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Good morning!
He looks great here – DEFINITELY faster without needing to see the treats in your hands.
I love the barking and leaping tricks! It is hard to resist reaching for the cookies… so now you can add in the remote reinforcement games with the tricks so that the cookies are not in your pockets at all.One thing we might add in is moving the cookies as you deliver them (rather than a stationary delivery) so that the cookies are more like toys that he can chase. That is something to look at in the Volume Dial games, where we sort out if you need more arousal (or less :))
Great job!
TracyTotally relatable – it is hard to get back into the swing of things but I am glad you did 🙂
>>Thought- Roulez suckles on a mat at home in the evening. Think it would be useful in a trial setting? She is very calm outside the ring… it’s only when we walk through the gates when the arousal level is visibly heightened.>>
You can try it and see if there is a change in what happens inside the ring. If the suckling puts her in a lower state of arousal, it can either help us by having her stay a bit “lower” when you center the ring. Or it can hurt us by having her arousal swing a bit more wildly as she moves into the ring. Only one way to find out LOL!!!
I think she is overall doing really well, so you should look at the various remote reinforcement combo games and also start the Kryptonite games 🙂
Have fun! Keep me posted!
TracyHi! You can totally do this with the BCs 🙂 It is all about starting early 🙂 Same with Sasy – keep your arms a bit lower in the beginning, so you can see her more and start sooner to then make the connection on the exit. Plus, having your hands lower will help you turn more quickly.
When yo switched sides, you had lower hands and that totally helped! Great rewarding across the body on those reps at :33, 39, :44! Tat really helped her know where to be and it worked nicely 🙂 You replicated that on the other side too at the very end – looked great!My only suggestion to make this have even more flow is to run closer to the tunnel so you can move into the blind rather than have to wait for her. For example – at :23 you were a bit too far ahead so she stopped because you had stopped. So running towards the tunnel more will get her to commit the wing more easily because you will be running forward more when she exits – and that will help the blind cross timing too because will see her commit sooner.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
Nice job on the lap turns – you were both executing the 3 inch rule really well so he was reading them well.
There was one spot for each of you that maybe you were a bit early, and so the turn was not as good – for example, Karena at :51 was too early so his turn was not as good, compared to 1:02 which was good timing.
>>Should I be facing tue dog/wing a bit more when doing the lap? I learned these (OMD) a while back and so am patterned to face the way I am in the video vs turning more towards the dog/wing as they do the lap turn around that wing.
I liked your position! The better the timing with that 3 inch rule, the better the position will be – you will feel more sideways to the wing or dog if you are too early. She you are on time like you were here, you will remain facing the dog and his previous line like you did here.Great job to Mike too!
Give a little more connection on the race track at 1:15 – he is behind you and when you use your arm to indicate forward, he sees the shoulder turn and questioned where to be. So keep your arm back more and a little more eye contact when he is behind you, so he can stay on the correct side (you did this beautifully at 1:56, coming towards the camera).The sending went well!! It allowed you to get to the lap turn really early and not have to run backwards. You can have an empty hand or already have the cookie in your lap turn hand – you were tending to switch the cookie into the lap turn hand as you were starting it, which delays the cue a bit .
>>We also did the racetrack but I wasn’t sure which arm to use for the lap turn after completing a few laps around the racetrack. Does it matter?>>
You can do it from either side, but I like to whip the dog into speed with the race track and then use the same hand to cue the lap turn. So if he is on your right, do a couple of lap on your right and get him sending – then face him so you can pul him into the lap turn with your right hand too 🙂 It helps build more independence on the race tracks and works the handler mechanics of getting rotated for the lap turn 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
Yay for the rear crosses! On the first 2 reps, she was looking straight and taking off in extension (maybe looking at the jump straight ahead?) but then she had a lightbulb moment and you started the RCs even sooner on the 3rd rep and beyond: nailed it! It is like you could see her say “OH! I GET IT!” And boom – lovely rear crosses. YAY! So You can mix in a bit of the extension GO line with the rear crosses, to help her now read the difference between how those are cued: with the go, you will immediately take off up the go line. On the RCs, she will see you do what you did here: decel at the wing then pressure into her line before cutting behind her.
For the backside jump commitment:
I plop the toy to the landing side as I move forward. So if she is on your right hand on the backside cue, have the toy in your left hand. As soon as she moves to the backside and looks towards the jump, drop the reward in as you move forward. Think of it as reading her choice to hold the line and go to the correct side of the jump, with good placement on the landing side of the jump. You don’t need to wait for her to jump the jump, the reward can be dropped in as soon as she is passing the entry side of the backside wing.Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
Yes, it is time to get our pandemic puppies on the road! I did the same thing when my pups turned about a year old or do – they eased into it and are now doing fine 🙂
One thing to remember when going to new places is to dial things back to 50% level of difficulty. So if he can do something at home, make it 50% easier to start in the new place. That sets him up for success – and if it is too easy, no problem, you can make it harder. If we ask for 100% of what he can do at home, he might fail right off the bat which we don’t want.
