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Hi!
>Whippets are interesting!>
They are! And addictive!
> I had to play with the tunnel and re train a straight tunnel even though we have done it a million times. I bought a new toy I could throw when she exited to get her excited.>
Was she avoiding it? Maybe she got an ouchie from it, or maybe she grew and had to re-learn how to drop her head to get into it? She definitely liked the toy here – you can throw it when you cue the straight line exit.
> Her turns aren’t tight out of the tunnel but I’m happy with her progress.>
It is possible your cues are late 🤔🤣😂 On this video, the right turns cues (physical and verbal) happened after she got into the tunnel, which means she won’t be able to respond til she exits. Try to give her the verbal and shoulder turn to the new line when she can see/hear it, at least 5 feet before she enters the tunnel. That will tighten up the turns nicely! Her turns and lines on the wings look great! You can spread the distances out even more to get even more speed 🙂
>Snap…. She’s got stuff going on but we cannot seem to figure out exactly why she has pain. Vets have not been helpful so we rest. I’m still hopeful. She’s a fun agility and flyball dog.>
Poor girlie! I hope you find an easy answer or it just resolves by itself. She really is a good girl!!
Nice work here!
TracyHi!
He did great here and I am glad you didn’t run into the tree at the beginning – it was like a layering exercise LOL!!
Angling the setup gave him more room in general and it allowed him to really accelerate to the jump. Love it! He was perfect about finding it from behind you
On the next session, start very close to the wing and stay there til he exits, so he drives way ahead. And then you can add in the rear crosses (which is the next wind in your hair game :)) He is ready!
> realized when I was editing that I just turned instead of doing the front. I think I still threw it a bit late a couple of the times but he was good about giving it back!>
Starting with the post turn didnt make a difference when you sent him from your right side (he still had a straight line to the jump).When you switched to starting him on your left, it does set the line differently because it set him on the parallel path to the backside (which is why it looks like he went wide, but he was being a good boy!). That affected the timing of the toy throw like at 1:20 and 2:00 where you had to wait for him to look at the correct side of the jump before throwing. So you can decide on post turn or FC on the wing based on where you think he will be when he exits: looking at the front of the jump, or at the backside of the jump.
Great job here!
TracyHi!
>7 1/2′ apart, 1st jump at 6″, 2nd jump at 10″. Session included several “catches” and some tug, release, tug again. I only put the 4 jump reps in the video. What do you think?>
I think her form is looking good, overall! The moving target definitely helps her with a more rounded form and she is holding her stay nicely too 🙂
> Ticked the last bar on the last rep…… Getting tired? Figuring stuff out? 4 reps didn’t seem like too many, but she does put a lot of energy into tug! Maybe too much tug!?>
I agree that 4 reps doesn’t seem like that many, but my opinion maybe be formed by working smaller breeds. Maybe a giant breed does need fewer reps and more breaks in between – she might have been ‘feeling the burn’ and didn’t get enough push from the rear on the last rep. I watched it a bunch and compared to the other reps, but I didn’t really see anything different that caused it. Maybe the toy was a little closer to her? But that didn’t seem significant. So you can try doing 2 reps, then giving her a breal of several minutes. Then come back and do a couple more reps.
I also notice that she tends towards the rollback sit when you are lining her up at the beginning. You can work on getting a tuck sit, as this might strengthen her core which will also extend her endurance for jumping. There are lots of ways to do it – I like to have the dog’s front feet on a low target, and get the pup to sit by bringing the hind in close to the front and not moving the front feet 🙂 Usually a cookie above the nose helps the front end not move LOL
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Good morning!
>My worst thing. I was a CPA. Predictable was good! >
Ha! Yes, predictable is good when you are a CPA!
>I’m not surprised he counts.>
Dogs are just brilliant, BCs are extra brilliant. They all have us well-trained LOL and they can predict what we do very easily LOL
>Set Point – What was the distance between the jumps? – I used 6’3″>
Perfect!
>he elevated like a monkey LOL!!! – He loves the bad throws but I will try to get those under control.>
He totally was having a good time with the crazy throws but his dance moves were a little funky 🙂
>As I post more, please don’t think I’m ignoring your advice. I got through Week 3 before finally starting to edit videos. Procrastination kills.>
No worries! Good for you to already being through week 3!!!
Tracy
Hi!
