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Good morning!
Really nice session here – he was confident and he was nailing the end position. And you were able to keep moving past him when he was in his end position – super!!! He also seemed just fine when you added more speed to your motion.Since this is going so well, you can lower the table even more – does the facility have a 12” table?
And, time to move into the elevator games as they are the last piece to putting things together. When you are comfy with the mechanics, I think he will move really quickly through these.
Great job!!! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
Thanks for posting the grid, I see what you mean! There were a couple of things going on that we can adjust to help!
One thing is to start her closer to jump 1, less than a foot from it – that way she will have to use her rear more and the grid will be more challenging for balance.
The other thing had to do with the toy – she really liked it LOL! Because she was so into the toy, she was leaving the stay early and then doing a joyous flying monkey leap as she approached it LOL! That bit of leaping is what contributed to taking jump 2 and 3 as one jump.
So, add in more stay rewards and also be stricter with criteria. And also maybe hold the toy but use a target as a focal point, so she drives to the target then you drop the toy onto it. Or, hold the toy and use a cookie target? That might help her focus on it but also will hopefully eliminate the joyous leaping 🙂Let me know if that makes sense! It is all good to sort out now so that she has no trouble in the future. 🙂
TracyHi!
>>I suppose they just learn to make up their mind what feels best. Right?>>Yes – we want them to be balanced and we leave the rest up to them 🙂
She looked good here, I like this distance for now. It might change as she matures but she did really nicely!
The bounces look good and when jump 3 was far, she did well with appropriately adding a stride. On rep 4, she added a stride where she could have bounced, but I think that was more about the manners minder being close, so she shortened up so she didn’t land on it. She looked really good on that last rep though, nice adjusted bounce!!!
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
Good question about the teeter in class #4… I guess it depends on how difficult he finds the environment. He might be depleted by then, in which case there is no need to do the teeter. But if he is happy and relaxed… go for it! And per UKI rules, you can place the target on the ground to help him!
TVery whippety, to not eat lol! You can maintain control of the reinforcement by getting to eat it then release to the toy or to run. That will keep the food valuable by pairing it with other stuff, and also keeps his arousal more centered 🙂
THi!
You can alternate sessions:
One session of box cars, then one session on 6 poles closing them up, then taking them over to a box cars session, then next session on the 6 poles getting more closed, and so on. That will help get it all done 🙂
TGood morning! This looked great – nice warm up, nice crazy elevator, then really strong teeter performance! And that teeter wears sandwiched between some things that created some pressure in the environment… no problems. Yay! My only suggestion is to try to stay facing forward and moving forward until after he has landed and hit position before going back to reward – you were stepping into him a little as he was landing. I recognize it because I have to stop myself from doing that all the time LOL!!! It causes the dogs to back off the end position a little, so I force myself to keep moving forward LOL!!
Great job here! I think that the teeter can now go into sequences as classes!
TracyGood morning!
Yes, I can imagine Lennan being dramatic in his response to not being able to train LOL!! Poor guy, I am glad he is back in action here!
His plank session went well, the only difficulties were when you tried to run. He did well with you walking and also walking faster with big strides – but running was really hard. It might have been the combo of running more and being ahead so you can split it a bit: start closer to the wing you are sending him too, so you are moving faster but more parallel to him the whole time or even a little bit behind him. It looks like the target wears either fully or mostly faded for those, so the target might need to make a brief re-appearance when you go to running. The running is the last element on the plank work to convince him to let you do 🙂The other thing on the plank work was that as he was hitting it harder, it was moving more (like falling off the inflatable) then he was being careful and slowing down more (smart LOL!) So you might want to switch to the bang game to add the running to the end position, so he can drive as hard as he likes without needing to also stabilize the board from slipping out from under him.
If his foot is feeling good, I think you can also start to do the elevator games again! Niamh looked really good in terms of letting you do the mechanics – her session looked strong! Lennan is likely to come more to the end of the board, so be prepared to have to use more muscle to grab it LOL!!
Looking good here! As long as he is feeling good, we can move into the final games 🙂
TracyYay! Look at your boy doing the full teeter!!! Watch his face at about :45 – he hits end position and he licks his chops as you praise. That right there is the positive conditioned emotional response we are going for! He should be drooling in joy for the teeter LOL and that can of deliciousness you were holding totally helped.
He was trying to jump on the teeter (rather than run up it) and I think he scared himself a little by doing that when you were too far ahead, so for now keeping supporting him with motion and not being too far ahead of the board. He also missed his end position when you were way ahead and running, so don’t ask for that yet either. We want to avoid failure at all costs for now, to really protect his teeter love (it will be easy enough to ‘proof’ the end position later on).The trial this weekend comes at a good time! Remember to reintroduce the teeter in tiny bits with just end games and don’t be tempted to do to many reps.
And keep me posted!
>> Now if only you had running aframe class because this boy doesn’t get mat work>>
I trained mat work for the running contacts like we train Flyball box turns – with an elevated mat then an inverted mat, to help them really ‘find’ the mat 🙂
Tracy
Interesting about the food – do you think he was overly aroused and not eating, or he didn’t like the gyro meat?
Good morning!
