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Good morning! Sounds like a really fun Thanksgiving!!
She of course did great with the baby level with the bowl and with the toy – the bowl and toy can move a bit further around the cone on each rep because the baby level is soooooo easy for her. She also seemed happy to be held for the line up which is of course an important part of this too! Super!! She had one question where she went to the other side of the cone, but more on that below:
So to answer your question and move to the advanced level:
> If you are using “get it” (“dish” or “toy toy” for me here depending on if it’s a food bowl or toy) if there is a direct line to the reinforcer why wouldn’t you expect them to skip the obstacle and take the reinforcer?>
The marker is coming when I see the pup has looked at the correct line around the wing (it is not a release, it marks looking in the spot I want). At first the bowl or toy is in such an easy position that they go around the cone to get it. Then as the bowl/toy moves, the neural pathway of staying on the line you are looking at starts to develop (because it is really so efficient for the dog to do it) and the reward is better when they do (in terms of our response).
So we almost never see the puppy cut in and skip the cone. Maybe once, but it is not a regular thing. And if needed, we can release the puppy to move when she looks at the correct line, but delay the marker until she gets to the correct line (which is goinbg to come into play more as the position of the bowl/toy gets more challenging and they have to go past it to get to the cone).
– we can also delay the marker>> Is this why you were using your hand to mark the line you wanted? I feel like without some sort of cue to take the “obstacle” I wouldn’t want the dog to be rehearsing grabbing obstacles that aren’t cued, or when something else is cued. At this stage can we just rely on that free hand indicating the line to BE the cue to take the obstacle/cone since the obstacle/cone does not have a verbal cue yet?>
Exactly! The hand cue to was the cue to look at the line. And when the pup looked at it, I used my marker for the bowl/toy. They totally don’t know what the heck it means yet, but they sure do know how to look at a bowl or toy 🙂 so we can get the behavior very easily.
I agree that some kind of cue is needed and yes, we can rely on the hand point to indicate the line as the physical cue. And if I wanted a different behavior on the cone, I would cue something different, even if the bowl or toy was in the same spot.
Looking at where she had her question in the video, at 3:13 – she is lined up directly on the line she took, and you had a finger point but not a clear indication to the line you wanted. Watch where she is looking before you released her: directly at the line she took 🙂
But then compare to the next 2 reps: at 3:27 you had a little arm cue and she looked at the toy really well. Then 3:56 was the best rep: a clearer arm cue and you waited for her to look at the line you wanted. When she did, you gave the toy toy marker and she nailed it. YAY!!
I think that was a big moment for her because it started to solidify the concept of ‘look at the line then stay on the line’. Then we will gradually increase challenge by moving the bowl/toy (and delay the marker as needed) while cuing the line we want her to take. You can make your arm cue even more obvious to help her out.
Let me know what you think! Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
>Happy Thanksgiving! or, National Day of Washing Dishes.>
Happy Thanksgiving back to you, and I also did far too much dish washing (and have more to do hahahaha)
Looking at the video:
> I have always used a prop for backing up. This method was what worked for him – it was a hard skill for him to learn.>
This is definitely one of the great ways to teach it – it is still a shaped behavior, but the mat provides a destination for him. We will be using that target concept soon, but to give you a jump on it – you can start making your target less stable (pile up a couple of towels or mats at first, then if he finds that easy, use an under-inflated fitness thing so it is very easy to back up onto and moves only a little bit).
And with the ‘normal’ targets, keep adding distance for him to back up further and further.
> I’ve started using the word back, but I know that he does not know it. If there’s no target, he struggles.>
Keep the word with the target for now, and you can also start to fade the target into small and smaller targets so he is eventually backing up to a piece of duct tape on the floor 🙂 and then eventually backing up to no target. It is not a huge priority right now but certainly fun to do!! The targets keep him straight and balanced which is a super high priority with an adolescent dog.
The prop games are going well!
