[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi! Really good session here – successful AND fashion-coordinated! LOL!

Since we are in the ‘next session’ planning with these super high rate of success sessions… for your next session – start with high speed motion right away. Send to the wing and run run run 🙂 He doesn’t need the reps where you are not really moving fast anymore, the challenge of “da momma will be running” can be a permanent feature. (Also, for now, don’t stand still and send him, he had major questions about that and we can tackle those separately).

You had good motion starting at :27ish and GREAT motion at 1:22. He had the blooper on that rep at 1:22, no worries – if he has a blooper, just ask for it again with the same motion and delay the reward (I think he will get it right). He is nailing the entries that used to be difficult! And he seemed to like the rollers here.

So next session can all be high speed challenges. When he is 90% successful like here – we tighten up the poles a bit. I think you can go to 1-4 straight and see what he does at that point! They are just about straight anyway here 🙂

GHreat job!!! Let me know how it goes!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning! Excellent sessions!!!! This is exciting! She was great with all of the various challenges. She was thinking harder on the extreme RCs and also the massive Countermotion reps, but she was still fast and accurate and striding correctly. YAY!! The only two challenges you can show her more of are getting waaaaaaay ahead (you can send from 5 or 7 o’clock and then stay miles ahead) and also sending her and running away laterally.

But, I think you can now get into straightening the poles fully. You can move in poles 3 and 5 to the center line and see how it goes. Easy? Great! The next session will have you move in poles 2 and 4. Too hard, more than 1 or 2 errors? Move out on of the poles to where it was and leave the other: for example, leave pole 5 on the center line but put pole 3 back to where the other poles are. When she is successful with that, you can move pole 5 in.

Her success will guide you as to how quickly you’ll get to 6 straight: it might be 2 sessions, it might be 10 sessions 🙂 Keep remembering to work for the high rate of success and short sessions and I think it will happen quickly. We have the luxury of time over several weeks. Once she is on 6 straight, then getting to 12 straight will happen very quickly.

Great job here!!!!! Keep me posted on how she does moving to straight poles.
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning! I agree, she is definitely driving in more! Yay! When she was on your left moving away from the camera, you were good about getting the reward in really soon after the weaves. Heading towards the camera, you were tending to throw it more after the tunnel, so that is a good place to try to get the reward in before the tunnel so ti more directly correlates to the weaves,
I think that about 50% of the reps were exactly the speed we want, she was running too the entry. And the other 50% were more like cantering, which is still good – and it is definitely 100% faster on all entries so we are on the right track for sure. Her striding in the poles was more consistent because her speed coming in was more consistent, so she was shifting into her hind end and bouncing better too!
I vote for giving her two more sessions like this, just mini courses on 4 straight poles, lots of run and rewards. If she is still in the running/cantering mode after 2 more sessions: great! Onwards to 6 poles. And I am guessing we will get to 6 poles and then repeat the process of letting her think through it, getting into the running/cantering… then we move up to the next step there too when she tells us she is ready.
Nice work! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning! I really liked this session! I have no suggestions other than to yes, practice throwing with your left hand LOL! His head position looked good, the striding was closer to the ideal sweet spot, he was able to get lower and reach better. Nice high rate of success too! Verbals were good on the throw, timing was good! And also the dogs get used to simply not looking at us because they have so much experience driving out ahead for the throw 🙂

So yes, a day or two off is on tap. Then for the next session, I think you can do a sweet spot session where you start here for one rep as a warm up – then on each rep, move one pole in to about 1 inch off center. Start with pole 3, for example, then pole 5, then 2, then 4. Do maybe 2 reps at after each pole is moved to get a feel for how he is handling it (I like to do slightly collected reps, where I start at 10 and 2 o’clock so the dog is driving in with a bit of collection and not blasting 100% yet).
If he finds this to be easy when you move pole 3, then go ahead and move pole 5. Easy? Cool – move pole 2. Still easy? Cool beans, move pole 4.
That can total to be 10 reps, which is a good session length.

If at any point he asks a question, stay at wherever you are for a couple of reps then if he sorts it out – move on. If he still has questions, you can give back half an inch of tightness on whatever the question pole is. And you will want to still stay at 10 reps and under.

What we are looking for is both the high rate of success and get the poles almost closed so he can really stride for real. He might slow down to think about it, but that is perfectly fine as long as the striding is intact (you can see Contraband do this on the 12 pole demos – a little slower through the first 6 poles then picks up his speed again in the last 6, then it evens out so he gets speed on all 12). So that little bit of slowing down does not count as a question: popped poles, missed entries, funky striding are the questions.

