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Hi! This went really well!
On the first part, dog-on-left:
Position 1:
She is getting really good at all of these! This was highly successful and I am really happy with how independent the backside slice is getting!! Love it!
The circle wraps are a little harder, but she also did really well – she wanted to slice at first but then got tighter and tighter on these. And she was able to balance to the front side really well.Position 2:
More really independent backside slices here!!! As you get further ahead, try to throw the reward back even more to the landing spot for the backside slices, so that she doesn’t want to look at you at all. Same with the circle wrap – that will help her set up the jumping too.Position 3 – this is where she had a couple of questions about the backside slices. It might have been that you were pulling away too fast, so you can keep moving fast but run forward longer, as if running directly to the exit wing, til you see her committing to the entry wing (this will still get you amazing position on course!) I think you don’t need to slow down, you can keep the speed as long as you are moving forward and not pulling away. And try not to help by stepping to the entry wing (4:10) because you ended up being in her way an she ended up dropping the bar (it was the only dropped bar in this session!)
The 2nd part of this session, dog-on-right – she had some errors here but I think it was a bit of mental & physical fatigue. You can break this into 2 sessions of 5 minutes each with a rest break in between, even if she acts like she doesn’t want a rest LOL!!
She was still getting it right on this side, but not as precisely – a bit wider into the backside slices and wraps for example. She is better doing her circle wraps to her left than to her right, she is nice and tight turning to her left!
Overall, she executed brilliantly on this side too from all 3 start positions!! I love how well she is processing the difference between the cues so you can just run 🙂 Yay!
You can play with more of the adding height games, and then this game can come up to full height too!
Great job! Let me know what you think 🙂
TracyGood morning!
I sent an access request for the history 🙂 Google docs is being silly this week!
After watching these 3 trial videos and the home video, I see a couple of patterns emerging:
She is a fast, talented dog – it is totally worth it to crack the code and help her get very happy in the ring!
She doesn’t like front crosses all that much 🙂 They take too long to finish and if you are even a heartbeat late, she has to collect and wait… and the slows down and starts to think about other things. So… blind crosses! I am going get you REALLY happy to do all the blind crosses so she can just go fast fast fast fast fast 🙂
She totally does not like the weaves in the trial setting. She is stunning with her weaves at home. My guess is that it is a reinforcement issue – having to do the really complex weaves without fully knowing how to earn reinforcement in a very difficult environment (West Coast outdoor trials have a lot more distractions, like roads, than other parts of the country!).
But no worries, we can both get her happy in the ring AND rebuild the weave love. For now, set the weaves aside completely – no need to train them at home or ask for them at trials. We will get started with the games, particularly the remote reinforcement games and the tricks (with the rewards not being obvious) and see how she does 🙂
Let me know what you think! And if google won’t give me access to the history, you can copy and paste it here 🙂
Tracy
Good morning! Great to see you and Promise here, I think it is wonderful that you are training this before she really starts to trial!!!
This is a really interesting history – thank you for the info about her outside-of-agility anxieties, as those can explain some of her reactions to stimuli in agility! Addressing the underlying emotions will make a HUGE difference in her coping skills in the ring!
I think we will definitely be emphasizing the pattern games with her at first, as these have been AMAZING for helping dogs stay in the right ‘head space’ and ignore things that might increase anxiety (which is what her puppyhood issues like resourse guarding as based in, as well as not being able to eat kibble or have a ‘hard mouth’ with a higher value treat – and difficulty recovering. And some of it is just that she is still really, really young 🙂 Have you tried a tennis ball as a reward in those situations?
>>.I do not take her out until other dog is almost done running. I play games that focus on me until we walk to start. I have her face away from field until it is her turn to start>>
Take a look at the pattern game for your next training session – let’s get that one going and then we will be applying it to being around other dogs running agility.
>>The times she has run after other dogs have been when we were going back to get set up for next exercise>>
This is where we can add in engagement games and pattern games too so she stays engaged in these transition moments.
>>I was doing another stay program with her that was not a game and that program frustrated her. It was if she moved out of position I was to stop all motion and turn toward her and stare at her till she resumed position. She would bark at me and then flip me the finger and say I’m outa here!>>
“Not a game” often translates into “too much punishment” and Promise has no time for that LOL!