>For class last night, we started with one run without anyone “in the ring”, then added bar setters and a judge. You’ll see how distracted he was in video 2 and 3.>
These videos were helpful! Yes, basically, you can think of it as gradually introducing distractions and as you do that: the reinforcement level needs to increase a lot in the moment (rather than at the end of the course) and also, the difficulty of the behaviors you ask for should get easier (don’t ask for the weaves or contacts yet, and ask for 12″ jumps not 16″).
So as one thing gets harder, everything else gets easier and more reinforcing at first.
In general, you can reward more on course. The rewards tend to happen at the very end, and it was generally one cookie. You can reward a lot more within each sequence, and make it really engaging when you reward: praise, multiple fun cookies, and a prolonged length of the reinforcement moment. Having all of the behaviors of agility being more reinforcing can really help tune out distractions. And, if something goes wrong… either reward if you stop or keep going – at the beginning of the first video, he was set up a bit too close to the bar and needed more motion to the utnnel, so he hit the bar. By the time he exited the tunnel, you had turned your back on him which can be deflating/punishing. He got a reward, I think, on the way back to start, but it will be more motivating if you just keep going.
And when adding distractions, only ask for behaviors that he can nail with no problem without distractions. He had trouble with the weaves and a-frame in video 1, so he was not ready for those behaviors to be done with distractions. And when he does those, reward them! He had a lot of attempts at the weaves, lots of failure, but no rewards.
> I’ve watched them a couple times and wonder if we should reduce the distractions some until he does better. Like maybe ring crew but no judge. Or judge stands still. or?>
Yes, it was really hard when they all walked out at the same time! So you can have one person as ring crew, then build it up from there: 2 people, then add a stationary judge, then a moving judge, the a leash running, etc. And while people are moving around, you can be doing tricks-for-treats, and also practicing leash-off-engagement-on, so you can take his leash off and he sticks with you. And as he is running the course: don’t fix handling errors (keep going!) and don’t ask for hard obstacles yet.
As you build up distractions in the ring, keep an eye on the rate of reinforcement: how many rewards, versus how many failures? You will want him to be at about 90% rate of success, meaning he has very few failures. I use that 2 Failure Rule to make sure the rate stays high: if he fails twice, I make it easier and reward simpler behaviors.
Eventually we will ask him to run courses with distractions in the ring and without cookies in the ring, but for now I htink he needs all the cookies in the ring 🙂
Nice work here! Let me know how he does with fewer distractions in the ring!
Tracy
Hi!
Lunchtime training is great!> First 2 reps with 3 jumps were a little off, then he corrected himself for the last 2 reps. This is the whole session.>
What happened there was that he was set up a bit too far from jump 1 (:10 and :16) so he landed short and ticked the bar on 2. He was better on the next reps, but I think you can set him up at least 6 inches closer and you will see him more balanced through the grid because he won’t have to reach with his front as much. He didn’t touch the bars on the next reps but we can get him more powerful. Was the reward stationary or moving? The moving target can also encourage more pushing from the rear.
>Then did a couple of set ups – I don’t often practice in front of a jump, so took advantage of them. I t was funny – he is usually stronger coming in on the right side, but today his heel looked better.>
I think he looked good on both sides but yes, the left looked a little better! He seemed perfectly happy to set up in front of the jump.
>Disregard me almost falling over on the first one – I am working today, not day drinking!>
Ha! No judgement here, sometimes day drinking is warranted LOL!!
Great job!!
TracyHi!
Super nice run here!!!! Wow!
> He comes out of his crate when the PWD enters the ring, we do some up and down, some watching the run and then go to the entry gate for some more pattern work, I enter the ring while the PWD is still in, trying to keep things trial like.>
That went well, he had lots of focus coming in. Looks like he was bopping up to your hand to do hand touches on the way in to the first jump? You can ask him for more of that and even some spins if he will do those.
> I asked the instructor to walk around while holding his leash. >
He did well with her being right there. Handing the leash to her at the start was hard for him, but he recovered really really well.
>The back ring almost got him while he was in the weaves, but he dealt with that also. >
Yes, he did great ignoring the other ring!! And ignoring the ring crew person who walked in while he was lining up (and was sitting near the dog walk up ramp, he didn’t even look at her).
