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Hi!
>>Trying Releases Part 1 here. Getting into the swing, I call these ‘Funky Town’ Releases, and dressed for the part. All my dogs have a song or two and Posh’s is ‘Simple Irresistible’, Robert Palmer.>>
Perfect!! Great outfit! And great song choice!!
>>True confessions…at night I sing and dance before bed to 70s-80s music, some dance with the dogs. 🤪.
Yay! Same here, although I mix in a lot of show tunes and some 90s music too LOL!! Singing and dancing is a critical element of dog training!
>>I tried incorporating singing/dancing softly with pink panther type moves. And it drove Posh, and one of my other girls, coo coo crazy town. Posh got SO aroused she started barking at me, so this may be the way to get her barking with me as a trick. Then when released, Posh ran to me, jumped up and caught my arm, blood, bandaids…wowzers. A bit too much??>>
Yes – too much when there is bloodshed. It is like Goldilocks and the 3 bears: we are looking for the ‘just right’ level and need to see what is ‘too cold’ (all business might be too cold) and ‘too hot’ (dance party plus pink panther = bloodshed, too hot).
>>>So I evolved all that into a modified dance move, and softly singing ‘She’s So Fine..She’s All Mine…Simply Irresistible’. And this is what these videos are of. Cookies first with Goldfish, second with APDB. My new release word is HA! Or Huzzah!>>
They looked great! The first video was food had more barking, and the toy video had less barking. She is barely hangingin on to the stay in that first video, so be sure to release before she breaks. On the second video, note how she closes her mouth at 1:23 – that is a great time to release, it means she is VERY ready!
>>I haven’t tried calm yet. Funky town definitely keeps her attention with a powerful release, but I’m not sure how far I’ll be able to lead out with this. It’s been dicey getting distance on her with human kyptonite around.>>
For now, short lead outs are great if they lead to success with the kryptonite around! You can build to longer lead outs by leading out longer before starting the game.
>>With my first agility dog, I used to sing and dance waiting to enter the ring, put us both in the right frame of mind.>>
There is actually some human sports psychology that recommends this. I think it is GREAT for relaxing both human and dog, and totally recommend you keep doing it.
So for the dance party lead out… time to take it on the road. When is your next class? You can try a bit of this! She migh tbreak the stay, so if that happens, have a chuckle and reset her, and then release sooner next time (if anyone questions it, blame me and say it is mandatory homework haha)
And that will allow you to figure out what helps her! And you can add in some ring crew nearby, like she would see at a trial, and see if a dance party lead out helps.
>>On another subject, I’ve been playing fetch with 4 APDBs and then separately 4 tennis balls. I alternate 1-4 over and over. She has to get the one I throw before I’ll throw the next. With the DBs definitely has the CO that she wants. She even demand barks at me cuz I won’t give that one to her until it’s up in turn. The tennis balls seem to have more equal value.>>
Dogs are so interesting! I don’t know why she is like that but it is good to know 🙂 And I think it will be easier at trials when there is only one DB around 🙂 Keep bringing the balls and DBs to training and working on remote reinforcement with them, I think they are going to come in very handy 🙂
Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>Wow you hit me with a nice therapy session there.
Teehee dog training and agility handling requires a lot of therapy haha 🙂 For real – human therapy practices work very nicely in dog training as well.
>>🤯🤯🤯 thanks for the rational thoughts here. I know I should, but it’s been a struggle and not reinforcing for me but when you say it like that…>>
It is hard indeed – challenging in the moment for sure, but the long term benefits will be totally worth it. The key is finding reinforcement that is high value and convenient to use – BOTH of these. The pool is very high value but insanely inconvenient (it doesn’t fit in the RV that well, can’t be carried ringside, not easy to use near a practice jump, etc lol). Something that is high value but very inconvenient (or dangerous) turns into Kryptonite: a massive distraction that must be trained through.
On the videos – lots of good things here and ideas for next sessions! And what a nice new field!