>>Insisting on her doing a behavior gets me no where or it gets me bitten and most barked the riot act!>>
Insisting often translates into punishment as well – and while some dogs will tolerate that, many do not an Promise is very clear about her opinions LOL!!!!
Looking at the videos:
You had a great toolbox of tricks!!! I saw:
Leg weaves/line ups, catch, hand touch, speak and snap (I love this one :)),beep for backing up, hopping up on you , down and release, spin and twist. Hopefully I didn’t miss any but these are great!
Try to either feed all the treats from your hand, drop on your toes, or do a catch to her mouth rather than toss them off to the side – I suggest this mainly because it will be really hard to do the cookie tosses to the ground in a trial setting, when you are near the ring. The pattern game does have cookie tosses to the ground, but as we bring it closer to the ring, it will move to your hands or to your shoes 🙂And now try the next steps where the cookies are in your pocket – cue an easy trick with an empty hand, then whip out a cookie to reward. This will help us fade cookies for when we want her to respond without seeing the paycheck first.
You can also try toy rewards for these tricks! First with the toy in your hand, then hidden in a pocket and whipped out as a reward.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
This is an insightful video!>> going between my legs as she just really wants to not near my feet.
I started this with a big slice of string cheese in each hand, with full on cookie lures, moving slowly. It was a rehab exercise that my dog needed to learn (slow moving leg weaves)- she didn’t like being close to my feet at first but the lures were delicious so they jump-started the behavior.
Does she like cream cheese or something like that? You can get 2 long spoons with a dab of delicious on each, to lure her around just one leg.
She has a lot of really good tricks!!! She seems to really like the pivoting (get in), the spins (left/right) and popping up at your side.
I notice on the video she doesn’t want to drive into your hand to take a cookie. She likes the tossed cookies back and forth… but that is not something easily transferred to the trial environment because it is hard to toss cookies far enough away to rely on that to keep her engaged.
And you mentioned towards the end that she doesn’t want to come in close to you. I see it here! Thinking about start line setups, she needs to be kind of close to you and if she thinks that is icky, it could explain why she is not always excited at the start line. Good to know!! We can make plans to find her happy place
>>I have not been able to teach any kind of jump up
She did a great job with the high hand touch especially when you were feeding her high!
So here is how we can add to your plan:
We need to keep her ‘high’ and also get her happier being near you – without relying on cookie tosses. Taking her favorite tricks, like spins and pivoting – do those, and have her hop up high to get the cookie. So it would be one spin, then hop up for the cookie, then move to a different spot, spin or pivot, hop up for the cookie and so on! I think that can tackle two things: getting her high when you have limited space like outside the ring – and getting her happier to be close to you.Let me know what you think! She is doing really well!
TracyGood morning! She is doing really well with this difficult game!!
The beginning looked great! her wraps were consistently strong! She had some tunnel questions – more on that below 🙂
I can hear the sheep when they appeared LOL but she came back to work very quickly! Good girl!
Looking at her tunnel questions – she is a very literal young dog 🙂 I think some of her questions had to do with connection. Looking at the tunnel cue at 1:47 – while she was still behind you, you pointed forward and that rotated your shoulders to face the center of the tunnel. Baby dogs are very literal – shoulders pointed to the center, so that is where she went and she didn’t go in the entry. It might have looked like she was chasing the toy, but it was more of a disconnection issue. Compare that to your connection all the way through the line at 2:01 – perfect! She knew to go into the tunnel there because connection and the line of your shoulders supported the tunnel entry. It is normal for baby dogs to ask this question, so for now try to over-exaggerate the connection to help her commit.
The same thing happened at 2:30 🙂
She only had one question about the wing wrap, and it was a connection question. At 2:20, you were looking at your side more than at her eyes, so she ended up in line up position LOL! So have your arm all the way back so she can see your eye contact, until she is catching up to you and passing you, committing to the wing.
Your connection was gorgeous at 2:27 and she was great with her commitment!
After her tunnel question at 2:30, yes she lost her tunnel skills LOL! It possibly could have been just a bit of uncertainty from the previous reps but also it is possible that the tunnel exit rewards were from your hand in this session, so the value shifted to your hands – and she didn’t want to leave your hands (and the reward). You can add in thrown rewards for the tunnel, to help keep the tunnel drive away balanced with the drive back to you.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning! Nice session here too! More boring feedback hahaha
I really like her mechanics here and also she has bumped things up a notch – usually with puppies I can watch these at normal speed and see all the things, because they are not moving fast yet. Well, Sprite had her first video that I needed to watch in slow motion because she was much faster here but happily never lost her form. Some Aussies like to have their heads up while jumping but she is doing a terrific job of presenting a lovely, head-down form. Happy dance!
