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This is not a blooper reel, necessarily – you were doing more of the 360 wraps that you’ll see later in the class đ But I could see you thinking as you were stopping, almost like “wait, this doesn’t feel right” LOL!!! He was perfect, though, good boy!
And I realize that I forgot to mention that this turn and burn game with the cones is a great generalization game – you can pretty much throw the cones in your car and take this game anywhere, to help him learn the joys of ‘working’ in a variety of new environments!!!
Tracy
Hi! To clarify – are you using your soft turn verbals only for rear crosses, or for any soft turn?
No need to rear crosses for now, because the handling is creating the turn more than the verbal on those. We will work those in later in the course.
THi!
Work a bit of both:
Week 1 to keep working on the smooth transitions into sends without jumping up, and sorting collection mechanics while adding a bar.
You can start week 2 game 1, but no bar there yet til he has more time to sort the collection mechanics on the wraps.T
Good morning!
Ewwww, snow. I am NOT a winter person LOL!!!
Really nice session here:
The delayed “out” of the toy (when she is less stimulated, she is good with speedy outs) and the speed of her approach to the wing is an indicator of arousal – and she was still able to produce really nice first reps here! And great job for you for running forward but not helping with physical cues. It is worthwhile to move it to all difference places in the yard, because even small changes can make a big difference!She was a little wider towards the end on both sides – but still correct, so we will take it happily! Yay!
So with that in mind – for your next âfirst repsâ session, do a single warm up on the wing to each side, as you did here. If she is correct, replace the wing with the jump. And then repeat what you did here, but with the jump instead of a wing. And of course, keep me posted đ
One other idea: let her watch another dog do it first, to simulate seeing other dogs at trials. If my memory is correct, your other dog might be a bit old for this, so maybe you can do something else? Then grab some friends and let her watch other dogs running or playing ball or something – it is a great arousal stimulator đ
Great job!!
TracyHi! Nice work on these videos!
>>I tried to convince Sandy to replace it with turf, but was unsuccessful!
Turf is expensive, sadly. And the slipping did make it harder for her. But spring will be here soon!
>>t was snowing a bit outside and right now I only have one jump at my house, so my options were limited. I need to build more jumps so that I can work at home!)>>
For the wing stuff, you can use a big traffic cone or one of those pop up laundry barrels from Walmart or Target – they are light, so I put stuff in it to weigh it down đ
First video: Looking really good!!!
For these games, start with a very clean line up so she is at your side, facing the wing before you start each rep. On the check check check side at the beginning, you had her in different sides and she was not quite ready, so she had a few errors. But on the dig dig side, you were much clearer in your line up and she was great!!!
And great job starting with food and then going to toys – she was super successful with the toy, even though it is more stimulating. Yay!And yes, even with the wing wrapping and not jumping⌠the floor is too slippery for her to be able to dig in to properly make these turns and hit criteria. I think the weather is better now so I suggest only doing these on grass, dirt or turf because she canât move her body correctly on the mats.
2nd video:
Your mechanics of lining her up and your reward placement looked good here! You two are really becoming a smooth working team đThe bar knocking is because of the footing (yet another reason to only work her on grass or dirt or turf: so she doesnât rehearse dropping the bar). On that very first rep, she did a lovely job getting organized to wrap nice and tight – but she just cannot get good enough hind end grip to lift off properly even on an 8 inch bar. She then started to compensate after that with shortened striding and hind end lifting, (or slipping on her front end when she landed) which we donât want.
Then you did a bunch of GO reps in a row (much easier for her to do those on the footing) and she did well! At :45, your check verbal had the same running forward as the GO reps – so she did a GO. And because the GO is soooo much easier on this footing and the wrap is incredibly difficult – she is going to migrate the easier behavior if it remotely looks like you cued it. When you slowed it back down (and reminded her with the chair), you got the behavior back.
