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Good morning! Lots of great stuff in this session!
Great use of the toy on the first sequences – it was both a remote reinforcement AND a placed reward for that big go line. He was great! And I also love that he brought it to you on that 2nd rep (and didn’t run off with it at all here!)
I think the next step here is to try the exact same thing, but without the treat pouch (that will change the picture entirely!) Do everything the same except put the treat pouch up on a table behind him, 10 feet away or something that is not terribly distracting. The visual of he treat pouch is something we can work on fading as remote reinforcement too, because he will need to see you without it at trials (and it is a perfect thing for remote reinforcement!)
>> target mat at the bottom of a frame still a wip>>
I like the idea of a mat as target to help him out. You can break it down so that he understands how to get the reinforcement without you needing to stop or face him – I like to hop the dog on the side and let them move to target position with me a little behind them or with me moving past, then use the catch to get the reinforcement to him in position.
Nice catch on the stay in front of the jump! Overall, his tugging looks great! Towards the end he got into some plucking so you can go to an immediate trade for a treat or another toy, as an anti-plucking measure LOL!
So on the next session, definitely try adding the challenge of a couple of reps of the treat bag on a table, as the remote reinforcement.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
So for clarity (and also to overcome my lack of coffee :)):
>> I understand the differences so I am going to add a new marker for our turn back back to the food. It is going to be “food”. I am going to keep “cookies” for the reward outside the ring marker. If I release them forward to take the jump I use the word break and then I can run with them back to the manners minder and use the marker “get it”.
The turn back and get the thing behind you: “Food”
Remote reinforcement, such as cookies left on a table outside the ring at the end of a run: “Cookies”Is “get it” specific to the Manners Minder? Or will the MM be used as a remot reinforcement, same as “cookies”? Just trying to make sure you don’t have to worry about extra words, we all have a lot of words to remember already LOL!!!!
>> So we have been working on staying focused in the storage room which is just a walled off area next to the big room.
Good for you! Brilliant way to break it down!
>> The total time we were working in the storage room was about 11 minutes
That is a long time for working, so you can add in chilling out on a mat, or a snuffle mat, so he has brain breaks in there too.
Even though he doesn’t need the leash here, I suggest using it anyway because the leash elicits a conditioned response and changes arousal. So I use it a lot (even in my own backyard :)) so it can blend into the background and there is no conditioned response when it comes out.
The run looked good and extra hooray for the stay!!! You can use the catch procedure for this – one little pink panher step away and then a catch, and build up to more duration (mixed in with releases forward).
The run looked AWESOME 🙂 Hooray!!!
>> We have a way to go yet but this is definitely good progress.
This is HUGE progress!! I am doing a happy dance for you!
>>But I think what you are trying to tell me is that I need something less extreme to use to practice the games.
Yes – before we can work in the big distractions, we need to teach the dogs the coping skills of what, exactly, earns reinforcement. Same as teaching the weaves – we break the weave skill down, we ateach it with a lot of reinforcement, we build it up into sequences, we add distractions – so when the dogs get ot sequences with weaves and distractions near weaves, they already have an understanding of how to earn rienforcement involving weaves.
Engagement and focus is a behavior, just like weaving (harder in some ways though). So just like weaving – we break it down, teach them how to earn reinforcement, build it back up, gradually add distractions and so on.
The video with Keltie is looking good! She seemed to think this was easy peasy, and that is exactly how we want to start” easy to be correct, super high rate of reinforcement.
2 ideas for you:
– take this skill away from the agility obstacles, because when the handler is moving towards obstacles we want the dog to take the obstacles and not look at the momma 🙂 Same with the MM – rather than have it right on her path, have it a little more off to the side. A MM on the path is often used as a target, so we don’t want to muddy that at all.
– as with Buccleigh… do this on leash (I know, it is totally weird LOL!) because the more you incorporate leash procedures into all of your training, the easier it is for you to manage the leash and the easier it is for the dogs to not get over-stimulated when the leash is in the environment.>>I could also use a food bowl and I have a couple of toys that hold food that would also capture their interest.
