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Hi! Great seeing you last night!
I agree, motion is the biggest thing for him. Rewarding that start wing will help him have more value, which should also increase thoughtfulness while you move 🙂
And using a start wing instead of a collar hold or cookie toss is probably the best thing, so he is happy and calm and not angry. 🙂
TracyYes! The start of each session will set the tone – start each session a couple of steps easier than where you left off. It is better to be able to immediately increase difficulty than to have to immediately dial it back or have an error.
Good morning!
>>I moved doing the running contact foundation downstairs where we have more room to do it and she can run more but I can’t get her out of a trot in a way that isn’t adversely affecting her inteeraction with the mat (ie running across it).
Don’t worry about it 🙂 She doesn’t need to run any time soon – I believe she just turned 7 months? So we don’t want any speed until she is more grown and has more coordination and a couple of other foundation games under her belt. The RC methods all increase the speed naturally when planks and other things get involved, but she is still a solid 5 or 6 months away from that. The only thing she needs now is to just enjoy trotting across her mat 🙂 We do have more games coming, but there is no rush at all. This is about the age of puppyhood where I turn off social media so I don’t have to see same age puppies doing contacts or sequences 🙂
>>On the good news side of things – she is backing up almost 10′ to a mat. YAY!
YESSSS that is a more important RC foundation that running across the mat is!!!
>> Looking forward to the next one although I am going to have trouble with space I think so might not be able to do some things.
Fingers crossed for great weather ahead for all of us!!
Tracy
Hi! I will be getting video with the toy dragging so folks can see the mechanics – I have plenty of video without the toy dragging but no agility videos with the toy dragging. Stay tuned!
T
Good morning!
Happy birthday, Ripley!!!! It is going to be a great year 🙂
>>When I saw Ginger’s thread I realized I hadn’t done much with jumping drills for a few months and that the last time I was doing setpoint I didn’t let him jump more than I think 12″.
Yes, it is hard to do any real jumping skills with baby dogs. If have found that if we do all the other baby dog stuff and wait til they are grown, coordinated and strong before introducing jumping skills – the results are fabulous 🙂 I think he is a good age to begin learning these concepts!
>>I like your suggestion to Ginger to drag the toy and walk. I do feel like getting the head down and not having it rise too abruptly at the end of the second jump in anticipation of stopping is hard with the dead toy or treat.>
I stole – oops, I mean *transferred* – that from my flyball work hahaha. I needed to get my 2 year old’s dog head down on the jumping while carrying the ball because we were working on very specific striding to chop of a 1/10th a second (yes, obsessive hahaha) so I decided to play with the toy dragging. Immediate results there, which also transferred immediately to his agility jumping too. More speed, better organization, better form, no slamming shoulders into the ground trying to stop, more power because he knew he didn’t have to stop. A win-win! I changed my tune a LOT when rehabbing a dog from patella surgery – the rehab vet made it super clear that the mechanics of stopping were as important as any other mechanics involved with jumping or running, and setting up the stopping was super important for form and safety. Flyball sets up the stopping very carefully from the very first moment because the dogs are coming in so hot and I certainly did not pay enough attention to that in agility. It has been a big eye-opener for me!
Looking back over the years, I am not entirely sure why we agility people decided that jump grids should be done to a ‘dead’ reward – my guess is that originally we assumed that a moving toy would be too distracting and they dogs would develop poor form. But in training lately, I think we have all ‘upped’ our game in terms of toy play, etc and by the time the dogs are old enough to be doing jumping grids, they know how to organize themselves in the face of a moving toy without getting overstimulated (yet another reason to NOT start jump grids with baby puppies!)
>>And, check, check on minimal “jumping days”.>>
Yeah – I try to follow orders from the sports vets and rehab vets. They are very specific about what to do and when to do it, and since I am just a dog trainer and they are the body experts – I just do what they say, when they say to do it. LOL!!! I also subject them to videos of the training concepts to make sure that it is safe.
