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Good morning!
>This one makes m head hurt every puppy I do it with. It’s not having bars I can’t picture it lol.>
The zig zags went really well! She read the cues well and did well with her lead changes both directions. The other good news is that the next level of it has bars so you will feel more comfy with it 🙂
At the end you said “not sure if I did that right” or something similar 🤣😂 and yes, you did it right. Super!!! The wings were close and she had no trouble moving in and out of them. So for fun, you could spread them way out, 12 feet or so: that will challenge her to get the lead changes when she is moving faster!
Not sure why she wanted to go into a down instead of a sit when cued? Pressure of proximity the wing? You can try a cookie for sitting if she feels it is weird to be right next to the wing?
Good job getting all 4 feet taped – you can tape a little further down to cover the big pad on the bottom of each foot. That will be great for traction! You can then let her open up and run so we can see how she feels with her speed socks on 🙂
Nice work here!
TracyGood morning!
>It was not worried before I moved the Teeter. I will do fewer reps with bigger rewards and move backwards.>
Sounds good! And you can drag the teeter to a new spot every day, so he gets happy with it in a lower/easier position but learns that it can be someplace new regularly.
>He is worried in class also in class they do not have their teeter lowered like mine, it’s full height and they have tables underneath it, so I assume it does translate to my lower teeter.>
Because the height is different, you can limit his exposure to it to one or two reps but use CRAZY high value food. I would give the dogs a handful of chicken or steak for one rep, then I would let them chase a tennis ball afterwards… they thought that was GREAT fun! Doing too many reps gets the dogs thinking about it too much, so limit the # of reps and you’ll have a lot of success.
Really nice session on the RCs! Great job sorting out how much pressure he needed to see on the RC line –
Although he spun in front of the jump at :16, it was still a good rep because he really saw the RC cues. Yes, he did a spin but that was him noticing it and sorting it out. The next rep had a good RC then the net RCs on the right were really strong!!!When you switched sides, I thought the first 2 reps were good but he disagreed haha 🙂 Part of that is lack of experience – he had just done a bunch of right turns and needed to switch gears. On the 2rd rep, you got right on the line and right on his tail and the RC looked great!
Nice job with the GO balance reps – those were easy for him but they also help make sure he is reading the cues and not just doing the RCs because that is the only thing he is doing.
Great job here!
TracyGood morning! I am glad the weather skipped over you. That is a relief!
The rear crosses went super well! It looked like you nailed the difference between the go cues and the RC cues, so he had no questions on either side. Super! And there was a lot of high speed there, which meant the cues came early enough that he could easily change his line. Yay!
> I tired to move on to the advanced level and he was fine on the “go” to find the next wing, but not on the RC -so I stopped that before he flattened me. Maybe my wing was too far away for his experience level? >
I agree that it was the distance. The wing was on an extension line after the jump, and the RC created a turn which pulled him off the line to the wing. You can place the wing right on the line after the RC – it will be pretty close, maybe 6 feet, and on an angle away from the jump so the RC line takes him towards it. The goal is that he starts looking for something after the RC and not just for a reward 🙂 This is a new concept with the RCs (doing another thing) so move the wing to a spot that makes it easy for him to find (without him running over you LOL!)
Great job here!!
Tracy
Good morning!
>She’s gone for 14in to 16in spacing in the cavaletti over the last 2 months.>
Nice! The cavalettis are great for extending striding!!
>We had a great time at a novice half-day seminar with Teri O’Neill on Sunday. >
Very fun! I have worked alongside Teri several times and she does a lovely job. Plus she is experienced with a wide variety of dogs which is great!
>Teri was impressed with her layering skills, esp from a little dog so we had a fun chat about how cool it is to teach layering to the young dogs. >
Yes, Lift has some impressive distance/layering skills already for such a tiny nugget!
>We had some debates about sitting at the start at first so I moved to having her do a trick (usually a spin) and then sending to the first jump. I think part of it was she was pretty amped for her first turn.>
Yes, it was probably excitement. In that moment, could she do a spin then a sit? Or spin then a stand stay? Or bark on cue to unleash the excitement… then a sit? You will want to play with seeing if you can get stay behavior in that level of arousal, for when you need it at a trial.
>> I also put her out in the car to chill between turns after the first one so that could have helped too as the morning progressed. However great focus for 3.5 turns (the last was just that speed circle at the end of the highlights video). >
Rest is good! And she has been really strong with her focus on course, so I am not surprised that she did great for the whole session.
