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Hi!
>>When I first read this…I thought…no problem, I know how to shape her to “get on the thing” but I do it with a FOOD LOOP, cookie toss “reset.” But That’s not the point here, is it !!! So, thank you for explicitly pulling this out–shaping in arousal, switching from food to toy. This is a weakness of MINE, my dogs don’t normally switch well….so guess whose problem that REALLY is! *I* get too much reinforcement using food, and forget to switch.>>
You are 100% right – food loops are good for some things… but we need to be able to get more stimulation involved (so the dogs grow up to remain “thoughtful” while in the higher arousal elicited in the sport environment) and we also need to get the food-and-toys back and forth established 🙂
Plus this is great for working on handler mechanics!
It is a pretty universal struggle for all of us 🙂 which si why starting it simple with getting on a mat is the best way to do it.
>>Not sure how much arousal there is here, but it is baby steps!
There was enough arousal that she tried to grab the toy as you moved it away! And that is good, because there is also a self-control element: yes, you are excited, now ignore that toy and offer small foot movements 🙂
She did well here! Note how she was beginning to NOT grab for the toy by the end! And she was able to go back to food to offer behaviors, then back to the toy – perfect!
Mechanics were really good, just one little suggestion: You can take an extra moment between the end of tugging and target being place on the floor – you can try taking the toy back, getting the treats out and then putting the target down. That way you can be totally ready for that first offer, and have several treats in the hand so you don’t have to go back into the pocket for another. You can keep playing with this style of shaping, getting her to offer on just about anything you can think of in terms of climbing on or getting into 🙂
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHa! I don’t blame him, I would not want to lie down in the mud either LOL! He was a good boy in his sits here!
TracyHi! He is doing well here!
One thing that can makes things go very smoothly if you had more ‘ping pong’ of when you marked behavior and went to the remote reinforcement – the sequences were pretty long, so be sure to mix in some shorter sequences and easier reps, so he can get reinforcement earlier. That can help him be even more engaged because his rate of success will be higher so that as you extend it to add longer courses, he will stay engaged better because the reward could happen at any time. And, try to mark and then run back to the reward when he is moving away from it and not towards it – if you consistently do it when he is moving towards it on course, he will anticipate that and run for it when he sees it.One thing to train – can he stop on the DW without you rotating to face him and without reward on you? He had a little trouble with that, and it is a great winter project to get him to stop on the DW with you anywhere 🙂
The enxt step of true remote reinforcement wouldbe to not have your bait bag on your waist 🙂 (I think that is what it is!) So there is truly nothing on your person, it is all remote.
And good job adding in the balance of the toy in your hand.And with the handling – he wasn’t being naughty about the jump versus tunnel on the line closer to the camera when you wanted the jump but he was taking the tunnel – your physical cues and position all said tunnel. so he was being a good boy 🙂
>>Do you have a blooper roll with your dogs I need more Tracy says and does this when her dogs mess up?
I do include the bloopers but I ping pong a lot, so there are not a lot of bloopers 🙂 One thing you can do if you get a blooper during the remote reinforcement is bring him back to start again on leash! It is easier than waling him back by the collar and also it helps get hte leash into the picture as part of the process.
>>And I finally found a none squeaky ball he will fetch consistently outside we’ve been doing a few blow steam off fetches at the end of these.
Awesome! A bit of running around is definitely a great balance for him!!!
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>, I observed a few dogs that had been trained to get their leash from a chair after their run. This should help with diverting focus on the ring gate where treats tend to happen.>>
I am not sure if those dogs were actively trained to do that, or if they were experienced enough to have made the connection by themselves LOL! Either way – I agree that it gives the dogs a focal point that starts the reinforcement process 🙂
TracyHi!
Welcome back, it looks like it was so fun!!!
>>Road tripping and practice hasn’t worked.
Understandable and relatable!
>> I could actually catch the live class tonight, but I haven’t done anything from last week and 1 from 2 weeks ago 🤦🤦 So would it be better to use tonight to catch up or watch the live class?
Come stop by the live class for a bit! And then when you are home and rested up, you can catch up!
>> Is it better to go in order?
Yes, it is better to go in order for most of the games we are adding tonight. But there is one that you can do right away. Plus the other games will give you an idea of where we are going with things 🙂
>>On a positive Steve’s 4th place finalist, won $50 J & J gift certificate and $100 from AKC, so I’m using it for a manners minder 🙌 I just have to find the gift certificate……>>
WOW! CONGRATS!!!!!! That is so exciting!!!!!!!!!
Tracy
Good morning!
This all looked great!Rotated sends – He was totally getting the hang of this! As you cue the send, your arm doesn’t have to swing, it can indicate on the entry side of the barrel without circling around it. I think he was more comfy with the sideways sends by the end of the sesison here, so on the next session start with those them go to the backwards sends.
Contacts – This is going well too! He has plenty of value – the cookie makes it a little boring but we kind of want to keep it in the not-terribly-exciting zone for now 🙂 If you have a MM and he likes the MM, you can do a bit of back-and-forth by having the MM on one side for him to go get the reward, then when he hits it on the other side, you can toss the cookie. As you keep clicking, you can stare at the mat so you can see the moment his back feet hit it – that will make it easier to see as he gets faster and faster.
