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Hi!
>> I don’t think she has a reward marker for taking food from my hand because it’s never been much of a thing.
Today is the day! Yay!
>> I guess it’s time for Dellin to get some additional markers now that food is more of a thing that looks like a reward.
Yes LOL even if it is not a better paycheck than a toy, we can mark it specifically because that can help build it up too!
On the video: these are looking really good!!
>> I had changed to the very highly prized frisbees then and found that I needed to back off a little on the difficulty.
Ah yes, frisbeeeee is LIFE! Plus, frisbee elicits a behavior that is neither serpy or threadley, it tends to elicit run outs LOL! I am sure you can add the frisbee back soon though.
2 little details about mechanics:
For the threadles, try to have your threadle arm up for a second or two before you start the verbal. that is mainly because she will be releasing on motion of the arm if the two come together and not learning the verbal, specifically. Same with the serp arm. Having the arm in position separately from the release will make it easier to add more motion, as you start to mov emore and more around the jump.
Also, hold your threadle arm and upper body position til she arrives at the toy, so there is no shoulder rotation getting built into the default jump commitment – you were releasing your shoulders and turning forward for some, and using your hand as a ‘check mark’ on other reps. The hand as ‘check mark’ is less obvious than shoulder rotation, but we don’t want to build in her waiting for your hand to move in order to go commit to the jump – basically, when she hears the threadle verbal and see your arm come up, we want her to shove you out of the way and go do the threadle LOL! You were great about leaving your serpentine arm up and shoulders in serp position the whole time, so it is the same idea but with the threadle arm.
>.And at the end I tried putting in the beginnings of motion. Then we did a few serps at the end of the session.
>>She previously had some trouble going back and forth in the same session with these 2 different concepts (threadle and serp), so I was happy with this.>>
She was great! It is really normal for dogs to have trouble going back and forth, but she was great! And she really has the in-and-out action of the serpentine looking great!
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! I am glad he is feeling good!
He definitely looked excited to be doing this! He was smart though – he actually seemed to ‘catch’ himself rushing (especially when the toy was involved), slipping a little – and he thought through the footwork to get the balance back without having to reduce the speed. THAT is a cool thing to see with a baby dog! And he did really well with the middle jump moving out. That is about as far as the middle jump needs to go for this setup (any further and we need o change the verbal for the entry bump) so you can increase the challenge a bit by moving the middle jump back in a little and angling the 2 outer bumps towards it so you have a shorter distance center-to-center on the bumps. We are looking for a bounce and less reaching with his front end, so maybe 5 feet center-to-center is the sweet spot? If not, 4 feet (or 4.5 feet). That distance might change as he matures, so we can adjust things as he develops even more power 🙂
Great job! See you tomorrow night!!
TracyGood morning! I am having much jealousy that your snow melted! I live in the warm, sunny south and we have 2 inches of snow and ice on the ground. Ewwww!
Great job with the concept transfer here: Dice was fabulous, of course. Hooray! He is on FIRE for that toy!
On the one rep where he didn’t commit, it might be that you never stepped forward with your dog-side leg? When you switched sides after that, you stepped forward perfectly with the dog side leg (right leg on that side) and he had zero questions even though you were leaving super early (and early is good!)
He only seemed to have only one other question – on the very last rep, he jumped up at your arm as you sent him. It might be that you were blocking the wing a little (hard to see from this angle) but also it might be that you were too quick to send and that broke connection (jumping up at the handler’s arm is a classic response to disconnection). So after the line up to reset, take a heartbeat to look at his eyes, then send. You did a great job with the resets here – resetting to line up is HARD when the pup is on fire for the toy, but you nailed them and I think this last one just needed a heartbeat of connection before the send.Since this went so well, you can add more distance between you and the wing. You can also transfer the wing to other games: the handling combos and the rocking horses! FUN!!!!
Great job here!!!! Fingers crossed for now more snow so you can keep working these skills outdoors!
Tracy
Good morning!
