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Good morning! I hope you had fun at the trial! Did Rusty join you? I am curious to know how he likes being in that atmosphere đ
I am loving his work here on this sequence! He was confident and his commitment was REALLY strong. He did not need you to run to each jump with him (especially the middle jump). Yay!
Only one suggestion: You can be telling him his over, out, and tunnel cues sooner (before the previous obstacle) so he doesnât check in with you at all.
He is ready for the new games that got posted yesterday!
Winginâ It games: he is showing great independence here too. Because his commitment is looking really good, you can add more and more distance to see how far away he will work!
You can be giving the cues a little sooner here too. For example, when he exits the tunnel at :59 he slowed down to wait for more info. You can be telling him wrap wrap wrap as he exits so he can go past you to it.
We have timing games built into this weekâs sequences, so you donât have to redo these, you can move on to the new stuff and we will lock in the timing while we add more handling too đ
Turning around on the plank at the end looked good! The mat to help him get on and off without slipping worked really well. If you have something to elevate the plank a little bit while keeping it stable, you can elevate it and see if he will turn in a full circle without stepping off đ
Great job here!!
Tracy
Good morning!
>I do have agility videos, but there will be barking dogs. So, Iâll hold off on that for a few days.>
Yay for bark-free walks! And when you do add sounds on the video, have it on low volume so it is audible but not triggering.
The slice seemed a little harder right from the beginning – it looked liked she was not moving as quickly as usual. So it is good that there was small pressure element that her brain processed through really well!! Training in a smaller location is hard because the challenges are right there next to her. So as you change up challenges or make things harder, you can take this game outside (which adds the challenges of the great outdoors too :))
The remote reinforcement video looked good, nice clean mechanics and no grabbing!
>Still some leaping
The hop up at :48⌠excitement? Focused upwards as she started moving because you showed her empty hands? Confused with it potentially being a hand touch cue? Definitely not the same as jumping up to grab you, so we note it but it wasnât something she did persistently so no worries.
>and sheâs meh about tugging. Clearly not as high today.>
The meh on tugging could have been the choice of toy, food mixed in, and the lower energy of the session overall. And how much tugging did you do before you started? But with the goal to proceed slowly to NOT get leaping at you, I think that was good!
You can keep playing with different internal contexts: lower value toy but more tugging before you start. We start playing with more arousal today so we can combine those concepts.
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
Yay, Ted video! He is doing great! I love the 3-in-1 special LOL
Part 1: he is very brave and confident on the planks & stuff! Yay! So 2 things to add:
– let him offer more while you are more upright, so your cookie hand is not leading him. Then you can hand him a reward or toss it.
– break it up with more tugging đ We want him to learn to handle his body in a higher arousal state, so tugging after every 3 or 4 cookies will help accomplish that.You can keep adding more stuff for him to walk on. What do you have that will move a tiny bit, like a giant pillow or wobble board (but put towels under it so it is barely moving).
Feet on the bowl – that bowl is small for his age, so he was just looking at your hand and not really sure what to do. We start the perch work in later on in the class but for now, you can get a giant bowl for him to put his feet on.
Prop shaping:
He definitely said he wanted to tug more when he tried to tug on the prop LOL!! You were letting him offer more here, and that was great! He is definitely building up more value and that is great. When he runs directly to it and smacks it, you can move to the next game.One small suggestion: Try to stand perfectly still when he is offering. You can be close to the prop but you were leaning and moving, so that distracted him. If you are perfectly still and quiet until after he offers, you will get more prop hitting because he is not watching you are much.
>I also played a game where I had Levy run by his playpen for a cookie while I called Ted to me. I have a feeling chasing is going to be a thing with this one. >
Fun! I bet they both liked that game! I donât think Ted will be a chaser – we have sooooo many fun passing games we can start teaching him right away.
> I am trying to think of ways to do a little flyball foundation at home.
>So far, all of these are good for flyball foundation. Adding more tugging in during the cookie shaping sessions is a definite flyball foundation too.
