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Good morning! Congrats on a fabulous debut weekend!!!
For the behind the back starts – the physical cue of feet together for the circle and feet apart for the place will really help her differentiate. You can also begin the circle cue with the thrown cookie behind you, to both get her behind your bad too make sure it dies’t look like the between-the-feet lineup. She seemed to have a very easy time going around behind you to her right, so she must be a righty 🙂 So when you revisit this to get her to go around yo to her left, definitely add in the thrown cookie so she begins to understand that turning left in this situation is a happy thing 🙂 I don’t think you need to do it when yo us end her behind you to her right. All the different stays looked great!!!
Her novice jumpers run was absolutely spectacular and I loved the cheering of the crowd – they knew they were watching the start of a spectacular career! If you spit out the incorrect verbal – don’t let it distract you LOL! No worries at all, juts keep going. When you get a chance to do the walk through sequences we added more and more, you will see that the rehearsal at high speed with the verbals will make trialing so much easier.
Also of note: HER START LINE WAS AWESOME. Her jumping and line finding and weaves? ALSO AWESOME. I am doing a big happy dance for you!!! YAY!!!
Tracy
Good morning!
Really nice work here! I like how you had your hands lower on the cue at the wing, that really helps because he is such a small dude 🙂 You can start to add the verbal – he looks ready – just keep your motion slow for now so he can process the new verbal and see your hands and line of motion. Since he is so small, you can totally dip your shoulders down and bend over a little to make the hand cues even more obvious, and that will also look very different from the front side of jump cues.
When you do put them in sequences, you can slow down that section – walk through it rather than try to run for real – because the speed element of this is the hardest part.
Great job here!!! Let me know what you think!
TracyYay! This is awesome!!!! Everyone in this CAMP class needs more connection, so stay tuned for more connection games coming your way 🙂
Tracy
Good morning!
Great job working the stays – she did beautifully and also read the line really well.
You weren’t cautious, you were a smart trainer, setting her up for success 🙂
You built it up to big success on that last rep, where she read a really grown up lead out! SUPER! I don’t have a ton of feedback on this because it all went so nicely – the next session can be similar to this, to really continue to solidify that stay and reading of the line. Yes, try not to walk through the uprights LOL! And only one suggestion about the mechanics:
Have the toy already in your hand for when you are going to use it as a reward, to eliminate the hand in pocket visual (or hand moving ot pocket). That will distract her and focus her on your hands and pockets, drawing focus to your hands and away from the jumps (which could pull her off the jumps). On the last rep, the ball was already in your hand so you were able to give her a true handling picture without reaching into the pocket, and she was fabulous!Great job here!!
TracyGood morning!
He did great with the toy here! That is a fabulous toy, too! So fast & focused, even in the distracting park environment!
He was zippy and fast and most of all – there was a TON of engagement. SUPER! The commitment and countermotion looked strong.
He is not faster with the lotus ball, he just knows to look at the wing more because that tug toy is a big visual. He is actually a little slower (less stimulated) with the lotus ball but his commitment to the wing is better because the lotus ball is harder to watch (as you noted). But the speeeeed and really tight turns are happening with the toy, so we can split the difference:
Using this same amazing toy, you don’t need to carry it – you can show it in your waistband own your hip or at the base of you spine, do a little sequence with empty hands, then whip it out and party with it like you did here. That can get the speed and excitement and engagement of the tugging (and wicked tight turns) while also getting the forward focus to the wing (and stronger commitment) that you get when the hands are either empty or when the lotus is in your hand.
This should also help with the racetracks, where he was definitely watch the toy more than the wings.
I think if stepping on his foot turned him off, getting the lotus ball out was fine to change the picture and get him back in the game. No problems, he seemed to finish fast & happy. Was he tugging when you stepped on him? If so, try extended the toy further from your body and keep it low, so it is harder to step on him LOL!
Great job here!! Let me know if the toy idea makes sense :) Tracy
Yes, fold it in half so it is similar in size, and I think it was a different color too? For now, keep the target the same for all sessions, to help him fully understand it more easily.
T
Good morning!
She did really well in a new place with hard distractions!! And no worries about the 2 bars – one was a normal young dog moment and the other was just being too close to the jump on the lead out. More on that below, but I would leave the bars at 12 for now and in a session or two, put them at 14 (unless there is no a lot of room before jump 1, then leave that first bar low).
Lead out 1: She read 1-2 really well, no questions about finding the line! Positionally, try not to move towards the bar at 2 at all. Your path should remain outside the wing of 2 and be moving towards 3. And after the cross, do the big connection across your body to help her see the line to 3. At :24, you moved in between the uprights a bit then went straight without enough connection so she didn’t see 3 (a more experienced dog can help by finding the line, but a youngster will be very literal like she was here).
