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Good morning!
I say OH H*LL NO to another 6-12″ of snow fo ryou. EEK!!
>> While still on your left from that same spot, you can add in the right turn cue so she will go to the other side and turn towards you.>
OK, so start mixing it up from the more neutral position a bit, do right and left from the same setup. I haven’t done the set up where we are in a totally neutral position and she is between my legs yet though. Should we try that first??>>No need to do the purely neutral one first, I think having her still seeing a bit of handling help (because you can use a little hand cue or leg step) is a good intermediate step before having her start between your feet with no handling help.
Send and Serp:
Good serp warm up before the send! She did REALLY well on her serps, yay!! And she was not smashing through the wing like she does o the barrel LOL so no more barrel for her 🙂
Question: are check and dig your wrap cues or your soft turn cues? In this case, a soft turn cue would be appropriate because the wing to serp is a left or right turn, no a wrap (picture the having a bar on the wing and that will give you a clearer visual of what verbal fits best)> If check and dig are your soft turn verbals… then carry on 🙂
Yes, she is ready for the advanced level with the FC balance reps 🙂
Ladder grid- she did well here! The MM is a bit to chill for her, she is kind of looking at you, kind of looking at it, but migrating towards you in the grid… it is a good start to teach her the shape of te grid with the MM, but for the next session, change it out for a toy. Use a nice big toy that she can scoop up while continuing to run through (like a big hollee roller) so she can keep moving. If that goes well, we will move to a dragging toy 🙂
Rear crosses: You are beating yourself up too much, there is plenty of good stuff here!!!
Her GO lines look great, my only suggestion is to use your GO verbals. rear crosses rely on driving ahead, and she was great!Yes, on the RCs you are late but it is an easy fix: What is happening is that you are moving away from the start wing too quickly so you have to run forward in order to let her get past you, before starting the RC cue. That is causing her to lock onto the straight line (correctly). You can see it at 1:15, 2:00, 2:21, and 2:33 as great examples of that. So to set it up better, stay at the wing til she is fully done with the wrap – you will be close enough to touch it and she will be almost at your leg – then you can start the RC line a lot sooner, so she wll see it and respond sooner.
Also, the left turns happened after about 350 rewards to the right LOL, which did not help your cause LOL!! So maybe separate out left and right turns into separate sessions and then when you bring them back together, switch sides a lot more frequently so she does not get locked into one placement of reinforcement.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>>Handler is allowed to have a reasonably sized silent toy/aid with them for use once their run has started (this toy must be approved by the Judge of record PRIOR to the start of the class to determine its eligibility, absolutely no food/scents/audible devices). The toy is NOT allowed to be used in the IN gate chute or prior to the previous dog leaving the ring.>>
Rules, rules, so many rules LOL! I think a furry food pouch can work and will likely be approved if there is no evidence there was ever food in it. I like you idea of fur-on-a-line, that is a possibility! Try it in a comfy area and see if she likes it, then bring it to class and see if she likes it.
>> I don’t want to plan to “stop and reward” mid-course if it’s not clearly rewarding to her – My toy play skills are not great / never developed and I don’t want more of “oh god mom is being weird” in the ring. >>
I personally think there is waaaaay too much emphasis on toy play skills and that definitely makes us all weird. Whenever we put “play” and “skills” together, we all start to get weird. LOL! When using a fur-on-a-line, just think of yourself as a giant lure course lure 🙂 drag it on the ground and run away from her and make silly noises 🙂 We will test it out in class and see if she likes it 🙂 If she likes it? Cool beans! If not? No worries, there are other ways to do NFC/FEO.
>>What already makes sense is to go in, remove leash, set her down, wait for offered engagement and then leave the ring to go to our cookie station. Or wait for offered engagement then do a few obstacles in a flow to the finish / exit. Nice thing about this plan is that I can pivot to it any time. I will mention in case it’s relevant – she already has a tendency to head for the exit if it’s getting a little stressy. I’m sure that’s common.>>
All sounds good! Be sure to rehearse that offered engagement about 10 zillion times in class – but with a lot of reinforcement from your hand or pocket bcause it is about conditioning the engagement, not chaining enagement into instant remote reinforcement.
