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Good morning! Nice work on these – he is doing a great job of driving ahead AND turning on the rear crosses. Yay!
A couple of ideas for you to smooth them out and also to make it so that you don’t get as far behind. My goal on all rear crosses is to immediately get ahead again – my preference as a handler is to always be ahead but my reality as a handler is that rear crosses are an effective tool to get ahead again – counterintuitive, right? Strange but true LOL!Also, I did not see his questions here as side preference, they were more about timing and line.
Two main thoughts then specific ideas:
– this setup works better when you do a FC on the wing rather than the post turn. The post turn sets him on the backside line (parallel path to the backside) so that is why he was wide there and came in more at the last minute. But we don’t want to lose the backside parallel path concept, so doing the send to the wing as a front cross will take that issue out. So, rather than send him to the far side of the wing with the side you are going to run up the line on, start him on the other side and send him to the inside of the wing and do a FC. His line was much nicer on the reps where you did that!
– you can get on the RC line a lot sooner, running more towards the center of the bar right away. You are on the ‘go straight line’ for a couple of extra steps and then cutting in. That makes the info late for Kipling and puts you way on the other side of where you want to be, so you end up further behind. Getting right on the RC pressure line will actually get you much closer and even ahead after a lot of RCs 🙂Specifics:
Rep 1 – you did this as a FC, it set a nice line to the jump (no backside questions). You can be earlier getting on the RC diagonal here, he saw the RC pressure late- he was looking to his right for a while and then over the bump saw it and turned left. You can be getting on the pressure diagonal (feet to center of the bar until he is past you) just as he exits the wing wrap, no need to take a bunch of steps forward on the ‘go straight’ line.Rep 2 – this was a post turn on the wing, so he was driving on the parallel path backside line- so the info on the RC was late but he did get the right turn.
Rep 3 – this was also a post turn so he was on the backside line but you pushed in a lot earlier so he got a nicer right turn on the RC! But by being so far from the RC pressure line, you got the RC but also ended up further behind.
Rep 4 – also a post turn and the RC was late so he was late reading it.
Rep 5 – this was a FC on the wing and I think you were working that RC diagonal a LOT sooner – YAY! Just make sure your feet are pointing to the center of the bar and not the outside wing, so you don’t accidentally cue a backside. But the timing of starting the pressure was spot on!
Rep 6: This was a FC on the wing but a late cue at :28. He was cued to turn right as he was talking off, so it looked like a side preference but it was not, it was timing of info 🙂
Rep 7: another good FC on the wing, but the RC pressure line was late here too.
So keep going with the FCs on the wing, those set much better lines! And get on the RC pressure lines earlier, they serve a dual purpose of committing him to the jump AND telling him which way to turn before he has to make a jumping decision.
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
Side preference is normal at this a stage of training but it will disappear in a few months because you are nicely balanced in your training.
>> I like the idea to wait until he just about reaches me and then I can take off running instead of just playing with the toy. Maybe drop the toy on the line and then I run away?>>
If you mean he picks up a dead toy? I vote nay on that for two reasons: dead toys are not as stimulating so there is not as much speed, and also young dogs are not great at scooping up dead toys without pile driving their shoulders into the ground. I use giant holee rollers if I need to use a dead toy.
But to get the most speed, do the reward flyball-style: use a super long toy or tie 2 toys together. When you start to run as part of the reward, drag the toy and keep running til he catches the toy and you. That is very engaging and producing a TON of speed.
>>And for increasing arousal: I can tug more, have him jump up on me, do weaves between legs–other suggestions for increasing arousal/drive? >>
– More chase rewards as described above will help. – – Reinforcing all of those engagement tricks on a 1:1 ratio helps (most people do 75 tricks in a row without reinforcement, and that does not help).
– Being incredibly consistent in your reinforcement markers and placement of reinforcement so he doesn’t have to figure it out, he can just run run run
– if you cue a tight turn, sandwich it with running. And a tight turn cue also implies driving out of it really fast to chase you or your line, which is why I really discourage those multiwraps.
