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Hi! Thanks for this clip!!!
The wrap verbal was basically on time… but that made the right right right verbal late (he was hearing it after he had made a takeoff decision, so it was too late for him to adjust and turn tight). Was able to put in a little collection but I think if you drop the wrap and just use the right (or use wrap for one direction and a different verbal for another) you will be able to get even better turns!Tracy
Wow, that is great!!! Are you going to be anywhere else that you can play this game? We can use this setup to generalize the behavior to different environments 🙂
T
Great job with the session, Auntie Jamie! Super happy with this session, it had a good balance of craziness 🙂 and excellent responses on all the cues! Yay! It looks like on all of these reps, you were a little ahead of her – that totally helps and she nailed it. So…. rather than repeat anything here, let’s can it up
Since she is really strong with the momma and the auntie out ahead, but less sure of herself when she is asked to drive ahead, the next session can be with you starting much closer to the start wing, so you and Roulez exit the wing at virtually the same time. That way you (momma or auntie) can be driving forward, and giving either the wrap or go cues with Rou needing to drive ahead and execute the cued behavior.
Yes, start with a fast walk or slow jog at first, and don’t make any big attempt to help with handling.
And since Roulez prefers to turn rather than drive straight, I suggest for her that you do more reps of the Go Go Go! The behavior we are looking for on the GO with you behind is that she jumps the first bar straight – if you see her doing that, throw the reward. No need to wait for her to take jump 2 before you throw at this stage, because throwing for jump 1 will really build confidence 🙂And you can also do this with game 3: start closer to the entry wing so she drives ahead of you into it, which means she will need to respond more independently on just the verbal.
Great job, Team Roulez! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! I hope you are having fun at the trial! And that is FABULOUS news that she nailed a wrap after the frame! Super!!!!!
Tracy
Ha! Yes, glad to be on the same page as you! He is a baby dog and I am sure you want a long, successful career… and started too early tends to break dogs, not make dogs. Plus, there are so many awesome training in the ring opportunities that you will be able to reinforce him a lot in the ring before asking for anything ‘real’ – it is a great way to set the youngsters up for long-term success!
T
Hi! Sorry for the delay, it has been a weekend of terrible internet!!! But I am back in civilization now 🙂
>>He’s digging in nicely, but should I be running as I’m throwing the ball in order drive into me? He’s digging in on the turn. >>
I see what you mean about him making a nice turn… but not really digging in until he sees the ball thrown. Ok then, let’s get smart with reinforcement (or at least try to be smart LOL!!!)
Since chasing the ball seems like the big primary reinforcement for him, what if we did this:
– you cue the wrap, doing exactly what you did here
– as soon he as commits, you take off and run but *don’t* throw the ball yet
– as you are running, watch him: when he digs in with that extra oomph (<---- scientific term), THEN you throw the ball. So basically we are eliciting the digging in behavior (with you running, because standing still won't do it) and then reinforcing it by throwing the ball. And the value of that will transfer into the rest of the wing wrap, so he will drive around with more digging in, because it is the fastesst/most efficient way to get the ball thrown. You can also throw a disc or do a roller. And if you have a third hand 🙂 you can click the moment you see him digging in before you throw the reward (or ask Cal to do it? Cal has the eye to see the difference between simply going around the wing and really digging in). Let me know what you think! Let's tackle this digging in issue before we add the jump - digging in is something you've been working on a lot and also digging in will change his approach to the jump, so let's get that going before we ask for it over a bar. The jump part will be easy when we have the digging in 🙂 TracyGood morning!
>> For the wing wrap do you think “Check Right” and “Check Left” would work since Cowboy is used to hearing the word Check?
I think having check as the start if both verbals will delay the direction info – he might know it is a wrap from the check cue, but the left or right will be delayed so he will end up waiting to know and making a late decision (or he will take a guess).
So, 2 of the best options are to either:
– keep check as wrapping in one of the directions (his stronger direction, perhaps) and add a new and different word to the other direction.
