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Hello! Great to see you and Dice here! Yay! Fingers crossed for a long streak of great weather!!
Tracy
Hi!
We teach the verbals to mean “take the jump and turn” so she will probably not turn *before* the jump 🙂>> how do I teach turn and right so they understand which one I want?>>
The minny pinny from the first MaxPup is how we start that, and we will continue it in this class 🙂
TracyHi! Glad to see you here!!!
Thank you for the update!! It sounds like she is using her skills beautifully – I am excited for you both! Now, we need the snow to melt….Have fun!
TracyHi!
He asked some good questions here! And this is good to know with a trial coming up this weekend!For this particular exercise, don’t do the loop over and over – just do it once, and reward, then reset for the next rep. That way it is start wing, jump, turn wing – and with the wrap cue, he should take the jump again on the way to the reward. I think when you were trying to do it several times in a row, the verbals and handling were getting muddy so he was unsure of what to do or how to earn the reward.
>>What am I doing wrong with the send ? She checks in is it my body language feet etc.
Looking at the difference between the reps where he was smooth and beautiful versus the reps when he didn’t go to the turn wing:
When you were connected, kept moving, and your arms were low – he was perfect!
When you were looking at the wing (not at him) and decelerated sharply and your arm came up high – he stopped and looked at you. Because he is so inexperienced, he still needs the physical support of the motion, connection and low arm.Look at :18-:20 – you stayed in motion, you were looking at him, and your arm stayed low (you pointed forward after he passed you, which is fine :))
Same thing at :27-:30… perfect!Those 2 moments are what you should do at the trial this weekend:
keep moving
look at him, lots of connection,
keep your arms low and smooth (don’t point ahead of him or let your arms come up high.Compare to a couple of the moments when he had questions:
:09, where you were standing still at the wing, looking ahead and your hand ended up above your head 🙂
:10-:12, not enough motion or connection (nice low arm!)
:40-:41 and 1:01-1:03 both had too much slamming of the brakes with not enough connection, so he stopped.When he is more experienced, the motion and connection will not be as important. And the low arm helps with the connection, because it keeps your eyes visible and shoulders pointed to the wing. If you point forward, connection gets broken and your shoulders turn away from the wing.
Let me know what you think! The motion/connection/low arm should smooth it all out 🙂
Tracy
Hi!
Wait, Maroon 5?!?!?! I am jealous!!!! It sounds like you have had some big fun lately, that is AWESOME!!
And I love the video of Promise’s first year – great pup, great video, great song 🙂 YAY!!
Her training session looked lovely here too – it is a really challenging skill and she did well! She generally got them all correct, just a little blooper here and there. She did her best when you held her long enough that she heard the verbal several times and then was practically pulling out of your hand to go the correct place LOL!
2 ideas for you:
When there is an error, don’t mark it other than to immediately call her back with a casual call (something like “c’mere!” and show a cookie) to immediately reset with the cookie. The reset cookies are definitely helping but I noticed that when you reacted to the error, even if it was just to say “oh” or something (like at :33 and 1:19), she barked and got real mad haha! When you were quiet, like at :58, she didn’t bark – so calling her back to the reset cookie will help to further get rid of the anger barking 🙂The only other question she had was about taking the jump when she got to the backside – we can help train it as a default behavior by changing the timing and placement of the reward:
As soon as she arrives at the wing, toss the toy to the landing side of the jump so she doesn’t look at you at all (your timing at :55 was PERFECT, do more of that :))And, when you do throw it, throw it behind you and back towards the entry wing, so as she rounds the entry wing, she is looking at the landing spot and bar and not at you. If you are later with the throw and throw it ahead, she might be watching you too much and not looking for the bar – so if you throw is not perfect, she won’t take the bar. When you throw it earlier and behind you, she won’t look at you and she will just go to the bar 🙂
She had a little blooper at 1:34 when you said go she did backside – I think maybe you were blocking the front of the bar a little, and when you gave her a little more room at 1:46 she was perfect!
>>. Also, I had not tried out the left and right much with the rears yet. I did here and we will need some work on those.
She did well with the rear cross handling! I definitely suggest adding a little hand cue for the turn aways, it makes it faster to fade the motion (and it is easy to fade out the hand cues).
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>You’re up and at it early today!
Elektra had a 4:30am potty emergency, so 6am was practically midday LOL!
>> I forgot to mention in the original post last night that I had swapped out a jump for the Wrap Wing. We really struggled with the Gos when it was out to the Wing.>>
That makes sense – we can’t really do a real “GO” on a barrel or wing so it was not enough of a ‘draw’ over the jump after the start wing. The jump has more value for GO so it makes more sense to him. He was very successful!!
T
Hi! Really good sessions here!
On the back front combos session – he was making really good decisions without a whole lot of handling help. NICE! My favorites were the ‘around’ reps – he go to the backside AND was collecting really well, even when your handling was not necessarily helping like at 2:37 were you pulled away as if doing a slice before moving back through the circle wrap line.