Sounds good! Start with them empty, then add the food distraction. And build up to things that might move,
>>Am I on the right track?
Totally YES! We are building up to the harder stuff by teaching them how to earn reinforcement at each step. Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi again! I love that you are making up your own procedures and games here – brilliant!
This is a super fun game for the MM value building!!!! My only suggestion is to have the ball in the thrower thing before you click the MM – you are not really wanting to reinforce the retrieve, you are more interested in building up the MM – so if the ball is in the chuck it and then she eats the cookies from the MM… you can chuck the ball sooner and make a stronger pairing.
And you can also loop the MM in as a reinforcement: wing wraps, MM, chuck it. Wing wraps, MM, chuck it 🙂 You might already be doing this because there are wing wraps right there 🙂 And you can put the MM into any fast & fun sequencey thing, right before a chuck it throw 🙂
Here are some visuals of that behavior – MM – toy game. My markers have evolved since then, so ignore the old words 🙂 but you get the general idea of how I was using existing behaviors to get the pup to enjoy the MM (he thought is was STOOOOOOOOPID)
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning, fellow member of Team Fake Chill!
This is a good behavior to use as a platform for planning. And more planning will make for a more efficient session, with more behavior that you want and less that you don’t want. Geeking out over this stuff will make all training in the future even easier 🙂I tend to watch the videos before I read the comments – and I think more clarity will help here because as I watched it I couldn’t exactly figure out what the behavior was. And I think it was the same for her – she had a general idea that it was something with the target, but she didn’t know exactly what.
So, some ideas for you:>> It will be used for teeter training.
That is good to know, and we can plan backwards from the finished behavior. It sounds like this will eventually become a 4on behavior, where she drives to the end of the board independently of you, not looking at you (this is key) and with you anywhere except facing her (because we never really face them at the end of the teeter, we are always moving somewhere or behind them).
With that in mind – I suggest changing the set up so that she moves ahead of you to th target, rather than facing you – by facing you, the body position of you facing her and her looking at you gets built in and then it is harder to fade.
And since we want her driving ahead and looking ahead, for now use a ‘get it’ for tossing the treat out ahead (it is also a release) and then you can use a ‘shhhhhhhh’ to reset her. Get it here on this session as a reset worked well, but it set her up to look at you while offering the behavior, so we want to see if we can switch that around.
One more question:
>>wanting sustained interaction.
What does that mean, specifically, in terms of rewardable behavior? She seemed to have an idea that it was about going to the target but then she didn’t know what you wanted – you got lots of down and looking around, which might be similar to a mat behavior. So defining sustained interaction will help you decide how to split and reinforce the behavior.
One more idea:
Use your marker words, don’t say yes 🙂 Yes is a little too general and causes her to look at you – and using the premise that everything between the click (the yes, in this case) and the reward gets reinforced, then the looking at you after the yes and before the catch will get reinforced and you will get looking at you as part of this – which is probably not something you want on teeter behavior.Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>>It’s a little unexciting to watch, but Keiko was engaged the whole time>>
I find this stuff VERY exciting because when the dogs understand what to do when presented with distractions, it gets much easier to generalize that behavior to all sorts of situations!
>>especially one where one or both of her sisters would be outside the fenced area watching or (worse!) playing with their Daddy. Super hard – it’s going to have to go up near the top of the list.>>
These are great distractions for a few reasons:
– she isn’t worried about them, just stimulated
– these distraction simulate trial distractions (especially if The Daddy wants to come watch her run at trials!)
– you can easily control these distractions in training, in terms of intensity, distance, etc.
All good to work on!The Find It review was a great warm up. And the open lotus ball with treats was a little distracting but no too much! She did really well with that, even when a find it treat bounced right next to it 🙂
The outdoors sessions also went well. Dead toys and the food container were no problem for her (the moving food was very high value for her). Being both on leash and off leash – also no problem, she was super successful for both!