Or
– keep check as “wrap towards me” and add a different word that means “wrap away from me”.>>I am thinking about using the Manners Minder for this but if you have any alternatives, I am happy to give it a try.
I don’t think you need the MM for this at this stage: the wrap rewards can come from your hand (and that’s part of the commitment skill: leave the reward to get the reward LOL!)
>>I am not sure how to indicate to Cowboy how tightly he should turn when doing a rear cross. I rely a lot on my motion to get him to collect or jump in extension but would love to learn more how I can improve my precision in that area.>>
Yes, motion is a big cue but you can add wrap verbals for the tight wrap exits, and tomorrow we start soft turn verbals which can be used too. For example, taking motion out of the picture: if the rear cross has a wrap exit to the dog’s right, I say “choochoochoo” which means wrap to the right. But if it has more of a 90-degree exit, I say “right right right”.
>>Here is a video from Friday. I tend to use “Check” and “Check, Check, Check” interchangeably but am working towards being more consistent with the wording.
Saying check check check (repeating it) is helpful to the dogs, I believe, because it gives them more info and helps them process it.
He was definitely sorting out the wrapping on the video! He was relying on your deceleration a lot – if you were not very early, he would jump long. And since we want to strengthen the verbals so the perfection of your handling is not as important :), let’s help him sort out his turn mechanics on just a wing.
Looking at game 1, putting a wing in front of a jump and having him wrap the wing will help apply the verbals (yay!) And also you can just move forward towards the wing without needing to decel so that’ll strengthen the verbals and make handling easier (double yay!!)When we like how he is getting himself organized independently on the wing, then we can take him back to 2 jumps for games 2 and 3 (the MM might come in handy for those :))
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyOMG! Good for you, sprint running!!! I got my sprinting in today by running 4 dogs at a trial, 3 of them in the same class. Eek!
Hi! And welcome!
>> So this is where we do the back and forth with you correct?
Yes 🙂
>>And upload our video to Youtube and share the link here for critique? 😉
Yes 🙂
>>It is Saturday and I am want to get out in the yard with Desi before spring turns back into winter overnight!!
Hopefully you got some fun in! Did. I see that there is MORE snow coming?!?!? Nooooooo!
>>Anyway, looks like new week is soft turns? Can I submit the very short part of the trial video where we were doing the pinwheel and I screwed up and Desi got the refusal? It is very short and wonder if out would be good for the Tuesday night chat or just submit here on my class thread. ( There is not a FB page for this class is there?)>>
Yes – this sounds PERFECT for the Tuesday live chat! Please send it 🙂
>>And non-sequitur with this class if I may…..- Nathan Chen is simply amazing!!!
Yes! He is AMAZING!!! I didn’t know you were a skater – that is SO COOL!!!! I love the sport – it is so fantastic to watch!
Tracy
Hi! It sounds like you are getting really good work done!
Question:
Is your full verbal cue for the wrap “wrap left left left” and “wrap right right right”? If so, I recommend you drop the ‘wrap’ and just do the left left left and right right right. The wrap before it doesn’t indicate anything and delays the important info of left or right 🙂 So dropping ‘wrap’ will help him get even better!
And, if you also use left or right for ‘softer’ turns, we can look at that and clarify to see how clear we can make it for him.
Let me know what you think!
TracyHello and welcome, I am happy to see you and the Shelties here 🙂
This space is actually perfect for getting these games started!
At this beginning stages you can give her input with the physical cues, because it is a brand new skill. And then we will start to fade out the physical cue when she has a couple of sessions under her belt.
Helping her was the right thing to do for now, as you establish what these new words mean 🙂 It is always better to help the dog than it is to tell her she is wrong.
And it was fine to only work one side – the concept AND the verbal were brand new, so one side, short session, lots of rewards: PERFECT!