>>It also seems like the closer that she jumps to the wing, the more likely she is to knock a bar. I had dropped these down to 8 inches, which she shouldnât be knocking, but yet she was. Any suggestions?>>
It is the footing. She is 1000% trying to do it correctly but the footing is creating issues for her. She did get back into the groove of the wraps but the footing is really holding her back. So even though you have access to this training space⌠it is not useful for agility at her level of handling training now.
3rd video: she did well here! She was looking at the distraction jump a little bit but never took it, good girl, even when it was closer to the wing.
As with the first game, be sure to line her up at your side so she is facing the direction you want her to go – if she is looking at you, then it is harder to send her into the wing cleanly. You can totally lure her into position with a cookie!I know I am obsessing with the footing⌠but even on this game, she was compensating to be able to make the turn. She is holding herself tight to avoid slipping but that doesnât allow her to move freely in and out of the turn – and when she tries to move freely, she slips or spays. All of that can lead to injury so we want to be super careful! Take all of these games outside now đ so you can add more handler motion and so she can work out how to go fast AND turn tight while keeping bars up. Fingers crossed for NO MORE SNOW!!!
Great job here!!!! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
Great list you have here! Bear in mind that you can prioritize the training and not have to train them all at once đ She is young and you have plenty of time to work on them.
>>⢠Extension On A Line: Go!
⢠Lead Change Away On A Line: Get out! (Could use some work)>>Sounds good for both of these
>>⢠Wrap Verbals: Left: Check check check; Right: Dig, dig, dig
⢠Loose Turns of Approximately 90 degrees: Left, Right>>Also great!
>>⢠Backside Slice Verbal: Iâve used Back back back meaning take the back side of the jump, but I havenât usually used it for a slice. Perhaps it still works here?
When you were using it, did she generally take the jump or did you have her do a full circle of the entry wing? If it was generally taking the jump, then that counts as a slice đ The backside slice cue covers everything on the backside except the full circle wrap.
>>⢠Backside Wrap Verbal: HmmâŚI donât have a verbal for thisâŚand I canât use yours of dig dig dig. Any suggestions?
Some good ones I have heard are zipzipzip – and I don’t think that sounds like any verbals you already have. Or zing zing zing. Or tight tight tight.
>>⢠Jump Threadle Slice Verbal: This sounds familiar from MaxPup, though admittedly I havenât worked much on this. Close works for me, but need to work on it.
Yes, we did this in MaxPup đ But no worries if you have not worked it much – it is a relatively low priority for youngsters because we don’t really see it on course until the dog is competing at the highest levels. You’ve got time đ
>>⢠Jump Threadle Wrap: No verbal for this. Your âIn inâ could work for this but I kind of want something complimentary to the backside wrap verbal.>>
In in is a good one! It doesn’t have to be complimentary to the backside wrap because it is so different, and it might be easier to remember if it is wildly different đ
Great list!
TracyHi! You can add the dig dig dig and check check check when you get to the 3rd new game this week (the Combo Game Challenge) – but don’t do that til you have done the 2 soft turn games.
Great idea to enter UKI!!! I *highly* recommend you run NFC with a toy to get him happy in the trial environment while teaching him that stays apply, etc. I was just in Florida and ran all 3 of my baby dogs NFC, the whole weekend – I started off making the toy really obvious and then with the 2 ‘older’ puppies, I started to hide the toy so it looked like a ‘real’ run but I could still surprise them with the reinforcement in the ring. With my youngest baby dog (not yet 2 years old), I ran with the toy the whole time – it was her first trial and also she has never really trained anywhere else (Covid, plus I am a slacker LOL).
I had a plan to work on very specific things in each run, and each dog did an amazing job. The Qs that I gave up this past weekend are totally worth it in light of the great future ahead :). And I didn’t get some pressure from people about running them for real, for the Q (they looked really good!) but I resisted: training the baby dogs is more important than getting a Q with a baby dog. Keep your eye on the long term goals!
