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Rotated sends – fabulous, fabulous session.
First of all: YAY toy play! I love that you did this whole session with the toy and no food. She didn’t really want to give the toy back that quickly on some of the reps, and I don’t want to trade her for food because I think we will lose the toy play. So, you can reward her for releasing the toy by giving her the toy again 🙂 Basically, when she lets go of the toy, you can cue her to tug on it again. That will reward the ‘out’ of the toy and make it easier, without needing to use food.She looked super with the forward sending to the barrel – fast and bendy. And no problem when you turned to do the backwards sending. Commitment looks GREAT and she is also turning out to be a great combo of fast and bendy. Happy dance!
Ignoring the toy on the backwards sending was hard at first but she sorted it out 🙂 Super!
You started to leave a bit earlier and she was great there too , her commitment is looking lovely. One suggestion is to try to be quiet til she finishes wrapping – the excitement of the praise and seeing the toy come out was causing her to rush and push the barrel a bit. She heard the yes but didn’t see the toy on the very last rep til she was around the barrel and she didn’t touch it at all – PERFECT! So maybe quiet praise but no visible toy til she has finished the wrap. And you can add your wrap cues too!Since you’ve got great commitment and countermotion going so nicely here, the next games would be turn and burn with you starting the FC earlier and earlier til you can rotate and do the FC before she even arrives at the barrel. And you can also turn your focus to the rocking horse game,s we build that up into wild handling in coming weeks!
Great job here! Have a happy New Years!
TracyHi again!
The concept transfers look great! Both videos were really strong. Great job clicking early and throwing so she did not look at you. Also, really lovely job of keeping your left arm in “agility” position (down and back, swinging a bit) and not in heeling position – we don’t want to confuse the two cues. Not sure if you did that on purposely but it was great. Since this is going so well, we can add two things:
– getting her to find it with you way ahead. You can do that after you toss a cookie by not going down to the cookie with her – instead, you can turn around and walk past the jump so you are ahead of it when she returns her focus after getting the cookie. Then you can reward her for finding the jump with you ahead (it is harder than it sounds because most young dogs rush to get to us and skip jumps in that situation).
– when she can find it with you way ahead and walking like you did here, you can add more motion to all of the elements of this. Jog past the jump and if she is fine with that, build to running! Yay!Good morning!
Nice work here!
Yes, have the rewards broken up and ready to go so she doesn’t make her own fun in the ring. WIth baby dogs in particular, we want going into the ring to mean “getting right to work” and not having a moment to explore. I like having the big training bag up there, you can use that as a location for the remote reinforcement as well!She did really well moving away from the cheese, even after gazing longingly at it LOL! Be sure to say your ‘let’s go’ marker before you start moving back to the cheese (you were moving back to it then saying the marker). She was sniffing a bit at the end of the first video, which is an indicator of how hard this game is.
2nd video added behaviors – be sure to not pair in ‘yes’ with let’s go, because then ‘yes’ becomes the marker. You did some obedience cues towards the end of this 2nd video – to keep the behaviors sharp and quick, start the remote reinforcement with simple stuff that doesn’t need to be precise at first. Then, when you add in the obedience stuff that does need to be precise – ask for just one thing then use the let’s go to reward her. When she did a couple in a row, you could see it was HARD! So to maintain the precision of the obedience stuff, break it down into tiny bits so she can be as precise as she is when the rewards on with you.
Great job!
TracyHi! These look really good!
For strike a pose, you can use jump wings – but introduce the value for them first with the parallel path game, so he knows what they are and there is value for finding the ‘bar’ (rolled up towels lol) between them.
Your position here looked really good! You can be one step closer to the upright, so he makes the turn on approach to the jump and not on the landing side.
