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Hi!
I love his toy play here! So definitely keep playing like with you sitting on the ground – but don’t do it repeatedly with the leg bumps 🙂 I think chasing the toy once around maybe twice around is fine, because he stays tight and balanced – but he starts to fling after that, goes wide, falls over your leg or his feet. Since this is all about body awareness – don’t encourage that loss of body awareness, so limit the number of go-rounds and make sure the toy is not in his mouth as he goes across your legs (he was not thinking about body awareness there). You can also work with food separately too!
You can do one or two go-rounds with the toy, then just play on the flat. The let him take a breath… and do it the other direction.
Nice work!
TracyHi!
Backing up is looking really good! He had his head up high in the beginning but you caught that and changed your hand position at about :25 – perfect! Having your hands just above the bowl worked really well!
He also wants to look up at you when you click, so feel free to stop clicking 🙂 You can just use a get it or a bowl cue if you have one. You will still want to mark the behavior – any interaction of feet with the board at first, then mark the 2nd foot hit – you were marking the 1st foot hit, but then when you wanted both feet, he was confused and going a little sideways. So after a warm up, make sure you mark the 2nd foot on the wood 🙂Great job here!
TracyHi!
He is a confident little goat! Because he is feeling confident, I want to slow down and let him offer with more body awareness and less ‘do things fast’ “_On the Donut – he is very confident but there was a bit too much falling off here. We want him to use his legs and core to move onto it smoothly, no splats or wobbling. So, you can help this two ways: stabilize it before he jumps on so it moves less under him, and so he doesn’t fling himself on and fall off. And, you can also have the bone next to it so he can step up onto the donut from the bone. Help him be smooth and balanced – we don’t need any speed here.
He is doing really well with the bone, it is easier for him to use his body to balance on. You can lure less on this, letting him offer more rather than having him follow your hands – he thinks more when he is offering and doesn’t think about his body as much when he is following the treat hand.
Nice work!!!!
TracyHi! What a cute little tunnel!
>> I think if the bowl was further out and treat higher value he would have come out as fast as he goes in.>>
I agree, I am not worried about his speed, he looked great here! Tunnel value looks really good.
Try to use this as a good self-control game too and grab him less between reps. Have him move with you and you can reward him for lining up – but don’t grab him or pick him up. I might have to invoke the Great Dane Rule: you have to move him from the tunnel exit back to the start the same way you would move a Great Dane (which I am sure does not involve carrying him LOL!)
He only had one moment where he cheated 🙂 so I think this will go well.He is totally ready for the you to put him between you and the tunnel to start the tunnel threadle work. Have you decided which word you want to use as the tunnel threadle cue?
Great job!
TracyHi there!!
I am glad you found a little time, it is not easy at all to find training time and be in the right head space. One of the things I see with StrykR is that his retention seems to be EXCELLENT. Meaning: he doesn’t need a zillion sessions, he remembers things really nicely! That is great because it takes the pressure off – no need to find a lot of training time when life is busy, because he learns fast and remembers all the things. Yay!
>>. I am struggling with him being very focused on my and where the food is coming from. Just keeps wanting to look up obviously my timing.>>
I think part of it is his quickness (he is SO quick already!) and part of it is that the activities are too simple in some ways so he can do the games AND look up at you, at the speed of light. With that in mind, we can challenge him more and give him focal points so he looks at you less. I don’t think it is your timing – you are pretty quick already – it is more that there is nothing else to look at so he looks at you 🙂
You can also click less, as the clickers tend to draw the dogs focus to us so looking at us gets built in, especially with the small quick dogs.
Ladder work – I love his passion for work! The first reps where you were just dropping cookies were so calm and controlled. Lovely! I literally snorted when he then trotted through as fast as he could LOL!!! He is the best. <3 You had the 2 bowls out there already as focal points, which is great! 2 ideas for you:
- don't say dish :) Let the context do all the work for you. What I mean by that is obviously he should go to the dish and yo uare going to put the cookie in it - so saying 'dish' is causing him to look at you. Let the dish behavior just be part of the ladder behavior, and then he will go to it and then you can drop the treat in.
