[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

>> I feel like we get so much done during the live classes with your real-time feedback that we get through a lot of the basic +/- advanced versions in that time

Right!!! It boggles my brain a bit that we pretty consistently get through all the baby and a lot of the advanced stuff in the live class – great group of pups and handlers!!!! And that allows us to add more motion or challenge in the Forum. Fun!!!

Backside slice – he is finding the backside with no questions. Nice! And he seemed equally good, both directions.
And you were able to add more motion, verbal, lateral distance and the serp exit: piece of cake, he says. Yay!

So now we can work on the default of looking for the bar as he rounds the barrel and not looking at you. We can get that by changing the timing and placement of reinforcement. For now, regardless of which handling exit you do, get all of the rewards to land on the landing side of the bump, where the bump meets the barrel. We want him to round the barrel and look for the bar, so the rewards always landing there will get that behavior quickly. And the timing of the click or marker is as soon as he commits to the barrel – so the tossed treat is basically a “thanks for finding the correct side of the barrel” with the placement being where we want him to look next. As with the placement, the timing of the reward drop is the same (as he is committing to/arriving at the barrel) no matter which handling you use. That will help get the reward in position before he looks at you. I think on these reps, you were waiting til he got over the bump, but he was mainly looking at you on those so the coming over the bump was handled in some reps and perhaps incidental in others. We want him to not need handling to find the bump, and the timing and placement will get that going.

Threadles
These also look super, nice job! You can totally add wings the jump now, I think it will be easy for him with the wings.
For the threadle rewards when you were using treats: Stand still on the threadle exit like you do on Serp exit so your motion is not showing the bar and he is turning to it without any help. An empty food bowl can be a good visual for him and then after he turns away towards the bar, you can toss a treat to the bowl (or the treat can already be in the bowl so you don’t need to move at all :)) When the toy is on the ground, do you think he still needs you to move to the toy? I know he thought stationary toys were a bit dull so the motion helped a lot, but we can delay the motion til he turns to the bar, then cue the toy and the motion of you driving to it can also be part of the reinforcement. If he is happy to go to it on his own, then you can stand still there too!

My only other suggestion is that for the threadles, from a stay – you don’t need break as a release because the threadle verbal can be the release (same with the come on the serp, although the break release also generally means ‘take the jump in front of you’ which is fine in the serp context).

Head turns: now he’s got it! Super! And on verbals too, without hands. Cool!!
If you see a great head turn on the first approach like at :28, click it even if you had planned 2 wraps 🙂
He was a little better to his left, I think? But he did well I’m both directions.
There is not a lot of explosive action in this game, so I think doing several reps in a row especially on verbals only might have been a bit boring LOL 😂 so the turns got a little wider – good job adding the hand cue back in for a little bit more action.
Speaking of action… try this game with toys now! One hand does the cues, the other holds the toy (and clicker). The toy will add more action to this, and it also adds more stimulation. That stimulation is perfect for adding challenge because we are basically asking if he can still give us gorgeous head turns and tight turns, even when he is more excited! That will help him keep his behavior crisp like it was here, even when he is running hard and is really excited about it all.

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

Use toys now

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
This is going well! She is really getting the in-then-out idea, I love it!!!!

One suggestion is to have several treats ready in your hand so you can reward and reset really quickly, without needing to reload or break off more pieces.
Have your target hand empty and the reward reast in the other hand like you did at :56 (not in your mouth, because that takes too long to get and she looks at you when you grab it from your mouth).

Your most perfect reps were when the cookies were ready in your hand and when you didn’t move your upper body to toss it as the reward (3:03, for example). That was great and she was fabulous with her line there.

The next step is to get the reward to the ground – the MM will work for that when she knows what it is LOL and you can also use an empty food bowl and plop the treat into it.

Great job! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!
I bet you find perch work useful for obedience too!
I love how she recognized it and hopped right onto it. Yay! We want her head lower, though, so have your cookies ready and hold them at your belly button and not at your heart. The lower head will balance her weight shift so her hind end moves more freely.
For agility, we only need the low head. For obedience, you probably want the higher head (looming at you) but that is easy to get when she understands how to swing all the way around rhe perch into heel position (the reward placement there would be high to encourage the high head).

