[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
I do sometimes suggest crate games as a really black and white way to teach some concepts, however the rate of reinforcement needs to be SUPER high, which means handler mechanics need o to be great… and if handler mechanics are great, then we can teach all of that stuff without a crate lol!
In the past, one of the problems I saw with CGs was that there was just too much punishment and not enough primary positive reinforcement. Admittedly, 20 years ago I didn’t really understand all of that but now it leaps out to me.
So I reward the dogs a bit for no busting out of crates and for letting me get their leashes on.
My main use of crates nowadays is about sending the dogs into them:
I use it as a life skill, as in please go in your crate, it is time for bed. Or, please go in your car crate, we need to leave.

I use that concept as in sport training too:
I shape the dogs to go into their crates and problem solve when I close the doors a little – especially when I introduce the MM.
And I use crates as destinations when teaching fancy things like tunnel-contact discriminations, to get the concepts in place before I finish training contacts.

I’ll pull up some videos and post them!

T

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!

>>I’m leaning toward the sprinkler for the softer turns and keeping left and right for sharper turns. Some of this is because I have a hard time getting it all out on course. With Mari, “Check check” is for wraps to both sides, and I find I’m having trouble with Dellin remembering which is which, even when we are going around a trash can, so I figure it won’t get easier at speed 🙂

I have faith that it will be easier at speed because you will have so much rehearsal of it!

>>She had in person class last night (we do baby sequences – tunnel and a few 8″ jumps) and I could see her looking for her jumps and not looking at me – it was so exciting (the instructor commented on what a good job she did looking for the jumps). Anyway, to my previous point, I could barely remember what words to use on these tiny sequences! And she really has no understanding of the words yet. LOL And I was also having a proud mom moment looking at my puppy do things. She reminds me of Burst at that age, so there’s really no time to admire her while working.>>

So exciting!!!!!! YAY!!!!!!!!
Ask the instructor to get you to use the verbals. Or maybe insist that you use the verbals. The trick is to do a walk through and practice them. Most people HATE this – they are happy to walk the courses but hate hate hate when I ask them to do the verbals during the walk through LOL!!! But, great rehearsal makes great runs!

I am glad she was feeling better for class and the other training.

>>I need to do the threadle work separately – if I mix them in the same session, she thinks everything is a threadle. And yes, I use the cross arm for threadle so that should eventually help her.>>

Yes- but that is why you should mix them in the same session, even if it is simple: easy threadle angle versus a push to backside. We don’t want threadle autopilot 🙂

T

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!

I agree, he transferred the concepts immediately! Yay! It was very cool to see him commit so brilliantly and you were able to do the FC and leave so early. No problem! He also transferred the ‘head turn’ concept – he was leading with his head and bending nicely!

Just when I was going to type “now do the turn and burn”… you did! Nice! You probably have to give him a clear line up cue and send, because he was trying to send himself LOL!! And you can also add your verbal wrap cues.

Since he did so well, you can bring your wings into the rocking horse games!

His stays are also improving a lot! Question: is ‘search’ a general find the treat on the ground marker, or is it specific to “you stay there, the treat is being tossed to you”. He might need that level of specificness 🙂

To get to be able to walk forward away and not back away from him, you can try this game lining up at your side first, so you it is easy to walk forward and not back away.

And of course you can do some crate games 🙂 I find that the rate of reinforcement (in terms of primary reinforcement) is often too low in crate games, and dogs get frustrated. So be sure to start easy and get lots and lots of rewards in 🙂
Some old school videos of a very twitchy pup:

Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!

I don’t really do traditional crate games anymore 🙂 I lean more towards general “don’t bust out of the crate and chill out in it” rewards and some station work 🙂 I am happy to include lessons if you want!

T

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!

About the wings – if you only have 2 wings and the barrel, I would put a barrel as one of the outer edges and a wing in the middle. I think using a wingless upright would not be a big enough visual for her at this stage.