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
>I tried to play around kibble. You can see it did not go so well. That is her favorite toy too. >
That was hard for her – food is high value, and the context might have been indicating food. So a couple of ideas for you:
– She might need a real fur toy or something super crazy high value to work against the food value.
– to change the context away from cookie mode đ you can attach the toy to something really long, then run away to a totally different spot, dragging it, for her to chase and play with. When you start this, it will probably be better to not have any food in your pockets so there are no interfering food smells.
– Also, it is possible that having the other dog watching (and licking his lips LOL!) might also be tapping into some competition for the food, making getting play harder. So try it without any other dogs nearby and see how it goes.
The pivoting is going well, so to advance on that skill you can do food as the sole reward, and play with getting tug in the presence of food as a separate game đ
She did well with the threadle here! Since you are consistently getting the correct behavior: After the cookie toss, you can add in your threadle slice verbal to begin to attach the verbal.
>She has not seen the manners minder much. May have helped us!>
Yes! But also, she knew what the MM was about by the end of the session, and still did her threadles. Yay!
After you have added the verbal, you can start changing the angles.
Great job!
Tracy
Good morning!
>trained crate games a lot to my older dog â it worked great for him but not for Benny.â¨These games imply the dog must like treats (like Garrets demo terrier) and toy reward needs to be equally rewarding.>
I donât use most of the crate games. The reason I mentioned it is that because of Bennyâs love of toys & movement, you can do a variation of the game where the dog goes in and out (I forget exactly what it is called, it has been 20 years LOL)
So you can convince him to go into the crate and move away from the toy – then immediately release to the toy or reach into the big crate and play tug inside the crate đ
Getting him to go do something away from the toy is going to be a super helpful thing, because as he grows up the agility obstacles will become toys đ And getting him to leave the easy fun toys (like tunnels, for example) and do a harder thing (like weaves) is hard – but if you can lay the foundation for that now with a simple game with the crate, then that high level training becomes sooooooo much easier.
Looking at the first video:
>I know he has no problem with switching toys and running to me >
The question now we can ask him is can he move with you even with a toy on the ground, without needing to tug also? And when you are not cueing obstacles? I am thinking ahead to moving to the start lines, getting the line ups and stays, etc.
> I walked with him away with the toy in my hand.>
Having him move with you (with the toy in your hand) away from the placed toy made for much smoother starts and no questions about whether to run to the placed/static toy or do the game with you. The next step to this would be to not tug the whole time⌠get a couple of steps in then tug, then a few more steps in, then tug, and so on. Building in impulse control at each level will be very helpful as he grows up.
>It worked but I want him to search for that straight jump independently, with less help.>
Yes – we want him to find it without you needing to help as much.
Two ideas for you on that:
– For adding more and more distance independently while you run, send him around the barrel so he exits facing a straight line to the jump. That way you can just run and use your verbals, no arm or leg movement to the jump needed and I bet you can get awesome distance!
– when you want him to push out to the jump, you can send him around the barrel so he exits where he is *not* on the straight line to the jump. But to push him out and cue the line (because it needs to be cued otherwise we donât want him pushing away to every line he sees – thinking ahead of threadles, bypasses, etc) – you will want to stay in motion to cue it and not have to step towards or move towards the jump.
The way to do that is to increase your connection to him so he sees your shoulders pointing to the line as you run straight. So as he exits the barrel, definitely keep moving and donât decelerate to step to or point at the jump. As you keep moving, keep your arm either really low so he can see your connection to his eyes, or really high so he can still see your connection and the arm doesnât block it. I prefer really low and back for my small dogs, but that is handler preference and you can play with what feels better without you needing to stop to help him. The increased connection will totally get the line more independently without you needing to step to it.
>I love the European way to teach soft independent turns.>
This is also an American game đ You will see it here in 2 weeks LOL! I also use it to teach that the verbals are absolute: left means left, no matter where I am or what distraction is out on the line đ
For Benny, 2 suggestions here: angle the bumps in closer so he is bouncing and not adding strides. The added strides were a bit off balance, so we can teach him how to bend better when they begin at a bounce distance. You might have to experiment with how far apart to get the bounce, and also go to smaller bumps so it is not actual real jumping yet.
