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Hi!
Have you tried the toy-for-cookie loop? This has really helped retrieves with my pups and I think her toy drive is strong enough that you can do it: the goal is to teach her to NOT run off with it 🙂 the retrieve part is easy after that.In a hallway where she can’t go too far, use your get it and toss a toy. As soon as she arrives at the toy, call her back for a cookie (she doesn’t need to bring the toy, she can drop it). Then you can gradually delay the ‘come get your cookie’ cue until she has it in her mouth, then til after she has played with it for a heartbeat, and so on. Eventually you can wait til she has it fully and then call her back for the cookie to both reward NOT running off with it 🙂 Then after she gets her cookie, I toss another cookie another direction, then go pick up the toy.
Let me know if that makes sense!
TracyOh no!!!! I am sorry to hear about your back and hope you feel fine soon!!!!! Big bummer about the trial 🙁
It is a good time to take a break from the twisty bendy moves and work on anything that doesn’t involve your back – maybe retrieving things to you while you are sitting? Or verbal wraps on the barrel while you are on the couch?T
Hi!
Good for you for getting out and training the pups!!! Brisk looked great here!Rocking horses are looking really good. One thing I will bug you about today is to have the rewards ready in your hand and not in your pocket – digging them out of a pocket is both a significant delay and a big distraction. So for this game, have the lotus ball in your hand – part of the game is the pups will learn the self-control of ignoring stuff in your hands 🙂
His commitment is looking good – his right turn seems stronger than his left turn for now, so start a little closer to the barrel for the left turns to set him up for success.
The throws to get him running out of the wraps looked good!>> I would like to see more drive. Is it because I’m not really moving? We need more practice?
Part of this is because we are not really moving so the dogs are not full speed yet – but we need to teach the skill before we can ask for more speed otherwise they will fail. Also, part of it is the reinforcement – ideally, we get toy play involved with this, or you tie the lotus ball to a rope or leash so yo can move it around like a toy.
Also, be sure to give very clear connection. Towards the end, you were disconnecting and pointing forward, so he was not as sure – he stopped completely at 1:26 and slowed down on the others reps. So be sure to make the eye contact as he comes around the barrel and maintain it til he gets to you, then send forward (staying connected as he passes you).Get out looks really good, he was totally happy to go hit the prop! Be sure to balance with him coming to you.
Strike a pose – he is doing really well! Especially on the harder angles – no problems coming in at all. For this game, he needs some sort of jump bar visual, whether it is a jump bump or rolled up towel or pool noodle – the visual of going over something will help him set his turn.
On this game – Focus on your treat mechanics and have your cookies ready – no more reaching into the pocket when you are rewarding him. You should have the cookie reward ready before you send him away to start the rep, so he doesn’t learn to follow your hand or look at your pocket. You can also use an empty food bowl now as the reward spot, and then plop the cookie into it as the reward so he can keep looking forward. He doesn’t have to touch the target at this stage, we can fade it and just have him do the in-and-out behavior. And, use your cookie markers and not yes 🙂 We want to be very precise and ‘yes’ will cause him to watch you more than we want/
Yes, your feet were incorrect on a rep or two, but that will get sorted out when you start moving. You were in the correct position for just about all the reps, so as long as you keep your feet pointed n the generally correct direction, you don’t have to worry about them too much.
>> And last but not least some box work in a large space (sorry, Bailey broke out, little stink). I was really pleased with his enthusiasm and he was seeking out the box (only one time he didn’t).
Did you have a video here? Or is it just an update? I want to make sure I don’t miss anything 🙂
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
He was pretty adorable and brilliant here! Totally pumped up and ready to do SOMETHING without needing cookies in your hands, even if he didn’t know what that something would be LOL! And he was also in the highest state of arousal that I’ve seen him in so far, which could be a combination of excitement and frustration because the cookies are behind him. But that is PERFECT because we can teach him to be excited and still be thoughtful, and work through frustration with this game. He was very successful here!