Very nice session here!!Yes, starting stationary was a good refresher then the slooooooow walking on the 3rd rep was perfect. Clicks/treat for you for being able to have the self-control to move that slowly and smoothly, it is harder than it looks!!! After that got established, the session was smooth sailing that you repeated on the new side. The new side (left turns) seemed harder for her on the first couple of reps but then she was great with those too. Super nice!
You can move onwards to adding more speed on the serps – I liked how the ‘warm up’ of you being stationary helped her, so definitely warm up again like that again and start off moving really slowly, then add in a tiny bit more movement. (And keep tossing in a few ‘catch’ rewards too 🙂 ) As you do add more motion, keep your shoulders/upper body frozen in serp position until after she has arrived at the MM so you don’t relax your upper body after the click. We don’t want to build the habit of the upper body turning forward at all, as that will pull her off the next serp line when she is on jumps.
You can definitely play with adding the threadles in too, but when you add the threadles be sure to use your wings – at least a wing on the entry side if not on both sides. That wing will be a big, helpful visual and I don’t think she will ever see a threadle on a wingless on a real course (or, at least not on a course that any of us would actually run!) The big visual of a wing will help her set up the turns needed for the threadle. I like to use wings on serps too, but I think we also see serps on wingless jumps sometimes so she will get used to seeing both wings and wingless on serps.
Great job here!!! Have fun adding the threadles!
Tracy
Good morning! You ladies have been busy!!!
I know you’ve been doing obedience and agility foundations along with DON’T BITE THE MOMMA 🙂 …. tell me more about flyball!! It is a hoot 🙂 One of my flyball peeps is starting an amazing foundation class online that you should take. Even if you never want to actually play flyball, the foundations and proofing are AMAZING in how they apply to all other sports. (And then of course we will get you playing flyball because it really is so much fun and after the pattern is learned, requires much less training than the other sports.)
Backing up is looking good! You can start her on her little platform/destination so she remembers it right off the bat. I think you can also add some arousal at this point, to help her remember her coordination when she is a little more excited – will she tug go back and forth between for and toys? A little bit of tugging between reps (with food rewards for backing up) can help her stay balanced and coordinated even when she is ramped up 🙂 You might have to shorten the distance for backing up if she might forget how to use all her legs when she is excited 🙂 but she looked ready for this!
Countermotion: the singing is cracking me up LOL!
This is not a double fail, I could see the prop and you were not tooooo bad about eating early LOL
And yes, if you are far from the prop, don’t leave as early for now, especially on the right turns (see below). Or, if you want to leave early, be closer so she only has one variable to deal with (distance OR motion, not both).Interestingly, as things got harder, she went to turning to her left (is she a lefty in flyball?) when she should have been turning to her right based on your position. At 1:13 she turned right but had a question. At 1:20 and 1:25, you were moving a little faster so she turned left. It is correct to reward those anyway, but you will also want to tweak your setup so that she turns to her right there rather than left. More room will help (it is possible that the space was small on the right turn side so there was ‘pressure’ to turn left) so you can move the prop further away from you laterally so it is more spacious on the right turn side. If she continues to turn to her left, get closer to the prop and move slowly so you can make right turns much easier. My Contraband was a very strong lefty when he was the same age as Chata, so I broke down the right turns a lot of help him feel to joy of turning right. He is still a strong lefty in flyball but pretty balanced in agility.
Do you have a reward marker for “cookie in hand”? Rather than ‘yes’, you can now switch to that – skip ahead to Week 7 and look at the “Let’s Talk About Reinforcement” discussion so you can see what I mean. The more we add reward markers, the easier it is for the pups to learn the skills 🙂 She is definitely ready for that too.
Excellent work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>>think there was too much time between when I read your feedback and when I recorded these videos because I did forget a couple of the points, but not a big deal>>
Totally relatable!! There is a lot to remember in terms of the mechanics and words and all the things! I write down 2 or 3 things that I need to remember and then text them to myself, so I read them right before I train the dog 🙂 That, plus the proper amount of coffee in the morning, really helps me remember 🙂
Turn and burn – oh yes, I think he liked this AND the excitement drew in a visitor at the beginning LOL!!! He did a great job – that was some serious distance between you and him, and you were leaving really early and he was able to get it! Hooray!