Volume dial:
the volume dial started at about :47 with the heeling and tricks – he LOVES that heeling! You can be more active in the heeling and spin cues, so both of you are moving faster. That will work nicely to energize him before a run. He definitely liked it when you were able to do some of the leg-weave moments and get the frisbees involved.You’re going to hate me a little (or a lot)… to develop the volume dial games into things that can be taken to a trial or training scenario AND be used to overcome the kryptonite, use tricks and games that can be done outside the ring… which eliminates long frisbee tosses just as it eliminates the pool/swimming.
Short tosses that he can just pop up and grab in front of you? Sure! Vaults off your belly? Sure! Think about the AKC environment where you can’t take off his leash – so the toss would be 6 feet or less (which is still fun!). And he can do frisbee bites as heeling rewards. But the long throws are like the pool – incredibly reinforcing but also really inconvenient to rely on as reinforcement because we can’t use them in the situations we are building towards. Instant focus – this was an insightful session! Yes, you can reward the approximations of the behavior (touching it a little) even if it seems incidental. This is a good session about value and saliency! The shoe was the instant focus object doesn’t have enough value yet, in terms of ‘seeing’ it in the environment – so wasn’t salient in the new environment plus I think he was looking at the cookies in your hand. This ended up being a shaping session, rewarding hits and him responding to the cue of you touching it with your foot. For shaping more value, I recommend putting the cookie right on the shoe and not delivering from your hand, as he was offering a lot of looking at you but not a lot of interaction with the shoe.
Instant focus is an important game for seeing trained things in a new environment (like weave poles in the trial ring) immediately, so before you take it on the road again: do a couple more shaping sessions at home so you don’t have to cue it by touching it, and til he is completely magnetized to it. And then, use exiting the car as the start point for the next instant focus session: have him come out of the car on leash, no cookies visible on you – the put the shoe down. You can reward him for looking at it and touching it. It is a one or two rep session, then he goes back in the car and you go someplace else 🙂
Remote reinforcement started off well, he was great on that first rep with the frisbee behind him! And I think the first rep is the most important. Yay! So now add in things like walking with you and tricks with you, rather than wing wraps – think of it as moving from the entry gate to the start line and all you have is yourself 🙂 Since that fast heeling is his favorite thing, I would make that the first thing you do as you move away from the remote reinforcement. And, in the “You’re Gonna Hate Me” department: work with reinforcement that you can conveniently use outside the agility ring, which eliminates the long frisbee throws 🙂
Pattern games – He is beginning to recognize these, which is what we want. Yay! Keep playing them in super easy environments so he recognizes them immediately as a cue to basically grab the treat off the ground and look right back at you. That will make it even easier in distracting environments! If he doesn’t want to ‘go see’, that is fine: you can add in the distraction such as walking past distracting things, or getting closer to Roulez barking. As you do that, be more consistent with the reward delivery. For now, have it always as a toss/drop on the ground and not from your hand, so he has the opportunity to rehearse looking down and assessing, then offering engagement with you. That will help make it reflexive so he can offer engagement pretty automatically.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
NO MORE BAD WEATHER, I DEMAND GOOD WEATHER ONLY FROM NOW ON. (That probably won’t work, but it is worth a try LOL!!)Good work on the lateral lead outs – it is a pretty hard skill in a lot of ways (the lead out, the send, the soft turn collection, etc.)
She did well on those right turns and you didn’t include any of the struggles on her left turns (on your right) – great job breaking it down to train the collection!
If I had to guess about why she struggled on that side – I think there wasn’t enough connection so she came off the jump and towards you. On the lead outs, she was looking at you. And on your right side, you were releasing pretty soon after arriving and looking ahead at the jump. That does tend to pull baby dogs off the line. So when you get to the jump, take an extra heartbeat to look at her, establish connection to her eyes, then send (while maintaining connection, yes, lots of mechanics :))
You’ll start to see her commit better and even focus forward on the jump!
Let me know what you think! You can add in the advanced games too, as you add more connection.
TracyGood morning!
