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Good morning! Hope you got some sleep!
>>He gave a gingerly touch and not his usual plow full speed into my hand but was able to move on. He’s had a few singing sessions so I was able to interrupt with a cookie toss.
That softer touch is normal in the face of big distractions – I am glad he was able to do it and move on!!!
All of the class runs looked great – you were really able to just focus on handling and teaching him agility skills (like the tunnel under the dog walk, the pinwheel, etc). It looks like you did not have to struggle with focus at all. -this is exciting!
Run 1 was really god – he seemed to have total focus and all you needed. To do was train on the course challenges.
Run 2 lalso really good – he was very stimulated during the line up with the leash runner and he had trouble staying. I was wondering if maybe he just didn’t have a long stay… but he had a nice long stay without the leash runner for run 3, so that is good to know! Either he was too pumped up to stay, or the presence of the leash runner was causing him to not quite be able to stay. So definitely keep along your classmates and instructors to be leash runners, so eh can get lots of rewards for stays when they are there.I noticed that he stayed engaged during discussion with your instructor and got right back to work – wow! That is great!
3rd run – yes, something did catch his eye but great job moving through it, he did well!
He had a good stay here without the leash runner – so at the NFC runs you will want to not ask for a stay if there are people right near him (and there probably will be :))
The tricks looked really good too – and he was really focused as the person came to the crate to get the other dog! A transition game you can play is to do some tricks like this, then take off the treat pouch and put it down on the reward station , then move away doing some more tricks as if you are moving to the line
>>This was good practice for his upcoming UKI runs on Sunday. He was really focused on me coming out of the crate.
I think he has a lot of tools now that you can bring to the trial. What did you enter? We can make a plan for the weekend to set him up for success 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi!
A midweek trial – so fun!yes, he needs more experience in the Just Like Home phase of the not for comp trial runs so he gets very relaxed and happy in the ring, at which point you can go to the Empty Hands (ball in pocket) stage. It takes a while to ease dogs into competition happily 🙂 And yes, running not for comp is very relaxing for the handler, which helps both handler AND dog 🙂
Keep me posted!
TracyHi!
>> Here is a toy someone told me not to use anymore. It seriously dials her up and can take her brain to that place of being ‘possessed’>>
Why did the person suggest not using it? Was Posh unable to give it back in a training situation, and/or was she so tuned in to it that she was unable to perform other behaviors in the presence of the toy?
She was good here but it is a very structured session, which is probably very different than what the other person saw 🙂
>>It makes the world go away, overrides bunny poo and people. I can put it in my pocket. And even though it can dial her up to the max it can also appease her….she calmly chews on it laying on her belly with the world walking around her, it can chill her.>>
So it is the highest value reinforcement that you can carry. This can be useful! I personally like to recognize those super high value reinforcement and figure out ways to use them.
>>My goal would be remote reinforcement with this toy by itself on the ground. But now I have to secure it in a jar, in her purple chair and she really doesn’t want to leave it. If it’s by itself in the chair she will steal it.>>
Alright then, that tells us where to start: with the remote reinforcement games. Go all the way back to taking one step away, starting from the very beginning.
>>As you can see, she will wrap her paws around my hand when I ask her to release. When working on this without treats, she will stay like this for minutes, while I wait her out to put her paws on the ground.>>
Try to keep the sessions with this toy to very short sessions so she doesn’t get over-stimulated by the toy. And for now – have food available for trading in ALL sessions with this toy so you can have the smooth transitions in and out of the toy play. The food will probably also help moderate the arousal. We don’t want to get into a position of her being locked onto the toy and unable to let go for several minutes – short sessions with food will help avoid that.
Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
Good start to these!
>> And I pulled out the ‘Chlorine Bobber’ from the pool, which turned out to be too much. She LOVES to swim and has been wanting to ‘get’ this bobber for awhile. After videoing I threw it back into the pool, and she was beside herself wanting to go in and get it. Her brain goes to a different place when something like this happens, possessed, then need to reset and get the item out of her sight.>>
This is a great example of Kryptonite that is useful and not scary 🙂
>> So, if I understand the lesson right, we are supposed to wait for them to engage/orient to us?>>
Yes, you are correct and did a great job with that. Yay!