>>I think I should plan FEO for any course that requires weaves and make up a course that clearly bypasses them without disjointed handling. >>
Totally agree – and I think you should FEO *every* run, weaves or not, until you have the focus/engagement you want. The long term goal is more important than any Q in the short term. I work a stepwise progression with the NFC/FEO plans (more coming on that on Monday) and I find that people skip the steps between step 1 (just like home) and the last step of doing runs ‘for real’, which creates a lot of stress.
>>Also she jumps 12″ in CPE and the A-frame is lower – so already some less complexity there, yay!
Yay! The goal is fast & fun and LOADS of reinforcement, and complexity doesn’t help with that.
>> YES I will get them transferred to a note card.
A student in a previous class put her reminders on a card, laminated it, attached it to her leash. Brilliant!
>>Leash off games are getting better – and by that I mean I’m remembering to cookie them more often! (Plus Zippie’s engagement is almost instantaneous even with a body shake) Instant Focus at new locations is coming along. I alternate between putting the cardboard down when she could be watching, and having it already in place.>>
Awesome!
>>The only reason I can think of that I didn’t already is because of my own nerves, even if slight – which is all the more reason I need to work on pulling tools out of tool box to get my own mental management sharper.>>
That is a good observation! Like with dogs, if we humans give ourselves alternate behaviors, we can reduce our nerves and then the skills stuff goes really well!
>>And I will plan a trip to the outdoor location she’s never been to next weekend – more of taking these games on the road, or do you want me to plan an FEO run type thing at this new location? (We will have Game Pack 3 by then as well).
Definitely lean more on the games in the new places. Her success will tell you if she is ready for FEO-style run too.
>>I want to share today’s training session. I don’t have a lot of questions for you, I just think you’ll find her bouncy step charming. Especially at the end – she anticipated leaving the cookies to go work to earn the cookies – it was really lovely leadership on her part – or at least that’s how I saw it.>>
She was great here! No worries about the shake when the leash comes off, it is probably just a response to the stimulus of the leash coming off. She was great! Lovely offered engagement, snappy tricks, all good! Yay!
No worries about the crate sniffing – I am sure there was a ton of good smells there, so waiting her out was great.
One suggestion is to turn the game around, so she has her back to the reward station, and is not facing it (simulating the trial experience). That might be a good ‘next step’ because she can’t see both you and the reward station, so it is harder indeed!
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
Some notes on the Pre-run Documentary – sniffing around is great at the beginning. I think the pattern games are really helpful. You might have gone to tricks too soon – you can wait until you are within 4 or 5 dogs before you (sorting out the timing is hard) but he seemed fine with it!
You can also rehearse this ritual when you DON’T have to run, so he has already sorted out the environment before you need to be ready to run. ou might already be doing this. And that way, when getting ready for the real run, the only new environment he has to deal with is that we handlers get a little freaky (I mean, let’s be honest: I’ve been doing this for almost 25 years and still get nervous running my novice dogs LOL!)
You can work the engaged chill, hanging out where Amy told you, just letting him look around. Click/treat for Amy for reminding about engaged chill and for sending someone to check the run order for you, for letting you know which dog reacts to males, best pathway to the ring, moving dogs out of the way…. I wonder if she is available to help me at trials? LOL!!!! It is great to have so much support!!! Amy if you are reading this, please consider moving to Virginia LOL!!!! (Kidding but also NOT KIDDING) Warms my heart to see all of the community support!
He looked happy and relaxed and kept offering re-engagement. Good boy!
On the start line – one suggestion: Remember that you are a member of Team Fake Chill and take your hand off his collar. If he needs to look at something, don’t pull on him as that will cause him to look away more. Just stick the leash down your pants and wait.
it was a great run!You trusted him so much more in standed with hand off the collar, he was great!
>>Courtney said I needed to cool it with my verbals at the end and let him commit first- fair and accurate feedback.>>
She was a little behind you so might not have had the same visual of the connection as the camera did: He was not committing because there was not enough connection then when you added the verbal he was trying to make the turn. So, ramp up your connection during the run – baby dogs in new environments need REALLY massive connection. For the line after the table, adding more connection will help get him on the line – it is a pretty direct eye contact as you are running fast 🙂 Great job NOT fixing it though – it was hander error not dog error so better to just keep going.