>>So, if I play all these games outside the ring or even on the training field at home most of the time, she is good. The question is what do I bring to the start line? >>
Normally I’d suggest experimenting to see what works best, in FEO runs with reinforcement in the ring (training in the ring steps 1 and 2).
But for her, this might be challenging because we don’t really have a guaranteed reinforcement to bring into the ring, and the history of being uncomfortable on the start line is longer than the reinforcement history of these games. So it might be best to use these to optimize arousal outside the ring, then in that moment: run in as late as possible and get her off the start line as fast as possible. Going in as late as possible adds an element of excitement as well as helping make sure there are no deflating last minute delays.And maybe she will chase a ball in the ring, since USDAA allows thrown toys?
>We will keep building games at home during the summer break too. 🙂 So many games to learn to play that maybe I can just build a tool trunk big enough for her to be happy rotating through games>
Yes! They are all filled with reinforcement so you will be tipping the reinforcement balance in your favor. 🙂
Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Good morning!
>> Also, Sprite hasn’t done well with backside sends. She holds the line, but doesn’t take the bar. Should I try the exercise without the tunnel first? She loves tunnels!
So she goes to the backside but then runs past it to the tunnel? Yes, definitely take the tunnel out to refresh the value of the bar. Two things will help make the bar more independent and automatic for her:
– drop the reinforcement on the landing side of the jump just before she gets to the backside wing, when you are pretty convinced she is going to go to the backside. That way the reward is visible as she arrives on the backside of the jump. The reward drop reinforces the decision to hold the line to the backside while using placement to develop the default looking for the bar.If you are doing this already and she is still running past the bar – you can use a more interesting reward (see below) or angle the jump a little. To angle the jump, pull the entry wing towards the start wing that you are wrapp and the exit wing out away from the tunnel, so as she gets to the backside she can see the jump bar on her line more clearly.
– the other option is to use a placed reward, in the form of an empty bowl or Manners Minder (or PT) onthe landing side of the backside jump. Place it on the landing side, tucked into the wing closer to the tunnel. That way, as soon as she gets to the entry wing, you can click the PT or MM, or mark the ‘bowl’ and toss a treat into it. That can help jump start the looking for the bar.
On the video:
>>I promise I walked line you said, but it was too much time to show in each rep.
Ha! Totally understandable 🙂 Her commitment looked GREAT so we can focus on the turning.
>>She took the jump, but had no idea there was a turn with me standing there. So much for lateral position being a natural turning cue. Gemma had the same issue, so it must be something I do.>>
I don’t think it is necessarily anything we do – it might be more that she is structurally similar as a member of the same breed, so we get similar responses in terms of how they move. I see it in my dogs too – the dogs with the same breeds move the same way (the dogs with a lot of terrier move similarly to each other and a lot differently than the dogs with a lot of whippet, and they are all stuck with me as the trainer LOL!!)
But no worries, she was already making adjustments and we can help her more. She is a smart girl, she does not like splatting herself, and she has a ton of good skills so I am conident she will sort it out in the next session.
Because her commitment looks so strong, we can work a bit on getting her to understand how to collect on these soft turns. There are 3 things we can do to help her:
– use food rewards for the next session. The toy was a little too stimulating, so we can go to the “boring” food for a bit to let her think about the striding.
– replace the jump with just a wing (remove the bar) so organize her stride without having to consider jumping as well. I bet she has a complete lightbulb moment on it – when you see her turning her head before arriving at the wing, then you can add the bar back. It will happen either in that same session, or the session after it.
– starting her pretty close to the jump requires her to make a decision at the release, and she happened to be choosing the wrong option 🙂 So, because you have an awesome stay and her comitment is terrific, you can start her further back so there is more room to organize the striding. I’d say 3 big strides back from the wing (at first) then the jump, so at least 15 feet – she might end up sitting at the base of your tree or up against the fenceline 🙂 But with 15 feet or more, she can release, move, make a choice then execute the choice.
Let me know what you think! She was beginning to get the adjustment at the end of the video, but we can help her more by showing it to her systematically. The soft turns are so hard because they are just less obvious to the dog, as opposed to extension or tight wraps.
