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Good morning!
I am glad you had a great regional and congrats on the family success!!!! The course maps looked like great fun. And it was a great opportunity for baby dog training and it sounds like Ronan was perfect.On the videos:
For the wing wrap rocking horses, I don’t have real feedback, this is more of a running narrative about how great the session was LOL!!!! Spot on! Click/treat for you both!The first 1st rep was good but the 2nd rep was GREAT – note how far away he sent to the 2nd barrel and you left really early. So you were fully rotated, moving to the next line, and mostly done with the FC as he arrived at the barrel :10 and re-connected after the blind, and miles ahead when he exited the wrap at ;11.
You repeated that on the other side at :15 – :16 . When you added in the Turn and Burn exits, he was still great with his commitments and nailed it.You added speed since the two of you were really comfy and you continued to nail it like at :43 – you were moving faster but still nice and early – he was moving faster too and still great in his commitment and turns.
you made all of the handling look relaxed yet super on time and connected – hile movin greally fast. In response, Ronan looked super fast, connected, great turns… without any frantic behavior and without rushing. It is exactly what we want.
Fabulous connection on the racetracks – fabulous connection on all of the things here, truly!
So since you nailed this one, you can expand on the concepts 🙂 A couple of ideas:
– depending on how much time you have spent transferring concepts to actual wings, you can start to replace the barrels with wings. If he hasn’t really seen wings yet, you can play a little turn and burn on a wing, and do the beginning stages of the rocking horses with wings. My guess is that he will transfer the concept instantly.
– add more distance so you are both able to open up and use your ground speed. The challenge is then can you both run fast, decelerate, make the turn happen, then run fast the other way. And the racetracks will be more challenging when the barrels are 30 or 40 feet apart.
– add a tunnel in before the first barrel. So you would send to a tunnel wth you in the center of the barrels, so the exit lines him up to the first barrel. That will also add more excitement!Left/right turns look great on the minny pinny – he is really working his body through the bending! You can totally add your left/right verbals here, he seems ready for that (I don’t think you had them going here unless you were super quiet).
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! She is doing well here!!
On the porridge heating – I often feel like I need 3 hands to hold hte leash, the cookies, etc. LOL! You can have 2 or 3 treats in your hand and can be delivering one while reaching into the pocket to get the next one (leash looped over your wrist). Leash on the ground is fine at home, but you will also want to work in holding it for when you are in new places.
Great job keeping the treats in motion while you were rewarding her! You can also have her jump up a little and put her front feet up on you to get the reward – that really pumps up the engagement with a lot of food driven dogs.
One thing to clarify for her is the tossed treats – she has some distraction questions about getting stuff off the ground here and in the minny pinny – so if you toss a treat, use a distinct marker for that and at this stage… don’t do a lot of treat tossing 🙂 You were doing it here when you released from the stay, but that would be better if you rewarded from your hand to maintain the engagement. And when you do want to use a thrown food reward, use a lotus ball or treat hugger to get the food out on the line – but that lotus ball or treat hugger make it clear that it is just that one cookie, and to not snurffle around for more or look for food on the ground when the lotus or treat hugger are not out there 🙂
You can definitely take this game on the road, to see what helps get engagement in different locations! You can also try it with a toy!
Minny pinny 1 video:
She started off well with the toy, but then found a food wrapper on the floor – so for now, have all the rewards come from you in some way so we can shift the value off the floor 🙂 Moving to food rewards was definitely higher value for her! This looked strong when the food rewards came out!On the 2nd video – adding the bar was good she was fine with that when it was close. When you moved it further, she was great for the left turns, so she might be a lefty 🙂 You can keep that middle wing closer for the right turns and move it further for the left turns – it is perfectly normal for the 2 different directions to progress at different rates. You can add in tossing a toy or lotus ball or treat hugger between the bump and the 3rd wing, which is great and will definitely help to build the commitment especially on the right turns
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>.Is there an easier way to get to the latest post? Both my iPhone and iPad are having issues with the page loading and it kicks me off. There is a lot of content to load.>>
The software people are currently working on a feature to be able to flip the order of posts with newest on top – hopefully they are finished with it soon because we have been asking for a while. I noticed that my iPads were having the struggle you were mentioning so I updated them – now it is much better as long as I don’t scroll fast immediately. I force myself to wait a few seconds to let it all load, then it is fine. My Mac laptop, the PC and the android phone don’t have the same struggles with loading the big pages, so it is something with the mobile iOs and the software not speaking nicely to each other. The software folks should sort it soon.