On the cookie-free pattern games: she was able to be very engaged even with the distractions! Nice! For the specifics of the pattern games, 2 things that will help her translate these into games where she should immediately offer engagement:
– stick to just one behavior, like a spin, rather than do all sorts of stuff for now
– be more calm as you do it, you can be less excited 🙂 I know that sounds weird, but we want Posh to be able to re-engage and stay engaged even without you being as exciting about it 🙂So as she enters the environment, cue the trick then wait. If she re-engages (or stays engaged) you can cue it again, and wait 🙂 Then after 2 or 3, you can run back to the reward.
And to add more to it – do it while you are walking from Point A to Point B, as if walking from the ring gate to the start line, if that makes sense. That way you are not staying in any one place for too long, you are moving the whole time now.
She did pretty well with the distractions but she had high latency with the engagement (meaning it took her a pretty long time to re-engage). So reduce the challenge – have one easier distraction there, and have it a little further away, until her re-engagement is immediate. When you have that, you can add in more distraction to the game.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
Non-scary things can be anything that draws her attention and gets her excited:
Other dogs running, animal poo, the pool, the bobber in the pool, someone else throwing a ball, leaves/grass, etc. Anything she loves loves loves that gets her wild but isn’t scary 🙂T
Good morning!
Yes, I thought it was interesting that the right turns were the harder ones on the turn aways but dogs do keep us on our toes like that LOL!!!
The Mission Transition games are going well. I see a distinct change in her movement when you cue the go versus the collection!
Part of the game is working out the timing – on the very first decel, I think she was expecting another Go rep so she didn’t process the cue til after she landed. Oopsie! But then 2nd and 3rd decels were really good, you were nice and early! You can rotate away sooner: for example, at :20 and 1:05 the decel was good and then you faced forward a little longer than needed. As soon as she is passing the 2nd cone and approaching the jump, you can turn and leave and have her chase you for the reward.On the other side, you were putting a little more pressure in towards the bar – at :44 there was pressure to the center of the bar when you deceled and rotated in one movement, so she read it (correctly) as rear cross – the physical cue said turn away and the verbal didn’t override that yet. You were clearer with keeping the decel and rotation separate after that and she was great!
What happened at :52? Ankle roll? OUCHIE!!!
She was definitely sorting out the mechanics of the wrap, so one thing that I think will help is to NOT do any GO balance reps for now. I think she really loves the go go go 🙂 so it is possible that the intermittent Go cues were causing the delay in processing the wraps.
She might have been waiting/hoping for the go cue then a little late doing the wrap mechanics. So, for now, only do wraps for a session or two. The GO looks great so we don’t have to worry about it, we will add it back in soon – the wraps look good but then can look gooder LOL! She can engage her hind end more and sooner.>> But, little Miss Sprite is starting to like running. She’s still taking off VERY early and not really adding in a collection stride. >>
She was totally changing her striding!
>> It all goes so fast and you make it look easy.>>
It DOES happen fast and I think you were starting early enough on most of them.
One thing to remember is that she is going to look different than the video demo dog for this one: I chose a demo dog that is lighter in color, has no long coat (easy to see all those legs) and who is very dramatic in his collection so it is easy to see. It is harder to see on dogs who have coat and aren’t a giant spaghetti noodle like whippets are LOL!
She is taking off further back for the Go reps, so it will be interesting to see what she does as the bars come up for both the Go and the wraps. Nothing worrisome is happening, we are just watching her mechanics percolate and helping her wherever she needs any info or help. She is about 14 months old now, right? So do the next session on wraps only, starting with the same bar height here then raise it up for a rep or two by 2 inches and we will see how she does.
Nice work! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! This was a really good exploratory session to see what she responds to best, how to cue it , etc. You are totally on the right track!
>>if she is on my right and already turning tightly to her right to follow me from the reward station (yay!) and I cue a “left” she’s got to overcome that inertia, and while possible it felt like my verbal overriding the motion was asking a lot for what is supposed to be a confidence building game – although we did sort of get there?>>
I think the hard part here is that the left/right spins are not on a verbal-only cue for her at this point, she still needs a hand signal especially if you are walking. And if the hand signal was too high she had trouble doing the spin. So, you can work these as tricks to get them more easy to cue, and on a hand cue with a lower hand.