The only hard part were resets for the next rep. You can use a boring cookie to line him up for the reset at your side (I think he will still play with the toy after getting a boring cookie in this scenario). It is hard to start with him facing sideways or facing you LOL! But I do like his “game on” approach to it 🙂He was quite good about maintaining commitment to the exit of the wing as you were leaving earlier and earlier. You can also add in sometimes throwing the toy to the exit wing, to help affirm that yes, he should continue around it as you are running away the other direction. I mix that in a lot, particularly for my small dogs because the smallz have to take sooooo many more strides. My big dogs can do this game in 2 strides but it is more like 6 or 7 for the littles!
Threadles/serpy stuff:
I agree that serps tend to be a LOT easier for us and the dogs – maybe because the concept is easier in terms of ‘take the jump’. Threadles are “don’t take the jump even though my motion shows you the jump.”And I also like the cross arm threadle cue, it is really obvious to the dogs!
The reps on this video looked great! I am always impressed when young dogs can go back and forth from serps to threadles to serps as easily as he did here, Great job with being in the right position for the releases!!! Really nice session.
As you noted – Your position relative to the jump is an important detail to remember especially on the serps, so text yourself to always reach out and touch the wing with a bent elbow on each rep 🙂 Being too far from the wing causes him to turn after landing on the serps when we need him to turn before takeoff.
He was very strong on his serpentines and starting to drive like mad to the ‘bar’ here, so you can add more motion! Go to a fast walk on the serps, then a jog. You might be able to build up to a run pretty soon!
Position on the wing is also important for threadles because it helps get him to take the jump after coming in – at :28 he came to the threadle side perfectly but you were really far away, so he didn’t take the jump. I would still reward that, at least with s cookie from hand as you reset – it was a good effort and the error was in your position. He changed his behavior on the next rep because there was no reward for coming in. Then you got closer and he got it nicely on the reps after that.
He was really starting to nail those threadles with motion too!!!! I think you can move to a faster walk on these – but not toooooo fast, not yet. I want to protect his success and adding too much speed, too soon is a threadle-killer LOL!!
You can also start to repeat the close cue because on course you will likely be saying close close close and not just close. Might as well get him used to that here. You don’t need to repeat the “ok” for the serps, because on course you will be saying left or right depending on the angle (or his name, for softer angles).
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
You won’t see the value transfer here instantly add speed to the wing or the eating. We know we’ve got speed on the wing when we use a toy with her, so we are using that to raise the food love. And I think it is actually great that you had to wait for her to swallow before the toy comes out. Hopefully that means you are rewarding *swallowing* the treat and not just putting it in her mouth. I am sure you have met BCs who are masterful at putting treats in their mouths but not swallowing them LOL!
I think she was great here in terms of the speed level you want in this setup: speedy enough for a small space and happy, and expectant (meaning, yay for the cookie and now where is the toy, mom?)
Only two little details on this game:
Use your reward markers particularly for the food – rather than yes, use your cookie-in-hand marker because this game will build value for that too!Also, because the food was a little high in placement, she was coming around the wing with her head up, almost in heel position chin-up posture. So, easy enough to change: drop the treat on the ground with your ‘get it ‘ marker so she move through to get it, then when she swallows: toy time. I don’t think she will be looking up when you add movement to it, but I don’t want to accidentally build in looking up anywhere when wings are involved, especially with food rewards 🙂
Great job here!!!! What is on her training schedule for today or tomorrow?
Tracy
Good morning!
Mike, you were a good dog dad to work through this really systematically tp be sure he was successful! Ronan transferred the concept instantly so on the first few reps he was totally like “why are you still standing here” LOL!!!! He was perfect when you added motion and sending too and started leaving earlier. And he was perfect when Karena took over too. This means we can go to the next steps: feel free to now add your wrap verbals along with the send to get him started. You can start further back so you can rotate and leave even sooner too! If you power up the speed and timing and see him rushing, dial back the speed. By rushing, you’ll see him either not commit or he will push the wing.