There’s one instance (about 0:15) where I was really far ahead of her moving into the blind and she glances at Teri who is walking near me and wavers for a split second, but she locks back on me and still took the jump.>
Good training for learning to ignore judges who are walking around (or European judges who run!)
>she has a novice seminar with Stefanie Theis on Friday morning before the UKI trial at Fusion this weekend. (with Stefanie judging).>
Fun! I haven’t see Stef work as an agility instructor, but I like her a lot as a fitness instructor, and she is an overall lovely person too 🙂 She has a lot of experience with little dogs so I think you will really enjoy it.
>I’d like to run at least one of the SS classes for realizes and am undecided on whether it’s better to try that on Sat or Sun. And if Sat, do I do Jpg NFC as a short warm up (maybe with toy in hand or having a friend toss in into the ring after a short sequence?)>
That is a nice slate of classes to be able to play around with!! I think the decision of what to run/how/when depends entirely on the course design. You can make the decision in the moment: good course design, plus Lift running well: go for it! The jumping classes will be NFC (weaves still a work in progress) so those are good for empty hands food boxing 🙂 And if either/both of the SS courses look good, go for it! Of course you can try it in snooker too as long as it is a really flowing course and you don’t try to fix things because, ewwww snooker LOL!!!!
Keep me posted! Have fun!
Tracy
Good morning!
Working on engagement is a great thing!
Without video of what is happening, here are some ideas but things might be different based on what is actually going on in the session:
>I can throw a frisbee and he won’t leave until I release him. I am not giving him a verbal just trying to teach him not to move unless I release him but he seems a little unclear sometimes, especially when he is standing. My questions is, should I be more clear by using a verbal? >
Remember that engagement is a two-way street, and engagement is not the same as control: yes, we want the dog to engage with us and that means we have to be super engaged with them, in an exciting way.
And that includes a lot of clarity. If you are waiting for him to pick a behavior without a lot of cues as to what you want… then he might choose something you don’t want. Then he might be told that it is wrong, which is not very engaging. If he is failing, then it is not clear what you want and clarity is needed for sure. That is especially true if you are trying to overcome a reinforcement history of other behavior.
So yes, you will want to add the clarity of some type of cue. If he has strong responses to verbals? Then yes! Use a verbal to add clarity. But if you say ‘sit’ and he does a down, then he doesn’t really understand the verbals. Hand signals are also great and dogs tend to understand those better.
These agility behaviors are all cued with physical or verbal cues (or context cues) so don’t leave him guessing.
>If not when he creeps in a stand should I make him start over? He can get frustrated and then he starts doing sits, downs, goes between my legs and barking like come on I am doing everything else!>
>I can see his point LOL!! Without clarity of info, he is likely to get anxious and that is when you see things like moving instead of staying. And if you haven’t given him info about how to be correct in terms of a cue, yet tell him he was wrong for moving… that explains the frustration. Then he starts guessing and gets more frustrated.
If the down is his best position, cue the down rather than wait and see what happens. Help him know what you want.
Also, you will want to double check yourself that you are super consistent with releasing. If you have a history of sometimes releasing with motion, he will offer motion (then get frustrated when it is wrong).
And be sure that the reinforcement is valuable and fun and playful!
So, be super clear with what you want and reward fast, and with a lot of praise and engagement. And live by the 2 failure rule: if he fails twice in the session, change what you are doing to get success (or watch the video if you don’t know what is causing the error).
Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Good morning!
I am glad you are training even if the editing doesn’t always get done! He is looking wonderful 🙂 You can always turn the camera on, do a session, turn the camera off then just post the session without editing.
>>Set Point With Moving Target
I agree, he did well on the first session and really well here! Looks like he is going to be a lovely jumper! You can add in leading out further, moving the target then releasing him while the target is already in motion. That adds a different and useful challenge to the stay and the jumping mechanics. We add a jump to this grid in week 4:
>Wrap Proofing I thiiiiiink that’s what this video is of.>
This was a tunnel-free smiley face 🙂 I always found these games without a tunnel to be harder than with a tunnel because most dogs will drive away to a tunnel. He did great here though! He didn’t see the barrel as quite the same value as the tunnel perhaps so you had to run a bit more to it. He found the line the best, though, when you were using more connection while running and less arm. When you arm came up and pointed ahead, it blocked connection and he jumped up a bit (pretty common response from young dogs when they can’t see connection).