Tracy
Good news about the Treat n Train! She does really like food, so I guess she is developing more patience because it takes so long to spit out the cookies LOL
Good morning!
He looks fabulous đ Bending nicely, great commitment, and turning his head into the turn which helps all of the mechanics of the turn. YES! And I didn’t see a difference between the left and right turn – both directions looked equally strong. Double YES!!! And it was a super high rate of success session, so he worked with speed and excitement, but also relaxed and happy: a perfect combo.My only suggestion here is to change the direction of the game – instead of having him do the turn and you run to the side wall or towards the crates, you can turn the game perpendicularly so you have the full length of the room to run away (away from the camera). That can take things to the next step where you can leave even sooner and gradually add more and more challenge. Then eventually the game can go outside, but I think you might have snow on the ground at the moment?
And yes – bring on the barrels! He is ready! Great job here đ
TracyHi!
Hope you are having a good weekend!>>I never realized I said ready all the time. I even found myself doing it today and had to be really mindful of not saying it. >>
I feel that pain – I say âreadyâ all the time too, and I also tend to yell YES! at the worst possible moments on course hahahaha.
Video 1:
Perfect job helping less with the handling and facing forward more! She did really well on the left turns. She missed her first right turn and clicked the bar on the 2nd one, indicating that it is harder on that side (for whatever reason). So when you play this again, you can add more speed to the left turns but keep the right turn reps at a walk.Video 2 (game 3) – I am really liking how she is organizing herself for the turn before takeoff! Nice collection, she is on the correct part of the bar, her head is turned. And she doesnât appear to be looking at the distraction jump đ the interesting thing that she is doing is after she lands, and is turned⌠she hesitates there for a moment as if waiting for more info, before driving back down around the wing. So to help convince her to urn really fast back around the wing, you can throw the reward ahead of you rather than drop it, so she runs hard to it.
Great job here! New games coming tomorrow đ
TracyHi!
>>It zooms in more than my old one even though itâs zoomed all of the way out. So, you canât see her sit stay.>>
No worries, I trust your training, and I sure she was great đ
>>Sheâs also just started her first season. Unfortunately, she spent 7 hrs in the ER yesterday after she ate her entire pants. SighâŚ. Luckily I wasnât gone too long and she didnât need surgery. But, barely made it into the ER before they closed. Thatâs so scary that thereâs no guarantee of 24/7 emergency vet care these days. Sheâs pretty normal today. Thankful!>>
OMG that is so scary on many levels!!! And I totally agree – no guarantee of emergency care is frightening. My little Elektra possibly had a snake bite but we sat in the parking lot for a couple of hours because after they did a quick assessment, she was not critical enough compared to the trauma cases that came in. I am glad Sprite is fine!
On another note, did you know that Door Dash will deliver to your car in the parking lot at the Emergency Vet clinic? I found that out in 2 different states.
She did really well on the video here!
>>Sheâs still taking off way too early. Iâll dig out cavalettis. Hope she doesnât have ETO. However, I jumped Gemma at 20 in and before I could lower it Sprite leaps over it. I think she just needs more jumping practice to sort herself out.>>
I only saw one jumping effort that I did not like – and it was the last one, so we won’t know if she also didn’t like it LOL! I think she rushed her takeoff at 1:05 and got a little inverted. She did NOT do that on the other Go rep (:47) – she was lovely on that one. So my guess is she would have been lovely on the next rep too. Yo can experiment with what helps her choose her takeoff points – toy placed on the ground, or a wing to drive out to? Both of these are focal points to keep her looking ahead and head low, while you add motion.
She was definitely thinking about choosing good takeoff points for the collections – it was actually really interesting to see! She started off with “yes, I will add collection but how do I do the lead changes?” then she went to “oh this is cool, I can set the line with a bit more extension and still make a tight wrap!” then she went back to trying to sort out the more decelerated collection. It was all good – as the bars start to come up and she gets more experience, she will settle into whichever is faster/most efficient and that is great!