>> But, I do notice on videos that she’s not lined up. I know I need to work on that, but I did try to be better in this video. She still seems to turn left better to me. Interesting that you thought right was better yesterday.>>
I thought she was lined up a lot better here! And that helped the overall session. The first rep each direction was challenging for her – she wants to go fast but needed to sort out her feet. The first rep to the right was more fluid on the first rep than the first left rep in terms of bending and where she was putting her feet between the bumps. Then happily, she looked pretty balanced and equal on both sides on the next reps. YAY! So, turning better one way or the other might have to do with the subtleties of the line up for now – I am fully confident she will sort it out and be nicely balanced.
It looked like all 3 wings were touching here, so you can move the middle wing a little further away. Start it with food rewards so she is a bit calmer so she can sort out her footwork, then go back to the toy.
Great job!
TracyGood morning! Lots of good work here!!! He is so fun!
First video:
Threadle – he is doing really well here! And it looked like he was happy to find the threadle entry from pretty much anywhere. YAY! One minor detail is to point your feet a little more towards the MM because that is the direction you will be moving in when we add motion (and we add motion tomorrow :))Question – was there a cookie in your threadle hand after the first couple of reps? He was pretty convinced he should stay at the threadle hand LOL! So do the threadle cue with an empty, open hand so he learns to turn his head away to the bump – and that is now when you can click the MM:
he comes in toward the threadle hand then turns to go to the bump. Click the moment he turns to look at the bump.And since we are now wanting him to consider going over the bump more, you can move the MM out a little so he fully goes over the bump to get to it.
The Minny Pinny is also going well! He did best when you had him line up at your side and gave him a clear step to start with a step (try not to say go :)), so feel free to use a good old fashioned cookie lure to line him up almost in heel position, facing the minny pinny 🙂 And you can totally repeat the verbal cue more than once (left, left, left) for each turn.
I think he is a lefty on this game! The left turn reps were all really strong on the wings, with the bumps, and when you moved the middle wing further out. Nice! The right turn reps where harder for him – on the wings, he was going through the wing on the right turns unless you helped with your hand – when that happens, rather than mark with a ‘no’ or withhold reinforcement (which sent him on a bit of a rage LOL), you can reward him and then adjust the setup to help him get it right – you can use a bump or wingless upright to make the gap in the wings smaller, so you can reward going all the way around the edge. And when he has a bunch of successful reps under his belt you can fade those and I bet he is still great 🙂
The right turns when you added the bumps were definitely harder for him, so it is fine to stick with just the wings for an extra session or two on the right turns (left turns can be on the bumps) and then add the bumps back in.
Good job with the porridge heating and the toy! He was not entirely sure about doing the hand touch with the toy right there, so you can scrunch up the toy so the hand touch is more obvious for now, then add it back in as a distraction later on. He was very happy to tug and his stay looked great!
Circle work – he was moving with you, but he was not sure if he was supposed to go to the wings or not. So, if you want him to just run with you, clear the area so you can both run run run without anything else around. And if you want the wings, get closer to them so he knows they are in play. For commitment purposes, with the wings that close, I would want the pups to go wrap the wings and not stay next to me 🙂
FC and spins on the barrel – his commitment is looking really good and he had some questions – I think the main thing here to focus on in clearer mechanics of when the toy is in play to tug on and when he should ignore it. It was dangling in front of him a lot, so he was slowing down and sometimes coming in to you rather than gong to the barrel or wing, as if asking if it was the toy or the barrel/wing. He was not entirely sure of where to look.So a couple of ideas to smooth it out:
– scrunch up the toy so it is less dangly and then when you do want him to tug on it, there will bea more obvious visual difference of when it is in play.