Let me know if that makes sense, or if I need more coffee 🙂 Great job here!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi! In MaxPup 1, you can start with reviewing the Wing Wrap foundations games in weeks 1 and 2. Then the Week 3 ‘Turn And Burn’ game is the most fun for building speed 🙂

[Tracy Sklenar]

Delish!!!!

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning! Really lovely session, he is finding this easy and fun 🙂
I think he wants the real frizzer, not the squirrel, it is not the same (my friz crazy dogs agree haha!) The squirrel is great for tugging before but the real friz is the great one for chasing LOL!

One other detail – he doesn’t want to leave end position. And I am A-OK with that for now. I mean, it has ALL the value, he is running to it. And when we put this into real courses, he will want to self-release so if the balance of value is on end position for a long, long time? Perfect.

About the game itself: I think it all looked great. He is forward in his weight running up the board, then shifting only as much as needed for the task at hand: that is exactly what we want. And I agree, he will shift more when the board drops more. I think he will do that naturally.

So for the next session, more crazy elevator fun like this (with the good warm up). Because there is so much concussion on the dog when the board lands, you can do only one or two regular elevator warm ups and save and extra rep for crazy elevator. And for the next session, mix in some really low drops where you catch the board low, lower than your knees (use your bent knees to catch it so you don’t wrench your back!!) And do some catches where you catch it way up in the air and reward that too.

If he is a happy dude with that, especially the low catches? Then the session after that includes one rep of the full teeter. Something like this:
– warm up elevator
– 2 reps of crazy elevator
– 1 rep of full teeter, saying your target cue early
– 1 rep of crazy elevator
– end of session so we can assess 🙂

When you do the full teeter, reward it jackpot style even if it is not perfect. We want his first experience on the full teeter to be a magical, meatball-filled, Nemo-throwing party 🙂

Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi! I believe this is the style of paint:

https://www.homedepot.com/p/BEHR-PRO-5-gal-N480-7-Midnight-Blue-Flat-Exterior-Paint-PR61305/315215584?

And a small bag of play sand added to it can be done! I think that Home Depot can also create a paint/sand mixture, I can look into that too 🙂
T

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning! So much good work here:
– great drive up the board? Yes!
– was he able to control the whip/movement of the board under him when it landed? Yes!
– was he confident and precise stepping into his end position? Yes! He got even more confident as the session went along.
– did he hold his end position while you were moving and also presenting the ball? Double yes!
– Good handler mechanics? Yes!
– High rate of success? 100%!

Fabulous! So that means we can mix in the full teeter here and there now – everything is the same as you did here with 2 minor changes:
– warm up like you did
– do one or two crazy elevator games
– do one full teeter, saying your target cue when he is maybe one stride on the board
– reward immediately even if it is not perfect. I want his first experience doing this on his own to be quite the party!!
– then go back to 2 or 3 more crazy elevator games
– end the session 🙂

What he does on the full teeter and then on the next couple of reps will inform us about what we need to do for the next sessions 🙂

One question – will you have a teeter cue and a target cue, or just a target cue? If you will have a teeter cue, you can use it when he is exiting the tunnel, to name the obstacle.

Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning!
Some ideas for you:

>> Well, it looks like I need to put Yowza’s see-saw training on hold for a while – at least until I can get a better see-saw.

We can be creative and get it almost all the way trained without needing an actual teeter 🙂

>>>I could put rubber on my old one, or paint it, as you suggested – but I don’t have a sander to prepare surface for glue, or for painting (I am assuming you can’t just put it on over the old paint).

Since I am perhaps the laziest person EVER in terms of building equipment – I totally just slapped on the new paint job over the old one, and it was perfectly fine 🙂 I did it by myself 🙂 Exterior house paint and kiddie playground sand mixed together (a little messy but I used a plastic tarp lol) and then slapped on one coat (I was too lazy to do 2 coats). The last I checked, the teeter was still fully functional – I left it in NY when I moved LOL! So there is a way to do it without having to sand or prep for glue or anything. I will head to the Home Depot site and see if I can find the exact paint – I painted my original teeter with glossy exterior paint and sand, and the glossy paint was a bad idea and VERY slippery.

