[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

>>Wally is a delightful British term for a person who’s lost a few brain cells

I love it! I am totally going to use that word 🙂

>> Yowza is not a fan of having her collar grabbed, and when she was younger, she very much objected when a helper tried to hold her by her harness – so, until now, I have tried to avoid doing restrained starts, or I have done them by holding her chest (which she doesn’t like much either).>

I feel that pain about the helper – All 3 of my younger dogs also really dislike being held by someone else! I guess have been bad about making that fun for them 🙂 but by working a ton of the games with me holding their collars or harnesses (lots of cookies then being sent into the game), they are fine with me holding them now. And as you can see, that helps separate the the verbal from the motion and gives the dogs extra time for processing.

She did really well here, lots of success! – on all of the release after the verbal, be sure to move forward so you are not as stationary. Keep walking forward the whole time until after she makes a decision. the you can build up to jogging then running!
She was also doing well with the different verbals. To keep her from having to make tooooo many decisions, just use one type of front side verbal (soft turn or wrap). That way all she needs to process at this point is mainly whether it is back or front, not back or front AND what type of front 🙂 That is a lot of multi-tasking. She definitely did better when she heard the verbals while you were holding her, and you made the words sound pretty different in terms of rhythm, volume, etc. Yay!!!

>> this time with the start wing about 10ft away. I used a verbal for the serp jump, though I doubt that I would use that in a trial. I tried to run faster, and to give her the reward from my hand.>>

Serps looked great!!! At a trial, when you are in perfect position on the serp jump, you probably don’t need the verbals 🙂 They will be most important when you are WAY ahead, as in past the serp jump entirely and she still needs to take it, or when you are behind her and she needs to drive through the serp ahead of you.
And the verbal on the start wing is useful because it helps the dogs know if the line is a serp or a threadle! More on that coming soon 🙂

Circle wraps were indeed hard for her! Good job moving the wing further from the distraction jump and breaking it down for her. There is so much countermotion on this still that she had some trouble when you started moving but she had a big lightbulb moment when she was on your right and had it perfect! When you switched to you left, she had questions: if you were still on the ‘landing’ side, when she needed to turn, she could do it. But if you were parallel to the wing or past it, she wanted to go straight with the line your motion was showing. Good job setting up the success with you on the landing side and gradually getting yourself closer and closer to the wing. I think some of her creative responses (like wrapping from the inside) were her asking if she could turn towards you and not do the countermotion LOL! Plus, she seemed happier turning to her left on these so she was offering up a nice left turn instead of a right turn on some reps 🙂

She had more success when you were dropping the toy in a bit sooner to the landing side – so keep that early ‘drop’ of the toy going for the next session. You can start where you left off here, with her driving ahead and you still pretty much on landing side – then you can add more and more motion so as she is turning away from you, you are passing the wrap wing. If my memory is correct, left has always her easier side, so you can add more motion passing the wing to the left wraps here, then gradually add it to the right wraps too!

great job! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

Yes, we had one day of lovely weather – back to pouring down rain here 🙁 Glad you and the dogs were able to get out and play!

>>Anyway. wondering why the wing is offset from the jump? I guess serpentines don’t have to be adjacent wing to wing but in trials there is usually the familiar 3 jumps all lined up straight.

Does this make it easier?>>

Yes and no. Yes – to make it easier for the dog to end up on the correct side of the serp jump (and avoid accidental threadles) but also no – it is also a little harder for the turn on the serp jump because the dogs come in to it from a harder angle.

>>That is what I wonder about this course- yes the ultimate goal is for the dog to respond to our verbal cues no matter what crazy things our body may be doing

Good questions!
Two thoughts on this –
the goal is to get the dogs to respond correctly to the verbals while we are in motion, especially when that motion is not supporting the line or late or moving the opposite direction 🙂 Standing still is not helpful for our eventual application.