You can continue to introduce the bump with you helping her by moving, and separately you can also fade out your movement by leaning or taking a tiny shuffle step – then reward her for offering the hind end movement without you moving 🙂
Great job here!
Tracy

Nice work

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!
He is doing really well here, he learns things so quickly! Great session! Since he figure out the concept so quickly, a couple of ideas to move forward to the next steps:

When you are starting this in the different lines of motion (you did mainly position 1, and you can now be moving up the line for position 2 towards the center of the bar), Do this less as a loop where you toss the cookie back to be starting point, but instead more of a reward-placement then reset game. The cookie tossed back to the starting point was not emphasizing the default looking for the bar, so you can change the cookie drop to the landing side of the bump, near where the cone and the bump meet, so he doesn’t look at you and instead looks at the bump as he rounds the cone. The timing of it is as soon as he commits to the cone, you can drop the reward in. That will free you up to leave sooner for whatever handling your have planned and he will commit to the bar without needing any help. This is especially important on the serp exits that you added- as you are serping, the reward still gets tossed near where the cone and bump meet, so he looks for the bar rather than come to you.

And by rewarding at the bar then going back to the reset position for the next rep, you’ll be able to add more of your motion. When you were tossing the cookies back to the reset, you ended up running out of room to move up the line and the deceleration was causing him to ask question about which side of the jump. Motion will support the backside and he can be even more independent, so starting further from the jump and only 1 step ahead of him will help that (rather than sending him back to the start area while you stay close to the jump).
Have you decided on your backside verbal yet? He seems to be finding the backside very consistently so you can add it! That will also help when you balance front side versus backside.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Perfect! And getting to do it at a trial provides get distractions too!!!

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
This is going well too, he is doing a great job coming to the threadle side!

I think your position can be slightly closer to the wing and less on the center of the bar – we want him to be able to see about half of your body on the other side of the wing, not just your hand, so he is sure it is a threadle when you start to add in the serp balance reps.

>> Do I really need a nose touch or are we okay here?

At this stage, no – you don’t need the nose touch anymore. We do need to get some kind of reward on the ground so you don’t have to move or toss it. If the MM is being unreliable, you can still use it as a target and if it doesn’t dispense a treat – throw one into the little bowl attached to it.
Or, you can use an empty food bowl and plop a treat in it. But the main thing is that you don’t move your upper body, so we don’t accidentally build in motion to take the jump. The reward on the ground helps create the default behavior of taking the jump.
Great job! Have fun at the barn!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
He is doing a great job of finding the right part of the barrel! Yay! This is a moving behavior, not a send, so both of you can start much further back from the barrel and be moving up the line – you are on a parallel path to him so he finds the backside without you stepping to it.

>> I was trying to make sure my foot was to the backside.

Yes, and it was… but we don’t want you to step to the backside when he is on a parallel path 🙂 The goal is that you don’t have to step the backside and he finds it independently as you move. So set up the parallel path (starting moving up the line in position 1) and keep moving with the verbal cue and connection – no stepping to the backside 🙂
Keep dropping the treats in on the landing side of the jump and not near your feet – as you get further over into the position 2 line and to the serpentines parallel to the bar, the rewards should keep coming near where the barrel and the bump meet (not near you).

Nice work!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!
I agree, he is starting to understand this! Keep using the clicker for this, it is a perfect behavior for clicking, and you can click if he offers it before you move as well. Be sure to work both sides on this skill (you can change directions in the same session) and also you can start to wait for a few more steps before clicking (use the ping pong idea, so you gradually increase the number of steps by clicking after an easy amount, then a harder amount, then an easy amount of steps, then harder amount and so on).

Try to feed with his head lower, you’ll probably have to bend down a bit to feed so that his chin tips downwards to the ground and not up to you – that will help keep him fromt shifting too much weight to his rear (we need him to be pretty balanced here to make the rear foot movement easy).

Great job!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning! This all looks really strong!