Ok then, since this is going so well – let’s plan the next steps:
The ‘happy’ distractions can increase in difficulty. With The Daddy be willing to sit outside and let her play this game with him as the distraction? And if that goes well, maybe add in one of yoru other dogs, just hanging out with him?
And at classes, if she is happily wanting to greet other people or dogs, you can play this at a big enough distance where she can be sucessful. And also if she is happily distracted by dogs running in the ring – you can start to install that at a big enough distance that she can offer engagement.
As the difficulty of distractions increases, the length of session should decrease because she will mentally tire out more quickly.
Separately from happy distractions – you have mentioned that sometimes she worries about things in th environment. Make a hierarchy list of these too – then start with a very short session with the easiest, least worrisome one, with you at a big distance away with the highest vaue food. If it appears that she doesn’t even notice it, then you are doing it right 🙂 We proceed far more slowly with any worry distractions because worry or fear wakens the ‘lizard’ brain, and the decision-making process is different for the dog (or should I say – they can’t make operant decisions when faced with worry, so the training is very careful to help build in a positive conditioned response more than an operant response).
Let me know what you think! She is doing really well so we can systematically work through all sorts of distractions 🙂
Tracy
Hi there! He is doing so well!!!!!
Some ideas for you:Drive forward: When using the stay, release him before he looks back at you (which will be pretty soon after the toy lands) so he doesn’t look at you and so he doesn’t break the stay 🙂 His stay looked really strong!!! You can also hold him so there is more of a race feel as you move into the next steps, which is starting the toy races (less control. more go go go 🙂 )
Circle work/decel: it is hard because he is so little 🙂 He did best when you turned a little slower (like on the 2nd rep) and when the toy in your hand was presented a little later (like at 1:34, that was really nice!!) And you can also add a long wooden spoon so you don’t have to bend over as much – when you bent over on the last rep, it was great so he didn’t hop up, but we don’t want your back to get angry from too much bending 🙂
He is ready for you to add moving into the decel before the pivot rather than standing still til he gets to you: so give yourself a long lead out, keep walking, release, then slow down when he is halfway to you so he sees the transition into decel – then do the pivots that you did here.
Plank work – very smart to already be low when you started, that really helped him!!! Good boy getting up on the plank!!! He was really great with hopping on and hopping off and you were great with the cookie tosses so he was happy to keep hopping on and off 🙂 Now that he is so good about getting on it, try having him turn in a slow circle on it with a cookie hand for him to focus on – that way he can start thinking about his balance and where his back feet are too!
When getting the toy play going, move away from the cookie zone (plank :)) at first so he stops thinking about cookies, then get it closer. He did well with interacting with the toy, but he totally seemed to still have cookies on his mind 🙂 so moving away from there will help to get the great toy play you had in the driving ahead game.
Barrel game
He had a little trouble with the big barrel here! How far away were you from it at first? Looked pretty close, so I don’t think distance was the question – probably size of barrel 🙂 So, you can almost hug the barrel with your hands at first to get the game rolling, then fade your hands back – you did a bit of that starting at 1:12 and you can totally start that way to jumpstart the game, especially when you have a new barrel or new location. It can mirror how the game started on the flat – getting the rhythm with the cookie drops, then delaying them to let him offer more and more, then he will be zipping around the barrel. Also, I almost think he would do better with you standing, based on that very first rep where you were a bit more upright: he zipped right around it. So feel free to try standing and see how he does!Backing up:
He did well here! You got some really good backing up going and no barking! (OK, a little barking towards the end but that might have been excitement barking) After he does a long distance one, you can call him back so he doesn’t stay out away for too long.
I think he is ready for the next step where he backs up onto something – this will really get him using his back feet as a way to find things and also will help keep him straight as he backs up (rather than curling off to the side).Great job on all of these! Let me know what you think! And best of luck at Tryouts, we are rooting for you!!!!
