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Good morning!
>>Shamrock Shake….think mint flavored, DQ soft serve with extra sugar!
OMG want! Well, any ice cream is on my ‘want’ list LOL!!!
Really nice session here, this is some impressive work. There was really not that much handling help and he did a great job!!!!
At the beginning, you had some backside slices versus backside wraps – the timing of being quiet on back slice versus back-wrap looked good! You were tending to be quiet for the backside slice when he was arriving at the wing, or switching to the wrap verbal at that same point when he arrived at the wing for the backsidewrap – and he executed them really well! YAY!!!
At :19 he had a bit of a strange error on the right verbal – he turned left. It is possible that he was reading rear cross pressure? It is also possible that in the calmer training setting, wrap and right sounded too much alike so he trying tp process it and ending up deciding he needed to go where the reward for the wrap would be. So since wrap and right start with the same sound, over-exaggerate the difference:
wrapwrapwrapwrap in a rapid-fire way, and extending the right so there is a lot more emphasis on the “ah” vowel in the middle.I have found that these different sounds also help my handling – the decel required for the wrapwrapwrap matches the speed of the verbal (there is a lot of decel on wraps) and the moderate decel of the soft turns matches the quiet, extended sound of the word. Because these games don’t have much handling, it is easy for the words to end up all at the same pitch/volume/tempo.
He got a bunch of right turns correctly, then the backside slice was a little harder – he was successful but needed a little handling help with you moving up the line a tiny bit to help him (gradually less and less)
>>crazy good, how after a really short break part way through the session he was able to catch his breath, collect his thoughts and come back with a few awesome reps.>>
Yeah – that was amazing! He came into that part of the session like “I GOT THIS YOU JUST RUN NOW” hahaha!! Good boy!!!!! Fabulous!
So for the next session… a couple of options to play with:
You can go back to position 1 and add more of your motion, then work back up to position 2 with more motion.
And, separately, you can do some easy ones from position 2 to warm up then move the wing to position 3!Great job here! Enjoy your weekend 🙂
TracyGood morning!
The Wind In Your Hair game looks great – nice job with your verbals! And nice connection and toy throws! You are either going to laugh or curse me out: you can actually connect less and not help her as much – just be more casual and move up the line to the jump, kinda connected – challenging her to find it on her own 🙂 I think she will do just fine with that 🙂And you can start closer to the wing and hang out there til exits then move forward (so she drives ahead) or send her to the wing from further away so you are past he jump ahead of her – both are good challenges to show her and she seems ready for them 🙂
On the set point – right now, 4.5 feet looks perfect! She did really well – all reps were organized and powerful. These were to a stationary reward: Since her stay looks so strong, you can play the moving target pre-game with the dragging toy. Then when she understands that, you can add the dragging toy to the set point, to help her organize with more excitement and power through the landing. I am interested to see how she organizes herself when you drag the toy!
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi again, this was another good session!
I love the smiley face games, he did a great job!
>> (I need to write then on my hand . . . I’m going to walk around the house and practice them>>
Yes, do a quick walk through before each rep so you can plan your verbals and not really have to think about them while running or look at your hands for reminders LOL! Practice will help them feel more like second nature 🙂
His commitment looks great and his turns looked great, plus I am happy with how he read the difference between the wraps and the ‘soft’ left and right turns. Super! You can connect more to him, keeping your arms low and back more to really find his eyes especially on the tunnel exits.
One other thing – rather than drop the lotus ball and walk away, ignoring him… after you throw it, remember to engage, praise, maybe use a toy instead of the lotus ball! We want to build up the teamwork on these, and part of that is never turning your back or walking away from the dog during the reinforcement process (or at any time). I mean, you would be not-too-happy if he turned his back and walked away from you to talk to someone 🙂 so be sure you stay fully engaged at all times with him 🙂 That will really help when you get into trial situations, where you don’t have cookies or toys.
Great job on these! Stay warm and let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
OMG 19 degrees… ICKY!!!! But it was a really good session 🙂 Yes, you did it right.