The parallel path game is a bit of a loop with cookies, so you can vary your position on each rep as he goes back and forth: sometimes as soon as he is getting to the treat, you can turn and move past the prop so you are way ahead when he is moving to it. Sometimes go all the way to the treat with him and wait til he eats it – then turn and move forward so he drives ahead of you. And sometimes split the difference, sending him past you to the treat then waiting there, so you are parallel to him a bit more . Mix it up!The sending is going really well!!! He turned the correct direction towards you on both sides – that is GREAT!!! Remember that this is not a looped behavior, so call him to you and get him engaged and excited before each send. That will get even more drive to the prop so your countermotion can be even more exaggerated 🙂 At this point, I think the best way to do that is to use a toy instead of treats 🙂 The toy can be rewarded from your hands or tossed past you, then he tugs with you, then you do the next rep. And if he drives away to the prop with more conviction because the send is really exciting, you will be able to move the opposite direction as soon as he leaves you to go to the prop.
>Then the RC were just a hilarious blooper reel.>
The rear crosses are super hard and based on your blooper reel comment, I was expecting it to have gone wrong a whole lot. But you nailed it on the 2nd rep!!!! At 1:17 you got to the new side early enough that he turned left. YES! At 1:29 he was watching you a bit more but still got it.
The others were all a little late (1:17 was the best one in terms of timing) but at 1:40 and the reps after it he had figured it out: when da momma puts pressure in towards the center of the prop, you turned away. SUPER!!! Very smart dog 🙂
To make it even easier and to keep him looking ahead more, mix in lots of reps of the parallel path where he does not turn away (you go to the cookie with him on the reps where you are setting up the RC). Overall, though, this is one of the best first RC sessions that I have ever seen, especially since he got it in both directions! Click/treat to you!
Great job on these!
Tracy
Good morning! Hope you had a good Thanksgiving!!
>I’m working on remembering to tug lower, though I’m super sore from my workout yesterday and that made it … tricky. >
You can totally tie a few toys together to create a 6 foot long toy – it is harder to carry by definitely easier on the back or hamstrings or any place you might be sore.
>Hard for me to adjust to tugging with him versus Pattern and Phoenix, but both of us will keep adapting>
I can relate – different sizes of dogs, different ages… makes for slightly different mechanics at first. But it will get easier and then you won’t have to think about the mechanics as much.
The videos are looking good!!!
Driving ahead: You can throw it further and start to add your motion (walking forward, then jogging, then running then racing!). His response to your motion will tell you how much to move: if he continues to move in a direct line to the toy, you can add mroe motion. If he starts to bubble out and push off the pressure and is on more of a curved line to the toy – dial back the motion to where he can remain on the straight line to the toy.
In between reps, use a line up with a cookie to get him to your side and in position before you reach for him. When you tried to reach for him and move him into position in between the reps on the video, he was avoiding/moving away a bit. He is doing great about switching between food and toys, so you can use a cookie to line up, and to reward him for letting you hold him – this is especially important if you aren’t using a collar or harness, since we want him to be very comfy being touched.
On the blind cross video:
You can make these more agility-style by emphasizing connection so he can make the side change very immediately. You were doing them more flyball-style with the toy being the mainly visible thing and not that much connection, so you can see there is a delay in the side change as he processes where to be. So to get the super fast snappy blinds, have the toy scrunched up in the dog side hand – then as you do the blind, connect to him on the new side, new arm pointing back to him, and the toy from the original hand stays in that hand and is resting on the dog side hip. He will see the connection change very quickly and make some snappy side changes!! It is the more European way of training blinds (if anyone asks 🙂 ) The hard part of us is to keep the toy in the original hand and not change hands, but the results are worth it.It looks like this (ignore the jump for now :)):
>>On the blind cross reps, he seemed better at grabbing the tug when it was on my right. I was holding the food in my left hand (no pockets), and I wonder if that contributed?>>
I think that was probably it – he would look at the toy then at your hand on that side. You can separately get a bit of tugging while you hold one boring cookie 🙂 and see how he does.
Also, if you are right-handed, there might just be a stronger response to tugging on your right. The left might be a little harder, especially with food. So you can get a bait bag or stick them down your shirt for now, or use one cookie to throw to start (the rest are stashed on a wall or something) so you can reward the blind without cookie interference 🙂
He was a lovely goat on the last video! Great job bringing him in with the tugging so he could think about proprioception while he was definitely more aroused! And nice transitions from the toy to the object/treats/back to the toy. A treat dropped but no worries, he got right back into the tugging. He did great – good foot hits while he was definitely more stimulated by the tugging annd the presence of the toy.
