 🙂
Great job!!
TracyHi!
>>Wing wrap , turn and burn
It starting slow. He is a thinker>>It is because he is so young and just learning the foundations 🙂 He will definitely make fast progress! Same thing with my pup, who is just a couple of weeks older – it is hard at first but then they figure it out 🙂 Here are some ideas:
My main suggestion is to be closer to the cone so he doesn’t have to go as far away from you – it might not look like a big distance away, but he had questions about it. As soon as you go closer at 1:30, he was able to offer the wrap – but when you moved further away again, he had questions. So start very close to the cone, so he only has to thin about goin around it and not the distance between you and him.
On the 2nd video, you had a lot of physical cues to help…. we really want to fade that out so he can be independent. If you need to help him come around the cone, it will be harder for him to learn the countermotion.
So to help him with the independent offering (and because he is so young) is to add one more step on the wrap shaping with the cone, before you go to turn and burn: stand up in front of the cone, and reward him from your hands for offering going around it (without you helping and without you doing the FC yet). This step will help clarify for him to offer the wrap when yo uare standing and when there are no bowls out 🙂 I did this with my puppy yesterday and it made a world of difference (video coming soon :))
Nice work!
TracyYes! He is totally getting the feel for backing up! He is doing a great job of lifting each foot independently which is what we want (instead of flinging himself backwards, which is what we don’t want LOL!) great job to you to let this develop slowly so he could get it all figured out.
Keep your reward hands low like you had them here, at about your knees, to keep his head in that natural position – as he grows, you won’t have to bend over as much 🙂
He is a bit sideways sometimes backing up, and it might be because there were multiple targets behind him. So do only one target at a time, so he continues to back up as straight as possible 🙂
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
Strikes a pose is going well! I don’t think the toy was gonna a distraction, it was more of a connection issue (too much looking at her :)) it was great feedback from Caper about what she needs in terms of connection – this is good, because you should not be looking directly at her on serps anyway. Here’s what was happening:
At the beginning, note how she comes almost to the center of you then goes back out to the hand target (especially when it is in your right hand): this is because of where you are looking. On the cookie section, you were looking at her then when she was about a stride away from you, you looked at the target, so she went to the target.
When you went to the toy visible at :43, you looked at her the whole time until :45, when you looked at the target, so she went to the target. Same thing happened at 1:07 and 1:19- you looked at her the whole time, never looked at the target, so she went to the toy.
At 1:36 you shook the target and had the toy a little further out of this picture which helped!
based on what we see here, she needs you to look at the target hand and not at her, which is the same as looking at the landing spot as you move through a serpentine. So after you toss the cookie, look at her only until she turns back towards you: then let her see you shift from looking at her to looking at your target hand. That should make a pretty massive difference for her!
Nice work getting more of the “bite” markers in (I think I heard a couple!!) You don’t need the ‘yes’ before it, but that might be habit 🙂 I feel that pain!
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
The lap turns on the flat looked really strong, you had a nice loop going with good timing and clear cues! Then after all those cookies, he went back to the toy: SUPER!
Looking at the session with the prop:
Feeding from the hand was good when you got started! Also you can move further away from the prop so it is clearer that you want him to come to your hand and not the prop (you were pretty close to it).
Nice tug break in the middle when you changed sides! You were further away from the prop and so it was clearer to him to come to you hand. He was nailing the drive to you!I think his confusion about going to the prop after the turn had to do with the marker:
After the turn, you were moving towards the prop, pointing with the cookie hand, and saying “get it”. Get it means “go get the cookie I have tossed” which is why he froze for a second: “am I hitting the prop mom, or getting the cookie?” Your verbal and your physical cues didn’t match, so he waited for more info. So after the lap turn, don’t say anything til after he hits the prop, then mark the hit with a ‘get it’ and then toss the treat.Also try an empty hand now on the lap turn so there is no confusion about where to look. On the last couple of reps, you didn’t say get it but there was a cookie in your hand and you said yes… which generally means ’come get the cookie in my hand’ so he didn’t know where to look. The good news is that he is super smart and already knows a lot of words. The bad news is that he is super smart and already knows a lot of words LOL!!! The smarties keep us honest and clean up our mechanics for sure, and it is well worth it because they are brilliant sport partners!
Tandem turn: going well! These are not easy with little dogs but he did really well! Both sides looked easy for him, so my only suggestion is to start this with a cookie toss so you are ahead of him and he catches up. That way you can be showing the turn hands before he gets to you (along with some decel) – that will set up the turn sooner and he won’t come in front of you as much.
If that goes well… add the prop! You can reward from your hands for coming to you (start 5 or 6 feet from the prop) and then, like with the lap turns, move towards the prop with an empty hand and don’t say get it til after he has hit the prop.