Nice work! Keep me posted!
TracyGood morning!
>> but for a straight exit is a ‘go’ really necessary all the time? Or jsut for certain situations. Eg, I only say something like a ‘go’ on jumps when I am trying to send Rayven a longer distance over the jump or down a line of jumps (actually that is more likely my ‘jump’ command), not if we are just running a basic line. Not sure why would a straight tunnel exit be any different?>>
Based on course evolution with all of the options we see now… I would give the dog the info before all of the entries at this point, so there are no questions.
>>Was thinking all three jumps, but ok will stick wither the jump bumps for now. When do you think we should start introducing actual bars? She turned 9 months this week but she is still figuring out her coordination when she is moving faster.>>
I would introduce a low bar in the set point when you can be outside on grass. She doesn’t have enough grip on the mats indoors so there is no rush. At 9 months old, she needs to learn that she can trust the footing and not compensate in her organization.
On the video:
HOORAY FOR OUTDOORS!!!!!
She did really well on the simple backside sends here and yes – when adding the wing before it, you need to move faster and be connected more 🙂 You can send to the start wing a little more so you can be ahead – it will be a sweet spot of a bit of a send so you can move forward with connection, and not so much send that you end up standing still at the jump.
She will need to sort out how to turn on grass, so don’t add a lot of running because she doesn’t quite have a handle on how to use her hind end outdoors yet.
Since we ideally want to drop th reward on the landing side of the jump to create maximum independence… How is her retrieve outdoors? And if that is either an unknown or a work in progress, you can drop giant cookies or put the MM on the landing side of the jump tucked in near the wing
>>. I probably should’ve picked something a bit simpler but I did want something that allowed me to hold her collar rather then the grids that have to rely on her wait in a sit.
You can do the “wind in your hair” set up where she goes from a wing to a jump and runs straight 🙂 That doesn’t require a stay but it does require a thrown (or placed) reward. A MM can work for that.
Now that you are able to do stuff outdoors, do a bit of refreshing things like the retrieve, stays, etc so it will be easier to play the games 🙂
Great job! Fingers crossed for more clear weather ahead!
Tracy
Hi!
>>Sigh, unfortunately my circle is really small here. I just need to get comfortable with him on my own.>>
Yes, you can goout on your own (come to NC!) or it is fine to train through the summer and go back out when Carrie can also go.
>>I think this is a double edge sword because I’ve used the pool so much to help his arousal when we were really struggling and if he just gets a quick swim, he’s much better about working. How much should I fight this struggle- it’s not super motivating to me to work through>>
Agreed, it is hard to work through because there is no simple answer. And it is a double edged sword, adding in the history of having a lot of “swim first, do other stuff later”.
So whether or not to fight with it and work it through? It comes down to whether it will have an impact on his ability to work/engage in different environments, particularly ones that have big distractions that you cannot give him in advance and do not want him to leave you for (there are swimming distractions at a lot of agility places, whether it is a pond or baby pool or something. He actually had 3 kryptonite distractoins in this video: the barking dog, the jolly ball and the pool.
So going back to my original question about whether it is important to work through it or not… a question to answer first:
what would he do if you just walked in and took off the leash (no games, no reinforcement in your hands or pockets, just enter and take off the leash) and waited to see what he did?The answer to this would tell me what my next steps are:
Would he stick around and engage with you? OIf so, then no worries about the pool.
Would he take off and leave you for one of the distractions?
If yes… then you have to work through it. If he will leave “work” at the home base practice area, then you are guaranteed struggles in the ring and life skills.The leash and the tricks/toys are management – and the first thing I learned in dog trainer school is that management always fails. If we have not worked on the underlying skills, then we will get undesired behavior when management fails or we take the dog off leash and don’t have reinforcement that is more stimulating than the distraction.
My Dalmatians proved this point to me, regularly haha! Lots of running off, not engaging, lessons learned.
