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Hi!
> Who would have ever thought this would be so hard.
Ha! My evil master plan says it looks easy but actually is pretty hard for dogs of all ages – I filmed some demos for upcoming games with my almost 9 year old dog and he had some juicy mistakes LOL!!
Really nice session here! I like that you were repeating the left & right cues, rather than saying them once. And great job NOT handling LOL! Just moving forward an he was differentiating on the verbals. It will be so much easier when you do add the handling back to it and when you have 20 feet between obstacles.
For the Go reps – this is harder! is the cue Go or Go On? There is some alternation LOL!!! But the main thing is to break it down by helping him, being a bit more parallel to him and not as behind him – I think the Go is a little harder than the left or right. And you can throw sooner on the Go reps – as soon as you see him looking straight over jump 1, throw the reward with a get it verbal so he doesn’t second guess jump 2 or look back at you.
Nice work! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
> I really like the idea of holding the collar with saying the verbal to get them used to listening for a verbal!
He did well here! He was stimulated but also correct and that is what we are going for.
>>Guinness’s commitment to the wing will be instantaneous with release of his collar.
>> I don’t think what I am doing is making any difference, including the verbal. Guinness is focused on the wing and will go there regardless of what I say or do or at what speed. There’s no alternative for him, so I think he’s there regardless of position, movement or verbal.>>Yes – that is why we start like that, to develop the behavior and the criteria, and name it with the verbal. In other words: we are really certain we are going to get the behavior, so we can name it by adding the cue before it. And getting it and naming it without needing handling help? Perfect! LOL!
>> So it will be difficult to walk, jog, run (he won’t notice the difference). Unless I start 20+’ back where he might hesitate without my forward motion.
He was quite perfect on the first video, up close. He was wider on the 2nd video when you started further back, turning to his right. So we need to keep starting him at the distance of the 2nd video or further away (20 feet is fine) – but add motion. Hold his collar, start the verbal, and when you let go, keep saying the verbal and walk forward. Don’t try to handle – he needs to create the turn. As soon as he does, then you can take off andgive him the toy.
If he is happy with that, you can put the wing in front of a jump (low bar, the jump maybe 8 feet away) and start really close again, just like you did on the first video here. The distraction jump makes it really hard for him to process the verbals, so we don’t need to challenge him with a lot of motion until he is good with you walking.>>And I really do suck at verbals. I have a hard time getting them out of my mouth on course. Probably why my dogs ignore my verbals! Guess I just need practice!>>
We will do a lot of practicing games and then it will feel much easier 🙂
Great job here!! Let me know if the ideas for the next steps make sense.
TracyHi!
>> My husband would say I have the same problem
Ha! Same here 🙂 And also, I have trouble processing his verbals when I am focused on something else, so he has to repeat his verbals LOL!!!!
Really nice session here – SO MUCH good work! The right wrap collection at the beginning was really nice. The MM was out there… but he ignored it nicely.
He did indeed have trouble with the left wraps – maybe the excitement of the Go reps to the MM made it too hard to ignore it because the MM was ‘in play’. Maybe he didn’t want to wrap towards the pressure of the wall? Maybe fatigue or change of arousal or tugging was less reinforcing than the potential of the MM? I am guessing it is mainly because the MM was in play and that change his arousal state: it is EASY to run straight to the MM, it is much much harder to ignore it after a few rewards from it.
You did a great job working through it on the wing, that was a clever way to reset the wrap and set him up for success. Another idea for the MM distraction: since that is the most exciting reinforcement in this session, you an use it for the wraps. What I mean by that is – have him wrap and when he comes back to you… click the MM and send him to it. That way the MM is in play the whole time… but he really has to process which verbal it is. Brain-exploder! LOL!
Only one small tweak for this setup – the bars were a little too high for the Go with such a short distance between the jump (he had trouble jumping it smoothly) so keep the bars lower when you have the Go involved.