This was a good session wiht the oxer! A lot of these early sessions are about figuring out what elicits the best form – you were playing with different placement of reinforcement, jump height, etc. He started off a bit ‘hoppy’ over the oxer when hte toy was close (definitely better than looking at you on the first rep) and I think he was definitely better with the toy moved much further out so he had a solid 2 strides or so to land then go to the toy. I would definitely be interested in seeing how he did with a dragging toy, like a hollee roller on a line that is dragging the whole time so it is moving before the release. I believe he has the understanding to hold the stay while the reward is dragging until the release. You can warm up the concept on the flat and then start it on the low oxer.
The other thing I see here is that he taps his front feet on the ground before the first jump rather than just taking off from his rear. That changes the mechanics over both bars so it would be interesting to see what he does without the tap. The closest he came to not tapping was at :53, so it will be interesting to see what happens if we set up no tapping by starting him just a couple of inches away from the first bar (first bar set at 4 or 6, or can be a bump). That will mean an immediate push off from the rear followed by immediate organization to push off again! You can start it without the moving toy an then try the moving toy.
here are some visuals without the tapping – on a couple of them, I use cross bars to get the no-tap form. These were all from before the toy-dragging got added in, I need to get videos of what it looks like with the toy dragging so you can see the difference in mechanics.
Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
I really like that facility! I am jealous that it is so close to you!
She did really well here – she is absorbing the new skill really easily. YAY!!!
two ideas about structure of the sessions to help get immediate success (she fails the first time of the new challenge and that is more due to the structure of the session):When you start each session, start with a slightly easier rep of wherever you left off on the last session. In this session, I think you started with a higher level difficulty and criteria here which set up the failure on the first rep – tunnel nearby, lots of motion, really high bar on the distraction jump. So, she started with an error. Have your first rep or two be a bit easier than how you left off successfully on the last session, as a warm up – it is better to dial up criteria than to dial it back, especially because getting the first rep correct sets the groundwork for getting the first rep correct in the trial ring too! I prefer to keep the distraction bar low the whole time anyway, as it is actually more difficult that way: a low bar is easier to pop over than the high bar is 🙂
Same thing when adding something new to the setup, like with adding the tunnel… start with an easy angle to the wrap wing, like starting from the exit of the tunnel with you walking, then when adding the tunnel, be sure to use a turn cue on it before she enters (and still have less motion from you so only one variable changes) – she was not wrong on the first tunnel rep to exit on the line she took, but she didn’t see the wrap wing so she had a failure.
It is definitely a balancing act LOL!! Think of it as going back and forth between an easy rep and a hard rep and an easy rep and so on, so that she can be successful immediately and also when you add more challenge.
Good job getting the placement of reinforcement generally back to her at the wing! That really helps! Keep trying to remember to use a ‘get it’ marker instead of yes there – I know I am a pain in the butt hahahaha but that will really help to keep her from looking at you on course when you say “yes”.
This game can go on the back-burner til next week when we add to it a bit 🙂 New games posted today 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>>OMG! I think you need a class on throwing toys!!! Sly says PLEASE!!!!! Spent most of this session trying to figure out throwing a toy..timely, right spot, etc. etc I left of few of my ‘finer” throws in for your viewing pleasure but figured you had better things to do with your time than watch them all!!!>>
Ha! They were not too bad, I did like the cussing though LOL!!!! I figure at this stage, it is better to sometimes have a crappy throw than to place the reward or to only reward from hand. As long as Sly is happy, it is all good LOL! And he seemed happy here, as well as fast and accurate. Yay!
>> this was a good learning session…more for me than Sly
I’d say this is true about most of the training sessions – more for us than for the dogs!
And you can warm up your mechanics without him – do the pattern of movement and toy throw a few times before he enters the room 🙂
>>Totally forgot my Get It cues and only in the last couple of reps did I remember to try a different tone/cadence with the Gos.>>
Perfect – that was going to be my only suggestion, add the ‘get it’ and let the GO have more urgency. He seemed to do really well with all of it so you can handle even less – stay at the start wing until he exits it then jog forward the whole time, just straight, no decel, no acceleration – and he will be driving ahead and responding to verbals. It simulates what happens on bigger courses. Ad you can totally move the start wing further away in case you don’t have enough room to do this without running into the wing of the first jump 🙂
Great job!! You can totally switch sides for left and right within the same session, I think he will be fine with that.