– patience to let him grow up, muscle up, and learn the skills. He won’t be able to go full speed until he understands what to do and how to do it. My Contraband is about Robbie’s age in a lot of the demo videos. He is definitely NOT fast on these. He is now about 19 months old and 10 times faster already (I am in big trouble, need to stop eating as much LOL!) and he is still young and not going that fast, compared to what he has ‘under the hood’. He just recently got some muscle and his chest just dropped about 5 minutes ago. LOL! So I am letting his speed percolate and making sure he understands how to earn reinforcement. He is just about as fast as my 8 year old dog (who is insanely fast but did not get fast til he was 2) but he has much better understanding and is able to retain his thoughtfulness at high speed.
The other way to get speed is to get your rate of success consistently close to 95% and turn off all pressure. Failure and pressure turns dogs into slower methodical workers. Success and relaxation is where the speed demons come from 🙂>>thought I was getting a crackerjack wild guy this time based on how he looked in litter–but hes a sweet mellow boy…sigh).
I think perhaps you can change your perspective 🙂 He is a puppy, he is male, he is learning about a million new things. Comparison to your other dogs is a bad thing for him, and comparison to other dogs you know who are his age or litter siblings or relatives is a terrible thing. Facebook is a terrible thing for those of us with young dogs because the magic of video editing can make a baby dog look amazing when the reality is far different. So he probably is a crackerjack – just give him time and teach him what he needs to know to show you that, without the pressure of worrying how fast he will turn out to be.
Tracy
Good morning!
The good news AND bad news is that it is hot enough now that you will regularly encounter the distractions you had here 🙂 Ok, maybe not the neighbor’s wedding but either way – it is a good ‘next level’ arousal training.
It provides you the opportunity to help him get into the right state of arousal – tricks? Toys? Cookies? – even though I agree it can be super annoying when trying to train a skill!I think you did a good job on this session – he was faster here with his striding, even if you were not running faster. It was smart dog training to recognize that one variable (environment) had changed a lot, so you didn’t change any other variables. That is why he was successful here! Yay!
My only suggestion: sometimes we humans get trigger happy with the MM remote and click a missed entry (I have certainly done that :)) If you then try to repeat the same entry on the very next rep, you are guaranteeing a 100% chance of error (because he is going to repeat what just got reinforced). I learned this the hard way – I mean, they should read our minds, right? Ha!
So if you have an oopsie click, the best thing to do it immediately change to the other side of the poles or a few straight entries to recover the correct entry – then go back to the oopsie click spot. That cleanses the palate of the bad click and then you don’t get the repeated error.Otherwise – keep an eye on the variables as you did here! Yes, we have a big fancy plan going but if the environment produces other plans, then shift gears just like you did here. Embracing that is the mark of a great trainer – well done to you!!!!!! And it will get you further in all of the dog sports than straight poles will 🙂 I know we will get him on straight poles soon enough – the environment is harder to work through so focusing on on that is great. Plus with the time off following the neuter (tomorrow?) then you have 10 days to do mental work with these distractions before heading back to the poles 🙂
Nice work! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
On the first video:
>> I did a wing inside to work on wrapping and I think it’s getting better for me insert smart dog dumb human here. I think I forgot ques so backside vs wrap I think I’ve refreshed on. Still slightly difficult is to get the wrap and body side into weaves corresponding…>>I think you were making it harder on your start position by sending from your left and then doing a reverse to get him back on your left – that caused you to either be late on your connection so he ended up on the wrong side, or you were on his line so he couldn’t get into the entry. Keep it simpler with handling, like you did on the very last rep: send and then stay on the side of the poles you sent from. That will accomplish the goal of getting more speed into the entries.
About the verbals – when using just a wing, I recommend only your wrap verbal (no backside verbal) – it doesn’t matter where the jump cups are because the dog is not really using those. I only use the backside verbal if there is a bar – the bar is what the dogs use to differentiate front side versus backside.
The other thing about the wing wraps and handling in general: if the dog is incorrect, assume it was handler error (your error :)) and don’t mark the dog as being wrong – reward him and try again. Otherwise, he gets a ton of ‘uh oh’ markers when he is actually correct, and that can be deflating.