– use verbals to help him know the difference: use your verbal wrap cues for the barrel/wing, an use a “get the toy” marker when the toy is in play (I use ‘bite’ if I am not moving or a shhhhhhh noise if I am moving and want the dog to chase the toy). That should answer his questions. I think you said “get it” at 1:35 but I am not sure.Your connections looked strong overall! Yay! Super job working to be connected while you were moving! Only one connection oopsie was at :06 when you disconnected so he thought it was a blind and went ot the other side of you – you should totally reward that because we can assume when it happens that it was handler error 🙂
Wing wraps/head turns – he is definitely able to do the head turns really well! As with the minny pinny game, reset each rep by lining him up straight at your side, after each reinforcement rather than let him keep offering or try to statr the enxt rep from where he was already standing. So you can send him to the wing from your side, pull him through, turn his head, reward for the head turn, call him back line him up next to you facing the wing (reward or lure to get him there, he will enjpy the extra treats lol) then send him into the double wrap. That will make the mechanics super smooth for you both! When you were trying to start from where he was standing, the mechancis got a little more difficult and he didn’t know wha you wanted –
the questions he had were because he was starting facing you which made it hard for you to set the turn for him. At 1:36 when you lined him up better, that rep was much stronger! Yay! He was not entirely facing the wing but it was still a good reset – same at 1:54, nice reset set up a nice wrap!! So his questions were not because he wasn’t thinking, it was more that he needed a clear starting point and was frustrated when he didn’t know what to do.Great job on these! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
I am loving her value for her prop LOL!!! Lots of drive to it and strong paw smacks 🙂On the parallel path game – you can stop clicking at this point because it is getting her to look at you more than needed. You can replace the click with your get it marker and toss the cookie or toy. Her parallel path game looks really strong, so you can work the concept transfer now on a jump if you haven’t done so already.
For the rear crosses – I think you will need more room at this point – maybe the garage? Or if you are in a bigger training facility you can play with it more. You will want to start her further back from the prop with enough space that, as she is still a stride or so away from the prop, you are already pretty much done cutting behind her to the new side (which means you need to have enough room to be moving up your rear cross line as she is still 10 feet from the prop because she is long and quick 🙂
So for example at :43 and :55 (and the other RC reps), she was arriving at the prop and you were still on the original side, just starting the RC info. I got those moments in screenshots and put them here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1toOM0_-7jlKgo_W7e7UWwkS-n9LeNlVmK3253KCwjeM/edit?usp=sharing
Compare that to the 3 shots with Elektra that I added on page 2: she is still a step away from her prop and I am pretty visible on the new side. You can see it especially in the 3rd screenshot where I am on the new side and she is turning her head the new direction.
Good job with your reward placement, especially at 1:53, 2:05 and 2:29 when yo uused your arm to help her find the new direction. Keep going with that placement – the placement plus an earlier cue will get the RCs going really well!!
>>What skills should we have for the next class? If we do a working spot and we’re behind can we post exercises from this class still?
Wings wraps and tunnel understanding, primarily. An intro to the parallel path over a bar is good too. All of those games build off of these games 🙂 And yes, you can post some of these games in that one, because they serve as the foundation skills.
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>>>just work with starting the tunnel verbal, then let go, then reward him for turning away without you moving at all to help get the turn.>>
When I use the tunnel verbal in this scenario where he is turning away, should I use the threadle verbal (I decided to use “Flip” instead of “Kiss” since I just couldn’t remember/get the hang of that one), or do I say “Tunnel”?>>For the very beginning stages to get him turning away, you can say tunnel. As soon as he is turning away easily, add the new Flip verbal to it, to work the new verbal.
>>Regarding my commands…This is probably the nicest way anyone has ever pointed out that I am an idiot and was for sure using the wrong command for the turn! Ha ha ha!!! I was totally not thinking and just said right/left based on what arm I was using. Doh!! Well at least I only did one session of that so I’m sure the verbals haven’t stuck yet and I can change it.
Teehee! We have all done that. When I was doing the demos for this, I did an entire session with my verbals backwards. Oops! I deleted it but I should have saved it as a blooper reel LOL! And sometimes the video is mirrored and the handler was correct.
>>And on another funny note, somebody managed to get a hold of their hand target somehow and had a shred fest. 🙂 I guess I will have to get a fresh one. Ha!>>
HA! He really wanted to internalize the lesson LOL
Tracy
Good morning!
He started off really well with the minny pinny! Good job convincing him to line up straight before starting, that is helpful and important!
>>It was interesting how he was doing so well with the right turns and then kind of lost it and started cheating even when nothing had really changed.
I think 2 things had changed: the middle wing moved out, and also he had a number of reps already before he started changing his behavior. The number of reps can produce fatigue or behavior change because it is too repetitive (dogs are not used to doing the same thing 10 times in a row, so they offer something different) or both. I have been guilty of not recognizing that – it is easy for me to stand there and have the dog do it 20 times without remembering that it is a bit of a plyometric exercise that is pretty challenging for the dog.