TracyGood morning! (or is it night there?)
Oh no – computer crash and no phone? That does make things harder! But this camera got the job done 🙂
Fusion’s left and right looked really good! I think the errors early in the video were line up errors: you did not have a clean start like at :09 where she was facing you and you cued right, so she didn’t really look at the setup before moving. I couldn’t see the other line ups but the correct reps were probably clean start lineups. You can add in the start wing before this setup now, so both of you have more motion (remember to keep moving, no standing still :))
Veloz also did well – getting him to start properly lined up is important but also we don’t want to fight with him about it – so for him, also add in the start wing about 3 metres away. You an wrap him around the start wing, then move forward to the turn wing for the left or right. That will get the clean start without him getting angry about coming close or ding collar holds.
Fusion serp’s look good too!!! On the first part of the video, the position of the start wing made things harder which is probably why you felt like you were behind and not getting enough turn: you can move the start wing further away parallel to the jump so you can send to it more and get further ahead – it was far from the jump but a bit too perpendicular which made it harder for you to be past the jump on the first part. Compare that wing position to the wing position on the 2nd part – you had a much better position for that start wing so you were further ahead and she was great. Also great job with the verbals! So for this game – move the wing further away and add more of your running (new game using this concept was added today as well).
Veloz’s video – he was REALLY great about staying engaged here! Yay! VERY nice!
With him, the line ups are the hard part here on the backsides (as you already know LOL!) – he fights being held so you are sideways and not moving, and moving is important for the backside slices. You can get a clean start without holding him by throwing a treat for him to get about 2 metres behind you, on the line you will want him to move on. As soon as he gets the treat and turns back to the line towards the jump, you can start walking forward and say the backside slice verbal. that can get your motion involved while he is moving too, without having to fight with him about being held.For the backside circle wraps – for now, don’t use a bar, just use the wing. He doesn’t want to do the full circle on the bar for now because he is not committing as you are moving past the wing – so he is shaping you to stay on the landing side of the wing. So, using just a wing will help him because you can keep moving forward (slowly) and tossing the reward behind you, without the challenge of the jump bar there. The goal is that you can be on the takeoff side while he is wrapping, not the landing side. When he will let you do that, you can add more and more speed.
Serps – because of his speed, try to start near the serp jump and send him all the way away to the start wing. You are starting very close to the start wing here so he is outrunning you to the jump (and not getting the soft turn). Starting with a big send to the start wing will help commitment with the verbal and will also help you be able to out run him past the serp jump safely 🙂
Great job! Both dogs are doing well! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning! I am glad the Training Night Chats are helping!
>> I am pretty sure they are relying more on my body movement than the verbals but my understanding is that this is what we should expect in the beginning.>>
Yes, this is correct – mainly to teach the dog what the setup is about and to elicit the behavior. As soon as we can get the behavior going, we start to fade the body cues – you still move (no standing still) but you handle less. More below on that.
>.Both dogs seemed to have trouble with the go. I think they might be used to me moving faster with “go” which I guess means that they don’t really know the verbal.>>
Yes – they are still learning what Go means but also using it on this setup (wing and jump) is confusing. No need for a Go balance on the wing and jump, you can wait for that when you have 2 jumps. The 2 jump setup allows us to mark being straight over jump 1 (and throw past jump 2) but that behavior is really hard to get because there is just a wing here – and the wing is only for turning (dogs never learn a Go on a wing to just run past it). That is why you couldn’t get the Go unless you ran (but with the wing there the motion put rear cross pressure on the line so they turned the other way on the jump sometimes too).
So, no need for the Go in the wing and jump setup, you can revisit it when you go to the next step with 2 jumps.
On Keltie’s video:
She is doing really well!! I think the left turns where she had questions were because you were blocking the wing – you were line up facing the center of the bar of the distraction jump, so she couldn’t really see the wing and was either wide of took the jump. When you did the right turns, you were in a perfect spot, facing the wing, so she could see it the whole time and set up great turns. Yay!
