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Hi!
>>That would be fun. This is the first dog I have had that I think has the right personality for that. I’ve never played it but there is a league about 3 hours from me in Jacksonville Fl.>>
She seems like she would love it! 3 hours is far though – which part of FL are you in and maybe I can find something closer 🙂
Turn and Burn:
Her first effort was VERY good! So even though it wasn’t perfect, you can totally reward her anyway. This game is what I would consider agility handling, which means there is a potential handler error that caused her error, which is why I like to reward effort 🙂I think the question she had was you had a BIG arm motion on the first rep, so thought you were throwing a ball or something. On all of the other reps, you had a smaller arm motion and she was PERFECT!
She had a question on the first rep on the other side – probably because it was a harder side and tried to run away early – which was too hard on that side at first. But then you settled into a lovely patience and waited for her to ‘finish the job’ – and so she was just perfect there too. SUPER!!!
So keep going with the smaller arm motion to send her, and being patient – you can move her line more and more so you can run away sooner and sooner 🙂 And if something goes wrong, no worries, you can reward and restart.
Prop game also looked great = when she is in the rhythm of getting it, you can add more lateral distance even sooner! I liked how sometimes you were ahead, sometimes you let her drive ahead, and she was great 🙂
>>I mis-clicked when she jumped over the prop and she missed again a second time ( AND I mis-clicked again)
This was a really interesting part of the session! I don’t mind that she got clicks for those interactions with the prop – the prop is a jump replacement here, so if it were a jump she would have jumped it. But what caused her to change her behavior? I think that with you a little further away and her on your left, she is not as comfy yet – and at 1:39 you were looking forward ahead of her rather than at her, so she was feeling a little disconnection (note how she was looking at you).
Now if you freeze the video at 1:51 as she hits the prop, you were VERY connected by looking right at her, so she was perfect and hitting the prop. If you scroll back earlier in the video, you were more connected too so she was looking at her “job” more as well 🙂
The other reason she might have been jumping a bit is that she was trying to go faster (this does not surprise me at all LOL!) and that is fine! You can still reward it because it is indeed interaction with the prop.
Since she is so happy to drive ahead of you to it, I bet you can start even further back and try the rear cross version 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi!
Toy races looked great, she is a tiny black blur LOL!! I like how she leaves you in the dust then turns and chases you when you go the other way. Nice! Take out the control position though (sit and down starts) – just make it a goofy fun high arousal game where you don’t have to maintain a control position or worry about her leaning forward too much.For the decel game: she is doing well with driving into the turn and not shooting past you! With her foot speed…. Decel sooner 🙂 As soon as she starts to move towards you, you decel and then pivot just as she arrives at you.
At :40 you did something funky (like a standstill blind that was a little late) and she was unsure – so you were 100% correct to reward and make it clear eron the next reps where you were very clear with the blinds!These. Two games look really good, so the next session should be the decel sandwich game that we added on Wednesday! That challenges the handler’s timing a lot, so be sure to be even earlier than you think you need to be 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi!
She did super well getting on the objects here! And nice transition between treats and toys, that all looked terrific!Keep changing up what you are asking her to get on – and use bigger objects too, so she can get all four feet on and not just front feet.
The next step as well is to toss the treats back and forth – when she gets on the object you can mark her as correct then toss the treat to the side so she gets off, grabs. The treat, then runs back on, That will help promote balance and back feet as well.
Great job!
TracyHi!
I agree – her blinds look great, tons of progress and yes: you need more room LOL! Can you take the game outside?
Great mechanics with the timing, the connection and rewarding across your body!
My only suggestion is to scrunch of the toy so it is more of an agility-style reward after she changes sides for the blind, and less of a flyball-style recall toy. Having the toy already dragging while you run away delays her response a bit because she is looking at the toy (correctly) then has to watch for it to move all the way across you.
Great job!
TracyHi!
The first session looked good with the treats – she was going back and forth so you can no delay the speed of the treats and let her off going back and forth more, so the treats become more of a reward and less of a motivator.
The toy game also went well – not only because of the wrapping, but also because of the dropping of the toy to go to the next one! That is an important skill for her because she loves her toys so much!>> These were done last week so a bit old and I think she has made more progress. If she is now in the offering stage where she will go back and forth before you present the cookie or toy, you can move to sitting in a chair and then standing up. That will give her an even better foundation for the turn and burn game that we start on Wednesday.
Great job!!
TracyHi!
Focus forward is looking good! For the next steps, we are going to add even more of your motion – ty to start him your side rather than between your feet, so he can both drive forward and turn towards you when he gets the toy.On the reps at the beginning where he was better you feet, he turned left even when you were on the right turn side, probably because he is a lefty. On the last couple of reps where you started him on your side, he turned correctly to his right. Yay!
You can also start to move a little more, but don’t race him til you see him really start to run to the toy.The decel looked really good too! Nice job getting your cookie hand really low so his head was low as he turned. Nice timing on the pivots! The game we added this week (the decel sandwich) builds on this and I think he is ready 🙂
I loved his little wagging tail on the wing wrap foundations! So cute! He did well here too! So since this went well, two adjustments for the next session:
– move the 2 plates further back, past your knees, so he has more room to go back and forth.
– when he can go back and forth between the plates with them further back, you can bring in an upright for him to go around too.On the prop game – he did really well with the foot targeting here! So before you add more distance away from it, start to toss the treats more – when you click, you can toss the treat off to the side instead of hand it to him at the prop. That will get him running to grab the treat, then running back to smack the prop.