This was an interesting session – I think maybe the wind was bothering him or something because his success rate dropped to about 60% and it had been much higher. It did look pretty windy and his tail set was different than normal, so perhaps he was struggling with the wind?>> I had a few reps with too much motion on my part but Chapter was happy to try again.
Actually, I was thinking the opposite – not enough motion LOL! Especially on the early part of the video, you were not moving a lot so he had some misses (could be because of lack of motion, or not) – but he definitely improved later in the session when you moved more (also could have been the motion, or he was more comfy in the environment or both). I think the motion supported him more when he was less sure, so keep adding the motion.
>> His attitude and persistence in training has really improved.>>
YES! This is so true. He was always coming right back to try again. And after an error, when you started from the same place, he got it right every time. Very cool!
So I am not sure why he had more trouble on this session, let’s chalk it up to the wind making the environment more distracting. But the distraction only manifested in a reduced success rate: he didn’t present any other behaviors like leaving or over-arousal. That is a big win!
>> He’s starting to swim the poles now so should I add the verbal or wait until the poles are closer together. >>
I think you’ll want to wait on the real verbal til his success rate is more like 90%, so give him a session or two like this one and then add the verbal (as you keep tightening the poles :))
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
Yes, good session! He did really well and his striding looks good. The only error looked to be associated with the toy throw starting earlier than usual, so that is something to note for working on later (moving the throw arm while he is at pole 3).Also yes 🙂 you can move on to the box cars! How far apart were these poles? There are 2 ways to proceed – You can do the box cars, get the sets together and then continue to close the poles. Or you can close them fully on 6, separately from the other 6. Either way, he is moving along nicely!
Tracy
Hi! He is doing well here and really doing a great job of getting into end position (he kind of taught himself to do head bobs/nose touches LOL!) It is a fine line between always making him wait a long time (in dog years) before the reward and balancing with quick releases as soon as he hits position and also rewarding in position. At this stage, you can extend the duration of him staying in position for several steps of running past, but don’t try to proof it at all (like when you gave him a gyro piece then took off making noise and he broke position). We want to challenge a little but almost never see any failure (because failure can create a negative feeling and we want the teeter to have only the best feelings associated with it :))
He did slow down a bit by the last teeter, and I think it was a bit of lack of reward right at the end position on the harder challenges (the full teeter) – he got gyro 🥩 for the end position on the easier games but on the last part of the video, he didn’t get rewarded at all for the teeter (instead, he did more of the sequence) – I think the teeter love is still new enough that you will want to pay him for each and every teeter. And yes, I will get you a blue tooth earbud so you can hear me saying “don’t do another rep” hahaha!!!!
So try to mix up the reward placement a bit more (I know, it is like a pendulum, swinging back and forth as to where to place the reward) but he was getting his fastest performances when you were both maintaining criteria and getting the rewards in fast fast fast (either thrown back or quick released. You can do duration occasionally, but not too often for now 🙂 Let me know if that makes sense 🙂
And this is not teeter related but it is a pre-CAMP moment: when you send to the tunnel before the teeter, stop flinging your arm way up: it disconnects you when he is behind you and turns your shoulders away from where you want him to go, so he was enjoying a tasty flesh moment LOL!!!
Nice work here 🙂
TracyHi there! Thank you for the kind words, I really enjoyed obsessing over the tiny details of teeter training LOL!
Sly’s teeter looks great – really nice session! The placement of reward was spot on – dogs will be happy to go wherever the reward is consistently placed! His last teeter was awesome: chef’s kiss! 🥳🤩🥳🤩🥳. Watching it with the target, I realize that you would be allowed to put the target down on the ground in UKI for your NFC runs. You can put something on the ground but not on the teeter – so the target would be a nice familiar focal point! I *think* you can do it too in USDAA, I remember doing it the last time I started a young dog but that was almost 5 years ago so I would need to double check that.
Great job here! It was fun to see the teeters in sequence and I think he is totally ready to see it in course work 🙂 And I love that he got a bit swim too!
Tracy
Hi there!
I love his confidence on the teeter – he did a great job driving across it! Yes, it might be a little lighter and tip faster, plus having it lower changes the weight shift point. But no worries, he will figure it out because he is so confident!
The one thing that will really help is an actual target, for now – in the most recent videos, he still had his red target out a couple of inches away from the end of the board and that was helping him with stopping independently (and, by extension, the weight shift because he was preparing to stop). It looks like he didn’t have a target here, so he was doing well when you were moving at a slower speed or you were nearby – but moved with you when you were moving faster and past him. So, for now, I highly recommend the target to help with the stopping and weight shift so you can continue to add more speed and motion, and independent handling too 🙂 The target provides a strong focal point and then you can reward him on it 🙂 It will be easy enough to fade the target when he has more experience with the end position and on different teeters.
>> noticed that some people are asking for a down on the board.to create a lowered center of gravity. Do you think this will help Cowboy and do you have information regarding how to train it?>>
Yes, some folks choose the down but I think it is better for smaller dogs in terms of balancing on the end of the board in a down. Because of his size and build, it will take a little longer for him to get into the down position, which will make the teeter behavior a little slower. We can teach it to him (using targeting and lots of quick down work) but I think the 2o2o is a better choice 🙂
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
