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Hi again!
Super session here too! Both sides looked awesome with the countermotion. (He is doing that come in/bark at you that he did in the previous video, so same suggestions for that apply here too).
At around :50 you started doing less countermotion on the FC and more of a ‘normal’ FC back to the start wing – perfect! I was going to suggest that as the next step. That is where things will get harder for him! And they were indeed a little harder, he got a little wider at about :54, but then you did a little countermotion mixed in and a couple of normal FCs, and he was nice and tight again. Huzzah! And no off course grabs – perfect. So, next step: no countermotion, no FC – just move forward saying the verbal. Basically, you will do a super late FC as part of the reward – when you see him collecting to wrap, you will then do a FC and take off (but throw the reward back to the wing).
And if that goes well? Onwards to the jump here. Great job!
TracyHi!
Really nice session!!! Lots of good stuff here – MUCH better use of hind end, his feet are not higher than his butt anymore 🙂 I see him going from extension to collection and that makes me want to do a BIG happy dance!!! And he is doing it without you having to slow down or help or throw your hands in his face or anything. That is a BIG change, very happy-making!
I don’t love this footing for him, I think he is compensating a bit and shortening up, so hopefully you can work him on the turf at LU so he gets the feel of the extension to collection there too (and that will transfer to competition too!)
So, one thing I really noticed here and we can focus on: he is an interesting character! He doesn’t want to drive past you (note the moment he barks at your side :04, :14, :18, :23 , :33… and he actually levitates at :28 and :42!).
You were very precisely connected, arm locked back – I have no improvements to suggest there LOL! I mean, you can’t be more connected unless you crawl inside his eyeballs HA! Your motion was good too – not too much, not too little. And it sounds like your verbals were good too!
So something is delaying his commitment here, causing him to come into you then back out – it could be any number of things that I can think of, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that we can help smooth out that line, because it is *that* exact moment which causes his turn/collection decisions to get off kilter in situations that are not as set up as this one is. If we can answer this question, a lot of your other questions will also get answered.
So, two ideas for you, both involving how the reinforcement is used:
We can change the placement of reinforcement. He might be struggled with the distraction of you and the reward moving fast and moving in a different direction, which delays his commit – which in turn delays his collection organization. So, easy change: throw the reward to the wing he has just exited, right to the outer edge of the wing so it is there when he comes around it. That will get him looking ahead at the wing of the jump more, and looking at you less as he drives to the jump.
Second, it is possible that he doesn’t understand when the toy in in your hand in ‘in play’ as a reinforcement and when he should look ahead and ignore it (this could be happening even when you are not carrying a toy, because it might be a bit conditioned). To clarify that for him, add a reward marker that specifically means “now you may have the toy in my hand”. I expect my dogs to ignore the toy in my hand until I say “bite!” That both marks the correct behavior and tells them where to look: no bite? Look at the jump. Bite? Look at the toy. It has been a HUGE help getting CB and HSM to drive lines.
This means that praise has to happen after the reward marker, so you will need to shape yourself to say your ‘bite’ word and then praise.
Both of these should make a massive difference. This game is already getting him to really organize his collections as you run, and the 2 ideas above will smooth out his approach to the jump. Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>> But, it was time to stop and I’m trying hard to break the “just one more” habit that turns into several more attempts.
Truth!!! That ‘just one more’ gets us all into trouble.
What a good girl to hold her stay even when you had the bad toy toss!! Nice!!!! I think the extensions went well – I like the toy on the ground for her, to keep her head down. A lot of dogs want to jump with their heads up (Aussies are included in that list!) and so the more we rehearse head down, the better. She did well here with the striding!
On the next session, you can add a little more height to the bar, maybe 2 inches then 4 inches more (with the toy still way out ahead of the jump). And you can add the decels with you standing still – at first, *don’t* have the toy on the ground out ahead for those. When she is able to decel after all of the GO reps, you can work up to having the toy on the ground for all reps – and she gets it for the GO reps and you have a 2nd toy or treats in your hand for the decels 🙂 That is definitely more challenging 🙂
Great job here!
TracyYay, it worked! The list looks great – and it is alphabetical! Cool!!!!
Only 79 words. There is room for more. KIDDING hahahah!
So much good stuff here and lots of details on what they mean. Nice!
You had some notes about tunnel verbals – I have found that using the existing directionals like left or right for tunnel exits work really well – I generally deliver the exit verbal about 6 feet before the dog enters, and they exit properly. That makes it easier than adding tunnel-specific verbals to the list.
Switch is a good one to have on the list too! You noted it as a lead change in the air, but I think you will find it to be more effective if the pup does the lead change on the ground as he approaches the jump.I didn’t see any jump threadle cues – did I miss them or are you still hashing them out?
Great list!!
TracyHi!
Obsess on the sudden demise of the RDW behavior? Well yes, that is something we would all do hahaha!
This session looked really good! I have a couple of suggestions for you but overall it was great!