About the cookie placement – the cookie should be where it ended up – so if she starts on your right and goes around, the cookie is in your right hand nice and low so she makes that last turn. It can be near your knee if that is what keeps her head straight. It ended up there, which is good, but the movement before it is what I suggest taking out, so have it ready in that hand (she will have to pass the cookie to go to bump #1 which is a great little distraction) and then you can basically leave the hand there and show her the cookie as she is bending into the last bump.

I agree about Gee and Haw! I think those are GREAT words… but they are so unnatural for me that it has been easier to use left and right 🙂

Rocking horses:
Consider these all to be front sides, until you do the full 360 degree turn (which is a backside wrap and we haven’t added them to the rocking horses yet :)) So the front side wrap verbals are appropriate – you can picture the bar being where she makes her first approach to the barrel.

First video:
Her commit to the barrels seems really strong! She seemed to be slipping less on the carpet than the mats here on the first video, but I still think she needs to sort out some coordination before you add too much of your speed and too much toy because she was pummeling the barrel on a bunch of reps, pushing it out of the way. I think part of it is she is very excited about the toy and motion so she is choosing to go a bit through the barrels rather than around the barrels. Part of it could be that they are clear so she can see you moving away and see the toy, which overrides the slowing down needed to make the turn.

So, 3 things to help with this:
Walk through these and use food. She is going to ramp up her own speed which is fine, but then we don’t need to also ramp up your speed and have the excitement of the toy. When she is consistently NOT pummeling the barrels, you can go faster and still use food. Then the toy can come back in when she is strong with your motion too.

Do you have opaque barrels? Not being able to see them might help.

If she still runs through the barrels with you walking, then we need to immediately transfer this to really solid big wings – basically to tell her: these do not move, you need to go around and not through. Part of that is also foot – she was still trying to sort out grip so it might be the kind of thing that proceeds slowly until you can get her to true agility footing. She was still slipping more that I would want on these.

One other little detail to keep things really clear for her. At 1:23 – yes, good catch, you needed more connection but you need to still reward her – she was correct and continued to commit even without connection. The error was yours, not her 🙂 Withholding reward is telling her it was an incorrect choice, which it was not and she checked out a little after that. Compare that to 2:07 when she didn’t commit and you gave her the toy… I think 1:23 was the better place to reward and I probably would have just resent then rewarded at 2:07.

The race tracks are going well! The easiest thing is to just run and connect rather than try to point out each barrel. Pointing out each barrel might be why the beginning felt weird. You started that run-and-connect at about :40 and it went really well!
For this level, don’t worry about your speed yet (it is mainly a commitment game for the dogs). Going really fast makes it hard for you to give her connection all to the time so there was a moment of broken connection at :50 (she legit thought you were doing a blind cross). Same as with the previous video: reward her because it was your error, not hers and it is confusing/frustrating to her when she doesn’t get rewarded for commitment. You upped the connection on the next rep and she went where you wanted. By moving slower, you will be more consistent with being able to show the connection.

Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Wheeee look at him power through these!!! He definitely was happy to be in the new facility and I think it is AWESOME that he was excited and focused!

Some of his questions were about the line up, like at :20 and :48 he needed one more little step forward to get into the first bump properly. He definitely told us left turns were easier: at :55 when you were not perfectly connected he went behind you to turn left and at 1:26 I think you were connected but he definitely said that left turns were easier by ducking behind you LOL! Clever! Your response was good, basically just a “you’re cute, let’s try again” followed by a very strong connection and step to guide him into the right turns.
That really helped him work through any questions.

The left turns seemed smooth and fluid throughout. At first, the rights had a little less bend of body for him slightly and were slightly less fluid but by the end he had the same power on the right turns! Nice! So while he is saying left is easier, I am confident that he will end up being nicely balanced and strong in both directions.

One thing you can add now is a slight change in angle of the bumps: angle the 2 outer bumps in towards the middle bump, so he can bounce all the way through. And, you can do the opposite: angle the 2 outer bumps away from the middle bump so he can take a nice stride in between each one.

