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Ah! Got it. You probably don’t need it, you can probably use your left/right or wrap directionals on it!
Good morning!
I like that you were adding the leash into your process! Very helpful for a baby dog to learn to deal with the leash as part of the line up.
Bearing in mind that we don’t want to use just handling here, that we want emphasize the verbal understanding separate from handling – we can smooth out your mechanics to get him understanding even more. The backsides and left/right are so awesome when they don’t require handling!!
For the backsides -to get the true independence we want, be more precise with the mechanics. You were using the physical cues to sed him to the backside from the wing wrap – for example at :34, you pushed all the way to the backside. So yes, he can do that, but he is relying on your being ahead and stepping to the backside. So for now – don’t use the start wing. Line him up at your side, holding his collar, start the backside word then let g so both of you move forward. The first bunch of reps should be with him lined up facing a very straight direct line to the outer edge of the backside wing – if that goes well without you having to step to the backside, with you just moving forward, then you can move your line up over so he is facing the wing or where the wing meets the bar. Everything stays the same: the line up, the verbals start while you are holding him, you let go and move straight forward and do not handle to the backside – let him find it in on the verbal.
The other thing that will really help is the reward placement – the reward should be in your hand and dropped on the landing side of the jump right near the bar, rather than delivered from your hand with him coming back to you – we want him to take that jump no matter where you are and without needing to even really see you.
the second part of the video had the serpentines – I will bug you about the mechanics here too 🙂 For now, only use a wing and a jump and start yourself at the jump, sending to the wing. On these reps, you started with him at the jump and then were too far behind to cue the left or right – so he was confused and the verbals didn’t really match. By starting at the wing of the jump. sending him to the start wing and then being ahead on the serp line, you can use your left and right while also showing the lines you want.
Nice work here, so now we can isolate the mechanics. Fingers crossed for now more wind and rain!
Good morning!
>>I’m going to be creative and use “left” and “right”.
Brilliant! Great minds think alike hahahaha
>>I do however want to spend some good quality time on my soft turns as those are completely new and something I think could really help us.>>
I agree – these are the MOST used verbals and yet somehow the least trained. We use left/right a lot more than wraps or backsides, particularly is your primary competition venue is AKC or USDAA.
But before we skip wraps entirely… you can use her strong foundation in them to get her WILD and BARKING LOL!!! There was a Christine in the Zoom last night that mentioned that her dog also uses verbals on course hahahaha so you can use the strong wrap behavior to get her to ‘listen’ and not just talk 🙂 A tug toy as the jazzing up toy, then holding her collar with a bit of READY READY READY then say the verbal (wrap versus go, using the 2 jumps) and move forward… that will be very helpful in the listen-don’t-talk department LOL!
She was great here with the left and right.
>>Is it ok that I’m throwing the treat as a lure on the line before she turns back to me?>>
yes! But it is not a lure – it is just good solid placement of reinforcement done quickly! A lure would be out there before you even send her to the wing. Good placement happens when you toss it as soon as you see an approximation of the behavior you want. Right before you toss, I recommend a ‘get it’ markers so she doesn’t look at you – get it will tell her to look ahead, helping get her eyes off you even more.
Since this was such a strong session to get things rolling, you can move that distraction jump in a little closer. Add more motion with the wing – getting her jazzed up with holding her collar and a clean start, then jog forward. And if that goes well, add the start wing so she is going faster. I think her barking will increase when she is going faster – and since she barks on course, we do NOT want to avoid it in training. We need her to learn to process even while she is wanting to sing the big songs.
if it goes well for a couple of sessions with the start wing and both of you moving more? replace the turn wing with the jump, and add in the GO reps for balance. That is where things will get exciting 🙂
And separately you can be doing the exit line games too!
Great start here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHowdy!
Great questions!