Yes, remember to use the cookie in hand marker now but I think we can also move to the next step – rather than reward from your hand, you can have an empty food bowl out where your feet are pointing too (just past the reward hand) and then you can drop the cookie in the bowl. That way he will be looking at the line and not up at you.Rocking horses – yes, the key is to actually not be too fast (that is the hardest part for me, I am pretty twitchy LOL!) This session was really strong – you were the picture of patience and you held the send til he was able to really commit to his barrels. NICE! He had a super high rate of success here and we can keep building on that. If you can get another short session or two like this with 90% success or better… then you can start to leave a little earlier (like as he is passing the first part of the barrel). My only suggestion is that you don’t switch the toy to the other hand – think about which hand you want to have it in when you reward, and leave it there the whole time. Changing hands causes him to look up at you and it also delays the next cue. Rewarding with the opposite arm is great but I think it ranks lower on the scale of important right now – the patience of letting him commit is the main thing.
>> and I feel that connection is harder with him so far away and those super cute but totally in the way eyebrows like blinders! >>
I totally believe you are correct: connection with the littles is harder than connection with the bigs. I mean, it is MUCH easier to see the eyes of my 20” jumping dogs than it is to see my 8” jumping dogs. You can play with what allows you to make the best connection: arm waaaaay back? Dipping your shoulder? And we also basically double up the commitment training for the littles because they have to take 3 times as many strides as the bigs on the same distance. My Papillons have MUCH better commitment than my BC mixes LOL! And it will be the same for all the littles here – extra commitment training because we can’t rely on being able to see them all that well.
The other thing to keep in mind is that connection is more about what the dog sees than what we see – so as long as he still sees your shoulders turned to the correct line, then you will get great commitment 🙂Great job here! Have a happy new year!!
TracyGood morning!
>> I will practice with lots of cookies in my hand. I tried, but was dropping more than rewarding, lol.
You don’t need lots of cookies – just maybe 3 or 4 small ones, or however many are easy to hold without dropping any. And it is also a great way to manage the length of the session and keep arousal high because when your hand is empty, you break it off, reset, play, get more cookies out and plan the next reps. That way you will have better reps, more play, better mechanics, etc. If you keep going with cookies, the sessions get too long and you don’t take a moment to reset the mechanics or plan the next reps.
Also, how is the toy play coming? Next time you are at Suzie’s, try to bring some toys or balls and see if he will chase them before the food comes out. Try not to only focus on skills for food, because he will associate all agility with tossed treats and it will be harder to convince him to play with toys.
He has a ton of value of the box, which is great! Because the MM is involved, definitely set a timer on the session so you can break it off, play, and plan the next reps in terms of what you are going to do and what you are looking to reinforce.
At this point, because value is in place, shift your focus to reinforcing when back feet are in the box (look at the box more than look at him).
I could hear the MM beep, and it sounds like you were nailing approach to the box or front feet in it. Now try to beep for back feet getting into the box. Try not to do multiple clicks with the MM when he is standing there, because it can confuse him as to whether he should stay there and wait for more, or if he should turn around and come back.
I couldn’t hear the marker or timing of the cookie toss when he went the other direction, but those looked to be early (especially at 1:28 and 2:40 when he was not yet in the box) so focus on marking for when his back feet get into the box for those too.
Since we are changing the criteria now (back feet in box to earn the click), dial back your motion so he can focus on the box. And you can also stand still at one end and send him back and forth, so he can go independently of your motion.
Nice work here!! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning! I hope the weather is clear for you, there are crazy weather things happening!
This session looked good, and he did have a lot more success than misses. All of the misses were really good effort to hit the prop, he was just moving fast so he didn’t quite get his feet on it. There was only one where he wasn’t really near it (:52) and that is a definite no reward. Because the prop is a stand-in for a jump and designed to teach him to go ‘find a thing on a parallel line’ 🙂 then you can reward those near-misses when his path carries him over it, like a jump bar. But – we don’t need to do much more of the prop for this concept because I’d say he has the concept now 🙂 So you can take this game to the concept transfer and play it with the jump! And the timing of the reinforcement for that is when he makes the decision to commit to the jump (with a jump bump or pool noodle or rolled up towel as a ‘bar’ so he can see you throw the reinforcement before he arrives at the jump.
Nice work! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! Happy New Year (almost)!