?Finished the run and decided to end the session there, didn’t want to go work on something additional and cause him to wonder if he made a mistake. No lotus ball on me here and empty hands, some cookies in my pocket though.>
Perfect! You can mix things up: for harder courses, bring rewards with you to reward out in the ring for hard skills. Or you can load the instructor up to reward for ignoring the ring crew, so you can go in with empty hands and empty pockets 🙂
>More impulse control work and work around distractions – been going to a local park where there is usually a group of dogs and owners around 5:00 to 6:00 PM usually 10 to 15. We keep our distance and work on his attention and skills, recalls and= call to hand and side. Also use this location to help us build our volume dial games. goal being to slowly decrease the distance between us and the pack. The only thing I can’t control here is the occasional off leasher coming over to join us>
The park is very useful 🙂 Is there a fence you can be on the other side of? You can definietly work on him being able to do tricks and stuff with all the activity… first with the food in your hand, and when that is easy you can bring a chair or something as a reward station so he does it without the food in your hands or pockets.
>He doesn’t like being wrong so stopping and redoing is not helping, going to be hard for me, but just keep going Tom. >
Right! Most of the time in agility, it is not the dog who is wrong 🙂 so it makes sense that stopping would be stressful. Yes – keep running!
>Yelling at him is NG – I’m working on stopping that>
Right again! That is usually another moment of just keep running. If he goes to visit as person, keep running your invisible dog. Be loud and have fun with the invisible dog 🙂
>As far as his arousal states, I believe that the trial atmosphere naturally puts him in high arousal. So the goal with him is to figure out how to bring him way down and then if needed up a bit when we go to the line. Keep working the pattern games>
The goal is really to find and try to maintain the optimal arousal state. A high arousal state is not a bad thing because it can actually help him tune out distractions. Bringing him down can actually cause distractions to become more prominent, so we really do want high arousal. We don’t want overarousal, where things can tip over into stress. Yes to the pattern games, but also big yes to more volume dial so you can get him pumped up because that will increase engagement. We don’t want the high arousal when he is resting between runs, or when he has a long time to go before his run. But we do want it in the ring 🙂
>Been doing a lot of experimenting with our routines, waiting, start line and end of run. Time to figure out what works best and build it into a habit.>
Yes – building the toolbox will be helpful! We want to be sure you have a tool for any situation, because so many different things can happen at trials.
>Training with high ROR is different than trial prep work. I keep mixing them together which probably promotes some confusion>
It is a hard balance because we need to work both. There are multiple ways to abe a high rate of reinforcement. Yes, cookies in the ring is one obvious way 🙂 But short sequences then out to cookies at the reward station is also good! And continuing the run is also reinforcement, so that is part of why it is important to keep going even when things are not perfect.
>Use class time to teach us how to best use a food box setup for UKI>
Great idea! You can bring an x-pen and have a table with treats in it. Then use your remote reward marker to run in give him a treat, then back out onto the course.
Nice work here!!! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Hi!
> I clearly need to toss bigger (or heavier) treat pieces to reward her sending ahead of me to the jump wrap. One cheese piece had a really wonky bounce!>
Yes – and we can also work on some forward focus games where you point to it and she looks at it, so you are sure she is going to take it 🙂
I need to find more videos, but it is basically this:
Starting from a stay with a toy on the ground (or cookie toy). Then you add an arm point as the cue, then we put it in front of a jump (toy on the other side to begin) then we fade the toy to throw it after she looks at the jump.
I think she was mad because the tunnel threadle cue at :58 didn’t make sense to her. You had shoulder pull going to pull her off the line and a tunnel verbal (but that is usually a forward cue) so she was confuised and a big angry about it LOL So in that context you can use a threadle arm and your tunnel threadle verbal.
The blind at 1:34 worked great there but it got you too far ahead – the last thing she saw before entering the tunel was decel and you pulling away, so she turned on the exit and didn’t get the layering. I think doing the blind closer to the exit of the straight tunnel might have set up better support of the line for layering.
Doing that line without the layering helped but she still wanted to turn towards you on the tunnel exit, so you might want to do a couple of sessions of rewarding for going straight out of the tunnel.
> But the inside hand back did get a threadle slice! I’ll need to keep working on those since she prefers to push to the back than
Yes! That looked great! Woohoo!
Thanks for the indoor/outdoor sprint links!
She is pretty consistent in her striding and has really good ‘reach’ in her front and rear! I thought the indoor video had a little bit more ‘up and down’ bounce when she was just on the flat, so I compared it to the straight line stuff from the ring rental: that looked exactly like her outdoor work!