>>>I don’t have anyone here who can help me, as all my friends are in New York – haven’t been able to make many new friends here in MI b/c of Covid >>>

I feel that, it totally sucks 🙁 Plus with such a brilliant young dog, it will be fun to get out into the agility community and meet the folks – there are a lot of nice Michiganders out there. Now that the weather is good, I can make some inquiries as to who is in your area and if there are any teeters you can stop by and use – everyone’s equipment is outside now 🙂

>> I had a lesson yesterday with Marco, and he thinks the 2o2o would probably be better for Yowza, unless she loves the down (which she doesn’t particularly), with the “bang” of the teeter on the ground being the release cue. We didn’t actually do the teeter during the lesson though.>>>

I also like the 2o2o for the bigger dogs. I don’t think Yowza dislikes the down position, I think she just can’t do it properly on the slippery seesaw (the 2o2o won’t be happy-making either because she will slid on that too, so the first order of business is getting the teeter less slippery). Not being able to do the down without slipping is probably annoying to her – plus we are using food rewards right now which is probably also annoying LOL!!!!! But we will get to toy rewards soon with either position. I go with 2o2o for my bigger dogs because I feel it is easier to teach, easier to maintain specific criteria, and faster than the other options because it gets the dog’s hind end all the way to the end of the board. Two criticisms of the 2o2o that I’ve heard are:
– the board will whip up under the dog (which is not entirely true because with proper weight shift, the dog will keep it down. That is why we play the rebound game!)
– it is slower (this is unequivocally NOT true. I’ve timed it. The difference is that people release sooner from the down position so it makes it look like their sequence is faster. And yes, for young dogs, I will hold them in 2o2o long enough to praise, then release. If I want to win the class, I just release as soon as the dog gets into position and then the 2o2o dog is much faster.

The thing I do NOT agree with from Marco is that the bang of the board is the release. That falls into the ‘oh heck no’ category for me, because it puts the dog in charge of the clicker. The release is a massive reinforcement – what if she gets to a 4on position, the board bangs and she goes? Or, more commonly, the dogs learn that it is about the bang so the end up pushing down with the back legs and leaping up with their front – that is not criteria we want and also gets called as a fly off a lot in AKC and USDAA.
The release is the click: you are in control of it, and the gateway to the release is her hitting the 2o2o. Then you decide if you like the criteria (or not) and release (or not). The folks who use the bang as the release have a world of difficulty throughout the dog’s career, trying to maintain a fast teeter performance AND proper criteria. I have seen that here in the USA and even more so in Europe 🙂 They are constantly telling the dog that the criteria was wrong (punishment), the dog doesn’t really understand, the teeter performances slow down.

So I urge you to use a release word and NOT the bang of the board. And if, say, you are in a national finals and going for the win? You can release when the board bangs in that one run without sacrificing your criteria in the long term.

>>My idea of using the yoga mat was meant for the foot target only – but I guess if I switch to 2o2o, I won’t need the foot target…What do you think?>>

Correct! If you move to a 2o2o (I think she has some foundation in this already?) then all you need is a plastic target of some sort. And it is easier to make the 2o2o fun for the dogs because we can tug in position and we can add silly fun behaviors like digging.

let me know what you think! I will go find the paint I used.

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Good morning! This is better than a cup of coffee to wake me up! He looks GREAT!
And I had to watch the snuck-a-kiss at the top of the board rep 5 times, it was so funny and cute!

He was perfect on the full teeter. That is 1000% what we want to see on course. Happy dance! I am toasting you with my coffee! So now we just keep making it the most fun thing ever and rewarding the drive to the end. It will come down to 2 things:
– session structure. Think of the full teeters as the meat in a sandwich with the crazy elevator games being the bread 🙂 Right now, the crazy elevator will start and end each session, with just one full teeter tossed in there.
Over the course of the next few weeks, we will shift that ratio – the full teeter will happen more and more often with the crazy elevator games being less frequent. More meat, less bread haha!
He is stopping a little short on the crazy elevator because you are catching the board a bit further back which means the delivery of the cookie at the top is a little further back. Your mechanics looked strong here! So try to catch right at the very end and feed with his nose practically hanging over the end of the board 🙂

– Generalizing
At this point, we need to start getting these games onto as many teeters as possible. If I recall correctly, he has a history where he was stopping short on the teeter. Because of that, we need to do road trips to undo history 🙂 We would want to do this anyway if he was a puppy 🙂 I understand that this is easier said than done in these crazy pandemic times…. what do you have access to, in terms of teeters in new places? This can be friends who will be happy to let you pop into their yards, local training facilities you can grab for a few minutes, classes where you can have access to the teeter, and so on. On each new teeter, pretend he is a baby puppy and start with the normal elevator game, with a visible target. If he is happy, you can work the crazy elevator game as well as throw in a full teeter sometimes. (You will want to have his target in your car for any road trip possibilities LOL!)

Separately, we can plan for summer trials. We don’t need to do that with the baby dogs in this class because they are pretty far from being in the trial ring for a million reasons: but I think Nutpse should take his skills into the trial ring where you are able to run NFC or FEO or whatever it is called 🙂 I believe that USDAA, UKI, CPE and AKC all have these options! Take a peek at the local calendar and see if there are events you want to go to where you can train-in-the-ring with a teeter. I know he is food motivated And most of these NFC options are toy-based, but we can also figure out ways to reward with food (not really in AKC but the other venues allow for creativity :)). Let me know and we will plan!