This is looking really good! She looks super confident to get on anything, move stuff, and offer behavior on pretty much anything you put in front of her. YAY!!! And the music offered a very dramatic soundtrack LOL
Your mechanics generally look good – you are very quick with your reinforcement and her rate of success was very high, even as you added challenge or different things to offer behavior on. Click/treat for you!
Getting on the moving boards all look super confident, hr turns on the plank look good (you were smart to see if she could also turn to her left after she offered turning to her right :)). She was happy to get on the Klimb (don’t make the release too exciting because she wants to explode off and then she slips, so you can be a little more boring then reward after she gets to the ground 🙂
She was also happy on the 2 fitbones – I noticed that she had her weight mainly on her front end on those – maybe it was more comfy, maybe it put her closer to the treats 🙂 – so you can reward closer to her chest so she shifts back a little and balances with more weight in her rear.
Since you mentioned mechanics 🙂 I have 2 ideas for you:
You can add challenge to your mechanics (and to her toy play) and see if you can pull the cookies out while you are tugging, or have them already out, so you don’t reach into the pocket as she offers the behavior or after it. Reaching into the pocket causes her to watch your cookie hand and your pocket, and delays reinforcement a bit. It is harder for her to tug with cookies in the other hand, but it is a great self-control game and I bet she can do it 🙂And, when she is tugging on the moving things or unstable surfaces, get lower with your tugging. Your hands were high so she was tugging and shifting forward. If you get lower (either bending or sitting) you can get her head lower and encourage her to shift her weight into her rear, which is ideal for moving surfaces. If she will tug but doesn’t weight shift, you can add some gentle patting or stroking of her neck/ribs while she is tugging because that might help get her to shift back.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
Have you tried the toy-for-cookie loop? This has really helped retrieves with my pups and I think her toy drive is strong enough that you can do it: the goal is to teach her to NOT run off with it 🙂 the retrieve part is easy after that.In a hallway where she can’t go too far, use your get it and toss a toy. As soon as she arrives at the toy, call her back for a cookie (she doesn’t need to bring the toy, she can drop it). Then you can gradually delay the ‘come get your cookie’ cue until she has it in her mouth, then til after she has played with it for a heartbeat, and so on. Eventually you can wait til she has it fully and then call her back for the cookie to both reward NOT running off with it 🙂 Then after she gets her cookie, I toss another cookie another direction, then go pick up the toy.
Let me know if that makes sense!
TracyOh no!!!! I am sorry to hear about your back and hope you feel fine soon!!!!! Big bummer about the trial 🙁
It is a good time to take a break from the twisty bendy moves and work on anything that doesn’t involve your back – maybe retrieving things to you while you are sitting? Or verbal wraps on the barrel while you are on the couch?T
Hi!
Good for you for getting out and training the pups!!! Brisk looked great here!Rocking horses are looking really good. One thing I will bug you about today is to have the rewards ready in your hand and not in your pocket – digging them out of a pocket is both a significant delay and a big distraction. So for this game, have the lotus ball in your hand – part of the game is the pups will learn the self-control of ignoring stuff in your hands 🙂
His commitment is looking good – his right turn seems stronger than his left turn for now, so start a little closer to the barrel for the left turns to set him up for success.
The throws to get him running out of the wraps looked good!>> I would like to see more drive. Is it because I’m not really moving? We need more practice?
Part of this is because we are not really moving so the dogs are not full speed yet – but we need to teach the skill before we can ask for more speed otherwise they will fail. Also, part of it is the reinforcement – ideally, we get toy play involved with this, or you tie the lotus ball to a rope or leash so yo can move it around like a toy.
Also, be sure to give very clear connection. Towards the end, you were disconnecting and pointing forward, so he was not as sure – he stopped completely at 1:26 and slowed down on the others reps. So be sure to make the eye contact as he comes around the barrel and maintain it til he gets to you, then send forward (staying connected as he passes you).Get out looks really good, he was totally happy to go hit the prop! Be sure to balance with him coming to you.