TracyHi! Glad to see all the nice weather!!!
He has lovely value for his prop! Yay!
Yes – try to say get it, I think that will help. A couple of things about mechanics – have the cookies ready to toss, the moments when you were reaching into your pocket caused him to look at you more than needed. He was better on your right about looking for the target and on your left, he wanted to look at you more – maybe you are doing some heeling or something? So a little extra practice on your left to get his eyes on the prop will smooth things out 🙂>I noticed I need to throw the treat and let him drive forward, I think the time he looked at me, I hadn’t thrown the treat or indicated driving forward. >>
Yes – I think the first couple of throws were a little too random so he didn’t know where to look. But as they got clearer, he got stronger with driving ahead.
One last thing – don’t say go 🙂 This is not a go, because he actually has to collect a bit to hit the prop. Plus, we want to name extension over a jump as a go, so for this – just be quiet til you say get it 🙂 I know it feels weird to be quiet LOL!!
Great job on these! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
I am glad you got to work with Suzie! She knows this program pretty darned well at this point 🙂 Hold off on the figure 8s and fanciness for now – we build up to it when the single barrel is amazeballs.One thing to be careful of on the barrel games is that you don’t go right into handling and skip the parts that get the speed and commitment – he is doing well here in terms of going to the barrel… but we can ramp it up a lot before asking for more. Keep it simple for now so he can really drive through it (don’t worry about adding more to the handling yet)
I want this to look more like the turn and burn where you run away on a 90 degree angle because of the commitment challenges and the fun of the chase 🙂 – so if the barrel is at noon on a clock, your running line takes you to 3 or 9. You did do that on some, but on others you were running back to 6 or doing other angles. If it is unpredictable, he will slow down and we don’t want that right now.
Before going further on this, let’s get him driving more (don’t go to 2 barrels or the full 360s you did until he is blazing around it)
So the way to get him driving is to have chasing your motion as part of the reward, and – you guessed it – toys. Try to build this with the toys, using a really long exciting toy that he can chase (he likes toys enough that I think he can do this with a toy).
Get him all jazzed up with your ready ready ready, then point to the barrel (you will be close to it to start). No need for the wrap verbal yet 🙂 Stand perfectly still til he is almost done with the wrap… then do the FC and take off, cheering and dragging the toy. Wheeee! If he does well with that, you can leave earlier and earlier. It will be a wilder session, you both should be a little out of breath by the end 🙂 Keep it short and sweet with the toy 🙂Have fun!
TracyHi!
I love that he is super confident here too! Nice!!!!
Because this is a shaping exercise, I want you to stand still the a lot more. You are moving around a lot and he is waiting for you to move to get on and also to release. So, just stand still next to the plank and let him offer. You stood still more later in the session, so remind yourself to be relatively still from the very beginning 🙂
When he gets on with all 4 feet, you can use a hand lure to have him turn around, then turn in a circle. Feeding the treat by dropping it on the plank is causing him to jump off a bit, so you can deliver it to his mouth.
Do you have access to a longer plank? You can start giving him more room on the planks to move around and also getting on different planks is a good thing too.
Great job!
TracyHi!
He is really confident on this wobble board – YAY! And it has a pretty big tip. Nice! You can move it to different surfaces to gradually introduce more noise. And yes – you caught yourself – you can “yes” the correct behavior when he gets on the wobble board, but then say get it for the toss. Everything else looks great!Great job!
TracyWell helloooooo and welcome! So fun to meet the new pup!!!! She is gorgeous and smart!
It is a long class so you have time to get all the things in and not feel rushed 🙂
She did well with the shaping to get on the ‘thing’ 🙂 You can build value even more quickly by doing a short session or two where you feed her in position with feet on it, or put the treat right down on the prop: that will tell her that it is the thing we want her to smack 🙂 Then when she immediately smacks it and won’t get off 🙂 , you can move to tossing the treats to get more of the running back and forth.