- move the dishes a little further away so he has to drive out of the ladder more in order to get to them. In this setup, the dishes are close enough that he can trot the ladder and look at you. So, move them 3 or 4 feet further away so he can either look straight or look at you, can't do both LOL! And since cheese is LIFE, he is going to choose to look at the bowl (and then you can toss the treat to it or towards it :))
When you move the dishes further away, back chain a bit - start him in the last rung or two to trot straight out, then start him in the middle, then start at the beginning. And you can just toss the treats into the dish (don't worry if you aim isn't great, because you didn't say dish so it doesn't mean the treats are in the dish :) And he likes chasing treats :)Parallel path prop stuff - his value is very high and I love how it is slightly elevated! He is driving ahead brilliantly! So on this one, a couple of ideas to kepe his head straighter:
- don't click :) The click is very stimulating so he looks up at you immediately. And the click doesn't have any placement info for him, so he doesn't know where else to look! Instead, use your search or get it (or whatever the marker is to get a tossed treat). That should help get his eyes off of you.- When you are working on him the parallel path, you can give yourself a head start by using your 'search' and tossing a cookie away - so he moves away from the prop to get it - then as you can start walking up the line so he finds the prop parallel to you or behind you.
>>On the rear crosses with the prop I struggled a lot with my mechanics.>>
Well, he was at the prop within a half of a heartbeat so you didn’t have a lot of time there LOL! When you are doing the rear crosses (you had one in here that looked good!) start close to him so he can drive ahead (add more distance between you and the prop if needed) – and be sure to cut behind him really early, so you are fully on the new side before he gets to the prop. He is so quick and makes his decisions early (I love it!) so you will need your info to get in early 🙂
Bear in mind that the turn the new direction trumps the hitting of the prop – so if he turns the correct direction but doesn’t hit the prop as well, no worries – reward anyway 🙂 You can help him continue to commit to the prop after the RC but moving forward to it when you are on the new side.
Puppy leg bumps – followng your hands on the bends here was perfect! You can use cookie tosses to get the straight line bounces over your knees or use two bowls so he has a focal point. This was super easy for him and also he can look at your hands or at the cookies, so we don’t need to add anything here.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi there!
Strike a pose –>>without me moving to the reward and Dellin going on the verbal. She has caught on to the “dish” marker and even looks mildly excited about it. >>
Yes! Looks great! And she was also mildly distracted by the bowl, which is exciting because it means food has more value. But she was also super successful with the bowl and the toy – happy dance!!!
>I do find myself lowering the target a little to help her.>>
Yes – – stop moving your right hand LOL!!! You were really good about leaving the left hand in position but your right hand was moving towards your leg too much. You can have your shoulder dipped if you like but keep the arm extended out away, don’t move it. Moving it to your legt dilutes the in-and-out of the cue.
This game is where it needs to be for now, so you can bring it to new places to play a bit. You can revisit this one here and there but we don’t build on it til next week, so keep it fresh with a revisit maybe later in the week, but you can shelve it in favor of your FAVORITE thing: rear crosses LOL!
Handling combos are also looking good!
At the beginning, with the pivots – slow them down so she can be practically touching your leg, more like where she was at :32 but even closer. By going fast, she was staying 2 feet or so off of you and we want her to be really close to you.
Her commitment to the barrel looks solid which allowed you to just think about the decel and pivots. In this smaller space, do the decel almost immediately (as soon as she is done with the wrap) so she has time to collect before the pivot. When you are in a bigger space and add the blinds, you can start the decel as soon as you finish the blind – she is a speedy girl already!!!
>>And she seems like she’s still launching herself at my toy hand. I think there was one rep that looked significantly better and I believe I may have had the toy up by my stomach, so maybe that’s a better position for now(?) Upon further video review, I see that I was using the hand to “guide” her and that was causing the leaping up for the toy. OOOPS>>
Yes, she is leaping for the toy because it is in the international take-the-toy position as you were pivoting, even though you didn’t say strike. She is learning strike but not quite ready for the proofing of the toy position while you are moving, so you can keep the toy scrunched up and on your stomach for now, or in the opposite hand. That way the ‘guide’ hand can be empty. When you are in the bigger space, you can work the full combo so the toy is on the ground and you have a cookie in your pivot hand (or nothing :))
Have fun with the bigger space today! I am sure she will love the tunnel games 🙂 Great job here!