And donât widen the distance yet, he is not quite ready. You can see he had some questions about finding the middle jump and also his feet were a bit all over the bumps. This is a great way to teach jumping form, so we can to make sure he learns the form before we add a lot of speed or bigger bumps.
Take your time adding this game, no need to do a lot of reps yet – it is a controlled jumping game and even on the low bumps, it is still a lot of jumping for such a small young dog. We want to protect that growing body and not do tooooo much jumping yet because his joint/muscles are still forming.
Nice work here!
Tracy
Thanks for the video! This season looked good!
I think he was expecting treats for every jump at first so gave you a VERY judgmental look on the first rep LOL!!! But then he was fine to keep moving and keep going, even if you didnât reward every jump.
>I felt like he only missed a jump if when he turned after eating his treat he was facing me instead of the jump. >
Agree! And that is no problem.
â¨>Was I going too fast in this session (speed-wise)? Clip 4 is the second to last rep and the last rep we got photobombed by Minky the cat. Lew didnât seem to mind.Your speed was good! It all went really well. Most dogs prefer that we run run run but we need them to understand they will get paid for commitment even if we donât run đ And Minky was just being helpful haha!
I think he is ready for the new games that were added today! Stay tuned for the email, coming soon!
Great job!
â¨TracyGood morning!
>Macklynn is going in to be spayed on Wednesday, so we are going to be a bit behind here. Iâm hoping to be able to catch up in the time you had built in for holidays and weather â but what aligns better with the course expectations? Should we not upload until we are back on track? Or start posting when sheâs done with recovery, even if sheâs on previous weeksâ games?>
You can start posting as soon as you are back to training, even if it is previous games. No problem at all to post whatever you have, when you have it đ
>Ah, the pointing is definitely a habit that needs to be broken.>
We have a game coming up next week which will be a pretty hilarious way to break the pointing habit. Stay tuned đ
>A friend graciously offered to loan us her wobble board â so Iâm excited to see what kind of progress we can make here.>
This is awesome!!! Hold off on the wobble board until she is fully and totally healed from the spay – we donât want to risk any ouchy moments associated with it.
Looking at the plank video:
She did well offering getting on it and seemed very confident. Super!
>She made it clear that I was standing far too close to the plank for the first couple of reps>
Yes, moving further away helped – I donât think she was uncomfortable with you being close, I think it was more about the reward placement: with you that close, the reward throw was causing her to push off the plank a bit. But with you further away, the reward throw was straighter so she stayed on the board better. Yay!
â¨Do you have a way to elevate the board while keeping it stable? She is ready for more height! And you can also add in having her turn around on it.Looking at the lazy game:
>She had a lot of energy â so I felt her annoyance at my lack of enthusiasm here>
Ha! Girl dogs are so judgmental LOL!
The game went really well and she offered a lot of lovely commitment. Super! The barrel was the hardest thing to commit too, which is interesting that the jumps now have higher value than the barrel. And that is fine, unless you plan to do NADAC Barrelers games đ
And she paid a lot of attention and was trying to find the line. The only times she ended up someplace unexpected was at 1:15 when you were disconnected so she had to guess about which side of you to be on. Adding a little bit of connection clarified that and she found the line you wanted.
Since she is committing really well, you can move to the new games if you have a chance to train before the spay. The new games allow you both to run đ
If you donât have a chance, no worries! After her time off for spay recovery (a couple of weeks, I would guess) you can do a quick re-visiting of the lazy game to make sure it is still solid, then move to the new games.
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning, hope you had a great weekend!!
>Normally I wouldnât think that people on the other field would be that distracting to him without their dogs, but I thought maybe the sounds of the contacts moving around could have been a trigger.>
I think it was probably just weird – and teenage dog brains do not like weird LOL!!! So if that happens again (they are moving stuff while you are there), you can take him out on leash and play pattern games, to help him process the weirdness of it all đ
He is doing well with the one-step sends here! He did best when you did the send after he exited the tunnel, probably because he could see it best. He still committed when the send was earlier like at :37 & 1:29 but you can see he was not as sure. Compare to 1:04 & 1:17 & 1:37, for example, where the send happened after he exited the tunnel, and he zipped directly to the wing and had good distance there too đ
At :54 he had a question about the line. I think it was partially that your arm was pointing out ahead, so he was not sure which side of you to be on (the arm blocked his view) and the distraction in the other ring also drew his focus away.