>> this was way at the end of the day- 5:40 or so. He was more worried walking in. There were two big male boxers staring at him that really worried him. Courtney and Carrie thought he looked great with no worries. I was overly freaky because he was worried outside of the ring. He came off higher than he went in which I loved.>>
He looked pretty good on the start line for JWW!! And offered engagement as you led out and was VERY fast off the line. I think shoving the leash down your pants simulates FEO and I am on board with it LOL!
One suggestion: don’t task him to weave in competition runs for now – he has a high failure rate an then you stop and I don’t want him to lose the flow. We want him to think being in the ring is EXCITING because it is mainly about the RUN FASTS (tables are dumb too). So work around them, do a cross to go past them, and work them in FEO runs where you can reward in FAST and T2B .
Great job on these!!!! Are you running today?
TracyGood morning!
I agree, she did a great job here!! My only suggestion is to connect more, looking at her eyes with your dog-side arm back more (while also running fast like you did here too LOL!!) When the jump was close and/or your running line was close, the connection didn’t have to be as clear. The whole opening section looked great and you did a lovely job of starting easy with the jump close, then making it harder and harder 🙂As you added more lateral distance, the connection became more important:
At :48 she missed the jump – you can try being in the same position with your dog-side arm pointing back to her so she can see your eyes and upper body (your dog-side arm parallel was parallel to you and not back to her, so it closed your shoulders a bit and broke connection)
At :51 on the tunnel send, you turned away a little too soon so she peeled off at the last moment but you fixed it with one more step to support her line on the next rep. Yay!
At 1:12 yes, when you did a spin on the tunnel entry which is a turn cue so she was correct to turn and not take the jump.So to get more laterally away from the jump, you can try starting further from the start wing so you are already near the lateral line you want to run and won’t need a spin – then as she exits the tunnel, you can play with having your arm back, fingers pointing to her nose and your eyes towards her eyes, to see if that added connection supports her line better. And keep throwing the reward the way you did: that was great!!!
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! Center line ups can work great for the littles 🙂 And they are a fun trick too, and she likes tricks. I think part of it was that you needed to be clearer with the info – she is still learning it so when you were not clear, she offered what she already knew (good girl!)
She was very happy to run between your feet, which is great! She is super fast, so you needed to be fast and clear with where you wanted her to be. When you had your hand in position, she nailed it. Good girl! Without the clear hand indication, she was not quite sure where to be – the hand cue was an important piece of it so she knew where to be and where to stop. Without the hand cue, she either didn’t know where to be, or she came between your feet and turned to face you (which has a lot of reinforcement history). She was figuring it out so you might not always need the hand cue, but for now in the beginning stages you can definitely use it.
She did nicely in the stay part of it. If she is just behind you, that is fine – I think you were backing up at 1:15ish, so she was confused and thought she needed to back up too perhaps? So she can be in the roughly right position and you can step forward for the ‘dismount’.
At 1:55 when she was in the stay and you looked over your right shoulder – not sure what you wanted there? Neither was she, so she guessed and came to your right side (a good guess LOL) but she and I were both wrong 🙂 If you were trying to figure out how to add in the lead out, asking her to stay and you stepping slowly forward is probably the best bet.For now, my current favorite line up for her is the carry-in, putting-her-down on the line. But this game could develop into a fast, fun trick on the start line too, whether it becomes the line up or leg weaves. Either way, keep playing with it because it can be useful for us.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
Lots of good stuff on this video!The pattern games with the snacks went well. You can wait a heartbeat longer to feed her to get one more second of engagement – it was all happening so fast that it was hard to tell if she was offering or you were cuing it.
You can also use a ‘get it’ and drop it on your foot, as that can help her learn to asses the environment and disengage from it to look at you. And you can do that near anything weird (like the ring crew and also the score table with balloons!)
Did she start offering those spins after the snack patterns? Or did you cue them? Either way, they were great!
If she needs a moment to sniff, just be calm and see if she can sniff then offer engagement. At :43 she needed to sniff and you defaulted to calling her, using the leash to pull her, then a leave it. Give her more opportunity to assess the environment then choose to disengage from distractions in favor of engaging with you. If about 10 seconds go by and she can’t? You can gently move her away and start a pattern game.