If that goes well in the next session, you can then move to the first prop game (sending).Great job!!! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
I loved your super quick response when she got to the toy by running the other way and rewarding with a great reward – I am sure you will have a great retrieve very soon!
The other handlers were not as quick to do that, so Annalise and Amy can do what you did: turn and run away and trade for a cookie.
I thought it was a great way to make the retrieve SUPER fun! And you offered great advice about getting the toy back by trading for a treat – that makes is so much nicer for everyone 🙂The backing up is going well! After the first reward for backing up, you don’t need to keep tossing treats because I don’t think he is choosing to back up at that point, I think she is just eating LOL! I mean, she is not sad about it 🙂 but you will get more backing up by calling her into your feet for the next cookie drop, and then delaying the reward for backing up by a step or two. Take a ping pong approach to building more distance: You can sometimes reward for 1 step, then 3 steps, the n2 steps, then wait for 4 the n1 then 2…. which will add the distance more gradually 🙂 And you can also work this getting her to back on onto a dog bed – we added more about that the week.
Great job!!!
Tracy
Hi!
I am glad she is feeling good and back in action!!!! She looked happy to be working here!She was bouncing the line really well when you had the angles pretty open and she added strides as soon as you started to flatten the angles out. So to help her keep bouncing, 2 ideas:
– start her really close to the wing and bar so she has to liftoff from the sit
– overlap the wings even more to shorten the distance, or if they were already fully overlapped, you can use a wingless upright and have both weave poles sitting on it (maybe one In the 4 inch cup and the other in the 6 inch cup). We want to find the sweet spot distance where she will still bounce as the angles get flatter.Great job here!! Tracy
Hi!
>>For the taller item will an oval-shaped tall laundry basket work or does it have to be perfectly round? I can buy a soft barrel from the hardware store if it needs to be completely round.>>
Oval is great! And if you find yourself in a Walmart or dollar store, you can grab a pop up barrel – but definitely don’t spend more than a dollar or two on it 🙂
>>She cracks me up with the back-up too. I will try standing up and try the between-the-feet approach next.>>
You might want to also try some flyball with her: I know she is going to be an amazing agility dog, but her spunk and sass and willingness to do flyball turns off of your stomach made me thing she would be great at Flyball too 🙂
T
Hi!
Hooray for the goat games! Sounds like there was a puppy party going on during the first part!
I think you have truly embraced the full meaning of goat games: I have never seen so many different objects in one video LOL!!! It all looked really good!
You had a really nice variation of surface textures, location, and movement of surfaces. She seemed SUPER confident on all of it. The only thing I noticed was that the narrow plank was too narrow, perhaps, she couldn’t quite get all of her feet on it. But everything else was really great.
You can make a puppy obstacle course for her, by putting all of the various objects together in a row so they are touching, and having her walk across it one after the other like a giant bridge so she is experiencing all of the different surfaces and movement one after the other, and one foot might be touching one thing with another foot is touching the next thing. That can be a great next-step for what you ave already started here.
Great job here!! See you in class tonight!
TracyHi!
His goat games with the bowl are looking good!!! It is a little hard for him to get both front and back feet in because the space is small 🙂 He is trying and does get all the feet where the need to be LOL! Yay! What do you have that is bigger – as he grows, you’ll want to use different objects partially so he has more room to get all his feets in, and partially to help him get on or in all sorts of different things. So for the next session, try something really big 🙂 One of your classmates was using a couch cushion yesterday and it worked great – big enough for the pup to get all four feet on, and also a little wobbly 🙂 So maybe grab one of the cushions that his brother was sitting on?Great job 🙂
TracyHe did really well tugging here! You can start to add a little if him weight shifting during tugging: when he has his mouth on the toy, you can move your toy hand a little less, and gently tap him with the other hand: that often gets the pups to pull even harder and gets more tugging and weight shift 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi!
Really nice session here – he was offering beautifully and both directions looked pretty equal. You were great about mixing the bowls back, and being quiet while he worked but then being loud and silly during the tug break 🙂 Yay!!!!So on the next session: keep everything the same with you standing, and start to move the wing a little further away, bit by bit. We don’t need a lot of distance, but he is ready for us to add some distance.
And if that goes well? Then on the session after that, you can start the turn and burn game we added last night. Fun times ahead!!!!
Tracy
Hi! She did really well with the wrap game!!!
On the food version of it:
She definitely had the back and forth rhythm!! As you add distance, you can move the targets back with you as you get further from the wing – they can stay near your knees when you are kneeling or at your feet when you are standing. And you can now start working up to standing: try moving from kneeling to a chair, then from the chair to standing. She might be fine with it all in one session, or need a session or two to sort that out.
Good job seeing her question when you moved further away and helping her by getting closer! Do you have a big cone or laundry basket? I think you can move to that now, because it is a little more obvious-looking to her than the skinny upright 🙂
She really liked the 2 toy version of it!!! The next step is to see if she will offer wrapping the upright before the next toy comes “alive”:
Start just as you did her to get her in the groove of the back and forth then when she has done that a couple of times, add this:
Tug tug tug then let that tug go silent, so she drops it… but don’t tap the next toy til she looks the new direction or takes a step the next direction. When that happens, you can go wild with the next toy. You can gradually stretch the time before tapping the 2nd toy so she wraps it on her own 🙂Great job!
Tracy
