[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning! Or is it afternoon there 🙂

Generally I progress to the next step when I can get 2 short sessions in a row with 90% success or more – that means almost no errors and a very happy dog 🙂 A short session is 2 or 3 minutes 🙂 So if you are getting 2 short sessions with high success of going a couple of steps away from the remote reinforcement pile of stuff, then you can add more! You’ll know when it is time because the game will almost feel too easy, and he will not be able to take his eyes off of you 🙂

T

[Tracy Sklenar]

Ok cool, that is what I thought – she is always such a good girl 🙂

T

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi! It is very cool that you are a CCUI! You might notice a theme-and-variation on one of the CU games here 🙂 It is really fabulous stuff and so helpful for the dogs 🙂

T

[Tracy Sklenar]

Awesome, it worked! I am liking how she is holding her stay lately, with you running away – do you feel the same? Is she being pretty reliable? Try out the games (especially the line up games and tricks) and we can start building up into the more calm walk to the line and peaceful line up 🙂

T

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hello! This is looking really good and he made you RUN FAST lol!!! Great job maintaining connection!

You can give all of your tunnel exit cues sooner – try to start saying them when he is about 3 or 4 feet in front of the tunnel. You were saying them after he entered – for the soft turns, it was not a problem because he naturally wants to turn towards you (loves da momma!). For the go, however, he needs the, earlier. I think the timing at :18 was good – I could still see him on the way to the tunnel and you were saying Go Go Go – and he exited pretty straight! Great job with the to throws.

To help him find the wing after the GO exit, move the wing in closer for now. You can move it in to 6 feet or less, until he says “ah yes, I go to the wing!” than you can start moving it back out 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!

>> ok question from last session (just had time and weather for tunnel) I set up the rocking horse finally. I really do need distance with her. I did the one ring wrap but when I tried to get her to go out to the other wing, with me behind, I was stepping on her as she wouldn’t go. Do I want to just keep doing 1 wing wrap and send to the mm, until I get her going out to it?

Is this the rocking horse with the tunnel and 2 wings, or the 2 wing rocking horse? I think you probably need to get a little ahead of her, so she can see the line and connection. Feel free to cheat to accomplish this LOL! You can start her in a stay in front of the tunnel so you can lead out or send her to the far end of the tunnel with you near the middle so you can get ahead of her.

You can also move the wings in a lot closer to start, and put the MM out near the wing for now. This week we added a tunnel exit game, which will help her understand how to go straight on tunnel exits and not come to you 🙂

Snow again tomorrow? NOOOOOOOO! I am ready for spring weather!

Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!
Here is some boring feedback for ya:
this was a great session – she was pretty darned perfect! She drove ahead, she found the jump from behind you, and she never changed her behavior: she went fast, she looked at the line, she jumped nicely and played with the toy. This is a BIG WIN! Woohoo!
You were connected, you ran fast, the verbals sounded incredibly different, your toy placement (placed and thrown) were good, plus she seems to understand that GO means to look forward for the reinforcement even if it is thrown so you didn’t get any questions from her.

My only suggestion if that you can maybe repeat the verbal GO GO GO to prepare her for when you are on even bigger lines.

And for the next session, you can add a little more height – add another 2 inches and see how she does and if she looks the same as she does here – add another 2 inches.

Great job!!!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hello and welcome, great to see you here!!!
I sent an access request for the history 🙂
Thank you for the trial videos and home video. Question- do you remember what happened outside the ring during your warm up before tue run where she was SO FAST but then pooped after the weaves? Ir was it a cold day versus a hot day? I’m just curious to see if we can find patterns.
She struggled after you fixed a refusal in that run then fixed the weaves. So for now, if something goes wrong, just keep running and don’t fix anything 🙂

She has a LOT of great tricks!!!! Do you have a hand cue to help with the left and right spins? She had trouble with just the verbals and then she got mad and wouldn’t bring the toy back LOL (I like that she had big opinions :))

This went well with a toy – will she play with toys at a trial? You can do this with cookies – first cookies in your hand, then cookies stay in the pocket til after the trick, then you whip one out to reward her.
And you can hide the toy in a pocket , cue the trick, then whip it out too – that’ll be the first steps towards getting her to work with focus and passion without the food or toy visible. 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi again! THanks for posting the video, this is really informative!

