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Hooray for striding! Hooray for the AC repair guy!!! And hooray for the birdbath for cooling off LOL!!!!
Nice session here, it all looks good! Weaves, wraps… happy dance! So one word for you: tighter. Let’s take a couple of sessions to focus on tightening the poles up. Keep throwing early like that to keep his head down. You might have to do easy entry sessions each time the poles get tighter but let’s really work to get them to be almost straight.
And yes – add the real weave cue if you are pretty sure he will be successful.
>> I have a weave related question for Callie. I find that in competition, her weaves are SIGNIFICANTLY slower than in practice. My suspicion is that it’s due to delay of reinforcement in addition to ring stress. Would you have any guidance on how I could improve her speed in trials by practice at home? This one has been a head scratcher for me because I can’t replicate the scenario. Even in FEO or a match with a toy- blazing fast weaves. She’s a two foot strider and usually hits her entries 99% of the time. If she’s stressed or sore, she may pop and I usually have her seen by the chiro and it resolves.>>
It is probably ring stress, as you mentioned. How does she do, otherwise, in the ring? Confident?
For FEO in the ring… don’t let her see the toy in advance. Surprise her! I hide toys on me all the time for FEO. Or have a helper throw it (UKI allows this for sure, possibly USDAA. AKC would probably not like this lol)
At home – remember the game where we had the dogs weave away from the Manners Minder? She needs to start there. Then add the reward further and further away. Then build up to adding pressure in the environment. That can really help!
Let me know what you think! Stay cool!
TracySounds good! We have the luxury of time now – decent weather ahead and plenty of time to get her to 6 and 12 poles. The hard part is finished, now we just let it all settle in 🙂
T
Hi! Hope all is well!!
For that game – you can put the toy out once or maybe twice if you want… but not as a lifestyle 🙂 I prefer to do this game entirely without the toy lure placed before the dog makes a decision. The goal is to get the dog looking for the jump and driving to it, rather than driving to the toy lure. The trick to get this is to be connected as you run and as soon as you see him lock onto the line and choose the jump, throw the toy to reward that choice. We want to mark and reward the decision to drive to the jump. Don’t wait to reward til he has taken the jump, as that will cause him to look back at you or decelerate. Let me know if that makes sense!
Tracy
Good morning!
Congrats on handing in your resignation!!! Fun times are ahead for sure 🙂
I am glad you got to go out and grab a few minutes! It is always a feel-good moment to play with the dog AND get some training done 🙂 This session looked really strong too, which makes it extra nice 🙂 She had the one baby-dog blooper of running around the tunnel but was perfect on the rest! Nice!!! Your position was super clear and the difference between the serp and tunnel cues were also super clear. My only suggestion is to move to the serp position with your upper body already rotated and showing the serp arm, then release when you get to the serp position. If you do both at the same time (release and move the upper body) she is going to think the body movement is part of the release. So you might feel a little dorky walking with your serp cue showing 🙂 but it will help keep the release from the stay very distinct.
And, I think she is also ready for you to release while you are moving, to simulate what she would see in the middle of the course.
Great job here!! Have fun!
TracyHi!
Yes, this was a MUCH higher success rate! Yay!! And good job ratting yourself out with the incorrect verbals haha!!!
I think this is looking super good, he is starting to get lower and even faster! And some of the entries were really hard, like when he was coming from the tunnel and you were on the right hand side of the weaves – but he got it! Nice! And good job adding in your motion 🙂I think the weaves need to tighten up one more notch – just an inch for the next session. He was trying to swim here – it was great, it was fast… but I don’t know if he is big enough to swim when the poles are straight. There is only one way to find out… get them tighter LOL!! You can leave poles 1-2 where they were here and tighten up poles 3-4 to the ‘almost but not quite straight’ line – and repeat this challenges you had here. Let’s see what he does with his striding.
Great job here! Can’t wait to see the next session!
TracyHowdy!
>>I’m ready for that bottle of wine now.
Red, white or rose’?
Looking good here!!!!!! Yay!
