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Hi! Let me know if I am understanding this correctly and if this will work for you:
>Okay, looking for alternatives then….would you leash him up and take him for a couple minute wander? >
If you are looking for a decompression, then you could do that but it does cut into limited training time. How would he feel about a snuffle mat while you reset? If can be in a crate or expen or even up on his cot (no impulse control needed for staying on it if he is snuffling!) if he is very comfy in those, but it doesn’t have to be: it can be off to the side somewhere so he can snuffle (or lickmat or chew) for the 30 to 60 seconds it takes to reset. Then he can play again for another short burst. That way, you can gt multiple sessions in during the 10 minutes. No need to try to use all of the 10 minutes for training/learning stuff for 2 reasons:
– a short blast of training will work better to start the learning and then sleeping on it will consolidate it. There is a definite less-is-more approach to training which soooo counterintuitive but works so well – you will be able to progress all the games really quickly.– being able to go from “work” to rest/decompression to work to rest/decompression will actually ‘teach’ his body about arousal regulation! You will see it expressed in future sessions where he can regulate more and more easily (especially during the exiting times of adolescence that are ahead LOL!)
Then you can save the last minute or two of his 10 minutes for play and for a walkabout with you because those are wonderful for consolidating learning and arousal regulation too.
Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Hi!
>I hope your test went well and you have fun at CanAm!>
I survived! I did the test as soon as it was available this morning – it was fine. 93%! And that includes deductions for 3 things that I just clicked wrong. Oops. I am relieved and now can focus on running the dogs. Whew!
Looking at the video:
>She’s not getting the send part great yet. >
I think what you were seeing was her brain processing the challenge of having to move away to the barrel and ignore the toy: that’s HARD but she did it really well! Yay! I could see her looking at it and contemplating grabbing it LOL!!!!
She will keep getting better at driving to the barrel – you can give her a little ready dance and big step to it, or hold her collar and start the verbal then let go for her to drive to it. I bet she would also drive to it if you used food, because she won’t have to ignore the toy (but still work the toy to deal with the question below:)
>I need help trying to change the leap in the air to get the toy behavior. She wants to grab just below my hand or where the toy meets the handle.>
Yes! I think what she was doing was grabbing in a great spot where she had the best leverage for tugging. Smart! But also…OUCH if she gets your hand! Even at the end when you were able to uncoil it more, she was hitting a bit high. A couple of ideas:
When you are waiting for her to hit the exit line at the exit of the barrel – she is very close to you there. So rather than have her tug from your hand, you can drop the toy and keep moving – encouraging her to bring it to you.
As the line moves around the barrel more like it did in the video here, you can do the FC and run away sooner: when she is almost arriving at your hand, let go of the toy for her to grab it and run through it. As she does that, you turn and run the other way so she grabs it and chases you with it. Then you a reward with another toy or treats.
That small change in reward delivery will change her approach to the toy: grabbing it lower in anticipation of staying in motion with it rather than getting good tug leverage.
Let me know if that makes sense! Great job here!
Tracy
Hi!
>Drive to toy around cone was nice. She was not so sure what that big hand out there>
She drove around really well! She was doing a lovely hand target fly-by LOL!! You can change your hand position – try a close fist with a pointing finger, which can help her look at the line and not at the hand. You can hold her a bit longer, point at the line, then when she looks at the line – let her go to wrap the cone.
For the wing wrap: no edits needed, it is always better to leave full sessions in 🙂
Is that an airline back to go around? LOL! Clever!
>have one cookie after she went behind me and then she thought ok I just circle the mommy>
I think 2 things were going on – a slight right turn preference, and I think the bowls were probably more visible between the legs of the chair or behind you, than around the crate. So you can help her by making the edge of the bowls a little more visible around the crate – and you can also stand up, so there are no chair legs for her to see under 🙂
When she was climbing on the crate: I think it was mainly that you were talking to her, pushing her off, and moving the crate – all of which enhance the crate and draw her focus to it 🙂
Don’t respond at all when she climbs up on it, be quieter when she is working 🙂 and when you want to move he position of the barrel/crate: toss a cookie away for her to go find in the grass while you move the crate to add more distance.
She was absolutely great when you were quiet during the work reps and was zipping around it really well!
Great job here!!