The Go lines did seem weird to her because she didn’t want to ignore the wing, so you can try those when you go to 2 jumps.I think the food toy is a good choice for her!! If you throw it and it ends up being a bad throw (for the incorrect behavior, for example) – it is OK to just let her have it 🙂 That gets filed into the ‘human error’ category and we don’t want to dilute her drive to the food toy by grabbing it before she gets there.
Buccleigh also did really well! Yay!
>> I was really proud of him because he was getting a little frustrated and starting to bark (with the go command) but I used some of the games you taught us in an earlier course and he stayed focused.>>
Yes! It looks like you were using reset cookies and helping him, so he was able to avoid getting really frustrated. The Go was frustrating him because it didn’t make sense to ignore the wing – so that will be a good one to revisit on 2 jumps.
His left and right soft turns looked really good here – he was tight and fast! Your position was good, it looks like he could see the wing really well and drove to it beautifully.
So with both dogs, you can go to the next step: adding a start wing before this wing and jump setup. That will build up more speed and also allow you to handle less while staying in motion. What I mean by that is – after you wrap the start wing – walk straight towards the turn wing, saying the verbal, but don’t turn your shoulders or move laterally to also cue the turn. Just go straight. If they are both fine with that with you walking, add jogging and running! And if they are happy with that – replace the turn wing with a jump 🙂 And at that point, you can add in the Go balance reps too.
Great job! Fingers crossed for more good weather!
TracyGood morning!
>> I have visions of what things should look like, but my reality doesn’t always match!
that is because social media likes to show us photos of BCs and tiny shelties being spaghetti noodles around jumps LOL!! I blame a lot on social media LOL!!!
She did really well here with the set point. I think I like her set point work slightly better with you are moving/dragging in the toy. I know, I know, conventional wisdom on set points/grids says for the owner to stand still and the toy should be stationary. But most dogs organize better with the owner walking (support the jumping effort) and the toy dragging (which supports the lowered head position). And with the toy moving, the dog only has to coordinate ONE thing – the jumping. With the toy ‘dead’, she has to multi-task the jumping AND the stopping. So the jumping is not as good because the dog is also preparing to stop. Let me know if that makes sense 🙂 Try the dragging the next time you do any jumping and see how it goes!
>. I’ll work on extension tomorrow.
She is of the age now that you’ll have to start a training calendar of jumping days versus non-jumping days. At most, do 3 times a week and a day off in between (or two days). That allows for latent learning and also any soreness to resolve – all those new muscles getting a workout! If we work the dogs and there is anything slightly off from the previous day, they compensate and change their jumping style. So if she jumped 3 times this week, give her a day or two then do the extensions, you’ll get better results 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
I am happy to see Wilder here! I am glad he is feeling better 🙂Great list of verbals! Be sure to make tight and right sound different in terms of delivery style, keeping tighttighttight short and quiet for the wrap and extending riiiight riiiiight riiiiight for the soft turn.
The serps part 1 looked fabulous!!! He took the jump each time and you got faster and faster. The further ahead you get, the harder it is for him to sort out the jumping . He had one bar down so I tried to figure out what was different – that was the first time the toy was in your right hand (dog side hand) rather than the left hand (opposite) hand. It is amazing that the dogs see the little details like that! Having the toy in your right hand there changed your shoulder position so he couldn’t process that AND the jumping. But you repeated it twice more after that, slowly then with more speed – and he was perfect again. Yay! So keep adding more speed and getting ahead, but separately. For the more speed, you can start closer to the start wing so you are rushing across the serp jump more. For the further ahead challenge, position yourself at the center of the serp jump to send to the start wing, so you then be MUCH further ahead but without running. that way we only add one distraction at a time 🙂 And if he is fine with both? Merge them together so you are fast AND way ahead 🙂
Backside slices – these are really hard indeed! Baby steps are the answer for sure – putting the bar as low as possible will help, any element of height makes it harder. And, the line up/start will help: ideally the verbal starts and he hears it a few times before you both start to move. The reps here had the verbal and motion starting at the same time, so I think he was relying more on motion than on the verbal because he took the front when the angle was too hard.