>>or maybe this is him saying it would be helpful if you had different words?
I do like to have 2 different words, but I don’t think that was the issue – I think the MM was a big distraction after he did a few reps to it. But you worked through it really well and he was able to figure it out – then by the end he nailed the GO and was also able to end on strong alternating Go and wrap reps. Very cool!
Great job! You can definitely add in the week 2 games. And have a great time at the seminar!!!!
Tracy
Hi!
Good session here! I think the bell curve is working well! And her stays are looking good too!Yes, I think she definitely found the right turns with motion easier. On the left turns, though, you did go from a quiet walk to an arm-pumping fast job LOL! It might have been a bit too much of a leap in motion, especially after all the Go reps.
So there are 2 options for the left turns to solidify them as you add motion – you can add motion more gradually, just walking faster or jogging but keeping arms quiet. Or, to add more speed, for the left turns do the wing alone and not the full jump with you moving more and more. I think for the right turns, you can keep going with what you did here.
>>Also I felt like she may have been curling in too much on those go’s.
I think she was good with the Go reps! She was a little closer to the side of the bar you were on (that is pretty normal), but she was straight, looking ahead and in extension.
>> I’m trying not to mark the mistakes but oooh is out of my mouth before I realize it! At least I’m recognizing that. That’s the first step right😂😂😜?
Ha! Yes! As long as you give her a quick reset cookie, I think she will be happy with it LOL!
Great job 🙂 Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
I liked this session a lot! He had to think but also he was digging in a lot more around the wing. Yay! The error on the first rep was more of a mechanics/organization error – you started moving before he was sure of where to be, so he didn’t have time to sort things out. Take a moment at the start of each rep to line him up, hold him – kind of like you did at :31 – that was well-organized so he was correct AND he was explosive in and out of the wing. Super!I think there are 2 tracks forward:
– yes, move to the week 1 games with the locked bar.– And also yes, start week 2 with the wing game. They are different behaviors, so you can alternate sessions or days with each and make progress on both sets of games. I really like this style of rewarding: driving around the wing gets the chase and ball throw. For the left and right, he won’t be chasing you but that is a good opportunity to throw the hollee roller or the disc!
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! Having dogs with lower thresholds for frustration has taught me to look at all of the behavior in a session, not just the behavior I am trying to train. So doing the quick math on this session – he is at 25% rate of reinforcement.
out of toy = nr (collar grab)
offered through upright = nr
out of toy, set up = nr
off course to jump 2= nr
correct wrap = r
out of toy then down = nr
correct wrap = r
out = nrIt works out to 8 behaviors and 2 rewards. Pair that with a high state of arousal for whatever reason, and you got biting. So be sure to reinforce all of those in between behaviors (especially the outs and the set ups) and you should see a dramatic decrease in tooth hugging!
T
The wind was making it harder for sure! What about a toy that is heavier, so it throws better in the wind? We get a ton of wind here in the mountains, so I often use a heavy toy or a tennis ball stuffed into a big hollee roller so it throws well in the wind 🙂
T
Good morning!
Really nice session here!!! I like how your left/right verbals sound different in energy from your GO GO GO verbal, that will totally help him! And doing it without the toy pre-placed was MUCH harder but he was super!
So with that in mind, on your next session – add movement. For the first few reps, start by holding his collar (no stay, because you are holding him) and start the verbal while holding him – then left go, keep saying the verbal, and walk forward. And reward if he is correct 🙂
Holding the collar is important because it gets him excited and allows you to add motion – the stay is a calmer way to do it, but he doesn’t need calm at this point 🙂And if that goes well, start with the wing wrap before the setup so both of you are moving more 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
Tugging looked fabulous here! He was happily insane for this toy!! I love it! The wraps looked great of course because he wants the toy toy and will drive hard to it. One thing to remember: don’t make tugging a duration behavior 🙂 especially at the beginning of a session: Tug for a few second then take it back and do a thing (a trick or rep of the session). That will keep him from getting too heated up while keeping tug value very high.