The object is a little small so you didn’t get any hind end offering. He is ready for hind end offering for sure, so you can make a biggr ‘playing field’ by getting 4 or 5 objects and placing them next to each other, so he has a several things to walk across and get his back feet on. This will of course be pretty impossible to carry with you and place down while tuggin LOL! So you can have it set up in advance, get tugging before you go over to it, then run over and let him off. Then when you break off for more tugging, you can move away from the objects so he doesn’t keep trying to offer behavior on them.
Great job here!!!!
Tracy
Good morning! Having a big field all to yourself is great! Hope you had a fun Thanksgiving!
He did well with the pre-game (hardest part for him might have been finding the treats in the grass :))
To make the mechanics easier, you can drop the clicker and the ‘yes’ – and just use your ‘get it’ before tossing the treat. ‘Get it’ means both ‘you are correct (making the click and the yes unnecessary) and ‘the treat is tossed’ (which is better info than the click or yes). That way it is easier for you!He is ready for you to start the week 1 sending to the prop – you can give him a quick warm up with rewarding for touching it to refresh the value, then move into the sends 🙂
Excellent start to the forward focus (and I almost snorted coffee through my nose when you said “I know, it should be on a leash” hahahaha) He brought it back pretty quickly, no worries 🙂 I don’t think it needed to be on a leash unless the victory lap turned into a lengthy victory parade. And he brought it back really fast when you started moving away!
Great job with your connection on the release. He is definitely ready for the toy races where you run forward and try to beat him to the toy (good luck haha) to increase speed even more while adding handler pressure and the acceleration cue. If he is fine with that, you can also add the GO verbal.
>>BTW, I have the broken retriever, LOL! He often drops the toy on the way back….I added in motion to entice him but definitely need to work on this. He doesn’t seem to do it when field training.>>
He did well here! It is possible he drops it early if you pull out cookies too early – so let him get all the way back to you before you even reach for your pocket 🙂 And if he drops it, you can go grab it and dance around and tease him a little before the next rep, so he has regrets about dropping it 🙂
He did great with his food bowls in this new environment! YAY!!! I also love your chair, it is the perfect height. Since he has seen movement puzzles which share the same back-and-forth concept, you can fast track this game to put a barrel or large cone in between the bowls to go around. When he can do that (should take about 15 seconds haha) then you can change your position to standing up. And if you can get a session or two of you standing and he is wrapping a barrel or big cone? Cool! Onwards to turn and burn which was added last Tuesday 🙂
Great job here!! Have fun!
TracyGood morning! Hope you had a good Thanksgiving!!
> He has dreams to compete at Invitationals he just doesn’t know it yet. >
I can totally see him at the Invitationals!!!!
Your run through practice here looked. He seemed just fine and dandy to run the sequences without treats in your hands or pocket – it is possible that he is beginning to find running agility to be intrinsically rewarding? And that is great, so now we just need to transfer that to the trial environment. You can still use treats and toys in the harder environments as well as when training at home, of course, but it is really cool to see how well he did withut them 🙂
My only suggestion about it is to interact more as you come in to jump 1and get set up – you can talk to him a bit and use you tricks! You played with your hands a bit but he didn’t get engaged with that (he looked away). But he certainly likes his tricks so you can do a little of that as you move to the start line. That will also help in case he finds the trial environment more challenging than home or class.
He had great engagement when the leash came off and was all business after that 🙂
The first course went really well.
Nice start to the sequence with the tunnel! The rest of the first run was edited out and it looks like he was happy to get his leash on at the end.
2nd run was a much longer sequence and he was impressive!!! NICE! He ran it like an adult dog there, not a youngster. Fabulous conenction and verbals from you!
2nd course went really well too – he has a great start line and the lead out to get the backside of 3 worked great! You had super nice connection there and then there was a tiny drop of connection at 2:26 so he went past the jump. Good job continuing and reconnected so he got right back on the line.
And he was happy to get leashed up and run out to the rewards on these. Really super practice!!
Great job here!! For his trial next weekend – if there a toy you can bring in that he will like? A furry (empty) lotus ball attached to a leash, or a tuggie he likes?
Tracy
Good morning! Hope you had a good Thanksgiving!
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Looking at the power patten game: She did great! Yay!