First, the easy part: the GO reps looked GREAT! She was really driving ahead of you perfectly! You were very clear and energetic with the verbal. You were also throwing with good timing, which helped too! You can challenge her a little more by delaying the throw now until you see her looking straight on jump 2!For the wraps – she is driving ahead and wrapping better when she is on your left (2nd part of the video) than when she was on your right (first part). I don’t know if it is because she prefers being on your left, or if it was later in the session so she had figured it out. When she was on your right, she had a little ‘hiccup’ at your side before driving ahead, a little stickiness. She got it right every time, but something to get rid of that little sticky moment: throw the reward to the exit spot of the wing, so it is there when she comes around and not in your hand. That sticky moment could be because she was looking at the toy? So getting it off of you and near the wing will help.
Also, try to use a marker for the toy when she can have it from your hand, something like ‘bite’ or ‘strike’ instead of praise. Praise might confuse her as to when she should keep going and when to get the toy. So if you only let her take the toy from your hand with a magic word marker 🙂 then she will ignore it until you say the magic word – and that will also get rid of any of that stickiness in case it did come from looking at the toy.Great job here! Let me know what you think! When you have permission from the docs to move faster, you can totally add more motion!
Tracy
Yes, sometimes the session just goes awry and that is fine, as long as ALL sessions don’t go awry – the single session will be forgotten pretty quickly.
About the discs:
Reinforcement can also elicit certain types of behavior reflexively, which adds challenge to training. One thing about frisbees are that they are super high value. The other thing about frisbees are that they are stimulating and they mean RUN especially when there is one in each hand, which might be why he was struggling with the left/right turns or wraps then gave up when they disappeared and you went back to the wing. So to use2 discs, you might need to work on first how they get involved in training, without the distraction jump: wrap the wing, come bite from my hand. The delivery was a little in the grey area – was it a soft turn or a wrap, based on the disc tossing – it was not exactly a soft turn placement, it was not exactly a wrap placement.I don’t think that was the issue here, but it is something to consider. I think the issue was that discs mean GO GO GO and then when you were walking forward, he got caught in that vortex: body and reward say go, but voice says something else – brain explosion! So, we can have body walking forward Iike you did, and use high value food which means “come to momma” – that can help him process the verbal because the type of reinforcement is more in line with it. R
If things go awry, you can also move the wing and jump further apart – and when the 2 jumps are out there, definitely move them apart because of how it took it as a spread at the end (8 feet maybe if that is what he needs to NOT take them as a spread :)) It was good to let him have a giddy up and run moment and his ability to take that as a spread was impressive!!!
So, no worries about a single wonky session – you can repeat it but with a different choice of reinforcement. You can play disc before each rep, put the disc away (I show things down my pants lol) then use food, then back to disc. Let me know what you think and how he does in the next session!
What went wrong with Callie’s left/right session?Tracy
Hi!
Great session here – you were systematic and clear, but you also didn’t over-help with handling. Everything looked strong so your feedback here will be a little boring hahaha!!!
Game 3 left wraps looked great! You had speed and excitement and she was great – I didn’t see her even consider the off course jump and she was bending really well/
She is indeed looking straighter for longer on the right wraps – coming around the wing nicely but looking straight down the line for an extra heartbeat. I think it is probably just that she is a lefty 🙂 Her last right turn looked much better already! Because she is sorting it out, we don’t need to do anything else for now – if she struggles, we can help her but right now she doesn’t appear to be struggling. You can add the jump to this game for sure.Left and right soft turns – looking good! She was setting herself up beautifully for the turns, including to the right! A question: Are you using the same verbal for both directions? So it means ‘soft turn towards the momma’? That can work as long as you have another verbal for ‘soft turn away from the momma’ 🙂
The timing of the toy throw on these in the early stages can be nice and early like you did here for most of the reps, as soon as you see her setting herself up to make the turn and before she looks back at you.
Adding the wing before it was great, she had no trouble so increasing the challenge was good!Now you can add your motion – jogging up the line, then working to running up the line. I think you will be able to get to adding the jump really soon, and then working the balance GO reps and also you’ll be able to get to the combo challenge game pretty quickly.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHa! The feedback from so many people this week was that they forgot what to do as soon as they go to the setup LOL! Or, based on what they did, I could tell they forgot. And when I am training or recording demos, I either have a short list on a white board, or I use screenshots/photos on my phone of what I am supposed to remember. So it the field guides give folks a short list to bring to the training area, then I am happy to help everyone plan a good session with them 🙂
Tracy
Hello and welcome to you and sister Amore!!! She looks great!!
There is a lot of lovely stuff here and some stuff I will bug you to be more systematic about (and the last 9 seconds were blank?). Try to be super systematic on all of this, resisting temptation to add too much challenge too quickly – that is where things get muddy.
The left, right, Go at the beginning looked great – you were at a good speed, she was turning nicely, responding to the cues well! She had an Oopsie at :09 where she did a go instead of the left, probably because you ramped up your motion. You dialed back your motion nicely and she did really well – I recommend staying in that setup for a bit longer, medium speed, moving forward, til the left versus right versus Go! get really locked in, gradually increasing your motion and adding a start wing before it to increase her motion too.