For example: on the rep that started at :30, you were pretty well-connected as he exited the first wing and then you stayed connected and ran without pointing to the barrel. He found the line nicely! As he exited the barrel at :34, you started pointing ahead – and he jumped up at your hand. Yes, that hand had the toy in it but also you had the toy in the dog side hand for most reps here and he was perfectly fine with that when you were connected 🙂 So keep the connection as the primary cue along with motion and verbals, and resist the temptation to point ahead of him 🙂
And good job with the verbals! As things get more complex with more and more dang words, you might have to give yourself a planning moment to work out all the words in advance. A mini walk through always helped me get the words going before running the pups.
>Left/Right Verbals with Minny Pinny
I agree – he did well with the right and left and committing to the minny pinny. You can move to the more advanced levels where we change your start positions so he can turn away from you on these too!
>but I can’t tell right now if his lack of enthusiasm is the temperature getting warmer or him having little drive for handling drills. I guess I just need to hear that it’s normal for 9 month old puppies to not be super enthused when presented with yet another new handling drill lol.>
I see what you mean about him trotting through – he was happy to play with the toy, so my guess is that he was approaching the setup as a cavaletti setup which brings out the lovely balanced trot 🙂 We of course want bouncing, so you can angle the wings and bars in towards each other a bit, so he bounces more. The distance will probably need to be adjusted to get that sweet spot, plus it will take him a moment to learn to bounce on a bend.
And yes, it could be the heat coming up (he has not yet been alive during a hot summer, right?) and also it is entirely normal for a 9 month old to not fling himself into these drills especially because there is no real handler motion on this one: two of my dogs who turned out to be my fastest ever were also the slowest at this age in training. They kind of galumphed along without a lot of speed or power. Things clicked into place VERY nicely when they were about 18 month old and they could go SUPER fast while also retaining being thoughtful about the accuracy. I kept telling myself to trust the process and not to panic because at 9 months old, they were so slow LOL!!!
You can also do these types of games first thing in a training session so he is fresh and spicy. And you can add in a turn-and-burn on the exit: do a front cross and run the other way so part of his reward is chasing you for the toy 🙂
>>Sends’n’serps:
>He seems to really be into this one. He figured out pretty quickly that he needs to cut across the bar instead of sneaking his way around it. >
Yes, this went great! It is pretty common for dogs to run past the bar on serps, so well done to you both for sorting out getting the serp while you run. Yay!
>You can even see I moved both the MM and the wrapped jump wing out more part way through the video. >
Yes, just as I was typing the suggestion of moving the MM further away to get more room to run, you did it LOL! And adding distance between the wing and jump was great too: he had no trouble and looked great – handler motion here made it fun fun fun!
One suggestion: Try not to use go on the wrap wing here (or on the other games) because we want ‘go’ to be full out extension. You can use the wrap verbal on the start wing here, which helps develop a send to a wrap.
>This feels like a lot of reps, but I promise the unedited video was only 3:30! >
I didn’t think it was a lot of reps – plus you changed some things by changing sides and adding distance. You can also add the balance reps of the FC on the start wing so that he pays attention to coming through the gap and not always serping, depending on the cue.
>But I will say, comparing this video to the one I recorded a week before it, his enthusiasm definitely was much higher. Either he gets higher when his confidence is high, or I hit the sweet spot with the temperature here. He’s also a big worshipper of the Cult of Manners Minder, especially now that I found the right size food that doesn’t jam all the time.>
Yes, all of the above, probably, plus you were running. Were you also running in the previous video? And the Cult Of Manners Minder is all-powerful LOL!
Also, it could be a bit of latent learning: he saw it in the previous session even if you didn’t think it was a great session, then he locked in the learning in his sleep, and came back ‘knowing’ it.Smiley face:
Oh heck yes, I agree that he loves the tunnel. Fast and driven to get to it! He has really strong tunnel sends already – super! That makes it easier in some ways to play these games, but also harder because everything goes faster 🙂Be sure to keep the wing visible to him as you exit the cross: for example, at :25 you were on his line and almost stepped him to the wrong jump.
