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Hi!
>> Need a better object.
I use a cheap pop up laundry basket that I got at a dollar store 🙂
>>I have a tug toy with a ball on the end of it, but it always looks like he’s gonna knock himself out when he plays with it!
Ha! I don’t know why dogs love to smack themselves in the head with their toys…. LOL!
I agree that the human element is harder in terms of the mechanics, and our pups are all really good with being patient as we learn LOL!!!!
And I am confident that Sid will have a great stay, just like Race 🙂
Feel free to send along any video of the loss of focus because there might be a small adjustment we can make. And yes, set a timer for a short period and finish early. Also, you can extend her focus in that environment with easier behaviors (because the environment is SO HARD) and a super high rate of reinforcement with great rewards 🙂
T
Good morning! Hope you are feeling better!!!!
Thanks for leaving the session unedited! It was fun to watch! You got a ton of good play and some really good terrier shaking on the wubba and some of the other toys too!
>>But I have more trouble keeping her on the toy, especially when it stops moving.>>
The toy can always be moving a little bit, and also you can use longer toys, more like flyball-style and less of a small toy that fits in your hand. With the very small toys, there is a lot of pressure with you leaning over and not a lot of room for her to grab it. The longer toys, like 2 or 3 feet long, will relieve that pressure and it is easier for them to not go “dead” because she can move them more 🙂 and won’t rely on you moving them. To get longer toys, you can also tie several of your toys together rather than go buy more toys 🙂
>She did the best with the Wubba (which surprised me) and the fur tug in staying on. She doesn’t seem to like giant mouthfuls of fluff and she is tiny.>>
This is all good to know! She gets to tell us which she finds reinforcing 🙂
She also was very interested in picking a toy from the pile! So you can also let her pick from the pile as part of the game, if the pile is on the ground – pushing her away was not as much fun and it might potentially telling her engagement with the toys was incorrect. So you can use her enjoyment of the toy pile to your advantage: lift the main pile up out of reach for now and then drop a couple down when it is switch time and let her pick. Dogs love to pick!
We can eventually go to having a low value pile and a high value pile. And when switching, you can make a big fuss over the new toy, focus all of your attention on it, marvel at it, ooh and ahh over it… all before giving it to her 🙂
One other small detail I noticed:
She doesn’t seem to like the taps when she is standing on you (she drops the toy), but she seems fine with the body taps (and seems to enjoy them!) when she is all four on the ground. That is good to know, so for now don’t smack her when she is standing on you to tug LOL!
>>I have a habit of shaking the toy, which I tried not to do here. >>
I thought your were really good with how you moved the toy!!! I saw no shaking 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
So much nice work here!!
She did well with the wing wrap foundations! One suggestion is to have the cookies in your hands before you even sit down, and definitely before the bowls go to the floor. The bowls are basically the cue to start the game – note on the first video she did two great back-and-forth moments but didn’t get rewarded because you were getting the cookies out. Then she stopped offering. You got her going again by dropping the cookies in the bowls, but we don’t want to miss those first couple of great offered behaviors
The stealth cookie drops were harder for her at first but she figured it out quickly! God girl!
>>She would probably be more engage and excited if I used toys, so we will try that next.>>
You can take tug breaks after every 4 or 5 cookies, to keep her pumped up! She was doing well with the treats, lots of thinking and figuring it out nicely 🙂 For this shaping game, you don’t need her to be too excited because the game we add tomorrow to buil on this skill will DEFINITELY be exciting 🙂
2nd video – good girl with the big wing! She was very quick to get started here, and it is much harder because she has to move further from the cookies 🙂 Super!
One thing I notice on both on these sessions is that when you are quiet, she is very quick to offer the next rep. When you praise… she looks at you and gets distracted. So…no praise for now on this game 🙂 It is pretty normal that pups are distracted by praise, so I like to stay quiet during the offering/shaping then I can get chatty and silly during the tugging.
She did a great job when you stood up! The video ended after a rep or two of that – for the next session, start with you sitting on the couch then move to standing: that will set you up perfectly for the next set of games coming tomorrow.
Blind cross:
>> Little stinker stopped eating her cookie and rather charging after me then eating, hahaha. >>
That is one of the reasons why we play this game: to help build commitment to something that might be less exciting than chasing you LOL!!! Border Collies often choose chasing off the cookie… but we work on the cookie commitment because the cookie commitment translates to things like collection, stops on contacts, start lines, tables, etc. All of those are less exciting than chasing you LOL!
