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Wheeee look at him power through these!!! He definitely was happy to be in the new facility and I think it is AWESOME that he was excited and focused!
Some of his questions were about the line up, like at :20 and :48 he needed one more little step forward to get into the first bump properly. He definitely told us left turns were easier: at :55 when you were not perfectly connected he went behind you to turn left and at 1:26 I think you were connected but he definitely said that left turns were easier by ducking behind you LOL! Clever! Your response was good, basically just a “you’re cute, let’s try again” followed by a very strong connection and step to guide him into the right turns.
That really helped him work through any questions.The left turns seemed smooth and fluid throughout. At first, the rights had a little less bend of body for him slightly and were slightly less fluid but by the end he had the same power on the right turns! Nice! So while he is saying left is easier, I am confident that he will end up being nicely balanced and strong in both directions.
One thing you can add now is a slight change in angle of the bumps: angle the 2 outer bumps in towards the middle bump, so he can bounce all the way through. And, you can do the opposite: angle the 2 outer bumps away from the middle bump so he can take a nice stride in between each one.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
Keep me posted about what you end up deciding on for verbals!
Serps with motion:
It is odd that she wasn’t feeling into it, maybe she is coming into season? Or she just wasn’t into serpentines 🙂 I think she looked good on the serpentine reps here though – my guess is she thinks that driving into pressure like that plus MM and plus dead toy is not as much fun as just running 🙂 Did you try any other game to see if it was just an anti-serp day or just a not in the mood too train day?But on the reps here, she was driving in nicely and setting her turn nicely! She will like serps even more when you start to add in running, so keep playing with it. You can make it even more silly fun for her if you have room to a cone wrap or tunnel in place of the MM or dead toy (then reward with toy :)) The cone or tunnel is also a distracting so it is a good challenge!
Keep playing with the threadle verbal – are you using a cross arm too? You can add that to help her differentiate. She probably only needs another session or two before you add motion (you can add it with her on a really easy angle to get things rolling).
Nice work! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>>pump my arms when running
Yes, this will be easier when you have more room 🙂
>>hide toy when running to not distract dog
Yes for now – she will learn to focus on the ‘stuff’ even when there is a to yin your hand in the future.
>>Verbal: I’m struggling with barrels and verbals. I feel going around a barrel needs a command but really don’t like AROUND as it can’t be repeated and it takes too long to say it.
Verbals are a bit topic of obsessing LOL!! I feel your pain. Yes – time to add verbals to the barrels! We have a verbals discussion here:
If you want to use ‘around’, you can define it specifically and apply it to that turn on the barrel.
>>I use this in rally when I want the dog to independently move around (wrap) me.
Ah! So it is a completely different behavior – it means go around the momma. So, yes, let’s use something else so there is no potential for confusion.
>>An agility instructor suggested I use the same word for backside wraps – no specific direction.
Do you mean use ‘around’ for backside circle wraps (360s)? I think if ‘around’ means to wrap *you* then we should eliminate it from the list of words that mean ‘take an obstacle and do a thing’ 🙂 Mali is wicked smart and using the same word for 2 different behaviors can confuse or frustrate her, even though the context is different.
My backside wraps do not have a specific direction (as in, backside-wrap-to-your-left) because the bar tells the dog the direction and ideally my handling/position can tell the dog which backside to wrap 🙂 I have not yet seen the need to have 2 separate directions on backside wraps because of the bar telling the dog which way to wrap – I know some people do that but so far, I have not ever seen a place for that. You are welcome to have separate cues for it, or you are welcome to save your sanity and have one cue LOL I do have separate verbals for the backside wrap 360 and the other backside slices.