The backside slices were strong too – there were a couple of little bloopers but nothing really troublesome. On the 2nd rep, I think the blooper was because you increased the criteria too much, too soon – you were further away and also your line of motion was pulling away. He was able to do it later in the session, though! And the push with the wing in position 2 was harder for sure, but he got it! YAY!He had a couple of questions on the front side (left or right) so adding a verbal on the start wing can help that. I thought your verbals sounded distinctly different and he was just expecting a backside cue 🙂 He did have one oopsie when you cued a right and he ended up on the backside at 2:48, but in that case you were really late with the right cue: he had time to finish the wing wrap, look at you and decide to go to the backside before you said the right verbal 🙂 Compare the timing there with the timing at 3:01, which was great and he got it right 🙂
My only other suggestion is to have the rewards ready so he is not watching you hands especially on the backside slice – you can just toss it to the landing spots to help the placement of reinforcement support the verbal cue.
I think you can move to a toy on this game! It will ramp up the excitement! For the next session, revisit the start wing at position 1 and 2 with a toy reward, and if that is fine, try it from position 3!
Jump Height Game:
He did really well with the height increases and the wraps! Good boy! I didn’t see a real change in his collection as the bar went up, he was nice and tight on the collection and also really strong on the exit line (the exit line varied based on the handling you were showing him, but he was correct on all of them). You can take a less-is-more approach to these, just go up 2 inches at a time, just a few reps… but use tugging on the next session 🙂 He was great with the food rewards so now you can get him more stimulated with tugging – more like he would be at a trial. Repeat the process, but with a tug toy 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
Definitely practice with the 2 toys in class this week and see how it goes. You’ll want her to understand how to work with the thrown rewards before you take it into the trial ring.The serps looked great(I couldn’t hear all the verbals so I will assume they were good LOL!!) You can move to the next serp game now, the Part 2 adds in a GO challenge!
Backside game – this is a good processing game for her because she starts to bark the instant you hold her collar. And since she barks on course, this is a good setup to work on processing while barking! A couple of ideas to help her out so she doesn’t assume the rep is whatever she just saw last 🙂
Starting her close definitely helped when you wanted the wraps! And so you can do a couple of warm up reps like that – start close for a front side, then close to the backside line. Then you can gradually increase the difficulty. If she tends to go into a backside vortex, you can start the session with the front side rather than the backside. Having her move closer to the front side was GREAT for breaking her out of the backside vortex!!!The other thing you can do here is watch her head as she is barking and as you are saying the verbal… and don’t let go until she looks in the correct direction. That way you are both setting her up for more success and basically saying to her “girlfriend, you can sing but you also need to listen” 🙂
Let me know if that makes sense – this is a great opportunity to help her learn to process the verbals while barking, while giving immediate feedback based on whether you let go of her or not 🙂
Nice work! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
say the words then let go and starting her closer definitely helped ‘you need to move on all of these reps now more standing stillGood morning! Lots of good work from both dogs here!
Buccleigh’s session:
His Go lines are looking good, you can throw the reward sooner. You can mark and reward him going straight over the 1st jump rather than waiting for him to take both jumps.Going to the wing was good to refresh the soft turns so he wouldn’t fail as much – I think one thing that will help when you go to the jumps for the turns is to use the same wings that he did the soft turns on. The wing is a big and useful visual for the dogs, so you can use the wings as the first jump and that will really help him set up the turns.
Good job adding motion!One other thing for him in particular is that making the left or right sound super different can help him know when it is not a GO 🙂 Making the soft turn verbals quiet and long can be a good contrast to the shorter, louder GO verbals 🙂
Most dogs struggle on the first rep of a new side (he had errors when you changed sides) so a couple of ideas:
When switching sides, you can hold him, start the verbal so he hears it a few times… then let go and start moving. That can help a lot!
And also, you can do the different sides in different sessions – spend a minute on one side, take a break, then come back to the work on the other side.Keltie’s session:
She did really well on the soft turns to start. NICE!!!
One thing to help is to have your mechanics sorted out and the reward ready before you cue her to start each rep. You were moving the cookie a lot (reaching for it in a pocket or changing it from hand to hand) and she was watching your hands, perhaps thinking that the timing of the cookie movement was part of the reward? That might be why you feel she is looking at you more.Gold star for her for the go at 1:48 because all the reps til then were turns. Good girl!!!!
She had trouble getting the next Go reps, but I think that was a mechanics thing – yo were in steady motion the whole time, swinging he right back to the start for the next rep. When you started as soon as she got back to you, she was not on a straight line at (Like at 1:58 for example) and also you were reaching into your pocket for the treat which had been paired with the turns or moving it from hand to hand That didn’t always give her a good line up and then the cookies weren’t ready – it will be more successful to make a clean start to each rep. She can come back to you, stop for a moment, get lined up, you can get the next reward ready, then start the rep so it is not a continuous loop here in terms of having her stay in motion (more on that below).Definitely keep using reset cookies (with both of them) to both keep the overall rate of reinforcement high and to be able to reset on the correct line, even after an error. It keeps them both in a good state for working on these hard games!