Is the toy on the end of the flirt pole removable? Can you take it and tie it to a long line or long tug toy, so you can start to fade the actual pole (hard to carry that thing LOL!) and still have the fun way of playing that he obviously loves by dragging it on a long line or toy.
Holy sweet monkeys look at his stay here on the threadle video! I about peed my pants in joy. LOVE it! He was confidently holding the stay while you walked forward to your position. YES! And you were smart to not ask for it on every rep 🙂
Good click timing at :40 and after, waiting for him to look at the bar before clicking the MM (it did sound a little creaky LOL!!)
He had a question about looking at the bar at 1:05 – you were a little far from the wing and bar, so be closer so he can see your feet pointing to the bar more like your position at 1:32 and beyond.Serps also looked great!
Sooooo…. add some motion not to both of these. Start from a cookie toss because you want to be moving before the release from a stay, and I don’t want to mess with the stay right now. And you can move the MM a little further from the jump, so he can stride out more to it after he jumps the jump.I am doing a VERY BIG HAPPY DANCE that he was able to play with a toy after eating all those Manners Minder cookies. That is WONDERFUL! YAY!!! You were super smart to use the tunnel for this – it is a stimulating activity even though he might have been a little tired.
I think that with the toy, you can add a bit more of your motion too: when you say ‘get it’ you can be dragging the toy and running away a bit – just enough running to get more chase, but not so much running that he can’t grab it and then gives up.
GREAT job on these! I love everything that happened here!
Tracy
Good morning!
>. The only way I got a really good tight turn like the ones going right was to start with Spot further to the lateral side of the wing, then he’s really nice and tight around it when it’s more of a circle instead of a U shape. I assume if we do a lot of reps like that he’ll eventually get the muscle memory for it. I kind of wonder if I turned the wing end on for a few reps in the U shape is it would tighten it up. >>
A lot of dogs do have different turn mechanics in each direction, we just don’t slow down the video to obsess on it as much LOL! So try it on the low bar of a jump – and as long as he is organizing to make the turn, we will let him do what he needs to do. And, when you reinforce the wraps, have him come all the way back to you (you can even run away) for the reinforcement – tossing it to him changes the mechanics because he will prepare to stop, rather than prepare to drive out of the turn.
On the video:
He is doing a great job with his soft turns!!!!
He is a little tentative when you were mixing up left and right versus wrap cues (especially on the left turns) – save those for later in the training (game 3 does some of that in a different context, where he has to decide the exit lines based on the verbal cues).You did a great job of NOT being too helpful with the handling LOL!!! It will be easier to get the turns when you are actually handling, but it was really great to see him setting up the turns without waiting for handling help. As we have already seen, he work his lines differently on left turns versus right turns – he looked more ‘traditional’ in his collections to the right, and he shaped his line more to the left. Either way – as long as he is correct, we will let him juts keep sorting it out. As the bars start to come up to full height, he might change his approach to organize differently and it might start to look the same on both sides.
>>I realized I said ‘go on’ over and over to poor Spot. His word is ‘go’, but for Wager I use go and go on interchangeably. I’ll try just ‘go’ and see if he has a better understanding of what I want.>>
Oops! I don’t think it was the slight difference in word though, I think it was a couple of other things happening:
To reward the Go line, you need to look for an approximation of criteria on jump 1 (is he going straiht-ish?) rather than wait for both jumps or now. With that in mind, I think the reps at 1:04 and 1: 10 and 1:37 were rewardable. They were not perfect, he had a question, but he went straight-ish and didn’t wrap or do a left turn – so you can reward it as an approximation by throwing the reward straight.One other thing that made it tricky:
also, in this setup -when he is on your right, that 2nd jump requires a lead change away based on the angle he is coming to jump 1 on… so it needs a ‘get out’ cue not a ‘go’ 🙂 He got it when you pushed to it with body language but the lead change is there.