So, no worries about the jumping. She will let us know if she needs help; for now we will continue to give her plenty of experience to let her sort it out.
Tracy
Hi! Looking good here!
When working game 3, no need to wrap the side of the jump that isn’t near the distraction jump – it is too easy LOL!!! So the dig dig dig side here was the one the work, and then you can switch sides to work the other side too.He did really well here, didn’t seem to look at the distraction jump at all, even with your motion. NICE!! We will build this up to a higher bar later in the class, but this game gets used in a different way with the games posted tomorrow đ He is ready! Great job here!
TracyHi!
>>What I noticed is that if verbals are the goal, I think the dogs work on my motion more than what I say- how do we ever hope to have verbals beat out motion? >>
I agree, dogs read motion the best – but we cannot outrun them, so verbals are important. We have verbals beat out motion by teaching the verbal so thoroughly that we can show opposing motion and the dogs still process the verbal đ
It is very systematic and takes a bit of time, but totally works!>>But it got me to thinking, the more we move, arenât we by definition using our body language to cue what we want rather than the verbal? >>
In a perfect happy world, our body language always supports the verbal. But in training, we start with supportive body language then systematically strip it out, so the dogs respond to the verbals regardless of what we are doing.
On the videos:
With Desi (and all of the dogs, actually :)) you can repeat the cue so it is more like circle circle circle. Repeating it helped several ways:
– the repeat rhythm chops up the word and matches the deceleration of the collection that the dogs need to do. Dogs are very rhythmic!
– repeating it gives the dog more of a chance to process it. When running a course, the dog is processing a zillion things. So saying the verbal several times will really help the verbal ‘break through’ all of the other things the dogs need to process.She is doing really well overall!! You added all the challenges really quickly, so be sure to keep things clean and smooth. Just do one rep for each reward, try not to combine them like when you did the wrap and flipped her to the go at 1:50.
Speaking of the Go cues:
Is it GO or out for a straight line? You used both and I think it will help to isolate one verbal and strengthen it. When you cue the go, you can throw sooner – we are marking what happens on that first jump (going straight – we donât need to wait for her to take both yet)So now we can build in more verbal understanding and change your motion: you can see she is ready for it at 3:11 when you movement away was opposing motion – you said her around cue and then left laterally – good girl to still take the jump and wrap tight! Yay!
So on game 1, just the wing (not the jump) – start next to her on the entry cone and after she wraps it, walk forward saying the wrap verbal but don’t turn or anything – just go forward til she makes a choice. By choice, I mean that you will see her turn and start to wrap. When you see that, you can do the turn and run and reward đ
Start by walking and if she is great for a bunch of reps… go to jogging. Starting at a walk teaching the skill and also builds better commitment! Eventually we build it up to running but that will take several sessions.
She is also doing well on Game 3 – be sure that you only turn her to the distraction jump, not away from it (that is too easy LOL!) For the next session on Game 3, she she found it a lot harder and was much wider. So go back to the wing in the next session and build up to running. When she is tight on the wing with your running hard, you can go back to the jump but also go back to walking.
Libby is also doing well!
>>Should we be doing drills with just the verbals and no motion? I saw a world team member at a seminar just say the word âpushâ while we were all sitting on the ground eating our lunch and her dog took the backside!>>
No, at this stage (assuming the dog has some experience with the verbals), there needs to be motion. There is nothing we do in agility where we want the dog to be perfect when we are not moving đ the dogs need to be able to do it when we are running or moving away. So it is definitely fun to see the dogs do it while we are sitting in a chair đ but it is, overall, not helpful for the future goals. I am quite confident the world team handler has worked extensively on the dog processing the backside cue while (s)he was moving or running the other direction đ But with that in mind, we add motion systematically. The walk – jog – run protocol is key!