Great job here!!!
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Wheeee! Great job! He seemed very happy and yes, remember to use your target cue LOL! That might be why he hesitated a little: is she catching it? Are we targeting? Timing of the target cue might be best when he is center of the board, something to play with.

What was the food reward? One thing to play with also is one great reward popped into his mouth at the top of the board, then countdown then target: and immediate release when he lands in position to chase his toy.

One more thought – to get Hot Sauce to the end, I did a lot of reps of catching the board very high and rewarding way up in the air before the countdown (rather than letting it drop and catching it halfway or lower). That built a lot of value for driving to the very end.

I bring up all the little things to play with because basically now the progression becomes repeating this type of session several times a week: at first, one full teeter like you did here and then add on 2 or 3 more reps after it of crazy elevator game and big rewards at the top of the board.

Then gradually the ratio of crazy elevator to full teeters will shift, and he will do more full teeters than crazy elevators (with target fading in there too, but that will be easy). But we can take the whole month of May for that gradual shift to more teeters and fewer crazy elevator games. I am thrilled with his progress here!!!! Great job!!!!!!!!

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi there!

>>I loved how happy Cowboy was to move across the board, even with the additional tip.

I agree! I love how he was all like “this is easy and fun!” That will make the full teeter so much easier 🙂 Nice!!

>>In addition, I am using a target plate on the lower table and have the Manners Minder about 8′ away (off-screen)However, I do have a question regarding the exact criteria for the game. Should the emphasis be on running across the board (and continue running) or should it be on moving into the end position? I would like to try this again but want to make sure I am doing this correctly.>>

Yes, we can set this up differently to get more speed across the board and the weight shift. The criteria for this game is simply “run to the end” and there is no end position criteria so we can separate the teeter elements. Plus, the board going to a table doesn’t require the 2o2o, because the definition of 2o2o is 2 front feet on the ground, 2 rear on the board. And since the board here doesn’t go to the ground, we don’t ask for the 2o2o criteria.

However, we do want to rehearse the stopping and weight shifting on the end of the board, and we can do that with the rewards. You can put the MM on the table to replace the red target entirely – this is the one time I would use it at the end of the board because we are not looking for any end position criteria, we just want to reward running across the board. The other option is to put a big cookie right on the table so he can eat it when he arrives there 🙂 That way you can reward independent running across the board but you don’t have to ask for or maintain a 2o2o position (he was doing it sometimes here, but he was not sure where to be exactly so he was a little confused).

We do add the 2o2o end position when the lower table gets faded out so the downhill game does eventually go to the ground. At that point, the empty red target is there and we will be asking for the run across the board and the 2o2o (he is almost there, he needs a couple more sessions of the downhill to the low table).

For the downhills between the tables, one other suggestion to get more speed and better weight shift: have him get up on the higher table and stand there and wait – then you can send him down the board or run down alongside him. There are 2 reasons for that:
– if he stands still for a moment and then goes down the board, he will be able to focus on the one weight shift at the end of the board. If he jumps on and then has to immediately go down the board, he has to focus on 2 weight shifts: the first one for jumping on and the 2nd one at the end of the board. That first weight shift slows him down and then he doesn’t quite get speedy enough to get the 2nd one, so having him be on the table already before moving down the board can add speed and correct weight shift.
– if you have him stand still on the taller table, you can use that moment to get him excited, or change your position, or run alongside him, or lead out to the 2nd table… all of which ask for the weight shift at the end and add more speed 🙂

Based on his confidence, I would say he is ready for more speed here 🙂 Nice work ! Let me know if the ideas make sense 🙂
Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Hi!

>>Yes it does feel odd probably because I don’t handle like anyone else so sometimes it’s hard to translate… and he seemed so slow and bored….>>

He didn’t look bored, it was more like he was trying to figure out the rear crosses. And feel free to tweak things to fit your normal handling 🙂

>>I think I would feel better if I could have some wisdom in a 15 minute or so call to discuss…. Happy to pay let me know if you are free in future…>>

Maybe we can do a class zoom call later this week, I think we are due for one in this group!

>>If I wanted to use a ball and the PT I assume I could chuck ball at tutor and rotate between food and toy reward? I thought the ball might encourage less thinking.

Yes, you can totally do that, and it helps us begin to fade out the PT.

Tracy

[Tracy Sklenar]

Here it is, step 10 aka 6-and-4s 🙂

https://agility-u.com/lesson/2x2s-track-step-10-6-poles-plus-4-poles/

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