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I took a quick look – there are so many ayers happening here that I don’t think we can make a black and white thing. Yes, she is barking for the toy, because she had never really been asked to have impulse control on that toy. But also she was avoiding the person walking up behind you (note how she scooted away right at the beginning with a dropped tail) and you were asking her to run up a plank directly to a stranger… and she is worried about strangers. Then she sniffed and avoided as you tried to get her to do it. So the barking was a whole jumble of things and it is not as simple barking for the toy, due to the underlying anxiety. The value of the toy helped because she basically had limited choices at that point. So you got the teeter but I am not sure how it affected the underlying anxiety or frustration.
Soo – I think the toy is usable but there are many layer to training the impulse control as you are doing, and also being sure that you do not rely on the toy as the only reinforcement. Save it for those fight-fire-with-fire moments. Regular classes with no distractions don’t need it 🙂 Save it for the big distraction moments! And be sure that you think about how she feels about the distraction each time you present one – leaving her in a stay to run up the teeter to you would have been a lot easier (and accomplished the same drive-to-the-end teeter goal) rather than running to a stranger.
Let me know what you think!
TracyShe definitely likes something in her mouth! Question – does the other dog calm her and reduce/prevent the anxiety, kind of like a stable pony? If ys, then it is ok to have both dogs. If not, and the other dog is just a neutral presence… walk Posh in by herself so you have your hands free to do training as needed. If your hands are full with leashes, then you will not be able to help Posh when she needs it – carrying something is great but she still might find herself in a situation where she needs a pattern game or your full attention, so have a free hand will really help.
Tracy
Good morning!
>>The good thing is that I am much less likely to get flustered or annoyed by something that happens before the run because we now have tools!
This is great! The more tools we have, the easier we can make thing for you and Grady.
>> Ihad this vision of the leash runner picking up his leash and running away as I was doing a lead out, so I made sure to ask her if she would wait until my dog left the start line to pick up the leash🤣>>
Based on the tiny bit that I saw in the video – good call, the leash runner had as much energy as I do after 5 cups of coffee haha!
I>> have a trial in Blue Springs with a couple of FEO opportunities this weekend. At this point, his fuzzy blue treat pouch is probably the best toy for tugging, but he is generally less likely to tug in the ring. He is getting better at tugging in the ring during practice, so maybe that will transfer to the trial ring. He will at least be excited to see the treat pouch! >
Perfect – even just having it visible might help him! Lots of FEO runs will help get him relaxed in the environment. Just be sure it is totally empty of crumbs LOL
>> make tug toys, so I am always searching for his favorite toy. When I finish one, I toss them on the floor and he will carry them all to the living room and will usually pick out a favorite to tug with. I think I need to make it more of a priority to engage him in tugging…the latest tug that he liked, I put back with his stash and someone grabbed it to purchase>>
YEs – he already likes some tugging so you can build it up! Make it special, new toys, just a little bit of tugging or carrying or throwing, anything he likes. Tugs are the easiest way to do FEO runs, so if he likes a toy then you will have an easier transition.
>>I need to revisit engaged chill…
Yes, that will be a great addition to the toolbox so you both can relax outside the ring rather than stay busy or try to time things perfectly.
Keep me posted!
Tracy
Good morning! Hope you got some sleep!
>>He gave a gingerly touch and not his usual plow full speed into my hand but was able to move on. He’s had a few singing sessions so I was able to interrupt with a cookie toss.
That softer touch is normal in the face of big distractions – I am glad he was able to do it and move on!!!
All of the class runs looked great – you were really able to just focus on handling and teaching him agility skills (like the tunnel under the dog walk, the pinwheel, etc). It looks like you did not have to struggle with focus at all. -this is exciting!
Run 1 was really god – he seemed to have total focus and all you needed. To do was train on the course challenges.
Run 2 lalso really good – he was very stimulated during the line up with the leash runner and he had trouble staying. I was wondering if maybe he just didn’t have a long stay… but he had a nice long stay without the leash runner for run 3, so that is good to know! Either he was too pumped up to stay, or the presence of the leash runner was causing him to not quite be able to stay. So definitely keep along your classmates and instructors to be leash runners, so eh can get lots of rewards for stays when they are there.I noticed that he stayed engaged during discussion with your instructor and got right back to work – wow! That is great!
3rd run – yes, something did catch his eye but great job moving through it, he did well!
He had a good stay here without the leash runner – so at the NFC runs you will want to not ask for a stay if there are people right near him (and there probably will be :))
The tricks looked really good too – and he was really focused as the person came to the crate to get the other dog! A transition game you can play is to do some tricks like this, then take off the treat pouch and put it down on the reward station , then move away doing some more tricks as if you are moving to the line
>>This was good practice for his upcoming UKI runs on Sunday. He was really focused on me coming out of the crate.