It is more of a straight line when he is on your left so he did well at 1:46 but then at 2:26 the angle was different, so in that spot on your left it would be a ‘get out’ for jump 2.
You were having to pressure in like a rear cross on the Go lines, so be sure that your start angle does present him with a go on line – and reward for what he does on the first jump (by throwin over the 2nd jump). Moving the start wing to line up more with the exit side of the jump can help create better Go lines too.Great job here! You can keep adding more speed here!
TracyGood morning! Lots of great stuff here!
>>, I am logging reps, therefore, wings more than bars.
Perfect! wings are easier than bars for sure. And days off in between will help cement the behavior without over-use of his body.
>>I am working on my own “bad handling” (driving a wrong line or turning late to test his verbal skill) not sure how successful I am being as a gradual progression would be better and after spending years trying to get the right timing on handling, this is KILLING me!! Lol>>
Ha! I know it is weird to not try to be on time LOL!!! Totally worthwhile though, because it will teach verbal processing and then you won’t need to rely on perfect handling with this speedster : ) Think of it more as not being helpful, just moving forward rather than using motion as a cue. We don’t need to test him yet by gong the wrong way – the lack of ‘help’ is definitely pretty hard.
>>I am so glad the squeak in the group chat video was yelling at me and not a different issue. >>
Yes, that seemed to be a “WHAT IS NEXT MOM?” squeak LOL!! Still makes me chuckle. And some dogs vocalize when we are perfect because it is terribly exciting! My 9 year old dog literally shrieks when I do a well-timed countermotion cue – I take it as ‘OMG SHE WAS ON TIME THIS ONE TIME I CAN BARELY BELIEVE IT” hahaha But, he works beautifully even while shrieking, so I note it as feedback and carry on 🙂
>>Messy training area. Is this TOO messy?>>
Yes, I think it was a bit too much to have them this close because they are actually pressuring his lines. He wasn’t thinking about his mechanics and hind end use in particular, as much as he was thinking about avoiding them especially when they are moving or facing him on or near his entry or exit line. And plus they caused some errors that he didn’t get rewarded for, so I think he might have had some questions about that. So, for distraction purposes, the barking and movement is great if they can be maybe in an xpen or behind a gate? But to get him being able to sort his mechanics properly, it will be better to not have them moving in the setup with him.
Looking at the first video – he was doing his wraps and working with you, but was not as tight in or out of the wing because he was dodging Ginger and Tortelini (BEST NAME EVER, btw). On the last rep, I think you wanted him to do a tight wrap to the right but he had 2 herding dogs changing his line, so he made a good choice not to not turn really tight but didn’t get a reward. So it is a hard line – he couldn’t really be correct without potentially running into one of the others who were running towards him at the decision point, so I like that he has a safety-first attitude. Good boy!!!
The 4 second clip looked great – note how he set up his collection and was turning really beautifully with no handling help. You were just moving forward. YES! Very nice 🙂 It will be even easier when you do help with physical cues. This was a great “verbal only, no handling help” moment 🙂
He can definitely see this skill on jumps now here and there.
Left/right on the wing – he is doing his best here but the distraction level is a bit too high for relatively new cues – for example at :47, Ginger is facing him off, Tortelini is herding from the outside, and your were running… the verbal cue gets lost in all of that so he had 2 errors (on the next rep at :54, Tortelini was standing at the entry line to the wing as you started the right verbal, so he chose not to run into another dog – again, a very very good decision!) He got a little frustrated (leapt for the toy, gave a look at Ginger) He got it right at 1:12 but Ginger was on the exit line so Prism was on his forehand to sort it out and ideally we want him to engage his butt 🙂
On your next session, do a warm up on the wing/jump setup and then add the wing wrap before it so we can see how he does with more speed coming into it (I am sure he will be lovely :))
Game 3 – he seems to really have the idea here on the exits! Yay! Only one error (1:19) but I think it was because he was thinking about not running into the other dogs. At the start of the next video, he literally has to jump over Ginger LOL! And at 1:49 he didn’t get to the wing because Tortelini was stranding right on the path. he did push through on the other reps, so he was figuring out the concept nicely. The next stage is to let him figure out the mechanics, which means a warm up session on the wing so he can go fast without other dogs in the way, to get his hind end engaged. Then, you can replace the wing with a jump so he can transfer the mechanics to a jump while retaining the concept.