So fun to hear that he is leaving you in the dust on the toy races!!! And I am glad you revisit those a lot, because they are the way we get the most speed and commitment, especially with the littles 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyAwwww, I love this walk! She was able to explore the environment and her body language tells us she was thinking about a LOT! Her tail set and ears were interesting to watch, and the big shake by the door (maybe she was ready to leave when she did that? Or maybe it was a turning point in her getting comfy with the environment?) There were a TON of interesting smells and people and noises. She relaxed and built confidence – note the change in the tail and ears from the first minute (low tail, ears back in “whippet” position LOL!) and the 2nd minute: high waggy tail, ears forward.
Her interaction with the person was interesting, it was a true resilience moment! I think she liked when the stranger talked to her! I don’t think she liked it as much when the stranger bent over her (note her body posture when that happened, it was a little stressful). But then she shook it off when the person went away – it was a GREAT resilience moment of “that was stressful, I am fine, I feel good now”. Without us being able to see it, her stress hormones fired then started to return to baseline (I call it a resilience flex) and that is GREAT!!!
When the person said “Is that a rescue” hahahahahaha I feel that pain – “No, she is a purpose bred mix with 8 working generations behind her” haha
Great job here! I am glad she is loving her resilience walks!
TracyGood morning!
I totally feel the pain of teething puppies! Backing off tugging a little is great – yo can still throw toys, but reduce the tugging and just do little toy dances with her instead. My pup is teething too, so we are using very soft flat toys, not as much tugging, and still I end up with blood on my hands (his, not mine LOL!)This tunnel session went great! She figured it all out really fast: through the thing, to the cookies, back to momma for more cookies and so on LOL! And adding in the Threadle side entry was easy for her at the end.
I think you can add the tunnel cue now, by gently holding her collar while she is facing it, say tunnel 2 or 3 times, then let go. I am 99% sure if she sees the entry clearly and the MM is on the other side, then she will go through the tunnel so adding the verbal is fine 🙂 And then you should be able to add the angles with the verbal easily too!
Nice work here! Hope you did not get hit with all those storms!!
TracyHi!
>>I decided not to go today, since it’s been snowing for two days and I didn’t want to make the drive, so I rescheduled for Friday.>>
I totally don’t blame you!!! Agility can wait til the snow stops and it is less brutal out there in terms of weather!!!
>> When I watched myself, I thought my feet weren’t pointing in quite the right direction, but I will work on that more next time.>>
Your feets were good! It is hard to stand still with your feet pointed that way and will feel much better when we add movement.
Lovely barrel session here 🙂 I love how he came into the barrel session tugging on the toy!! The whole sessions looked really good – he was definitely in fast forward, running around the barrel to the next tuggie! The next step for indoor training would be to have you standing up – you can still have the 2 toys as rewards, or reward with treats. This is a good prep for turn and burn when you will be standing, and I bet you can get some turn and burn in at home too, just don’t move too fast and run into anything 🙂
Great job!
TracySounds good!!! I am sure she will figure it out quickly, she is a brilliant girlie 🙂 Keep me posted!
Hi! So much good stuff on these!!
She seemed very happy with the wobble board cushion setup here! It looked more like regular play, and she was not concerned about it at all – all feet were going all the places LOL!! You can try some cookie shaping with this setup now – click/treat for getting on it with all feets 🙂 You can add another cushion or bed, for more room to get all of her feet on.
Plank – she was very confident on the plank here too, and your mechanics of getting her to turn looked really good – slow and low hand. Nice!
>>as soon as she had the idea of stepping off she didn’t really try to not step off
yes, I can see that she was tight on her left turns then started stepping off… it is possible that she did a couple of brilliant ones then just kind of lost the coordination of it. No problem! Try it a gain in a couple of days and I bet latent learning kicks in nicely. If you have a longer board, you can try this outside with the board more elevated.
Aha, here is the more elevated plank in the next video! LOL! Yes, it was a little wobbly but she seemed fine with it: plenty of cushion and the elevation made it very clear for her to get all four feet on. It might move a little too much to add in turning around, but you can certainly try to stabilize it more and try turning around. It is high enough that it is easier to stay on than to step off!
Backing up: This is going pretty well – true, it is not easy, but you are beginning to see a few steps backwards! She definitely has to think hard about it 🙂 And I like that she was keen to come in close to you as part of playing this game 🙂 So keep going with this plan, because it is building the backing up and also building comine close to you 🙂 The only suggestion is to not add the verbal cue quite yet – wait til she cango 5 or 6 stepsbackwards then we can add the cue. There are other ways to teach backing up but this way teaches her to love coming in close to you too!