Question 1: I think you are defining the left/right verbals in a way that is going to limit their use:
Think of defining most of the verbals as cuing the dog’s behavior regardless of your behavior. Left and right should not be positional or you are going to lose some of the power of the verbal. If it is positional, you are limited to only using it in those positions – which means you need to be visible in those positions reliably so he doesn’t have to process where you are before processing the verbals. And by locking the left/right in as positional verbals, then you need a whole host of additional verbals (I can see it was already making your head spin a little LOL!)So, left and right are HIS behavior – like when you say “sit”, he should sit regardless of where you are or what you are doing. That opens up a TON of uses for the verbal especially when you are not ahead of him.
So for the serp line here: the left on the wing is obvious, yes. The right verbal happens as he is exiting the wing to indicate what to do on the serp jump (not the jump after it). The line on the serp jump is a classic example of a right turn – in this case, his right turn behavior turns him away from you, yes, but that doesn’t mean it is not a right turn. It is not a switch, or rear cross, or get out, or threadle 🙂 It is a right turn on way to the serp jump so he lands parallel to the bar per the definition. Making it positional (meaning he has to be on your left side is limiting. Or, you can think of it as he IS on your left side – back in the says when we do 2 FCs or the left arm as serp arm – so there is a left side element to it if you want to think of it that way.
I just prefer to think of it as: dog turns right, doesn’t matter what I am doing. Some verbals have to be positional (threadles!) but most do not, and it is much easier to not have to worry about your behavior, only his behavior 🙂
You might also be thinking that the right turn cue is for what would be jump 3 in a serpentine? It is not – the right verbal is for exiting what would be jump 1 (the wing here) to get the correct turn on jump 2, the serp jump. When he lands from jump 2, he should be facing jump 3 because you said right LOL and then when he lands, the turn you want on jump 3 is the verbal you are using there – if you just keep moving forward and he has done his right turn, he will automatically take jump 3.
Question 2:
Type your verbals definitions out, woman! That list of definitions makes this much easier LOL
I think you are over-complicating it – yes, you can do a rear cross on the flat if that was actually what the next line is… but the rear cross on the flat is for jump 3 not jump 2 (I would be saying right for that one too, naming the dog’s behavior). On a regular serp with no rear cross, if he turns right before taking off for the serp jump, you would just keep running.If you do a FC after the start wing and he approaches the middle jump on your left, the verbal is ‘right’. But his behavior remains the same (‘turn to your right’) when you are on the landing side of the serp jump, so you don’t need to limit yourself to left/right being positional. Let me know if that makes sense.
Tracy
Hi! Thanks for posting this… you are probably moving to the harder levels too quickly, so she is having to process a whole lot of things and has some questions 🙂
I think her jumping effort on the serpentines looks good! We can change your mechanics to help make it look and feel more comfortable on the backsides.On the serp at the beginning: looked great! Just make sure you are calling the correct verbals -the right on the first rep is only for the wing, so switch to left as she gets to the wing so she gets the left turn on the jump. For the second rep, start with left for the wing but then switch to right for the jump.
On the backside slices –
>> I thought my body language all pointed to the back of the jump along with my verbal back
Yes, we want the back verbal but we don’t want your body language pointing to the backside – you should be facing straight. On the video, you were helping too much with the sending and getting her to take the jump, so she was watching you over the bar or looking at your motion 🙂 And I think you went to step 3 too fast – it should take multiple sessions to get there, and I only posted them this morning LOL!
So looking at the mechanics:
On the line up – you should both be facing completely straight. You were angled towards the backside wing, which will get her to take it with handling but not necessarily the verbal. So start a little further back, both of you facing the outer edge of the wing – hold her longer so you can start the verbal as she is next to you . Then just let go and walk forward with no other indication of the backside 🙂
At :41, for example, both of you were angled facing the entry and you stepped to the backside. She went… but it was handling not verbal that got her there. Having you face forward, start the verbal, then let her go while you just move forward will help her learn the verbal independently. That way you can start to move further across the bar, then eventually add the Step 3 of front versus backside.And about the slices: as soon as you know she is going to the backside, drop the toy in on the landing side as you move away. You were handing the reward to her so she was just watching you. By dropping it to the landing spot regardless of your motion, you will get her to take the jump no matter what you do, which will set up some beautiful slice lines!