Tracy
He had fun with the wing wrap game! He has good value for the wing. Be sure that you decelerate when you are doing the call to have before the pivot: without deceleration, he didn’t know to collect and was shooting past you (like at :30 & :53 & 1:47)
When you are running away from the wing, be sure that you make a connection back to him – if he doesn’t see the connection he goes wide or ended up on the other side of you (like at 1:12). If he ends up on the wrong side, it is rewardable because it means he didn’t see any connection and didn’t know where to be. He is perfect when he sees connection. 🙂
Be sure he sees the connection about which side to be on as soon as he exits the wing –
you will want to open up connection back to him, making the hand you want him to come to more visible by extending it a little more back to him (and letting him see your eyes which opens up your shoulders that is what tells him which side to be on). You can see it at 1:47 a little more clearly because you are coming towards the camera: he exits the wing a bit wide because the hand is already aat your side and moving a bit ahead of you, so from behind he is not getting a clear picture of which side to be on.Be sure to also work the turn and burn game, because it will have you leaving for the FC on a much harder angle – it will challenge him more to commit to the wing when he sees you running back towards his path before he gets to the wing.
And starting this game with a cookie toss instead of a wing wrap will really help build up food value – it gets paired into the running and the tugging, so eating treats will come to take on the same value. Fun!! And we really want the treats to have the same value as tugging already does.
>Foot target sends – using the prop is my biggest concern.
That’s my real concern as I am afraid when it’s time for the real mat work – it will be very confusing for the dog to re-learn all this bad hits patterns.Most of the dogs trained with the prop also have really lovely running contacts, so it has not been a problem over the years. (The ones that don’t have running contacts were trained to a stopped contact). You’ll note that the props are generally completely different than a running contact mat – like my large dog is using a shoe as a prop 🤣😂 and my whippet is using a small cooler bag – his feet fit on it as a baby puppy but not when he grew to be 22” tall! The small dog in the demos is using a hat, with the head part of it sticking up. Their running dog walk mat is the typical running dog walk mat. So there has not been a problem because when we do eventually introduce the running dog walk mat, it is entirely different, the prop is long gone, and there is zero confusion.
>>Another way I was thinking – I can use a smaller front feet target instead of larger mat for rear feet training. >
Yes – a smaller target is perfectly fine, so it can be front feet only (like the shoe with my bigger dog). You can also be slightly elevated, 2 or 3 inches tall, anything that is easy to get front feet on to his it (but not rear) and looks very very different than a running dog walk mat.
>So my question – can i split-up this mat/rear fit hits and lateral/distance lines?>
If you mean save the mat for running contact work and use something else for lateral distance? Yes! You totally can. You can even cut a pool noodle in half and use that for him to go over for the lateral distance games 🙂
>The dog must slam the target consistently – not near-misses, not running over or around or near – it must be same consistent front feet hits?>
The prop hits should be consistent front foot hits – they will look a bit different when introducing the lateral distance though: the dogs will hit as they are moving, and with the other prop games so far the dogs are turning so the front foot hits are more of a pounce than a stride. Both are correct, though, because the cues are different and asking for different behaviors.
>This is the mat-prop session – he liked the target focus, I think, but I really didn’t like his untrained hits – or misses when running straight.. And I am concerned that would be a bad learning pattern to break when I need to train hits.>
Looking at the video:
If this is the same mat or similar mat to the running dog walk mat you will use, then yes, I agree that we can change it because it could look similar to the RDW mat. This is where a smaller & taller prop will be easier for him to mark as a front foot target versus running through mat. (I elevate my RDW mat at the beginning too, to get the footwork, but that is different from the prop games). So you can choose something, do a bit of shaping so he knows what it is, then apply the games to it 🙂
And with the prop – be consistent with maintaining front foot hits. And with the RDW mat, he will learn the rear foot hits (for a dog his size, it is actually a 1-2-3-4 foot pattern with 3 & 4 being a nice split rear-foot hit :))
When you are working the sends to the prop, he does much better when you step to it so remember to use your leg 🙂 And for the lateral distance – move back and forth and don’t send, so he lines himself up to it without you needing to send to it.
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Good morning! Thanks for the check in, she is doing great!
>Do you have any suggestions for doing the Diamond/Starfish game in a smaller space? Would I just need to eliminate some of the wings and keep it one-sided?
Yes! It depends on whether you want to use the tunnel or not. You can use a short tunnel and keep it one-sided, moving the wings around depending on which sequence you want to do.
And you can also shorten the distances a lot – since we are working with wings, it is fine to do very short distances because there she won’t need the room to set up her jumping.
Or, you can eliminate the tunnel entirely and replace it with a barrel or two to go around, like a race track 🙂
Good job with the lateral lead out game!
The first rep was hard for her, so moving the wing in closer really helped jumpstart things. She was pretty awesome after that and you were able to move the wing back out a bit. Great job throwing the reward to the landing side!