>>Suggestions? I can figure out words to use but should I use a different verbal on barrels or use my Left and Right 90 degree turns?>>
I like to define my verbals in relation to the shape of the line I want the pups to take. Using the barrels, most of what you are doing right now are turns that are front side wraps (picture her going over a bar when she is arriving at the wing) so you can add your front side wrap cue(s) – I have 2 front side wrap cues, one for each direction. We add the backside wrap verbal when the dogs are doing the full 360 turn (in Week 8, because it is not a super high priority for baby dogs!) We also do backside slice foundation in week 8 (with a bump added in so the pups learn which side is the backside)
On these barrel wrap games, she is not doing what I consider these 90 degree turns – for the barrels, the pups are coming all the way back around. On the 90 degree turns, the pups end up turning parallel to the barrel but do not come all the way back around it. We teach that to the pups separately in Week 10 (you can skip ahead to it because it is really easy :))
Let me know what you think about all the words!
TracyBrilliant! That is exactly what we want from this game – go find the middle thing and turn 🙂 Yay Tali, so smart!!!!!!!!
T
Good morning!
Serp/Threadles with motion:
>>but in reviewing the video I feel like I should’ve had Ronin a little closer to the jump for one thing.>>
First, a big high five to you for reviewing your videos with an eye on critiquing them! Being able to learn from watching your videos is very helpful for the dog’s entire career!!!
I don’t think he was too far from the jump (maybe the angle was a bit hard on one of the threadle moments, see below) but you were definitely a little too far from the jump 🙂 On the threadles, your position should be the same as the serp position: close enough to touch the wing with a relaxed, slightly bent arm.
Overall, he did really really well – he was very strong when he was on your right arm. being on your left side was harder — he had two failures when you were on that left side so you made a good adjustment on the 3rd rep on that side so he could be successful. You can change his position too by having him start on an easier line (it was hard to see what his position was on that side). He did a really good job ignoring the Manners Minder! I think his questions were not as much about how to threadle when he had the errors, they were more about the Manners Minder as distraction (poor, starving Schanuzer LOL!)
The serps were VERY easy for him, that is great. If you are closer to the jump, you will see him be able to bend even more.
>>Secondly, I think I should’ve been moving for a bit more before giving the ‘Close’ command. It was more a simultaneous command & move.>>
yes, it was definitely more of a cue-and-move start but that is plenty challenging! Since he did well, you can add in slooooowly moving before the cue. That slow movement should start as soon as you leave him in his stay: rather than go to position, get your arm back, then move again (which gets tricky when he is in a stay), you can put your arm back as you walk away from him so your threadle or serp arm is out there the whole time – then walk slowly through position and release as you are moving through position. That way there is no start and stop or arm movement which might cause him to anticipate the release.
And to maintain the joy of the stay, you can add throwing the reward back to him when you get to position. And you can also walk all the way around the jump and go back to him without releasing, to reward the stay. that way he doesn’t anticipate your arrival in position to be the release 🙂
Turn and Burn – looked fabulous!
>> At least this time I managed to remember my wrap verbals. Or wait, wasn’t I supposed to here? (just had an ‘oh crap’ moment)>>
Ha! Using your verbals was great, keep using them.
>. I was running out of space for the burn part and had wished after reviewing the video that I’d have thrown the toy more ahead of me and more consistently used the Get It command, but I will work on that.>>
For this game, you can reward from your hand so he chases you for it. Because he is little, you can tie the two toys together so you can drag them for him to chase and grab (one end in your hand, one end on the ground – might need 3 toys tied together). Chasing you for the toy is part of the ‘burn’ which gets a lot of speed and will convince him to set up amazing turns without a lot of handling help needed from you 🙂 I suggest having one end dragging on the ground so he can keep his head down (which produces the most speed) and so you don’t have to bend over. Having him get the toy like this also eliminates the victory laps when you throw the toy (which are inefficient but also hilarious and adorably joyous!)
Because this game is going so well AND he was able to do it on a jump wing (huzzah!)…
You can start to do your FC and running away a little sooner now – look at how well he committed on that very last rep at 1:15 – you sent, and when he was about 3 feet from the wing and was past your feet: Boom! You were outta there. Freeze the video at 1:16 as he is rounding the wing – you were connected and waaaay ahead. NICE! Click/treat for you both 🙂So do more of that! You can add more distance between you and the wing so there is more motion.
