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Hi!
He did look a little more like he was avoiding the drop of the board here, but recovered nicely! So a couple of ideas for you to help him out:
Mix in some bang game, where he jumps on the end with the board relatively close to the ground. That can keep the value really high for the end position. One or two reps, here and there, for really exciting reinforcement.
– also mix in more of the downhills to the ground – rather than just focus only on the elevator game, he can run down the board to the ground for big rewards too!
– and on the elevator game, you can catch the board really low, just a bit off the ground – then do the countdown really close to the ground so there is less slam on the board (if that is what is associated with pain, reducing it will help). Be sure to bend your knees to catch it low, rather than use your back so you don’t get hurt 🙂 On your last elevator rep, you caught it pretty low and he did really well!And the elevator game can also have more speed and excitement (wing or tunnel before it) so he thinks about it a little less and feels the wind in his hair a little more 🙂
Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! It was very fun to see the teeter in a sequence now, he is looking really confident! It all looked really strong, nothing to suggest about your mechanics 🙂 To keep convincing him to go all the way to the end on the full teeters, I think 2 things can help:
– leave the target out there for a while, so he has the focal point to drive to and just gets into the habit of assuming the drive to the focal point (target). It is easy to fade (obviously) and he doesn’t really need it to get the end position… but I think it will be a way to get him to drive that extra little bit to the end rather than shift his weight back a few inches before the end.
– on the full teeters, keep running past. More motion can stimulate more drive to the very edge of the board. Now, more motion might also stimulate a less-than-perfect end position but that is fine – I would still reward him when he drives to the end even if the 2o2o is not perfect. He is not the naughty type LOL! So if he misses a 2o2o because there is too much speed, he will adjust on the next rep for sure.And any road trips or trials you can get to are definitely great! He looks so confident that I think the more you can get the teeter on the road, the better 🙂 Which trials are somewhat local to you?
Nice work here!
TracyThat was a lovely jumpers run!!!!!! I think there are two tracks:
– train the teeter
– get him comfy at trialsThose tracks will come together and then the teeter behavior you have at home will show up at trials too. He looked fast and happy here. One thing you can do at trials is to run FEO but run a mini sequence before the teeter – then reward the teeter with that toy he really liked. That can help both the confidence and the teeter match what he has at home. He is very close to that! I am excited for what the future holds!
Tracy
Hi!
What is an onlyfans account? I don’t get out much LOL!!This session went really well 🙂 You can set up even more success by starting with the warm up on poles 7-12 before trying all 12. Even if you ended with 12 straight, start the next session as 6 then 6 to keep him at a high success rate.
He was totally getting the rhythm! He is working it out, so I don’t want to interfere. He was tending to swim the first 6 then to stay in he would switch to bouncing. That is fine. With more experience, he will be able to swim them all. Working 6 then 6 will give him that balance break in the middle to get ready for more swimming, so do more 6 then 6 and then bring them together for all 12.One of thing I was thinking about for him: what kinds of proprioception/body awareness stuff do you do with him? That can help his weave striding too – stuff like backing up, cavalettis, putting his feet on small things, etc. Just to keep him thinking about how to move each foot independently.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! Glad to see that the firsts trial went so well! He looked really happy 🙂 And faster too… LOL! The beginning of many great times ahead ❤️❤️
He is doing well with the weaves! The sessions where you isolated the entry on 2 poles looked good – super high rate of success with motion, including one incredible save where he was about to enter wrong but practically backed up to get the correct entry. God boy!!!
The 6 poles are going well too – there is a WHOLE LOT of energy and motion now, and the only errors were on the left side entries where I think he was basically weaving towards 3 kids on bikes. The entry on the other side didn’t have as much challenge in terms of weaving directly towards the kids, probably. So I am not worried 🙂 If the neighbor kids want to be an audience, great! You can dial back the other challenges in that moment (less motion, easier entries).
I think this is going well, so now you can start to close up the poles. You can reduce the other variables of extreme motion as you tighten them up, but keep adding in the harder entries now too. Keep an eye on the success rate as an average – if he has a session that is harder, you can keep the poles tight but make the entries easier if needed. I think he is ready for us to start closing up the poles 🙂
Nice work! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! He did well here! He is probably still thinking about the teeter execution on the “not crazy” reps but overall, he is still driving to the end nicely on those (like the first rep here). Be careful of quick releasing before he gets into position – on the first rep, he had not gotten his front feet on the ground and you released (he was looking at you and not in a 2o2o) so that is why he early released on the next rep. It is so easy to un-train the 2o2o hahahaha!
So as you are pushing for speed, keep a target there for him to look forward and also too keep reminding him of the position. I don’t want to do much proofing because he might be wrong, and I don’t want any wrong-ness associated with the teeter 🙂 So, for now, we help guarantee that he gets the 2o2o right. if he is wrong, then he might slow down to get it right. Let me know if that makes sense!Great job 🙂
TracyHi there!