Parallel path – looks like you lined her up with a hand touch to start, love it!!! Her targeting to the prop looks great. My only suggestion is to say “get it” instead of yes when you mark the hit and toss the reward. She is looking straight, and the yes tends to get the pups looking at us. The ‘get it’ helps them continue to look forward. You can add a little more room by taking this outside, which will also add more speed 🙂
Countermotion: she was hitting the prop really well on your right side! She had to think for a moment on your left but then sorted it out, good girl!! To add more speed to the behavior and to be able to start moving the other direction even sooner, you can start closer to the prop and engage her with the ready dance and eye contact – then when you send, she will see the very clear cues of your arm, leg and eyes shifting to the prop. That will help her drive away faster, so you can start moving the other direction even sooner.
The rear cross game is indeed SUPER challenging which is why it starts on a prop and not a jump 🙂 You were sending and then trying to cut in behind her, which made the cutting in to the new side late so she didn’t turn the new direction on most of the reps. Think of the rear crosses as an extension of the parallel path game: you’ll start moving up the line with her, and she is likely to drive ahead to the prop – so then when she is halfway to the prop, you can changes sides behind her and she will turn the new direction. I think you will need to be outside to do this, so you have enough room to get her driving ahead on the parallel path game so then you can add in rear crosses.
Nice work on all of these! Let me know what you think!
TracyHa! That makes sense that the vacuum noise would sound like that. And yes, totally better than no training! Can’t wait for winter to be over!
Hi! I think you started at a level 300 distraction here when we want a level 2 ideally LOL! She was a very god girl!!!
To set her up for more immediate success, start a lot further away so she can engage sooner and doesn’t need any prompting. The reason we don’t want the prompting is that a cue doesn’t teach her to self-regulate in the same way as juts letting her do it does. So you can start as soon as you get out of the car, that is probably pretty far.Then youcan get closer.She is still pre-adolescent so she did really well (which is exactly why we are starting these games with the baby dogs!!!) When she is a teenager, it will be harder for her (brain development in adolescent dogs is quite the adventure!) but we will have built up that resilience muscle that you will probably see a ton of good self-regulation.
The game posted this week has more info on the self-regulation and adding hard disractoins, so she will have a much easier time and will build on her successes here 🙂
Nice work!!!
TracyHi!
So on the handling combos, she was not going to the cone and was going behind you to the reinforcement instead? Yes, good move to use the Manners Minder! You can also leave the MM out behind you, and reward at the cone with cookies or toys, to get more value onto the cone in the presence of the reinforcement 🙂Tracy
Good morning!
>>I did take your rec and move the first jump to 8 and the second to 12 for a warm-up but I was getting 100% bounce jump at 12 and consistently adding a stride at 8. If you think I should go back to 8, I will do so. I have been starting her at 12 b/c she has been consistent with the bounce.>>
Interesting! Send a video, I want to see what she is doing 🙂 My guess is the 8″ bar doesn’t stimulate her to use her hind end, so she is all chill about it then has to add the stride to get over 12″ 🙂 So you can use an 8″ to a 12″ as a set point to ask her to use her hind end even when the bar is not stimulating LOL! It can be an angled set point, with a shorter distance of maybe 5 or 5.5 feet. The goal would be to say to her “Wink, please ALWAYS use her hind end please and thanks” 🙂
But for these zig zags, as we tighten things up and raise the bars, stay with 12″ minimum.
>>Today was the first day that she ticked a few bars. I didn’t notice them but my friend told me.
Actually…. I think she was hearing something else. More below. These sessions were good!
>>Regarding the push to the backside, where should I be starting? I noticed that I was moving further back b/c I would normally send my dog from a distance and then today I thought, “Maybe Tracy wants me to be in the middle of the first bar for proofing?” Also, walking or running?>>
Because the backside version of the zig zag grid is still very new for her, the key is to be super predictable with your position and motion for now, til she says “HOLD MY BEER” and is very consistent about it. Then you can add more challenge to it in terms of your position as a “proofing” thing or getting way ahead or being behind. You were starting in the middle where the 2 wings meet, and for most of the reps you were moving fast which was great! When you moved slowly or changed your start position, she had questions. We don’t want to change too much about what you do at first, because that will be too much for her to process while doing this pretty wicked grid (your friend mentioned how impressive it was on the first Tuesday video, and she is correct!! It is a freakin’ hard grid and Wink did well!!!)