Working backwards on this video – when you were asking him to do things, he was at his happiest and executed really well! He was excited but didn’t seem frustrated – perfect. My only suggestion is to open your hands so they don’t look like you might be holding a cookie 🙂 That is minor, though, as I am sure his nose tells him there were no cookies in your hand, but we want him to see the picture of open hands too.
You can add other behaviors to this, simple stuff like goat games, or a bit of ladder work, or any tricks you might have.At the beginning, he was very excited but also a little frustrated because he didn’t know what to do. That is a perfect opportunity to teach him a default engagement behavior of just look at you and move with you. He wants to fly around and bark when he is not 100% sure of what to do, so we can use this game as a way to teach him to look up at you (with or without barking, your choice. I personally don’t mind the barking if the dog is engaged). So as you move away from the cookies, just take a step and when he looks at you… mark and reward. That way he can be equally fabulous with both responding to cues AND just offering engagement if you aren’t delivering cues.
And I like how the “all done” was paired with the rest of the cookies on the floor – YUM! Too many folks use an ‘all done’ and just walk away from the pups, which can be quite deflating to the pups! I don’t think StrykR was deflated here, I think he was having the time of his life! Yay!Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! Hope you had fun holidays!!
Strike a pose – I agree, this is harder for smaller dogs! He is doing well here. A couple of ideas for you:
You can start him closer to the jump set up (especially on the first couple of reps where he might be more tempted to run around it) and widen the playing field by putting 2 towels or so between the uprights, so the 2 uprights are more like 5 feet apart like a jump bar would be. That will simulate what he will see when it moves to a real jump. You can also now get a little closer to the jump wing so he has to bend a little more to get to the reward. And you can mark the target hit with a ‘get it’ if that is your cookie-in-hand marker, rather than “yes”.One other thing I notice here is that he was having trouble moving into the sit sometimes. Try to stand up when you cue the sit, bending over is a not a clear cue for him and he might be moving away from the pressure.
Rocking horses:
The singles looked good on both barrels in the first video, things got harder when you were doing 2 in a row especially when you wanted a left turn in that first video. You can hold the sends longer, especially to the left, til he is about halfway around the barrel, then do the FC.Leaving earlier with the FCs will depend on how early you can leave on the turn and burn games (they prime the pump for the rocking horses). You can revisit those as a warm up and see how he does, and that will tell you how early you can do the FC on these or how long he needs you to hold the send forward. When you were leaving too early by dropping your arm and leg back as he was arriving at the barrel, you were pulling him off and that was confusing.
As you saw, the left turns are really hard for him – either left turns are just hard, or maybe moving way from the cookie was hard, but either way I would definitely revisit turn and burn to get the left turns even stronger, whether there is a cookie/toy in your hand or not 🙂
>> I want him to feel more confident in what he’s doing.
Keep a close eye on the number of errors to keep the rate of success really high – that is where confidence comes from. If he has one error… ok, try again. 2 errors (in a row, or in the session): change something so he has massive success after that and no more errors, or stop asking for that behavior til you can figure out why he is not getting it. When the rate of success drops, he will lose confidence and get frustrated which is where you saw him launching for the toy or trying to do right turns around the barrel. So, if he can’t turn left for whatever reason, you can go back to right turns and then try a left turn rom a different angle or on a different barrel, or change the placement of reward by tossing it to the other side of the barrel instead of feeding from your hands. Gong back to the bowls was good to refresh things to get him offering again and raise the rate of success!
>> This was a lot better although I think my arms are probably too much in the picture and now after going through the reinforcement lesson I think I saw ‘Yes!’ way too much. I was wanting to give him some verbal encouragement though and not sure what else to do.
On the second session, you were using a lot more verbal energy and it is good to get him pumped up, but we don’t want to rely on it – so you can chat him up before the send, but be quiet for the send (or use your verbal wrap cue but as with the previous video, I would want it to be solid on turn and burn first). You were telling him “go” which is not good for wraps LOL! And definitely take out the ‘yes!’ because that might mean ‘come get a cookie’ and might be contributing to why he is not wrapping.