Each game has that independence regardless of physical cue systematically built in, which is why I bug people if they skip steps LOL!! Skipping steps will not give the dog the complete understanding, so the dog will be relying on handling because they start to fail and then we start to help by handling… which doesn’t help the verbal understanding.

This serp game starts with a lot of motion because a serpentine involves the dog having to override the urge to run parallel to the handler. At first, it is pretty simple, but the later steps are harder when we get the handler past the jump (and next week’s Part 2 is MUCH harder).

The serps also begin the concept that the left/right verbal might mean turning away from the handler, so it the verbal is not just turning towards the handler. More on that in coming weeks.

And this game challenges the handler to spit out the correct verbal pretty rapidly – not so easy at a run!

>> but- wouldn’t the real challenge be saying the verbal while not moving at all?>>

It would be a little less challenging because motion triggers certain responses that the verbals need to override. So doing this without motion? It is pretty fun but it is easier than with motion. And also, it has to be done with motion because we need these verbals while the handler is moving.

>>I know we are supposed to progress from walk, trot , to run faster but when they don’t know the verbal yet, they are just responding to our movement, same as before.>>

Well, the walk-jog-run is not necessarily handling – it is just moving, which is not that helpful for the dog. So can the dog wrap while you are running forward and NOT decelerating or rotating? That indicates a pretty strong understanding and is really difficult.

>>I’m thinking this class will be most useful , at least for me, once they know the directional cues like left, right, circle and around regardless of my movement.>>

The games are designed to teach that ‘regardless of my movement’ element 🙂 If you are using too much motion to support the understanding, then we are not teaching the independence. So while some of the games begin with supportive handling to help make sure the dog understands the verbal (like suggesting more motion to help Desi understand Go Go Go) each game progressively strips out the handling while adding more motion, so the handler can just run and the dog can process the verbal. I don’t have any games where the handler is stationary because it is not what we need on course. And motion and handling are not the same – in fact, our motion on course can often be the opposite of what good handling would need to be.

>>What would this look like with a dog and handler where the dog knows 100% what the verbal means? Could the handler jump up and down, stand in place or do anything at all while saying those verbals?>>

Theoretically, yes – but it is unimportant to see if the dog can do a serpentine on verbals while the handler is doing jumping jacks. That is simply not the distraction the dog needs to work through. The dog needs to learn the verbals so that the handler can run freely to wherever needed on course and the dog still commits and turns. Standing still or jumping up and down are fun tricks but ultimately not as useful for agility because at some point the dog still needs to learn to commit and turn while the handler is running.

What it would look like, ideally, is that the handler can stay in motion on the course the entire time – and with well-understood verbals, the dog can run with speed and precision without needing a lot of connection or good timing or motion changes from the handler. The handler just keeps moving along the line to get where she needs to be, saying the verbals, and the dog takes care of the rest of it by responding to the verbals regardless of the handler’s position/motion/connection/timing.

To really maximize this, I obsess on the handler mechanics in the training session 🙂 The independence and motion are all embedded in the mechanics. And working very systematically through the progressions to set the criteria then pump it up with more motion and less handling.

Looking at the videos:

In Libby’s session, you tweaked the mechanics to make it work a lot better. You started off near the start wing but that put you too far behind for her current stage of understanding and you ended up not being able to get the turn or the motion challenges.

You mentioned something about ‘how can I beat my dog at a walk’ and the answer is: mechanics! Instead of starting at the start wing, you and Libby did a much better job when you started near the first wing of the serp jump and walking after approx :32. And that produced 2 important learning moments for her:
– commitment to the soft turn on the wing while you run the other direction
– commitment to the soft turn on the serp jump while you are ahead of her and not particularly handling

We can really see it at 1:07, big difference in mechanics! Be sure to keep moving on a flat line past the jump – more like 1:50, 2:04 and beyond – don’t pull away from it to bring her in and convince yourself to not do a blind cross (because it is not a soft turn on those).