She did well with the backside circle wrap on one jump – but you are skipping steps 🙂 and I will bug you about that. You will want her to set up a tighter turn over the bar, closer to the wing – so use the wing and jump setup so you can run hard through it and she goes really tight around the wing. She was getting the direction of turn here, but she was mainly turning after she landed rather than before takeoff. By doing it on a tall bar without the foundation of the wing-jump setup was causing her to lead from her front more than set her hind end.
Your angle of line up was really good, so keep that angle but work it on the wing & jump setup for this week – we really want the dogs to turn before they takeoff and this foundation will help get that.
So overall she is doing well, and it is my job to make sure you don’t skip steps so we can build the really independent verbals 🙂
Tracy
Hi!
She totally looked more rounded here!!
>> had it set at 4 ft. Found a clean run article and I thought that’s what it said for medium dogs.
I guess they didn’t define large or medium LOL! She is a large dog, in agility 🙂 My terrier mixes are medium dogs (15″ tall approx). 5 feet worked better for Sprite for sure, and maybe 5.5 will be the sweet spot. The heights looked good! I think the dragged toy reps were better – she was powering more 🙂
So this can stay here for a few more sessions, spread out over the week, then raise the 2nd bar to 12.
>>I think I remember Susan Salo using a double ascending as well.
Yes – when the bar on jump 2 is up to 12 and she is happy with that, you can do a double ascending on an 8 & 12 inch bar.
T
Hi!
I hope Wilder feels better ASAP!!!! Poor little guy!!!!Lit’l Bit did a great job stepping in for her brother!
On the first video – great job with your motion, verbals and reward placement! Lovely session. She only had one question:
at :24 she thought your jogging in place was a trick of some sort LOL!! She didn’t trust that ‘right’ was the release word wen you were doing that so she went back into the sit stay – clever!!! Then you helped her out with a ‘ready’ and she was fine 🙂On the 2nd video:
>>I had to target past the 2nd jump to “engage” the 2nd jump, but after that on the right turns Lit’l Bit continued to go straight. When I targeted right turn after 1st jump she got it and back to turning right.>>
>>>>I noticed that I am turning my shoulders for almost all of the turn jumps with success. In a few my shoulders were straight and she continued to the 2nd jump instead of turning.It was interesting to see how she got locked onto the 2nd jump – she is definitely good at reading motion, so she saw you facing forward and went forward. Good to know! by targeting the right turn, she had a bit of a lightbulb moment: “I can turn right even when the momma is facing forward!” Yay! So that was a useful help for her, and you did it correctly by fading the target pretty quickly. On the left side, I think the layout of the room was causing there to be a bit o a decel/turn for you, so she got her left turns well.
The other thing you can do to help separate the verbals from motion is to say the verbal a few times, and then do a small shoulder turn – that can help her learn that the verbal predicts the physical cue, so she starts to turn on the verbal cue alone. The trick is that you don’t do them simultaneously (because she will only process the physical cue if they are simultaneous) – start the verbal as you are moving forward and after you say it 2 or 3 times, then turn your shoulders.
I think it will be easier in a bigger space either outside or at the ring rental – you can start further back so she has more time to hear the verbal and process it, and you can also spread the jumps out more (maybe 8 feet apart?) so that 2nd jump is not as tempting 🙂
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>> Also, thank you for calling me out on my marker cues. I turn on the video and forget I have them apparently. >>
Ha! I feel this! I have all sorts of words and then the minute I take the leash off the younger dogs, all I can spit out is “yes!” hahaha!
Training in the bigger space looked great!!