Same thing with the target – she is hitting nicely and then looking at you, which morphed into more looking at you, because the cookie was tossed away. So you can adjust the placement: Your target holding position is great so when she hits the target, you can bring th cookie hand over to it, plop the cookie on the target (turn your hand) or hand it to her right in front of the target. Then, after she hits it a couple of times right there, you can toss the treat. We build on this next week, so it will make even more sense in context.
Great job here! She is so fun!!! Looking forward to more 🙂
TracyHi there!
I think he was great here – the MM is a MASSIVE distraction as well as a high value reinforcement, and he was really great.
What you did here was say “Treats” then click (then moved if the click wasn’t enough) and it worked really well. He was not necessarily turning back immediately yet, but he was not coming forward which means he was getting the idea about location. As you get further away, you can turn back and point so he doesn’t think treats means come to you first, the pointing is permission to turn around right away. And it is fine to have a physical cue for this, because it is likely you will always be able to have a physical cue in the context that this will be used.Yes, the transfixed moment was hilarious at 1:14 – nice patience on your part, and you were brilliant to release forward when he was staring back at the MM! LOL! It was my favorite moment of the session!
>>would like to switch over to the Lotus Ball but am not quite sure how to do that just yet in a way that is clear for Cowboy.>>
It will look very much like this, but you will probably need to point a bit more because there is no beep. You can start by holding his collar and placing the lotus ball behind him, say the cue, point, let go of the collar. He will probably figure it out within a handful of reps, at which point you can use your sit cue – then put the lotus ball down (or put the lotus ball down and cue the sit, either way is fine so go with whatever is easier for him) – then stand still – say the cue – then point. I think it will make sense to him right away.
Let me know if that makes sense. Great job here!
TracyHi!
>>He does no how to jump into my arms. I think that most of the time he enjoys it. I haven’t done much with this because I want him to feel like it’s not ending something without appropriate reinforcement and then him avoiding it because he doesn’t want to stop. Does that make sense?>>
TOTALLY! Same as going in the crate – they won’t go if it is paired with ‘being done’ aka negative punishment. So do lots of it mid-session, give a reward, put him down, carry on. It is “just” a trick, not an end of run routine.
>>I’m hoping you mean least distracting. I’d say things on the ground. He’s not super distracted by a bag of cookies, if I saw that out on a good day, it wouldn’t worry me.>>
Yes, least 🙂 Start with the easy stuff so he learns what to do to fluency when presented with a distraction. Then it is not so hard to move up the scale to the really hard stuff.
T
Hi!
A lot of these procedures are about dog training, true… but also they are about learning what to do when we need to build on these behaviors. And I think he did really well with the ‘turn back’ element of the dog training – the hardships were in the planning stages.
>>Unfortunately he strongly desired to kill it and I lost him shortly into the session. I should have had cheese to trade. I didn’t.
So that brings up an important planning thing: never go into a session with only one possible reinforcement, unless you are willing to be $1000 that you will only need that one reinforcement.
>>He selected this broken and decrepit frisbee for this session and it’s killing my hands. But heyyyy look at that frisbee tug.
So when he selectd this frisbee, the next question to ask yourself in planning in: how am I going to get it back? Answer… cheese 🙂
Also, part of planning should be the ‘loop’ or the reset back to the next rep – how are you going to get him back? This is where cheese would be a good answer too.
And also it is high value but if part of the plan was tugging, you would not be as effective if the fris was ripping your flesh. So you can take it out of the selection pile, and if selects the toy: liimt it to toys that will work for the session.
So this qualifies as a really good session on two fronts:
first, he got to produce correct responses to the turn back cue. Win!
second, you learned a planning lesson that you will carry over into your next session. Double win!Before you next session, plan for the behavior you want to train, yes – but also plan the befre and after so you can get the loop going for a very efficient session.
>> He put his front paws on me to wait for food, which he never does. Super cute.
Awww good boy!!! I love this type of spill over!!!
Nice work!! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