The Go was definitely harder for her, partially because there might be a little more value on turns right now 🙂 and I think the bars are a little high with the jumps that close together – for now, keep them super low (4 inches) so she feels the joy of flying over them 🙂 And to help solidify the Go, you can throw sooner, while she is looking ahead at the first jump so the reward lands before she looks back.You had a slight different tone for the right verbal at 3:42 – I think that definitely helped her!!!! The different tone and help with the processing so they can really hear the difference.
>> ontrasting the two dogs, Keltie seems more focused and a little more successful. I think Buccleigh gets over aroused and then it’s harder to think so he just wants to “go”. The cookie reset is working well with Buccleigh and generally we are doing well. I am thinking I might try shorter sessions with him, maybe 5 -8 reps then something else fun like chasing a ball and come back to it for a couple of more reps.>>
I think the idea of 5-8 reps then a break is great for both dogs! And not a break to play ball or anything, just a rest break if you plan to do more reps. If the dogs are done, then a ball break is great 🙂 These games are harder for the dogs than we realize, because they are running the whole time and we are just walking along LOL!
>> At that point I felt like he was starting to get too aroused so after his success on the wing we moved away and did some fun running and stopped. I am not sure if he was frustrated or reacting to the dog that was just behind the barrier and making a lot of noise especially when we moved toward the barrier.>>
I think he was tired – he had just done 4.5 minutes of running and jumping 🙂 His response to being tired is to bark more. Keltie’s response to being tired at 5 minutes of running was to slow down by the end – she never lost her focus but she adjusted by slowing down.
So short blasts of the sessions, maybe 90 seconds – then a rest break will help build the behaviors.
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning! So much good stuff here!!!!!
On the fast lines game – I think the setup was kind of a combo of the 2 jump setup for the wraps/soft turns and the fast lines, so a couple of ideas for you to help add challenge and answer some of his questions:
The left and right turns looked really great on all of these. You were doing the left and right on the first jump after the start wing, so now you can change the jump after the left/right to be after the turn wing (it was a jump here) so he can get the challenge of coming in with more speed for the soft turn and then also finding the jump after it at a big distance from you. I think he is ready for that adding challenge of distance and speed 🙂
The wraps are also looking good – he had a couple of moment of lifting his head or going wide, but I think that was more a timing question than a verbal processing question.
The two places I saw little questions were on the exit of the wraps and the collections on the 2nd jump.On the wrap exits, you were marking the collection with a “yes” so he was looking up at you and not really making an exit line decision about wrapping tight to find the next jump independently. The ‘yes’ is a reward marker so the dogs generally look at us (I feel this pain firsthand LOL!). So for the wraps, delay the marker until after you see him finish the wrap and head towards the next jump – then mark and reward 🙂 That way, if you do end up saying “yes” (we ALL do it LOL!) the timing of it will still be good for this game 🙂 You did have some ‘get it’ mixed in so keep trying to get that in to replace the yes – it is hard to train ourselves after all these years 🙂
The only other little question I saw was wrapping the 2nd jump – sometimes her got the collection really nicely, sometimes he was wide – I think it was because you had a lot of Go Go Go happening and that delayed the switch to the wrap cue so the wrap verbal was late and only said once when he was wider. You can see this at :30, :53 and 1:14 when the wrap verbal happened when he was halfway between or nearing takeoff. Because he was heading to a jump, he didn’t have time to get organized for takeoff. The better collections happened when you switched to the wrap verbal as he was over the first jump and said it more than once so he was able to make the adjustment.
So you can start the go as he exits the start wing so he knows to take the first jump straight, and you probably only need it once or twice – then switch to the wrap wrap wrap as he is approaching the first jump or at the latest, landing from it.
His commitment to the turn was GREAT so the earlier timing will work well for him too!
Turn aways are also going really well, the handling help is definitely more subtle! The oopsies early in the session were probably because you were a little too close to the jump with the motion and verbal happening at the same time, so he made the decision based on the first visual (motion). He did much better when you were a little further away, probably more processing time.
He had a couple of questions when you added the start wing, probably too much speed from both of you 🙂 So as you add more of his speed with the start wing, you can add back a little bit of handling help to dial back one challenge for a couple of reps as you dial up another challenge 🙂 He will probably only need a couple of reps of that, then you can fade the handling help too!Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyYes, it is so hard – we want to help but the only thing we can do is sit tight and let it heal up. She will be in perfect condition for NAC!
Hello and welcome back! One year old already – Happy birthday, little dude! This is going to be fun fun fun because we can get outside and get lots of running going 🙂 Fingers crossed for any early spring!
Tracy