Perch work – this is off to a good start! She totally seems to get the idea of putting her front feet on the perch. She was beginning to get her hind end moving by the end – I think if we can get her head lower, the hind end movement will be much easier. When she is looking up at you, she is putting a lot of her weight into her rear which makes it harder to move the rear. You can bend over ot keep your cookie hands lower, which will keep her head lower… but I know that my back would protest after a couple of seconds so I odn’t want to suggest anything that induces back pain! So you can get a chair or do this on the couch (we are having all of the small dog handlers sit for this game, for now) . You can move your feet/leg towards her while you are sitting, which will move her away and then you can click the back end movement. Do you have a rolling chair or rolling stool? You can also sit in that and roll it instead of moving, which will get her to move and keep her head lower 🙂

Strike a pose is going well! The foundation exercises look great, and I am glad you moved to a jump because she was ready for that as the next step. One big thing to keep in mind is that when you start from a sit, be sure to use your release word. You did on some reps and not on others, she was releasing on the hand movement on those.
About not totally touching the target, especially on the jump reps: that is fine and in fact, it is what we want 🙂 We want her to come in then scoot herself back out without touching your target hand because we will add motion soon. The placement of reinforcement on the other side of you helps us to fade the target out, and it teaches her that the target cue from your hand is both the come in cue and the go-back-out cue for the serps.

So, no worries if she doesn’t touch the target as long as she does the in-then-out behavior. And by the end of the jump session, she totally had it! Yay! The next step now is to get the reward to the ground, so you can use an empty food bowl or Manners Minder, placing it out on the line on the landing side of the jump where you are pointing your feet (keep it relatively close to the jump. And then when she turns that warm you can plop the treat into her bowl rather than feed from your hand.

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

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning! All of these are going well – really good sessions! I have a little suggestion to add in or to move forward, but overall things are looking really good:
First up, threadles:
He is doing well with the threadles!
You can say your threadle verbal more than once to help support the behavior (we would be saying it a few times, at least, on course).
And good job timing the MM click a little later – you can click it as soon as his head turns to the bar, you don’t always need to wait til he is over the bar.
He had trouble with position 2, so be sure to have the target hand presented and you in position for a couple of seconds before you say the close cue – that can help him process what is about to happen. You can also wiggle shake the target hand a bit to help get his attention especially on the harder angles – the threadle hand is a small visual compared to the big visuals of the jump and MM. So you can shake the hand a bit in conjunction with saying close close close

He is also doing well with the backside slices . Your rewards are a little late – I think you are waiting for him to come in over the bar, and using body language/motion to get it. But in order to make it a default, we want to not have to use body language tp get it. So changing the timing and placement will help get that: since he is going to the correct side of the barrel so well, think of the reward as a reward for that (going to the correct side of the barrel) and the placement (right near the barrel, on the ‘landing side’) happens before he even finishes wrapping the barrel. That way, as he comes around the barrel, the reward will already be there and you won’t have to use any body language to indicate it and you can just keep moving away.

Leading with the head – also going well! We are starting to really see that head turn and the bending of the body! The treat toss (like at :23) was generally really good but I think he is having trouble leaving the treat on the first wrap, which is why he was hopping around a bit especially on the first half of the video. So you can have the send and turn hand empty and the threat tossed from the other hand for now, which will also help you be able to give smaller cues with the turn hand!

He got right up on the perch! Nice! I liked the height of the one you put down at :42. But it is nice wide enough for both front feet (perfect height – what do you hav that is wider?) We need the lower height so he doesn’t put too much weight into his rear but we also need the wider surface area so it is very easy for him to get both front feet up on the perch – on the smaller one and also on the pawd, I think it was harder for him to fit both front feet on it as easily as he was able to do on the first perch (which was too tall LOL!! Yes, I am picky haha!) So dig through your kitchen, I bet you have something that is low like the idle perch but wider like the first one.
Then, you can get the motion of the rear going by gently stepping towards him or stretching out a foot towards his back feet. Because he is small, you can start it sitting on the couch so you are not bending over too much, and you can stretch our a foot – he will move away from it with his back feet, and you can reward that.