My only other suggestion is to use a ‘get the toy in my hand’ marker – he was fine with getting in on the praise here when you presented it because you made the context very clear, but we are going to expand the use of the wing into all sorts of scenarios when you have a toy in your hand, so adding the toy marker will help keep him looking at the wing and not at the toy.Great job here!!! I am looking forward to seeing him use the wings on the crosses!!
Tracy
Good morning!
It was fine to start with big distances so she could learn the concept without having to also learn the coordination of the bending and leads. I think she looked great here! I like that she is actually looking at where she is going, down into the minny pinny and not up at you – that seems like such a small detail but it is actually a HUGE detail which translates to strong jumping form. And she was really quite balanced in both directions. Maybe a little stronger to the left but it is almost imperceptible.I see what you mean about not wanting to swallow the reset cookie LOL!! What type of treat was it? It might help to use a really soft bit of cheese or something… or it might not help at all (or you might have already been using it LOL!) It looks like you were waiting for a second or two before releasing her into the game, that seemed effective. The only thing that will take away the concern about using reset cookies is to use a toy 🙂 I think she is ready for it and it increases the coordination challenge! So using this set up, try a tug toy – it can be the reward for great behavior and also you can tug her into reset position.
Separately from the toy – you can move the middle wing and bump a little further away (I think they were all close here). That might change the distances between bumps which could mean you need to angle the 2 outer bumps away from the middle one to get this nice 4 foot distance.
You are right in that she has done a lot of controlled stride work recently – and also now that the minny pinny is tight, it is in effect a jump grid which means training on it once or twice a week and not daily. So, for fun giddy up extension go fast stuff, you can take the racetracks outside (you’ll both be running!) See how far apart you can get the barrels! I also revisit those handler combos games all the time – where I have a toy or MM or something 20 feet from a barrel, wrap a barrel, then accelerate with the GO GO GO to the reward target.
Great job here! Have fun going fast!
Tracy
Good morning!
>>We are a bit behind this week so glad there aren’t that many week 11 assignments! >>
I figure there is a lot to do with puppy training and sometimes it is just fine to NOT add a whole lot more to the load 🙂 And you are doing great!!!
On the serps & threadles video:
>.We gave the Adding motion to serps and threadles a go today and it mostly went well. Ronan had some issues moving past the jump directly to the MM. In some reps it seemed to be our position or timing. Other times perhaps the handler’s feet weren’t pointing enough towards the direction of travel. Maybe Karena’s arm was too high? There were a few reps with too much handler speed too.>>
There were moments of each where maybe it was a foot in the wrong place or a hand too high or a shoulder not open enough… but overall I think it was too much motion – you were moving too fast 🙂
Bearing in mind that BCs are wired to stay out and parallel a lot more than they are wired to drive in hard to us, you can dial the speed waaaaaay back so you are walking so slowly you can practically feel the earth turning under your feet LOL!!! Motion is a stimulator, so we dial it back to the least amount possible as you build the love for these behaviors that are counterintuitive to BCs (Aussies or Corgis, by contrast, are happy to drive into us on these but it is hard to turn them away from us for the 2nd part of the behavior)
I think 2:07 might be the best example of how slowly you need to move for now – creeping along. The other thing that will help is if, as you slowly creep along, you have your serp or threadle upper body cue in position for a few steps before you give the verbal cue to start his movement. On the threadles in particular, the upper body cue and the release were happening at about the same time. So 3 or 4 steps of him seeing your arm cue as you ever so slowly move towards the wing will help – and I will often shake that hand too, to add motion in a way that helps up 🙂
You can also go to a slightly more boring reward target – maybe a perch to put his feet on, or an empty food bowl? Reducing the motion and the distraction of the reward value can help too! As soon as he has a lot of reinforcement for driving into you on these, it will be easier to add more and more motion 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>>for this next video I used just his high value toy due to all the distractions in the background (we were using some green space outside the Seattle zoo near my home.>>
Smart! It is better to work one variable at a time in terms of distractions and/or value building, so using zoo animals as the distraction was a good choice LOL!