So for the cookie commitment: send her to the cookie and just walk away. Keep an eye on her: don’t get exciting or run til you see her *swallow* the cookie (you will see her open her mouth again). And when you think she has swallowed it? Then you can run run run and do the blind.
The reasoning behind this is that the cookie eating is just a behavior and we want to set & maintain criteria (swallow it, rather than leave it or just spit it out :)) This helps to build up the cookie value by pairing it with running and tugging – which will allow us to use food reinforcement even when things are REALLY exciting. This is something that most BCs need us to do (I had to work this criteria: swallow! with all of my BC-type dogs :))
And if she doesn’t eat the cookie while you walk away? You can have her eat a cookie from your hand, then tug with her, then start again with the tossed cookie and walk away more slowly 🙂 She is not in trouble if she doesn’t eat the cookie, we will just try to convince her to eat the cookie 🙂
The blind crosses themselves looked perfect – great mechanics, great connection, great timing and she read them beautifully 🙂
Goat tricks:
> I really didn’t like my mechanics at all after watching the video>What did you not like? I think the mechanics were mostly super strong! The only change I would suggest is to get the cookies out during tugging at the very beginning, then take the toy away, then put the target down. That will allow you to reward the very first interaction.
You did that or something similar to that at :56 – 1:10, for example (I didn’t even see you get the cookies out, which meant either they were already in your hand or you were insanely fast about it :). She was tugging, you got the toy, you put the thing down, she offered touching it and BOOM! Cookie was there. That was great!
She did try to grab the toy from the couch later in the session, but that is fine and actually pretty cute 🙂 It is all part of the stealthy self-control we are teaching the pups, it is a bit of “and now we ignore the toy” and she was really great!
So keep playing these shaping games on anything you think she can get on or get in 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning! So much good work here!
Wing wraps are looking really good! You can give her even more wrapping room by moving the bowls back to an inch or too past your knees here so she has more room to get the cookie and turn around. Moving the upright out was not a problem, she had one moment of coming between you and the upright but the rest of the session was perfect 🙂
So for the next session, you can move the bowls back a bit and we can also start to change your position. The goal is to take a couple of short sessions and get you standing up: so you were on the floor here – start there and after she gets a couple of reward for getting in the groove, you can kneel (if your knees won’t be angry) and you can also bring something low to sit on. When you move to sitting and eventually standing, the bowls can remain and they can be parallel to your heels.
Good use of the long line for the driving ahead: you kept it loose til she started coming back to you, then you used it to engage with the tugging! Perfect! Retrieving is a work in progress for most dogs, and she is doing great! I like this pressure-free, playful approach to it because the pups choose to bring back the toys and results in a better retrieve when they are adult.
The driving ahead was no problem for her 🙂 My only suggestion is to throw it so it lands more directly in front of her, then you can converge towards her rather than end up behind her – when it is a little more in front of you, you end up putting accidental rear cross pressure on her line LOL! And she was reading it and turning the new direction. When you had it landing in front of her, she knew to turn towards you and not away from you.
Next step here: move to the toy races where you are running more and actively trying to get to the toy first 🙂 This was posted in week 2 🙂
Blind cross game – oh yes, Cha Cha liked the running 🙂 To save yardage, you can go back and forth: when she catches you at the toy reward, you can start the next rep there: toss the cookie to the back wall (on this video) then run towards the camera doing the blind 🙂
Good connection and mechanics on the blinds! You were getting a massive head start (which is great, it means the value of the cookie was high enough that she didn’t just chase you – this is not always the case with Border Collies!) . With that massive head start, you can try for two blinds! And to keep things spicy for Miss Sriracha, you can throw in some decel to handler reps where you have her go to the tossed treat but you don’t run for the blind: you move away, decel, and bring her to your side for a pivot 🙂
Great job on all of these! We add more tomorrow and she is ready for all of the next steps 🙂
Tracy
Good morning!
Thanks for coming to the webinar this weekend! I find the brain stuff to be both fascinating and helpful!!!!
Wobble plank – You can add in tossing treats or bending down to feed him, so his head is in a more neutral position (the joys of tiny dogs LOL!) and not lifted all the way up looking at you.