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

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!
Hope she has forgiven you for the accidental paw stomp!! I am sure she is fine 🙂
She is doing well with the backside slices here! Try to start further away from the barrel, as close to the camper as possible – it looks like you are starting with her and then bending your line a little to commit her to the backside by moving towards it then away. So if she is further back and even in a stay, yo can be ahead and moving when she start moving, so you can be very straight. That will allow you to start to work your way over to positions 2 and 3, which I think she is ready for (these were position 1 mainly).
2 suggestions about the reinforcement:
First, drop it in sooner so she doesn’t watch your hands drop it in. As soon as you believe she is going to go around the barrel, toss the reward in back to where the bump meets the barrel so she is looking there and not at you. The reward is for going to the correct side of the barrel, and placed to help encourage her to look for the bar.
And, I think we can switch up the type of rewards. As you mentioned, the treats were bouncing so it was hard to get them precisely in the spot they needed to be so she was looking for the treat bounce and not for the bump. If you want to use treats, toss them way way back across the bump, so she chases them over the bump and if they bounce on that line, it is still fine. But I think a better reinforcement at this point will be a toy: toss it back past the bump and then she can chase it (and get rewarded for bringing it back.
Toy play means fewer reps because of the play and transitions in between… but the reps will be higher in quality so it is totally worth it!
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!
The retrieve video looks really good!Plus, he is super cute with that toy 🙂 For now, as you build up the toy value, you can keep doing these same retrieve games but add in doing them in training spaces. For example, sit on the floor and toss the toy around in your training area! Then do it near the training “props” like the barrels or jump. Pretty soon the toy play will be transferred to the training stuff too!

Strike a pose is also going really well, I am really happy with how much understanding he is showing! Yay! On these wingless uprights, put more of your body outside the wing so it is more visible as a threadle and less visible as a potential serpentine. It will be even easier when there is a wing there and you have a longer bar. He did really well with the Threadles and when you balanced with serps. Yes, you can keep your position on the same stanchion with the serps and just change hands, but I think he is going to be perfect on either. The only question he had was when you were tossing the start treats relatively close, so he didn’t have time to get it, turn around and then process the cue on all the reps. So, an easy fix: toss the start treat further away so he has more time/room to process which cue it is when he is heading back to you.

360s/head turns: also going well! A couple of small mechanics ideas and it will be much easier: he is already doing really nice head turns and the timing of your ‘yes’ is really good!
2 ideas: you can send him into the first wrap to get the rep started, I think you were waiting for him to offer it and you can use and arm & leg step to get him going.
Then, using the same arm you did the send with, a slight adjustment to where you use your hand should make the head turns even easier: as he finishes that first rep, move the turn away hand to his nose, then let him follow you hand the rest of the way around the upright, pulling him past the front of you a bit – then turn him away. I think on some reps you were stopping your hand on the exit side so he stopped, which made it hard to turn him. So think of it as a pull-then-turn as he follows your hand, similar to a lap turn. You can then toss the treat with other hand if it is easier (treats in both hands, best day EVER for Shelties LOL).

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

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
>> Yes,I’m realize back side wrap might be a different verbal. I just don’t have one. So, I should just leave it out until I come up with one? I guess I could use turn or wrap? But are back and wrap too similar?>>

You can leave it out, but it is better to choose a verbal 🙂 Back and wrap are probably a little too similar. I use dig dig dig – that is a good one if yo are not already using it. “Turn” is a good choice too!

>>Also, on the serp exercises where exactly do you want the reward? You are right that I’m not getting another turn. Do you want it on the take off side of the strike a pose jump? I watched the video again and it looks like they are all on the landing side. But, that doesn’t exactly get the turn away.>>

The reinforcement should be on the landing side of the jump on the serpentines – about 6 inches away from the plane of the bar, placed out past the edge of the wing. So it is pretty close to the wing and the jump, but on the landing side. The turn away happens before she goes over the bump, she will turn away to end up standing parallel to the bar to get the reward.

>>So, I braved the mud for the backside video. I’m not exactly getting a slice and she isn’t always going over the jump bump. What do I change? It’s still pretty soft outside>>

Nice work on those, she is finding the entry to the backside nicely!!!! And nice balance reps for the front side too. What to change? Placement of reinforcement 🙂 On the first couple, when it was just go around the table to the backside, you were rewarding from your hand but you were also right there and not moving away. When you started moving away (parallel to the bump) the placement gets really important: toss the toy to where the wing (table) meets the bump on the landing side – no more rewards from your hand. That placement will really emphasize her turn back to the bar/bump as you move away, getting that default behavior of taking the jump started. The slice will be easy when she knows to take the jump. Towards the end, because the placement of reinforcement was from your hands, she was just locked onto your position. Dropping the reward in on the landing side and nearer to the table will really help get her to commit to the bump as you move away.

Nice work! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!