You had to repeat the process a bit on the other side, with the first rep where she came to you but then went to the jump on all of the other reps. She seems to have an easier time when you are on the side of the wing that is on the landing side of the jump, so you can start there when you revisit this, and see if it helps the first rep be more successful.
Since her stay is looking good, you can also place the toy on the ground out past jump 2, then see if she will focus on it before you release her to the jump. That will help you know if she is going to the jump or not while developing the forward focus skill on the start line.
I think the accordion went great! I watch these in slow motion t see exactly what the dogs are doing (my brain is too old to see it all with fast dogs in real time haha) She was consistent in her striding, good head position (it is low here because of the moving target and that will translate really well when you are running real sequences). Even the rep with the broken stay was lovely LOL
She did a great job adjusting to the different distances – some of them are *awkward* distances, like reps 2 and 4 (but that is part of the learning!) She handled that really well by extending her bounce. On the 3rd distance, she added a strong 1 stride but then went back to the bounce on rep 4 (same distance as the 2nd distance). This is HARD for young dogs and she was pretty effortless with it. Super! Then on the last rep, back to a nice balanced bounce.
Since this went really well, you can revisit it sometimes and each time, that 3rd jump starts further away. And when the 3rd jump is about 15 feet away, you can raise the bar to start introducing higher heights to this.
She is anticipating the stay release a bit, based on your rhythm of putting the toy down and releasing. So be sure to praise, reward, and take more time between the toy going to the ground and the release so she is not anticipating and breaking the stay.
Great job!
Tracy
Good morning!
This went really well! The inflatable was a good challenge: use enough movement to it that she had to balance, but it was also easy for her to sort it out and get all 4 feet on it. You can totally add a large balance disc to it (keep them all slightly under-inflated for now so it is not too hard) and have her walk a trail between the various obstacles.
She also did well on the plank! Yay! You can see if she can do very slow turns on it and keep her feet on the board without stepping off.
>looking up at me tends to mean one rear foot ends up off so will have to adjust things.>
One thing that will help is to change the reward delivery: you can feed her with the dog-side arm, rather than the opposite arm. By feeding with the opposite arm or facing her, she was curling towards you a bit more and that was causing her rear to come off the board.
I think quieter praise might help too – every time you were excited, she got excited and stepped off the plank 🙂 So very calm quiet praise might be able to help that. Or, a quiet marker – do you have a marker that means “I am delivering a cookie to your mouth”?
Great job here!!
Tracy
Awesome! I agree, this went great, onwards to you standing! You can change the timing of your click a bit – the clicks here were mainly happening when she was lifting her head from the bowl. You can start to delay and pick when she is heading to the cone, so she is looking at the cone more and you less. You can also use your dish marker instead of a click.
When you stand: if things go really well like they did here and she picks it up quickly (I am confident she will), you can move right into the turn and burn game posted this week. It really fun and I bet she likes to run run run 🙂
Great job!
Tracy
Hi!
I will say that dogs really love St. Rocco’s! They might be super high value, too high in value to want to go back to the toy. To get the toy involved, you might need to go to a boring cookie 🙂 and a really exciting toy. She is usually really good about food-to-toy so it might just be a testament to how delish the St. Roccos stuff is 🙂
The other possibility is that she had done several of the foodie reps and just needed a break for a few hours before going into the toy reps which are higher energy. I am not sure how far apart these sessions were, but really good cookies might have put her into rest and digest mode 🙂
The decel/pivot reps were all really lovely! The 2nd rep at :18 was the absolute best in terms of very clear decel and pivot so she was super tight. The decel was really early so she was able to turn really tight to you.
You can begin the next session with the pivot (starting her next to you) then drive to toy, then adding in the drive to handler element after that will dull cookies 🙂
Nice work here!
Tracy
Hi!
Small details at the start:
Really good LOEO at the beginning and stay rewarding!
You can set him up on a straight line 1-2 (slicing 1), so he doesn’t have to turn to find the tunnel.
Small blooper at :49, where you turned away from 3 too soon. More connection and moving more parallel at 1:04 was much clearer – nice adjustment!
Looking at the threadles: The first step is to clarify what the cue is. You were showing cross arm and he didn’t recognize it at all (plus it is really hard to see when he is behind you, more upper body rotation would be needed). When you broke it down, you did dog-side arm back (which is what he learned in previous MaxPup classes) and he totally responded well! Yay!
Be sure to not push towards the jump though – that is what pushed him to the backside.