TracyYour plans sound good! And you can totally use the toy a lot now to replace the cookie rewards – he is ready for more excitement 🙂
Tracy
Hi!
Sorry for the delay, I got stuck in a warehouse with a friend who had a dead car battery. It was an exciting morning LOL!!!The videos look terrific:
Ladder work – Lovely! Nice balanced trotting happening here! One thing I see is that he lifts his head at the end (and sometimes in the middle) because – FOOD! Ha! There is nothing else to look at so he is looking at you in anticipation of the cookie reward. So, to keep this lovely balanced trot with a lower, forward head – let’s give him a focal point in the form of an empty food bowl 3 feet or so past the end of the ladder and he can trot to it then you can drop the treat into it. It will also add a little challenge because he has to trot through and not bounce through even though the food bowl is stimulating.
I love your goat setup! It is quite a playground! He is tugging nicely on the wobble board. If he seemed to notice the noise, you can also incorporate super short sessions with craz high value food, like chunks of meat or a meal 🙂 That will help him ignore any sound. He looked really good on the rest of the play ground here – balanced, able to turn around on the narrow plank and confident!
Tunnel games – you can help build collar grab love with quicker releases: one heartbeat of a finger on the collar, then send him into the tunnel from an easy entry. The tunnel is perfect for this because the quick releases might get a little sloppy, but the tunnel is a BIG draw (especially with the Treat n Train) so I think he will like that! You can do it as a quick loop – start with a ‘free’ treat at the treat n train. Then he comes to you, you touch the collar for a moment, then send to the tunnel.
He did really nicely with the tunnel sending on both sides. He was a little distracted by traffic when he was facing that direction but was great with the tunnel even with traffic noise! So you can totally now add the threadle element of it, where he is between you and the tunnel. Have you thought about what tunnel-threadle word you want to use? He will be ready for it soon!
Start line game: I like how you were able to keep moving AND toss the cookie back, mixed in with stopping sometimes. He will need to see ALL of that so I am glad you mixed it all in. He seemed fabulous here and MORE than happy to stay and receive cookies tossed back to him. And he was perfectly happy with your throws too – he doesn’t need to catch the cookie, he can get it off the floor after it lands 🙂
This looks really solid, so you can put this game in front of things like the cone, the tunnel, etc.
Handling combo:
>>. I decided to go with “wrap” for wraps to the right and “loop” for wraps to the left. I have used the cues in turn and burn game and now i was trying the handling combos.>>Excellent choices!!!
These are overall looking really good. What I am happiest about is his complete unwavering focus the whole way through… a plate with cookies, a tunnel, all the open space – and he was a perfect partner. That is the BEST part!!!
>>What I’m noticing is that with the wraps to the left, he is really wide. Not surprising, with what we’ve seen before in his preference for turning right. But I didn’t include blind crosses this time because it seems to me I’m noticing him hanging out even wider in anticipation of a blind. I’m wondering if I should go back and work more turn and burn, instead of handling combo for now?>>
I see what you mean! A couple of ideas for you!
The left turns being wider might be a combination of both the left turns being a slightly less comfy side, and more connection needed. I think he is waiting to see where you want him, so more direct eye contact is needed on that side. You were definitely better connected on the right turns (and closer to the barrel) so we can match that on the left turns and see what he does. To get a visual:
Freeze the video at :58 just as his nose is wrapping the exit side of the barrel: pretty darned nice connection with you looked pretty directly back at him, and a tight turn. The rep 1:20 was good (also a right turn) but not as good as at :58 – you were not as connected or as close to the barrel. 1:52 was GREAT again, you weresuper connected as he was exiting the wrap!
Compare to :15 and :33 which were the left turn exits – you were a little further away and not as connected, so he was not sure which side of you to be on.
With that in mind, on the left turns: stay closer to the barrel and make a very direct eye contact to him as you exit: have your dog side arm really low and pointed back to him with your eyes looking directly at his (while you keep moving of course :)) That will help tighten the turn! You can totally also do this in the turn and burn game 🙂
You can add the blind in as you get further and further from the barrel on the sending and still get a tight turn on the exit.
Then because he is going so fast, you can decel sooner (immediately after the blind if you do one, or as soon as he is one stride past the barrel, so he can prepare for the turn – then you can pivot slowly so he can stay in the decel. At 1:21 you were a little late in the decel and very quick with the pivot so he can stay at your side (especially on the left turns).