On the 2nd rep, your position at :38 was really good! You helped a bit with a step to takeoff for 2 after the release but I bet you can fade that and stand still, then turn even sooner (the step to 2 delays the FC).
When moving into the running starts, connect before taking off and kind of roll into high gear rather than immediately sprint, for now. When you ou took off running away at :45, it did look like a release, so it was a legit error from her – you can reset with a reward there, no worries. The distraction behavior she presented right after that was more of a stress response than a true distraction. You were more connected the next times you did the running lie and out and the transition into them seemed smoother, so she held the stay.
She dropped the bar at 1:20 – her set up was a little too close to jump 1, she just didn’t have enough room to set her hind end. At speed she needs more room to get a full stride, so at least 10 feet is good and maybe closer to 12-15 as the bar goes up.
The blind at 1:30 looked really strong! You did move towards 2 (which we don’t want) but you moved towards 3 sooner than you did with the FCs, the timing was really good, and your connection back to her was stronger for sure! To keep working the mechanics to show the line, keep showing the toy across the body to get the dog side arm back behind you and down at your side or ahead of you. At 1:32, you can see your left arm is down by your hip and ideally you want your hand/arm extending back to her to really show the connection.
At the end you did the lead out push on landing side of 2. Positionally, it might help her if you were slightly less center-of-the-bar and one step further over to 3. Your connection with the dog-side arm back here was SPOT ON and fabulous! That is what helps her so much! Your timing of moving to 3 was excellent. No worries about the bar at 1:55 on her first rep of it – she was delayed responding to the cues, probably because she is just inexperienced with this cue – it was a bit of a “wait, WHAT?” moment from her LOL! And you did the exactly right thing by just showing it to her again, and she was fast and powerful in her jumping and turning.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi again!
On the tunnel exits – he is turning beautifully on the regular left/right turns and also did well with the Go cues t the end. Try to give the left or right cues sooner, while he is still about 6 feet before the tunnel entry (you were saying them just as his head was going into the tunnel or a little later, which made them harder to process.
For the rear crosses, yes, those are much harder 🙂 Because he is so fast, the RC info has to come sooner – and also because he is so young, he needs it to be very obvious (rear crosses are not intuitive to the dogs, so the handling needs to be super clear). So with that in mind with the rears, let’s change his angle of approach to teach him the tunnel rear crosses:
If the tunnel entry is 6 on a clock, you can start about 15 feet away from it and at 12 on the clock. Have hum next to you, holding his collar: start saying your tunnel verbal, then let go and run forward towards the center of the tunnel entry (til he is past you) and then cut in behind him, ideally before he goes in (which is why starting further back will help). That should show him the rear cross more smoothly.
And if he still finds rear crosses hard, you can place the toy (or the MM) on the line where you want him to turn to – that visual will really help him (I placed toys for rear crosses a lot with his brother from another mother, Contraband). When he gets mor experience with the rear crosses, we can gradually add back the harder angles.He did a great job with the teeter!!!! Yay!!! He is totally going to have a great teeter. No problem finding the different angles. Was the big food reward already at the top of the board, or in your hand? If it was in your hand, can try placing it at the top of the board so he doesn’t even have look at you. If there was food at the top of the board, try something higher value like cream cheese or something, so he is more excited about the food 🙂
Great job here! Have fun!
TracyHi!
You are not far behind, we are just starting week 7 🙂 Being in week 6 is great!Levy did really well here, this flip move is HARD!!! The turning away is the hardest part for him – you kept it slow and clear at first, and he had a lightbulb moment and the last few reps were GREAT! This is an excellent start. So keep moving through the steps just like this and you will be able to add more and ore speed.
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
Mountain climbers looked great here! He is a confident (and hungry) little dude!!!All were perfect reps except the 2nd one – on that rep, he came in at high speed but on a bad angle for some reason (I can’t see where the wing was, or how he exited it, but you can see he is coming in at an angle and aborted the mission because he was not angle to straighten up). We have a game coming for that! But, he was NOT happy to have missed the food so he fixed the angle on all the other reps. Great job adding the running past, rear crossing, etc.
So the next question is: what do you have that you can use to prop the teeter but progressively add more tip to it? I use a Teeter Teach It (I bought it and it was totally worth the money) but you can also make one or use a saw horse or something. Anything solid that you can adjust in tiny increments will help – he is ready for more 🙂
Great job!!
TracyGood morning!
Your teeter plan for gradually making it move more sounds good to me! And it is great to train her with distractions and friends 🙂 She looked super!