And I think my greatest dog training achievement was recently when my Contraband (2 year old BorderWhippet mix) was off leash in the agility ring with me, his breeder, his mom and his half-brother. We were all standing there chatting, dogs off leash. The breeder suddenly tossed a tennis ball across the ring (what the? LOL!) and her two dogs (CB’s mom and bro!) took off after the ball… CB just looked at me and did not chase or run for the ball. I didn’t have any treats or toys on me, but he made an excellent choice. Huzzah!! It is because I had recognized his whippetty chase urges earlier on and worked through them, because leaving me and chasing other dogs and critters is a terrible thing for sports and life skills.
(Disclaimer – there are plenty of other things my dogs do that are nauighty and aren’t exactly crowning achievements LOL but I try to address the important stuff!)
So do I think it is worth working through? Yes indeed! I have seen the struggles with him not understanding how to ignore the pool in other situations! And I think you can make it easier on yourself and him by slicing the behaviors thinner – higher value reinforcement (he was jazzed for the jolly ball, and you can do the pattern game with 2 frisbees!) And start as far from the pool as possible. He was able to offer engagement and do the pattern games and do the heeling tricks he loves so much. I think more distance from the pool and higher value reinforcement will help! And controlling the environment in other ways – clear the field of rando jolly balls 🙂 and see if maybe Roulez can chew a bone or something so she disn’t barking? The pool is kryptonite enough, we don’t want to have 2 more for hi to learn to handle at the same time 🙂
It will be a bit uphill because of the previous reinforcement history, but it will be totally worth it! It will have a positive spillover (pun intended haha) in other environments too, and you won’t ever have to worry if he will leave you for a body of water 🙂
Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
The transitions looked great here!!! Yay! Keep doing more Go reps than turns, to keep her running in full extension (you an throw the reward super early, as she exits the start wing, to get her blasting ahead even more).I notice that you are bending over a bit with her – I don’t recall any bending over with the BCs 🙂 so perhaps you can add more distance between the wing and the jump now, so you can run more (which should help you not bend over as much :))
Zig zags also look great, and her stay is going well too!
She was a little surprised about the first rep with all 3 bars but then she was perfect. Super!!!! So 2 things for the next session – you can shorten the distance up a little more, but having wing #2 touching bar 1, and wing #3 touching bar 2.And, you can try giving the arm cues more quickly, to see if she can respond even more quickly 🙂 I think she will be fine with it.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>But then I waited and when she came back I did a little VD to bring her up before the wrap start.>>The volume dial tricks TOTALLY helped her here! Yay! You can work in immediate volume dial tricks – you put her down, she offers a bit of engagement, then you do some tricks to get her ready. It looks like she ‘cooled off’ a little waiting at the line, and volume dial tricks are perfect for heating her up again 🙂
She did well running past the bar setters, I am glad they are in the ring – make that a lifestyle now! No more sterile rings 🙂 It was a nice fast, fun course and it was great advice from the instructor to reward for coming past the bar setter the next time too. The table was the easiest spot to reward, but you can reward over jumps too.
One thing to add in now is that you can reward pieces of the behavior rather than try to get the complete behavior, when working with bug kryptonite level distractions. She had trouble with the instructor really close at 1:25 – she didn’t take the jump but didn’t visit or sniff. In that situation… just keep running and reward the approximation of ignoring the person. Sure, she didn’t take the jump – but we are shaping behavior here and can reward pieces of it and not worry about perfection. Since she didn’t go to the person or sniff, you can keep moving and reward and then go back and fix. By turning her around to try again, you basically mark it as incorrect and present the distraction again – a reward for the approximation will help make it easier as you show it to her again. Then when she came back through it at 2:28 – mark and reward that for sure!! She got the jump that time but got rewarded at the end, a couple of jumps later. So just keep in mind that we are rewarding behavior in the context of agility, not agility 🙂
>>We have also been working on Pink Panther lead outs – She kinda thinks I’m nuts, but she’s used to that by now and is waiting to see what I’m up to and if it’s worth it to her. She held her stay about half the time, ears a little flat and only watching me out of the corner of her eye. When she broke I just laughed and through a cookie behind her. When she did stay her releases were fast – faster than when I did an “all business” lead out. My instinct is that we should sleep on it a day or two and see what she does next time, because I think the silly walk is more explosive though she understands all business better – because that’s what she’s had more reps of.>>
Yes, part of the fun of those games are that the dogs think we are completely nuts LOL!!! It is possible she will really like it! Or not 🙂 Play with it in a comfortable seeing then try it in class – she will probably like the moving away/chase elements of it!