Check out some comparison screen grabs:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/19oMu33ka4qDsxBhzOmIvmofpq3aXhnTGxGzY8Zz9PUo/edit?usp=sharingVery cool to see her have such great reach followed by great compression. Her whippet friends give that 4 paws up!!
Great job 🙂
Tracy
Hi!
> Knight officially started his fitness course today. We will be starting out working on his core. Various basic exercises such as Head Nods, sit walk forward down, paw pods, Posture it, adducted Stand, etc.>
Nice! That sounds like a nice balanced program. The core is so important (I need to work my own core too LOL!!!)
>Also Harmony gave him a massage when we completed the evaluation. I figure since we were there and he did have a class last week plus being more active this past week I wanted to see how his little body held up. He was in great shape. His right front was a little sore and his hamstrings were tight.>
I am glad he was in good shape! Since he still was showing soreness and tight hammies… we can look at his warm up and cool down routines so that Harmony finds no soreness or tightness at all on the next visit 🙂 That will also help on the days when you do his fitness.
Generally for a warm up, I start with 5 to 10 minutes of free movement (trotting, cantering) in both directions. Then I do some skin rolling to loosen the fascia. Then I add more dynamic movement: cookie stretches (nose to shoulder, nose to ribs, nose to hip on both sides), chasing cookies back and forth, spins/leg weaves/backing up/high five tricks, sits to stands.
Then we train or run!After ‘work’ (agility or a fitness session), a cool down is very important. It is kind of like a slowed down warm up: 5 to 10 minutes of a cool down walk, following by slow skin rolling, followed by sloowwwww cookie stretches where you hold the stretch for longer.
And I bet Harmony can suggest other warm up and cool down stuff! That might be the missing link so he is feeling fabulous all the time 🙂
Keep me posted!
Tracy
Hi!
>. I worry about running because sometimes me running does seem to cause him to take bars but I think he did okay here?>
Yes, he did great here! It was definitely more arousing but that is good 🙂 And we do want to add in more arousal – it is unavoidable in dog sports, so we definitely want him to learn how to do agility even when he is really feeling aroused, internally.
> I think in the previous video I also had worked my other dog first so that could be part of the increase in arousal? I think you can even hear Lad barking in the house in the background of that one. He was in the car for this session so either he wasn’t barking or it’s harder to hear him. And I worked Zest first this time!>
Overall, I am pleased with how he is doing – very excited to work, very accurate, super fast, and happy to play with you. It is a big win! He takes a few seconds to give the toy back, which is fine. You can tug for a few seconds longer, then say out… then take out a treat and toss it to the side for him get.
You can throw the toy sooner on this game, as soon as he exits the wing wrap and looks at the jump. That will keep him looking ahead the whole time. You can can mix up your start position: sometimes send to the wing from far away so you are way ahead when he is deciding to take the jump (or not :)). And sometimes start very close to the wing and stay there til he just about exits the wrap… then accelerate. Can he drive ahead? those are both good skills to add. And that will lead you nicely into the rear crosses 🙂
You might have to move your setup so he doesn’t try stopping on the plastic cover thing in front of the camera. Is there a way you can angle it so he goes past the plastic cover?
Great job on these!
Tracy
Hi!
His set point form is looking good here! What was the distance between the jumps? I think 6 feet will be his sweet spot because he looks like a pretty powerful dude. Next session can include a stationary toy for a rep or two, and if he is fine with that and retains his form: go to the moving target.The moving target will help solidify his mechanics with more arousal and handler motion. Then we can start raising the bar 🙂Wind In Your Hair: he was fabulous finding his jump! The earlier you threw the toy, the better his form was: if you tossed it after he arrived at the jump, he elevated like a monkey LOL!!! But when you tossed it low and before he got to the jump, he was lovely.
You already added more distance and more motion and the go verbal – no problem at all, according to Fen. YAY!! So the 2 things to add now are the “extremes”:
– send him to the start wing from as far away as you can, so you are passing the jump as he exits the wing. Can he still find the jump?
– start super close to the start wing and hang out next to it as he finishes the wrap: then accelerate. Can he drive ahead of you? This will set things up nicely for the rear crosses.One note about the start wing wrap: when you are rotated facing the jump but sending to the wing behind you, you can give an arm cue to point back to it. If you don’t move at all, he was confused (:30, 1:00). When you gave a subtle arm point at :36, or a subtle lean on the reps after that, he got it really well!