The turns on these reps all looked good! She seemed very balanced, turning really well to both the left and the right 🙂 You can try to say the right and left verbals one stride sooner – you were saying the verbal just as she entered or just after, so I think if you say it wihile she is still 3-4 feet away from the tunnel, that will be perfect timing 🙂
The Rear crosses at :59, 1:05 ,1:14, 1:26 and 1:32 all looked fabulous! Like with the other turn, she did well in both directions and your cues were VERY clear! It was hard to get her to the wing after the RC because she was moving so fast, but no worries on that – you can keep your dog-side arm back a bit so your shoulders turn to the line more, rather than point forward, and that will help.
The GO reps were harder for her – she was going straight-ish but we can get her really exploding straight. 2 ideas for you:
– throw the toy sooner, so it is landing on the straight line before she exits. You might need a helper for that (hi, Steve LOL!) because it is really hard to throw accurately and run fast. Or, leave it placed on the ground straight out ahead (or use a MM)
– move the ‘go’ wing in closer to the tunnel exit, maybe 6 feet away, so she can focus on driving straight to it (the reward gets thrown past it) and then, over time, you can gradually inch it back out as she extends the go line.Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
The walk throughs are helpful in terms of telling us what we can do more of in the walk through to help the runs!
The biggest thing to add in both walk throughs (I didn’t see a walk through for sequence 3, but it will probably need the same thing based on the bloopers) – connection! When walking the courses, you were tending to look forward, at the obstacles… but in the actual run, he would be behind you on those lines or behind you exiting the tunnels. So when you looked ahead, it broke connection and the info got diluted, which is why he didn’t always know where to be.And yes – say your words a lot more in the walk throughs 🙂 It feels strange LOL! But it will help you not have to think about them during the run. If you are trying to spit them all out during the run, and connect, and handle… something will go wrong. But if you rehearse them in advance, you won’t have to think about them and it will all get much easier to be smooth and clean.
Walk 1 – On this walk, the handling ideas were really strong! So now take them to the next level and add your connections and verbals. For example, when you lead out, look back and release him, and keep looking to where you think he will be as you move up the 1-2-3 line and again at the tunnel exit. You said a few verbals but try to say ALL the verbals 🙂
Riun 1 -not sure where he went after 2 (some sort of distraction) but good job getting him back! You held on but it was a little choppy because you were doing the speed, connection and verbals all for the first time.
On the 2nd run, you were trying to connect but also looking forward a bit (that is what you rehearsed in the walk through) so there was a disconnect on the tunnel exit and he ended up on the wrong side (you were looking forward and ahead of him, so he took the front, good boy. So in the walk throughs, always look at the invisible dog at the exit of every tunnel to set the next line.
3rd run – much better and barefoot LOL! You had the connections and verbals here. What I recommend is during the walk throughs, do 2 walk throughs like your fist 2 runs, without him, but with speed, connection and verbals. That way this smooth run 3 can be your first run!
The 2nd sequence had 2 walk throughs – more connection can be added here too, especially on the exit of the FC 3-4 and on the big sends. I agree, it did look like you were doing a threadle on 10 instead of a serp because you were stopping and rotating.
There was only 1 short video of this, with a loss of connection 2-3 so he came off the line. Let know if I missed a video or if there are more?
Seq 3 – didn’t have the walk through, but you can add more connection here toots support the lines especially on the sending into the layering and around the other side of the tunnel.
When layering the 2nd half of it, I think a GO directional at :23 will help, plus keeping your shoulders open to him and more connection. He had a question there because you closed your shoulders a bit and said over, but there were 2 over possibilities (both choices were jumps) so a directional might work better for him.
Nice work here! Working the walk throughs is hard but totally worth it!!!
Tracy
Hi!
This is going well!
This is a different target though – so while it is in a good spot, it is big and different so there is a new learning curve with it in terms of what he should do (2o2o or all feet on the target, for example). So stick with this target for now. And, since we are shaping to the 2o2o, you can wait longer before the reward on the target – let him get into the 2o2o and reward. Sometimes you did that, sometimes you rewarded when he was off the plank but front feet on the target. So now you can wait til he gets back feet onto the plank and into the 2o2o. For now, he does better when you are closer (that might have been part of the learning curve on the new target) so start closer but over time you can also move a little more away and back in front of him.Nice work!
TracyOMG that is so fun! It is like a MaxPup game spread out LOL!!!! It looks like he had a great time and he was so fast & tight!!!!!
T
Hi!
I think she is doing REALLY well here! Yay!!!!
The hardest part is not looping around – I think she needs more room on these videos, things were close together so she didn’t really have room to turn around and was relying on your body language a bit or sending herself.
So give yourself more room, so you can reset her between each rep, hold her collar, start the verbal then let go. When you were doing that, things looked great!
Also, to get rid of her sending herself and allow yo auto line her up – give her a reset cookie for coming back to you to restart each rep. That builds value for the setup. You started doing this in the 2nd video, and it got rid of that looping around almost immediately.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