One thing I think will help with Libby and definitely with Desi is a cleaner line up: bring them to your side and line them up next to you with a cookie. There is some fighting about the line up, and they face you a bit which makes sending to the wing harder. On the sending, you want to say the verbal and leave to teach the dogs to commit on the verbal. But if they are facing you, then the start of the rep gets off kilter, so you have to handle by stepping to it more and staying there longer… which negates the teaching of the verbal overriding the motion.

For Libby, with the cleaner line ups, you can then add even more motion so you are way past the serp jump and she should still take it based on the verbal.

You can really see how the verbals need to override motion in Desi’s session! She had more trouble than Libby did. And this is where I get to bug you about skipping steps 🙂 you went to running very early on and she had a lot of failures. To really systematically train the full understanding, I live by that 2 Failure Rule – not 2 in a row, but 2 for the whole session. If I get more than 2? then my mechanics are wonky or I am pushing too far, too fast in the progression.

Mechanics are even more important with Desi who is more likely to pull off a jump, I believe. For example, the first rep had too much handler speed and you can see how the entry wing is indeed a challenge with you moving away.
The clean line up at your side with a cookie near the serp wing will really help her. And if the the start wing is too far away and you have to run past the serp jump, and she fails because the verbal is not overriding motion – move the start wing closer so the mechanics can be the same but you won’t need to run as much at first. Then when she is highly successful, you can move it further and further away. This soft turn send to the start wing as you move away will really help her understand to commit on the verbal, which will translate nicely to pinwheel commitment as you move away.
As you are moving past the serp jump, try not to shake the toy – I don’t want her to rely on any physical help to come in. Just move slowly past it, saying the verbal, then reward.

Based on how quickly Desi learns, I believe she will be able to get the idea of this in the next session with the clean mechanics, which will allow you to then go back to running – which sets her up nicely for Part 2 which gets added on Monday 🙂

Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning and welcome!

She did really well with the wrap cues here!

>> but I don’t have different words for each wrap side.

I recommend having 2 different words, especially for when you are behind or need to use distance (both are popular course trends right now!) The 2 different words can be based on her left or right, or turning away from you or towards you if you think you will be easily visible to her 🙂

>>I don’t know why I keep repeating the verbal even after she completed the wrap. Couldn’t stop myself lol!>>

Ha! That was funny! But better to say it too much than not enough – when you were trying to say it less, you only did one quiet “dig” and I think repeating the verbals really helps the dogs 🙂

When you added the jump – have the distraction jump closer, maybe 5 feet at the most) and also handle less 🙂 You were decelerating and rotating, which is great for real courses but we can challenge her to do the verbal independently from handling: see if you can just walk forward and NOT do a rotation to help her until after she makes a choice to wrap. You will see her collect on the takeoff side, at which point you can then turn, run, party, reward 🙂

Same with the GO balance – just move forward, yelling the thing, don’t accelerate too much. She did well with those!

And I think you can also show her game 3, the exit criteria game for the wraps 🙂

>Soft turn verbals are brand new to use so we only worked the wing.

Perfect! You really focused on the mechanics of the verbal and the reward. Lovely! So for the next session, add more of her speed with the start wing before it (and the distraction jump closer). When she is happy with that. go to the jump for the soft turns and balance with the Go reps.

Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!
Lovely work here – you had great mechanics and that really helped. 100% success on a pretty challenging set of behaviors! Yay!!

Great job with the backside slices! My only suggestion is to have the reward ready (a toy or ball might be easier) so you can drop it in as you keep moving, when you see him arriving at the entry wing. He was getting to the backside bar pretty quickly and then looking at you like “I am here, now what?” LOL!

>> I used a marker so I knew where I did the last rep and how far to move the next one over – moved about 8-12 inches each time.

Brilliant! The sessions were very clean and systematic, so it is not surprising that it was basically perfect too.

When you add step 3 now for the backside slices – start him with both of you facing roughly the center of the bar, so that you can slowly move straight forward (you don’t need to get past the exit wing for step 3). You might need to start the step 3 session with a front side verbal cue, so he sees that the front is in play and it is not a backside-only setup.