I am not sure if he was nervous when he jumped off, or anticipating the drop? If he was very nervous, I think he would not have jumped right back on at 1:06. So yes, he might be a little nervous but I don’t think those were fear-based behaviors, more like anticipatory behaviors.
A few ideas for you:
Do your countdown faster 🙂 Instead of 3…..2……1….. you can do more like. 3.2.1 and then the target cue 🙂
And, when you are rewarding at the top of the board in the air, a couple of things: you were feeding him pretty forward which might have been pulling him forward so he jumped off the board. So feed him a little further back and also give one cookie then immediately go into the fast countdown. By feeding the whole time, you might have been distracting him 🙂One more thought: the teeter is moving a bit, so perhaps weight it with some tunnel bags on the base, just in case he is reacting to the movement of the board under him.
But overall, I think he is fine to proceed! Since we are being careful, just do one or two reps then be done with the session. And since it is one of two reps, you can do it daily, mixed in with the other stuff he might be doing (like one rep of the teeter for his dinner 🙂 )
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! I really liked this session!!! (And the camera angle was fine LOL!)
You set up a really good structure: warm up letting her hash it out, then layering in more speed for you both. I was *particularly* excited when she barked & clacked in excitement at 1:18. That means she is enjoying the teeter 🙂
She also really seemed to like it when you said “yay!” As she was getting on the teeter, so keep doing it 🙂
At 1:40, she drove across the board and you caught it after a big drop: it was a few inches away from being the full teeter. Happy dance!!!!!So yes – onwards to the tunnel before the teeter. Warm up with the normal elevator game and a crazy elevator from a stay… then through the tunnel and up the board! Fingers crossed for dry weather, I wouldn’t want her on a slippery teeter for this, there is a lot of speed at this point. When you add the speed, if she is not perfect, no worries: jackpot anyway 🙂
Great job and keep me posted about how she does from the tunnel!
TracyHi!
No worries about the Wholistic Hound signs LOL! It is terrific that you have a facility and equipment you can use 🙂 And it sounds like your consult with Dr. Overall went well! Nice!!!We have until May 31 for videos for this class, and then we move into the Putting It Together class (it is on the Current Courses page).
She did really well on all 3 of these games!!!
On the threadle video: this looked really strong. It was hard to hear all of the verbals (I could hear you were saying something but not exactly what LOL!) so keep up with the verbals for the threadle as well as on the wings. She was really responding nicely at :41, 1:40 and 2:48 for the threadle! And the tunnel sends were great too, she seemed to really understand the difference. The only suggestion is to remember to keep your arm back to keep connection, around the 2 wings (like at 3:10) and also out of the tunnel (like at 3:23). That will keep her seeing those lines smoothly.
The backsides – I think this is also going really well!! Some of the bars down were because the mats were a little slippery or because the toy throw happened as she was taking off, so she got distracted 🙂
On the first part – really nice on the parallel path! You can add a bit more motion – when you didn’t move fast enough, she was not sure if she was supposed to curl into you or not (like at :55). When you moved more up the line, she got it really nicely.
On the 2nd part, with the countermotion: also really nice! You can add more motion as you release so she gets even more challenge to take the jump behind you. And when you do that, throw the reward back to her on the landing spot so she gets even more value for taking the jump.
The 3rd part was the hardest one for her: the more you moved, the more she wanted to stay parallel to you and just go to the tunnel. That is pretty normal LOL! So 2 ideas to help her:
You can give her a warm up by doing it as a serpentine rather than a backside, to remind her to come in when you move across the face of the jump.
Then when you add back the backside send, you can drop the toy in on the landing side right as she comes around the wing, to help encourage to automatically look for the bar and not get excited by your running 🙂 And, in that part, you can move slowly so she can look for the bar.The jump grids are also going well! She is figuring out the striding nicely. At 17 months old, yes, we can start raising the bars… but not on this particular grid 🙂 With the distances this close, the first 2 jumps are always super low, 8 or 10 inches. On jump 3, when it is very close to jumps 2 (on reps 1 and 2), the bar should be the same as the other bars. When jump 3 gets further away, you can start to raise the bar (eventually it gets 15 or 18 feet away, and that is when you can begin to raise the bar).
The other suggestion here is to start her closer to jump 1 so she does not have a running start – we are looking for her to power into the grid basically from her takeoff point, so that would mean setting her up about 6 inches in front of jump 1.
She was really working the striding nicely, bouncing between 1 and 2 on all reps and adding the stride on reps 3and 4 as the 3rd ump got further away. Nice! She was hitting bar 1 on a couple of reps because of the running start. And she hit the 16” bar because it was a little high for the closeness of the jumps and also because the toy was close and she dove on it (if you have enough room at Wholistic Hound, you can put the toy 15 feet away from the last jump to give her room).Nice work on all of these!! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi there!