VERY clever to have the wobble board already set up! That made for a very smooth transition during the session. Super smart dog training, click/treat for you!
Plus, a lot of the training is happening on that while carpet strip… moving to other places even in the same room is great to help generalize behaviors (like you did with the wobble setup).
>>He’s making me work harder to get on a toy after these treat games!
Since he is SO GOOD at all of these wobbly games (and the plank game below), you can try some sessions of toys-only, no treats! Part of the reason that the tug drive is not as strong in these sesions for a lot of pups is that they quickly associate the behavior with food: “This is a COOKIE reward, MOM!” LOL! So by using the toy as a reward and not just as a motivator, you can keep the reinforcement balanced. You also did a great job of running around a bit and being silly, that helps 🙂
He was also super confident with his plank 🙂 The cookie tossing worked well here except he wants to find ALL THE CRUMBS. You can try tossing a little closer, or using lower value treats? Great job tossing the toy to get the chase going and then he was a good tugger!
Do you have a longer plank? You can use a longer plank and also elevate it more, so it is maybe 6 to 8 inches off the ground – I think he is ready for more challenge.
Wing wraps – looking great! He is so cute: he finishes crunching the treat then whips his head around.
So this was exactly what we want for this level, perfect! New step… working on getting you standing up. That can be trickier with the small dogs, so you can start the session with you sitting in a chair, and when he gets going with that, you can stand up in the middle of that session. Keep the bowls in the picture, they help to keep his head down and we can fade them easily with the game we add tomorrow 🙂Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
Nice work adding the markers! I like his toy releases too – many young dogs can’t ‘out’ the toy that well and he seems really super about it!
I think this session accomplished the 2 main goals:
To get the markers added and you using them
To get him hearing the markers and getting to interact with the reinforcement, with some stealthy self-control built in: he was super good about not trying to grab the toys or cookies, even when you were really tempting him LOL!So now we just try to keep using these markers in every session, to strengthen them and to get him used to hearing them too.
Great job!!!
TracyThe standing up wing wrapping looked great! The bowls helped create the left turn (he knows the bowl game really well). He did offer going behind you a couple of times – I think he was busy chewing, then a cookie ended up behind you a little… so he just went to the cookie. At about 1:00 you started delaying the cookie drops til he had stopped chewing and had begun to offer the next wrap: PERFECT! That eliminated going behind you and even when the cookie drops were earlier, he still wrapped in front of you.
The next step here is to use something freestanding to wrap with you standing, like a barrel or laundry basket 🙂 The cones can work at first but they might end up being too small for him.
Nice job with the tugging, you are definitely getting more pull back! YAY! I loved his engagement here – he was SUPER engaged! He seemed to like how you were playing and also seemed to like the gentle smacks LOL! It was a lovely session and so fun to watch 🙂
Does he like running around with toys? If he gives you a good tug then relaxes towards you, you can let him win the toy and run around with a bit (I tell my dogs to ‘go for a run’ with the toy :))
he was also thrashing the toy a bit (shaking it back and forth) which is good!!!
The bite marker was fun to see, it really built up his anticipation of the game without him leaping for it. Super!!!
Great job here!
TracyGood morning!
OMG he was hilarious trying to sit on the cone LOL! Adorable! He definitely likes this game!
He is driving ahead beautifully. Try to start with you gently holding his collar – the stay position is too hard for now because he is leaving the sit as soon as you begin to throw the toy and we don’t want him to break the stay off he sees motion of your arm (and we don’t want to create any tension by telling him he was wrong to move, so at this stage I avoid it entirely by holding the pups instead of using stays LOL!).
We will be building on this game tomorrow! Stay tuned!!
Looking at the wing wrap progression:
I think he is a definite righty with this game – all of the right turns were super easy and looked great! And when he didn’t quite know how to turn left… he turned to his right behind you. SMART! LOL!! So you can help him by sitting against a wall to take out the option of going behind you and get more offering of turning to his left in front of you.
It scared him when you smacked the cardboard with the toy (he had a startle response each time) but he did much better when you tapped the toy on the ground! Nice! So definitely keep the toy tapping on the ground.
I see you have the next stages below with standing up, which was going to be my suggestion 🙂 Onwards to standing up!Nice work!
TracyGood morning!
I didn’t know you did any parkour with Enzo! Fun!