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>If you want to have another discussion about rules not applying to everyone I watched a dog bite another dog in front of this same rep at NAC and no action happened because it was a finalist team>>That sounds pretty bad 🙁 but no more Facebook controversy for me (for now haha)
I can totally understand how you might be traumatized by the stuff you described – what a horrible, isolating incident. Bleh!!!
I does sound like he is maturing and doing much better!!! I think with planning and reinforcement, we can set him up for success without any repeats of traumatic incidents.
Next question: who is in you circle, that you would consider your crew that can help at trials? Team Fever! Let’s identify them and assign roles, to help plan 🙂
TracyGood morning! This is so fun to see!! It sounds like there were plenty of people around too, almost trial-like!!! He seemed very pumped up. This is so cool, you can definitely start using more of the leash-as-toy games!!! Yay Cowboy!!!!
TracyGood morning! I’m glad you’re enjoying the class! I’m enjoying it too, I’ve learned learned whole lot!!! Dogs are the best teachers.
>>I’m saying “bite” to take if from my hand. I’m going to use “tug” to mean I’m going to hold on and we play tug. I noticed a remembered maybe once to say “get it”. Should I be saying “get it” for this?>>
Does bite mean he can grab it and run through? And tug means, well, tugging haha 🙂 for get it – you can say get it but also I think the around cue is the cue for the whole thing: go around and catch the frisbee. So while you can say get it, you don’t need it.
>>Some questions. . . On the turn back, Skye has an awesome stay even at agility trials. >>
I think it might fall into the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” category LOL! Teach it separately without a stay, away from agility – it is good to have in your toolbox but you don’t want him to get confused. You can eventually add it back to agility if needed, or save it for other training needs.
>>I’m still having problems with “shhhhhhh”. I must use that verbal for something else because he’s still confused. So, I’m running with a toy, he’s looking at it almost chasing it, but not, then, I say “shhhhhhh”, and he stops following it almost liked a yelled “no” (which he doesn’t know the meaning of anyway. . . ) I’m going to need to change the verbal. maybe “Weeeeee”. Any ideas?:-)>>
I like wheeeeee! Yes, totally change the verbal, he says something about the shhhhh is weird LOL!! And you can be super encouraging to get the reward – wiggle it, drag a long toy, etc.
>> I need a concrete plan to work on him getting his thrown reward and then checking in with me instead of eating stuff (if there’s nothing to eat, like indoors, he’ll pee on something.) I feel like I’m a big cheerleader to keep him from eating like in the frisbee video. Should I be?>>
In the fris video, I would set things up a little differently to help him check in and drive back faster:
– Shorten the session to 45-60 seconds. He got tired by 90 seconds and that is where behavior changes. 90 seconds of friz is hard!
– to get him to drive back faster, run away from him and throw the friz the other direction, like you are throwing to a different quad in updog. Standing still isn’t as compelling as running away! And you can keep talk to him – but urgently call him then throw the new direction. And mix in lots of the up close “bites” and not just throws.
– during transitions where you need to pick up the discs, have him go to a station. That way you can reset and he has a good thing to do, with no temptations. And since his stay is so strong, you can eventually just use a stay!Also use the frisbee bite in pattern games! Those games are designed for check ins, and since he knows them… frisbee will be easy to insert 🙂 I do Pattern games for fisbees or toys all the time 🙂 a little unorthodox, yes, but very effective!
>>So, my current plan is to start a thrown reward outdoors with me being very close and clicking for his head turn toward me. He does this with tossed food like in your video, but not with a toy. So, maybe similar to the “Bite” game I did with the frisbee?>>
Yes 🙂 you don’t need to click (not enough hands), you can mark it with a reinforcement marker like bite. You can start with a clicker to help make the game immediately recognizable (patterns!) Then fade it. Somewhere in the demos you’ll see me do it with Contraband. I have more video of that somewhere, I can dig it up!!
>> I need to get it with another toy so I can use it in Agility. He also is extremely hard to get to leave female pee.
I use friz in agility too! It is the highest value reward.