>., I had it on my laptop and Ronin was absolutely obsessed with watching everything Contraband was doing. It was cute – CB seems like quite a fun character!>>
Ha! CB is very fun and quite the character like something out of a Disney cartoon LOL. He is 2 now and is SUCH a good boy. It is fun when the dogs react to each other on the camera! My dogs don’t react to the other dogs, but they do get super interested when you use your happy praise voice 🙂
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning! Nice work on the minny pinny games!
Baby level:
She did well here – good job lining her up and getting engaged before each rep! When you did the engagement, in particular, she was very crisp in her responses!>>Do you think it makes any difference re understanding right now? As I space things out would it be better to have the wing on the middle ‘jump’?>>
it was fine to have the barrel ni the middle but now you can switch to a wing in the middle (ideally, 3 wings for this)/ That will help her learn how to approach a wing on this type of turn and also to not touch the wing 🙂
>>I never got to trying it with a toy as the reward as I didn’t want her rushing through it.
You can now do this baby level with toys because it is a good setup for teaching her to run fast, be excited, and NOT touch the wings or barrel. But the toy can be incorporated gradually, it is not an all-or-nothing approach: tug with her before the rep. Then do one or two reps for a cookie on each – then a bit of tug. Eventually you can tug for each rep as the reward but you don’t need to start that way if she is likely to push the barrels/wings.
>>Next time I work on it will do that and also try to space the pieces out a bit.
Yes – but don’t do that at the same time as you add the toys. Make those into separate challenges.
Advanced level:
>>I am still not sure about the whole idea of her bouncing the setup given her age even though it isn’t much of a jump compared to trying to keep her from jumping off furniture but there is also a turn on landing…
Don’t worry about the striding at all at this point. The towel poles are conceptual focal points, not jump bars 🙂 The goal of this setup at the moment is just mainly about coordination and to attach the left and right verbals. The bouncing as a grid will come later when there are bumps and also when you have a grippier surface to do it on so she can really plant her hind end (likely will wait til you can be outside in the spring, which is perfect for her age).
She did well here too – we can see her already changing her striding and going faster after the first couple of reps and adding the bounce, and as you noted when you add the verbals – she looked pretty balanced on both directions with perhaps the right turns being a little easier for her to get all 3 barrels on the first-go round. So using food, you can move the middle one out a little bit to see what happens 🙂
One suggestion for you is about the placement of reinforcement: She is losing her coordination on the last towel bar and rolling it, mainly because of the reward placement being a little late and there is too much handler movement, for now. Stand very stationary as sh eis coming around the 3 wings and as she is coming over the middle towel bar, be ready to place the reward across your body.
The reward placement was happening late, so she was not sure where to look or what to do on the last bar.A good example of this is at 1:25 – as she is finishing coming over the middle bar, your hand are moving together towards your center and you stepped back so she was looking up and coming to you – then as she was coming towards you over bar 3, you stepped forward and moved the cookie hand into position – she tried to adjust over the towel bar at 1:26 and rolled it (same at 1:30 and other reps Being perfectly still for now (no foot movement) and having the placement cookie ready and in place before she gets to bar 3 will help her learn the behavior (the 3rd bar is the truest left or right on this setup). Also, if you have a reward marker for “cookie in hand” that will help her know where to look.
It is a small detail but not a small detail LOL!
>> I have decided on ‘ri ri ri’ for right and ‘le le le’ for left to get rid of the ‘t’ sound at the end.
Good choices! One thing to consider is how you want to deliver them: you were using a fast repeated pattern “lelelelelelele” which rhythmically, will be similar to the wraps (and also similar in terms of energy, volume, etc). So, you can consider a slightly different delivery – elongate the vowels leeeleeeeleeeee riiii riiiiiiriiiiii because that will sound very different plus the slightly elongated deliver will match the physical cues that generally accompany these softer turns.
I look at words and style of delivery because I am not fully convinced that just the words break through and get processed in the middle of the wave of processing the dog has to do on course.