>> The next time someone brings their screaming Capuchin monkeys to an agility trial, we will have proofed the heck out of that distraction and will be good to go LOL)
OMG I would want to be at that trial, just to see everyone’s reactions 🙂
the tunnel session went really well. I think he really only had one question, and it had to do with throwing the toy when he was facing the toy, then trying turn him to face the other end of the tunnel. He was a little confused because normally when we throw the toy like that (restraining the dog with the dog facing the toy, it looks just like the toy races mechanics), the context means that we are going to be going in the direction of the toy – so he was not sure about being turned away.
We can change the mechanics of the toy placement to help him out:You can have him move with you while you put it on the ground then move away from it (with cookie rewards for walking with you) – that opens up a nice self-control opportunity!
You can also start him by facing the correct direction towards the tunnel entry you want, then toss the toy behind you so he is not turned facing it (it is a good challenge for your throwing skills haha!)
And, since you might be working monkey distractions too – you can hold the toy and throw it as soon as he commits to the tunnel.
He seemed perfectly great at turning into the tunnel from the threadle side, so you can add your tunnel threadle verbal now and play with the Double Whammy game 🙂
>>Away from rocking horses we worked on the “bite” cue so Leo knows when the toy is available and when it’s not, and that’s really helping his ability to cope with me running with a toy in my hand,>>
I an totally see the work you have done, he was great here in terms of knowing when to do the barrels and when to grab the toy. PERFECT! It made for a session that was relaxed and driven (no frustration or questions from him that I could see, just lots of speed and commitment) and highly successful. Yay for you both!
>>Several times in this video I end up with my toy arm crossed over my body when I cue ‘bite’ (not on purpose, too many things to think about!); should I work harder at being sure to offer the toy from the same-side arm instead?>>
I personally use the cross arm reward a lot to open up connection back to the dog, and ‘bite’ applies for either hand: the toy is in my hand, come get it 🙂 So if you do use the dog-side arm, ‘bite’ would apply there too.
And he really drives into it when it is across your body, maybe because the connection is so clear (like at :24).
>>chanting “Hallmark Moment” in my head has really helped me connect with Leo as he’s exiting the wrap and he’s not constantly cutting behind me any more YAY
I can totally see this too – looked great! I didn’t see a single connection question from him – he always seemed to know exactly where to go. His only question was early on, when you sent to the barrel from relatively far away – he looked up at your hand then proceeded to the barrel. Yay! And he had no questions after that.
On the spins, you can ‘release’ your send arm and connection sooner so you can get the blind done sooner. Basically, it means starting the FC element of the spin sooner. For example, at :46 and 1:05 – he is halfway around the barrel and you are still using the send arm and connection on the original side to commit him. By that point, you can already be doing the blind (or finished with it ) so he can see it before he exits the barrel. This moment of releasing the send arm (by relaxing it and dropping it to your side) and beginning the head turn for the blind can start just as he arrives at the barrel (and eventually before he arrives at it). You will have to trust his commitment 🙂
And by starting the spin rotation sooner, you will be doing spins more easily – on a couple of reps (1:13 and 1:23 for example) you held the dog side arm/leg commitment cue for long enough that you did a regular blind cross on the barrel (where we turn away from the dog) instead of a spin. We do work on these tight blinds eventually but I think you were intended a spin there 🙂
You can build in more of the race tracks now too, just letting him rip around the outside and then throwing in a couple of FCs or spins. He seems ready for more excitement and challenge now, because he was sooooo successful with being able to go fast AND keep his arousal in the perfect state. YAY!!!
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
This ended up being a great session in a lot of ways:
– you were smart and stopped what you were doing when he was wrong and you were frustrated
– you re-evaluated your approach, fixed the session and ended up on a long stretch of success
– you posted it for feedback and support (most people hide these sessions LOL!)He is normally a brilliant sponge so this is a great opportunity to get feedback from him 🙂
Yes, learning is not linear, totally agree. And usually there is something we can do to help the dog (which you did by making the target more salient and doing a twrget refresher session, brilliant!). And getting another set of eyes on it will often help you see something that you didn’t see in the moment or on the video.