In the middle section, I think you got a little too fancy LOL!!! Running these soft turn skills into a tunnel/weave discrimination a few feet away and with a rear cross made things a little muddy. On the first right turn – she was not necessarily wrong to turn right and go to the tunnel at :18 because that is technically a right turn, according to criteria (at this distance).
At :21 and :24 you got more collection for the right turn with the verbal, she didn’t take the tunnel, but you rewarded a wrap (she came back around the wing)
Then at :30 you said “go” which is straight and that is what you did over the jump, good girl! and then you said tunnel but that is a right turn in this setup- she did it, but she had questions LOL!!! So try not to throw all of the various challenges at her all at once in these small distances – we don’t want the verbals to lose clarity or become reliant on body language.The wrap section looked really great! Her wraps look lovely, even with a lot of countermotion!!!
When you went back to the ‘left’ verbal at :49 – it sounded the same as the wrap cue – that is good to note! So one thing to consider is on the soft turns, extend the word to something like leeeeeft leeeeeeft or riiiight riiiight instead of saying it fast (leftleftleft starts to sound like the wrap cue).Now, in that moment at :49, she didn’t wrap or turn left, she went straight LOL! That means she is still processing motion versus the verbal, so be careful to add your motion very gradually. She wants to get on a line and stay on a line when you are moving fast, so we will add your motion more systematically so she can process the difference between the turn cues when you are moving forward and the extension cues when you are moving forward.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>.What do you think of this? It’s hard to be running and throw when he’s digging in, but I think since I put more energy into it he was running to the wing. I don’t think I threw at the toy at the right time. Two people would be easier.>>
This looked good – he was always pretty good about running in towards the wing, it was exiting it at top speed which he could improve… which would then get him to run to the wing faster. He was already faster here – I would keep doing this with one adjustment: you were tossing the ball so it came to a stop just a few feet past you, so he was decelerating too. Do this in a bigger space so you can toss the toy for miles and miles and he can run run run 🙂 If he likes a hollee roller, you can get a large one (even put a tennis ball in it) and toss it really far – the hollee rollers are great for scooping up at a run without slamming into the ground at all.
>>Maybe restrained recalls to work on drive to me? A first pole and dragging the lure around 5he wing? He’s gung Ho about lure coursing and dock diving and Nosework.
For the true conditioned response we want (aka value transfer) you can use the flirt pole or lure… but not as a lure. It has to happen after he chooses the wing wrap. I think you running and throwing the ball ahead will work wonders for drive to you 🙂
>>Maybe since he was so anxious when I started agility and we had to be on tip toes to keep him from eating, not let him get stressed, the drive just didn’t get built in. Maybe just more time and confidence because it’s more complicated than his other sports.>>
Agility is indeed a SUPER complex sport with a really difficult jumping effort! Keep working on super fun reinforcement strategies and keep the bars low, letting him really feel the joys of running 🙂
Tracy
Hi! Really nice session here!
Tossing the ball on the first rep did help the jump (go) cue but maybe do a warm up right wrap first 🙂 That might have made it harder to go from the go line to the wraps. I definitely heard a big difference between the right and left wrap cues, in both cadence AND pitch! NICE!! You can add a different cadence to your jump (go) cue – make it really loud, almost urgent (because on a straight line at the end of a 230 yard course, it is going to be urgent LOL!!!) Wrap cues are more chill, go line cues are loud and urgent (PLEASE GOD GOOOOOOO!! haha)!Her left wraps looked great! The right wraps were harder, as you mentioned. One idea to help her out with those is to use handling, but in a slightly different way: rather than be a good handler and be on time with your handling, say the verbal while you move forward and *then* do the FC to help assist with the right wrap. The new cue (verbal) will then come to predict the old cue (FC) which strengthens the new cue and helps eliminate the failures. Let me know if that makes sense! The trick is to do the FC after the verbal, which is hard because we humans like to do them simultaneously LOL!!!
I think she is ready for more motion on these! And you can definitely start the week 2 games 🙂
Great job!
TracyHello and welcome!!! There is plenty of time to play the games – we will get them all posted than have weeks at the end for anyone who needs to finish them up : )
>>Here’s our verbal cues list with some of the specific criteria. I’m building this as we go.>>
Yay! But also Notion won’t let me see it – it thinks I am trying to set up my own blank page. Can you do a copy/paste of it?
Thanks!
TracyHi!
Have fun with the games! And if you click on the little box in the lower left corner below your reply that says “Notify Me Of Follow-Up Replies Via Email”, you’ll get an email with the reply and also a link to come directly here 🙂Tracy
Howdy!
>>One thing I did want to make sure I understand is if/when you add in correct handling cues back in for this exercise vs isolating the verbals. Looking forward to tomorrow’s live night.
Great question! And I already have handling on my list of things to discuss. But, basically, in this class we are going to do things backwards: start with a bit of handling to help solidify the verbals, then take it out more and more… then eventually show the OPPOSITE handling and see if the dog can still process the verbals. Wheeeee! So for the stuff she is getting good at, like the wraps, start taking out the proper handling help. For the new stuff? Start with some handling then we will take it out more and more.
T