On the 2nd video:
>> speed creates dysfunction with weaves
Not dysfunction, necessarily, more like speed tells us what the dog understands or doesn’t understand.
>>-distance and the start line might be unfair I think he’s coming to me to go on how do I que the weaves, would an arm help? I don’t want to stop/slow him down too much? The last rep was slower and better
I agree, we don’t want to slow him down, I loved his speed! I think that is happening here is that the straight weaves are body dependent: meaning, you need to be nearby and helping and not moving fast, or he misses. Even the best reps at the end also had him looking up at you.
So think of it as a ping pong game with the variables: when the variable of speed/distance from the jump increases in difficulty, other variables must decrease in difficulty. In this situation, I think opening the poles so he can find them independently without needing help from you is what we want. He fails on straight poles without help – so the choice here is to always help (which is impossible because then he will slow down and have to wait for you to be there on the bigger courses, incurring refusals) or we open the poles so he finds them independently and that allows you to keep moving to your next position on course. I vote for independent poles! I open up the poles any time my dog fails twice at speed or if I ever find that the dog is relying on my body language.
He was great with this stay, he loved the toy, the speed from the jump looked awesome! So the poles can get easier for a while as he learns to find them at speed without you. The way to know if the challenge/variables are too difficult will be his success rate. If he has an error twice in one session: you need to make it easier in some way. The way to decide how to make it easier depends on what you want to train: in this session, we want to get independence with speed, so the variable that would need to change is the difficulty of the poles.
Going to try the wing again does it matter which way the jump cups go I get confused how far around is enough and all the other things make my head spin a bit… I also want to try going with him jump jump weave on a non muddy day…>>
>> Going to try the wing again does it matter which way the jump cups go I get confused how far around is enough and all the other things make my head spin a bit… >>
The jump cups don’t matter to me, think of them as all wraps – the presence of the bar matters (unless I am doing a full circle wrap, but I don’t recommend those here)
>>I also want to try going with him jump jump weave on a non muddy day…>>
That will create a TON of speed, which is good! But also remember that the added speed is a massive variable change – which means the poles need to be very open for him to have repeated success independently of you. You will know when he is ready for the poles to get tighter again when he is able to have 2 sessions of 90% success or better in a row, with the variable of high speed.
Let me know what you think!
TracyHi there!
This is also going well! I really like how he is using his body on these. He did have trouble going to his left into the first gap when you changed to that side: at :37 the left shift into the first gap was towards you. When you switched sides at :42, it was away from you and that is where lots of dogs have trouble. That is normal and the get out games will help him get comfortable shifting away from you. I also notice that your handling was different there (facing him) versus earlier in the session (like at :23) where you were facing more forward and he did well with that cue. You did rotate at :43 but it was a little later than you did at :23, plus it is possible that he is more of a righty than a lefty 🙂 But great job breaking it down to help him out! It will balance out quite nicely 🙂When he is very comfy on both sides, you can move the wings in closer so they are about 6 feet apart 🙂
>> He gets bored with the stationary exercises but I don’t want to miss some foundation steps.>>
One of the important foundation steps is “drive hard even when I am stationary” so I do lots of big tugging like you did and thrown rewards. I also suggest lots of standing still til he just about arrives at you… then take off and run 🙂 And if you are planning a session where you know you will need to be standing still – get him really engaged with tricks and tugging before you start so he comes into it in a higher arousal. He is probably not bored, he is probably in a lower arousal state and that is fun to tweak to get him wilder 🙂 so that you don’t have to rely on your running to get him going really fast.
Great job here!
TracyHi there!