>>In a way she is doing this every time we go play in the basement as the treats and toys are sitting openly in an area that is somewhat higher and off in a corner. She knows they are there as I go get them as needed from there but she never attempts to go get anything herself.

Great! That is a nice addition to this, both for when you have rewards with you and when you want to practice training without them in your hand.

>>So, when I finish working a session with her do you think I should do the ‘all done’ and go get something specific to either give her as a treat or play tug with? Even if we played tug or had a treat reward on the last thing we did?>>

You can if you want to, but I don’t think you need to if you ended on play. You can exit the session together and go do something else or return to regular life 🙂

Backside video:
DOL – she is finding the backside really well! Great stay rewards throughout! One thing here is that the toy around your neck makes the reinforcement really delayed and caused her to look at you too much (like when you were a little too early reaching for it, she didn’t take the bump). So have the toy in your hand and ready to drop on the landing side of the bump, to get her looking down to the bump and not at you at all there.
Having the toy in hand in the DOR video made the rewards faster for sure- at this point, on either side, you can drop the toy in on the landing side (where the barrel meets the bump) separately from your position. That will get her really looking at the bump and default to taking it, which in turn will allow you to start moving parallel to the bump (like a serp) and she will still come in and take the bump.

>> I suddenly started to wonder if it was better to generally reward the sit while I was moving away rather than doing it while I was beside her given that the majority of the time I would be leaving her. Thoughts?>>

Rewarding her after moving away isolates and rewards the duration of the sit and also the change in your location. In other words, you are rewarding her for remaining in the sit when you are increasingly further away from her, and that is a good thing!

>>Related is that I often give a treat right after they sit and if the above makes more sense should I bother doing that? Especially if the idea is to use a phrase telling her where to expect the treat (for me ‘take it’)? Usually for me those types of commands don’t require the dog to stay in position.>>

Giving her a treat from your hand as soon as she sits will isolate the decision to move into the sit, so it is not a bad thing. But, it might not be needed as you continue to add more and more duration and distance. So doing it sometimes is fine, but you don’t need to do it all the time. As fo the marker for that? If take it means she can move out of position, you can totally use a marker that means “stay in position and I am bringing it to you” – a student in an earlier edition of MaxPup used “pizza” because there was going to be a delivery haha!

>>I don’t think you use different words for the backside slice based on the way the dog is turning, correct? Wouldn’t that make sense to do if you are possibly well behind and the dog would have a choice of sides? Basically, same logic as you use for normal turns on the jump where you use different.>>

This is another thing in the ‘you can do it if you want but you don’t need to do it’ category. The backside slice verbal is partially about telling the dog which jump is the backside approach and how to exit it. As long as we are clear about which jump is the backside jump, then the bar dictates the exit. After all, we aren’t going to indicate the entry to the backside jump and expect the dog to go the other direction, away from the bar. So the context and situation before it will save you from having to add another verbal (same with the backside wraps). I do know of a small group of European handlers that say they have trained it, but the dogs don’t actually need it and I would bet the dogs don’t really understand it. For me, this is different than having left versus right on a jump or wrap because it is indeed possible that the dog would turn away from the line yo are on when taking the front side of the jump – that would not happen on the backside pushes, the bar would always dictate which way to turn (the bar on a front side does not dictate which way to turn).

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

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

>> As we continue working on the threadles, should we mix in serps occasionally in the same sessions?

Yes – you can do that by keeping yourself on the same wing, but changing which arms you are striking your pose with and the placement of reinforcement.

>>I’ll work on improving the treat placement on the backsides. I have been trying reward more with the arm across the body on other games, so I think it bled into this one.>>

That makes sense! Plus we are used to the arm back and empty on the strike a pose games. We need a 3rd arm to reward the dogs!

The remote reinforcement went really well!

Putting the treat bowl on the Klimb made things a little interesting, because he probably has value for also being on the klimb 🙂 He did really well! He had a couple of spins on the first couple of reps, which probably indicates a bit of arousal because he thought it was weird 🙂 but then he was nicely settled in a work focus, no problem at all. You definitely try this with a toy also!

>>Do you think we could add in some cued behaviors next time?

100% yes, I think he is definitely ready. By the end of this session, I think he was waiting for a cue or wondering if he should offer something 🙂 So add in some cues now and see how it goes (I am sure he will be fine with that too!)

Great job! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Author]

Posts