When you added the toy toss between the 2nd and 3rd wing, that really helped him understand to leave you and it spiced things up s he was happy to all the way out. Based on this session and the tunnel session, he is a lefty so the right turn games will progress differently: the left turn games can get more challenging more quickly (same # of reps, but added challenge) and the right turn games can build up the challenge more slowly as he gets comfy with turning right (both of my MaxPup demo pups are lefties as well).
So on the next session, set a timer, do 5 reps to one direction, 5 reps the other direction, then be done 🙂 That will prevent the fatigue and also prevent him from offering other behavior because it seems odd to do the same thing too many times in a row,
Rocking horses:
>> You said: “…you can mix in tossing th reward to the ‘landing’ side (other side) of the barrels as you continue to move away… have a lot of the reward tossed to the other side of the barrel when you move away…” Wait, what?! Can you explain if I did any of my rewards in this one right as far as what you meant? >>You might need to consider things visually: Think of the barrels as a jump wing and as he is starting to wrap the barrel, he is going over an invisible bar. To convince him to leave you to go over the invisible bar (and therefore wrap the barrel), you will want to throw the reward to where he would be landing from the invisible bar, which puts the barrel between you and the toy. You were closest to that at :27. On the other rewards, you were dropping it near you which builds value for drivingback to you, but not as much value for leaving you. Let me know if that makes more sense 🙂
There was a lot of lovely work happening here!!! His commitment looked good, it looks better and better each time you work these. For example, your spin at 1:32 was great: nice early rotation and moving away! And that made the blind look easy.
One suggestion for when you are doing the crosses: run more of a back and forth line in the middle and not towards the outside of the barrel as much – you are moving to the barrel entry which ends up blocking his line because you are standing on it 🙂His victory lap was hilarious – he ran a mini course then took himself up stairs, too funny! To prevent those, you can let him have a quick zoom with the toy and then you can offer a trade for another toy or cookie.
I think he really liked the race tracks! Fun! For the arm position arm on the race tracks, either keep your dog side arm really low and back to him, or pump your arms like a sprinter and run and connect – when you pointed forward, he lost connection and ended up on your other side (probably looked like the beginning of a blind cross). My only other suggestion is to say your wrap verbals on these and don’t say go becaue go is an extension line and he was wrapping 🙂
Great job on these – I think he liked this session a whole lot! Note the differenece in his reaction when you asked if he was ready towards the end versus the beginning LOL! Yay!
Tracy
Good morning!
I love your setup – so colorful! And I love how when you said “you ready?” he gave a joyful little leap. SO CUTE! I agree – he took all of the challenges in stride, figuratively and literally 🙂He had no trouble at all with the verbals being added, and I like how they sounded significantly different than your other verbals. That is important!!
The first few reps were easy for him when the wings were touching. You can add more bounce challenge to this by having the two outer bumps angle in a little more towards the center bump, to encourage a tight bounce.
When you move the middle one further away, he might not be able to bounce all of the distances on a bend yet, which is fine – so you can move the 2 outer bumps back into the position they were in here so he has more room to sort out his feet 🙂On the first rep of each new distance of the middle bump, he had a moment of WHOA! and had to put his head down and sort out the striding. And he did! He was totally working this bending skill by leading with his head to bend nicely and use his rear. The 2nd rep was always much better than the first rep, good boy! And soon enough those “WHOA!” moments will go away because he will get used to reading lines and making instant adjustments.
My only suggestion is to convince him to line up straight at your side and face the minny pinny straight on – he is starting sideways to it, looking more at you and perpendicular to you – and that makes the initial approach harder to sort out out the footwork. So I recommend a good old fashioned cookie lure to help convince him to line up (I am confident that he will be happy to eat the extra line up cookie LOL!!!)
So adding in lining up as straight as possible, almost in heel position: if he is super solid for another session like he was here, add in distance by starting him one giant step further back.
Great job!!!
TracySUPER GOOD BOY here turning both directions AND ignoring all of the distractions. HAPPY DANCE! I think he looked great here – the retrieves were lovely but the ignoring of big trial distractions was truly top notch. Yay!