>>What else should I be doing to help us advance this game?>>
Revisit the turn and burn game and see how is does with the one step of a send into it. You might need to toss reward to the other side of the barrel as you do the FC. But I think the main thing here is to hold the send til he is halfway around the barrel before shifting your position into the FC. And add in challenge more slowly – he was stronger in the second video, especially with the left turns, so you were doing more in a row. Try to add challenge in more slowly. If you do a whole bunch in a row without reinforcement as you are building this, he will start to ask questions and slow down, which breaks the commitment a bit.
At the end of the 2nd video, you had really short, fast, fun reps and those were GREAT!!!Get out:
At this stage, in both videos, you can keep moving on the out, walking along the parallel line so that he can see the motion (which supports the out) and so that you don’t end up sending with a foot). Slow walking is the place. To start it, you did that on some reps especially in the 2nd video and he did really well!And he did well moving to you even he considered the prop – I don’t mind that he bubbled out towards it a little, it has a ton of value 🙂
And since you were using cookies he had to chew, before each rep, take a moment to be sure he is engaged and finished chewing LOL! Engagement to be sure the dog is ready is an important part of any of our loops here.He had a little bit of trouble at the start of the 2nd video – There might have been a little too much distance from the prop but also I think it was the line – it looks like you were using the rolled up towel to mark your line. But, the rolled up towel has the value of a jump bar now, so he was confused. You took it out after a few reps and he was GREAT! So, using a line on the ground is great but make sure it is something that doesn’t also have value for interacting with (a leash is perfect :))
Remote reinforcement:
The bug was probably delicious lol! Crunchy! Protein!
I think he did well here because it is an odd game at first. The main thing is that you can wait for engagement when moving away, letting him look at you – he was not really looking at anything and was probably wondering what was happening and why, when you ran back for the cookies. Is that where he was looking at another table with treats? That might be why he was not entirely sure where to look.Using the toy was harder but also because it is high value, definitely worth it to use! Start it higher up, such as draped over the back of the wooden chair you have in that room so he fails less. He does get bonus points for turning it into a goat game to jump up and get it LOL! He figured it out by the end, but I think starting the toy higher up will really help get immediate success here.
Nice work on these! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
Wow, really nice session here! And you have some pretty impressive distractions!!! CAMELS?!?!?!?! So cool!!!!! He was terrific.
I think working in the bigger space allowed our to add some really good elements of distance and a little speed, so if his feet held up with no problem, you can definitely keep using this til you get some dry weather.
I love that you were able to build up to you running on both sides, balancing coming to you with the out. He needed a bit of a warm up when you switched to your right side and added running, but you read that and slowed down for a couple of reps and that really helped.
He overall did really well. The best placements of reward were the ones where he was reset to have to move away from you again. Early in the video, your reinforcement was thrown straight so he wasn’t really having to ‘out’ to the prop, he was staying on his line. Later on, you shifted the reinforcement to more of a curve back towards you, which created more of a ‘banana’ shape to his line: starting near you, moving away then back towards you. That worked great for both the out and the staying with you!There is not much to add to the out for now… but if you want to add more variety, you can show him the difference between out and tandem turn/rear cross on the flat handling. The out is a simple lead change away then carry on with moving forward. The tandem turn is the turn away and go back the way you came (and of course there is the just-move-with-the-momma LOL!). He had a question about possibly turning away when you were on the right side but figured it out really nicely after that, so I figured showing him the difference between a get out and a tandem turn/rear cross on the flat would be useful because they both involve upper body cue but different verbals and footwork. Plus, it shows a bit of variety of when to go to the prop and when not to.
Let me know if that makes sense! He looks great!
Tracy
Good morning!