Looking at the wobble board:
He did well with the lots-of-towel section! You can sit in a chair for tugging so his head is a little lower, which will get more weight shift.I can see how he was less thrilled with it when the towels started to disappear. The super high value treats were very smart!!! I think the hardest part for him was feeling secure in a relatively small space with all 4 feet on while the board was moving, so we can help build up the sense of security:
Do you have a 2nd wobble board or some discs? You can create a bigger field for him, so he can get his hind end on without scrunching up as much – which should help him feel more confident and secure about standing on the moving surfaces because he will be better able to stand with good balance.
You can have the wobble board with some inflatables around it, so he can put his feet anywhere on something that moves a bit. Over time we can shape him to put all 4 feet on the wobble board only by having him go back and forth across the things that move til he feels really comfortable with his hind end.
That can help him offer lots of hind end and all 4 feet on the moving things, without any pressure – it will be all his idea 🙂 And you can toss treats back and forth as he goes across the moving things, so he is also getting the opportunity to get off the movement which can be very helpful!
Looking at the plank: I totally agree about the needing to be sure the dogs can turn around. It helps for contact training and also it is a safety measure for it they ever lose their balance! Dogs that know this are more likely to re-gain balance or safety get off the board.
Yes, he is better to the right here, that is a trend we have seen before. The left turns will come soon as the side preferences balance out. You can get more turns with all 4 feet on by moving your cue hand very slowly for now, so he moves more slowly. When he moves that fast, his adolescent brain might be telling him that he did indeed keep all 4 feet on… when we see he did not LOL!! So slowing things down will help.
And if you have a second plank, even if it is a shorter on, you can have your planks side-by-side and touching to give him a wider playing field here too for a couple of sessions: more room for all the feets 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning again!
The good news here is that he seems to totally understand that he needs to go around the thing in this scenario, YAY!! So now you have to be prepared to reward the first offered wrap otherwise a behavior we really want will go un-rewarded.
Have your cookies ready to go before he enters the session – you can have a treat or two in your hands before you even sit down or bring the barrel in. Note how at the very beginning he offered a GREAT wrap… and didn’t get any reinforcement.
Nice tug breaks throughout, good job getting the other stuff out of the way to play!
After the tug break you got the cookies ready but didn’t reward that first – he offered another great wrap even though the bowls were not down. Same thing happened after the 2nd tug break – he offered a wrap but didn’t get rewarded.
The importance of rewarding that first offered wrap is that it is the exact behavior we want, so we don’t want to frustrate him by not rewarding as that can confuse him in the future (because we don’t reward behaviors in shaping when we don’t want those behaviors).
You can totally toss a treat even as the bowls go down or before the bowls go down. And to buy yourself extra time between the tugging and being reward: toss a treat away from you so he can go get it, then you can be ready for that first rep when he comes back.
Next step: stand up! That will lead nicely into the week 3 game for this 🙂 And based on what he was doing here, you can start to fade the bowls out by moving them more and more behind you, and just dropping the treats where the bowls used to be 🙂
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
I see zero bad trainer moments here!! And lots of good trainer moments here!
You raise a good point about him being excited about being in the training room – environment definitely changes excitement level, just like going into a trial building does that for our adults! The play/tugging before you start the training actually helps center his arousal (more on that later in the course) and it directs his focus to you, so definitely bring that toy and play before you start 🙂
You had good mechanics here of rewarding on the tray when he got on, then releasing him to get a cookie off the tray while you quickly snagged the tray to hide it and brought the toy out LOL! Fast! The only thing I might tweak is have you get the cookies out before you put the tray back down for the next part of the session,
The next stage with an item like this is to change the placement of reward, and toss the cookie off to the side with your ‘get it’. That will help him put back feet on because he is moving more, and you can wait a tiny bit longer before you toss the next cookie. Plus, you can use all sorts of different thigns to shape him to get on or in.
Yes, at about 4:20, he took the toy and started chewing it. No worries – That is a common decompression moment for puppies and it is actually a GOOD thing because it helps them self-regulate their internal arousal. So, rather than try to get him to bring it back when it happens (because he won’t bring it back) you can count to 5, then trade for some treats scattered around.
And you can also shorten the session as you reminded yourself, as well as build in little decompression breaks of trading the toy for a chewie or bully stick, or scattering some treats for him to sniff around. This is all great for puppies!
Nice work here!
Tracy