First up – the tricks. You have a nice set of action tricks! Spins, hop ups, hand touches, leg weaves, and explosive releases from a stay. Perfect! So I want to do 2 things with your tricks toolbox:
First, with the cookies visible in your hand, I want to change the energy: you are being really high energy before the cue, so I want to see if you can be calm and quiet before the cue, then give the cue… then explode into the high energy reward.
The reason for this is so that he doesn’t rely on you needing to be super high energy the whole time, because it is really hard to maintain especially in those moments when you are trying to get the leash off or get him settled into the lead out, for example. And if you are not high energy, he deflates. So, we will teach him that even with a more calm cue, he can respond with high energy which then produces a high energy reward. Let me know if that makes sense, or if I need more coffee hahaha

And then when he is happy with that with cookies in your hand before the cues (which is what you had on the first part of the video) – don’t take the training skirt off yet, but don’t reach for the cookie until AFTER you get his response to the cue. He definitely watched every movement of the cookie 🙂 So we can split the behavior a little more – the first part is yes, cookies can be in your hand. And the second part can be cookies in the training skirt, but you are still wearing in.

On the 2nd part of the video, when you took off the training skirt – yes, we can totally see some trial behavior (sniffing, slower responses to cues, struggling to ignore the cookies). That is good news, because it means we can train it at home before bringing the skills to a trial! It is harder when the dogs ar always perfect at home.

So, rather than ask for tricks when the training skirt is off, let’s break things down more into the first stages of remote reinforcement – just getting him to walk away with connection to you and offering engagement. When you put the training skirt down, just take a step away, don’t cue anything, don’t be high energy… just walk away for a step. And the instant he looks at you and doesn’t sniff… big party and back to the cookies. He might sniff before looking at you and that is fine 🙂

Start with getting one step of engagement offered, then 2 steps, then maybe 3… then 1. We will build it up very gradually – no need to add tricks yet to remote reinforcement until he can’t take his eyes off of you 🙂 If the grass is too distracting, start this in your kitchen where it will be a lot easier, just putting the cookies up on a counter then taking a step away, then running back when he offers engagement. Remember that you are going to be looking at him but not asking for engagement and not being too exciting as you move away 🙂

Great job! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning and welcome! Thanks for jumping in 🙂

>> Outside the ring Sparky is excellent – so long as I keep him engaged doing tricks .. wait and run forward full pelt .. spins left right .. warm up over jumps…he’s happy. As soon as we enter the ring – and walk to the start – different story. He is not happy at all …

We will definitely be working on the various games to help him learn to relax without you needing to keep the tricks flowing the whole time. And the transition into the ring will be a place where we build up his excitement and joy!

>>In Australia all our comps are outside in public fields so anything could have run over the grass at night ..animals .. so this makes it worse for us. I realise that if he was fully engaged he would not put his nose down on the grass but this is what he does at the start line .. once that happens I’ve lost him.>>

Yes – and it could be that his nose goes down because of good smells, or stress, or both. We will be working on nose up and engagement 🙂

>>Another issue for us is ‘the leash’ – taking it on and off and then stuffing it in my tights. Pre COVID we had a lead steward who would take the leash to the exit. Now there’s another step so the dog has to wait while we attach the leash to our bodies or hide it so the dog is left sitting doing nothing.>>

Yes- it is really only a couple of seconds but it sounds like he deflates pretty quickly. We will work on adding it to the routines later in the class so that he doesn’t mind the leash moment in the transition to the line.

>>I did develop a routine which works great in training …walk in .. look at Sparky .. nose touch to hand .. remove slip leash and put over my head .. then nose touch again and lead out. I have not been able to test this at a trial yet.
I also use the verbal ..’break break break’ whilst I walk in and when I stop use no verbal and Sparky sits … again.. have not been able to test this at a comp yet.>>

Great!!! Question: what are the training in the ring rules in Australia? What is allowed and what is not allowed?