>>Right now, I am just looking for bounce jumping and knocked/ticks bars. Wink sometimes looks awkward to me but I am no expert in jumping.>>
The number 1 thing we are looking at is her approach to the bars – what is her hind end doing, where is her head, is she balanced or inverted? (Spoiler alert, she is doing well! More below 🙂 ) If her form is good, then she is likely to bounce jump if the spacing is correct. Then yes the next thing we look at – is she touching the bars? And if she is, where is she touching them and why? She didn’t touch any bars on these videos due to any jumping struggles. All of it is harder to see in the moment and easier on video for sure! Here are specifics:
Front side zig zags: she is doing really well with these! She is slightly better going from her left to right (when she is in your left) than she is going from her right to her left (on your right). It looks like an easier, more powerful jumping effort when she in your left (more hind end power, lower head, a little more curve to the spine) and she has to work a little harder when she is on your right (head a tiny bit higher, more thinking happening) but both are really strong! And both were better when you moved faster (ran more than walked, she liked that a whole lot and did not lose her form. SUPER!) She had only one question consistently in these sessions:
When you led out, put the toy on the ground, and remained upright before releasing and moving, she was consistently strong.When you led out, put the toy on the ground, then crouched before the release: she consistently ticked the first bar. That crouch is a bit of a ‘game on’ position that stimulates her and causes her to lean forward… then in this grid she does not have the time or space to shift back before the first jump, so she ticks the bar. Looking at the left rep of the 3rd Tuesday zig zag video, you were off camera, but you must have been crouching a bit because you can see her leaning in and twitching.
So, you can note that and proof it on a jump when she has more room to make an adjustment. For these where there is no room, try not to crouch 🙂 You can put the toy on the ground, start to move it and run forward, and *then* release her – that is a great challenge for her 🙂
You have 2 choices on how to build on this:
You can flatten the angle even more til it is almost totally flat
You can keep the angle same as it was here and put the bars at 14 then at 16.I would work both of them in separate sessions, spread out by a couple of days.
Backside zig zags -yes, these are hard and might have some awkward moments as she tries to solve the puzzle, but she was great!
On these, it also seemed like she had an easier time on your left side (2nd video) and had a hrder time on your right side (first video). So either she needed that first video to sort out what this new puzzle was, or she is more comfy working on your left than your right (regardless of which way she would turn). Either way, she did really well here!
On the first set of videos, she was a little awkward on the first 2 reps on the first 2 videos, then on the 3rd rep she sorted out how to approach with using her hind end the same way we would want to see her use it on a plank organizer – then it was smooth sailing. She was still sorting out how to use her front end (slightly different approach with her front end on the 2nd video), but all good – no big struggles so we just let her solve the puzzle.
Tuesday session1, on your right, left to right: You friend is correct, it is impressive. And yes, it is hard but that is the challenge of the grid – it is not going to look easy 🙂
Watching in slow motion, she was consistent on where she was putting herself over the bars and how she was using her hind end. Yay! She did have a legit question though, at 1:48 for example: you changed what you were doing and you moving more slowly on that (and the previous) rep, so she might have had a legit question of “am i really supposed to accelerate when you are decelerated like that?” and ticked the first bar. So for now, just keep your motion and position the same so she doesn’t ask questions as she is working the grid.The same thing happened at the end of the 2nd push video from Tuesday at 1:55 – you had all the excitement as if you were going to run then when you sent her, you walked…. so she was trying to process the grid AND also your motion. Let’s have you run the whole time, so she doesn’t need to process any change of motion for now.
There was discussion about bar ticking on these clips…. I listened a few times and there is a metallic jingling sound but not nails ticking the bar except the 2 spots where she had a question about your motion. Maybe collar tags jingling? or maybe something jingling as you moved? Santa arriving early? LOL! Hard to tell what it was, but it was not nail ticks because it was also happening before you sent her and while you were tugging LOL! So no worries about excessive ticking, I think her efforts were really quite clean!
On these backsides, you can send from where you were in the center, and run to the reward target – keeping your position and motion the same – and raise the bars to 14 🙂
Let me know what you think! Have fun!
TracyHi! He did well on these!
On the wraps, he did well – the only question he had was more about a noise in the background, I think, and not a jumping question. At :15, there is a rumbling that gets loud, like tennis balls in a dryer LOL!! The rest were really good!So for the wraps, you can go to the fading steps – I like to use both methods to fade the sit and fade the plank, but not in the same session.
On the slices, he had a couple more questions about the sit – they were largely when he was on your left for the serp or threadle and especially when you are past the jump (he had a question on your right but I think that was more about a late sit cue). So it is possible he needs you to move more slowly when he is on your left so you are not quite as far ahead yet, so he doesn’t get as frozen especially in the face of the glorious PT out ahead LOL!
He will probably only need one more session of these as well, and then you can start the fading on the slices too. Yay!
Great job!
Tracy