>. I only used the leash once and then we did a back & forth. To really replicate the AKC experience, I think I need to start with leash on, go to the jump, remove the leash, engage (take the jump when we get to that point) then I think you mentioned that we can add a verbal for getting the leash before the “let’s go” to get the remote reinforcement. Should I do that every time, or just some of the time to keep it simple & fun in the beginning?>
I think I should add in recommending people leave a leash at each station, so it is easier to flow through it and not worry about where the leash it. Or maybe throw the leash to the next station, like we throw it away to a leash runner LOL!! That way you can use the leash to bring her to the course, then AKC-style get it back on when you are ‘exiting’. The more we use the leash as part of the game, the better 🙂
She did really well here! You don’t need to use ‘yes’, you can just ues your ‘let’s go’ (so the ‘yes’ doesn’t accidentally become the marker to go to the rewards 🙂 )
The line up was great! She learned that fast!!! All of the other tricks looked good too. You can add the stay in sooner – that way she gets used to you asking for a stay and a short lead out, mixed in with the tricks and stuff too.
On the 2nd video:
The engagement after the leash came off was great. She didn’t want to play with the first toy – maybe because she could smell treats? Or the toy needed to be more ‘alive’ so she could chase it? Either way it is good info about what she feels is a reward/motivator in the moment 🙂
But she DID want to tug on the fancy rainbow leash!!! So you can let her tug on it then slip over her head then tug on it more 🙂 Does she like being picked up? You can tug on it, pick her up, put it over her head, then tug more. The mechanics might feel a little messy at first as she gets used to the ritual of it.
> She was stiffening when I was clipping on the leash. Can I give her a treat after I clip the leash on for this game?>
Yes – if she is showing concern about the clip then yes, cookies are good! Maybe she doesn’t like the click of the clip right near her face or ears?
>So like this: clip leash on, treat, walk to our spot, leash off, engage & play/treat.>
Absolutely! I didn’t see any of the issue with the slip leash (other than her wanting to tug on it LOL) so you can also skip the clip leash altogether and use the slip leash!
>>We have a trial this weekend. It is a busier location with 2 alternating rings under cover at an equestrian center on dirt. She has been there several times as a spectator and has used the practice jump there. I’ll be there with her Friday & she is entered for Saturday morning so I can get a feel for how she is feeling about the place and take her some some long sniffy walkson Friday to get used to it. If she seems up for it, I’ll keep it very simple.>
FUN! Keep me posted!!!
>> Do you think I should keep the toy visible?
If my memory is correct: she practices without the visible toy at home and in league, and her previous FEO had the hidden toy… so if that is correct, no need to keep the toy visible *unless she is really having a struggle in the environment*. You can do Empty Hands. And depending on how many runs she does: if all goes well, you can even try a quick step 3 in and out with no toy in the ring (super easy fast line then right out to the leash then the toy).
>I can put the bowls outside the ring even though we just got started with the power pattern.>>
Yes, try it! I think she will recognize them pretty quickly.
Great job here and keep me posted about how the weekend goes!
Tracy
Hi! Hope you had a good Thanksgiving and have plenty of leftovers 🙂 And I totally agree about not wanting to drive anywhere!!!
Looking at the RR game:
She did well here! Yes, the jump did add some pressure to the environment! One thing to add sooner rather than later is the leash being on at the beginning. I think it will help make things clearer for her with the jump in the picture: The leash is a cue to move with you (away from the food) and it is also a cue to *not* take the jump when you ask for a trick right in front of it. And the leash is part of moving into the ring anyway, so might as well add itI think wrapping towards the reward station was too hard (jumping in extension towards it and away from it was easy, and so was wrapping away from it, and so was getting the leash on). So for now, you can keep the behaviors over the jump simple when going towards the reward station.
>the St Rocco’s treats which are apparently very yummy and take a while to chew>
My dogs agreed that the St. Rocco sample was yummy and stinky and the texture was a bit different (they still ate it like pigs though).
For the pattern game session:
Good job having the leash right away – it was still a challenging game but she moved away from the treats much more easily. And I really liked her pumped up body language on th 2nd rep! Maybe I should incorporate 2 leashes into this game (one placed at the 2nd station) so it is easier for the handlers to get it back on for the next rep 🙂
2 suggestions for this game as you play with it:
– try having a chair or small table that you can easily bring to a trial as one of you stations. That will help make the reward station recognizable and predictable in the much more chaotic trial environment!