Look at his brilliant stay! Good boy!!!The distance here was too big at the beginning – it was much better when you moved it in closer. So use the distance you had here for the next session on these.
He did well with the MM – since his stay looks great, you can move the MM further away so he strides out more after the 2nd jump.
Separately – get the moving target game going, so we can replace the MM with the moving target on these. You can do the moving target game at home, indoors in a stay, so there is no need to freeze yer butt off training it 🙂Great job!
TracyGood morning!
>>I’m starting out in typical Lee style.>>
Well, typical Lee style must mean that terrific sessions because I think all 3 of these look great.
>>I didn’t really have him wrap the wing in the parallel path. >>
Yes, you freestyled the start wing a little but that is fine – you used your verbals really well and he was awesome with finding the line to the jump, and your reward placement was spot on. So – the goal of the game was achieved! Yay! You can add a ‘get it’ marker to the reward throws but really everything else was great.
For the next session, 2 ideas:
start very close to the start wing and hang out there til he is just about done wrapping it (rather than send and leave) so he gets practice driving way ahead of you.
Then, add more and more distance between the wing and the jump.
Great job!
TracyHi!
Did you have the same insane weather overnight into this morning? We had rain then sleet then hail then snow. Now it is sunny. Crazy!
>> I know the course ends Sunday and we are woefully behind. I downloaded the pdf’s to continue our training.
There are no new lessons, but we are continuing to look at videos here in the Forum until April 1st! So if you get a chance to train and to video, feel free to post and we will continue to discuss and plan 🙂
>>I can’t thank you enough, tho, for your thoughtful and expert guidance thru this!
You are very welcome, it has been really fun watching Guinness learn these games! He is a talented dog and you are doing a wonderful job with him 🙂 See you at local trials, too, hopefully!
Tracy
Good morning!
She is doing well here!
Looking at the first 2 videos, with the wraps –
She did better with the cues when you did not begin with her in a stay. On the first video, she was on a stay and you said ‘break’ then the wrap cue – since she was relatively close to the jump, the wrap cue is late when it follows the break so she was not as sure (and went straight on the first rep). So you can release with dig dig dig, so the information is really early.
On the 2nd video, it looks like you didn’t use a stay – you were holding her collar or moving with the wrap cue right away (not the break cue) and she did well! I am excited by how well she did here!
On the left and right video:
>>She seemed to do well with these but I don’t know if she was relying on my motion or really understanding it or maybe a combo.
There seemed to be a little bit of handling help but not a lot, so I think she was definitely processing the verbal and not just waiting for the handling. YAY! You can start her a little further back from jump 1 to give her more room and more time to adjust for the turns or the go – but I think at this point, for both the left/right and the wrap: add in the start wing before the 2 jump setup so you can both be moving more and more 🙂
And if something goes wrong, you can totally use reset cookies when she is not correct – call her to you, give her a cookie to line up again, and do the next rep. That way she won’t get worried an she won’t offer any teeter behavior 🙂
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
Since winter seems to be never-ending this year, I am glad you have the bigger space rented! Yay! You can work these games in your home space, with a couple of tweaks that will work weel even if you don’t have a ton of room:Set point – she is clearly going to be a very talented jumper. Yay! With the dead toy, she is the tiniest bit ‘pouncy’ on the 2nd jump – she is not really thinking getting organized to stride through the set point, she is thinking about getting organized to pounce on the toy 🙂 I see this as not being a jumping form thing we need to tweak, but a it is a reinforcement placement thing we can tweak by having the moving target (slowly dragging the toy as she is moving forward). The moving toy should not elicit the pouncing and also encourages jumping organization when the dogs are stimulated by motion 🙂 It is not exactly pure Susan Salo to do this but the results have been amazing 🙂
Wind In Your Hair also looks good even in the smaller space – her commitment is strong. In this space and in the bigger space too, watch her head and as soon as she looks forward to the jump – throw the reward. You were waiting til she was between the uprights so she was looking at you (nothing else to look at, when she got there :)) and tracking the toy throw – so by the last rep, she was looking at you earlier to track the toy throw. So if you reward her moment of commitment decision (when she looks forward) by throwing the toy, she will look forward more and more on those.