>I am still really babysitting him here, but this was his second time doing this exercise. What can I improve on or change for the next time we do it?>
You can start the FC sooner and see if he can maintain his commitment to the wing as you run back towards the tunnel. You can also add in the race tracks (going around the outside of both wings, no crosses :)). Then you can move to the other games like the diamond, which adds blind crosses and bigger race tracks 🙂
>Find The Jump! This one bums me out because I had several amazing reps with him and when I went to stop the video, I had an alarm going off on my phone and it only recorded the first 30 seconds,>
What a bummer!!! He looked great here – finding his jump beautifully!!! One detail: Keep moving the whole time to cue extension over the jump (which matches the toy throw).
Don’t stop at the jump (even if you are lateral or ahead) because that is a collection cue and we don’t want to throw the toy ahead on that. Yo can see him turning to his right based on your position and decel on the last rep, good boy!If you are going to run out of room when you are ahead, you can go deeper towards the tunnel then accelerate forward, from a variety of positions.
>I’ll try to do this one again tomorrow and get a video before he gets tired!>
Perfect! I bet he does great because there is a lot of handler motion.
>Phew! I kept each video short and to the point, so hopefully that makes it easy to go through all of them!>
It was great! But again, since editing is a pain in the butt (I hate the editing part of the process LOL!) you can just slap up the whole video. For example, you said the serp video was 3.5 minutes long. I can scroll past the resets etc because that is a lot easier than editing.
Nice work here!
Tracy
Hi!
Before you moved the teeter, he was not worried? You can go back a bunch of steps and see if you can get him back to where he was. I do very very few reps on the teeter, with mind-blowing rewards. For example, one rep for an entire meal 🙂 We do have teeter games in MaxPup 3 coming up soon!
Tracy
Hi!
>I definitely have a tendency to go into drilling mode and “just one more rep” mode. The video of our session includes all reps, 12 total, in the order that I did them.
Here’s a breakdown of the reps: 3 reps on first side, turning Right – go, wrap, wrap 4 reps on other side, turning Left – RC (to right), wrap, wrap (wrong way), wrap 1 rep on first side, turning Right – wrap 4 reps on other side, turning Left – wrap, go, wrap, wrap
>I think 12 reps is a good session length… but if your brain starts talking about just one more 🙂 then you should stop and watch the video to see what was happening before doing more. That will be very helpful!!!
>Maybe there were too many reps, but Mason also did 12 reps and it was fine for him. He had a lot more success though, so he had more side switches and variations. He also had a lot more praise and positive feedback from me.>
A couple of thoughts here:
A different perspective: She had a ton of success and read you correctly on every single rep 🙂Mason might have done more of what you wanted because he is an adult dog who has played this game before and has a reward history. Plus, you probably know his timing better than you know hers, and she has no frame of reference for considering that a wrap turn is coming. So I recommend you don’t work him on the same exercises at the same time, because I think you are comparing things that should not be compared. Plus switching dogs will lock you into his timing more than her timing, which won’t help with her turns 🙂
>Even though I switched sides 3 times with Ellie, we ended up doing twice as many reps turning left, so it wasn’t really balanced. >
It was balanced enough and she definitely was not on autopilot. I can see her looking at you a decent amount!
>When we had more trouble on the left, then I started to get in my head. I wasn’t talking to Ellie as much, I wasn’t as cheery, and I tended to disconnect from her between reps when we had issues. I definitely went into handler focus mode myself.>
The first thing to do when you feel that creeping in is to stop and watch the video. Video is your training partner in the moment and hugely valuable! Generally when something goes wrong, the info being delivered to the dog needs to be sooner or clearer or both 🙂
>Any suggestions for how you would have mixed things up differently, reacted differently when there were issues, or changed the session length?>
The length and balance were good. Two thing I would do differently:
– this game calls for markers on the ground so you can see when you need to time the decel and time the rotation. The decel starts basically as soon as she has exited the wing, regardless of where you are – that gives the info in a more timely way and she will be able to collect (and when you see that collection, do the FC rotation). Markers on the ground for when to start the decel will give you a helpful visual.– watch the video during the session if things are not where you want them
>, and if you know how to tighten up these wraps, that would be great too.>
This is what the video says: you were late 🙂 In general, you were starting the decel when she was getting parallel to you, which was happening about one stride from takeoff – so she did not have time to collect and turn before takeoff (she turned immediately after landing on those, good girl!). That happened at :08, :29, :35, :49,
On two of them, she thought they were RCs because the timing of the decel also had pressure towards the bar.
At :24 and :59 and 1:07, you were decelerating as she was arriving at takeoff, so those turns were really wide (but again, she drove back to you as soon as she was able to)
You had 2 reps with really good wraps:
At :13 you decelerated when she was maybe a stride past the wing, so she collected before takeoff and that produced the best turn. Have her chase you for a few steps after the turn rather than you stopping and throwing the reward.