Great job! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

Keep me posted about what you end up deciding on for verbals!

Serps with motion:
It is odd that she wasn’t feeling into it, maybe she is coming into season? Or she just wasn’t into serpentines 🙂 I think she looked good on the serpentine reps here though – my guess is she thinks that driving into pressure like that plus MM and plus dead toy is not as much fun as just running 🙂 Did you try any other game to see if it was just an anti-serp day or just a not in the mood too train day?

But on the reps here, she was driving in nicely and setting her turn nicely! She will like serps even more when you start to add in running, so keep playing with it. You can make it even more silly fun for her if you have room to a cone wrap or tunnel in place of the MM or dead toy (then reward with toy :)) The cone or tunnel is also a distracting so it is a good challenge!

Keep playing with the threadle verbal – are you using a cross arm too? You can add that to help her differentiate. She probably only needs another session or two before you add motion (you can add it with her on a really easy angle to get things rolling).

Nice work! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

>>pump my arms when running

Yes, this will be easier when you have more room 🙂

>>hide toy when running to not distract dog

Yes for now – she will learn to focus on the ‘stuff’ even when there is a to yin your hand in the future.

>>Verbal: I’m struggling with barrels and verbals. I feel going around a barrel needs a command but really don’t like AROUND as it can’t be repeated and it takes too long to say it.

Verbals are a bit topic of obsessing LOL!! I feel your pain. Yes – time to add verbals to the barrels! We have a verbals discussion here:

Verbals: Use Your Words!

If you want to use ‘around’, you can define it specifically and apply it to that turn on the barrel.

>>I use this in rally when I want the dog to independently move around (wrap) me.

Ah! So it is a completely different behavior – it means go around the momma. So, yes, let’s use something else so there is no potential for confusion.

>>An agility instructor suggested I use the same word for backside wraps – no specific direction.

Do you mean use ‘around’ for backside circle wraps (360s)? I think if ‘around’ means to wrap *you* then we should eliminate it from the list of words that mean ‘take an obstacle and do a thing’ 🙂 Mali is wicked smart and using the same word for 2 different behaviors can confuse or frustrate her, even though the context is different.

My backside wraps do not have a specific direction (as in, backside-wrap-to-your-left) because the bar tells the dog the direction and ideally my handling/position can tell the dog which backside to wrap 🙂 I have not yet seen the need to have 2 separate directions on backside wraps because of the bar telling the dog which way to wrap – I know some people do that but so far, I have not ever seen a place for that. You are welcome to have separate cues for it, or you are welcome to save your sanity and have one cue LOL I do have separate verbals for the backside wrap 360 and the other backside slices.

>>Suggestions? I can figure out words to use but should I use a different verbal on barrels or use my Left and Right 90 degree turns?>>

I like to define my verbals in relation to the shape of the line I want the pups to take. Using the barrels, most of what you are doing right now are turns that are front side wraps (picture her going over a bar when she is arriving at the wing) so you can add your front side wrap cue(s) – I have 2 front side wrap cues, one for each direction. We add the backside wrap verbal when the dogs are doing the full 360 turn (in Week 8, because it is not a super high priority for baby dogs!) We also do backside slice foundation in week 8 (with a bump added in so the pups learn which side is the backside)

On these barrel wrap games, she is not doing what I consider these 90 degree turns – for the barrels, the pups are coming all the way back around. On the 90 degree turns, the pups end up turning parallel to the barrel but do not come all the way back around it. We teach that to the pups separately in Week 10 (you can skip ahead to it because it is really easy :))

Bending and the Left/Right Minny Pinny!

Let me know what you think about all the words!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Brilliant! That is exactly what we want from this game – go find the middle thing and turn 🙂 Yay Tali, so smart!!!!!!!!

T

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

Serp/Threadles with motion:

>>but in reviewing the video I feel like I should’ve had Ronin a little closer to the jump for one thing.>>

First, a big high five to you for reviewing your videos with an eye on critiquing them! Being able to learn from watching your videos is very helpful for the dog’s entire career!!!