Question: are you going to use a ‘teeter’ cue or just the bottom cue? If you are adding a teeter cue, slap it on now. If not, call his name just for giggles.So this is what I want you to do in the next session (I am feeling VERY bossy today hahahaha):
Get him when he is hungry and WILD. Bring his best treats (like steak or something) and favorite toy. Set the teeter on a straight line exit from the tunnel so he blasts up the teeter from the tunnel.
– run him through a tunnel or two, and tug tug tug
– Do one (and only one) warm up of the elevator game (normal elevator, not crazy elevator). Deliver massive animal parts as the reward.
– run him through a couple of tunnels, tug tug tug tug
– run him through the tunnel to the teeter for Crazy Elevator: big cookie at the top, countdown, target cue, release to the thrown tug toy.
– – run him through a couple of tunnels, tug tug tug tug
– run him through the tunnel to the teeter for the FULL teeter, no catching the board – say his bottom cue right after he gets on – you can be moving and a little ahead of him, but decelerate so you end up near the end of the board, similar to crazy elevator game). When he lands into target position – jackpot. I don’t really care if his target position is not perfect, I want you to still jackpot. Your jackpot can be releasing him, throwing the toy and then delivering an entire side of beef, medium rare.
And if he accidentally flies off the end of the board? Reward the effort anyway. He is not the type that is going to fly off teeters, so I want his first full teeter experience to be a guaranteed reinforcement.And then you go inside and drink wine, no more teeter. And then you send me the video 🙂 He only gets 3 times on the teeter:
– normal elevator
– crazy elevator
– full teeterThis is exciting! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>I still feel real awkward on this, I think especially with the single wing and bar scenario. >>
I know, it is weird LOL! But think of it less as a handling exercise and more of a dog training exercise: we are teaching her how to use her body on the sideways jumping she will need for slices, serps, and backside slices. It doesn’t turn into any real handling, but the jumping skill will be very useful when the bars and heights go in.
>>Parts she read well and then we also had a few good opportunities to practice staying upbeat in the face my bad handling! I didn’t crop out the boo boos for that reason. >>
Yes! You rocked it! You had a chuckle and just tried again. The stay was probably the hardest part for her, you can totally add in throwing rewards back for the long distance stay.
On the video – she was really good with her striding here! She was better going to her right on the first gap. Going to her left on that first one was easy when you were on the left side of the screen and much harder when you were on the right side. It might have been that she was a little further from the wing on that side, or that angle was harder, or both 🙂 It was very smart when you helped her how out the last rep and got in a little closer. You can start there next time and see if she can do it or if she still has questions.
>>We got a little stuck in the last video>>
I only see one video, or did you mean last part of the video? I don’t want to miss anything 🙂
>>Was just checking out the third installment of this class! We did not do first but it seems like that would be an appropriate next step?>>
Yes, you are totally appropriate for that one 🙂 It will be fun!
Tracy
Hi! This also looks great!
She is still figuring out the balance of jumping on, so keep on rewarding. I am really happy with how she is moving into the position before you even do the target cue – that is what we want (getting into position with the board in the air rather than waiting til it is on the ground).
We are going to want her to look at you less on this game too. You can have the MM several feet out in front here too so she has it as a focal point (and doesn’t look at you or the cookies). That will also make it easy to get to the next step of you adding motion!Let me know if that makes sense! I think when she has the focal point, it will be very easy to add your motion and then also very easy to go to the Crazy Elevator Games 🙂
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! She has made really lovely progress! Tons of confidence on the end of the board and also when doing the downhills 🙂 Yay!
Looking at the end position: I like that you went to a MM to get her to not look at you – that was my main comment on the earlier part of the session, that she was looking at you a lot so perhaps a MM would be a good idea LOL! The MM instantly got her looking ahead and doing the end position. Yay! Having it that close to the board is a starting point and we can build on it. She was looking ahead really well when you were moving past the end of the board towards the end of the session – but that still counts as looking at you LOL!! Her position was great though.