At :42 you decelerated when she got parallel to you but you were further from the bar, so she was able to collect before takeoff on that rep.
The go and RC reps looked good!
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
Trac
Hi!
She did great ignoring the human! And the RCs went well too: when you moved forward to the center of the bar (plus the verbal) she got it really well in both directions. You were early on the first one to the right but then you adjusted beautifully.You can give yourself more room between the wing and jump, like 20 feet or more, so you have more running room (gives you more time to get the RC in).
She is ready for the backside wraps in the next session (and we add another variation tomorrow!)
>Don’t laugh at my mesmerizing look on my face when she didn’t slip. I’ve got the hocks rapped.>
Was this the first time she wore her speed socks to do agility? She did GREAT with them on, didn’t seem to be too annoyed by them 🙂 And she is already moving more naturally – very glad she did not slip! The wraps on the front feet will make a huge difference on the turns too, because she probably uses her feet and carpals extensively to turn.
Great job here!
TracyHi!
Hope you are not getting hit with all that bad weather!!!
He did great with the layering game here! No problem staying out on the line to the jump, no problem coming in for the tunnel when you cued it. You can start cueing it sooner: as he is approaching the jump, do the FC and cue the tunnel. That will be *challenging* because that effectively adds countermotion on the tunnel entry, but I think he can do it 🙂 And add balance of doing a FC on the wing or a tight wrap cue, then cue the tunnel and not the layering.
>Feeling like I’m really behind on the lessons!
You are not behind at all! You are in the correct week, and we will build on some fun stuff tomorrow too.
Great job!
TracyHi!
>Oh boy did we have some challenges. She was not getting the concept at first. She would wrap the wing and then just go on past the jump to the MM.>
Yes, serps are HARD because it seems more natural for most dogs to stay parallel to us.
Pulling away from her (almost like a post turn, turning your shoulder away) got her to come in over the bar, but for the serps we want you to be able to keep moving along a line parallel to the bar.
You can help her come in to the bar when you do that by keeping your feet pointing to the reward like you did – but rotate your upper body at the waist towards her, with your dog side arm held out back behind you (like the Strike A Pose game :)) Think of it as having the center of your chest pointing to the center of the bar. You can also rotate the jump more so that as she exits the wing, the bar is totally on her line (it will be 90 degrees from the original position) – your line and the reward are the same, but finding the jump is easier.
You will want to keep moving while you do this, but keep moving very slowly at first – it is hard for baby dogs to read the upper body cue versus the lower body cue.
>found myself switching between the occasional “tight” along with “come” and “in”. Both “come” and “in” would be more appropriate directional cues on a serp for me. I also had to throw a few rewards so she would come over the jump towards me.>
Mixing it up is good, it helps her stay focused on each cue rather than going on autopilot 🙂
>One of my biggest struggles was engagement with her. She would wrap the wing and I would make eye contact with her, but she wasn’t looking at me AT ALL! Just kept heading towards the MM. She is bossy and confident so she just trotted to where she wanted to go….such a mess >
Actually… not a mess at all! In a perfect world of handling, the dog always looks at the line and never at us. So if she is looking at the line, then she is on the right track! Now we have to show a ‘bigger’ cue (more upper body rotation) to be able to change the line to get her to come in over the jump on the serp more easily.
Nice work here!
TracyHi! This location gives you a ton of room – super!
Rear crosses are definitely hard and he was being such a good boy! It is possible he is not used to you getting super close to him on a line – when you tried that on the first couple of reps, he pushed away from the pressure of you being close. That made it hard to show the RC line, because he was best at committing to the jump when you were a little further – but then if you tried to push in fast, he pushed off the line. Pretty normal Border Collie behavior LOL!!!
Since he is sensitive to handler pressure and we need handler pressure for the RC… I think adding more distance between the wing and the jump can help. If you can spread it out to maybe 25 feet between them, then you can start close to the wrap wing, and as he is exiting the wrap: you will have room to accelerate forward towards the center of the jump. That acceleration should help commit him to the jump. And if you keep your feet running to the center of the bar, that is showing RC info nicely! Don’t try to cut behind him til he is taking off for the jump – yes, it might be late 🙂 but that is fine because you will be committing him nicely and building up his love of you being very close.