Also great job with the wraps! These wraps were great because he had to do it quite independently and you didn’t have to help with any additional arm movements and you really didn’t even have to connect. YAY! He did look at you like you were NUTS at first when you were not connecting but then he was fine with it, driving really nicely. Not much to add on this one for now, unless you wanted to work on even harder angles of entry.

Great job!!! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

Really nice session here on the left/right serps!!! It looks like you were really hustling and were getting past the exit wing of the serp jump and he never considered ‘flanking’ it – GOOD BOY! That is a harder skill than we realize for young Border Collies 🙂 Both sides looked really good. One little thing I noticed was more about the physical cue than the verbals – I think you had your shoulders open better on the serp jump when he was serping on your right side (first part of the video) and they were more ‘closed’ when he was on your left (second part of the video). Ideally when running a real sequence you would have your shoulders more open. For a verbals only game like this, it is less important 🙂 He also did really well with trading the toy for a cookie and generally ignoring the toy in your hand.

This game can go on the back-burner til Monday when we add the next level of it 🙂

>> WHAT do I say to release the dog to just go away from me and use a contextual cue to take the wrap jump?

I agree that ‘around’ should be saved for the Rally behavior, and you don’t want to say go because this setup will dilute the Go verbal.

I use my verbal directional as a release and step to the wing – so if the dog is lined up on my right and will be doing a left on the wing, I say left left left.

There is a big conversation in the agility world about release words at the start! We in North America like to use a general release like “OK” or “break”. Europeans are making a good argument for using an obstacle name or directional on the release, because they feel that just an “OK” does not provide enough information. I guess it depends on what the release means, specifically, and what context it is used in. I use my general ‘break’ release when the dog should begin moving up a straight line, taking all obstacles on his path to me if it is a simple opening like that because “break” names the line. If it is a harder opening – we are starting to see some wraps or soft turns on the very first jump, for example – then I will use the appropriate directional. Just food for thought when deciding which word to use. I think as long as we are very clear and consistent, the dogs will be happy.

>>we have done this (just about identically to your system).>>

Great minds thinking alike 🙂 LOL!

>>You can see he kinda knows what I want, but when he is jacked up, he really wants to tug longer.

Yes, as arousal comes up, it is normal that releasing the toy is harder. I do a lot of back-and-forth: toy – release for a cookie – give the toy back. I am not convinced that the cookie is a high value reinforcement for a lot of our toy-driven dogs when they are higher arousal states, so giving the toy back after a release (either after a cookie or as the reward for the release) can help build value for the toy release and for eating the cookie LOL!!! You were doing this towards the end and it will really work nicely for him – just be sure to stop tugging before you say out so he can process that it is coming. You were tugging as you said out, so he had a little trouble ‘hearing’ it in the moment 🙂

He did really well finding the backsides here! Good boy! So now we can add more challenge 🙂

For the next steps:
On the line up – try to turn your feet to the front of the bar so there is no physical ‘tip off’ that you are cuing the backside (this will help as you add in step 3). He might be leaning towards the backside but you will be fully facing the front of the bar, almost the center of the bar.

And, after saying the verbal a few times like you did here – let go and walk forward to the front side of the bar, moving roughly parallel to his line (but not towards the backside wing, just straight forward).You had motion here but now we can ramp it up to have you running more forward, prepping for super independent stuff like German turns where you are running past the exit wing when he arrives at the entry wing 🙂

And no matter where you are moving, drop the reward in on the landing side of the jump (relatively close to it) and as far from you as possible (easier said than done, especially as you begin moving towards the bar).

When he is happy with that and you are moving (my guess is he will be happy with it in the next session :)) then go to step 3 (front versus back). When you start step 3, cue the front side first so he realizes that the front is in play, and this setup is not just about going to the backside 🙂

Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning! This was a great session!