– using the pattern game and leash… try the wrapping the jump towards the reward station (the skill she had a lot of trouble with in the first session). I am curious to see how she does when things are more predictable (leash). I think she will be more successful but also I acknowledge it might have nothing to do with the leash, it might have everything to do with having practiced it 🙂
>in order to cue a different position stay, I should probably train a stand stay first!>
In theory, yes. But in reality you can train it like I did: I stopped moving, I said stay, I let the dog stand still… then I started rewarding with a ‘catch’ reward as I started moving away. It is a bit of a fast track but the dogs totally caught on immediately LOL!
Great job here! Have fun at Fusion today!
Tracy
Hi!
This is all looking really good!Goa tricks: Releasing her to find a treat helped her come back and offer behavior really well. You can keep switching out objects and even make a little pile for her to climb on 🙂
The Stealth Self-Control went great! The only time she interacted with the distraction was when th cookie landed right behind it 🙂 You can add your motion to the recall – as soon as she gets to the cookie, call her and start moving away. The added motion can help her overcome harder things we add to the environment – such as the novel-exciting thing we are adding this week! You can add that in now, having it a little further away so that it is a little challenging but not too hard.
I really love how she goes from cookies to toy play in this game and also in the game with the forward focus on the cone! Super!!!
The forward focus game on the cone also looked really good.
>I have to say I got a bit mixed up with holding the collar and pointing the hand to the bowl because it seemed to be the same hand. I>
I was holding the dog with the dog side arm and pointing with the opposite arm. You can switch that if it is more comfortable for you. And that way you can add the pointing in very clearly as the cue – you can make it big and obvious to her 🙂 It was hard to see where she was looking but he had a ton of success here! So you can keep moving the bowl around the cone, until she has to go past it to get to the cone (HARD!)
She was really great about her collar being held until the very end. I am not sure if she was tired of it by then, or if there were treats nearby she was trying to get to? So you can keep your sessions a little shorter when the collar hold is involved and also keep lining her up with a treat before taking her collar (then give her another tiny treat LOL!) to maintain the love of the collar holding.
Great job here!
TracyGood morning and welcome! Hope you are having a fun Thanksgiving!
He does have a nice long neck LOL!!! And it sounds like he is just a super fun pup 🙂 Yay!
I am glad you have gotten pattern games and forward focus going, those are both really useful games. And I totally relate to life on the road – it is HARD to get video! Maybe Artie can be bribed with a chewie or something while you train Ringo, so you have 2 minutes of Ringo time for the video 🙂 Also, a lot of this can be done on leash so you can do it outside the RV while she is inside.
Looking forward to seeing you!!
TracyHi!
He is doing great with his prop games!! He has a ton of value which is great because we can now really dig into the higher level handling concepts. YAY!!For the parallel line: you can add more lateral distance and walk back and forth (don’t run yet as this is drawing his focus to you). As soon as he is running to get the treat, you can be moving over and walking along the parallel line, so he sees the motion cue as soon as he turns around. And sometimes you can go all the way to the treat with him so he drives ahead of you to the prop.
And rather than praise, use his ‘get it’ marker for a tossed reward to help keep him looking ahead.
No worries if his hits are not perfect on this parallel path game: it is cuing extension so if he strides over the prop a bit, that is fine and rewardable.
Skipping ahead to the rear crosses: You were a little late 🙂 as we all are when starting the rear crosses LOL!! At 1:16 and 1:28, he is turning towards you and about to hit the prop as you are just starting to cross behind him. Good job rewarding him anyway, to help him recognize that the handler pressure on that line predicts the rear cross is coming (so we don’t always have to be perfectly on time :))
So to be more on time with him: do some warm ups with the parallel path game where you go all the way to the reward cookie with him before turning and moving forward, so he is driving ahead to the prop. When he has done that a couple of times in a row, you can then start crossing behind him as soon as he is past you. Then, keep moving to the prop on the new side to support him hitting it. The goal is that you are fully on the new side while he is still 2 steps away from the prop, so there might be some running involved here because he is fast!
