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Hi!
>>Yea. It’s hard to connect big time and then throw. But I am getting used to it. It really makes a difference with Ruby. I really connected with Sport and we were a very consistent team. Maybe I got away from it a little with Jedi?? Now I need to go back to it with Ruby. >>Yes, it is hard to connect and run and throw! It is really hard with puppies but then it gets easier and we don’t have to connect as much. That is also why we teach all the verbals 🙂
>>She will be jumping 16″ Me and Bonnie measured her at 15 1/2? 15 3/4?>>
Whoa that is a perfect height. Watch out, 16″ height class! Oh crap, I am in that class! Eek!! Fun times ahead 🙂
On the video: omg she cracks me up, I think that the GO cue might be her favorite ever! But then she was great on the right turns. Yes, a tiny bit wide on the first ones after all the Go cues but then watch her head in the tunnel! When you said go, she was looking straight before she exited. On most of the right cues she was looking to her right before exiting the tunnel. And even when she was a little wide, she was adjusting quickly. Good girl! Nice job getting the verbals in earlier, that totally helps her pay attention to them, You can keep expanding this – how much distance can you add? We will be building on this soon.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! He is doing a really strong job with the 2o2o!!! Good job!
Yes, try to line him up so he is more parallel to the board and closer to the end, so he leaps on in preparation for the bang game 🙂
My only tweak is to try to get him to look at you less when he is getting into position. Convincing him to look down and forward will help him shift his weight on the teeter. He is all about the cookies in your hands (poor starving dude haha). So two ideas to get him to look forward more at the target and not up at you:
One thing to do is have the cookie in your hand, ready to drop in and rather than hand it to him, toss it back to the target area between his front feet. It will be harder for him to track the hand/arm movement so he will look at the target more and at your hands less.The other thing you can do is have a toy or empty food bowl or Manners Minder about 6 feet away from the bottom of the board. When he hits his 2o2o position, you can release him to the reward out ahead. That can help him focus ahead and not on you.
Let me know if that makes sense! If he can do a session on the plank where he is hitting and holding position like he did here and also looking down/forward more (and not at your cookie hands :)) then we can move it to the teeter. Yay! Keep me posted!
TracyHi!
>>The jumping up was more of a herding dog, circle behind and also bark. He has a different happy wriggle when he stays in front of the person. Once he starts the circling behind, I have to interrupt it. The accosted person ignoring him doesn’t do the trick. But I am going to play around with seeing if lack of eye contact makes it less likely to start.>>
Pretty normal, usually just a little lack of confidence causing it. Rewarding him for not even bothering to look at the person is great. Does he leave work to do it, or is it during those ‘in between’ moments?
>>And with treats – I was using halved charlie bears so that he could find them in the grass. If I use something smaller then he spends time hunting them!>>
Ha! Maybe a bit of cheese in a treat hugger? Poor starving dog LOL!
T
Hi!
>.The bang game is getting better but Hero still wants to move when I am on his left. I don’t know if it is ok, but I tried a non reward marker tonight. When he tried to move, I said oops, and released him and tried again. He actually stayed in place! >>
I see how he is definitely strong when you are on his right, for whatever reason. I don’t mind a non-reward marker but I think splitting the behavior will be more successful overall – he had gotten a bunch of reinforcement for the step-off-step-back-on behavior and then you marked it as wrong. So, rather than that, try to split the behavior so he doesn’t step off the back on: move slowly, very slowly… but keep moving. Resist temptation to stop with him 🙂 And also, I think reward placement has something to do with it: rewarding him at the MM for a precise stop is helpful, and on your throw back ‘catch’ rewards: throw them a little more behind him and lower, so he weight shifts more. On some reps, he was stepping forward to get the throw treats so he might be chaining that in a bit. I think those two things will help him sort out how to stop in position.
You can add in more motion while he is on the plank to test drive that before moving to the teeter, as well as experiment with reinforcement placement so you can help him understand where to keep his feet 🙂
The elevator game mechanics are the hardest of any of the games! Good job with the countdown and slam cues! It think he was even trying to scratch at the target before you dropped it LOL! It appears that his noodling around getting on the board and off it was that he was not sure that he was supposed to get on and stand there – that is easy to fix 🙂 After you has him to hop on, give him a cookie or two for just getting on, then maybe another one for standing there (he won’t be sad for extra cookies haha!). Then you can leave the cookie hand there during the countdown. That can help him understand that all he needs to do is stand there – at that point, you can still give him a cookie for hopping on (I always do :)) but you won’t need to leave the cookie hand there for him.