Nice work!!! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning! Really nice work here, he is totally getting the idea!!!
The right on the wing looked great at he beginning, and you were not being helpful with handling (we don’t want you to be helpful right now :)) – just moving forward and he was sorting it out nicely! Left on the wing as harder – it might have been that the cone for the ‘around’ before it was not lined up to it, which blocks the view of the wing so when you had lots of motion so he started to ‘ping’ away to the jump. I took that as more of a “which obstacle should I be committing to?” question. When you did it on the right turns, the cone was lined up much better so he was lovely there.
>>So, right now I’m still having to move fairly slowly and use food as too much speed and toys are a little too much. I will try what you previously suggested for the toy (playing first then switching to food) but for this session, I used just food.>>
This wing/jump setup is where you can add the speed and excitement, from the toy and from your motion. You had some good motion going here and used food. So in the next couple of sessions on this setup, you can do the toy-food-rep work – then just go to toys. The wing makes the turning easier, as you add in the harder stuff like your speed and his arousal.
He did well when you added the jump – this is where, for now, keep things a bit slower and more chill so he can sort out exactly what he needs to do on the turn versus the go, with food and you not moving that fast yet.
One thing that will help him know where to look when you say the verbal is to clarify your reward markers. You were praising then throwing, so he was looking at you a lot – especially for go reps like at 1:44 where he is doing the go sideways because he is looking at you LOL!! And since head position is part of the criteria, a different marker for the food delivery will help. The easiest thing to add is a ‘get it’ marker to relace the verbal. Get it can mean “it is thrown out ahead of you” and will eliminate him looking at you (praise tends to get the dogs looking at us more than we want them too). Plus, you can toss pretty early: so as soon as you see him organizing himself to turn right, for example, you can say get it and toss so it is there before he lands. And with the Go, decide your toss based on what he does on the first jump – if he is relatively straight and extended and NOT looking at you, you can mark that and throw the reward (he doesn’t not have to take both jumps to get the reward, it is more about convincing him to go straight on jump 1 versus left or right or wrapping).
After a few sessions of lots of speed/excitement on the wing, and relatively ‘chill’ on the jumps, we can merge the two together to get speed and excitement on the jumps!
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>My Verbals. I’m horrible at verbals!
You are totally NOT horrible at verbals!!!! You are in the process of adding more – that is way different than being horrible 🙂
>>Few are solid… “go”, “switch”, “push”. These are usually good, but not 100%.
We can get these closer to 100% in these games – is switch a rear cross cue?
>> but need to limit them because I’m not good at getting the words out!!!
Part of it is having verbals that make sense and are easy to spit out – and part of it is rehearsing the noes you need so they are easy to spit out on course. There is no need to try to add them all in at the same time – you can prioritize the ones you need right away, work those until they are looking and feeling good – then add in more.
>>Go – take obstacle and continue forward to next obstacle(s) directly in front of you. Full extension.
Jump – take the jump (or tire) in front of you, but not in full extension. Expect a turn (even slight).
Check – tight wrap; collection before the jump and turn twd me (no lead chg)>>>>Switch – take the jump and turn away from me for next obstacle (lead chg)
One thing about switch is you’ll need to tell him how much collection you want on it – is it pretty mild, like your ‘jump’ cue? It so – perfect! And you can use left/right or other words if you need a tight rear cross.
>>Here – come to me/my side of the jump and take at a slice
Zip – come to me/my side of the jump and wrap>>Perfect!