Great job! Let me know what you think and how the next steps go!
TracyGood morning!
Yay for tunnel games, they are really fun! He was super 🙂
>> The tunnel does shift some, so I’ll need to work on staking it down better, but there are 3 straps on it (just noting that since it looks like it only has the one purple strap in the middle on first glance).>>>
It held pretty well for this game! Yes, you’ll need more to hold it as you add more motion into it. I have used sand in garbage bags in the past LOL! Not fancy but does the job 🙂
He did really well with his tunnel games here!
>>You’ll see that Leo spins out of the exit on the early reps, showing me that food/MM is less interesting than his toy back at the entrance, so I just removed the toy for now until I get your feedback>>
Yes – the MM is not yet his true love when a toy is involved and I think also he is inclined to turn left, because when you switched sides to start him on your right so he was turning left with the toy out there, it was not as much of a spin back to you. You can totally train up more MM love in this game by creating a loop – through the tunnel, eat the cookie form the MM (which is more of a behavior than a reinforcement LOL!) and then back to you for tugging (which is very reinforcing and also a great way to reset him for the next rep).
I did this with my BorderWhippet who, like Leo, prefers toys to eating from the MM. But I really like training with the MM so I built the MM love with this loop: behavior, MM, toy. I don’t think I have video of it with the tunnel, but I do have video of it with some of the early running contact training:
Let me know if this makes sense 🙂 my marker words were still in progress at the time – right now the MM beep is the cue to get the MM cookie, and then I say “bite!” which means that he can come get the toy from my hand for tugging 🙂
>>Without the toy he exits without spinning, so I added the verbal at that point and then added angles.
Yes, that was very smooth and he was super with those! In your next session, have the MM (or toy) further from the tunnel exit, so he can exit in full stride before arriving at the reinforcement and not have to decelerate as he exits the tunnel. Moving it another 4 or 5 feet away from the exit should accomplish that,
>>Should I exchange the MM for a toy at the exit?
You can do that! It is a good opportunity to work the retrieves too. And as the tunnel increases in value, you can use the tunnel as a way to build the love for the MM if you will want to use it for other training in the future.
>>The one time he leaps over the MM, it was because he considered running off to chase a dog off in the distance. >>
What a good boy to only consider it and NOT actually do it! Super!!!!
For the tunnel – in your next session, warm up with what you did here, and then switch his position so he starts on the threadle side and learns the turn away into the tunnel.
For the ‘get out’ session – yes, I can see the value of the prop, good boy! And that value gives us insight into how he will feel about obstacles on course 🙂 You did a fabulous job balancing the outs with tons and tons of “don’t go out” – definitely needed! So you can now add motion – lots and lots and lots of just move with me, don’t go out reps. You can have more room between you and the prop if he struggles (I think your spacing was good here, but we want him to have continued success, so feel free to change things if he has questions). On the ‘follow my line’ reps, you can help him with a bit of shaking of your dog-side arm so he can have a little extra visual motion to help take his eyes off the prop. I think motion will help him want to go to the prop so you can over-balance into the “come to me” reps.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
On the rocking horses –
Yes! This is the placement, great job! ! Keep adding that placement in, especially as you turn and rotate away so he can keep committing even as you rotate and leave earlier and earlier.Also, with all the other things to remember 🙂 – add in your wrap verbals. That will make more sense to him than the go go go to help him commit. Go will mean full on extension when he is on jumps, so we don’t want it to be paired with turns at this stage.
The minny pinny looked great too! I like the whole ‘no errors’ thing. Super! I would give him a couple more short sessions just like this one – he will let you know when he is ready for the middle wing to move out a little more because he will be bouncing and running more. That is a sign that he is super comfy with the setup – it is harder than it looks (easy for us humans because all we do is stand there and try to spit out the correct words LOL!). The middle wing does not need to move out much more, maybe a little bit, eventually. When he is older, we put this on jumps but I would wait on that til he is a little older and til you can do it on grass outside.