She did really well with her parallel path! Easy peasy! Your clicks were well-timed to hit the moment when she made the decision to go towards the jump (and not when she arrived at it). Yay! You can tell she was liking the clarity because she got faster and faster a faster. Nice!
I think at this point you can drop the clicker and just use your get it for the toss. Clickers tend to get the pups wanting to look at us, so a ‘get it’ and toss can help her not look at you.
How is her retrieve coming? You can use a toy for this too: mark and toss a toy, then reward with a cookie for bringing it back, tug, reset, and do the next rep.Nice work!!
TracyHi!
Reinforcement markers can get kind of complex, so this is just the beginning of it all 🙂 I personally do add additional markers for Contraband: I say ‘bite’ for the toy because he comes in hard for the toy. So if you feel this will add even more clarity for Levy, totally add the toy marker or the cookie marker so he knows exactly what is happening 🙂Tracy
Serpentines are looking good! You were totally in the right spot 🙂 Having you closer definitely helps get the turns and when you had the toy closer to the wing of the jump, she really had to think and turn (good girl!!) On the first couple of reps, you had the toy far from the wing so she didn’t have to turn much. I liked the position of the better after about :13, it was on a better line for the second turn on both sides. My only other suggestion is to keep your upper body frozen until after she reaches the toy – on a serp line in motion, your ‘open’ upper body position would stay open as a way t o cue the 2nd turn. If you close your shoulders forward, she will not read that second turn. For now, the toy is creating it but we want to get ourselves into the habit of keeping the serp shoulders open.
We can start adding a bit of movement to it and that will definitely need your shoulders to stay open: you can have the toy on the ground and, starting from the side of the jump opposite the toy: walk parallel to the jump, nice and close, shoulders open and serp arm back. When you just about reach the wing closer to the toy, release her. Walk as slooooooowly as needed to get success!
On the contact mat – her behavior was relatively similar, but your clicks were MUCH better on the elevated mat 🙂 Your clicks on the elevated mat were all for back feet (the mat on the ground had clicks that were less clear if they were for front or back feet). The next step of mechanics is to throw the treat with whichever hand she is heading towards – if your left hand is closer to where she is heading, toss with that hand (even if the clicker is in it LOL!). You were throwing with your right hand on all of these, which is fine when she was heading towards that side. But when she was heading the other direction, the toss was across your body which was getting her to look at you a bit more. So quick tosses from the hand closer to where she is going will help reduce her looking at you. We do get some looking at us at this level, but that goes away with the mechanics and also when you add in a manners minder or stationary toy.
I am excited to see how she does with the food markers now that the food has come up in value! It was smart to take out the marker til food was higher in value, there is no need to ‘name’ anything that is not fun yet 🙂
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>> Tugging has been a challenge for us – she will play with the toy – follow, maybe chew a little but its rare that I get good tug.
She had her mouth on it here a lot, so we can build that up. If she pulls it, let her win! Most dogs like to win the toy. And you can start with a soft pull then work up to stronger and stronger pulling before you let her win.
>>But anymore than that and she says no toy – just going to sniff, which is where the leash started coming in.
That is a start for now! And also, for now, no more treats tossed on the floor. I think that too much treat tossing has raised the value of sniffing around on the floor. She does MUCH better when the treats are in your hands or from the MM (and probably from a bowl too, see below)/
>>So cutting our total sessions shorter – and doing more tug like activity the 1st time, she will also tug at the end of 1st session but after that runs to her crate.>>
There is probably a lot of cookie value for going into her crate, so you can move the crate from the area and make sure the door is closed so there is not as much of a distraction from the crate.
And add in lots of random toy play in life – tugging, throwing, running around with toys, all separate from actively training anything.
On the videos:
Tugging started off well here and I am excited that she went back to it at the end! Let her win it! What other things does she like to play with or tug on?Prop hits looked good, she has some great value going! This was kind of a combo of back and forth and sending, so try to stick to one in each session and not mix them together. You can do the value back & forth for a minute, then take a break, reset, work the mechanics, then do the sends. The clarity and predictability will help her know what is next, and the mechanics of setting of for the send look different than the back and forth.