For the countermotion – at this stage, you can use one send step only to cue him to go to the prop and then as he is moving past you, you are moving the other way. The key to this will be calling him back after each treat, getting the engagement with a bit of ‘ready ready’ silly stuff… then making a BIG send cue. You had a lot of motion which made it harder for him to read the send cue as you got further away, so starting with him next you to before each send will both clarify the send and help him shift from handler focus to obstacle focus, while making it easier for you to move away as he is committing to his prop.
Great job here! Happy Thanksgiving!
Tracy
Good morning! Hope you are having a fun Thanksgiving!
>Arrow already knows to back up on cue – although maybe not quite fluent yet, as he did a bit of complaining in the video. I taught it to him with a mat for him to touch with his back feet. Lmk if you think this is OK.>
I agree that he already has a very strong foundation in backing up! Nice job!!! I think what you were seeing here when he barked and couldn’t quite back up anymore was a combination of higher arousal (from doing a few reps, nothing bad, all good) and the pressure of the other dog. When he was backing up away them where he could face them at the beginning, no problems. When you had him backing up parallel to them, a little more towards them… much harder!
The pressure is simply the presence of the other dogs – puppy brains have to process that AND produce behavior and all the neuroscience tells us that it is HARD for puppy brains! So he was a little frustrated but we can embrace the and help him process his mechanics while also processing the environment. It is something that happens in the neurons more than a ‘choice’ of behavior, but the brain can definitely learn it!
Since they were being perfect citizens here (thanks Matrix and Yowza!) so you can use this setup to teach his brain how to process mechanics/footwork while there is pressure in the environment. Start where he can be successful with backing up (further from them and also backing up away from them). Then throw in a rep where he is closer . Then go back to easier spots (further). You can ping pong this over a few sessions until he can happily back right up towards them 🙂 If at any point he says “this is hard, I can’t do it, I will bark and offer easier things” or if the other dogs make it harder with noise or movement, then you can make it easier for him by adding more distance.
Also, latent learning will help here: I am sure he slept on it and will be more equipped to handle the pressure in the next session. It is a good thing to embrace in small doses with behaviors he is already strong with 🙂
>At the end I did some “cookie rolls,” which is like your pattern games – I usually do these before and after most of the exercises. >
The cookie rolls are high action which can stimulate arousal, almost like tugging. So for the pattern games, you can make it more chill, less movement – and wait longer before each toss to give him time to full re-engage. The pattern games should settle arousal a bit, so you can play them with less energy. And the cookie rolls can be a more energizing game designed to bring him into higher arousal. He will be able to tell the difference based on context and body language.
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning! He is doing really well with his games here!!
Good thoughtful session of the wing wraps!
To get even more movement around the upright, you can move the cato plank out of the way – you might not have noticed it there but his puppy brain did 🙂 The slight pressure it adds into the environment inhibits movement a bit so having a more open space will make a big difference to his movement around the upright.Start the next session the way you left off here: you sitting with the upright near you, with him going back and forth between the bowls. When he gets into the rhythm and does a few strong reps in a row, break it off for some tugging and so you can change your position into sitting on a chair or something low. And if that goes well? We get you standing up! This might happen in one session or two sessions, but it will happen quickly 🙂
Separately, you can remain on the ground and work on getting the upright a little further away, inch by inch.
>I had to switch away from the hat because Phoenix taught him that hats are very cool toys and he would not be persuaded otherwise. >
HA!! Yes, she is right, Ramen agrees LOL!!!
He is doing well with this new prop. He wants to look up at your magic cookie hand, so we can tweak the reward placement to get him looking forward more: be one step further away, so it is harder to hit the prop AND look at the hand. Then, send with an empty hand by have a cookie in your opposite hand. When he is just about arriving at the prop but right before he looks at you, toss the other cookie onto it. Yes, he might not hit it very precisely but that is fine because we are isolating where he is looking.
Also, remember that this is not a looped behavior in that we don’t want to re-send as soon as he comes back to you. Be sure to add in the ready dance silliness 🙂 so that you are getting the higher arousal in place (brain training!) and also so he learns to shift from handler focus to obstacle focus. I think that moment of shifting after the ready dance will also help you isolate the looking ahead.
Great job here! Have a happy Thanksgiving!!
Tracy
Good morning!
I am glad the vet visit went really well – that is so important!