Let me know what you think! I love planning this stuff 🙂
TracyGood morning! Definitely some tunnel fun for the bigger space! You can also transfer turn and burn to a wing (more space is good for that) as well as the handling combos. And, a new game about transferring the parallel path concept to a “jump” is posted (no real jumping. :))
Have fun!
TracyHi!
I totally agree with what you were saying about asking questions! That is how I like to approach things too, and how I approach trialing as well, especially in the early days. He was great!>>It’s always so hard when you are starting a baby dog. Especially if you’ve had some really good dogs in the past and people have expectations of you. I’m sure you’ve felt some of that>>
Yep – that old thing about “don’t worry, no one is watching?” Nope! People are watching. And that is ok! I want my baby dogs to feel successful and empowered in the ring, so my early trials are all set up to get that. I had some NFC runs this weekend and my young girl dog came out just bursting with empowerment – she had a grand time LOL! That carried over into today’s running dog walk session where she did the best RDWs she has ever done (I haven’t put them in the ring so we didn’t do any NFC with them yet) I agree with your sentiment about NO PRESSURE on baby dogs. We can get them running as fast as possible with full accuracy and thoughtfulness… and the key is no pressure as we teach full understanding.
On the video –
Your Lap turns look good! Handing him the cookie on the first few reps made things a little less smooth, because you didn’t have time to reset ot the position- by handing the cookie to him you are already late for the next rep because he is already at your hand LOL So you can toss it to reset the loop and have moment to reset.The stay worked a lot better! Little details to recommend here – you can delay the step back til he is 3 inches form your hand or less – that is the sweet spot for itming that we are finding thanks for obsessing on video – if you are earlier, he is wider because the hand and leg are moving too soon and the dogs don’t drive into us as well which changes the line. And be sure that you keep your feet together til he has reached the 3 inch sweet spot – your leg sets the turn so if you move too soon, he doesn’t get drawn back enough and he can’t bend as well. An example is when he was on your left hand and the prop was there, later in the video: you had your leg moving back as he was just begining to move to you, before the hand moved, so note how his butt kept whacking your other leg because he was not drawing straight back when he arrived – the early leg was crowding the turn.
He really liked it when you were quick! and he also really did a great job ignoring the prop on the way to you and then finding the prop after the turn. YAY!The rear crosses looked amazing! Really nice timing from you and and also really super commitment from him!!! This is going to transfer REALLY easily to jumps (the foundation for that starts tomorrow!!)
Bummer about all the rain you are having!!! The next couple of games coming tomorrow are stuff you can still do indoors. We really need the weather to be perfect though for week 6, if that can be arranged LOL!
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>> He wasn’t getting a reward when he knocked the bar and we stopped which I think is the same as saying he was wrong. I don’t do it this way anymore. We just ignore dropped bars and fortunately they don’t happen too often. Mostly when I lose connection and he starts looking at me or if he is really excited and just tearing through the course.>>
Perfect, keep ignoring them, he will be more relaxed that way.
>> We have some fun runs coming up-different venue but I can put the manners minder in the ring by the exit gate and we have 90 sec.
That is perfect! Yay!!!
>> This is so the reward (marker) comes when he is moving away which is harder rather than moving towards it.
Yes – in short bursts at first then longer sequences over the course of as many weeks as they need it.
>>You cautioned that remote reward training isn’t a lifestyle change and doesn’t replace other methods. Would it be OK do do a 5 -10 min. session of this on the days I can train outside?
I don’t like 5-10 minute sessions of anything LOL 🙂 that is a long time! 2 minutes here and there – but if all you do is remote reinforcement, being on the course will lose value. Remote reinforcement is like weave poles: it is a challenging skill that must be taught – but it is only a skill, and you don’t want to do ONLY that one thing.
>> This could be up to 5 times a week until it really starts to snow.
Definitely not 5-10 mins a day, 5 days a week – that is too much emphasis on any one thing. Mix it in for one or two reps, take it to class – but it should not be the sole focus of training.
>>Also, no treats in my hands but should I make sure that my pockets are empty too?
Correct, no treats in hands or pockets as if it was a trial.
>>I will look for some UKI opportunities. We did enter one earlier this fall but they didn’t have the food box.
You might need to specifically ask them for the food box, and feel free to send them my way if they need help figuring it out! We do it all the time.
Tracy