And, yo can reward from your hand on these for now – it looks like the cookie tossing is setting her up to sniff for more cookie tosses, so for now skip that and reward from hand. Cookie tossing builds in sniffing and raises the value of the floor, if there is a whole lot of it happening. So, let’s shift value away from the floor (the later videos had more reward from your hands and no sniffing!)Ladder – you can use bowls or a target at each end of the ladder, to place the treats in after she trots through. As with the prop games, it is possible that all the tossed rewards are both hard to find and create sniffing the floor as a very valuable behavior. And, doing this with your hand on her nose is hard on your back and she is not thinking about her foot placement – so you can move to an empty target about 6 feet from the end of the ladder on each side and let her trot through to it.
>> This was our 1st try at ladder. This was our 3rd skill we were working yesterday(she had rest breaks while I worked the older dogs). But I see her lose interest and thought that maybe I try just 2 at a time, thoughts?>>
It is hard to know if it was too many sessions/skills, or if the floor came up in value because the treats were tossed, or if the other dogs barking were distracting – or maybe she just had enough treats and the treats lost value. You can probably do several skills but do super short sessions so treat value remains high.
Wing wraps –
Good tugging to start here! And she did really well here too. Yes, you can replace the ‘yes’ with ‘snacks’ as the ‘cookie from hand’ marker. You might also be able to play this with a long tug toy and see how she does.
Looking at your mechanics… Be more ready at the start of your session. Cookies should be in your hand, ready to go, not in pockets. If she starts without you because you were not ready… reward her anyway. Your position near the buckets at :45 was the cue to start, so she did… and then you didn’t reward so she started sniffing. So always be ready!
Good mechanics also help her focus on you not on the floor. Note how she was able to avoid sniffing for the rest of the session because she had a high rate of success and the reward placement as very predictable and NOT on the floor 🙂 Super! You were able to add in leaving earlier too, her commitment looked strong!Tunnel value is starting to look good too! And she definitely seems happy to go to the Manners Minder 🙂 Looking at mechanics here too – I think the offering was a little confusing for her as to when to start and what to do – so we can clarify when she should move to the tunnel. You can start with a clean start: hand on collar, saying tunnel, then let go so she knows when to start. That will add the verbal as well as give a clear indication of starting. Start her on an easy angle then you can work up to the harder angles.
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyYes! There are 2 more classes after this one (the next one will start in March) and then the obstacle skills classes… then the dogs will be ready to compete!
Tracy
Good morning!
Jackpot is the remote reinforcement mark for food, and gravy is for toys? I love the words – distinct and also funny 🙂
She did really well with these games! Yes, she didn’t recognize gravy or jackpot as releases but that is not a problem because she will figure it out with more experience, and also because we generally use remote reinforcement with moving behaviors in agility (like the end of a run, or doing the weaves without anything in our hands, etc). I do have a remote reinforcement setup that works start lines stays but it is a different marker to mean “get the reward behind you”.
She seemed very keen to play this game and was even offering ‘extras’ like the extra right spin LOL!! She was doing a bit of hand checking when you played with the toy – I take that as a “are you sure there are not cookies in there?”question so you can keep your hands open and not closed.
And I think she was GREAT with the toy play!!! All play, no frustration in the form of not playing or not letting go of it – gotta love that! Clarity and high rate of reinforcement definitely contributes to her happy play here. Great job creating that!!Well done – you can take this game to as many different places as possible in coming weeks, so she gets to see that it is a game that can be played anywhere 🙂
TracyAwwww poor broken Sheltie baby LOL!!! He deserved a good nap, he did really well with his serpentines!!! Strike a pose went really well. Only little details to bug you about – try to point your feet towards the reward and not towards the target hand (although bending down was perfect and probably made your foot position too hard to twist the other way :))
And, try to have a treat ready in your hand and don’t keep your hand in your pocket. Dogs are brilliant at watching pockets LOL! But, going to the next step will also help that: time to get the reward on the ground to lower his head. I think an empty food bowl is a good starting point, placed on the ground out under where your reward hand is. When he comes into the target hand, you can mark it and plop the reward into the dish 🙂Great job here!!! Hopefully he is rested up for more later 🙂
TracyHi!