He still prefers it when you run, of course đ and that is fine because he is ready for you to move to the new games posted this week! Those involve a similar setup but you get to run and handle for real đ I think you will both have fun!
Looking at the rocker board video – he offered touching it right away! That is totally rewardable!
That ball is a real winner in terms of reward value so I think we can make good progress here!
Remember that he has an anxiety about it, so we want to build up a lot of love for it and not approach it like normal shaping where we do ask for more behavior during the session.
You did reward later on when he touched it – and that can be the entire session. You were waiting for more and I donât think you are going to get a lot more right now because he doesnât like the noise or movement yet. So get that one great reward in, then end the game while he totally wants more – and resist temptation to try to get more. He offered a lot of good front foot interaction, so take that and be done with the session. He wonât necessarily want to be done⌠and that is good! Be done anyway LOL!! Because then he will be super motivated to interact next time đ
Great job!
â¨TracyHi!
Thanks for getting Brooklynâs thread going! She and Bandit are sign a great job!
>Today we took a 3hr trip to buy a used teeter so we will be ready when the time comes⌠and my husband put together a shed in the backyard to store everything in. Itâs been a busy Halloween weekend.>
Yay! This is awesome!! Both dogs are at a good age & training level to begin the teeter games for sure.
Looking at the first video:
>I think itâs still more me not know what I am doing and making him confused lol. I need to plan it out better before I start.>
Actually, your connection looked really good, and the sends were strong!
So why did he stop and come into you at :27? I think it was a combination of doing too many in a row with no reward (he was like âwhy are we doing another one?â) plus you did not step forward with your dog-side leg, so the cue was not as clear there. You can do fewer wraps in a row and add more rewards, which will make it easier for you both đ
When you were going wing-to-wing: the step to the wing at :33 was great! Then at :34 when you wanted the 2nd wing, you did a bit of a grapevine rotation which pulled him off the line and into you. So you can keep moving forward to the middle wing. Good job rewarding him though, he was working hard and was actually correct to follow the foot rotation there!
On the 2nd video (lazy game): He was very happy to have the tunnel out there LOL! The session went really well! He is a speedy dog, so you need to point at each obstacle. You can keep moving and looking at him – think of it as saying the verbal cues directly to him and not to the obstacle đ
When you do that, he is finding the line really well! When you point ahead of him, the line you want is not as clear because it turns your shoulders to the line you donât want. You can see this at 1:35 when you were pointing to the tunnel out ahead of him, but that actually turned your shoulders to the other end of the tunnel so that is where he went. Good boy!
Compare to the next ru at 2:09 where you looked at him and didnât point ahead til he was past you: he found the line to the tunnel perfectly!
Excellent work here! He is ready for the new games posted today!
Tracy
Hello and welcome, Brooklyn! Great to see you here! Bandit is awesome and youâre doing a great job with him đ
Looking at the videos:
The first video of the 3 jump lazy game looked good. Bandit might have been wondering why you were not running LOL!! But he did well, no trouble at all.
The 2nd video also looked really good – Bandy was happy to go around all three jumps independently and I think he likes the tunnel a LOT too. You were doing a good job of being lazy đ and also, you had great connection. What I mean by that is you were looking at him which helps support the line, instead of pointing at the obstacles (which actually does not support the line).
I think the 3rd video was the best in terms of your connection! He only had one question, at the very end (at :20 on the video). You can see there that it was the only time you were pointing ahead to the obstacle, and you can see that it caused him to look up at you instead of going to the tunnel. That happens because pointing ahead turns your shoulders away from where you actually want him to go, and he is reading your shoulders and not your hand cue – sounds weird but it is true đ
So in that moment, you can point to him and look at him and say tunnel directly to him. That will turn your shoulders to the line you want and he will go directly to it without looking at you.