He is doing a great job of finding that jump!! Good boy. The variations of position and the change is distance? No problem. Yay! And when you were ahead and running, he was great – soooooo many young dogs lose their minds when the handler runs ahead like that.>>I think I am throwing toy too late most of the time (he is getting faster! )
Yes and yes 🙂 I am happy with his speed! But you were tending to throw either just before he took the jump or just as he was jumping, which is late. And also throw it as far as you can so he can chase it in extension after the jump (and you should keep running too, til he gets to it)
>> plus could use more connection>>
We can get both the connection and the earlier throw (which will produce even more speed) going here at the same time: As you run, no matter where you are – look for him at the exit of the tunnel. Look to see where he is looking. Looking at you? Keep running and yelling go, and the instant he looks at the jump, throw the reward (he will still be 15 feet from the jump at this point). If you are looking at where he is looking and when he exits the tunnel, he is already looking ahead? Great! Throw the reward (and keep running :)) That will build in the rehearsal of the connection and get even more explosiveness up the line.
You can leave the jump at that distance away and add more lateral distance now!
One last thing – resist the temptation to throw in a double wrap or multiwrap here – it rehearses slowing down and he isn’t really bending, plus it is causing him to question if he should drive out of the turn or wait for another wrap cue (like at :59). I want him to drive out of his turns like his feet have rocket boosters, so that is why I recommend against making him think about it or wait to see if there is another wrap cue coming.
Nice work here!!!
TracyHi! Super nice session here!!! I think we have figured out the magic combo to get the end position without him looking at you. Yay! And great job with your clarity of reinforcement and clarity of release. Love it!
Judging by his drive to the teeter at the beginning, I guess he likes this game LOL!! Good boy. You did a good job of using cookies to keep him with you til you asked for the bang game at :38 🙂 and beyond. The walking reps all looked good, it sounds like you were able to stay in motion on all of them. The first running rep looked super good! The 2nd running rep (on the other side) was where he made the mistake. It might be that it was a lot of motion or he was not as comfortable on your left? 3rd rep – good!
I like that you expanded the camera view – at 1:50 were you had good motion and kept moving past – great! You stopped perhaps a little too soon on the rep at 2:05 (I think he was going to stop in position even if you had kept moving, he looked pretty intent on stopping) but the rep at 2:25 was super good with you staying in motion. YAY!!! Love it! And it was on your left side – so we will just chalk up the rep where he had the error as blooper and continue forward in the progression.You have 3 things you can play with at this point:
– more height on the bang game (still using the red target)
– or, you can go directly to the elevator game (with the target lol)
– and also you can fade the table out from under the down side of the board and have him do the teeter-tables downhills to the target on the ground and into target position.You can probably do 2 of these in the same session, or maybe all 3 as long as you have good mechanics and don’t do too many reps.
Great job here!!!! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi there!
I think he was a bit confused about what was considered good or not in the first part of the session. He was very fast and a little forward on the first 2 reps, had a brief moment of 2o2o and then stepped back into position. I would totally reward those reps – they are the exact correct effort we want and the placement of reinforcement will help him maintain the 4on the board. When he didn’t get rewarded, he started to offer other variations of the behavior: being sideways, stopped sooner/slowing down sooner, or just continuing along the board. He got back into the groove later in the video (it was hard to tell where you rewarded) but it looks like he got lots of rewards.
So you can use a tiered system of rewards. For example: good stop with a heartbeat of 2o2o then he steps back into 4on? Reward with something good. GREAT stop with speed into the 4on position? JACKPOT! WOOHOOO!! Totally missing the stop entirely? Yeah, no reward. LOL!
For example, when I train the running dog walk with my young dog: he gets cookies for hitting the contact with front feet. He gets a JACKPOT of a frisbee throw when he gets that magical split rear foot hit. When he leaps over it entirely? I call him back and reset for the next rep. That has helped him figure it out very nicely without trying to offer different things when he is not perfect.Let me know what you think! I believe it will be easier when you are on the actual teeter here, because the movement of the board will create more weight shift. But if he runs an amazing teeter and steps into a 2o2o for a heartbeat – I would still reward that, just place the reward on the board to keep encouraging the 4on behavior.
Tracy
Hi!
The joys of training… so many ups and downs! It is normal that we experience a ‘dip’ sometimes – he has been all up up up so I am not worried about things that went wrong here.