Her tricks looked great outside the ring. How is her toy play in that environment? The more toy play you use, the easier NFC runs are because you have an actual reinforcement. You can use a long toy that you drag for her to chase!
For the engaged chill: you can give her a cookie when you lift her up, otherwise stop asking her to do things 🙂 That was NOT chill as you noticed.
Definitely teach her the take a breath game: from the expression on her face when you picked her up, she needs to do some mindful breathing in that situation. That will also help her relax.
Nice tricks outside the ring! Looking at how well she is doing the tricks cookies-in-hand, the next step is to bring them into the class environment as part of the remote reinforcement combo game.
I think carrying her in might be a great setup procedure. Rehearse that style of bringing her to the line in class – pick her up, last cookie, through the gate, put her down where you want her to be… then take your hands off of her and wait for her to offer engagement. Then: reward! I know the title of the game is off leash offered engagement, but when we are carrying the dogs: it is off hands, offered engagement 🙂
With your hands still on her, and you bending over, and starting right next to the distractions: she was totally looking away when you cued the tunnel at
2:33. So, put her down, hands off, stand up, and wait to see if she engages, no tunnel cues until she is engaged. Definitely rehearse this a zillion times in class and at home, with cookies in pockets and fast reinforcement. And if she engages but is not in the perfect spot for release to the obstacle? Don’t fiddle with her position! Help with handling instead.So the 3 biggest priorities right now are:
– tricks with remote reinforcement (cookies somewhere else)
– NFC runs where you reward her with something awesome as she moves away from the distractions (and you can do this in class too, cajoling your classmates into being ring crew and distractions :))
– off leash, off hands, offered engagement. That will be a BIG piece of the puzzle 🙂Great job! Other than a seminar in NJ next week, what else do you have coming up for her?
TracyHi!
TOTALLY no need to beat yourself up!!!!>>So yesterday basically we were unable to be in the working area ie the horse arena until it was our go .. outside the arena didn’t cut it as it was a large wooden wall / barrier between the arena and where we set up with our dogs. The dogs could not even see over the wall .. I won’t beat myself up any more.>>
If you end up in an environment where he has not had time to properly assess it, engage, etc: take the first minute or so of your turn to work that before asking for agility. That way, you will know if he will be able to do the agility, or if you will need to spend that first turn getting the engagement in the new and difficult environment.
>>Next weekend I will be able to do some not for comp runs as well!!!>>
Great! And this week we will outline more about the not for competition runs too – I have very specific steps for those, and all of us at some point have skipped steps… and the runs have gone wrong. OOPS! LOL!! So the next step is to get us humans to not skip steps 🙂
TracyGood morning!
>> The judge was super nice and let me run FEO so please don’t share the videos outside of class
Very cool! It is great to be able to run FEO on all those courses. You had a nice big toy – will he play with that toy in the environment? Ideally you would reward him more, rather than try for start-to-finish with a visible toy. After watching these runs, I think the best places to reward him are when he has to pass ring crew or distraction areas, like the front of the ring.
I think overall engagement was going well, just a couple of moments when he needs to learn to ignore ring crew – that is done first with pattern games outside the ring, and in class (ask people to come into the ring and be crew and a judge during your turn), rewarding when he passes them – and then it comes into the FEO in the ring. That will all help him not to visit.
>> Is this lower arm position better for him since I can’t throw my arm wildly right now should I try to keep my arm more “sedate” When I can move again?>>
Lower arm position is generally better for little dogs! So yes, keep the arm sedate with lots of upper body connection but not big high arms.
>>JWW we would have probably qualified but oh 💩
That was such a bummer! He started off so well!!!
I was happy with his speed and engagement in the ring – the visiting and checking out the distractions will go away as we apply the games specifically to that.
>>Environmental observations engagement while just walking at the trial site is super hard for him to offer unless I prompt??>>
In general, if you are just walking around – he doesn’t need to offer engagement the whole time. Sniffy walks are a good thing! As he gets closer to his ring time, we can prompt engagement with the instant focus game, the pattern games, tricks, etc.