Improvising is totally a good thing on these – I think it is great if you make up your own sequences!
She looked great here too. One thing you should know is that you were so energetic and fun sounding that my youngest dog stood at the window looking for the person playing the game for the entire time I watched the video LOL!!! So keep up the good job with the fast & fun play during the session 🙂 Arty seemed to enjoy the speed 🙂 And she didn’t deflate when there was an error. Yay!Looking at the video – you are doing a great job with those tandem turns on the wing, wow! Those are hard and I think you nailed every one of them. On the first part of the video, you had a lot of acceleration into them so she was wide, responding to your speed. But then you started to decel a bit (especially on the one on the right side of the screen, where she was turning left) and she immediately tightened the turn. Nice!
On her tunnel turns: when you are quiet, she assumes that you want a straight entry, which is good – but it also means that you will want to cue your left & right turns before she goes in, so she turns nice and tight on those too. You were a little late on right at :25 and left at :45, for example, so the exit turn was wide. Compare it to the turn at 2:15 where you cued it right before she went in: much tighter!!!
One other thing top note: she does muuuuuuch better with seeing the line when you arms are down so she can see your eyes and shoulders. For example, on all the tandems: you had low arms and she was perfect. When she was going around the wing – when you wanted the wing behind the tunnel at 1:40, your arm got high so she didn’t take it. Compare that to 2:02 and 2:29, where your arm was lower and she nailed it. On the wing closer to the camera, the high arm at 2:18 and 2:55 caused a disconnect so she looked up at you, not sure if she should take the wing or turn or do a blind. Compare it to your nice low arm at 3:02 where she was able to get the wing nicely. So using your arms helps her, as long as the arms stay below your shoulder height. When they get way up high, she can’t see the info.
Overall, though, she looked great!!! Lovely job on these! Let me know what you think 🙂
TracyHowdy! Hope the hard seltzer was tasty 🙂 Having sessions like that are all part of the game. Damn fireworks! I thought the first couple of reps were pretty strong – he was really focused on going fast and getting the striding. He was popping towards the end a bit when you were moving in towards him (probably to avoid running into the dog walk). But that early part went well!
Yes, he was not as strong after the fireworks and because you slowed down, his striding got off kilter. So it was better to just abort mission and go have the hard seltzer 🙂 It will be fine again when he comfy tomorrow, and then you will make forward progress again 🙂
So lock onto the good stuff at the beginning and discard the rest. Start with some boxcars tomorrow and then go to 12 straight, he did well on those!!!
TracyHi!
Great news about the teeter!!! That’s awesome!
I really liked this session. He had to think it through independently… and he did! Yay! And then when you added motion – SO much better. Yay!! So for the next session: yes to adding the other side (from the chair LOL!) and to help you stay off his line, add angles so he can find them without you needing to go directly to the entry. You will be off to the side and therefore out of the way.
And also yes: he totally did better when you showed him that there were no treats and toys in your hands 🙂 That is why we have you in the chair: “Merlin, don’t look at da momma, look at the weaves!”
Great job here! Let me know what you think. TracyHi! Thanks for posting these!
I would classify the Sunday teeters as definitely better than the Saturday teeters. I think the main thing here was not about the teeters – he was a little uncomfortable in the trial environment so was a little uncomfortable on the teeter.>> How to do all this without many repetitions on the teeter or do I put some sort of invisible cushioning under the teeter?>>
So to bring the home version of the teeter performance into the trial environment, I think two things will help:
– acclimation into the trial environment so he is more relaxed and excited
– having a reinforcement he loves in the trial ring.On Saturday, he was feeling the pressure of the ring and he was not really into the toy. On Sunday, in that first run for sure, he was REALLY into the toy and that immediately helped the teeter. Yay!
So I suggest running courses without teeters in the trial ring to get him to feel relaxed and comfy: with a toy on a few runs would be ideal. Then, introduce the teeter (with that great toy) using the games … and then with some more experiences like that, he will be able to do that same teeter as he does at home 🙂
He did well with the elevator game! He was a little short stopping on the full teeter, but it was still good. So rather than do lots more teeter at home, focus on getting him happy and relaxed in the trial environment and he will also be great on the teeter 🙂Let me know if that makes sense!!
TracyHi! Looking great!!!! I think the grass as target cover is a good way to proceed – she looked strong on all of the end positions here. On the plank, it looked like she might have been ‘reaching’ for the target by stepping forward a bit too far, so be sure to have the target relatively close to the board so her front feet stay on it. If she was just reaching forward even with the target close, then keep placing the reward all the way back by the edge of the board to help her stay close to it.
I think the teeter looked great! Her first full rep was really strong 🙂 She was a little wobbly at 1:14 but that might have been fatigue. She finished strong after that!
So, keep on fading the target on the plank and on the elevator games. And, add the teeter into sequences with both the crazy elevator game and the full teeter.
Great job here!!!
Tracy