The end position element is looking good! When he is happier with hopping on and not noodling around, you can then move to Elevator Game 2 with more height and motion challenges.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! I see what you mean about her getting into position but having some trouble balancing and slipping off the side. I think the teeter itself might be a little slippery as part of it – but mainly I think she is trying to look at you and the cookies 🙂
And by trying to look up at your hands, she is having trouble balancing in the down especially when she is on your left. And when you were able to get your hands down in front of her, she could do it but then you need your hands as part of the cue. So, simple adjustment: we will give her something to look at that is not your hands 🙂 That will allow her to balance and keep her head straight, and that will also allow you to be able to move away from the board.So – you can have her toy on the ground out ahead, 6 feet away or so, or the Manners Minder, or even an empty food bowl and you can then plop the treat into it. And when she hits position, you release her forward to the reward out ahead. You can also toss a treat back to her in position, but I think for now a couple of sessions where the reward is out ahead will help solidify the behavior. And definitely no cookies from your hand for a while, to help her NOT look at your hands 🙂
It should be an easy adjustment for her! Start by just letting her offer the behavior without asking for speed. When she can do that, we can add in more excitement and then also add your motion 🙂
Nice work here! Let me know if that makes sense!
TracyYay! He is doing great! This is where the elevator game builds to 🙂
We add a version of this on Monday, so I will give you the the order of festivities now: tunnel, up the board – big cookie! countdown, target cue, drop, cookie – release. Note the massive reinforcement in there for driving up the board and also getting into target position – don’t be tempted to skip that 🙂 It is my role in life to remind you to not be greedy LOL!! Yes we want the running and the tunnels as stimulators but don’t use them as reinforcement, use your food and toys for that 🙂 Doing loops of tunnel-tunnel-teeter-tunnel can cause errors like it did at :39 where you forgot the countdown and he self-released. With all the speed, maintain the mechanics and massive reinforcement (my dogs are getting steak for it today nom nom) so that he continues to love love love it 🙂
Great job here, it is really fun to see him loving this!!!
TracyHi! He is doing really well here! I agree – he is showing the same behavior of driving through the end of the board, even as the board gets higher and higher. Perfect!
A couple of ideas to add in as we keep building towards the full teeter:
– you can move the cookie cup further away to help it start to fade – t can be on the other side of a jump.
– you can also put the cheese squeeze bottle out ahead as a challenge! It might not be a challenge for him but maybe it will be – it will be fun to find out!
– when rewarding in position, having the cookie come quick (like it did with the squeeze cheese) is most effective, so he never feels like it is a hurry-up-and-wait situation (which causes dogs to slow down).
– develop a training rotation of games so when we add more (next Monday), he is totally ready: the downhills right now look good, so you can play them here and there this week but two games that can now take priority:
fading the target on the bang game (he is doing well with this :))
the elevator game (this can still have the visible target).The elevator game goes wild next week LOL! So a couple of sessions this week will have him well-prepared.
Great job here!!! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>I guess the one thing I was really happy about was Cowboy’s willingness to engage with me. I was sure that being in a large open field would have tempted him to run off to parts unknown when thing got hard but that never happened. He may not have been as focused but he wasn’t tuned out either. All good stuff and a great launch point for future success!>>
OMG YES! I mean, here we are obsessing on how to get him to offer behavior for the MM and he could have totally just taken off and gone for a big run somewhere! What a good boy 🙂 He was pretty darned focused and engaged, and that is the most exciting part 🙂
T
Hi! He did well here! I think that the poles re pretty light (like the ones here in the USA) so it doesn’t hurt to touch them. He is not slamming himself or twisting, so the little bit of touching seems fine and as more poles get added, he is likely to stop doing it.
He had a really high rate of success here! One miss but that might have just been a bobble moment because you were ahead and rotating – he got it right on the next rep.
So on the next couple of sessions, 2 things to add to the 4 poles here:– more motion 🙂 Build to running!