You can put your hand at nose-level for her to do it so it is a pretty automatic response – the more automatic the response, the more useful it is for pattern games 🙂
And the left spin then right spin can be separated by several steps. So if yo cue the spin to the right, go straight for a few more steps (she is offering engagement during this time) then cue the next spin. She should not go directly from a right to a left without a few engaged steps in between so it should be easy enough to do. That will also help prevent the leash from being tangled 🙂
Also let her swallow the cookie before you move away and cue a spin, that will help her have an easier time too 🙂
She was letting you scratch her but it was not really engaging, she wasn’t moving into you for more.
Speaking of that automatic response that we want: The pop move has a TON of potential for the pattern game because it doesn’t need as much of a physical cue – she is great at responding to it! The leash won’t get tangled either 🙂 So you might want to try the pop move for this too!
Great job!! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! This is looking good! Each element of each game is looking really sharp!
Her instant focus in the grass looked great, it seemed easy for her.
Instant focus by the pool – much harder 🙂 POOL!!! LOL! You can reward that first approximation at :40 because she interacted with it even though it was not a perfect hit. That will help her be able to do it everywhere.
You can take this one on the road – what else is on her calendar where you can play this game?Line ups and the leash off game also looked great 🙂 I think you can play those in the remote reinforcement combo game now, as well as in front of any kryptonite you can find 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>xFor the krippie games, I feel like I’m the presence of the K words, sometimes toy play is hard. I need to work the arousal with food and transition to toys. I should probably go back to the food pouch in the first weeks to try that.>>
For the really hard distractions, you an stick to food. The type of reinforcement doesn’t really matter, as long as it is reinforcement that we can manage and control.
>>Also I need to make rewarding from my hand better because in dirt places, he doesn’t like dirt covered cheese!>>
You can move the cheese like a toy, so he is chasing your hand and you can move around too!
>>Or, you can play the volume dial game – and if he loves heeling, then heeling an go into the volume dial game and it can totally be a trick you use on the way to the line!
>>As far as keeping him in the higher end of the arousal curve going in, do you think it’s too boring? What should I do to really get him going?>>For him, that heeling game is like engagement Viagra (a big YES!), so try it in the ring and see what he does 🙂
T
Hi!
I like your plan of working the remote reinforcement combo game and also sorting out what toy(s) he likes.>>I will try very hard not to run things with my heart but instead use my mind. I think we are ok when we are not.>>
TOTALLY relatable!!!! I try to let my brain read the course maps, not my heart LOL!!! My heart always tells me it is fine but my brain overrules the heart 🙂
TracyHi!
>> I was telling Sue that he really goes crazy tugging with a big Holy Rollerball but I really need a handle on it so I don’t drop it in the ring.>>
Yes. you can loop another toy through it so it is one big long toy 🙂
>>About the Pattern games, it’s hard to throw treats at dirt trials.
I use the up-and-down version of the pattern game when I am on dirt – I place the treat on my shoe, then stand up – when he engages, I place the next treat on my show 🙂 That allows the dogs to play the pattern game without treats flying everywhere 🙂
T
Hi!
Both of these were really good runs, lots to be happy with!>>the timer is pointing to the back of the ring where the judge was having a conversation with someone in the other ring…seriously??
OMG! Sigh. He was good boy 🙂 he was pumped up and so the slight delay didn’t bother him 🙂
Outside the ring, be sure to add engaged chill so you can both relax a bit – he was doing a whole lot before his run (loved his barking LOL!) but you will also want to do some engaged chill so you can both look around for a moment as you wait.
I loved the line up. Really nice run! He got a little worried when you had a disconnection moment (he sniffed) but you recovered well and he was great!
Since T2B is a class you can do FEO, I suggest that for the weaves – do lots of FEO runs to work the weaves so he stays in and gets rewarded in the ring. What type of toy will he like in the ring?He definitely likes standard! Really nice run! And yes, the leash runner was literally running LOL!!!
I totally see what you are saying about him loving the contacts! The weave popping was another way of him voting for FEO weave runs LOL!! He was fast and wonderful, just couldn’t quite stay in.
When is your next trial? We can plan some FEO runs!Tracy
Hi!
Sorry for the delay, I didn’t see this pop up!>There’s a class before us, and when we walked in a young boy was waking around waving a chair over his head. So we gave them about 100′ and worked games with treats.
Chair over the head? That is plenty distracting! Good job giving Posh a lot of distance.
In reading this, I think you did a good job of adjusting to the situation and ending up successful!!!
>>The first time, I didn’t set her up for success, didn’t do our routine, didn’t take our purple chair with us.>>
It was a good learning moment to see the important of the toolbox and the reward station.