I don’t think he was too far from the jump (maybe the angle was a bit hard on one of the threadle moments, see below) but you were definitely a little too far from the jump 🙂 On the threadles, your position should be the same as the serp position: close enough to touch the wing with a relaxed, slightly bent arm.

Overall, he did really really well – he was very strong when he was on your right arm. being on your left side was harder — he had two failures when you were on that left side so you made a good adjustment on the 3rd rep on that side so he could be successful. You can change his position too by having him start on an easier line (it was hard to see what his position was on that side). He did a really good job ignoring the Manners Minder! I think his questions were not as much about how to threadle when he had the errors, they were more about the Manners Minder as distraction (poor, starving Schanuzer LOL!)

The serps were VERY easy for him, that is great. If you are closer to the jump, you will see him be able to bend even more.

>>Secondly, I think I should’ve been moving for a bit more before giving the ‘Close’ command. It was more a simultaneous command & move.>>

yes, it was definitely more of a cue-and-move start but that is plenty challenging! Since he did well, you can add in slooooowly moving before the cue. That slow movement should start as soon as you leave him in his stay: rather than go to position, get your arm back, then move again (which gets tricky when he is in a stay), you can put your arm back as you walk away from him so your threadle or serp arm is out there the whole time – then walk slowly through position and release as you are moving through position. That way there is no start and stop or arm movement which might cause him to anticipate the release.

And to maintain the joy of the stay, you can add throwing the reward back to him when you get to position. And you can also walk all the way around the jump and go back to him without releasing, to reward the stay. that way he doesn’t anticipate your arrival in position to be the release 🙂

Turn and Burn – looked fabulous!

>> At least this time I managed to remember my wrap verbals. Or wait, wasn’t I supposed to here? (just had an ‘oh crap’ moment)>>

Ha! Using your verbals was great, keep using them.

>. I was running out of space for the burn part and had wished after reviewing the video that I’d have thrown the toy more ahead of me and more consistently used the Get It command, but I will work on that.>>

For this game, you can reward from your hand so he chases you for it. Because he is little, you can tie the two toys together so you can drag them for him to chase and grab (one end in your hand, one end on the ground – might need 3 toys tied together). Chasing you for the toy is part of the ‘burn’ which gets a lot of speed and will convince him to set up amazing turns without a lot of handling help needed from you 🙂 I suggest having one end dragging on the ground so he can keep his head down (which produces the most speed) and so you don’t have to bend over. Having him get the toy like this also eliminates the victory laps when you throw the toy (which are inefficient but also hilarious and adorably joyous!)

Because this game is going so well AND he was able to do it on a jump wing (huzzah!)…
You can start to do your FC and running away a little sooner now – look at how well he committed on that very last rep at 1:15 – you sent, and when he was about 3 feet from the wing and was past your feet: Boom! You were outta there. Freeze the video at 1:16 as he is rounding the wing – you were connected and waaaay ahead. NICE! Click/treat for you both 🙂

So do more of that! You can add more distance between you and the wing so there is more motion.

>., I had it on my laptop and Ronin was absolutely obsessed with watching everything Contraband was doing. It was cute – CB seems like quite a fun character!>>

Ha! CB is very fun and quite the character like something out of a Disney cartoon LOL. He is 2 now and is SUCH a good boy. It is fun when the dogs react to each other on the camera! My dogs don’t react to the other dogs, but they do get super interested when you use your happy praise voice 🙂

Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning! Nice work on the minny pinny games!

Baby level:
She did well here – good job lining her up and getting engaged before each rep! When you did the engagement, in particular, she was very crisp in her responses!

>>Do you think it makes any difference re understanding right now? As I space things out would it be better to have the wing on the middle ‘jump’?>>

it was fine to have the barrel ni the middle but now you can switch to a wing in the middle (ideally, 3 wings for this)/ That will help her learn how to approach a wing on this type of turn and also to not touch the wing 🙂

>>I never got to trying it with a toy as the reward as I didn’t want her rushing through it.