Because this went so well, you can move on to the new games that are posted today! That will let you both run and do handling, and I think it will be a lot of fun.
Great job here!! Let me know if you have any questions.
Tracy
Good morning!
>We did another session and I tried to be better about my body language and to add in the center wing.>
Being on your right side was much easier. I think it might be a bit of side preference for you – the timing of the sends on your right were really good with the big leg step after he exited the tunnel being super obvious.
I donât think he is really reading the hand cue at all because it is really high, so keeping the hand low and emphasizing the leg send will make a big difference on the left side sends.
On those left side sends,
you were possibly a bit too early, stepping forward before he had fully exited the tunnel so he didnât really see the leg cue. So you can let him exit then give him a big step to the wing.And because this is the harder side, the wing can be closer (easier to get to) and you can throw the rewards to the other side of the wing to build more value. Just be sure to praise after he gets to the wing – if you give him big praise when he is on his ay to the wing, he might come back to you (as happened here :))
>This session was after our Lazy Game session where I used really big treats. Maybe he was full?>
This is entirely possible đ He might have been going into rest-and-digest mode, which is the direct opposite of running hard to the wing đ
The timing of your send was definitely better at 1:18 but he was like âno thanksâ. So you can revisit it when he is hungry and fresher, with the wing closer too.
>The treats might have been a little TOO big because he grabbed one & ran away with it to eat it. LOL. >
Ha! That is hilarious!
The video here is the same as the winginâ it video, can you repost the lazy game video?
Thanks!!
Tracy
Good morning!
He is doing great here! Nice work getting your motion going before releasing him with the pass cue: the motion is the primary cue for now, so seeing it before he moved was a huge help. Yay!
He was VERY EXCITED on the first rep so did a bit of a Hulk Smash on the barrel when you said âget itâ, but I am really happy to see that he did not do that again even though the game was still exciting đ He had a small question on the last rep when you were all the way across on the other side away from the barrel, so you gave the tiniest bit of help with some pressure to the bump – that worked well! The more he practices this, the less help he will need as you get further away.
One thing to add now that he is really getting the concept: throw the reward to the landing side of the bump, closer to the barrel. That will open up even more independence because he will go around the barrel and look at the bump (and in the future, the bar) because of the associated reward placement. And that will also mean he wonât look at you! And that way he will commit really well to the jump on the backside while you can run through and do blinds, etc.
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
Looking at the leaping up:
These little games allow us to isolate this stuff in the early stages!
>Do you think itâs frustration, arousal, confusion or just impulse regulation?>
Yes, yes, yes, and also probably yes LOL. All of the above? There is no way to know for sure and I am sure her early adolescent brain doesnât even know why, and just tells her to do it đ It probably falls into the âapproachâ category the adolescent brain does without really knowing if the approach is a good thing or not. That pre-frontal cortex is just not that developed yet, plus we have some breed tendencies that come into play as well. A Beagle or German Shorthaired Pointer are not likely to be grabby⌠but herding dogs sure are likely! And Aussies are one of those that are wired to be a bit more grabby like what she is doing.
That doesnât mean we should ignore it though đ So based on the session (and other sessions here), a few ideas:
I think the general concept of remote reinforcement is going well, but also it is clearly arousing/stimulating enough with the toy that you got a bit of leaping up.
Let her see that your hands are empty as you move away from the toy – I think she was watching closed hands perhaps thinking there was food in them. Empty hands that are visibly empty will clarify that.
The big exciting praise PLUS running with the toy reward was too much for now, so we can break things down a little differently:
When using food as the reward, you can try running away. Then big praise⌠but walk back to the food. See how that goes.
With the toy, though, walk away rather than run. The toy brings the added stimulation to this game for now, so we donât need more from the running away.
Then add the big exciting praise but walk back to the toy. Praising in an exciting way plus the running is too much for the early stages of arousal regulation.