I think your position from the start wing was GREAT because she really had to think about committing while you ran away:
“Should I commit to the wing? Or chase da momma?”
So chose the wing each time which is fabulous!!!
And the serp was great too – the 8” bar was no issue for her at all. She was fast and clean over it.
On the 2nd half when you had her going left on the wing and right on the serp jump: yes the wing was set up at a slightly odd angle but it presented a higher level of challenge. She had to both commit to the wing and come find the serp and right turn at a harder angle. I swear I saw steam coming out of her ears LOL!!! But, she nailed it. And that is fabulous!!! She is so speedy that you will need to be able to send, run hard, yell the thing and she needs to be able to process it and ignore how fast you were moving. She nailed it here. YAY!!!

Great job 🙂 Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi! Keep me posted about how she does when you get back. Have a good trip!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Really nice session here too!! You were able to add in a lot of motion and he was great about going to the backside. Nice placement of reward too. He looked pretty happy about the collar being held – excited to run but he didn’t seem worried about being held.
He was 100% here.
So if you get one more 100% session like this (or 90% success session) – move to step 3 but dial back the motion to a walk to get started.
I think for your first rep of step 3, do everything the same in terms of the mechanics except cue a front side first while you walk forward, so he knows it is ‘in play’ as a possibility and that the setup is not just a backside send setup.

Great job here! Let me know how he does with the next steps!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
This looked really strong too! It is a super strong skill for him and so it was a perfect one for adding the collar holding. Since he is not a big lover of collar holding, you can ask him to line up at your side without touching him, then hold the collar – he did really well here! And a cookie for the collar holding is good to add – and it would help get rid of the jumping/barking behavior when you line him up (yes, I am obsessed with it LOL!!!)

This is really strong for him, so it is a relatively low priority in terms of training time – so you can come back to it at some point to add the harder angles. He really had to think about it when he was driving ahead – there were one or two times on both sides that he almost cut in to the front of the jump then fixed it and took the backside wrap – super!!!!

Nice work!!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Coffee is life! This looks great – on your side of things, all the words (directionals, toy marker) were spot on and your line of motion was perfect. His response was perfect too. Yay! So now you can try to send to the wing from really far away (or move the start wing further away) so you can run harder through the serp – the goal is that as he exits the start wing, you are passing the exit wing of the serp jump (while saying all your words, of course LOL). That way he can see the challenge of go fast AND take the jump while turning, not just go fast/chase the momma 🙂

Let me know how it goes. Great job here!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!

>>. Yes, Prism loves food too. Yes, I can give him a food reward for the *prompt* toy release. I used “get it” for available toy, “grr grr grr” for keep tugging, “out” for release, and “mine” for it is in my hand/not available

Perfect! You have all the good things going already. Yay!!

>>But I don’t think I was doing that in any of your videos-nervous about performance. 😉

I totally feel that! I remember one time at an in-person seminar with Jenny Damm from Sweden, I was just running like a crazy person and yelling my poor dog’s name for all the cues. She asked me if I had ANY verbals other than his name LOL! And of course I had a whole lot of directionals, I was just nervous about the big course in front of a big name LOL! Oops!

>>We typically tug for a while longer than we are doing on video (did not think you wanted to see the tugging) for this class. Maybe he is showing frustration that he is used to longer tug rewarding time?>>

You can totally leave in the tugging and in-between stuff – makes it easier to edit (you can just post the whole session LOL!) and sometimes we can see something that changes the session. I don’t mind if videos are longer because there is more in-between stuff, I love watching the dog training! It is entirely possible that he was asking why the tug session was so short?

On the video –
Really nice session here! I like how you started with food, built up motion, added the toy – he was lovely all the way through. I couldn’t really hear the soft turn verbal on the serp jump but that might be because you were running away from the camera. I heard the verbal for the start wing and then you can use the soft turn verbal as he exits the wing for the jump.