So to get her looking ahead the whole time even when you are behind or parallel, I think moving the MM gradually further and further out can help that a lot! She will still have to choose position, but the MM can be a focal point where you can release to for the reward (or sometimes toss the reward back to her). You can start it 4 or 5 feet away then it will be easy to fade out later on. Let me know if that makes sense! Onwards to the elevator game!Tracy
Hi! Sorry to hear that work is so stressful, I can’t imagine how hard it is to be a teacher nowadays! How long til the summer break?
Maple did really well on these videos!!! Hopefully you had fun with the training!
Wind in your hair – looking really good! I was just about to type that you could add more distance between the wing and the jump… then you did it. Great minds think alike LOL!!! She was great with the distance and added more speed 🙂 Yay! So the next thing you can do is start closer to the wing wrap (stay there til she exits) and then run forward: this will get her learning how to drive ahead of you (which will set you up for the rear cross games). You can also play with the backsides and wrap transitions too!
The serpy zig zags are also going nicely! One suggestion: Try not to turn your feet as much, just use your upper body to push and pull her through the little setup. The next step is to go out to the 3rd wing and face her, standing still – see if she can do it only on upper body cues! She is getting the in-and-out rhythm so I think you can add challenge here too.
Great job!!! Keep on carving out the time for these little games, she looks great and hopefully it will distract you from the stress of work!
TracyHi! Thanks for sharing the entire session! It makes a big difference to see what is going on.
What had happened 30 minutes prior to the start of this video?
I am going to try to convince you to entirely change your thinking on this. Dog training in general, and teeter training in particular, are not about what happens in one session. It is about building a history through those sessions – both operantly and reflexively.
Operantly, it is that history of positive reinforcement for being successful, which is why it is important to split the behaviors down to little pieces and reward reward reward reward. I think you focus on this a LOT and you do a good job of rewarding. That is the good news.But the bad news is that operant condition is a distant second to reflexive response (classical conditioning) and that is where your teeter training is going wrong. If you build a history of a negative conditioned response to the teeter, it will completely override your operant conditioning. That is why you might feel like you have rewarded the teeter a zillion times but he still doesn’t want to do the teeter.
>>Well thinking back to the other teeter classes have taken, things go so well and then we get to a point where he just said no… sigh today my heart sank as it happened today.>>
That is the negative conditioned response overriding the operant training. Accidentally creating the history of the negative CER is the issue here. There are a lot of reasons why he has negative emotions about the teeter (noise, movement, weight shift, etc) but mainly when you get to a certain point, there is a ton of pressure on him and that is where he struggles the most.
In order to change the history and create the positive conditioned response, you have to look at things differently:
>>He really just does not like bang game.
Based on his body language and his response to the first rep, he thinks the bang game is fine… he doesn’t like the pressure. And the pressure gets associated with the teeter and the environment – which is why he doesn’t want to go near the teeter especially in those environments. You need to recognize that as what you are trying to train through – we aren’t trying to train the teeter here, we are trying to change his reflexive response to it. That is why I put such a heavy emphasis on one-rep sessions, and massively high value rewards. Then done! Full session, that is it.
That will allow you to gradually build in the pressure of the environment and the pressure of repetition.
If you keep going, and he gets stressed and says no, and you keep trying – it gets into this pressure cycle and builds even more history of the negative conditioned response. That in turn is going to make it harder and harder to get to the finished teeter in class or competition settings, because it becomes associated with the negative feeling of pressure and having to do it again.
>>then could hear you yelling at me for keep going>>
LOL yes! I would have ended at :15, when he did a nice bang game rep with barking dogs in the background. It builds a positive association AND gives me more time for a nice glass of wine. Winning! There were a bunch of times that I would have suggested ending the session. And trying to engage him when he is concerned is great but it doesn’t have to involve the teeter – the weaves were good and the tunnel was fun – but then don’t go back to the teeter.
You got him happy in the environment… but then asked for more teeter and that produced more negative associations. That can poison the teeter and he won’t want anything to do with it.One of my favorite agility (and life) mantras is:
“‘no’ is a complete sentence”This is for both humans and dogs. In agility, if my dog says “no”, I accept that and step away because I know if I push it then I risk poisoning something: the obstacle, the cue, the association with the environment… And I won’t ask for it again until I have a plan to make it super awesome.