Do you have any way to put him in a class or baby dog seminars? When I put the youngsters in classes in new places, I also put them in a lower level. So even though my baby dogs could do Masters-level sequences, I put them in Novice and pre-Novice seminars in new places. The handling doesn’t have to be challenging because the environment will be challenging.
I agree that he did really well here!! Very few distraction issues and was running his legs off! Nice!
And yes, you can increase the value of the reward but also attach the lotus ball to a line so you can keep it moving and engaging. Will he play with toys there?
He did well with the Diamond game. When you mess up – reward him. And since this is handling… all of the errors are human not canine. So rather than reset him or trying to keep going: if he is attempting to wrap a wing or get in the tunnel but it doesn’t happen to match what you wanted, reward him because he is probably reading what you are doing. A good example is at 2:54 where he was behind you and you disconnected to point forward. It looks like a blind cross when you do that, so he went to your other side. You want him to stay on your right, but it as a handler error – so reward him then fix the connection on the next rep.
To help build even more speed, use a shorter tunnel (15 feet or 10 feet or 6 feet if they have those shorties! And also bag it – he isn’t exactly moving it yet but he needs to get used to the feel of a heavily bagged tunnel. Plus, if he moves it, I don’t want him to get worried about why it is moving.
He was fully focused for the first bunch of reps and then checked out for a bit – it is entirely possibly that there was just too many reps of the same thing. So mix it up more and set a timer: 2 minutes, then a break. The challenge of renting a ring by yourself is how to pace the session: setting the timer will help a lot so you can give him a break before he gets tired or before there are too many reps.
He did have a valid question at one point which was causing difficulty: when you started on the right turns with the tunnel coming towards the camera, the dog walk was on his line (not the tunnel) so he was confused. He doesn’t know the DW so he didn’t get on it, but he recognized that the visual of it was on the line so he wasn’t sure if he should take the tunnel or not. So, you can block off the DW more and reward after a struggle – when he got the tunnel, reward it right away.
>>but also I was thinking maybe I need to leave the wraps and turns earlier. Thoughts?>>
No need to leave sooner for now – in a new environment, you don’t want to rush the handling because that risks a disconnection or a handling error, which will break his flow. So it is better to support him and be super connected and reward lots 🙂
>>I have some more training time booked for Thursday and this time I will be upping the reward for not sniffing around and for coming back to me – steak it will be! Suggestions for which drills to do in a distracting place? I had wanted to wait on more GoGoGo training until I had your feedback today at least, but could try that there if you thought it was a good idea, or wait to do that where he’s more familiar.>>
Bring a list of 6 or 7 different games, and do maybe 2 minutes of each. You can do a bit of the diamond, a bit of stay training, and yes you can totally do the wind in your hair go go go with steak in a Lotus Ball. I mean, I would race you to a nice piece of steak LOL!!!!! Maybe do that one first, the way you did in the video from yesterday – hold him, throw it, race him 🙂 And pick some of your favorite fast & fun games to play – he seems to really love the tunnel, so the smiley face game is a good one too.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! I definitely like the closer starting points here!! She looked more balanced indeed. I think the next step would be to add the dragging toy: put it down, slowly walk forward (dragging it on a long line so you don’t have to bend) and after a couple of steps, release her 🙂 that will add challenge while also proving more good form.
For the ladder… I am curious to see how she does with the dragging toy. I think the 5 foot distance was a little too short for her on that one, so you can try 5.5 feet or 6 feet and see how she does 🙂
Great job! See you soon!
TracyHi! This is a great list 🙂 and I bet you’ll be able to get plenty of people to help. I’ve posted the demos of how to add in the kryptonite now, so you can build up to having all this going on while he is running. Have fun!!!
TracyGreat list!!!! Start with the happy distractions, so it is all a positive experience. That will also establish the games with BIG distractions, at which point you can move to the distractions that can produce anxiety.
>>He really likes the cookie toss pattern game. He’s like I KNOW THIS ONE AND IT’S AWESOME.
Perfect! That’s what we want!!!!!
Keep me posted on how he does with these!
TracyHi! I’m not sure he will be able to tug on a leash in the presence of the pool. And if he does, it would make it more like “work” and not play. So the easiest thing to do is just tie a toy to a leash and use it all as a toy 🙂 then you can fade the real toy and just use the leash 🙂
THi!
The remote reinforcement looks really good. His facial expressions were pretty hilarious 😂 but I love how he figured it out and was even offering behavior like sits when you got pretty far from the reward station! Yay! And his happy hop when he got back to it was so cute 🙂
You can definitely take this step 1 on the road, and move to the next steps at home.The May events will be here soon enough, it will be interesting to see if they allow FEO in the ISC classes!