Parallel path – this is going really well too. Your Papillon running fast the other direction was so funny!! As you add more and more motion to this, try to click for his intent to move to the jump, not his arrival at the jump. You were clicking when he was arriving between the uprights, which was getting him to look at you. But if you click intent, meaning he has made the decision to move to the jump – and then toss the treat far to the other side – he is not going to look at you. So his ‘intent’ moment might be a solid 10 feet from the jump, and that is fine 🙂
I also think you can add more of your motion and use a toy reward – he is working beautifully for the cookies but I bet a toy would really mak things more exciting 🙂Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
Sorry for any confusion – it has to do with the rotation of the lower body relative to the wing, and also that we don’t want your arm to ever need to cross your body to the opposite hip on a cue for a wrap (yes, we do that for threadles or certain styles of reinforcement but ideally not for rotated sends for crosses or wraps).So if she is turning to her left:
on a forward send, your belly button would be facing the wing and you would send her on your right arm.
On a sideways send with her turning to her left, your left hip would be next to the wing and you would send with your left arm/leg (as if you were already done with a front cross and you were going tp pick her up on your left side after she finished the cross)On a backwards send with her turning to her left, your back would be facing the wing and you would send with your left arm/leg (also if you were finishing a FC and picking her up on your left)
So with the left turns that started at :35 (and also at :41) – as you sent her, your left hip was facing the wing but your right arm and leg indicated the wing and that caused you to almost fully rotate but not entirely (your left leg stayed planted). It is possible that you were thinking of this as the forward send, so used the right arm/leg – but you were rotated to start it so ideally the left arm/leg would be more useful there.
At :47, you did a fully sideways send to perfection – so what might be happening is that your lower body is starting in roughly the same (sideways) sending position at both :35 and :47, but you were thinking of :35 more as a forward send? If so, face the wing more directly on the forward sends so your toes and belly button ar facing the wing.Hopefully that makes more sense. If not, I will get a visual for you.
Tracy
Good morning!
>> I do actually wear different clothes everyday, I just always throw on this grey dog training sweatshirt (or the black one) with tons of pockets when it’s time to train and it’s cold out.
Ha! I didn’t think anything of it… we have so much red clay and mud here that I always throw on whatever is old and already dirty LOL!!! And pockets are a MUST of course 🙂
The tandems with the prop look great! The earlier you called him to you, the better the rep was
like at :15 on your right side and at :46 on your left side and the last several reps on your left. If you waited til he was on his way back to you, even for a stride, he was (correctly) focusing on the line (on the prop). When you called him as soon as the cookie was in his mouth or swallowed, he came directly to the tandem turn. Nice!!! Eventually, on a simple tandem turn on course, that early name call with do the trick. Or, you’ll find that the threadles work similarly in terms of timing but we would use the threadle verbal.Nice work here! See ya tonight!!!
TracyGood morning!
>>And yep, I need to pay more for the effort anyway, because it was, as it 99.9% of the time is, my mistake!
My philosophy has changed over the years – I now pay a LOT for effort especially with handling, for 2 reasons:
the errors are mine, either in training or handling
and if perhaps the dog makes a rare mistake – one reinforcement won’t build that into an issue. But withholding reinforcement, even sometimes, can definitely create issues!Being able to review so much video has caused me to just blame myself and not the dog LOL!
Rotated sends:
It is fine that you didn’t use the verbals yet, we can add those when he does to the barrel more readily on the sends – he had some questions here (that is pretty normal for the first time). A couple of ideas to help him out:it helped to do a little bit of ready ready for him so he knew the send was coming, so keep doing that 🙂
Another thing to help – let him see you shift your eyes from his eyes to your hand, as you do the send. So basically your eyes will go from his cute little face and will follow your hand all the way throught the send. That can really help him know where to go – when we look at the pups the whol time, they often just look back at us 🙂 And keeping your hand lower will help too.>>I had a total brain fade at about :52 where I forgot which hand I was supposed to be using
Yes, you cued from the wrong side which is why he thought you were nuts LOL! But he got rewarded so he was happy.
One more suggestion – you can use some boring cookies for this too – the toy looked really interesting, so he was less likely to leave you to commit to the barrel. Starting with boring cookies can get him moving away form you better, then you can build back to the toy 🙂
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>>I really want to work on keeping my arms lower. I tend to have big arms when I run.
I practice keeping my arms lower by running with an open bottle of water in my dog-side hand – you’ll feel it right away if your arms get big or flingy 🙂
>>I am hoping that Dice will make me to use rear crosses on occasion.
Oh, I can tell already, you’re gonna need some rear crosses LOL!
>.This was the first session with the jump. It took a couple times on the one side but when I watched the video I wonder if my arm was back a bit on that side closest to him and maybe he was assuming I was going to call him into me?
He did REALLY well here, good boy! I think on the first couple of reps where he didn’t take it on your left were just because you were a little too far from the wing, and he might have more value for being near you when on your left. So on the next session, start your line of motion being closer to the wing, just skimming past it, so he has an easier time finding the bump and it is much harder to pass it (because there is no room between you and the wing LOL!)