One setup tweak for the first game here:
Have the start wing lined up more center or on the line to the turn wing of the jump so you are not blocking the center of the bar and can just move forward to/past the exit wing.I see what you mean about him curling in – it was happening after he landed, not over the bar. I think what was happening was that you were waiting to be sure he was correct, and he is still learning that left/right/Go also predict reward placement. With that in mind – he had a really high rate of reinforcement and did not seem to have any questions (he had one go where he was looking at going to the far end of the tunnel perhaps) so I wouldn’t change much for now other than saying ‘get it’ sooner (as soon as you see his head turned to the correct direction) and maybe having the toy thrown from the hand closer to the landing line for the left/right turn. If he is turning right, have it in your right hand (and left hand for a left turn) – that way you can use fling it into position and you don’t have to turn and throw. That can make it a heartbeat faster.
So for this game, next time you have room to do it… more motion! He looks ready 🙂
Game 3 looked fabulous, good boy! This is a hard game and he only seemed to have one question (1:47, where you were cuing a wrap and I think he would not have wrapped if you hadn’t dropped the toy in early LOL!) For the wrap reinforcement – try to have him come back to you to really solidify that wrap means come all the way back. The ball as reward was super high value but balls also predict being throw out away on the line. So, you can have him come back towards you and then throw the ball behind you (I wouldn’t want to deprive him of his ball!)
Only one other suggestion: on the left turns, you were a little too far over towards the wing, almost blocking it. Your line on the right turns was more halfway between the jump and the wing – perfect! So try to match your left turn line of motion to the one you did on the right turn.He is ready for you to add more of your motion on this game too! Great job here 🙂 Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>>But then I found that she came in closer to my line, and took the wrong side of the wing. So then I put in the opposite wing (to make it look more like a jump), and she still went around the wrong side of the wing. So then I put in a very low bar, so that she knew it was a jump – then she got it again, and did both left and right turns correctly most of the time. But then I discovered that I didn’t have the video on (Grrrrr!) >>
Argh! I feel that pain! So frustrating! Bummer that we don’t have video of her questions, but maybe we will see her ask them again at some point.
>>I suppose I should really have added in some “go” reps, but the way I set it up, with as much distance as I could get between the starter wing and the turning wing, I didn’t really have room to send her over both jumps.>>
You can move the jumps closer to the start wing, and lower the bars to 4 inches to work the go concept in a smaller space (the bars are too high here for Go with the jumps this close and not a lot of landing room). See below for more about the Go 🙂
First video: She is doing well but had she good questions about the soft turns.
One of the things we are going to add to help her is a distinct difference in the delivery of the word, rather than just saying the word. The sound and style of delivery will get processed before the actual word, especially for young dogs. So, on the left turns here, you were loud and long and urgent which is very similar to GOOO GOOO so the verbal did not override motion when you continued to move forward (she got it when you decelerated).So think of the volume and length and general tone of the verbals to fall into one of 3 categories: -forward cues (GO!, backside push, etc) are loud and long, yelling them is fine 🙂
– Tight turns like wraps should be very quiet, slowly chattered like a whisper 🙂
– And the soft turn left/right cues should be in between: conversational volume a little longer, not yelled and not urgent. Almost “chill” LOL!I think in this session, the left/right verbals sounded a lot like the forward cue verbals so she was going forward more than she was turning. If you can change the style of how you say them (slow them a bit and say them quieter) she will be able to get them a lot between as you move forward.
And since when you are moving fast and forward, she is having trouble processing the verbals without decel – keep moving forward and don’t decel, but do it slowly for both the soft turns and the go reps. I think the running in place might have been perceived as decel, because there was motion but you were not moving as much – so you can start right with her on the start wing so you have room to move forward.
She gets a big gold star at :58 – you started out totally pressuring the line to the backside then she processed the right verbal and came to the front side – but because of that she did not have enough time or space to NOT take the 2nd jump. To help avoid that and get her onto a better line, do a front cross on the start wing – at 1:02 you did a post turn starting on your left side. You can start her on your right side and send her to the other side of the start wing, FCing to your left side as you move up the line to the exit wing more like what you did at 1:29, that worked really well!