>>Only error was when he was looking for the toss before coming back to me, but no biggie, he only did that the one time.>>
It is possible that he legit thought there was a cookie out there because the verbals stopped. You can keep saying the left or right til he is over the third little bar, which helps him continue and make the last left or right turn before the reward. You can either stretch out the verbal so you say it 3 times (riiiiiiiight riiiiight riiiiiiight) or you can say it 100 times LOL!! Either way is good, there is no specific rule of thumb for how many times we should say things. You got quiet when he was on the middle one so he might have thought quiet meant cookie was thrown 🙂
Great job on these! He is showing fabulous progress!
TracyGood morning!
I am glad you had a great regional and congrats on the family success!!!! The course maps looked like great fun. And it was a great opportunity for baby dog training and it sounds like Ronan was perfect.On the videos:
For the wing wrap rocking horses, I don’t have real feedback, this is more of a running narrative about how great the session was LOL!!!! Spot on! Click/treat for you both!The first 1st rep was good but the 2nd rep was GREAT – note how far away he sent to the 2nd barrel and you left really early. So you were fully rotated, moving to the next line, and mostly done with the FC as he arrived at the barrel :10 and re-connected after the blind, and miles ahead when he exited the wrap at ;11.
You repeated that on the other side at :15 – :16 . When you added in the Turn and Burn exits, he was still great with his commitments and nailed it.You added speed since the two of you were really comfy and you continued to nail it like at :43 – you were moving faster but still nice and early – he was moving faster too and still great in his commitment and turns.
you made all of the handling look relaxed yet super on time and connected – hile movin greally fast. In response, Ronan looked super fast, connected, great turns… without any frantic behavior and without rushing. It is exactly what we want.
Fabulous connection on the racetracks – fabulous connection on all of the things here, truly!
So since you nailed this one, you can expand on the concepts 🙂 A couple of ideas:
– depending on how much time you have spent transferring concepts to actual wings, you can start to replace the barrels with wings. If he hasn’t really seen wings yet, you can play a little turn and burn on a wing, and do the beginning stages of the rocking horses with wings. My guess is that he will transfer the concept instantly.
– add more distance so you are both able to open up and use your ground speed. The challenge is then can you both run fast, decelerate, make the turn happen, then run fast the other way. And the racetracks will be more challenging when the barrels are 30 or 40 feet apart.
– add a tunnel in before the first barrel. So you would send to a tunnel wth you in the center of the barrels, so the exit lines him up to the first barrel. That will also add more excitement!Left/right turns look great on the minny pinny – he is really working his body through the bending! You can totally add your left/right verbals here, he seems ready for that (I don’t think you had them going here unless you were super quiet).
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! She is doing well here!!
On the porridge heating – I often feel like I need 3 hands to hold hte leash, the cookies, etc. LOL! You can have 2 or 3 treats in your hand and can be delivering one while reaching into the pocket to get the next one (leash looped over your wrist). Leash on the ground is fine at home, but you will also want to work in holding it for when you are in new places.
Great job keeping the treats in motion while you were rewarding her! You can also have her jump up a little and put her front feet up on you to get the reward – that really pumps up the engagement with a lot of food driven dogs.
One thing to clarify for her is the tossed treats – she has some distraction questions about getting stuff off the ground here and in the minny pinny – so if you toss a treat, use a distinct marker for that and at this stage… don’t do a lot of treat tossing 🙂 You were doing it here when you released from the stay, but that would be better if you rewarded from your hand to maintain the engagement. And when you do want to use a thrown food reward, use a lotus ball or treat hugger to get the food out on the line – but that lotus ball or treat hugger make it clear that it is just that one cookie, and to not snurffle around for more or look for food on the ground when the lotus or treat hugger are not out there 🙂
You can definitely take this game on the road, to see what helps get engagement in different locations! You can also try it with a toy!