Normally I would suggest holding his collar, saying the verbal, then letting go… but he is so small that collar-holding is HARD!!! So the help we can give him is maybe using a harness and light tab, so you can hold him by the tab, facing the line, say the verbals a few times, then let go so you both start moving. That can get us that time between the verbal and the motion to emphasize the verbal, without requiring you to bend over too much or kill your back (I pulled a muscle in my back yesterday so I am especially sensitive in to protecting backs today! Eek!
And as you do that, keep the line up angle pretty easy for a few sessions, so he is either facing the direct line to the backside or very close to the direct line, and he will get there without you having to help with motion towards it (you will be moving forward and straight) – that will help pump up the rate of success, and you can gradually move over (it takes me a whole bunch of sessions to be able to move over – note how I got out my 9 year old dog to do the harder demos LOL!)
The other thing that can help is to use the partial jump setup, just one wing and the angled bar – that can give a bigger visual to the backside wing without the visual lure of the full jump (because he has so much value on the front side of a jump :))
He did well on the big GO line! You can throw the reward sooner and use a ‘get it’ marker, so he doesn’t look back at you.
He also did super well with the circle wraps with the new verbal! YAY!!! You don’t need the bar on these, he will get the concept on the wing alone without the repetitive jumping. This particular jumping challenge is so hard for the dog’s body that we want to keep it really limited. Plus, you can throw the reward nice and early without worrying about him landing on the bar to get it (if there is no bar LOL!) You can challenge now, by starting on harder angles and also add more speed to this by starting further away.
The dig and tight looked good on front side too, no problems and super nice collection!Great job on these! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>>I hear there are rumors of me forcing people to post footage. I’m sorry if that doesn’t align with the values of AU.
Ha! Don’t you know the “A” in AU stands for Accountability? Accountability University, that’s us LOL!
FABULOUS job on these 2 runs. The happiest thing is to be able to look at a youngster beginning his trial career and only seeing “baby dog” things like not always finding the line on those big distances. He looked happy, he was FAST, he was correct with his behaviors, he looked pretty comfy in the environment. The rest comes with more experience on big wide lines. You were a connected momma who made GREAT choices for the baby dog, and I think he had a great experience. Ideally you can sneak in some UKI or USDAA so you can throw some toys on the big lines, so he learns to pick up those jumps that he missed here – but that can also be done in practice using big wide open spacing. I am so happy for you both!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We need to go out for oysters and beverages to celebrate!!!!
Tracy
Good morning!
Wow, I think she was doing REALLY well here with both of these difficult skills!!!! Processing for sure!!! You were really great with your line ups, starts, reinforcement, etc. Click/treat for you 🙂
Backside slice:
She did a fabulous job here 🙂 It is probably the hardest game in this class so far.
It was hard to tell if you were starting the verbal and moving at the same time, or if she was leaving you the instant she heard the verbal LOL!!! As long as she tells us she is able to do it, keep going this way (if she starts to have errors, try not to let her leave you until after she has heard the verbal cue a couple of times).
To get even more independence on the backside slices, you can throw the toy a little sooner for the backside slices, as soon as you see her arriving at the outer edge of the entry wing, which will allow you to begin moving away even sooner. Your motion up the line to the jump looked good!!!>>Still needs more practice before we can get more speed.>>
Yes, this is really hard, so you can add more speed very gradually, there is no rush 🙂
>Caught myself saying YES too, will work on saying GET IT instead.
I feel this pain LOL! It takes a lot of brain power for me to stop saying Yes LOL!
Your backside wrap session went really well too – it is a super hard skill because there is so much collection and countermotion without any real physical help from us 🙂 She was great!
She was highly successful here. Looking at the 2 errors –
the error at :33 was not a handling error in terms of the line you were moving on. I think you were just too speedy in that moment, for her current level of independence. You can move a little less fast but on the same line. She was happy to let you move at that speed when she was wrapping to her right on the other side, so it is also possible that the circle wraps to the left are harder for her.The other oopsie was at 1:22 and I think that was more of the start angle – you were possibly blocking the line to the wing. You started on a better angle on the next 2 reps at 1:30 and 2:00, and she nailed it even with you running fast. YAY!!!
All she needs here, then, is a more practice on the circle wraps starting on your right so she is wrapping to her left, with you getting faster and faster. And you can add harder angles when she is on your left, wrapping to her right.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