>>Push – go to the backside and take the jump (wrap or slice depends on my position)
I recommend you add one more backside verbal, so he knows when you want the backside circle wrap versus a slice. He is a fast, powerful dog – he needs to make the decision early and the backside slice versus backside wrap jumping are very different (and both very difficult). And since course design has evolved to where we are not often in a good enough position… a 2nd word is totally worthwhile!!!It is the same idea as having 2 separate words for you threadles (here and zip).
>>MyMy – take the non-obvious (like that word?) tunnel entrance
Dig – Tight turn back toward me out of a tunnel
Whoa – usually coming out of a tunnel… I’m on backside of jump indicating collect to take the jump, and turn my direction.>>Great to have the assortment of tunnel cues!! And yes, I totally love “non-obvious” as a word, it makes sense to me 🙂
Great list here!
TracyGood morning!
Good session here! And I love your view!!! He was GREAT here with the wing wraps, yay!! So now we can plan the next sessions:How does he feel about his collar being held, or wearing a regular harness? The next step is to add your motion, and I like to do it by having the handler hold the dog’s collar or harness, start your check check check while still holding him… then let go after you’ve said your verbal a few times. And as the dog starts to move, so does the handler: you would move forward until he commits to wrapping the wing, then you would do a FC and run and party with the reward. The reasoning behind holding the dog while starting to the cue is to help him understand to listen for a verbal, even when he is a little excited 🙂 because holding the collar or harness will get him jazzed up for sure. If he HATES having his collar or harness held, let me know and will will take a different approach.
We would do this first with food and if he is as good as he is here in this video, we do it with a toy (he might be a bit more jazzed up :)) You can probably do this in one session – if he struggles, we can do it across a few sessions.
You would start pretty close to the wing, and I bet you will quickly be able to go from walking to jogging to running.
When you can run with just a wing and he as nice and tight on his wraps as he was here… we add the distraction jump behind the wing and repeat the process, starting from a walk. We go back to walking because the distraction jump is a pretty significant distraction for a fast dog like Guinness 🙂 and we won’t want to also throw the distraction of running into the mix. But I bet you’ll work up very quickly to it.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning! Great job on these videos!!
>> I’m apologizing in advance on my use of ready!!! I really tried not to say it and didn’t realized I did until I viewed my videos.>>
On these videos, I think you had appropriate use of ‘ready’ – you had her with you, said ready to get her jazzed up – but as soon as you started your directionals, you only used the directionals and no more ready (at least I didn’t hear it if you used it elsewhere LOL!) So before a sequence or rep? Yes, you can totally use a ready ready to get her focused and jazzed up. But in the sequence? Do what you did here, which is only use the verbal directionals like the wrap cue on the start wing and the left/right verbals.
She did really well responding, and you did really well NOT helping with handling LOL!! Of course, when you run a course for real, you will have BOTH the handling and verbal to show her the line, but it was great to see her processing the cues without also needing handling help.
video 1 – The right verbal looks great ad you were terrific about NOT helping with the handling – that 2nd rep had her collecting for the right even with you running forward and also at 1:10 – she was like WHOA GOTTA TURN even with you running forward pretty hard. The last rep was perfect: you were running forward and she turn right perfectly. Happy dance!
Left – nice session too! I love how she is turning so well, even with you running hard and not using handling to create the turn. Smart girlie!
It seems like the let turns were mentally harder for her than the right turns – it was harder fo her to give back the toy and not regrip it, an she had her only error on this side at 1:10. Part of what caused the error was that you were moving fast forward and not really connected, so she went straight. On the next rep, you didn’t move quite as fast so she nailed it. It is good to know that you can still work on adding more of your speed here too!
So on the next session, warm up the left/right just like you ended here, wrapping a start wing and moving forward to this setup. And if that goes well, you can go to the 2 jump setup – but go back to walking, because she will need at least few reps to sort out the jumping effort.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