I think he has a lot of tools now that you can bring to the trial. What did you enter? We can make a plan for the weekend to set him up for success 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi!
A midweek trial – so fun!yes, he needs more experience in the Just Like Home phase of the not for comp trial runs so he gets very relaxed and happy in the ring, at which point you can go to the Empty Hands (ball in pocket) stage. It takes a while to ease dogs into competition happily 🙂 And yes, running not for comp is very relaxing for the handler, which helps both handler AND dog 🙂
Keep me posted!
TracyHi!
>> Here is a toy someone told me not to use anymore. It seriously dials her up and can take her brain to that place of being ‘possessed’>>
Why did the person suggest not using it? Was Posh unable to give it back in a training situation, and/or was she so tuned in to it that she was unable to perform other behaviors in the presence of the toy?
She was good here but it is a very structured session, which is probably very different than what the other person saw 🙂
>>It makes the world go away, overrides bunny poo and people. I can put it in my pocket. And even though it can dial her up to the max it can also appease her….she calmly chews on it laying on her belly with the world walking around her, it can chill her.>>
So it is the highest value reinforcement that you can carry. This can be useful! I personally like to recognize those super high value reinforcement and figure out ways to use them.
>>My goal would be remote reinforcement with this toy by itself on the ground. But now I have to secure it in a jar, in her purple chair and she really doesn’t want to leave it. If it’s by itself in the chair she will steal it.>>
Alright then, that tells us where to start: with the remote reinforcement games. Go all the way back to taking one step away, starting from the very beginning.
>>As you can see, she will wrap her paws around my hand when I ask her to release. When working on this without treats, she will stay like this for minutes, while I wait her out to put her paws on the ground.>>
Try to keep the sessions with this toy to very short sessions so she doesn’t get over-stimulated by the toy. And for now – have food available for trading in ALL sessions with this toy so you can have the smooth transitions in and out of the toy play. The food will probably also help moderate the arousal. We don’t want to get into a position of her being locked onto the toy and unable to let go for several minutes – short sessions with food will help avoid that.
Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
Good start to these!
>> And I pulled out the ‘Chlorine Bobber’ from the pool, which turned out to be too much. She LOVES to swim and has been wanting to ‘get’ this bobber for awhile. After videoing I threw it back into the pool, and she was beside herself wanting to go in and get it. Her brain goes to a different place when something like this happens, possessed, then need to reset and get the item out of her sight.>>
This is a great example of Kryptonite that is useful and not scary 🙂
>> So, if I understand the lesson right, we are supposed to wait for them to engage/orient to us?>>
Yes, you are correct and did a great job with that. Yay!
On the cookie-free pattern games: she was able to be very engaged even with the distractions! Nice! For the specifics of the pattern games, 2 things that will help her translate these into games where she should immediately offer engagement:
– stick to just one behavior, like a spin, rather than do all sorts of stuff for now
– be more calm as you do it, you can be less excited 🙂 I know that sounds weird, but we want Posh to be able to re-engage and stay engaged even without you being as exciting about it 🙂So as she enters the environment, cue the trick then wait. If she re-engages (or stays engaged) you can cue it again, and wait 🙂 Then after 2 or 3, you can run back to the reward.
And to add more to it – do it while you are walking from Point A to Point B, as if walking from the ring gate to the start line, if that makes sense. That way you are not staying in any one place for too long, you are moving the whole time now.
She did pretty well with the distractions but she had high latency with the engagement (meaning it took her a pretty long time to re-engage). So reduce the challenge – have one easier distraction there, and have it a little further away, until her re-engagement is immediate. When you have that, you can add in more distraction to the game.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
Non-scary things can be anything that draws her attention and gets her excited:
Other dogs running, animal poo, the pool, the bobber in the pool, someone else throwing a ball, leaves/grass, etc. Anything she loves loves loves that gets her wild but isn’t scary 🙂T
Good morning!
Yes, I thought it was interesting that the right turns were the harder ones on the turn aways but dogs do keep us on our toes like that LOL!!!
The Mission Transition games are going well. I see a distinct change in her movement when you cue the go versus the collection!
Part of the game is working out the timing – on the very first decel, I think she was expecting another Go rep so she didn’t process the cue til after she landed. Oopsie! But then 2nd and 3rd decels were really good, you were nice and early! You can rotate away sooner: for example, at :20 and 1:05 the decel was good and then you faced forward a little longer than needed. As soon as she is passing the 2nd cone and approaching the jump, you can turn and leave and have her chase you for the reward.On the other side, you were putting a little more pressure in towards the bar – at :44 there was pressure to the center of the bar when you deceled and rotated in one movement, so she read it (correctly) as rear cross – the physical cue said turn away and the verbal didn’t override that yet. You were clearer with keeping the decel and rotation separate after that and she was great!