Then he was not sure about taking the jump before the threadle jump – it was hard to see your position relative to the line but with the release being with the threadle arm and verbal, he clearly thought he should threadle the first jump. It looked like he could see you outside the upright, so I can see his argument there for threading it. Be sure to be more between the uprights and maybe use a regular release so he knows to take the jump.
Looking at the blind cross with the tunnel discrimination: is this what you meant by him not turning? He actually was correct on all of these even with the toy on the ground 🙂
What was happening at 4:17, 4:44, and the last rep was when he was over the bar before the off course, you disconnected for the blind and accelerated parallel to his line. That motion cue is what put him confidently into the tunnel. Also, there was no connection visible on the first 2 until after he went into the tunnel. You almost had it visible before he entered on the last one but it was still late).
Which jump were you heading towards after the blind? He would need to see you running that direction and super clear connection on the new side, all before he took off for the light blue jump before the off course tunnel. That should get the line change.
You were great about rewarding him, though! Let me know if the timing and motion thoughts make sense.
Tracy
Hi!
>I’m trying to not get any failure there as I build that skill set.>
Agreed! We don’t want failure there for sure. Also, bear in mind that a station (in these early stages in particular) is a lot of work/cognitive load for a puppy, so he isn’t really getting to rest between sessions or games. We don’t want to sandwich work with more work, as the increased cognitive load will be too expensive for his puppy brain 🙂
> Would you just do a treat scatter while you reset>
I do that very rarely, almost never. I don’t want the pools of odor in the environment, because that can clutter it as much as visual objects for a puppy. A treat scatter at the end can be a nice decompression, though!
>Alternatively I could crate or ex pen him in between but I find that actually makes self control go down. >
Is he barking in the crate or expen when you are resetting? I use a crate or expen because the pup can rest and not keep working. If he is stimulated from the previous session, he can have something to decompress with while in the crate: lickmat or stuffed kong/toppl, or snuffle mat, or something to chew on. That can help him reset his physiology while we reset the stage 🙂
>I do NOT want a barking dog or one that bites at the crate. >
Totally agree – those are frustration behaviors that we definitely don’t want. Decompression in the crate can help, and I also don’t train or play with my other dogs while the puppy is crated between training moments.
Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Hi!
>I’m trying to not get any failure there as I build that skill set.>
Agreed! We don’t want failure there for sure. Also, bear in mind that a station (in these early stages in particular) is a lot of work/cognitive load for a puppy, so he isn’t really getting to rest between sessions or games. We don’t want to sandwich work with more work, as the increased cognitive load will be too expensive for his puppy brain 🙂
> Would you just do a treat scatter while you reset>
I do that very rarely, almost never. I don’t want the pools of odor in the environment, because that can clutter it as much as visual objects for a puppy. A treat scatter at the end can be a nice decompression, though!
>Alternatively I could crate or ex pen him in between but I find that actually makes self control go down. >
Is he barking in the crate or expen when you are resetting? I use a crate or expen because the pup can rest and not keep working. If he is stimulated from the previous session, he can have something to decompress with while in the crate: lickmat or stuffed kong/toppl, or snuffle mat, or something to chew on. That can help him reset his physiology while we reset the stage 🙂
>I do NOT want a barking dog or one that bites at the crate. >
Totally agree – those are frustration behaviors that we definitely don’t want. Decompression in the crate can help, and I also don’t train or play with my other dogs while the puppy is crated between training moments.
Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Good morning!
>I thought I would progress next time to actually leaving the reward outside the ring where we will practice the leash with that too. >
Perfect!
>He already is fine walking into the ring on leash and putting the leash on at the end of training but we have not done that with the reward left behind so we will try that next!>
I don’t anticipate that he will have any questions, but it is always good to ask him about it because he definitely has opinions and is happy to share those opinions LOL!
> but sometimes seems more into the toy in different places like when he worked for it on the practice jump at the CO. >
The environment might stimulate a higher arousal state which makes toy play more accessible.
>Either way, even if he doesn’t want to play with the toy in the ring, me carrying the toy should help with his overall picture recognition and will make sure to have a croissant outside at the end.>
I completely agree! Even if he doesn’t play with the toy, the visual of it in your hand is an incredibly helpful bridge between the training environment and the trial environment. The visual of the toy can tell him “yes, reinforcement is available” and also gives him a highly recognizable focal point in the somewhat chaotic ring environment 🙂 I am glad you recognize this because many people do not realize how helpful the visual is as a bridge, even if the dog doesn’t play with it in the ring.
And of course, the croissant or any high value bread & butter product is very important after the run LOL!!
Tracy
Good morning!
>I have not found that magic spot of good temperature and an energetic Lew to repeat his good round of this game. He isn’t really chasing the toy.