She was really starting to get the idea and collect really nicely as you were moving forward like at 1:22 and 1:26 (that one was REALLY great!) and she got a bunch of really good ones in a row to the right at the end. That opens up the question of the balance reps with the GO – we want to be sure she is processing the verbal and not just learning the setup so moving things a bit so she can do some go reps will really help her get the full understanding.
Game 3: I agree, this is going really well!!!! On this one, as your speed increases, keep the verbals in their sound range – the left/right can be softer and longer, and the dig dig/checkcheck and be chattered like you did but you don’t have to do it as rapid-fire 🙂 When you are loud and fast, there is an urgency to the verbals that propels them into the forward cue category.
I totally know how hard it is to run fast and NOT yell LOL!!! The suggestion of “get faster, not louder” is easy to say, hard to do, but with practice it will feel really comfy. And plus when you are running courses ‘for real’ the style of delivery of the verbal will match your handling cue, so it will feel really comfortable.
She got herself into a bit of an oopsie vortex and you helped her with handling for a moment and she got back on track – you can also switch sides in that moment to break out of the vortex 🙂 Overall, a really good session! You can add in a little more motion 🙂
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyNot yet – be chill, be chill 🙂 I have some crazy stuff coming your way and we don’t want to muddy the waters 🙂
Tracy
Good morning!
Yes, sometimes the emojis don’t appear til after you click ‘submit’ but they do come through LOL!I love the lightbulb moment – yes, especially at this stage, it is the sound/style of delivery not just the word. I think super experienced dogs can pick out the word regardless of sound or style of delivery – but not youngsters. The actual letters in the word are less important than the tone/rhythm, volume, etc. and so we are teaching the dogs more about the sound and less about the actual word at first. And, even though we are not really focusing on handling in this class – the style of delivery will also help handling in terms of decelerating appropriately, accelerating, etc. It is pretty cool how it all works together.
For now, in training – keep your motion the same as you change the sounds – just walk towards the wing, or jog towards the wing, etc. Try not to handle 🙂 And also, when you are adding more motion, keep the sounds the same (this is harder) – try not to get louder or longer with the verbal when you are running when the cue should be quiet.
>>Do you ever want to tell us students, “yeah, sure you can use whatever verbal cue you want, but I can tell you which ones won’t work.”>>
Ha! I do try to give folks a heads up if I think something really won’t work, usually because I have screwed it up for myself and don’t want others to screw it up LOL! And I do go running around outside shouting verbals to test them out 🙂 Yes, the neighbors think I am insane 🙂
On the second video:
>>(did she really just do 2 reps of “LEFT” for a right turn?!!!
Ha! I have done that too – usually there is a good demo video blooper on that but so far for this course I have managed to say the correct words. But you do get a gold star for the style of delivery – he knew it was a soft turn! The sound gets processed before the actual word, as you can see here.
Since we are obsessing on sounds – for the wraps – chatter them quietly as if you are whispering a secret to him (socsocsocsocsoc) and when you start running – don’t start yelling the secret (SOC SOC SOC). That adds pressure and volume to the verbal which usually propels the dog away rather than get a tight turn.
You had this quieter chatter going with the tictictic at 1:33, that is the best sound/style for wraps! he had some questions about which way to turn, and it was probably just your line up position that got the RC there and you moved a bit backwards into the RC line at 1:39. He is young and processing all.the.things so he will sort it out as he gets more experience. But your verbal was good so those were indeed ‘no reward’ moments – to help him out, you can just move forward to the outer edge of the wing you want him to turn on. For the turning away for you on the verbals – we start those next week 🙂
Another line up suggestion: line yourself up to the exit wing and not center of the bar – the backside slice game that was posted today will address the front versus back question he had at 3:03. Your line up at 3:09 was perfect! You were closer to the wing you wanted him to turn on, so he didn’t feel any pressure to the backside line.