>>In our regular public park which is where I set up a few obstacles to train .. Sparky v happy to sit and wait … I can lead out at great distances. At training at grounds – he’s not as comfortable when a whole arena is full of equipment… he wants to go run.>>

This is interesting! And you have rewards in your hands and pockets at the training grounds too?

>>In trial we can only play and have food outside the ring. He will tug for food.

Is leash tugging allowed? Are there training in the ring opportunities with toys?

I am excited to see him play the games! Onwards to the video!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning! I am glad you enjoyed the connection seminar; it was a really fun group of people and dogs 🙂 And if you didn’t spill your water in the pre-game, it is time to go to a higher value drink like coffee haha

I this session went really well – he was able to drive ahead to the jump with you running and that was the main goal. And great job with your connection and verbals!!!!!

I totally see what you mean that he was sticky on committing to the wing. I think part of it was that you were sending and rotating all at the same time on most of the reps where he didn’t take it, and part of it was that the MOST LOVED MM was out past the jump and that was causing a bit of distraction to his commitment skills.

Or… both 🙂 I thought you were strong with your send cue at 1:05, you didn’t rotate early but he still didn’t commit. So that is the MM distraction at work 🙂 You can wait a little longer to commit him when the MM is out there, and that is something that is normal with young dogs: being more patient with commitment cues when they are seeing distractions or in new environments.

You can also reward the wrap with a cookie from your hand (rather than driving to the jump) so that way you can balance the value back to it, even with the jump and MM out ahead.

And that vehicle was noisy LOL!!!! I can see why he looked at it 🙂 Great job getting him back in the game, he did really well after that!
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

I am glad you dragged out the tunnel, this looked great!!!! So much good stuff!!!

I totally see what you are saying about get in and get it being similar. It is hard to change your obstacle names, but it will be worth it! You had it mostly correct.

And since you have all these good markers – try to use your ‘toy in hand’ marker (I think it is ‘strike’ for her?) rather than praise at the end of the sequence. Speaking from experience – we don’t want to associate any praise or yes or yay with the come get the reward because then when we praise… then might think it is a LSM and come to get the reward. Ask me how I know this LOL!!! OOPS!!! I love that you are running and making the reward really active (she seems to love it too) so you can be running saying “strike!” Then after she grabs it, you can switch to the praise. That will maintain the clarity of when the toy is available and avoid the question of what praise means (generally means “nice job keep going”)

And one more thing about verbals: WELL DONE getting the directionals out! She was moving really fast and you got all of the directionals in the right place at the right time. SUPER!

One thing you can ad more of is more eye contact and connection. Those were her only questions – especially exiting the tunnel when she was on your left. If you were looking forward a bit, and she didn’t really see connection, she was turning into you a bit before going back out (like at :04 and 1:21). When you had more connection like at :17 and :31, she went straight to the wing. When there was a lot of connection, she was tight on the wing wraps (and on the soft turns) but if you were looking forward, she drifted wide waiting for more info (like at :18 and :21).

So for now, over-exaggerate the connection and look back at her a lot, keeping the dog-side arm back so she can see all of your upper body. You won’t always have to emphasize it that much, but for now it will be useful to teach her how to sequence.

Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!

This is all looking good. I am going to take a guess that Dellin thought running in the bigger space was THE MOST FUN THING EVER hahaha! She is already fast and going to get faster – and she is doing a good job with her form too!

On the set point – I think her only real question was she was hitting the first bar (pulled it on the first rep, ticked it on a couple of others with front feet I believe) – which probably means she was just a little too close. Looking at the videos, I think the distance you had her from the first jump at :18 and :22 is the sweet spot for her front feet.
Her form in the gap looked good – you can try 5.5 feet. And… raise the bar 🙂 10 inches for the next rep should be good! Is she seeing any height in her in-person classes?