You can totally leave the toy out on the line… but I think it is good human training to be able to watch her head and mark/reward the decision moment rather than seeing her between the uprights then throwing. That will help you develop your timing for when she is running courses.
>>I did leave in the brilliant return of the toy to hand for more tugging!
YES! That was great!!! She was all like, “here, I brought you the toy, let’s tug” SUPER!!!!
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHello to you and Fritzi! She is AMAZING, you have such cool dogs!!!
On the set point:
She did a great job focusing downward to the toy on the ground (and holding her stay).
She was ticking her toenails on the bumps a little when they were further and on the first rep when they were closer – but she adjusted nicely and then I really liked the reps at 2:11 and 2:42 and 3:10 (the bumps were close together there). Part of what was great on those were the distance she was from bump 1 (6 inches maybe?) and the distance between the bumps. So you can try maybe having them a couple of inches further apart, but not much more for now. She looked really good!Because she is doing so well with the stationary toy, you can add in the slowly dragging toy – have the toy attached to something long so you can be dragging it forward as she is moving (like in the pre-game). That might change her mechanics a bit so we might end up changing the spacing between the jumps.
Wind in Your Hair:
She did best with you just walking and not being too exciting (she wants to look at you and the toy when you are really exciting, particularly when she is on your left side). When you slowed down your motion, she was really getting it!
You can throw the reward sooner – when she is looking at the jump, throw it. You don’t need to wait for her to get close to it or be between the uprights: the early throw will reinforce her decision to look for it AND not look at you 🙂She was definitely stronger when working on your right side – the left side was harder for her, for whatever reason. It was a GREAT adjustment to move the toy out of the dog side hand when she was on your left and toss if from the opposite hand – that really helped. It was not a problem for her when the toy was in your dog side hand when she was on your right.
For the next session, start with walking like you did here and then is she is happy with that, add some jogging and see how she does.
Click/treat to you for using the verbals 🙂 The earlier we start, the easier it is for both of you!
>>She does get a little distracted by some ‘goings-on’ at our farm here and there, that’s her puppy brain and it’s always improving so I try to engage her with food or toy and ignore it.>>
From an outside perspective, based on the background noises – she is doing spectacularly well in an environment that most dogs would find really distracting!!!! I think she looks brilliant. Keep up the great work!!!!!
Tracy
Good morning!
>>I just watched the independent verbal wraps and I think my head may have exploded 😂😂😂🤯! Wait you can wrap a rear?! With the same word?!?! Haha, I was still in switch land before this class. I’m having trouble trying to imagine this on courses. What do you suggest on starting Promise on this one right now yay or nay???
I need to find the map of the speedstakes course I ran with Contraband last weekend – I have *planned* a big fancy blind to get him on my right side, to set up a soft left turn on the next jump. Yeah, well…. I didn’t make the blind and was pretty far from him – so he was on my left and he needed to turn left. So, I kept running (I mean, it was either run or freeze haha) and said ‘lehfft lehfft lehfft’ and I’ll be darned – he immediately turned his head to his left and made a perfect left turn on the jump. Good boy! So that is an example of when you can use the directionals to also mean “turn away”: when you are behind or not able to show great handling or both haha
T
The more I watch how the dogs respond, the more I see them having success when the words are different in sound and style of delivery. It is really cool to see!
T
How is she feeling today?
>>But I did think later that a threadle wrap might have been a better choice.
The other thing I think can help is to have changed sides atthe teeter – it looked like you had the on your right for the teeter and then did a threadle rear on the backside before the aframe… which puts you behind her because you can’t just send & leave for the threadle rear. So a rear cross before the teeter or a blind on the teeter exit can get you in position to send and leave on the jump before the frame, putting you ahead of her after the frame. Let me know if that makes sense or if I need more coffee hahaha
tGood morning!