We can add more as she sees this more (and as the brain matures). Letting the brain mature is a bigger piece than we realize: it doesnât matter how much we try to train impulse control if the brain is not mature enough to be able to learn it and retrieve it.
Also, when using the toy, when getting back to the reward station, you are picking up the toy and saying strike pretty simultaneously. So what might be happening is the RR marker might actually be producing a conditioned response to come up to your hands to grab something, because it is being paired with the toy/strike being paired together.
So to avoid that happening: when you get back to the toy, pick it up, praise for a beat or two⌠then say strike so there is no anticipation of the grab and no accidental pairing.
The other leap happened at 1:42 This was a mechanics error, not an overarousal error. As far as she knew, the tugging was supposed to continue. You were already mentally into the next rep, so you had turned your back on her and raised your hand, walking away.
She was trying to re-grip and got you by accident. Human error đ Bearing in mind her age, you will want to remain in-the-moment during active tugging. Then when you are ready to move to the next rep, get the toy back, give a food reward, and head to the next rep. Using the tugging as a transport at this stage makes the mechanics unclear and we donât want to create any uncertainty there.The shpile looked strong! Adding the taller/wobblier stuff was no problem at all đ She was very confident and balanced as she offered getting all four feet on the stuff. The arousal doesnât seem to change her strong proprioception skills – that is GREAT!
You can have clean strike mechanics here too: pick up the toy, hold for a moment, then say strike for her to get it so there is no leaping at your hands getting paired into that movement of moment.
When you pick it up, it can be casual, the toy can be dangling in a relaxed way at your side/from your hand. We donât need to add more exciting into getting the toy đ
Also, since we donât want the leaping up, you can lower the toy so when you say strike, she keeps all feet on the ground to get it rather than jump up at your hands/midsection. It is very much the same behavior as when she leaps up, so we can carve out a different behavior everywhere đ
>Also, which slice would you recommend? I have Sprite behind the gate usually. She does like to bark at dogs. Do you think low level barking dogs while we play a game would be helpful? >
Based on the challenges of the weekend and how much barking she did yesterday, I would say it is too soon to add barking dogs. There might be an overarousal/anxiety element there, so we want to train her brain with âoh that is interestingâ before we add things that might trigger barking.
Do you have a video of you running Sprite, especially if you are saying tunnel a few times? Playing that in the background at a low volume level might be a nice, useful slice!
And you can also set up a gauntlet of stuff to walk by to get into the training, such as a BUNCH of toys in a pile and a bag of treats. That might be plenty challenging đ â¨â¨We will go to the barking dogs at some point, but for now I think her nervous system might be a little cranked up from the weekend, so we will let things settle back down for now. It sounds like her nervous system was repeatedly activated Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Adolescent brains/bodies take twice as long, so maybe give her 48 hours before adding anything that requires impulse control. She might slip back into her emotional brain a bit too easily if she doesnât have some time for her body to reset.
Nice work here!
â¨TracyGood morning! This went really well! You were able to work his commitment and your timing with. A ton of success. Commitment looked great (he is being such a good boy and seems to really enjoy running with you!), your connection was perfect, and your verbals were spot on too. Click/treat for you and Dublin!
On rep 2 (:28), you locked into pretty perfect timing on the one-step sends and maintained that for the entire session. The wing-to-wing sending looks good too! Because his commitment is developing really well, hopefully it felt pretty easy to send him to the wings.
The FC at 2:06 started after he was halfway to the tunnel, good job rewarding him, he was was good boy!
Excellent adjustment in your timing on the next rep: you started the FC at 2:32 when he was halfway to the wing. That timing allowed him to read it perfectly!
He only had one question in this session, when he went past the tunnel entry at 4:18 – I think it came up on him fast and he didnât have enough time to get himself decelerated to get into it. I love that you still rewarded his effort, because he really was trying super hard! That kept him confident and allowed him to really nail it on the next rep. Super!
If you wanted to re-visit this, you can add more distance between the wings and the tunnel. New games are added today, so no need to revisit it because it was great and we can apply the concepts to the new stuff in coming weeks.
Great job!!
Tracy