As he gets more comfy with the pressure of you running up the line to the center of the bar, you will be able to cut in behind him sooner – when he has passed you and is heading to the jump, you can change to the other side then keep moving forward.
Nice work here getting the toy in to him to get some really good RCs going! Let me know how it goes with more distance to get him driving ahead!
Tracy
Hi!
>Watching this video today, I’m shocked by easy it looked. Apparently I deleted the half dozen or so reps where Ellie ran full speed into my shins instead of turning into the tunnel. I think she finally figured it out by watching Mason do it, not by me showing her what I wanted with handling>
Yes, it looked great! You broke it down really well and she looked super strong. The FC to turn to the tunnel was a little late – ideally you would be turning before she takes off for the layered jump, but it is hard to be timely with an inexperienced dog because you don’t want to pull her off the jump when trying to get the tunnel. And you were stationary after the FC which helped her get the tunnel. Is it possible that you were late enough that she didn’t really ‘see’ the tunnel at all and came directly to you (ouch)?
Since this went well, you can add more distance between the jump and the tunnel. And remember to balance things, so sometimes you cue the tunnel and sometimes the jump. Keep her on her toes!
>This brings up an issue we’ve been having. It seems that Ellie patterns things really quickly.
>It seems like after 2 reps, Ellie is on autopilot and isn’t really following me, which means I’m not really training her anymore at that point.>Hard to give specifics without seeing the video(s), but in general this happens when the dog is used to training sessions being a lot of repetition without a lot of variety or balance reps. So yes, after 2 reps, she has figured it out and at that point she settles in for the next bunch of reps and it doesn’t really matter what you do as much.
>We’ve been working on the rocking horse tandem turns for the past few days. Our turns were wide and choppy, so I kept changing my mechanics a little with each rep, e.g., waving my hand, lowering my hand, slowing way down. Despite this, Ellie kept doing the same thing and every rep she actually ran faster! At some point I thought, there’s no way she’s following my cues.>
Yep, she figured it out and was expecting a bunch of reps of the same thing, so kept doing the same thing 🙂 Dogs read context brilliantly!
So how to break that cycle? Add a LOT more variety and balance! Do one rep of the skill you want to work on. Then the balance rep once or twice… then back to the skill. If you don’t want patterning then you won’t want to do a lot of the same things in a row (which is what gets more patterning).
Mixing things up in the training will prevent patterning and is also very interesting & exciting for the dog! One rep of the tandem turn… then one rep of FCs rocking horses. Then a race track around the outside! Then a tandem turn. Then switch side and do a tandem turn. Then FCs! And so on. It will challenge your handling because you will not be able to do something 5 times in a row to sort out the handling 🙂 but it dosn’t have to be perfect! It is better to get a series of good reps than to do the same thing a bunch of times.
>For the rocking horses though, I feel like Ellie is in her own world after the first rep.< Tons of options on the rocking horses for mixing it up! And you can change the distances along with changing the handling. Lots of variety! >I’m wondering if you have any general advice for how I can structure a session to keep her focused on following my cues.
Should I change the sequence in some way after every 2 reps? Or maybe even every other rep? >Adding in lots of balance reps, changing sides, and not obsessing on tightening something up if it means doing it 5 or 6 times in a row – because I agree with your assessment that at that point, she is probably not responding to the handling. And I am fine with not requiring the dog to do something over and over, 5 or 6 or 7 times. That drifts over into drilling (even when the intent is to improve handler skills) and changing things up is a lot more fun 🙂
> For next week, I’ll have the zig zag and the wind in your hair both set up in the yard. Would it help to do one zig zag rep, then one decel/wrap rep, then come back to the zig zag for the third rep?>
I think those are too different – just a couple of reps of zig zag are needed, and within those reps you can change your start position and change her start position. For the upcoming wind in your hair, you have a lot of options: straight (with different handler positions), rear cross, backside wrap, front side wrap. And on both sides! Variety is the spice of life and will help keep her engaged to read the cues.
> if maybe there are some very basic foundation games we can play to build more of the connection we need for following me and looking to me for cues. I’ve been trying some shadow handling while walking around in the yard, but if I turn away she often wanders off or goes to look for Mason>
I don’t think it is a connection issue at all – sounds like there is too much repetition, so she just goes on autopilot. Most of us humans do it too in circumstances that are very predictable or repetitive (we do it by pulling out our phones LOL!)
Nice work here! Let me know what you think about the ideas to keep changing things up!