She is just the cutest little pup! And I love the toy, it seems to match her personality 🙂You can mix in throwing rewards back to her, to help remind her that holding the sit is a good thing! You can use reset cookies to help when she has an error – bring her back, line her up, cookie, then lead out again. A question – will she be happy to play with the toy when cookies are in the picture? If so, great, you can toss cookies back as stay rewards and mix that in with releasing forward to the toy on the ground. If not, you can throw a toy back to her.
To get more success, you can shape the release with more approximations: you can ping pong between the release when you begin to lower the toy, release just before the toy gets to the ground, release when it it is on the ground, release when you start to move it, release after it starts to move… mix that all up 🙂 The errors came in this session when the toy was on the ground THEN you started to move it, I think it was just a shade too long for her to hold the stay in those moments 🙂 As you worked through it, she got lot better at this towards the end of the video! YAY!!! So keep mixing in the easy reps with the hard reps, to keep the success rate high and continue to add duration.
One other thing I notice – she seems to do better when you are connected the whole time (a least a little bit) rather than leading out without watching THEN connecting – I think she was reading the re-connection as part of the release. So add a little more connection and I think that will help too.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
All of these games look great! A couple of ideas for next steps on all of them – there is nothing really to change with what you did here. She was highly successful!!Moving target with the jump bump – she seems to like this LOL! And it looks like she is focusing downward enough for our purposes. Yay! This set up a strong set point session too!
One thing I notice:
She looks around when you lead out, so mix in more “catches” randomly, throwing the reward back at difference points – it will make things exciting and shape her to watch you – the reward could come at any time, so she won’t take her eyes off of you 🙂 I am not worried about her looking around, and I don’t think she is stressed – I just think she doesn’t believe anything will be happening for a while so loses focus for a bit.Onwards to the set point:
This went well! Super nice! I am looking forward to when you can take this to the arena or onto grass (Mother Nature is NOT cooperating!) I think you can move the distance to 4 feet for now but keep her front feet about 2 inches form the first bump, so she doesn’t have to ‘reach’ into the first gap.>>With the TnT she isn’t driving – not surprising given what I see with the RC foundation work. The toy definitely ups the drive quite a bit and she holds things together.
I totally agree – the more I watch dogs do jump work with a TnT or dead toy, the more I think it drains the dogs of all power because it is more about slowing down than powering through. The dead toy is better than the TnT for her, and the moving toy is best!
At the beginning of RDW training, we really don’t want the powering through so the TnT is actually perfect for that LOL!!! Then we fade it and move it away, adding the power and the speed. and since she is learning fabulous self-control with the moving target toy, I bet you can train the RDW with that. I have some more ideas about using the moving target toy, remind me when we get to the Motion Override games LOL
Since the set point is going so well, this is something to re-visit maybe once a week? She is so young that we don’t need to do a lot with it at this stage, because she is having not trouble with any of it. Yay!
Wind In Your Hair – these look great too. She is wrapping well and doing a great job of looking forward to the line. Click/treat for you both!
Now, going back to the the lazy game, add in 2 elements:
– Start very very close to the wing so as you walk forward, so drives ahead of you. You might have to hang out at the wing to let her finish wrapping it before you start walking forward.
– And do the opposite as well – start as far from the start wing as possible so you can send her way away to it, and you are past the jump when she exits it, so she has to find the jump from behind you (and not just chase you past it).And when she is fine with that (I’m betting it will take her just a couple of reps on each) then you can add in motion to those 2 challenges like you did here on this video. If she has any questions, keep the game in the lazy zone for a session or two 🙂
Distance video – yep, now she is feeling the joy of run run running LOL! Adding the distance allows us to get more driving ahead and that is great! After you do the lazy game with her driving ahead or finding the jump when you are way ahead, and adding motion to that – then add the distance to the driving ahead challenge and to the “send away to the wing and find the jump behind you” challenge. You can throw sooner or even leave the toy placed out there – I suggest placing it NOT because she needs the help finding the jump, but because as the distance gets bigger, it is harder and harder to throw on time and keep her head from coming up.
Great job with these! Let me know how she does with the added challenges!
Tracy