A couple of ideas for you:
No need to do any Go reps on this setup, because we don’t want her to ignore the wing to wrap – we will add the Go when we go the 2 jump games. To help her getting started, you can totally give her a warm up starting nice and close to the wing. She was TOTALLY catching on to the verbals though!!! What a smartie!You will need this wrap cue for her on course – she is already a tight turning dog, but the wrap cue will also help speed out of the wrap on the next line, because the wrap cue also tells her which line to drive out of the turn on. That way she won’t need to ask “what’s next” and she can just run har to you. That will really help boost confidence and speed!
Because food is her great love, you can totally continue to do what you did here: food stuffed toy for the go (when you get to 2 jumps) and cookies from your hand for the wraps. Food is the most valuable reinforcement for her,so we will go with what she loves.
So for the next session, start with a warm up on just the wrap (doing the right turn to balance out all the left turns here) starting really close with not a lot of motion. Then start to add more motion to it. If she continues to excel like she did here, you can totally add the wing wrap before it for even more motion! And work both sides like that.
Then if that goes well, we can add the full jump for the wraps, which then allows us to add the GO reps too (because the reward for the go rep is really about what she is doing on the first jump – going straight).
Great job here!! You are off to a lovely start! Looking forward to Buccleigh too!
TracyHi!
This was challenging for him! I could see smoke coming out of his ears! But you could totally see that lightbulb moment – he went from trotting to the wing to practically skipping joyfully to it: “I figured it out, Mom!!” Very cool! And then it was smooth sailing after that, even when you added the wing. And you did a brilliant job of NOT being helpful with the handling hahaha!!!! It is hard for us, but really good for helping him learn to process the verbals.So on your next session, try a warm-up for a few reps of wing to the wing/jump setup, with you adding more motion (and still moving forward so your handling doesn’t help). If he is peachy keen with that, then replace the wrap with with the jump so he sees you being an unhelpful handler on the jump, and so you can contrast it with the GO cues. (If he is NOT peachy keen with it and thinks we are crazy, then stay at that level and don’t add the jump :))
Great job here!!!! Looking forward to seeing how he does with the next steps!
TracyHello and welcome! It is great to see you and Lanna 🙂
Hi!>>None of mine thought they should go while I was walking. In fact Lanna had quite a bit to say about my pace.>>
This super useful info!!! She wants you to accelerate more, which means she is reading motion rather than processing the verbal – which means when you DO run she is still processing the motion ahead of the verbal. And might get a refusal is decel too early.
So – let’s get your dogs happy to do it when you are walking, not just running 🙂 a couple of tweaks to help make that happen:
Start closer to the wing, hand on collar. Start saying the verbal, then let go, and walk forward very very slowly 🙂 When she goes to the wing: toss the reward to the other side (rather than reward back at you) to help convince her to leave you for the wing. Keep walking forward til she commits.
You did something similar to this at 1:45 on the video, and it was really smooth – I would just throw the reward to the other side of the wing for now, and start progressively further and further back.
And then you can progressively add more motion followed by decel – that will be challenging and the verbal should help her commit 🙂The 2 jump game was a little harder indeed! She had a lot of successes – and she totally has big opinions about decel haha!!! So on this game too, we can tweak the reward placement to help her out:
For the wraps, toss the reward to the exit of the wing wrap, rather than back at you – that’ll get her turning even if you are decelerating, and looking at the landing line.
She had a lot of opinion about the Go lines! You can help her out there too by tossing the reward sooner. The criteria we want for the Go rep involves looking straight and jumping in relative extension – so if you see that happening before jump 1, you can toss the toy out past 2! That will also help her understand that yes, indeed, she can take both on the Go verbal 🙂For this game too, add in holding her so you can start the verbal before you both start to move – that will help her process it sooner. And you can also add the wing wrap before the setup, because that way you can start the verbal before she even exits the start wrap, which gives her more processing time.
Great start here! Let me know whT you think!!
TracyHi!
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Tracy