>>It occurs to me – I probably should practice the lead out as a “lateral” as well, yes? Because I often have to move laterally to get around the wing after setting her down, depending on how the course goes.>>
Yes – you can step out to your line laterally in a calmer way, then start the game when you start to move forward on your handling line here, before the release.
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>> Thanks for the comments. I redid the accordion tonight at 54 inches instead of 64. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize until afterwards that I had 4 jumps and not 3! LOL. I will redo it tomorrow and upload.
The accordion grid can be eon with 4 jumps (the 4th jump is the one that moves, for example) but I start the pups on 3 for a bit. Eventually they do go to 4 jumps (and all sorts of variations LOL!) Yo can post that video if you like! No rush to redo it today or tomorrow, since he has done it 2 days in a row. He can have a day or two off from jumping to let the body rest and brain cement the skills 🙂
The backside work looked lovely!! He is really finding the backsides independently, allowing you to get all the way across the bar for the Countermotion serpy exits. YAY!! When you are moving to the center of the bar or the far side of the bar, you can remove the bar on the ground that is marking the line to the entry wing for the handler – I don’t want you to roll an ankle on it.
I know there was some talk about you moving a little too laterally away on the backsides – ideally, as he develops his understanding, you move forward on that parallel path til you see him lock onto the entry wing… then you can peel away laterally to your next position. I think for now, you’ll be waiting til just about when he arrives at the entry wing, but eventually it will be insanely early (in a good way) because he is already showing lovely independence for getting to the backside AND jumping the bar. The BC and FC you did on the landing side already looked great. And he was happy to let you do the countermotion serp exits (the baby level warm up was easy for him – yo can add more motion to it by jogging and also release later, when you are a step or two past the exit wing :))
One question for you: on your serps, do you use an opposite arm as part of the serp cue? On the first bunch of backside reps, you had the opposite arm up but it might have been for holding the toy? He doesn’t need it to help support the line to the backside, so as long as you are connected for now, you don’t need the opposite arm as a serp arm – it is faster to run without it, and it help the threadle arm look very different in threadle situations.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyMary, I am going to do my best to fit in the original MaxPuppers before we open it to the public 🙂 I am sure you will get the spots you want 🙂
Hi! He did really well here!
With the off leash game: for next steps, now try to have your hands empty as you take off the leash (I think you had a cookie in your hand here? If not, yay! And go to the next step). And then we will go to not wearing the pouches (leave them on the crate) – but the cookies can be in a pocket or something 🙂
For the pattern game with the clicker: he is doing well here! This game should be as verbally quiet as possible – just the clicker and the ‘get it’, no praise or name calls – because the goal is that we click/treat his choice to lift his head and ignore the smells. You can really see him starting to do it at about :20, where he lifts his head, considers going to the crate with the stinky treats… but chooses to look at you instead.YES!
Remember to toss the cookies here and not feed from you hands – the tossed treats create the pool of scent that we want as his distraction 🙂
When you reloaded treats from the bag to your hands, his focus got interrupted a little. You can move to a new spot and restart the game in that moment. But if he takes a moment to lift his head, stay very quiet and do’t help 🙂 He was taking a couple of extra seconds at the end and you were calling and helping him, but we want him to make the choice. The tossed cookies create the pool of distraction scent so he might need an extra second or two, which is fine – stay totally still and quiet 🙂 When he engages? Click/treat! If he cannot engage after about 10 seconds? Move to a new spot and reset the game, no worries.
In the first part of this video, he was alsmot at the point where he was not distracted at all – when he does not take his eyes off you, you can start walking back and forth while playing rather than standing still.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