I think with Libby you went to fast motion, too quickly. You were moving pretty fast at the beginning and she was wide, so she was relying too much on motion for the exit. So, dial it back: just walk forward and let her set up for the wrap turn so she can make the adjustment before the wing and before the jump – you will see her get organized by slowing down to collect and turning her head as she approaches the wing or jump and turn much tighter on the exit. When you see her doing that, you can go to a job on the wing. Then eventually a run! And after you can run with the wing there, you will want to add the jump but start with walking because the organization effort is a lot harder with jumping involved.
When you started Game 3 at 3:35, I think you owe her a cookie đ You were not in a good position at the start: you said around and pointed out the jump, so that is where she went, good girl. If around means âwrap to the rightâ and if she goes to the obstacle you are pointing at and wraps to the right⌠then she is correct and should get rewarded.
Going back to your question about motion creating the behavior (and your question about where they dog should be on the wing) – when you added the jump to game 3, you were running so she was wider. Go back to walking on these – her tight turns will tell you when you can go to jogging and then running (generally takes several short sessions)
I think it is especially important for Keifer to see this in motion, and that means it is also really important that you are walking so he can both be successful and learn the skill while motion is on the table.
>>the barking is better than a few years ago and like I say in the video, a lot of agility people tolerate lots of barking and even facilitate it which IMO, makes it worse. I have tried overlooking his barking just to see what happens and it does escalate bad behavior to let it go. The barking increases , he runs around , takes a few jumps, comes back, jumps on me, circles me- you name it. If it was just a little urp like you see in these videos, that would not bother me- but if I did not âresetâ him each time and get him to focus, he would be barking constantly , circling me, jumping on me etcâŚ>>
This is a huge behavior topic⌠but in a nutshell: the current plan is not working đ If you have been punishing barking (telling him no, stopping, withholding reinforcement, resetting, etc – which are all punishers) and he both continues to bark and he displays frustration behaviors: then either he doesnât know what he is being pushed for or he doesnât know what to do instead⌠or both! So what you get is more barking, more arousal/frustration, in the environment where it is hard to avoid arousal.
And as you know, I am not a proponent of punishing when we can be building the behavior with reinforcement. He got a LOT of punishment here so the overall rate of success was not as high as it needs to be.
So I suggest you make a deal with him and we change the placement of reinforcement:
If he can bark without looking at you and go to the wing, he gets rewarded. And placement of reward is changed to always being thrown to the wing, never from you. If he barks and looks at YOU, or doesnât go to the wing, no reward. But also no intense markers that he was wrong, because those only serve to frustrate/arouse dogs more. Lack of reinforcement makes it pretty obvious that he was incorrect, so just reset and try again. If he fails twice, you adjust and get closer or move more slowly.
His sessions will look like this:
He can start on your right., 4 or 5 feet from the wing Cookie or toy is in your left. You say the verbal, start moving forward to the wing a walk.
There are two outcomes:If he goes to the wing (even if he barks) throw the toy/cookie to the other side of the wing. Hooray!
If he turns his head and barks at you, reset at your side (just call him back) and try again.
I am not saying we put up with barking – I am saying that he might not actually know he is barking, it is a little like a tic! That is not unusual in dog behavior. And then when he is told he is incorrect, frustration/arousal increase so he barks more, and it ia bit of a vicious cycle. But If we change the criteria and placement of reinforcement, I think he will learn what you want better (which will reduce barking) and a great by-product is that barking will decrease because he is less frustrated/aroused.
Let me know what you think! Nice work here!
TracyHi! Thanks for this clip!!!
The wrap verbal was basically on time… but that made the right right right verbal late (he was hearing it after he had made a takeoff decision, so it was too late for him to adjust and turn tight). Was able to put in a little collection but I think if you drop the wrap and just use the right (or use wrap for one direction and a different verbal for another) you will be able to get even better turns!Tracy