– And, moving the MM further away, and also leaving it there as a focal point but switching to a thrown reward (that will us be able to fade the MM).>>Now that he is actually weaving, should I practice every other day instead of every day?>>
Yes, that is the good news and also the bad news 🙂 Go to training weaves on alternating days, or every 2-3 days. On your next session, if his success rate is super high, you can move to the 6 poles progression that I posted today:
https://agility-u.com/lesson/new-lesson-94/At some point in the 6 pole progression, be sure to check out the new Find Em game because it will really challenge his entries and exits 🙂
https://agility-u.com/lesson/find-em-track-2x2s-game-3-combo-find-em/Then you can do a session or two, every couple of days for those games and before you know it, you can go to the 6-and-4 game 🙂
Well done here! Let me know what you think!
TracyWowza Yowza!!!! Look at her weaving for real! This is the fun part 🙂 She found the striding immediately. Yay!
Only one suggestion then we will talk about next steps:
On the 2nd rep of the 1st video, you had the toy on the ground. She was perfect – you might try having it there a lot to help her keep her head lower for longer, so get her to exit straight. It is something to experiment with as you train – her head was low while weaving but then she was lifting it fast when she exited, so the toy on the ground might help her keep it lower for one or two more steps.But otherwise, we can plan the next sessions. Bearing in mind that since she is doing real weaving, you can’t do this daily: the next session should be the same distance you had here but with you running a bit more (her angles of entry looked good!!!) If she is successful with you running and sending on the angles, etc:
Using the poles at that distance or a tiny bit more open, do the new Find Em Game (it is a little wicked LOL!):
https://agility-u.com/lesson/new-lesson-93/the session after that should be with tighter poles. This week’s games have the specific steps to closing the channels – you will find it here:
https://agility-u.com/lesson/step-8-6-straight-poles/
So looking at the calendar, giving her a ay off between weaving sessions (and of course depending on life in general, this is just an idea :)): you can do the running session on Tuesday, the Find Em session on Thursday and if all is good with those in terms of high rate of success: onwards to closing to 6 straight starting Saturday. And it will probably take 2 or 3 sessions to get them closed (or more, it depends LOL!)
I mention this just to give you an idea of a potential timeline including limiting the # of session – the next weave games are released on May 3, so she is ahead of the game here. We might have to shift focus is she has questions, of course, but she is doing a great job!
The new games are all posted and I will send the official email shortly 🙂 Well done here!!
TracyHi! I think I need to do a flow chart or pyramid so everyone can keep things straight LOL! Sorry for any confusion 🙂
>>o I’ve been getting the games mixed up on what ones I should be fading the target on. So downhill game I should be fading out the target and elevator game we can still have a target?>>
Any time the board hits the ground, we ideally want the dog to choose target position without a cookie loaded on the target. So the bang, downhills, and elevator game can all have the target but ideally no cookies on it until after the dog gets into position.
So the first step is to be able to play these with a target that is cookie-less 🙂
Then, starting on the plank – you can start to fade the target itself out. And the general order of fading the target out is first on the plank, then the bang game, then the downhills, then the elevator game (because that is the order the dog learned them in, so it will also reflect the value).
So yes – the bang game can be done without a target if she is ready, but the target can be visible (without cookies on it) for the downhills and elevator game.>>And just for her, going backwards a bit, we keep the target for the bang game but no treat there. Correct?>>
Correct- it is not going backwards, it is a forward step 🙂 And that is the first game where the actual plastic target is faded out (but the cookie should not be on it for any of the games where the board hits he ground).
>> For this game I actually was playing with a toy on that first rep and released to it but I cut it out of the video. >>
Perfect!!! That is why she was layering on the speeeeed 🙂
>>But then definitely wasn’t sure what to do when she got worried.
In those moments, I always throw a toy and get the dog away from the board and partying (or throw cookies). Reinforcement is flexible – if it turns out the use of the positive reinforcement was perhaps the wrong decision in that moment, it is unlikely we will ever build an undesired behavior off the one time we used a cookie or toy, and it breaks the dog away from the moment of concern while giving us a moment to plan what to do next.
>> So once we build back up to downhills cut out the target, reward her end position, then release to toy.
Yes but the target can be there for a while longer – just without a cookie on it.