Minny pinny 1 video:
She started off well with the toy, but then found a food wrapper on the floor – so for now, have all the rewards come from you in some way so we can shift the value off the floor 🙂 Moving to food rewards was definitely higher value for her! This looked strong when the food rewards came out!On the 2nd video – adding the bar was good she was fine with that when it was close. When you moved it further, she was great for the left turns, so she might be a lefty 🙂 You can keep that middle wing closer for the right turns and move it further for the left turns – it is perfectly normal for the 2 different directions to progress at different rates. You can add in tossing a toy or lotus ball or treat hugger between the bump and the 3rd wing, which is great and will definitely help to build the commitment especially on the right turns
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>.Is there an easier way to get to the latest post? Both my iPhone and iPad are having issues with the page loading and it kicks me off. There is a lot of content to load.>>
The software people are currently working on a feature to be able to flip the order of posts with newest on top – hopefully they are finished with it soon because we have been asking for a while. I noticed that my iPads were having the struggle you were mentioning so I updated them – now it is much better as long as I don’t scroll fast immediately. I force myself to wait a few seconds to let it all load, then it is fine. My Mac laptop, the PC and the android phone don’t have the same struggles with loading the big pages, so it is something with the mobile iOs and the software not speaking nicely to each other. The software folks should sort it soon.
>> But, I do notice on videos that she’s not lined up. I know I need to work on that, but I did try to be better in this video. She still seems to turn left better to me. Interesting that you thought right was better yesterday.>>
I thought she was lined up a lot better here! And that helped the overall session. The first rep each direction was challenging for her – she wants to go fast but needed to sort out her feet. The first rep to the right was more fluid on the first rep than the first left rep in terms of bending and where she was putting her feet between the bumps. Then happily, she looked pretty balanced and equal on both sides on the next reps. YAY! So, turning better one way or the other might have to do with the subtleties of the line up for now – I am fully confident she will sort it out and be nicely balanced.
It looked like all 3 wings were touching here, so you can move the middle wing a little further away. Start it with food rewards so she is a bit calmer so she can sort out her footwork, then go back to the toy.
Great job!
TracyGood morning! Lots of good work here!!! He is so fun!
First video:
Threadle – he is doing really well here! And it looked like he was happy to find the threadle entry from pretty much anywhere. YAY! One minor detail is to point your feet a little more towards the MM because that is the direction you will be moving in when we add motion (and we add motion tomorrow :))Question – was there a cookie in your threadle hand after the first couple of reps? He was pretty convinced he should stay at the threadle hand LOL! So do the threadle cue with an empty, open hand so he learns to turn his head away to the bump – and that is now when you can click the MM:
he comes in toward the threadle hand then turns to go to the bump. Click the moment he turns to look at the bump.And since we are now wanting him to consider going over the bump more, you can move the MM out a little so he fully goes over the bump to get to it.
The Minny Pinny is also going well! He did best when you had him line up at your side and gave him a clear step to start with a step (try not to say go :)), so feel free to use a good old fashioned cookie lure to line him up almost in heel position, facing the minny pinny 🙂 And you can totally repeat the verbal cue more than once (left, left, left) for each turn.
I think he is a lefty on this game! The left turn reps were all really strong on the wings, with the bumps, and when you moved the middle wing further out. Nice! The right turn reps where harder for him – on the wings, he was going through the wing on the right turns unless you helped with your hand – when that happens, rather than mark with a ‘no’ or withhold reinforcement (which sent him on a bit of a rage LOL), you can reward him and then adjust the setup to help him get it right – you can use a bump or wingless upright to make the gap in the wings smaller, so you can reward going all the way around the edge. And when he has a bunch of successful reps under his belt you can fade those and I bet he is still great 🙂
The right turns when you added the bumps were definitely harder for him, so it is fine to stick with just the wings for an extra session or two on the right turns (left turns can be on the bumps) and then add the bumps back in.
Good job with the porridge heating and the toy! He was not entirely sure about doing the hand touch with the toy right there, so you can scrunch up the toy so the hand touch is more obvious for now, then add it back in as a distraction later on. He was very happy to tug and his stay looked great!