You got things rolling really nicely after a couple of cookie tosses and he had a lightbulb moment – then you easily added distance. YAY!!!>> I also wondered if you would prefer I trade out the jump bump for something more flat? He did “jump” a bit on a few of the reps.
I don’t think he was formally jumping – I think he was joyously bopping along. LOL!!! So the low bump here is fine. Plus, we aren’t going to do thousands of reps, so he will not have any impact on his body. The session looked lovely!
Running Contacts Foundation:
This is also looking really good! It was a nice big obvious mat and he had no trouble offering behavior. The next step now if to only click for the back feet hitting the mat (which is what most running dog walk programs use) – I suggest NOT looking at him, but just staring at the mat the whole time so you can see the moment the back feet hit.Have you started playing with the Manners Minder yet? I think you mentioned it but Ican’t find that above. If not – you can itroduce it to him separately to make sure the noise of the grinding gears is fine, and then add the beep. If you have introduced it to him and he likes it, you can put the MM out past the mat on one side and then use that – you can developing a back and forth game where he gets clicked with the MM going one direction, then comes back through the mat and you toss the cookie the other direction.
>>I don’t have a PVC box made yet.
You can make a box if you think you want to use it for a running a-frame, or you can juts use the mat (I just use mats, but it is fun to shape the box too!)
Great job here! See ya tonight!
TracyGood morning!
>>I’ll look around for an alternative. A regular wing won’t do at this point?
You can do the turn and burn game on the hydrant on the ground – if can be a little lower for the beginning of the game, as we don’t want to start it on a wing (there is conceptual work there so we want to NOT have any real obstacles involved yet :)) . You can start shaping with the actual wing (the 2 bowls routine) and then the wing will have value and be ready with the transfer into the other games when she understands turn and burn.
>>Playing with the last couple of things in Week one. So here is the
Blind Cross Foundation Fun>>This looked great! Nice mechanics throughout, she had no trouble seeing which side to be on. Perfect! Yay!! You’ll see the next elements of this game add in decel and pivots, which will work perfectly in this space because you have to decelerate in order to not run into anything. If you have a longer hallway or any room to run outside, take these blinds there so she can open up and feel the wind in her hair 🙂 That will also challenge the mechanics because you will be running and having to do all the things 🙂
Great job here!!!
TracyGood morning!
I like the MM but the Pet Tutor appears to be a far more reliable and less noisy device – so if you have the Pet Tutor, I recommend starting with that 🙂
Great job on this session – her commitment looks fantastic, she looks like a great combination of explosive and thoughtful – so we can get into some of the little juicy details:
The verbals are going well!!! Keep up the good focus on those!
OK, let’s obsess on the little details of handling 🙂 because now is the time to think about how you would like to stylize your handling. Bearing in mind that the sideways and backwards sends are basically showing the dog the last element of the commitment cue, as you would be finishing the rotation… At the beginning of the video, you were doing a sideways send with your arm across your body and the accompanying leg. What I mean by that is that your right side was next to the wing, and your left arm & leg did the cue (along with the verbal).You can use that cross-body cue if you like… but I think using the arm and leg next to the wing (in this case, the right arm and right leg) will ultimately be more effective for a variety of reasons (allows for earlier rotation, doesn’t get confused with any rear cross cues, allows you to move away sooner, and more).
Note how she commits nicely even when you give a small indication with that right arm right leg, like at :10 when you were moving and kinda pointed behind you: boom, off she went to the wing. GOOD GIRL! Then you did several backwards sends using the right arm and right leg – no problem at all, she was lovely.
When you switched sides, you started with the sideways sends and used the cross arm (right arm across the body). Then when you went to the backwards sends at :46, you used the arm/leg closer to the wing (left arm/leg in this case) and she was perfect.
So, you can do the sideways sends with the same arm & leg as you were doing the backwards (or mostly backwards) sending – the arm & leg closer to the wing.
And because her commitment looks so good, you can now add in countermotion: as she is passing you to go to the wing, you can now begin moving away (towards where you were throwing the cookie, just like you did with the prop).
Great job here! Fingers crossed that you get some good weather soon because so much of htis can be taken outside whenever you get a chance 🙂
Tracy
This all sounds good! Because she is sensitive about the noise, you want to set it up for now that she doesn’t react to it at all, almost to the point that you wonder if she even hears it LOL! So if she looks cautious – make it easier because cautious is still worried. That can apply to anything she might be cautious about, including the bang of the board. Keep it on the carpet til she has zero caution – then when you move it to the tile, put a towel under it to dampen the sound there too.
>> “a bit of stress but still doing it”>>
Ideally, we want zero or so little stress that she always seems happy to do it – that will get her into the doing it and happy zone 🙂
Keep me posted!
TracyHi!
>>That makes sense to work through “reaching for the toy just before motion” as a trigger. It’s been the “oh crap I did it again” moment on a few training runs.
Yes, we are human and do things like reach for the toy, so it is easier to teach the dog to ignore it LOL!
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Based on how hard it is, I think she will get a lot out of it!!
Tracy