Next session – do a rep on 8 and if the form looks like it did here, go to 10″.
>Question about a tossed reward. I don’t really want her to jump through the grid afterwards for that. But,I like the toss as a placed toy behind is a big antecedent. Me walking away could ge a toss back or get the toy. Sprite is very level headed around her toys. >>
When you tossed the reward back to her, you stepped to the side and greeted her – I thought it was lovely, playful and engaged 🙂 She went over the first jump but I have no problem with her doing that,
>>I like the toss as a placed toy behind is a big antecedent.
I like the toss too, but I also work the toy behind because it is something we use in trials to help ‘anchor’ the dog to the stay position (eventually we develop a cue that turns the dog back to the leash behind her as a reward for the stay, plus the leash is a great in-the-ring reinforcement and anchor for ‘remote reinforcement’.) But the toy behind the dog is there all the time, and sometimes we release forward, sometimes we toss the reward back.
So you can take an all-of-the-above approach because it expands the toolbox of reinforcement while also helps prevent anticipation (aka broken stays or leaning forward).
>.Question on how to measure the distance. Is it center of bump to center of bar? This is a tad over 5 ft distance.>>
I generally do the edge of the bump to the edge of the bar, but the difference is only an inch or two – so either way is fine 🙂 For now, this distance is working nicely but I bet we will end up putting her at 6 feet as the bar comes up and as she continues her powerful approach.
>>Sprite is very level headed around her toys.>>
I love this! You have built up the toy play into something that is clearly fun, but without sacrificing her ability to work with precision and focus. YAY!!
Great job 🙂
TracyGood morning!
Ugh, I am sorry to hear about your tech troubles!!!!
The dogs did well on the videos!
For Fusion on the fast lines video:
This is going well, she is developing strong commitment and verbal skills! You can say Go sooner – as soon as as she exits first wrap so it applies to the jump. You were getting later and saying it as a way to get her to go to the next wing, but that should be a turn cue and not a GO.
Also, since she is doing really well, be sure to keep moving all the time and add in faster motion too. When you stop, she freezes but as long as you stay in motion, she looks great! So keep adding more and more speed, including the FC on the wing and run back to challenge her to find the jump from behind you.Fusion also did really well with the mini course! She balanced the extension and the tight turns really well. She is fast!!!! The soft left turn at the end looked great too. So now we can add more:
You can use this setup to put yourself further and further behind her, or laterally distant from her – the distances on the courses you run in NZ require her to respond even when you are not close to her. So you can run very close to the tunnel or hang back laterally to be sure she can respond as well even when you are not close.With Veloz – be careful about usingg the outside arm as it stops him in his tracks when you decelerate (or stop) and put the outside arm up (like at :09). But when you stay in motion, he seems fine with the outside arm (like at :23). Also with the outside arm – I think he doesn’t always knows which side of the wing to take when you send from standing still with an outside arm (:55) but that might be fine if there is a jump there instead of a wing.
he is also developing good verbal skills – at 1:15 you said go go then left and the left was really late but good boy, he fixed it and turned left 🙂 Yay! So as with Fusion – say go as he exits the first wing so it applies to the jump, then switch to the wrap or soft turn verbals.
And also, for Veloz – add more motion rather than sending while decelerating or standing still – try to stay in fast motion the whole time!Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning! (Or Good night there :))
This session looked fabulous – super high rate of reinforcement, great stay, lots of stay rewards, her jumping form looked good, lots of rewards for that, really nice!!!!! You also did a lovely job bending over a bit to help keep her focus downward to the reward target. Since this went so well, we can change things a little for the next session, a couple of ideas for you:
You can reverse the visual presentation of the set point. Have your wingless jump be the first one, and the wing jump with bump be jump #2. That will change her approach to it, in a good way by asking for even more power.