You can now do this baby level with toys because it is a good setup for teaching her to run fast, be excited, and NOT touch the wings or barrel. But the toy can be incorporated gradually, it is not an all-or-nothing approach: tug with her before the rep. Then do one or two reps for a cookie on each – then a bit of tug. Eventually you can tug for each rep as the reward but you don’t need to start that way if she is likely to push the barrels/wings.

>>Next time I work on it will do that and also try to space the pieces out a bit.

Yes – but don’t do that at the same time as you add the toys. Make those into separate challenges.

Advanced level:

>>I am still not sure about the whole idea of her bouncing the setup given her age even though it isn’t much of a jump compared to trying to keep her from jumping off furniture but there is also a turn on landing…

Don’t worry about the striding at all at this point. The towel poles are conceptual focal points, not jump bars 🙂 The goal of this setup at the moment is just mainly about coordination and to attach the left and right verbals. The bouncing as a grid will come later when there are bumps and also when you have a grippier surface to do it on so she can really plant her hind end (likely will wait til you can be outside in the spring, which is perfect for her age).

She did well here too – we can see her already changing her striding and going faster after the first couple of reps and adding the bounce, and as you noted when you add the verbals – she looked pretty balanced on both directions with perhaps the right turns being a little easier for her to get all 3 barrels on the first-go round. So using food, you can move the middle one out a little bit to see what happens 🙂

One suggestion for you is about the placement of reinforcement: She is losing her coordination on the last towel bar and rolling it, mainly because of the reward placement being a little late and there is too much handler movement, for now. Stand very stationary as sh eis coming around the 3 wings and as she is coming over the middle towel bar, be ready to place the reward across your body.
The reward placement was happening late, so she was not sure where to look or what to do on the last bar.

A good example of this is at 1:25 – as she is finishing coming over the middle bar, your hand are moving together towards your center and you stepped back so she was looking up and coming to you – then as she was coming towards you over bar 3, you stepped forward and moved the cookie hand into position – she tried to adjust over the towel bar at 1:26 and rolled it (same at 1:30 and other reps Being perfectly still for now (no foot movement) and having the placement cookie ready and in place before she gets to bar 3 will help her learn the behavior (the 3rd bar is the truest left or right on this setup). Also, if you have a reward marker for “cookie in hand” that will help her know where to look.

It is a small detail but not a small detail LOL!

>> I have decided on ‘ri ri ri’ for right and ‘le le le’ for left to get rid of the ‘t’ sound at the end.

Good choices! One thing to consider is how you want to deliver them: you were using a fast repeated pattern “lelelelelelele” which rhythmically, will be similar to the wraps (and also similar in terms of energy, volume, etc). So, you can consider a slightly different delivery – elongate the vowels leeeleeeeleeeee riiii riiiiiiriiiiii because that will sound very different plus the slightly elongated deliver will match the physical cues that generally accompany these softer turns.

I look at words and style of delivery because I am not fully convinced that just the words break through and get processed in the middle of the wave of processing the dog has to do on course.

Great job! Let me know what you think and how the next steps go!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

I can’t even blame it on being a Monday because it turns out that today is actually Tuesday LOL

[Tracy Sklenar]

oops! That is because I set them to publish on Jan 25, 2023. Sorry! They are visible now.

T

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

Yay for tunnel games, they are really fun! He was super 🙂

>> The tunnel does shift some, so I’ll need to work on staking it down better, but there are 3 straps on it (just noting that since it looks like it only has the one purple strap in the middle on first glance).>>>

It held pretty well for this game! Yes, you’ll need more to hold it as you add more motion into it. I have used sand in garbage bags in the past LOL! Not fancy but does the job 🙂

He did really well with his tunnel games here!