I saw no difference between left and right turns here, that is great! A bit of latent learning, perhaps? My only suggestion is that for the games where he is doing a complete U-turn to drive back to you to get the toy (:03 and :17 for example), he will have an easier time with something he can scoop up like a giant hollee roller. Getting the toy off the ground made it hard to stop his momentum and I don’t want him to jam himself. On the 90 degree turns in the more ramped up level like at :29 and the last rep, he was able to scoop and turn without jamming himself – yay! So that toy seems fine for that angle.Great job here!!!! How did the Regional turn out with the other dogs?
Tracy
Good morning!
>>now feeling hopelessly behind in class
You can skip around to some of the non-prop stuff that is simpler – the prop stuff is pretty technical and there are plenty of games that you can just check off pretty easily. That can reduce the feeling of being behind! And also you’ll find that as soon as the concepts are sorted at the early levels (like on the prop) then the rest of the stuff gets SUPER easy and you fly through it.
Looking at the prop games here, you had each of the 3 concepts going: parallel path, countermotion, rear crosses. Lots of good work!!! Working through each concept:
The parallel path looked great! Check it off LOL and move to the concept transfer version of the game, where she does it on a baby jump:
The countermotion games are also going well – one suggestion is to be more specific about the cue and less quick/looped in and out of it. If the transition happens too quickly from the cookie reward to the movement forward to the send/countermotion, she is not quite ready for the cue and the quality of the sends loses some crispness (if you watch her closely, she was still chewing/swallowing on some of the reps when you were already moving back to the next cue LOL!! She was a bit in catch up mode because of that). So to make it clearer, you can have her start in front of, make eye contact (ask her if she is ready :)) – then send with the sideways send and show the countermotion. Then reward – and after the reward, take a moment to reset, make the eye contact (let he finish chewing haha) then send again. I have that the reset moment helps with success and actually makes the behavior a bit more explosive because the dog is more ready for the cue, and there is a little bit anticipation being built up because we are not going directly into it.
The rear crosses are getting started nicely and your reward placement was SPOT ON! And that really helped her. To get the RCs even smoother, you need to be earlier in terms of cutting behind her line. You were late on these, she didn’t see the RC info until after she was already committed to turn towards you on the prop hit.
Ideally, when she is still about a foot away from the prop (or more), she is already seeing you finish cutting behind her – that means your motion towards that line starts sooner too, so start her further away from the prop so you have more room to cut in. When she arrives at the prop, you should be fully on the new side of her (and you will see that she is also already turned to the new direction :))I like visuals on this one, so check out these screenshots:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JQOVT0ZMnI3phH2kNspa162XtTfLciNdD8B9nD9UNBI/edit?usp=sharing
You can see at :09, 1:06 and 1:11 she is about a foot away from her prop and you are just beginning the RC info (at 1:06 and1:11 you can see she is already turning towards you there). For comparison purposes, look at the next 3 screenshots of me and Elektra: I am fully behind her when she is about a foot from the prop and almost on the new side so she turns the correct direction (you can see her head already turned before she arrived at the prop).
Let me know if that makes sense! And keep going with the great reward placement – it helps the dogs understand the rear cross pressure as the cue, even if we are late.
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
>>can’t tell you enough how much I’m getting out of your feedback on these videos and how much I love working on concepts away from agility equipment and separate from jumping skills. >>
Yay! You are doing a great job with it – and when he is old enough, it all comes together in a heartbeat. It makes it really reinforcing to us humans to do all of these things separately then suddenly have an adult dog who can run high level courses with speed and accuracy.
>>Leo shows minimal frustration in our training sessions since everything is broken down into steps that we can both accomplish, and I’m not getting any more tooth hugs these days>>
This right here is the BEST part!!!!! Learning happens when everyone is relaxed and happy and successful – tooth hugs are feedback from the dog that perhaps we are not being clear enough 🙂 And since the dog is our partner, we need to be supportive and clear.
>>In the meantime, here is our Minny Pinny work. I keep forgetting to wait for feedback on Baby level stuff before moving on to Advanced version,>>
The minny pinny is the type of game where we can go from baby level to advanced in one or two sessions – not every game is this easy LOL!
The baby level is going well -you had a little extra arm pointing to get him started and he was watching the reward move at first, but then he totally figured it out and was whipping around the wings really well. NICE! You had really good reward placement – the food worked perfectly and he was GREAT with the toy: faster and more excited… but he didn’t lose the accuacy and thoughtfulness. he was benidng really nicely! GOOD BOY!! I think the toy worked better than the food when the food was in the send hand (for baby and advanced levels) because he didn’t feel the need to watch the toy.