Tracy
Hi!
>Judged again today, so minimal opportunity for training, but we made it work at the end of the day. >
Good for you for getting some training in!
>She got to hang out with the handful of us course building, which was valuable learning in itself about not jumping on people and minding her own business running around with her toy.>
Yes! It is a great opportunity for sure. And music playing in the background is a nice added distraction.
I love the high energy rewarding when she gets it right! This was a good session. Yes, her left turns at the beginning looked really strong. She needed a little support to the tunnel on the first rep of it, but was perfect after that.
Right (tight) turns were definitely harder: I think right is just the harder side for her in general. You did a good job trying to set up more success. Helping her with the toy on ground was good – you can replace a toy with am empty hand cue on the other side of the wing, to begin fading the toy out. Then you can fade the hand cue too. Another approach is that you can also move the position of the wing so the tunnel is less visible and further away. Or turn her to her right around the wing, but going away from the tunnel – that would be on the same set up side as you did the left wraps towards the tunnel, but start her on your left and send to the side of the wing between the the wing and tunnel, if that makes sense 🙂 That might help her process the right turn mechanics with the tunnel nearby but not looking her right in the face 🙂
> And ooof! She learned that going from anti-slip tunnel to turf requires some self regulation! (To be fair, pretty sure she did the same thing her very first rep doing a tunnel in the dirt arena).>
Yes, she also slipped on the 2nd rep there (but not as dramatically as the first time). I have found turf to be challenging for whippety dogs (higher center of gravtiy perhaps, compared to a BC?) , especially if it is the turf without infill (this looks like the ‘flatter’ turf). When I train or trial on it, I wrap the pointies with Powerflex, flyball-style, so they don’t shred their feet trying to grip and so they don’t splat themselves 🙂
>She’d already met all these people while we were course building which made for some good learning about dealing with interruptions and I think she made some good choices at the end there.>
She did well with the distractions, they were HARD! Good for her for hearing a ‘bang’ in the background at 2:24 – she looked but otherwise was able to wrap the wing. SUPER!!! And when people were talking (including talking to you) – also hard! I agree, she was able to make good choices.
About holding her collar:
I agree, it doesn’t help her make a good choice but it prevents a bad choice while giving you a moment to decide what to do 🙂 The jump up cue was smart – she enjoys it, it changes the arousal state in a way that directions engagement back to you and away from the environment, and you can even do multiples as, yes, a pattern game 🙂 Patterns don’t have to be cookies: they can also be repeated moving behaviors (hand touches back and forth, spins, jumping up, etc 🙂 )Great job here!
TracyHi! This went really well!!!! You did all sorts of hard stuff mixed in with the fast lines. Super!!!
The tight blinds were really nice! Nice job with the exit line connection – as soon as he changes sides, you can move the toy out of the way a bit. You kept it pretty obvious til he got to you, so he was not sure if he should grab it or not 🙂
First race track great!!! Perfect connection and line of motion!
He came off the line when you turned your shoulders too soon on the 2nd race track – he just needed more support to the far wing, one more step – you supported more on the next run but didn’t need quite that much motion towards it. You can split the difference: go past the first wing and be super connected – when you see him looking at the far wing, then you can turn and head the other direction.
The figure 8 FCs looked good, low arms were good and the connection was lovely!
> I need to find someone to yell at me and my flinging arms.>
I don’t think there was a flinging arm problem here! You might have felt weird because your arms were moving, but they are moving low and smoothly in a way that helped him.
Arms moving to the jump during countermotion worked well – they were following his line as you moved away. And you were not flinging or pointing ahead so he had no questions when you did that.
A really good example of good arm use is from 1:46 – 1:53.
At 1:47 he exits the tunnel, you are running and pumping arms, and connected. At 1:48 you do a blind and reconnect with low arms and clear exit line connection. Then at 1:49 you deceled and turn your feet to the next wing, and your arms help ‘swoosh’ him past you to the FC on the wing you are cueing while moving away. Then at 1:50 you resume your connected running to get back down the line to the tunnel.That is not the only example – you had multiple really good moments like this!
There was only one blooper: He took the tunnel at 1:40 – you were wanting the wing but disconnected and your right leg was way back, which turned your body to the tunnel line. He took a long look at you and decided it must be the tunnel
Compare to when you re-sent him at 1:44 and your right leg stepped to the wing – no questions at all 🙂Great job here!
Tracy