>>Because we got home late from the vet, he got dinner late… usually he gets an early dinner plus a small night snack. So guess who woke up at 2am STARVING????>>
I mean, I can relate. I too am always starving hahaha. With a couple of my pups, I fed 4 or 5 really small meals throughout the day to help with the starving factor. You can experiment with him and see how he feels about that, in terms of not being as hungry all the time 🙂
Toy retrieves: he was really into it and was really good about bringing the toy back! The toys were hard to pick up because he was exploring the texture of each a bit, but that is fine 🙂 When he decided where to pick it up, he brought it back pretty quickly. Super!! I like how well he switched back and forth between the toys. You can change your position in this game (standing, or being in a different part of the room). And you can also bring exactly one kibble 🤣 and feed it to him then see how he does with going back to the toy (I think he will be fine).
The folding it in cone session went really well. The big wins here were:
– he settled into being stationary next to you and not moving around as much pretty quickly! He would sometimes look at you while doing so, but that it fine for now because he was generally looking at the line really well and was happy to be restrained a bit at your side.
– He is doing well with the dish marker, so now only say it after he makes the correct line decision. It is is like a click, so we don’t want to use it til after we get the behavior. You can release him quietly then use the dish marker when he gets to the correct side of the cone (after looking at it)
– The empty dish went great! So give him maybe one more session where the dish makes it all the way around to you, where he has to run past it before getting to the cone… then start over with the cookie in the dish 🙂 That is the next level impulse control for sure!
Wrap game: the bucket was interesting so yo can help him out and start by putting the cookies in the bowls to establish that back and forth, rather than ask him to offer right from the get-go. Once he got into the rhythm, he was great – it was just at the very beginning then after the scatter that he had questions about offering it. The bucket is a big variable change!
The next step here is to get something taller like a barrel or giant cone to transfer this game too. When he can go around it with you sitting, you can add standing up! That will likely happen in 1 session – which will set us up nicely for the Week 3 turn and burn game 🙂
On the backing up video:
>Some mama struggles with clicking the right thing>He is off to a good start here!! I highly recommend *not* clicking for this – the click brings their heads up (which is why he kept whipping his head up to look at you and we want a lower/neutral head position – so you can throw the cookie rather than click, and you can use a marker instead of the click (or no verbals at all to get the cookies thrown sooner. He was getting the idea but I think getting rid of the clicker will make it a LOT easier. These small dog feet move SO FAST that we often get better behavior with well-timed reward placement as the priority, rather than clicks or even verbal markers 🙂
Sounds like you have a super fun weekend ahead!! Have a blast! Happy Thanksgiving! Great job here 🙂
Tracy
Good morning!
>In Goat Tricks, you talk about over/under arousal. Rip gets both.>
This is pretty normal that we see arousal shifts in training (and life). Here are some ideas:
>> He goes into over arousal quicker. It feels like frustration to me — and he barks! OMG does he bark. Any suggestions? I see this a lot when I’m working on shaping or asking for one behavior and he gives me another (and of course, doesn’t get paid).>>
When this happens, a couple of things could be causing it:
– most often it is because the rate of success is too low and there is too much failure/not enough clarity on how to earn reinforcement. That means the behavior is too hard if he is not getting rewarded at a high rate.
So to help him with that (especially because he is only about 17 weeks old :)) three things will really help:
– slice the behavior more thinly when shaping or training. Ask for an reward smaller pieces. Yes, we would like the pups to put all 4 feet on something in goat tricks but we start that with looking at the object, one foot on, 2 feet on, etc. If you wait too long or withhold reinforcement, you will see frustration.
– Live by the 2 failure rule: if you withhold reinforcement twice in a session (twice total, not just twice in a row), then the behavior is too hard for a baby puppy. So the first no-reward moment should be a yellow light of caution, that things might be too hard. The 2nd no-reward moment means you need to to make it easier for the rest of the session.
– Keep your sessions very very short (under 2 minutes) and break off to play a lot. That will help keep the rate of success high and the puppy engaged without frustration.
This all holds true for behaviors you are cuing and not shaping: make it easier and you can use physical cues to help as well. Usually the pups need clear physical cues at this stage to respond correctly, so you can help the pup with that and also maintain the 2 failure rule there too.
Let me know what you think! Happy Thanksgiving!
Tracy