On little detail: resist temptation to say go to get him started 🙂 because go is an extension cue. The release word worked better and then adding the left/right verbals were great.
Advanced level – as he adds more speed here, either lock in the bars (by sticking the jump cup through the open end so they don’t fall if he touches them) or use something he can’t knock as he is learning this – just so he doesn’t get desensitized to dropping bars.
At first, he was looking up more when turning to his left, didn’t notice this on the wings without bars as much – left turns might be his harder side so the cookies are more salient (he was watching the cookie hand) – but he also might need latent learning to kick in on the left – when you came back to it later in the session, he was MUCH smoother! The right turns looked strong throughout. So if he is a righty, you can start a session on the right turns to ‘warm up’ the skill before going to the left turns.
One other small detail: For now, start him really close so he doesn’t come in with speed yet – he was losing a bit of rhythm/coordination when he started closer to the fence behind him. Have him start with his front feet about a foot or less from the first bar or bump so he basically takes off from there ad doesn’t stride in to it.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning! Super session here!
>>Jumps were backwards at first. >>
Ha! She didn’t seem to mind though 🙂
The MP on the wings looked really good and easy for her. Good reward placement on the cookies! And adding the toy boosted the excitement but she didn’t lose any of the precision on the behavior. Super!!!
When you reset for the next rep, try to have her bum lined up straight and almost heel position so she is not starting sideways to the first wing/bump. I think this became very important when you added the bumps and she had a significant difference between left turns and right turns. While it is possible that she is better turning to her right than her left right now, it also looked like her starting position was different: a bit sideways at :51 and :54 and straight on your right at 1:02 and 1:04. On the first rep on each side, you were moving a bit so she came in with more speed and seemed surprised by the bump – so lining her up pretty close and straight, and taking on step rather than a bigger shoulder turn should her smooth it out.Those are small details and you can totally add your left/right verbals at this point to name the behavior, especially on the right turns! The left turns might need a rep or two more without verbals but then I am confident you can add the verbal.
>. Interesting how much mud is getting on her dew claws. First dog to have them.>>
YES! So interesting to watch how the dogs use their wrists and toes when they drive – wowza! And if you ever wrap her (flyball-style) when she works (especially on artificial surfaces) the dirt/wear on the vet wrap really indicates how much the stopper pads and dew claws are engaged. Fascinating!!
Great job here!
TracyGood morning!
Keeping chill for a few days… so hard!
>Wondering if you have any ideas for low energy, low motion stuff to work on while he heals up.
Does he know single foot isolations, meaning he can lift one foot at a time? It is kind of like ‘shake paw’ but he is in a stand and can do it with any foot you put your hand next to.
>>I’m thinking mat work (which he’s already decent at but using a flat mat with no edge – not our regular hop up on cot) and a bit of working on reacting less to dogs barking (kind of a new and intermittent thing) but figure some DS/CC to it can’t hurt.
yes, I love mat work! And DS/CC is ALWAYS a good thing – I mean, it can’t hurt and can only help! What about some control unleashed games, like Look At That or 1-2-3 (which is done at a slow walk, I believe). I use variations on those games in new environments or when there might a ‘trigger’ of some sort – my variations are a bit twitchier then true control unleashed (perhaps because I am a bit twitchier haha) but you can do the calm versions 🙂
>> We’ve got hand touch, fist bump and chin rest that we can refresh and add some more duration to.
Since you have a chin rest going – a calm but difficult game is getting the dogs to take a breath 🙂 I do this by holding a cookie in front of the dog’s nose until I see him breath in – then he can have the cookie 🙂 It is a good outside-the-ring game for my dogs that are a bit “hotter” when waiting their turns 🙂 You can do this using a chin rest. And you can also take the chin rest and have him learn that very cute head-down-chin-on-the-ground trick 🙂
>>Most of the other stuff I think of is higher energy, faster, moving stuff and trying to think of other things. Open to any suggestions (classmates too feel free to chime in here).>>
Yes, the other stuff is mainly high energy. If he is allowed to walk or slow trot, have you tried slow cavalettis? Those are pretty non-explosive (I did them with one of my dogs as prehab for luxating patella surgery)> There is another version of it called mountain climbers where the dog is stationary and lifting a rear foot back and forth over a super low cavaletti:
Let me know what you think! We have a sheet of ice on the ground and 10 bored dogs here, so I might come up with other games today too LOL!