So with Krome, he is already a little concerned with the environment in general, and separately with the teeter. Adding them together makes things difficult which is why you need to be hyper-focused on his conditioned response to the situation and not getting a lot of repetition in. Operant repetition is very easy when the dog has the right conditioned response – but I think you tend to focus more on getting him to do more so that skews his conditioned response negatively and sets you way back in the training.
Let me know if that makes sense. I am confident that if you can focus on reducing the pressure while changing the history of his conditioned response, he will be able to produce great teeter performance! We can see that happening with the crazy elevator game – but we need to protect that like gold and not have any negative conditioned responses get built in.
Let me know what you think!
TracyHi there!
This was a much more successful session on the end position, yay! You were good about staying in motion – I think the decel you were seeing was you trying to watch what he was doing. So keep reminding yourself to take an extra step or two or 3. Since we are obsessing on mechanics, don’t move the cookie hand til after you say get it – otherwise he locks onto the cookie hand moving. That might be what was happening when he had the errors in the middle on your right side (cookie hand more obvious to watch than when he was on your left, because the cookies were in your right hand)
Also don’t anger the training gods, he failed immediately after each time you said this is going better hahahahaha Just kidding! It was a really strong session 🙂The downhills – these are going very nicely, it was fun to see him kick into a higher gear of speed! And he was strong with his end position here too, I think the clearer mechanics really benefit him. One thing to remember is to keep moving after the blinds – you did the blind and stopped and we don’t want him to cue off the stop.
>>Since we are getting near the end of the course and Chapter will be out of training for about ten days give or take starting next Friday- what should I focus on?>>
That’s easy: the elevator game, then the crazy elevator games 🙂 They bring us to the finished behavior. They both require really obsessive mechanics, so feel free to practice without him at first so you can have great mechanics – there is a lot of speed that gets involved, and a lot of moving parts 🙂
Great job here!!!
TracyHi!
It is great to be able to see these things here, it will make your course running much easier!She is finding the serp jump really nicely, even with the backside push. One detail on the serp is to rotate your upper body to ‘face’ the jump more (your line of motion was good!) What I mean by that is as your feet are running forward, turn at the waist so that the line from your shoulder to shoulder across your chest is parallel to the to t he jump bar, so the center of your chest points to the bar and both of your shoulders line up to the both wings of the jump. You were turning your shoulders perpendicular to the jump so she was coming in but reading it like a post turn. She did go back out because the MM was there, but she did it after landing. So to get the turn before takeoff, ‘face’ the jump more with your upper body. Let me know if that makes sense 🙂
For the FC wraps – that is a connection thing! The connection was not clear enough so she was relying on motion – and Ruse loves big lines and going fast, so she chose the jump over the turn. And she was correct on a lot of them too, based on what she could see:
At :33, and :37 and 1:01, you had connection as she finished he wrap but then broke connection to point forward so she read it as a blind cue and took the jump.
At :41, :43, :46 :49 – she took the jump on those because there was a lot of motion right too it and your dog-side arm was blocking the connection, so she didn’t really know to come into the gap.
She was getting it by the end but there was a lot less motion and your hand lower down by her face. Now, that cue works (standing still with a low hand) but then she will smoke you on the next line 🙂
So one thing to try is that cross body connection as she exits the wing wrap so you can keep moving: if she is exiting the wing on your right side, don’t try to pick her up with your right arm. Instead, show your your left hand across your body, on your right hip, and make eye contact as you keep moving (and maintain it til she is parallel to you). That will exaggerate the connection by moving the dog-side arm back and opening up your shoulder. She should read it nicely! And it gives you the muscle memory of the connection so you won’t always have to use the arm across the body (it is not a threadle arm, it is more about laying your opposite arm across your belly and onto your hip as you look back for her eyes).Let me know if that makes sense! I think it will help her find the wrap side very easily 🙂
TracyHi! Lots of good work here!