I think one of the reasons that learning is not linear is that reinforcement value shifts and distractions come up (internally and externally) – I think that is what happened here. The search cookie was great fun and the MM and the bowl are great fun and super high value… so after the search cookie he whipped around, didn’t look at you and rwn directly to the next high value thing (MM and bowl). The value of that loop that he created was very high LOL!
So he needed to see the serp pop out more relative to the search cookie and the MM. Because the MM and bowl are really high value, I suggest breaking that self-created loop of search to MM by having him start facing you in a stationary position. Can hubby hold him? Or maybe try his station and release him off it?The other option is to make the serp cue more salient after the search cookie – it might be as simple as calling him and shaking the target hand.
He was getting it beautifully by the end, so you can try it with either of those ideas and see how he does!
Nice work here!!!
TracyGood morning!
Yes to all of this 🙂
I agree that the pool noodles are better than a tall bump for now.>>could be same side if treats though or still cross body?),
Yes, either – across the body is more ideal but speed of delivery is most important. So as long as it is a quick reward and at your side and immediately after the barrel, either will work.
>>keep in motion towards the next barrel until she gets the reward so I don’t end up facing her,
For the first couple of sessions, you can do a FC, stop, reward quick (with reward marker to bridge the heartbeat of time) and at your side. The stopping we don’t want is moving away from the barrels, facing her, no marker, cookies coming from the pocket.
The goal is a shift in reinforcement value and I’m sure she will feel that within a couple of sessions 🙂
And big thanks to Todd for the garbage bag idea!!!!
Tracy
Good morning!!
The directionals as releases will also make more sense to her when they go into context on course. They might not make a lot of sense on the flat, but when they get applied to jumps and to the exit of, say, a teeter to a jump, she will totally have it. I don’t want to build in questions on these games, so you can use the regular release right after the threadle or backside verbal/physicals to help her out.Her minny pinny looks great, she has the concept, the verbals are attached, reward placement and resets are strong. So yes – tighten them so she can have an easier time with her striding. She was really trying to sort out her lead legs! You can angle the 2 outer bumps in towards the center one – I’m not sure how far apart they were here, but you can try for 4 feet from center-to-centet of each bump. If she still thinks it is odd for striding, you can scoot them in another 6 inches or foot.
I’m glad Gemma gets a turn, she is soooooo good about supervising 🙂
Nice work! Let me know how she does with the bumps in closer together.
TracyGood morning!
Hooray for using your verbals at class! Keep rehearsing that, at some point soon you will get used to her brilliance and you won’t be as distracted by it, so you will spit out the correct verbals. And the other thing that helps is to RUN the walk throughs at class while doing the verbals, and not just walking them 🙂
>I had a few minutes this morning and got out the wing for the baby steps of transferring value to the wing. I started with cookies and she was like OK, and her response was not that great. When I switched to the toy, she was like game on! She could be the poster dog for using the reward that your dog finds rewarding >>
Yes! Value is best built when the dog actually really enjoys the reinforcement 🙂 She was great with her concept transfer here – easy peasy. Yay!
She did really well with the food, she didn’t chew it or act horrified LOL and yes, the toy is an entirely more exciting thing for her. And I bet she just associates food with “be chill!” in training because of how we humans use it, versus associating the toy with “woohoo!!” again because of how it is used. I like to flip that to help build up the food value so the dogs can drive hard even when food is in the picture as the reinforcement (thinking about running contacts, which are often trained with food reinforcement yet we want a whole lot of giddy up):If you think she now has good value for the wing, we can flip the script and build more food value by inserting it more into the reinforcement process:
wing
cookie
toySo the wing is fun because she gets to move, and the cookie is just a behavior and not a reinforcement – but the toy is a true reinforcement so she gets to party. That builds value for the food. I flip things a lot like this to quickly build value for something. If you think she doesn’t love the wing, you can use a tunnel instead 🙂
This is how I built food drive and ball drive in Contraband, took about 3 seconds LOL I like easy ways to do things 🙂Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