Tracy
Good morning!!
>>tunnel threadles release work – I was questioning the use of a RELEASE word or just use the obstacle or handling cue “Close”. She is struggling with turning right on threadles. I didn’t include those videos but she just stopped forward motion after turning and would not enter the tunnels; so I added back the tunnel cue and then tried to fade it. >>
I think the tunnel verbal to start then fading it/relpacing it with the threadle verbal will work nicely – and if she was having trouble on one side (totally normal), placing the reward just inside the tunnel will totally help (I don’t have video of it, but I put the frisbee just inside the tunnel entry for my Hot Sauce to get her to turn to her left on these tunnel threadles LOL!)
>> so much fun to play with her in a larger space.>>
She was great! I am so impressed with her focus and speed in a big new place!
On the rocking horses: Your FCs look good! Her commitment looks lovely – that was great to see because she seems to have had no trouble generalizing the behavior to this new place. Super!!! Are youusing ‘around’ as your wrap-to-me verbal?
Your spin starting at :16 looked good, good timnig! You can add in trying to move away to the next barrel as part of it. It is more important to keep moving than it is to do the immediate blind, because doing the blind immediately was causing you to get stuck in that spot. Think of it as doing the FC, starting to run away to the next barrel, then doin the BC at some point after that.
At :24 start your FC sooner to both move away sooner and get the BC sooner – her distance to the barrel looks great so I think you can push things earlier and see how she does.
The racetracks look great too! I don’t think you need an arm up to suppot her line, as it draws her focus up to you a bit – you can try this with running & pumping your arms, like on a big course 🙂One other suggestion: She was not always sure when the toy was in play for grabbing or not 🙂 so you can have it more squished up in your hand when you use your arms to just run – and add a marker word for when she can have the toy in your hand (I say “bite” in that situation if I am stationary, or I make a shhhhhh noise if I plan to keep moving and want the dog to get the toy).
Her turn and burns looked great and she seemed to really like them!
>>Tunnels, wraps and backsides – first time outside of my living room practicing wraps and backsides. She was having fun!>>
She was awesome! Even more awesome considering this was the first time she was doing these in a new place!!!! Her tunnel commitment looked really strong and so did her backside commitment. Her wrap commitment looked good too – you can turn sooner on those, so you are rotating and moving away as she is passing you (sam ea no the barrels). The earlier rotation should help her get a collection before she gets to the wing. For now, do it on just a wing without a bar, so she can sort out the collection and you can sort out the timing. When she is trying to do it with a bar, there is a lot of sort out 🙂 and she ends up jumping a little long and landing on her front. I would take the bar out of i tuntil you see her approaching the wing with her head already turned the new direction – that is a good indication that she understnads the collection (on the bar, she was jumpingith her head straight which means she was not making the adjustment for the big collection
Great job here!!! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
One of the porridge heating goals is to eventually be able to use food and toys in the same session and to know what helps get his focus into the perfect spot in every situation. That takes a long time and I don’t think we really know that until the dogs have been trialing for a year or so! We start it now to build the toolbox then we play with it for quite a while 🙂The minny pinny looked great! As the middle jump gets further away, you can go to adding throwing reinforcement between 2 and 3, to really keep the commitment solid (he won’t be sad about stopping for cookies LOL!!) And, you can also get a bit more bouncing by changing the angle of the 2 outer bumps (the ones closer to you) – scoot the bumps in so they are angled towards the middle bump, which creates a little less distance between 1 and 2, and 2 and 3. He won’t bounce when the middle bump is moved out away, so this is only for when they are all close together.
Yes, you can think about how you want to deliver the left/right cues. When the dog is running, I am not totally convinced they make out the difference in each word by itself. I think they also respond to the energy and rhythm of the word: wrap cues are short and repeated fast and quieter. GO is long and loud GOOOO GOOOOO GOOOOO 🙂 so the left/right can be somewhere in the middle: medium volume, and extended. I try to say them as a question: “Leeehft? Leeehft?” Or “riiiiiiight? Riiiiiiight?” That makes them sound completely different than any of the other verbals which seems to help!
You don’t need to move the middle bump much further away for now (that would change the directional on the first bump) so you can move yourself a little further away to start him further back and see how he does.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