>>Get it game is causing more ground sniffing do I need to balance something or?>>
It should not be causing more sniffing – so if you ar eseeing more sniffing and less engagement, a couple of ideas for you:
– train it to fluency in a less distracting environment, so he understands to snatch the treat and whip his head up to you after it, all in a microsecond 🙂
– use treats that don’t crumble at all, so he isn’t looking for crumbs
– start the pattern game further from the distractions, so he doesn’t have to wrestle with big distractions when working on offering engagement.>>Do you let your gang sniff on cue grass sniffing has suddenly become his zen space where nothing phases sometimes…>>
Yes, I totally let my dogs sniff. On cue, or on general walks, they are welcome to sniff – sniffing is GREAT for dogs. It is known to relax them and release happy brain chemicals. So unless there is some type of prompt for engagement, they can sniff – as long as they also know how to engage when prompted. And those prompts can be a game, or a cue.
Great job! Let me know how today goes!
TracyGood morning! For some reason, the site didn’t notify me that you posted this so I was thinking of you, and just about to ask how it went 🙂
It is interesting to know about her having to arrive on an empty stomach – the pattern game is best for both getting focus AND getting food into her, so she can think (I personally cannot think that well without breakfast and it seems to be the same for dogs LOL!!)
Great job with her run! What a great start to her career! I know you said food was the more exciting thing but she was great with her toy! My only suggestion is that is she misses a jump or something – don’t fix it, juts get on a line and run, and connect more. The fixes are for handling errors, so you can just keep going and add more connection and motion support to help her.
For today – lather, rinse, repeat. Make it one more great experience like you did yesterday! Carrying in was great, letting her engage was great, then fast-fun-run-toy is perfect: just like home. No need to add any more challenge because she is REALLY young and also we want her to be really relaxed in the environment. Looking ahead – these runs don’t matter in terms of challenges or the sequence, but they matter HUGELY in terms of how she feels about her experience.
Great job here! Keep me posted!
TracyGood morning!
Yes, 52 degrees feels great when there is no snow/rain/wind!!!
One thing about the grids from yesterday and when she was ticking bar 3 on the zig zag – you were keeping her to straight lines which was smart! But that footing doesn’t help the dogs even on straight lines, as they just can’t grip it properly, so they modify their strides. Now that (hopefully) the snow is gone, you might see the best development in her jumping skills if you stick to only grass. I think the mats at OTR are a bit better for the dogs but it is amazing how much dogs use their feet and toes for jumping – and slicker mats don’t help them in the learning stages so they make adjustments that we don’t necessarily want them to make. And I am not picking on mats – same can be said for slippery grass or horse arena footing LOL! Getting the perfect footing in agility is same as looking for lost pirate treasure. My favorite footing, to be honest, is backyard grass 🙂 Your backyard grass looks great!
The set point here really shows us how she has to balance and power off her rear when she is set up close (can’t rely on momentum). I watch them all in slow motion just to see every little detail for obsessing LOL! She did well! It is hard to tell exactly how far the toy was when she was released, but in the moments when it was closer (like the rep starting st :30), he form was not as good (carrying her rear getting ready to stop, rather than moving through with the rear getting ready to run). On the last 2 reps, it looks like the toy was further away and so she used her rear better!
One suggestion for all of your jumps grids: think of each session as a bell curve: easy, moving up to hard, ending on easy. Do a couple of warm ups of the easier height, but just a couple – and then go to the harder height for one or two reps – then back down to the easier height and then be finished. That is what we have found protects form and really develops it: We challenge the dog when she is warmed up but NOT fatigued – then ease off before fatigue sets in, so she doesn’t change her form at all.
Rear crosses:
Good job keeping your GO lines outside the wing! And she is doing well on the rear crosses too! She definitely had questions on the left turns but I think they were good questions, about your running line. Watching that first step or two (your steps, not hers LOL) as you exited the start wing – you were tending to show the backside wrap line by were pushing across the bar too soon with where you feet were pointing (to the backside) and the line you were running (to where the wing and bar met). Yo can see this at :10, :14, :23 and she had questions on those (the questions were “front or back, mom?”). You probably felt her cutting in front of you at the last minute to take the front of the jump, but we don’t want to dilute the backside wrap line. The rep at :19 was MUCH better in terms of you moving to the center of the bar more.