We will probably add a little more distance between the jumps, maybe go to a meter which is a bit bigger than 3 feet, I believe. But first, let’s look at the moving target:
I know that she is still learning to love toys, so it might be too hard to mix toys in with throwing cookies back to reward the stays (and I don’t want to remove the cookies entirely, that seems unfair to her). So we can be creative with the moving target – rather than a toy, we can move a food holder. What were you using here as the food target? If it is a lotus ball or something like that, you can tie it to a long, light line and drag it with the cookie in it 🙂 Or, maybe attach a light bowl to a line and drag it? We can play with different food-dragging ideas in the moving target pre-game and then add it back to the set point – the moving target will get even more power while maintaining good form.
Great job here! Let me know what you think, especially about a moving food target 🙂
Tracy
Yay for working with the toy! And yes, you can move things in closer to make it easier, then spread them back out 🙂 Fingers crossed for good weather ahead!!
This is great – you hang out with very helpful people! They might not have wanted to show them to you if the runs didn’t go as well as you wanted, but in terms of the training and planning, these videos might be VERY useful! We are looking for data to see how we can help him. Yay for videos!!!
Tracy
Good morning! Thanks for the info!!
>> When reviewing these past runs I really noticed a lot of looking around as I walked out ie., not focused on me.
This is good to know! He might have been feeling overwhelmed by the environment. We definitely have games to help him with that!!
>> One person said that when the heaters clicked on that was it, so he was out of there.. that happened on the first day do the rest of the trial was bad. The only Q was Ex Fast.>>
That is a GREAT observation, thank you to that person who noticed it! Have you noticed any sound sensitivity anywhere else in life and training with him? It might be related to that, or he might have been a bit anxious about the environment and the weird noise made it too hard.
>> We travel to KC and St Louis for Privates. We’ll be going to KC tomorrow for private with Cassie in the same building been having so much trouble. (Blue Springs, Mo)>>
Perfect, Cassie is WONDERFUL!
>>Our next trial is April 15 in Fayetteville on dirt. He has not been their since Novice.>>
OK good, we have some time to make plans 🙂
T
Hi again!
You have a TON of lovely tricks! I saw shake, spin, back, touch, catch and probably a couple of others that I didn’t get to jot down because it was all happening so fast 🙂 These are also good because they can be done in a small space… like just outside the ring as you are waiting to go in 🙂I see what you mean about him being a little “meh” about the treats, so you can totally go to higher value! And you can reward from your hand – so if he does the shake to one hand, you can hand him th cookie from the other hand to keep him moving a bit (plus you probably won’t toss treats at trials, so it helps with trial prep too).
For the touch, see if you can change your hand position and hold it higher (and palm facing down) so he has to leap up to touch the hand a bit – that can get even more excitement!
3 next steps for you:
First, with cookies, cue these behaviors with empty hands then reach into a pocket to get the reward. Let’s see what he does with the empty hands.Second – try these with toys! Let’s see how does does in a higher state of arousal (some of these are already toy tricks, like the back trick). And when he can do them with the visible toy, move to a hidden toy (tucked into a pocket) so he is getting empty hand cues and then the reward comes out to play. That is a little harder because it takes longer between reps, but that is fine, it will teach him a bit of patience if he is feeling impatient 🙂 And still reward for each trick, rather than do multiple in a row.
And lastly – you can now add walking as you cue tricks. Like walking forward and cue a spin or a touch – that way he gets the hang of moving and responding. You can have the treats or toys visible at first, then go to having your hands empty and treats/toys in pockets. That is something that we will be able to use to help him stay in a nice centered state of arousal as you move to the line.
Great job on these! Let me know what you think! And you can totally play each game separately even if you haven’t heard back about one of the others yet – they are all separate tracks, at the moment 🙂
Tracy
Than you for the tricks video! I have ideas for you, see below 🙂 And yes, try to get video from the seminar of more than just the runs – see if someone will video the minute before you line up, and the line up moments 🙂
It is entirely possible that he will do better if you get him HIGHER and NUTTIER before the run. This is incredibly counterintuitive, I know – we feel that we should calm the dogs who might get really excited. But that just never seems to work the way we want it to because the dogs go into the high state of arousal whether we calm them or not, then they don’t know what to do with themselves at the start line when they are really aroused. I have found. That embracing the arousal and teaching them how to run even in that higher state is the bed answer for these dogs. So at the seminar, feel free to experiment a little with getting him higher before the runs: tugging, fast moving tricks, etc. It is good to try at a seminar because the worst thing that will happen is he breaks a stay then you can reset him and try again 🙂 Who is the instructor?
Onwards to tricks!
Tracy