Ideas for you:
>>Can you see something funny happen in the video prior to this?>>
Yes! Watching the bang game video, he was not engaging his rear properly as he normally does. Look at the second rep – totally front end focused and hind end got very high, and his left hind slipped off. I don’t know if he tweaked something there or if he was already sore, but he appeared to be off-loading from the left hind (and hind end in general) on the rest of the session, using his front for most of it.
Then on the elevator game, I think a couple of things were happening:
– >>He has had a history for intermittent lameness, but vets, xrays and physios cannot find a reason.>>
I think that he is probably sore from something, for whatever reason. What/where has the previous lameness been? It might be showing up here. For example, my 2 year old dog would have sessions like this on the teeter and also on the flyball box, and I didn’t know why. Turns out she had a luxating patella that was only found by laying her on her side for exam, which was also straining her psoas And when I looked back at the videos, I could see the compensations that I didn’t know to look for in the moment. Now that the patella is fixed (hopefully forever), her teeter and flyball box both look great. So maybe there is something that is happening that is just not found yet.I also think the reinforcement on the crazy elevator game was getting confusing – I am not sure if he was getting rewarded at the top of the board, or if you were going directly into the countdown? In some spots it looked like your hand was there but no reward, so he was getting confused about where to be. And, the massive drop of the board has a ton of concussion. So, with the reinforcement maybe not being as clear PLUS possible pain from the board hitting the ground… he bailed.
The bail at 2:07 did look to be a pain response.The other thing I noticed is that he was still visible at 2:42 when the board reset and slammed behind him – and it looks like he flinched/was startled. And then when you broke it down and controlled the slam so there was no concussion and no reset noise, he was much happier. So it is possible that the reset slam was scaring him (which has not seemed to happen before?) or the reset/noise of the board is being associated with something painful.
>> So I took the seesaw down low so he was basically stepping on, getting rewarded and releasing.>>
This was smart – get some good cookies in, then leave it alone 🙂
>> The only incident I can think of was a couple of weeks ago. On his first rep of elevator he landed in position, then when he released he was limping. Then he walked it off and carried on with the session no trouble at all so I thought he just landed funny.>>
I think you mentioned this but did not leave the limping in the video. Which leg was it? Do you still have the video? Or was it on the video and I missed it?
So here is what I think you should do:
if there is even the slightest possibility of pain, all training stops for a week (at least) – no agility at all, no running around with the other dogs, just leash walks and lounging at home 🙂 That will calm down any potential soreness, and also cleanse the palette so he won’t remember if something hurts. And, try to get a physio or someone to see him. If it has been a recurring thing, now is a good time to sort it! I have plenty of ideas of how to look for things.And when he is feeling better, or at least has had a break, we can go back to the teeter and play with it in a different location in your field (so there is no association) with high value rewards and with you controlling the slam more and also the noise of the reset. But before we do that, let’s make sure he is feeling ok – if he is hurting, what we do in training won’t help and might make things worse. I am confident that his teeter performance will still be great! So focusing on figuring out what might be ouchy is appropriate for now. Let me know what you think!
TracyHi there!
>>Tonight we did crazy elevator after a few normal elevator warm ups that went well. Chapter seemed a bit confused as to what we were doing but he seemed to get it fairly quickly.>>
Yes, it is new and weird at first when we step in and grab the board. I think he did really well here! He was really good about moving across the board and SUPER good about hitting and holding target position after the cue, while you were moving. YAY!!!
>> I was proud of him for his target ( I used a very big target 😂).
You should be proud, he was great! And yes, that little tiny target worked perfectly LOL!!
>>> Let me know what you think. His speed isn’t as fast as before but is that just because this is new and it’s putting together lots of parts?
I am super happy with this session. The structure of this step of the game deliberately takes out the speed – we don’t want his speed across the board until you are comfortable with the mechanics of catching and holding the board, and until he understands what will happen. If the dogs go at lunatic speed this early, they will end up falling off and scaring themselves. So, slow is perfect.
Since he did well here, the next step is to give the little warm up like you did (normal elevator then the crazy elevator from the stay). Then add the wing wrap and run! That begins to add more speed to this game.
