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Hi!
>>So I thought I’d show you this mixed bag of tunnel work. Mistakes were made.
Thank you for leaving this stuff in and talking about it. Mistakes were NOT made… it is more like we got to learn a it more about Georgie, and that is great! We need to figure out these teenagers and sessions like this are actually very helpful (although I am sure you were surprised and frustrated).
>>FYI, she’s my first border collie.
BCs can be, um, different LOL! And yes, I have seen BCs do everything she did here and that includes biting the tunnels LOL!
>>There was biting of the tunnel, nipping at me, and lots of barking. I was umm, surprised. >>>
Do you have video of any of that to show? It was not really happening in the link here. When was the tunnel biting or momma biting happening – when you were trying to line her up? I am curious to see it so I can help figure out why she was doing it and how to help her. It is generally an arousal/frustration behavior, and actually pretty normal (so don’t freak out or anything LOL!)
The teaching of the tunnel part if the easy part – so mainly what I see going on here was that the value of the tunnel (running, FUN! And also WORK because BCs love to work) and the value of the MM were both SUPER high. And the value of lining up at your side? Not as high even though the cookies in your hand might have been identical to the ones in the MM (dogs can be strange like that LOL!). The MM is paired with running and work, so it might have a higher motivation level.
I am actually excited that she showed us this now, rather than in a year or something when you are starting to trial. It helps us do some training and frustration reduction/arousal management.
So I think we can use this tunnel-training construct to work on the arousal management and frustration reduction for those moments when she is NOT being asked to work work work (your girl likes the action of working :))
Yes, have a collar or harness on her, but introduce it separately during some simple tugging or shaping with you, so she doesn’t pay much attention to it.
Then when you go to train the tunnel, it will be on and she will barely notice it.
You can develop a loop of behavior:
Line up at your side for either SUPER high value reinforcement (cheese or something different and very motivating) – gentle collar touch – into the tunnel to the MM, then back to you for a tug game. One cycle.Then, in between each rep, I suggest you move a little away from the tunnel and play the pattern game from the resilience games. It is fabulous for arousal management! And then after a couple of reps of that… back to the little loop of line up for cheese, tunnel, MM, tugging.
Let me know if that makes sense! I am excited to see more :) Tracy
Good morning! What is up with the winter jacket? LOL!!!!! I can relate, I am freezing if the temps are below 60 lol
The tunnel game looks great. I love how she takes the tunnel on the way back to you LOL! And you helped her love the collar hold part with well-placed cookies for lining up: you got her happy with it without fighting with her and without dragging her around by the collar: PERFECT!!
>> All the reps were dog/human/tunnel.
Looked great! She seemed to really enjoy it! You can start adding more angles (different positions along the tunnel, getting closer to the exit) and you can also start moving as you are letting her to to the tunnel.
>>I’ll try the human/dog/tunnel next.
Perfect! That will nicely lead you into the game posted on Wednesday (the double whammy).
>>For this game, I tried to leave as she approached the barrel and also send from farther away and leave before she got to the barrel. >
Mission accomplished: Turn and burn looks AMAZEBALLS! She looked super strong in both directions and you were able to do the FC and run away before she got to the barrel (excellent commitment!). Freezing the video at :21 and you will see that you are fully turned and running away before she even gets to the barrel. YAY! And you had your verbals going… a giant click/treat for you!!!!!
She is totally ready for more of the rocking horse games and the handling combos! Looking great!
Great job!!! Stay warm 🙂
TracyHi!
He did really well here, I like how he is already leading with his head into the turns! Your timing looked good to me, even the ones that you said were late LOL!
I think you can use a little less hand movement after you start the turn cue, so your hand doesn’t go past the upright at all – I think you were adding the extra hand movement because you were also throwing the treats from that hand, so this can be smoothed out by throwing the cookies from the other hand (same hand as the clicker) rather than the turn hand.
He did well on the singles! You can definitely do lots of doubles with a couple of singles thrown in.
>>IAlso when I watched the video back I was thinking I had too many reps and should have probably broken it up with a toy in between the 2nd time wrap and the 1st time wraps? It’s so easy to get focused on trying to get the mechanics that I forgot about a fun break.>>
If this was the whole session, it was fine in terms of length and number of reps! Yes, you can break things up with a toy game but I think this session went really well. If you feel like you might go too long while thinking about mechanics, you can set a timer to keep you honest LOL!
Great job!!
Tracy
>>Having food and clicker in the same hand should prove interesting HA!
Just be sure that you don’t try to click the cookie and toss the clicker LOL!
Hi!
>>That fees like we play Agility!
Yes! These games start to feel like real agility! So fun! He did great 🙂 The left turns are coming along really well – especially when you do them on the bigger, taller cone. I also love that you spend more time playing & praising than you do working the behavior. It is all about the play! Yay! He was also a superstar about ignoring the toy in your hand – self-control is developing too!
I think you can add a little more motion to this be moving the cones a little further apart so you do the FC and run a few reps then send to the next cone. Just be sure to have BIG connection as he exits the cone as you move away.
You can also add in the sideways and backwards sending to the cone, he is ready to see some countermotion on it 🙂
Great job on these!
TracyHi!
>>we are back on track!