And the Go reps at the end looked great – I was going to suggest more of them but you did that in the next video 🙂
3rd video: Really nice session with all of the different verbals. Yay!!! You had significant differences in how you delivered them, and it really helps!! As you add more of your motion, try not to change the style of delivery – keep the wrap cues quiet and chattered, soft turn cues longer and still soft. Go can be nice and loud and long 🙂
Loved the tictictic verbal at the beginning! Good line of motion and style of delivery of the verbal! And the first couple of reps had different verbals and he was nailing them. His only question at the beginning was getting the left after the GO. That is a question he has had a couple of times – it is funny to watch because his head is turned the correct direction but his body is not, as if the 2nd jump is magnetically drawing him to it. He was all like “I know it is not a go but I am not quite sure what it is ” LOL!! That will get better with experience as you continue to alternate the difference verbals – for GO versus left/right soft turns, you can also change your motion (slow down a little for soft turns) to help him out.
Since the verbals were going well on both directions here and you can keep playing with these adding the exit line combo game, I have 2 general training ideas for you:
How does he feel about food? You can use that for getting the toy back and for resets (including after an error) – he will be less grabby for the toy, and it will keep him cooler because there is a little less tugging but still a ton of reinforcement.
Also, have you played with using reward markers for the toy? That is stuff like saying ‘get it’ when you throw it, or ‘bite’ when you want him to take it from your hand. These markers replace the general praise words and help clarify for the dogs when the toy is available. I think he has no questions when you throw the toy, it is more about when the toy is in your hand – he doesn’t know when to grab it from the hand or ignore it (sometimes he tries to grab for it) or when to pass it versus offer a setup between your feet like at 3:14. By adding a ‘bite’ cue to mean “you may now grab the toy from my hand”, I have found that my youngsters have gotten really good about ignoring the toy in my hand in favor of doing the cued behavior even as I run.
Great job here!!! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
This is a really interesting video: the draw of going straight over that first jump is POWERFUL. Thank you for posting it, I love these types of puzzles! So we have a few options to help her out – she is trying so hard to sort it out and get it right, and I love that!I don’t really think changing your motion will make a difference because you were not really moving a lot here. So let’s change the picture and ‘split’ the behavior better ao we can add back your motion:
With the jumps about 8 feet apart, use a partial jump for jump 1: just a wing and an angled bar sitting on the wing (I use it in the backside slice game I posted today). That looks less like a real jump and *should* have a different conditioned response – meaning, she should be more likely to turn and less likely to go straight because she is less stimulated.
Then when she can do that with a little motion – we use the partial jump set up to add more and more motion.
If she can’t do it even with the partial jump, put more distance between the partial jump and the distraction jump – go to 12 feet and see how she does!
Let me know what you think! Keep me posted 🙂
Tracy
Good morning!
>>She was 100% upon arrived, but struggled when we tried before we left.
That is really interesting! It takes a lot of brain power 🙂 So doing just one session is best, to see the success rate really high.
The reps with you running were really good – you were legit running and she was getting it right – the response seemed a tiny bit delayed, almost after she arrived at the wing, but it was correct! Yay!
And yes – the variable of HER running along with you running was a head-exploder. I think it was partially because it takes so much brain power to process the verbals when you are running that she couldn’t do it when you were both running. So, keep her running going – and you will just do a fast walk and see how it goes. I bet within a couple of sessions, you can build your running back in! And see below for another idea on how to to help get even more success 🙂 And because you have seen her have more trouble later in the session or in a second session – do this first thing (she goes fast, you do a slow jog) rather than towards the end of the session.
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
>>I am in my pajamas in the afternoon. Please don’t judge.>>
Thanks to this endless pandemic, I have learned the joys of morning pajamas, afternoon pajamas and evening pajamas. All excellent training options 🙂
>>Stark did really well with not jumping up at me and barking. He had a few moments but they were few and far between. YAY!
Yes!! You are getting really consistent with the get it marker/placement and also with NOT using a swoosh arm. I think his only jump up/bark moments were frustration moments. If you don’t reward, you can totally use a reset cookie to keep the barking/jump from emerging again. If he is incorrect, and you didn’t throw the toy, call him, present a cookie at your side and line him up to go again (and let him eat the cookie of course LOL). The reset cookie will NOT increase the errors but it will decrease the barking/jumping.