And if he is happy with that, the next session would be crazy elevator game from the tunnel (after the normal elevator warm up, crazy elevator from the stay, then through the tunnel to the crazy elevator game.
He is progressing very quickly to the finished teeter!!! This is so fun to see!!!
Great job – let me know what you think!
Tracy>>Not sure chill is in my skill set ha!
Totally relatable. My advice is to fake your chill. I have no natural chill, it is all fakery.
>>I’ve been really trying to adjust my eye to his weave style because it looks way different on a longer body plus tail than I am used to.>>
Don’t obsess on it too much – just keep rewarding accurate behavior and video – the video will tell us more.
Hi! Great session here, he is ALL BUSINESS in the poles LOL! He only really had to think about his footwork on the last entry where the poles were pretty tight. So that is where I would pick on the next session!
Yes, keep throwing the ball, he definitely seemed to like it 🙂
And yes, the next session should have the left side entries/challenges. Since the MM is out of the picture, you can put a wing at each end and have him weave from both sides of the weaves – I think that will be a good challenge and also make it easier for you to work both sides.
And if the left side goes as nicely as the right side did here – yes! Onwards to straight poles. They were basically straight at the end of this video, so it won’t be hard to get them there. He might need a few sessions to get the striding totally sorted (don’t forget to do straight line speed entries as those are actually really hard on straight poles!). And once he gets to 6 straight, the rest will come very easily 🙂
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
I think Fever’s session went just fine 🙂 AS you tighten the poles, dial back the other challenges. Don’t ask for him to let you sprint ahead or do a cross before or at the exit, just be chill and moving while he sorts things out. Those challenges will come back easily when he has sorted things a out. I think the striding stuff you saw was that the exit was a bit open and you were marking early and throwing, so he was rushing. That cross paw you mentioned, like on the 2nd to last rep, coincided with you giving a big YES and throwing the toy. So…. shhhhhhh be chill and throw when he exits (I don’t mind if he finishes and looks at you for a bit). You can try the toy on the ground if you think he will stay centered in his arousal and not rush. If not, throw when he exits (again, looking at you will not be a problem).
He is following the same progression as my Contraband – when the poles were this tight, he needed a couple of sessions to just think about the long noodle body and not get distracted by me 🙂 I think you can also tighten up the last 2 poles so he has to think about those too and doesn’t rush.We are in a good spot in the progression so now we stay here and let him do some sorting it out 🙂
For Callie – yep, sounds like the environment affects her arousal state (totally normal) so the more work you can do with weaving with fun distractions and teaching her to work through pressure without you carrying the reward, the better it will get. She can totally know where the reward is at all times, we aren’t trying to trick her – if can be her MM on a chair 30 feet away. That might actually help her predict how to earn the reinforcement!
Yes, UKI allows for thrown rewards, helpers, etc. AKC allows for not much other than a toy in your hand 🙂 So travel to UKI is best, or convince a local club to host – they are easy and inexpensive to host 🙂Let me know what you think about the ideas for Fever!!!
TracyWow, super lovely session!!!!! He was definitely more stimulated (I could tell from his behavior between reps) but he was still focus, accurate and speedy!!! Yay! And we see striding developing too. Fun!
So we are basically in the ‘planning the next session’ stage of training:
Using this same exact setup of poles and wings, the next session should be exactly the same as this except now you will run the whole time, just like you did on the last couple of reps here 🙂 The MM is still the reward, then the friz as part of the reset.If he is super successful? Cool beans! The next session would then be everything the same: same setup, same running – but the friz is now the reward. The MM is there as a focal point but you toss the friz. You can have a 2nd friz on you to help him come back for the reset.
That might take only 3 short sessions in 2 days, or a couple of weeks – either way is fine, especially because his surgery is coming up. Then the next session after that is to tighten up the poles. Then we lather, rinse, repeat the gradual addition of challenges 🙂 As soon as the 4 poles are straight, I think it will be easy to get to 6 then 10 then 12 poles 🙂 Yay! I know he will have to take a little time off, but I think you will still be able to get it done before and after his surgery.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