It is hard when fighting with high temperatures! I can see his little tongue was hanging out – he was driving to the toy here, was he taking the cookie out of it? It looks like he was very interested in it and focusing forward. He was driving ahead, he was looking at the jump and not at you, and went faster when you said Go Go Go!
The best option might be a one-and-done approach to the more explosive training games outdoors: do one rep, big reward, then be done. You can try it again in a few minutes or later in the day. Spacing it out like this will actually make *more* progress because he won’t be dialing back his speed to conserve energy as his body processes heat.
>Can I use the MM to add excitement for a few sessions?>
Yes, but very sparingly because the MM is soooo hard to fade out – and multiple reps even with the MM might cause him to get hot and dial it back to conserve energy.
For the ladder grid – you can move the jumps in closer to see if he can bounce between them rather than add a stride between them. What distance were they here? You can reduce the distance by about a foot or so to see what the bounce distance might be.
>I see on the video that I need to work on keeping the praise before the break.>
Yes, I think he was trying to anticipate the release which is why he broke the stay – it ends up being a lot of reps so you can see by the end he was not powering over the jumps the same way as he was at the beginning. More praise will solidify the stay, which will lead to fewer reps but more success 🙂 It is possible that the MM is very enticing so holding a stay with it there is really hard. An empty food bowl might be a good way to solidify the stay while teaching him the ladder.
He had a lot of fun at the league and was super focused and engaged. Yay! He drove to the toy but needed you to open it (if it was a food-based toy). I can’t remember if we have tried a treat hugger toy with him? The treat sticks up out of it for him to pluck out, which he might like better than having to open a lotus ball type toy?
One other thing you can add in the league is to have people in the ring. They can be in a chair off to the side or leaning on the a-frame or something – but it is a great opportunity to introduce him to the concept of ignoring people in the ring (and get cookies for ignoring them :)) so he is not surprised to find them there at trials 🙂
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
She is a feisty little nugget – as soon as she knew the correct answer, she was mad if you didn’t let her go immediately on the forward focus to the bowl round the cone LOL! Hilarious!
And that also means you can challenge her more by moving the dish further around the cone more quickly. What you can add, though, is the hand cue: she is focusing forward to the bowl so you can add in pointing to the bowl – can she focus forward when you point, before you release her? Then the bowl can keep progressing around the cone until she has to focus to the cone and not the bowl, and run past the bowl.
Great job propping the wobble board so it moved just enough but was not very loud at first. She got her back feet on it really well! The floor might be too slippery in the kitchen for her to get her back feet on it without the bed under it, but you can try it outside where it will slide less.
She is driving ahead to the toy really well! She is still sorting out why you are holding her (very judgey looks at your hand on her harness :)) but she drove ahead of you brilliantly. So you can keep adding in your motion – because she is so small, your motion can be walking at first then build to jogging then running, with her leaving you in the dust to get the toy 🙂
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
>I started working on the Game Package 2 games (probably should do those before starting any Pkg 3 games – LOL!)>
Yes LOL! But they build on each other so it will work out well.
>Of course I found the cones after I finished.>
Ha! I totally relate. This always happens.
She is doing really well here and is picking up the forward focus concept really well!! And great job with all the tug breaks to keep her really pumped up.
I am not sure she really saw the hand cue, so you can extend your arm more away from your body to make it really obvious.
> I tried a different type of toy for tugging on that she really likes to tug on just to use something different. switched to a regular tug at the end.>
She might have needed you to spice things up more – a longer toy can help you get more engagement when you are sitting on the ground because you can really swing it around.
Also, since she is doing really well with the concept, you can keep the session more interesting by moving the bowl more frequently. She doesn’t need a lot of reps of the same thing – too much repetition plus a small toy might be why she was a bit sniffy by the end (the sessions were a bit long so she was ready to do something else by the end :)) But long crazy toy and keeping the bowl moving around the cone/fan 🙂 will keep her very engaged!
One thing to add: Line her up with a cookie or tug her into position before touching her to start the rep – she was not a huge fan of being moved by her neck or body (notice the quick glances back at your hand when you pushed her to line her up – she was like, what the heck!) . She liked the first rep of the dog-on-right video: you tugged her into position, gently took her collar without moving her around by it, then went right into the first rep. Click/treat for you!
She did not like the line up on the next rep where you were pulling her around a lot, note the pinned ears and how she looked up at you (:55) and didn’t engage in the game. You were good to break it off to play and re-start, so definitely keep that in mind as you start each rep.
Great job here!
Tracy