Circle work – he was moving with you, but he was not sure if he was supposed to go to the wings or not. So, if you want him to just run with you, clear the area so you can both run run run without anything else around. And if you want the wings, get closer to them so he knows they are in play. For commitment purposes, with the wings that close, I would want the pups to go wrap the wings and not stay next to me 🙂
FC and spins on the barrel – his commitment is looking really good and he had some questions – I think the main thing here to focus on in clearer mechanics of when the toy is in play to tug on and when he should ignore it. It was dangling in front of him a lot, so he was slowing down and sometimes coming in to you rather than gong to the barrel or wing, as if asking if it was the toy or the barrel/wing. He was not entirely sure of where to look.So a couple of ideas to smooth it out:
– scrunch up the toy so it is less dangly and then when you do want him to tug on it, there will bea more obvious visual difference of when it is in play.
– use verbals to help him know the difference: use your verbal wrap cues for the barrel/wing, an use a “get the toy” marker when the toy is in play (I use ‘bite’ if I am not moving or a shhhhhhh noise if I am moving and want the dog to chase the toy). That should answer his questions. I think you said “get it” at 1:35 but I am not sure.Your connections looked strong overall! Yay! Super job working to be connected while you were moving! Only one connection oopsie was at :06 when you disconnected so he thought it was a blind and went ot the other side of you – you should totally reward that because we can assume when it happens that it was handler error 🙂
Wing wraps/head turns – he is definitely able to do the head turns really well! As with the minny pinny game, reset each rep by lining him up straight at your side, after each reinforcement rather than let him keep offering or try to statr the enxt rep from where he was already standing. So you can send him to the wing from your side, pull him through, turn his head, reward for the head turn, call him back line him up next to you facing the wing (reward or lure to get him there, he will enjpy the extra treats lol) then send him into the double wrap. That will make the mechanics super smooth for you both! When you were trying to start from where he was standing, the mechancis got a little more difficult and he didn’t know wha you wanted –
the questions he had were because he was starting facing you which made it hard for you to set the turn for him. At 1:36 when you lined him up better, that rep was much stronger! Yay! He was not entirely facing the wing but it was still a good reset – same at 1:54, nice reset set up a nice wrap!! So his questions were not because he wasn’t thinking, it was more that he needed a clear starting point and was frustrated when he didn’t know what to do.Great job on these! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
I am loving her value for her prop LOL!!! Lots of drive to it and strong paw smacks 🙂On the parallel path game – you can stop clicking at this point because it is getting her to look at you more than needed. You can replace the click with your get it marker and toss the cookie or toy. Her parallel path game looks really strong, so you can work the concept transfer now on a jump if you haven’t done so already.
For the rear crosses – I think you will need more room at this point – maybe the garage? Or if you are in a bigger training facility you can play with it more. You will want to start her further back from the prop with enough space that, as she is still a stride or so away from the prop, you are already pretty much done cutting behind her to the new side (which means you need to have enough room to be moving up your rear cross line as she is still 10 feet from the prop because she is long and quick 🙂
So for example at :43 and :55 (and the other RC reps), she was arriving at the prop and you were still on the original side, just starting the RC info. I got those moments in screenshots and put them here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1toOM0_-7jlKgo_W7e7UWwkS-n9LeNlVmK3253KCwjeM/edit?usp=sharing
Compare that to the 3 shots with Elektra that I added on page 2: she is still a step away from her prop and I am pretty visible on the new side. You can see it especially in the 3rd screenshot where I am on the new side and she is turning her head the new direction.
Good job with your reward placement, especially at 1:53, 2:05 and 2:29 when yo uused your arm to help her find the new direction. Keep going with that placement – the placement plus an earlier cue will get the RCs going really well!!
>>What skills should we have for the next class? If we do a working spot and we’re behind can we post exercises from this class still?
Wings wraps and tunnel understanding, primarily. An intro to the parallel path over a bar is good too. All of those games build off of these games 🙂 And yes, you can post some of these games in that one, because they serve as the foundation skills.
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