I am glad you are back in action! Moving to a new place was good, and he seemed perfectly fine to work in the new place. I see what you mean about being more reserved with food – so it was good to start this with food to get lots of precise reps in and build some value. When you do both the bar on the ground and the prop, only click once – so you can always reward after a click. I think he was confused when you clicked but didn’t reward 🙂
>>Rewarded with toy to get more action
Perfect! I didn’t see it here on the video, but maybe I need more caffeine LOL! As long as you have the same early timing as you did here with the throws, you can use a toy. And to make sure he doesn’t look at you and keeps looking ahead, you can stop clicking and switch to a ‘get it’ marker (no click, no yes, just “get it”) and throw the toy.
Great job!
TracyHi!
He was so cute here, starting without you! His wrap commitment is getting so strong now – he is definitely a righty, as well can see when he kept offering the right wraps hahaha And the left turn commitment is coming along nicely, he just needed less motion on the left turns and more patience (waiting a bit longer) for now. I see you posted more below, be right back with that feedback!Nice work!
TracyI am so glad you are having fun!! He is really young, and doing so well! We can’t move as fast because he is young. I am in the same boat with my puppy: he just turned 5 months old so I can’t move tooooo fast with him. But our baby dogs are doing well!!
Yes, the environment can totally change the response to verbals! He did really well with all of the activity around him – acting very mature for a baby dog!!
Good morning! I love her fancy winter outfit!!!
The backside slice foundation is looking strong – position 3 was harder for her indeed because the full bump was exposed (there is a lot of value on that bump!)
She figured it out nicely on the right turns at the beginning then she was QUITE perfect on the left turns after that! Nice! The nice step on this would be to add a bit of a serp line exit so you are moving parallel to the bump after she commits to the barrel. This is harder because she will NOT want to come over the bump automatically, so be sure to drop the toy on the landing side very quickly and as soon as she arrives at the barrel. We are basically rewarding backside commitment by dropping the toy on the landing side, to get her looking at the bar (rather than waiting for commitment to the bar then rewarding, because there is a high likelihood of failure when you are serping across the bump :))
Reverse retrieve looks good, she already has great countermotion commitment on both sides of you! The stay was hard – she thought the release was involved with the reconnection, so make sure that you reward her for the stay when you reconnect (throwing the reward back to her) so the reconnection and getting into position is not always the release.
You can add in running away at a right angle, instead of directly back to her – that will mimc countermotion commitment on a lateral send! But overall this look great!!
Nice work 🙂
TracyGood morning! These look really good!
Yes, she is definitely a little more fluid to her right but the left is going well too! I think your hand position on left turns was good, but she might have had a little trouble because she had to turn away from the cookie. Try it with an empty hand (everything else the same!) and have the cookie in the clicker hand for cookie tossing after the click 🙂
Tunnel threadle and double whammy looks good!!
You can get more reps with cookies… but using a toy will be a lot more fun for her 🙂
When you started the double whammy – click/treat to you for NOT using your arm to flip her back into the tunnel and instead letting her find the tunnel. She was super! So you can add more of your movement by sending her into the tunnel and meeting her at the exit with the threadle cue as you move forward.Only one little blooper was when you might have been a little early with the threadle verbal and she came back out of the tunnel 🙂 But other than that, she was perfect!
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
>>I’ve noticed as Kótaulo is entering his teenage timeframe, he’s noticing sounds more than he did before. >>
This is 100% normal for teenage dogs! The brain development in this time frame makes them “notice” things more (like noise) and also it takes twice as long for them to ‘bounce back’ to baseline (aka be resilient!). So that basically means they notice scary things more and they can recover twice as slowly as a baby puppy or an adult. EEK!!!
>> Am I correct to assume that just like the visual items you added to the weirdness gauntlet, sounds in the environment could result in something similar where they process the weirdness of a new or unusual sound?
Or even a previous sound that perhaps as a teenager they have a different reaction to? >>Yes, but be SUPER careful to not over-do it because otherwise you end up scaring him. So a quiet random sound, sure! Anything big and scary that would startle him? Nope! I guess my line would be at start response. I would consider letting him hear something he would notice (raise head, ears swiveling) but not something that might potentially cause a startle response.
>>Do you treat sound any differently when thinking about resilence than visuals?
It depends on the dog, but basically once they hit adolescence, I tend to be more protective because we know how their brain struggles to respond. So I have all of my little pattern games super strongly in place, and then do tiny exposures to other things (but not anything scary). And if something scary *does* happen? No worry – we go into residence mode: Pattern game if possible in the moment, get the pup away from the scary thing, comfort the pup, decompression, completing the stress cycle.
Resilience is not something the pup learns operantly… it is a flex of their neurobiology which is a weird thing to try to “teach” LOL! But if the body rehearses that neurobiological flex, it helps the pup throughout their life (and we practice these games to keep the flex strong :)). But even with practice – an adolescent dog will take twice as long to return to baseline, so we try not to stress them (the study on that is cool, I will see if I can find it!)
Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>The only way I was able to make those happen from a standstill was by getting him to drive forward the way I did.
Right! I figured he would not go without motion forward, but also all that speed and motion made the RCs harder. So the cookie toss t get you both moving can help. Keep me posted! And I think he has enough of the concept that you don’t need to worry too much on the prop – we will be moving to a jump in a little while then it will get really solid.
T