>>You’ll see that Leo spins out of the exit on the early reps, showing me that food/MM is less interesting than his toy back at the entrance, so I just removed the toy for now until I get your feedback>>

Yes – the MM is not yet his true love when a toy is involved and I think also he is inclined to turn left, because when you switched sides to start him on your right so he was turning left with the toy out there, it was not as much of a spin back to you. You can totally train up more MM love in this game by creating a loop – through the tunnel, eat the cookie form the MM (which is more of a behavior than a reinforcement LOL!) and then back to you for tugging (which is very reinforcing and also a great way to reset him for the next rep).

I did this with my BorderWhippet who, like Leo, prefers toys to eating from the MM. But I really like training with the MM so I built the MM love with this loop: behavior, MM, toy. I don’t think I have video of it with the tunnel, but I do have video of it with some of the early running contact training:

Let me know if this makes sense 🙂 my marker words were still in progress at the time – right now the MM beep is the cue to get the MM cookie, and then I say “bite!” which means that he can come get the toy from my hand for tugging 🙂

>>Without the toy he exits without spinning, so I added the verbal at that point and then added angles.

Yes, that was very smooth and he was super with those! In your next session, have the MM (or toy) further from the tunnel exit, so he can exit in full stride before arriving at the reinforcement and not have to decelerate as he exits the tunnel. Moving it another 4 or 5 feet away from the exit should accomplish that,

>>Should I exchange the MM for a toy at the exit?

You can do that! It is a good opportunity to work the retrieves too. And as the tunnel increases in value, you can use the tunnel as a way to build the love for the MM if you will want to use it for other training in the future.

>>The one time he leaps over the MM, it was because he considered running off to chase a dog off in the distance. >>

What a good boy to only consider it and NOT actually do it! Super!!!!

For the tunnel – in your next session, warm up with what you did here, and then switch his position so he starts on the threadle side and learns the turn away into the tunnel.

For the ‘get out’ session – yes, I can see the value of the prop, good boy! And that value gives us insight into how he will feel about obstacles on course 🙂 You did a fabulous job balancing the outs with tons and tons of “don’t go out” – definitely needed! So you can now add motion – lots and lots and lots of just move with me, don’t go out reps. You can have more room between you and the prop if he struggles (I think your spacing was good here, but we want him to have continued success, so feel free to change things if he has questions). On the ‘follow my line’ reps, you can help him with a bit of shaking of your dog-side arm so he can have a little extra visual motion to help take his eyes off the prop. I think motion will help him want to go to the prop so you can over-balance into the “come to me” reps.

Great job! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

On the rocking horses –
Yes! This is the placement, great job! ! Keep adding that placement in, especially as you turn and rotate away so he can keep committing even as you rotate and leave earlier and earlier.

Also, with all the other things to remember 🙂 – add in your wrap verbals. That will make more sense to him than the go go go to help him commit. Go will mean full on extension when he is on jumps, so we don’t want it to be paired with turns at this stage.

The minny pinny looked great too! I like the whole ‘no errors’ thing. Super! I would give him a couple more short sessions just like this one – he will let you know when he is ready for the middle wing to move out a little more because he will be bouncing and running more. That is a sign that he is super comfy with the setup – it is harder than it looks (easy for us humans because all we do is stand there and try to spit out the correct words LOL!). The middle wing does not need to move out much more, maybe a little bit, eventually. When he is older, we put this on jumps but I would wait on that til he is a little older and til you can do it on grass outside.

>>Only error was when he was looking for the toss before coming back to me, but no biggie, he only did that the one time.>>

It is possible that he legit thought there was a cookie out there because the verbals stopped. You can keep saying the left or right til he is over the third little bar, which helps him continue and make the last left or right turn before the reward. You can either stretch out the verbal so you say it 3 times (riiiiiiiight riiiiight riiiiiiight) or you can say it 100 times LOL!! Either way is good, there is no specific rule of thumb for how many times we should say things. You got quiet when he was on the middle one so he might have thought quiet meant cookie was thrown 🙂

Great job on these! He is showing fabulous progress!
Tracy

[Author]

Posts