He was GREAT about using his body to do the serp jump, even when you ran fast. So now you can move the start wing further away, so you can send further and run faster to see if you can get entirely past the serp jump, with him still taking it based on the verbal cue (a bit send to the start wing will help because he is so fast :))

>>(Funny how the “simple” soft soft turns got less training attention

ha! I used to basically ignore the soft turns but it turns out that those are the ones I use most on course! Soft turns and rear crosses don’t get nearly as much training time as wraps,threadles, backsides…. yet we use them all the time 🙂 So they are closer to the top of my list now 🙂

Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning! She is looking good here!!! It can be harder to get big dogs to ‘noodle’ their way through a tight turn, but she is really good at leading with her head here!

I think the questions she had were because of mechanics. The clean starts with her lined up at your side, facing the upright, were really great because that smoothly get her in motion and then you were able to show her the turn with your mechanics. On the reps where you had the clean starts with her at your side (:03 and :14 on your left side at the beginning, and then later at :50 and 1:00 with her on your right side), she was great and the turns looked awesome.

On the reps where you tried to turn her when she was coming towards you or facing you (dirty starts LOL like at :19, and :26), the mechanics were unclear so she was unsure about what to do. So, stay clean!

My only other suggestion is to delay the click a tiny bit – it sounded like the click was coming as she was coming towards the turn hand. So, delay it until after you have turned her away, then click and fling the cookie.

Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!

>>If you want the 1000 and one ways to screw up this exercise I probably have live footage!!!

Ha! Well, this video looked perfect which means the screw ups never happened LOL!!

>>Here is footage with what I believe to be the correct position of the wing jump and the correct verbals

yes – perfect everything. Yay! Verbals, motion, reinforcement – it all looked great 🙂 One thing I noticed was that she was jumping super close to the exit wing on the serpentine. It looks like the bar was either on the ground or super low, which was correct. Since she was jumping so close to the exit wing, let’s give her an 8″ bar for this game. She has seen 8″ bars regularly already, yes? Basically, we are saying to her that is it not just a run-fast game and she will need to organize her jumping effort. I don’t think it will be a problem at all, I just want her to see it because I think she has no idea that this is also a jumping game LOL!!

And if she is fine on 8″ bars – move the start wing further away so there is more motion AND you can challenge her more to see if she can still take the jump even when you are past it!

>>Oh and her threadles are super nice

HA!!! Remember that setup for when we add threadles soon LOL!!!!

Great job 🙂
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Sounds good! Keep me posted!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Thank you for posting this!!! The sessions with questions from the dog are always the best ones to watch 🙂
Looking at what she was doing at the turn jump, he was doing better than you thought – I think her question was more about whether she should take the distraction jump or not 🙂 After all, we have done a whole lot of “don’t take the distraction jump”.
Looking at her collection before the turn jump she was wicked tight on the wrap cue at :02 and had just the right amount of collection for the left turn at :10 and :18.

And on the wrap, she came around the wing REALLY tightly. Yay! And on the soft turns, she was (correctly) wider at :11 and :19. So I think she was all like “I know this is the soft turn not the wrap, but am I supposed to take the other jump?”

>>If we stopped for a bit and came back and started with a soft turn she was in soft turn mode and won’t wrap

Do you mean she would turn left AND take the second jump, even if you cued the wrap?

She might have been guessing a bit because we stripped out too much of the handling. Sorry, Charm!!!
So on the next session, we can answer those questions for her by adding a bit of handling back *after* she makes a correct decision on the takeoff side of the turn jump:

for the wraps, do what you did here by just moving forward until you see the tight collection stride on the takeoff side of the turn jump: then do a FC and run away so she chases you for the reward. Basically, it is a late FC as a way to say “yes, you are correct to set up that tight turn” 🙂
For the soft turns when you see her approach the turn jump and begin the turn, you can also turn and move to the 2nd jump to show her that yes, she is allowed to take it 🙂

Let me know what you think and how she does!
Tracy

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