>>And if she gets spooked, release to thrown toy anyway. I think not having the target there will help me remember that better and not get myself worried about the situation.>>
Think of it as a speed gone a bit awry moment: she went too fast, couldn’t stop and got concerned. However, we like the fast so we can reward it! She is NOT the type of dog to go flinging herself off the top of tall buildings, so we can sacrifice the accuracy of the end position a tiny bit, in favor of the wheeeeeeee! that was fun! attitude. She seems like the type of dog that will be able to go fast AND maintain accuracy so I am not worried about it is her end position is not perfect for a few reps 🙂
Let me know if that makes sense 🙂
TracyGood morning again! This is looking great 🙂
You didn’t look awkward with the toy – it looks like it felt weird to me moving slowly and not helping her a lot LOL! You are correct, though, you don’t want to do a ton of helping her find the jump here because it is on her line – and you will want her to pick it up without you having to exaggerate the cue. And she did! All she needs for this game is enough connection to know which side of you to be on 🙂 Think of it on course, eventually: you will be connected and using verbals, but otherwise just running hard up the big line and that is all she will need for the jump cue.
She was great at finding it overall! I think her only questions where when you were hanging back and not really moving, she was not sure if she should drive ahead of you. You can run deeper to the tunnel so you can move more up the line, and also give your Go verbal on those to help support her.
She was great about finding the jump when you were parallel to it or way ahead!So keep building this: add in more speed as you are way ahead (sometimes that makes the dogs forget the jump and go into chase mode and skip the jump). And also add in lateral distance so she can find it with you running a line closer to the wrap wing. And of course, switch sides so the can find the jump on your right too.
Excellent job here!!
TracyGood morning! Lots of good work here!
First up, the send’n’serps:
She was making me laugh: She is so judgey when she gets to the Pet Tutor and doesn’t get a reward on the first rep LOL! Then she didn’t want to leave it LOL! Yes, we can totally help her ignore it until it is clicked 🙂 A couple of ideas: You can use cookies in your hand to engage her on the way back to line up for the next rep – tricks for treats from your hand will help her want to leave the much-adored treat dispenser. Also, you can engage her with the toy if she will (she might not play with the toy in the presence of the treat dispenser!)
I also do some training with the treat dispensers to teach the dog that in order to get it to trigger, they must leave it and go do something else (staring at it never makes it dispense cookies LOL!) For example, here are two sessions of my MannersMinder obsessed dog learning to NOT stare at it LOL!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iawZ6LaE4tc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9DwR_1ebjMOn the handling of the serp jump: a bit more upper body rotation towards the jump will help her understand to come in and not run past it. You can open up your shoulders a little more with your serp arm back more and even shake your serp arm to help as you continue to add motion (your feet/running line looked great on most of the reps!)
We have a really good angle on your shoulders at 1:18 when she passes the jump and doesn’t come in: the center of your chest was pointed to the reward dispenser which made your shoulders perpendicular to the bar. Think of pointing the center of your chest to the center of the bar by rotating at the waist – so both of your shoulders line up with both of the wings and your upper body is parallel to the jump.
She was brilliant at 1:22 when she tried to come back and fix it – clever! You can cookie that – it will help teach her to get it even if you aren’t perfect (I reward my dogs all the time for saving my butt haha). She is super fast so it will be hard to always show perfect handling 🙂
She came in for the jump at 1:34 but it was more because your line of motion moved away from the jump to pull her in. At 2:17, you had your arm further back and your upper body rotated a little more and it totally helped!
But compare it to the cue you gave at 2:45 – your arm is way back and shoulders much more open to the jump, so your upper body is more parallel to the bar: gorgeous cue! And she nailed it, of course. We can’t see the center of your chest, only your back, but that was beautiful serp form. Yay! You had good form on that side at the start of the video too, so you might be more comfy on that side in general. Keep exaggerating that upper body rotation (but don’t change your feet, the should face the cookie dispenser like you were doing here, that was great :))
The zig zag slicing is looking really good too! She had 2 questions which actually relate to the same questions on the serp video: At :54 and 2:27, you had your shoulders perpendicular to the wing so she stayed out rather than coming in. Instead, you can drop your shoulder back, swinging your arm back to open up the rotation to help her come in. When you used the cross arm, that also rotated the upper body and she came in pretty perfectly on those 🙂 That cross arm was a really strong cue for her – it took her a moment to figure it out then she nailed it!