Rear crosses after the tunnel:
I think two things will make this easier:
Focus on connection, both to the tunnel and after the tunnel – try to keep moving AND make eye contact. The eye contact turns your upper body more to the line so she will take the obstacle your upper body is turned towards. When you did that, she was really good about finding the tunnel and going to the jump! But if you looked forward, she was not sure which end of the tunnel to go into or didn’t lock onto the jump – that was because looking forward turns your shoulders away from the line you want, and dogs follow our shoulders.The rear crosses are coming along nicely! Your first one and your last one were the boest ones, because you had the best timing and connection on those. The other suggestion for you is about timing:
You were trying to cut in behind her too early on the reps where you got a little tangled in her line – keep running forward for longer, towards the center of the bar, until she is past you and looking at the jump – then you can start cutting in behind her. That plus connection will get the rear crosses done really consistently 🙂Transitions – connection will help here too, and more acceleration – you were moving but not really accelerating so she was not sure if she should drive or not. Warm up with lots of driving ahead and thrown rewards, really running 🙂 Because you can probably run pretty fast on the mats – as soon as you get her driving to the jump, you would want to place yourself very close to the wing and not run until she is just about done wrapping it, so you don’t get too far ahead.
Also, one other thing that I think was making her sticky to you: she is staring at your hands with the treat even when you are good with your connection. To help fix this, no more reinforcement from your hands here, all thrown even on the wraps 🙂 I know the directions say to reward from the hand after the wrap, but we can change that to get commitment – when you cue the wrap and she commits, you can toss the toy to the landing side. That will help get her eyes off of your hands.
Zig zags – she is doing well here too! One thing to smooth it out even more is starting her from a stay next to the first wing. It will be much smoother if you are ahead by at least by a jump so you can cue her earlier. It is harder to show her the line when she is next to you- and you can also use more dramatic upper body handling so your feet can go straight, no need to move your line of motion in and out (just the upper body/arms for that).
Get Out
This is also working really well!!! On the reps where you cued it but she did not do it – try starting the cue sooner, as soon as she gets around the wing – that is when she is making the decision on what is next and I think that will help her find the jump when you want it (she was really great with the get out when it was a little sooner, and also with following your line on the other reps).
You added the outside arm later in the session and it worked really nicely!!! It is a really strong cue – it also gave you more leeway with the timing, because it is so strong that she was getting out even if it was a little late. Yay!Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>> . I see what you mean about the layering. It’s not something we do in agility usually. >>
It is not something any of us worried about for literally a couple of decades… but now it is making a big comeback on European courses and has found its way across the Atlantic so we are starting to see the need for it here. Which means it will then be making its way across the Pacific and will arrive on your shores soon 🙂 Course design elements always spread so we will be adding in layering more now. (BTW, we will be doing it in the CAMP class – you had mentioned needing interested in taking it. I am closing out working spot registrations today, so if you wanted a spot and see it is closed, just email me and I will get you in :))
>>When I stepped past the weaves with motion and helped Hero to the tunnel he got it right every time. When I slowed my motion and gave the weave cue early he was able to make the decision to go to the weaves no problem.
Yes, I thought the first part of this session went perfectly!!! You will soon be able to not have to worry about your motion and you’ll get it on verbals – because we won’t always be close enough to get it with motion (darned European course challenges hahahaha)
>>When I added more motion by sending him round two wings first and then asking to go to weaves, I blew his mind lol.>>
Yes, I think it did haha! The first rep with the error added more motion from you so at first I thought that was the challenge? But then you dialed it back on the next rep and nope, he still took the tunnel. So it was an arousal thing! But he will work through it: start the next session just like you did on the 2nd failure rep: around both wings with not a TON of motion from you. The wings added a lot of stimulation so we will let him sort it out there first, and then add back your motion. I am confident that he will have it perfectly next time, that seems to be how he works when he finds something challenging 🙂
Separately, you can go back to the 6 poles and work the straight pole stuff! And more games are coming shortly that bring him to 12 🙂
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