All of the right turn reps looked a lot more like rear cross lines, with your running forward to the center of the bar more and not pushing to the backside line at all. I think on the left turn reps, you will end up feeling like that actually cutting behind her is later because you will run forward to the center of the bar for longer – but that will be correct 🙂 That way you don’t end up having the backside line and the rear cross line potentially looking the same, while still showing her the rear cross diagonal line pressure.I really liked the serp session!!!! Nice job angling the jump to get it more serpy 🙂 She seemed happy with that! You had to have TREMENDOUS hustle to be able to get to the serp line after the start wing 🙂 but you did! Feel free to send her to the wing with you starting further away. I like to start next to the first wing of the jump to send to the start wing, so. I can easily be across the serp jump. And your upper body cue was very clear as you serped – nice!
One recommendation is to send her the other way around the start wing: rather than wrapping her towards you (to her right in this setup), send her away from you (to her left, so it is more of a soft turn than a wrap). That will add a bit more challenge to the serp! So you might want to angle the jump back to the easier position for that new challenge, then flatten it out again as you work through it.
Great job here! Enjoy the trial today!
Tracy
Good morning! I heard about the winds – crazy weather for sure!! I live in a valley in the Blue Ridge Mountains so we get winds like that in February and March each year, so I feel the pain of the high winds. I think we are all ready for a long stretch of great weather.
It is good that the in-person class is working up to 5 jumps in the grids, that will support what he is doing here (and vice versa) even if they are a little different. They are all useful!
And this was a really lovely session. Yes, he had a little question here and there but that is what these grids are about. His questions were pretty minimal, though, and he was really balanced I n how he was handling himself!
1st two reps on your right looked good, he might have been rushing a bit at the end (got a little forward in that last interval, so you can slow down the toy drag (especially on the first couple of reps in the next session) a bit so he controls his speed a little more.
I love how you handled the stay break – clear, happy, quick, try again, no big deal, no drama LOL!
I see his head coming up on the rep after it when he was on your left, but i didn’t see that head up question on the other side (dog on right) – was there something different in the reward delivery or is he just less comfy on that side? Possibly a little less comfy, or something about the visual was different – this grid is very visually challenging. His head was down and he was powering on the last rep of the video when he was on your left, it looked pretty identical to the dog-on-right reps.
The send is definitely less comfy (“are you SURE I am supposed to do this without you??”) but that is totally normal at this stage. You can back chain the send a bit (start him between 3 and 4 and send, then between 2 and 3, and so on) so that he realizes that he totally does have permission to leave you in the dust on grids, when you are not moving (eventually you will be running too).
This grid shows the dogs a straight line through the angles at first (developing their ability to jump that line even when the visual of the jumps is not the typical straight line) so you can tighten them up a little more to add more challenge without losing the straight line. Eventually we do flatten the jumps out completely so it becomes a much more challenging slicing grid with lead changes 🙂
Great job here! I hope Mother Nature has CALMED DOWN for you all!
Tracy
Hi!
I am so happy for you that you more time to play and you don’t have to work as much! YAY!!!
And I think you will find that you are really not behind at all – you have been working on things and everything builds together, so you are doing just fine 🙂
Yep, the serp has been the hardest thing so far for this group of youngsters! So you fit right in LOL! But based on this video, it looks like you sorted it out and she was plenty fast and confident! You can angle the serp jump towards her more when she exits the wing, so it is easier for her to see (harder to run by) and that way you can add even more speed. But overall, this session looked great! Nice connection, nice line, very clear upper body cue. Yes!! You can add the wraps in the next session, but I think it was smart to just sort out the serps first.
And I am glad the race tracks are going better! Super!! You’ll see it all coming together really nicely. In the next couple of weeks, you can add in some set point sessions along with more handling stuff, mixing it up so you don’t emphasize any single thing and the training stays balanced. She looks great!!!
Nice work! Fingers crossed for great weather ahead!
TracyHi! Lots of good work here!
On the set point – I like her organization on the 12” height with the toy pretty far. She seems a lot more comfortable with the spider setup! I think then going to 16” is a bit of lumping 🙂 She is carrying herself very differently at 16 with the toy pretty close, lifting rather than jumping if that makes sense. She might need a bit more room, the toy further away, and also t get great at it with the bar at 14 first then 16.