You don’t need the cross arm here, you can get the same behavior with the rotated chest, but I personally like to teach both to the dogs 🙂She looks ready for you to move to 3 wings now! Yay!
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning! This is an interesting session – I watched it a few times and I believe what is happening is that she is being careful until your reward hand begins the throwing motion… then she goes fast. So on the reps where reward hand doesn’t begin that motion til she is finished, she is slower all the way throw. On the reps where your reward hand begins the throwing motion when she is entering or halfway through… she picks up speed. Clever dog LOL!!!!
So – because we want the striding all the time and don’t want speed to be contingent on the timing of the reward throw, you can leave the 2 bases at this distance but angle them both more open. We don’t want them to be straight until she can bounce through them with speed… without needing to see you start to throw the squirrel or cookie (dogs have amazing peripheral vision!)
I have more about that coming shortly because it is similar to what I worked through with one of my dogs: have both sets at 1&7, and I recommend a tunnel before and then either the MM or toy on the ground after it, or a tunnel after the weaves so she does the 4 poles then does a tunnel *then* you throw the reward – that way she does not see your hand moving the toy (or not moving the toy). Get her wild and engaged before the send into the poles and start with her when she is a bit wild 🙂 And for now, focus on the straighter easier entries (I know it will be easy to add back the harder ones).
Let me know if that makes sense! More coming soon with the new games/videos 🙂
TracyGood morning! Lots of good work here!
He did well with the outdoor session! It is definitely harder to move things to a new location but he is getting better each time.
>>When we first started, Cowboy made a beeline directly to the Treat n’ Train and totally ignored the poles.
Ah, the joys of changing environments LOL! The next time you are in the outdoor place, you can do something like shape him to get on a mat or disc with the MM there, something easy that he is really good at – to help him generalize how to get the MM to click. And then do a quick review of 2 poles to the MM. I bet he has an a-ha! moment when you do that 🙂
Switching to the toy was fine of course, and using tossed food rewards. You can use both – he didn’t seem very into the toy when you tossed it, so you can switch it up a bit: engage with him with the toy when he enters the environment for the session, then toss food as the reward – either to a mat or use a food carrier like a lotus ball. The engagement before and between reps will definitely help him generalize, because it will raise his state of arousal and then distractions will melt away more.
Yes, he had a few more errors than the indoor sessions but that is fine – his rate of success outdoors is totally improving! On your next session outdoors, raising the rate of success can be the top priority: starting with engagement, you can open the poles a tiny bit to get things rolling, then go back to where they were here if he is successful. I would not recommend tightening them more outdoors yet, until he has had a least 2 sessions at this distance with a success rate of 90% or above. Then it will be easy to tighten them 🙂
>> I wanted to know whether the errors I saw on Saturday were largely due to the new environment or to a lack of understanding, I am sure it is both but I was curious to see which one had the greater impact.>>
New external environment tends to cloud arousal levels (internal environment) which messes up understanding because the dogs can’t produce the same behaviors: they are all linked of course, but it is mainly new external environment that triggers it 🙂 You can see indoors that the external environment is really comfy for him, so his internal environment was in a better state – and that is reflected in the success rate. Good boy!!
As a side note – later today there will be some games added that discuss raising the dog’s internal environment so that they learn to weave even when they are a little more stirred up internally (which is what different locations will do).
He did well with the straight poles here, hitting from a good variety of entries! And I feel your pain about clicking the MM too early and rewarding a miss. Oops! But you were perfect: got mad at yourself then switched to a different side and then the rest was perfect 🙂
One thing of note: He is not driving through as fast as he can here – and I think it has to do with the footing. He tried to go fast on one rep and slipped/torqued himself so he immediately dialed it back. He is doing proper striding but I would like to see him digging in more – which means you will want to only do this on grass, dirt or really good turf at this point. Rubber mats are notoriously difficult for dogs to dig into, and we don’t want him to compensate by slowing down.That is a total pain in the butt, I know, but now that he is weaving, limit his sessions to areas where he can use his feet to dig in and not risk slipping. I appreciate that he is smart enough to not hurt himself! But that also means he will slow himself down so we can help him out by only working on very grippy surfaces 🙂
One other thing: now that he has legit for-real weaving happening, you can add your weave verbal in situations where you are pretty sure he will get it right 🙂 I don’t think you had it on yet – but if you did and it was quiet, great! Keep using it 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