Wind in her hair – yep, I’d say she rather enjoyed this one too LOL! I am excited about how well she transfers concepts from the small space at home to the big fast running – no problem! And she was looking ahead the whole time, so great job getting the toys thrown.
You were correct to add motion, keep adding it to work up to a run. Be sure you switch to a GO verbal though – I didn’t hear a go verbal and it sounds like you were still saying the wrap verbal as she was heading to the jump 🙂
Next time you are in the big space when she is happy with you running through this, add 2 challenges:
– start very close to the wing and stay there til she exits, then accelerate so she drives ahead of you (yo can place a toy out ahead on this one, if it is hard to get it thrown early enough because you are behind her).
– start closer to the jump and send her away to the wing, so you are passing or past the jump as she exits the wing. That challenges her to choose between chasing you or finding the jump when you are way ahead.

This is another place you can add a little bit of height on the bar, depending on how much height she has already been exposed to.

The smiley face game went well too 🙂 You need more tunnel bags 🙂 Things happen very quickly with her on this one, so remember to use both of the wrap cues – you generally had a clear wrap cue on the first wrap but not on the one after the tunnel (or it was super quiet). She did well on the soft left and right racetracks! It seemed like you were not sure how she would do on the left turn race track so you helped her a lot, and she went wide because she understood the line. So you helped less with handling on the right turn race tracks and she was great! Yay!
And nice job with connections throughout!!!!
So for the next smiley face, you can spread things out a little more – more distance, more speed, less time for you to think 🙂

>> At the end, I tried the wrap discriminations and she was getting tired and I could not get her to stay out of the tunnel, even when I moved the wing farther away and tried more motion away from the tunnel, but she had done a lot of work by that point and our rental time was up>>

It is the most ‘intellectual’ game so it is possible she was mentally tired – plus she had just had all of that fun running fast through the tunnel. Next time, start with it and see how she does, even if you start with the wing wrap where she turns away from the tunnel. You can also help with some handling like a FC to show her that the wing can be wrapped and the tunnel can be resisted 🙂

Great job here!! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!
What is that green-ish stuff under your feet? Grass? The snow is gone? YAY!!!!

It was super fun to see him get to open up outside. He is a fast little guy!!!!!

I agree that a toy or a lotus ball would have helped get him looking less at you, but overall it was a really good session. Click/treat to you for getting the verbals in!! They were all in place AND they sounded pretty difference. Awesome!

Little details about the session – overall his commitment looked really good. You can add more motion – by walking, I Think he was asking if he needed to decel or if he was allowed to explode away. So you can ramp up your motion to support those lines.

More motion will make connection harder, but your connection overall was really strong. There were a couple of little connection “blips” like at :25, where you didn’t quite get connection on your left side, so he didn’t know which side to be on – you said tunnel, so he drove to the one he was looking at. Good boy!

In those moments, you can just reward him (because 99% of the time, we will see that the dogs ar encore to :)) rather than reset or fix anything. When you reset or fixed, he got REAL MAD and BIG FEELINGS lol!!!! So, reward what he offered, then reset, then try again. And you can totally use reset cookies for the reset moments, between reps or if there is a little blooper. My only suggestion with cookies is to give him a moment to swallow, there were a couple of times when he hacked up the cookie a bit while running LOL!

The left and right turn racetracks were harder for him! He was always correct on the first wing but had questions on the 2md one – so that is a place to ramp up the motion and connection, and even step in a little to help him see the line then throw the reward out past the wing. As soon as he realizes that those lines are correct, he will be flying to them the same way he flies to the wraps and tunnel.

Great job here!! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning and welcome back, hope you had a good vacation!!

The dragging toy meltdown sounds odd… since she did well with everything else, maybe just try again in a day or two and see how it goes.

The wing wraps are looking good!! Her commitment looks strong here. You can repeat the verbal more than once – on course, you probably be repeating 3 or 4 or 5 times, so you can totally start that here. And my only other suggestion is to line her up and hold her collar so you have a clean start for each rep – on some of the reps she was facing you or still eating, so she didn’t quite process the verbal as well. Rewarding from your hand on this one will be smoother than tossing treats.

Set point is also looking good! Lots of good stay rewards! Her organization on the bumps looked good, 5 feet seems like the right distance. I couldn’t see the reward, was it a good target? You can add in a stationary toy target next and see how she does. We will go to the moving target (dragging toy) as soon as shebis happy with that on the flat.

Great job here! Let me know what you think 🙂
Tracy

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by Tracy Sklenar.

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