The smiley face game looked great too. His wraps look fabulous and the right turn ‘race track’ was solid too! He is turning out to be a quiet speedy, so you can totally add more motion into this game by spreading out the distance between the wings and tunnel. You can move onto the next games with the wings & tunnel!
Great job on these!
Tracy
Hello and welcome back! He is doing well!!!
Pre-game for verbals: hold him longer so he can hear the verbals 3 or 4 times before he starts moving (and so he is lined up facing the wing). Otherwise the pups tend to guess LOL!! So in the other games that we use verbals for (like the proofing games), you can always start with him being held, say the verbal 3 or 4 times… then let him move.
Moving target on the flat looks strong: he is driving directly to the toy. Yay! His stay looks solid here when you were not moving. When you added motion, he had a couple of bloopers: I think he was guessing based on your rhythm. For example, at :38 you released him on your 6th footstep. At :43 he self-released… on your 6th footstep. At 1:03 you released him on your 6th footstep… and at 1:09 he self-released right after your 6th footstep. Amazing! On the last 2 reps he did not break the stay… but your releases were on step 7 and then after you stopped after footstep 6. Dogs have a great sense of prediction and it seems he can count LOL!! So be less predictable: sometimes release on 2 steps, sometimes after 10 footsteps away, sometimes 4, etc etc so it is never always at the same rhythm.
The same thing will go for when you add the jump, in terms of being less predictable 🙂 You were reliably releasing at about step 10-11 with a couple at step 12 ish (or stopping your forward motion then, before releasing). So at 1:01 he self-released on step… you got it… 10-11 🙂 Your boy can count LOL!
He was not struggling with impulse control or anything, he was simply being an over-achiever and predicting the release. So like with the flatwork, be super unpredictable about how many steps you take before releasing. You might have to count to yourself since he is so good at counting LOL!
No need to re-do these because we can apply the moving target to the jump grid stuff while being sure you are unpredictable with the # of steps before the release.
Great job here 🙂
Tracy
Good morning!
> Do you have a preference for 2×2 vs channels?
I start weave training using both. Then as the training progresses, we generally see the dog has a preference for one or the other, so I finish the training with the one the dog prefers.
> And at what age do you start A Frame training?
The flat work can start at any time (like running to hit a mat on the ground). I will start a low a-frame at 13 or 14 months old for a small dog, gradually working it up to full height over several months.
> When does Max jump full height?>
When he is closer to 18 months old – that is when his body and brain will be more developed to handle full height jumping. That also gives you time to do a lot of education, like showing him jump grids and sequences. If he understands cues and how to use his body, then full height jumping will be easy!
> I have started teeter and dog walk training.>
Fun! Those are very fun obstacles to train 🙂
Tracy
Hi!
> Would you also use the moving target for the Accordion Grid game which is coming up in Week 8?>
Yes, after the pups have had a session to see the grid with a stationary toy. Then onwards to the moving target 🙂
T
Good morning!
>He came home last May, so he was here all of last summer and it was definitely cooler here when he arrived than it was in Mexico (May is their hottest time).>
That’s right! So he will be fine, it might just take him a bit of acclimation to get to working full throttle in the heat.
He is reading the Go versus rear cross really well! Super! I think in these sessions, you can ix it up more – no need to do more than 2 of the same things in a row. Instead, do a Go then a left turn RC then a Go on the other side and then a right turn RC then a left turn RC. Keep it spicy! He is a Mali, they thrive on puzzles 🙂 and since he is doing well, mixing it up can be a nice challenge for him to continue ‘reading’ the handling.
> Not sure what I was doing that caused him to annihilate the jump>
It was the throw mechanics: The throws are either landing short to the bar, or happening as he is lifting up over the bar (or both). When that was happening, he was ticking the bar or hitting the wing to land and get the toy. You can adjust that by throwing a lot further for the Go lines, and either throw further for the RCs or have him drive the new line to you for a few more strides then you toss the toy.
>Got all prepared in the late afternoon to start the ladder grid work, go outside and it’s starting to rain.>
Darn rain! But if he had a morning session AND got to go herding, I think he was fine to just chase a disc 🙂 Hopefully he did get to go herding along with the BCs 🙂
Great job here!
Tracy