>>Question about the contact mat – I’m not sure what this would look like:
“You can also elevate it by attaching it to something higher (maybe 2 inches tall) so you can isolate the back feet because she lifts them to get on the mat.”>>I attach the mat so the dogs step up and across it, and over it – something like this to start:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KUg5Thh1IYWD8tnI-pHoz37-OP1TIHp45rrBnra6Ib8/edit?usp=sharing
I can really isolate clicking for the back feet when the dogs have to step up onto something.
On the video:
She did well in the dirt barn! All sorts of new distractions and she looked great!On all of the wraps for now, do a front cross not a post turn. The FCs are more helpful for getting the pups to dig in around the barrels and to get commitment while you leave sooner and sooner. You were tending to post turn & back up when you wanted to reward her, so keep working the FCs.
>> She had some trouble ignoring the toy in my hand at the beginning, but seemed to work through it.>>
I don’t think this was a toy-in-hand question from her, it was more of a handler mechanics question. 🙂 When she was coming off the wing or looking at the toy, you were withdrawing the send cue too quickly, while she was still behind you and not close enough to the wing. An example of that is at :13: As she was arriving at your leg there, your feet were together and you were looking ahead, so there was a bit of a connection break. The feet together there mean your send leg had already stepped back, which pulled her off the wing. So, she curled into you.
This also happened at :35.Compare that to :29, when you held your send step longer til she was past you and loser to the wing, so she committed really well! And at :50, :59, 1:13, 1:39 for example, you ha dthe toy in the dog-side hand and she didn’t look at it because your connection was clear and your send leg held the send til she was past you.
So the key is going to be holding the send leg forward til she is past your for now and a little closer to the wing – the wing doesn’t have as much value as the barrel for now. You can do this by slowing down the mechanics to send forward ti the dog-side leg too if you are using the dog-side arm. It will get easier as she gets more experienced.
If you are starting with a ‘sideways’ send, you will want to send with the arm next to the barrel, not across your body (1:06 and 1:10 were both across the body, I was not sure if it was a forward send or intended to be sideways – so be sure to take a moment to set the mechanics, then send her.)
>> And also did a little turn and burn.>>
She totally likes those! And you were clear with the mechanics so she was committed really nicely!
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>The forward focus is better, but she’s skipping rungs. I thought I filmed tonight with treats in the ladder, but…..apparently I did not!>>
Overall she is pretty balanced here and definitely much better with the forward focus! And yes, she is skipping a bit at the end of he ladder (mainly on your left side). It could be that the ladder is a bit small for her to compress her trot with you moving, so you can take out your motion for now – start her in the middle of the ladder and let her trot to the bowl at the end, without you 🙂 The cookie can already be in the bowl or you can toss it towards the bowl as she exits the ladder. If she can do it from the middle of the ladder, you can back her up to the entry. If the middle is too hard, have her trot out from from the last run of the ladder.
I think when she was on your left, there was less room between the ladder exit and the bowl so she was trying to decelerate and couldn’t really do that in the ladder – so you can have her going the same way in the ladder (away from the camera) and you switch sides of the ladder, so she can be on your left and on your right. It won’t be back and forth, but you can set the loop differently: she is on your right, trots to the bowl, you step over the ladder and call her to your left side, reward and reset, then into the ladder to the bowl, and so on.
Eventually this will move to cavalettis where she can open up her trot a bit more than the ladder allows 🙂
Nice work!
Tracy