She is doing really well on the zigzags! Have you worked these on 3 and 4 jumps before going to 5? She is landing on the 3rd bar a bit, so she might need to see this on 3 jumps for a while longer before going to 4 then 5. Where was the toy on the last rep? That looked like a good distance from the last jump because she was powering through and not preparing to land.
I really like the ladder/tunnel setup!! So fun! Maybe I don’t fully understand the goal of stopping with a dead toy right in front of the next obstacle (tunnel in this case) but she is splaying on her front end to make it happen especially on the rubber matting (it would happen the same way on grass, though). You can see it at :03 and :14, and especially at :35 when the toy was pretty close to the jump. I know you see the pulling up, but watch it in slow motion so you can see the splay and torque that is happening too.
Because she has to stop in with the obstacle acting like a bit of a wall and so much coming from all of that momentum AND forward motion from the handler, she either has to modify her jumping form or splay her shoulders, neither of which we want, right? So I vote for not stopping her like that and also if you are using the dead toy, a big tall one like a large hollee roller that she can scoop up and run through without stopping or splaying. Food for thought!On the reps where she kept moving through, she looked lovely! Such a fun grid! If she was skipping the jump between the 2 tunnels, she might just need more experience on the ‘find the jump’ before adding tunnel #2 🙂
I am not too concerned about the start position – I prefer the close start because it focuses on immediate organization and the dogs cannot rely on momentum to get it done (something we learn in human fitness too, sadly for me haha) but starting her half the distance can work too – the double tap is that middle ground that we don’t want. If you are starting her further away and she is double tapping instead of striding, you can move her even further away (or a lot closer LOL!!)
Great job! Let me know what you think and fingers crossed for great weather ahead!
TracyEwww 92! Hopefully it cools down for the weekend!!
The go reps looked great! You can add in more position variations – get way far ahead, be more lateral, and also run deeper into the tunnel so he can accelerate ahead of you.
He read the rear crosses well! I think you can start the rear cross line sooner in terms of the pressure, so that he is already seeing it as he is exiting. On the video, you were starting it after he was already out of the tunnel, so he looked left then right. I think he will be able to handle earlier pressure as long as he has just enough room to get past you 🙂
Good verbals here too! Yay!!!
Great job! Stay cool!!!
TracyHi!
I think these were really good sessions – the goal is to get him to think about organizing himself and being powerful and fast, and he was sorting things out nicely!>>Mike started session 1 with a dead toy and no handler movement and switched to flirt pole and some movement.
On those early reps, I felt that Ronan did well but wasn’t necessarily sure of the release, so he was hesitating a tiny bit. My guess is that he was waiting for more connection on the release, maybe Mike was facing too far forward? So you can try this with more eye contact before the release.
>>We thought he wasn’t supposed to be taking an extra little step before taking off so we set him up even closer.
Correct, ideally there is no front foot tap before jump 1, but we get it sometimes as we figure out the ‘sweet spot’ of where to set the dog up. That’s what you saw on some of my demos – a double tap when trying to sort out the sweet spot start place.
>> This seemed to cause him to “fall forward” a bit over the first bar.
That’s him sorting out the organization of pushing off his hind end. That was looking good and will keep improving as you work the set point as well.
>> Ronan didn’t look comfortable (he was really stretching) in most of the reps in session 1 and session 2 so I moved the jumps in a little for the last 2 reps of session 2.
I liked the distance you ended on! You can also play with keeping the jump height at wrist height for him, he might have been trying to process too much with striding and height, so you can use that distance and the slightly lower height and see how he feels about it all 🙂
>>>Should we be using a “dead toy” or is movement using the flirt pole OK?
I think the flirt pole incentivized (is that a word? Lol!) the organization on the jump while helping maintain the head-down position. So for each new jumping concept, start with a dead toy. Then when he has it pretty well, move to the flirt pole like you did here. My only flirt pole suggestion is that it is further from jump 3 before you release, maybe 10 feet past it, so he is looking further down the line rather than ar the base of jump 3.
Let me know if that makes sense! One thing about jumping is that you’ll see it change a lot in the next year or so, as he grows from his baby body into his adult body 🙂 So I am pretty sure that as soon as we find today’s sweet spot, it will change for next week 🙂
Great job!
Tracy