First video: he is doing well differentiating the soft turn versus wrap verbal! Yay! With that in mind – watch his head to decide whether or not you are going to throw the reinforcement.
Head coming back around the wing after a wrap cue? Throw.
Head facing the soft turn direction looking at the jump? Throw past the 2nd jump. He had some questions about whether or not to take it, and it is probably because we have done a lot of ‘don’t take the distraction jump’ games. He was producing nice soft turns, so you can throw based on what he does on jump 1 and not worry about jump 2 as much.But if you mess up and throw when you didn’t want to, especially if you said get it… just let him get it. I mean, it was your screw up LOL! We don’t want to frustrate him or get him barking/jumping when you throw it then tell him he was wrong. It also changes his behavior:
At :12, he had a nice right turn and then saw you throw the toy, so didn’t take the jump. You told him he was wrong (barking/jumping) and that created the error on the next rep (:26) when he tried to change the behavior because what he just did was marked as incorrect. Then at :28 you tried to help more and almost pushed to the backside… then threw the toy with a “good” marker so he didn’t take the 2nd jump. LOL! So, if you throw wrong, just let him get it and be clearer on the next rep.
And at 1:16 and 1:55, you tossed it and then grabbed it, you can see he backed off of it and we want to keep his confidence really high about rewards placed on his line.He was totally ready for you to add more motion, so I am glad you did this in the 2nd video!
On the rep at :06, you had a little convergence so he pushed to the backside. The backside slice game posted today begins to address that (verbal cue did NOT say backside, unless you also use wrap cues for backside wraps). So for now, just move straight to the outer edge of the wrap wing. And a reset cookie would be perfect there – it lines him up for the next rep without jumping/barking.
The bar at :45 was just an adjustment error, he fixed it on the next rep then was great on all the others.
For this exit line game, try to wait longer before you throw for the wraps, especially the wraps to his right. I think you were throwing based on what he was doing on the takeoff side (which was nice collection!) but I am not sure what his final answer would have been if you had not thrown 🙂 So on those, don’t throw til after he turns his head to look through the gap and at the exit line. His collections were really good so now we can in the criteria of how to exit the wraps. Soft turn exits looked really good here!
The wing added a lot of his speed and I think he was great! So on the next session, we will also add more of your speed by having you line up closer to the start wing, so you can move faster without getting caught at the jump. And try to handle less – be deliberately late by just moving forward until after you see him make his decision. That is how we will convince him to process the verbal without also relying on handling. And when you are running sequences or courses for real, you can use both the verbal and handling to make for great turns!
>>Sizzle made a cameo appearance in some of the videos and some could have had scary outcomes. I’ll call it distraction training (eek).>>
Yeah…. She gets voted off the island for interference! I don’t like other dogs running into the setup for safety reasons (he was avoiding her on a couple of reps on the second video, not processing verbals) and also because it is generally a distraction that the dogs are not ready for (like at :48 on the first video when she was diving in for a ball in his line of vision.) So, she can bark and run from the other side of a fence LOL!
Great job here! Let me know how he does with even more motion!
Tracy
Good morning!
Good job here! He seemed to have no trouble at all with the soft turns to either direction. My only suggestion is to have him line up cleanly at your side to start each time – if he is facing you, the start line might be more confusing as we make things more distracting.You can totally add motion now! And the wing and the distraction jump can be about 6 get apart. Start holding his collar, saying the verbal, then left go and walk forward as you keep saying the verbal. And keep up with the perfect placement of reinforcement, that worked really nicely!!!!
His rate of success will guide you about adding more motion or the start wing before this setup: if he is 90-100% successful for 5 or 6 reps… go to jogging 🙂 Another 90-100% successful, either in the next part of the session or a different session? Yo can add running or the start wing.
Great job here! Keep me posted on how he does with more motion.
Tracy