What happened at :52? Ankle roll? OUCHIE!!!
She was definitely sorting out the mechanics of the wrap, so one thing that I think will help is to NOT do any GO balance reps for now. I think she really loves the go go go 🙂 so it is possible that the intermittent Go cues were causing the delay in processing the wraps.
She might have been waiting/hoping for the go cue then a little late doing the wrap mechanics. So, for now, only do wraps for a session or two. The GO looks great so we don’t have to worry about it, we will add it back in soon – the wraps look good but then can look gooder LOL! She can engage her hind end more and sooner.>> But, little Miss Sprite is starting to like running. She’s still taking off VERY early and not really adding in a collection stride. >>
She was totally changing her striding!
>> It all goes so fast and you make it look easy.>>
It DOES happen fast and I think you were starting early enough on most of them.
One thing to remember is that she is going to look different than the video demo dog for this one: I chose a demo dog that is lighter in color, has no long coat (easy to see all those legs) and who is very dramatic in his collection so it is easy to see. It is harder to see on dogs who have coat and aren’t a giant spaghetti noodle like whippets are LOL!
She is taking off further back for the Go reps, so it will be interesting to see what she does as the bars come up for both the Go and the wraps. Nothing worrisome is happening, we are just watching her mechanics percolate and helping her wherever she needs any info or help. She is about 14 months old now, right? So do the next session on wraps only, starting with the same bar height here then raise it up for a rep or two by 2 inches and we will see how she does.
Nice work! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! This was a really good exploratory session to see what she responds to best, how to cue it , etc. You are totally on the right track!
>>if she is on my right and already turning tightly to her right to follow me from the reward station (yay!) and I cue a “left” she’s got to overcome that inertia, and while possible it felt like my verbal overriding the motion was asking a lot for what is supposed to be a confidence building game – although we did sort of get there?>>
I think the hard part here is that the left/right spins are not on a verbal-only cue for her at this point, she still needs a hand signal especially if you are walking. And if the hand signal was too high she had trouble doing the spin. So, you can work these as tricks to get them more easy to cue, and on a hand cue with a lower hand.
You can put your hand at nose-level for her to do it so it is a pretty automatic response – the more automatic the response, the more useful it is for pattern games 🙂
And the left spin then right spin can be separated by several steps. So if yo cue the spin to the right, go straight for a few more steps (she is offering engagement during this time) then cue the next spin. She should not go directly from a right to a left without a few engaged steps in between so it should be easy enough to do. That will also help prevent the leash from being tangled 🙂
Also let her swallow the cookie before you move away and cue a spin, that will help her have an easier time too 🙂
She was letting you scratch her but it was not really engaging, she wasn’t moving into you for more.
Speaking of that automatic response that we want: The pop move has a TON of potential for the pattern game because it doesn’t need as much of a physical cue – she is great at responding to it! The leash won’t get tangled either 🙂 So you might want to try the pop move for this too!
Great job!! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! This is looking good! Each element of each game is looking really sharp!
Her instant focus in the grass looked great, it seemed easy for her.
Instant focus by the pool – much harder 🙂 POOL!!! LOL! You can reward that first approximation at :40 because she interacted with it even though it was not a perfect hit. That will help her be able to do it everywhere.
You can take this one on the road – what else is on her calendar where you can play this game?Line ups and the leash off game also looked great 🙂 I think you can play those in the remote reinforcement combo game now, as well as in front of any kryptonite you can find 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>xFor the krippie games, I feel like I’m the presence of the K words, sometimes toy play is hard. I need to work the arousal with food and transition to toys. I should probably go back to the food pouch in the first weeks to try that.>>
For the really hard distractions, you an stick to food. The type of reinforcement doesn’t really matter, as long as it is reinforcement that we can manage and control.
>>Also I need to make rewarding from my hand better because in dirt places, he doesn’t like dirt covered cheese!>>
You can move the cheese like a toy, so he is chasing your hand and you can move around too!
>>Or, you can play the volume dial game – and if he loves heeling, then heeling an go into the volume dial game and it can totally be a trick you use on the way to the line!
>>As far as keeping him in the higher end of the arousal curve going in, do you think it’s too boring? What should I do to really get him going?>>For him, that heeling game is like engagement Viagra (a big YES!), so try it in the ring and see what he does 🙂
T
Hi!
I like your plan of working the remote reinforcement combo game and also sorting out what toy(s) he likes.>>I will try very hard not to run things with my heart but instead use my mind. I think we are ok when we are not.>>
TOTALLY relatable!!!! I try to let my brain read the course maps, not my heart LOL!!! My heart always tells me it is fine but my brain overrules the heart 🙂
Tracy