>>But the good thing is we were able to recover and have successful segments for the rest of the class.>>Yes! That is a big wing especially because the kryptonite was still there!
>>Our first go at an exercise, I could tell she was bothered, didn’t want to tug with Kong hollee on bungee, didn’t want to do tricks for treats. But lined her up with a sit. >>This is important feedback from Posh – if she can’t play or do tricks… then don’t run her. It is her way of saying the situation is too much. Too much Kryptonite!
>>Embarrassingly, I got frustrated, even angry.:
Totally relatable, we are all so emotionally invested in our dogs that it can be frustrating for sure!
>>( I’m just worried about the Automaticity of this. >>
Right now, the reflex still tilts towards the anxiety reflex for her, but keep working these games and you will be able to tilt it towards a happy response!
>> After awhile I got her back out and went near the man, a few feet away and worked pattern games. She did well with this for him, but not the woman.>>
Great! Pattern games are perfect for this. And maybe more distance from the woman wold help?
>>Funny thing, the more I fuss with her on the start line, the worse we do. The more I get it done, and concentrate on my handling over “what she might do”, the better we do, toy on me of course.>>
That seems correct – fussing with her is pressure and she doesn’t need the pressure Bring her to the line with games and focus, but try not to fuss if that makes sense.
>>Gosh, the learning curve for both of us is hard.Yes, but you are learning it! You are ‘listening’ to her and she is doing well 🙂
S>>o, Kryptonite for us can be many things. I’ve thought of getting some blow up dolls/men and put them in the backyard for Kryptonite games. But I don’t want her to think our backyard is scary?? She reacted to helium Bday balloons we had, and I had to tie them to me and wear them around and sit on the ground with them, my other dogs showing her they were nothing and treating her….but it worked. What do you think of blow up dolls? or aliens?>>
I think the time spent finding blow up dolls would be better spent taking her to different places and using real humans (and less expensive too haha). Yes, you can do the blow up dolls… but then she will be happy around blow up dolls 🙂 She knows the difference, and I agree – don’t make your yard scary,
>>I take her to the nearby school when the kids get out, and do pattern games and action games for treats and she’s done well. I take my other dog with us sometimes and if someone wants to pet I have them pet her, while I treat Posh. If I take Posh alone, I tell the kids they can’t pet her and treat her heavily when they go by.>>
Great! Be sure that they are not that close. You can totally help her be happy without getting her close enough for the kids to touch.
>>Her only severe reaction was our neighbor’s dog, which she’s seen many time with no response. But the dog showed up with a ‘collar’ on after being spayed. ish…>>
Well that makes sense – a totally weird new visual!
>>Perhaps I can go back and work K games there.
Yes! You can work some fun games there too.
>>So, most of our biggest reactions happen in class, trials. Hopefully our ‘reactions’ will become less and less with our tool box and I’ll get better at recognizing what she needs when. >>
She is probably waving big flags when she is not comfy – in those moments, abandon the thought of sequences and go into the games: pattern games are almost always the best choice. Her ability to engage and eat and do tricks and tug will tell you if she is ready to do agility (or not).
>>Do you have any suggestions for when she takes off to bark at someone? Until this week I’ve always run the other way and then rewarded her when she does come to me. But now I feel this is ‘Automaticity’ that needs to Stop. But what’s the best way in the moment? Keep running the other way? Tell her to get in her kennel? ??>>
The best thing is to simply not let it happen. If it happens… then she is regularly in situations where she is over threshold. If you see something in the environment that might trigger it, or you see her noticing it, or she can’t play/eat/do tricks/ engage… move further from the distraction. Do your best to not let her have that response, so you can get the reps in to shift the reflex to a different response (like engaging with you).
And if she does run and bark? You can run the other way and reward, but then move her further from the distraction (or move the distraction further from her).
But a BIG thing here is: teach her how to respond by working your kryptonite games on challenges/distractions that are NOT scary at first, until she is GREAT with non-scary distractions. The happy emotional response and engagement will develop first on those (avoid working the kryptonite games on scary distractions til she is great with the non-scary distractions).
And when she is great with the happy ones? You can slowly add in the scary ones. It sounds like you are focused on the scary ones, but that builds a lot of anxiety into training for you both, because you are constantly faced with anxiety-inducing situations.
So before you worry about the scary things: what are her non-scary kryptonites?
Let me know what you think 🙂
Tracy