In the meantime, you can let his sister run around and play these games with him (the demos are posted). Can you take him new places using the GPS, so he can get stimulated by the arrival then do some instant focus and pattern games. Those pattern games can really help him center himself in situations where he would normally howl and go nuts 🙂
Great job!
Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
OMG the engaged chill! That is what Promise looks like when she is not moving? I don’t think I have ever seen her not moving 🙂 Note the BIIIIIIG yawn in the middle. Chill is hard, the environment is hard! She did really well 🙂
Great Kryptonite list! Some of these are stimulating, some of them make her anxious – so start with the ones that are stimulating but don’t make her anxious, like the other dogs running or cure friendly dogs 🙂
>>I have also recently been practicing in my yard with engagement while Annalise is also working breeze or Potter. We haven’t progressed to her being able to focus while they go through a tunnel yet. I use distance if the situation becomes to tough.>>
I was totally going to suggest this – I am glad you are already doing it. Yay! What has been helping her? I lean towards starting with pattern games for ALL of these, so let me know if you have tried pattern games with this.
>>I have not done this yet, but I’m thinking of playing my videos of the trials with lots of barking at the house and doing pattern games while it plays. >>
Perfect! Let me know when you are ready for more noise and I will get some flyball tournament videos for you LOL!
>>3. Objects- Pattern games
4. I have an idea of having people approaching the parked car and getting lots of cookies for that. Also, next time I’m at a hotel we need to incorporate the pattern games in the hallways and take some moments to just walk the hallways and encounter random people. I was unprepared at nationals with no treats in my pockets. We can also start walking at the lake front again which is a great place to encounter things and gives the ability to get distance away. Lake front is my plan for small children also.>>Yes – start under threshold so they are NOT close to her, so she doesn’t feel as much need to bark.
>>Other dogs- letting her sniff for awhile, calling her back to me then letting her go sniff again. I need to try a permission to go sniff. I’ve never had a sheltie that had any value for other dogs lol!
This is good! I like when dogs are very friendly! But yes, adding in a permission will be a good thing – other dogs should be ‘neutral’ until cued to visit. Pattern games here too – or a variation of those called Look At That where basically she looks at the dog then at you, without you needing to cue it. You can give her a cookie for that, and the cue her to visit if you want
And the demos are posted if you want to check out other approaches to the kryptonite games 🙂
Keep me posted!
TracyHi!
I suggest a bit of practice with the off leash offered engagement, deciding what line up you want to use, and the remote reinforcement combo games 🙂 And, making a list of the things to remember like the engaged chill, pattern games, favorite tricks, etc so you have all sorts of things ready in your toolbox when you arrive at the site 🙂Tracy
Hi!
How did these runs feel in class? I think he looked really good on the video! It is a VERY good thing when the only thing you need to worry about is handling execution. And air cookies, see below LOL!
He seemed happy and engaged on the first run, even with the instructor behind you! And he was nice and fast on the release! He was indeed on fire with that early off course tunnel – when he runs with that much speed and confidence, you will need to call him sooner 🙂
I think he was great with the people near the ring, he seemed completely focused on you!He was PERFECT on his engagement in the 2nd run – eye contact, focus, and it looks like you had empty hands, too. No worries about the missed jump at the beginning, he just needed you to drive to it for one or two more steps to set the line
Great tunneling at a distance! Focus seemed great! Smart to reward the tire!Run 3, lesson learned – we can’t fake him out with an air cookie LOL!!! He had great engagement but then I see what you mean by him being convinced you had dropped the cookie LOL! In those moments – you can call a ‘do over’ by putting the leash back on, resetting the engagement, then leading out (without air cookies LOL! )
You did a great job getting him engaged but the line up position was a little off center, so he had trouble on the first jump but then he was great!>>totally need those no cookie pattern games. >>
Yes! And if he (or any of his classmates) struggle, there is an intermediate step we can add to fade the cookies. But I think the oopsie on run 3 was more about the air cookie than anything else – maybe next Monday you can do a run without offering a cookie, just praising the engagement. He is very smart and also simply could not believe that there was no cookie in your hand LOL!!! And then the empty clam, he thought you were nuts LOL!!! But that is good to know about the empty clam – it might be more of a distraction than a helper in an FEO/NFR run, so crazy toys might be better for him.
>>And think leash is part of his kryptonite items. I would be happy to put his leash in a bucket at a trial. 😆 NADAC changed the rules during COVID so putting the leash in my pocket was much easier.>>
Yes – that leash drop is a distraction for him, and maybe the leash running grabbing it too! You can work that in class 🙂 That was a funny conversation last night – all the different places to put the leash (bucket, down our pants, etc LOL!!) I have gone to handing the leash to the leash runner in most cases (if she is nearby) before I line up the dog, because it just feels easier and it has forced me to train the dogs to stay with me when I hand off the leash. Maybe NADAC will keep the rule of allowing you to put the leash in your pocket, like AKC does now?
Great job! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