Strike a pose – he is doing really well! Especially on the harder angles – no problems coming in at all. For this game, he needs some sort of jump bar visual, whether it is a jump bump or rolled up towel or pool noodle – the visual of going over something will help him set his turn.
On this game – Focus on your treat mechanics and have your cookies ready – no more reaching into the pocket when you are rewarding him. You should have the cookie reward ready before you send him away to start the rep, so he doesn’t learn to follow your hand or look at your pocket. You can also use an empty food bowl now as the reward spot, and then plop the cookie into it as the reward so he can keep looking forward. He doesn’t have to touch the target at this stage, we can fade it and just have him do the in-and-out behavior. And, use your cookie markers and not yes 🙂 We want to be very precise and ‘yes’ will cause him to watch you more than we want/
Yes, your feet were incorrect on a rep or two, but that will get sorted out when you start moving. You were in the correct position for just about all the reps, so as long as you keep your feet pointed n the generally correct direction, you don’t have to worry about them too much.
>> And last but not least some box work in a large space (sorry, Bailey broke out, little stink). I was really pleased with his enthusiasm and he was seeking out the box (only one time he didn’t).
Did you have a video here? Or is it just an update? I want to make sure I don’t miss anything 🙂
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
He was pretty adorable and brilliant here! Totally pumped up and ready to do SOMETHING without needing cookies in your hands, even if he didn’t know what that something would be LOL! And he was also in the highest state of arousal that I’ve seen him in so far, which could be a combination of excitement and frustration because the cookies are behind him. But that is PERFECT because we can teach him to be excited and still be thoughtful, and work through frustration with this game. He was very successful here!
Working backwards on this video – when you were asking him to do things, he was at his happiest and executed really well! He was excited but didn’t seem frustrated – perfect. My only suggestion is to open your hands so they don’t look like you might be holding a cookie 🙂 That is minor, though, as I am sure his nose tells him there were no cookies in your hand, but we want him to see the picture of open hands too.
You can add other behaviors to this, simple stuff like goat games, or a bit of ladder work, or any tricks you might have.At the beginning, he was very excited but also a little frustrated because he didn’t know what to do. That is a perfect opportunity to teach him a default engagement behavior of just look at you and move with you. He wants to fly around and bark when he is not 100% sure of what to do, so we can use this game as a way to teach him to look up at you (with or without barking, your choice. I personally don’t mind the barking if the dog is engaged). So as you move away from the cookies, just take a step and when he looks at you… mark and reward. That way he can be equally fabulous with both responding to cues AND just offering engagement if you aren’t delivering cues.
And I like how the “all done” was paired with the rest of the cookies on the floor – YUM! Too many folks use an ‘all done’ and just walk away from the pups, which can be quite deflating to the pups! I don’t think StrykR was deflated here, I think he was having the time of his life! Yay!Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! Hope you had fun holidays!!
Strike a pose – I agree, this is harder for smaller dogs! He is doing well here. A couple of ideas for you:
You can start him closer to the jump set up (especially on the first couple of reps where he might be more tempted to run around it) and widen the playing field by putting 2 towels or so between the uprights, so the 2 uprights are more like 5 feet apart like a jump bar would be. That will simulate what he will see when it moves to a real jump. You can also now get a little closer to the jump wing so he has to bend a little more to get to the reward. And you can mark the target hit with a ‘get it’ if that is your cookie-in-hand marker, rather than “yes”.One other thing I notice here is that he was having trouble moving into the sit sometimes. Try to stand up when you cue the sit, bending over is a not a clear cue for him and he might be moving away from the pressure.
Rocking horses:
The singles looked good on both barrels in the first video, things got harder when you were doing 2 in a row especially when you wanted a left turn in that first video. You can hold the sends longer, especially to the left, til he is about halfway around the barrel, then do the FC.Leaving earlier with the FCs will depend on how early you can leave on the turn and burn games (they prime the pump for the rocking horses). You can revisit those as a warm up and see how he does, and that will tell you how early you can do the FC on these or how long he needs you to hold the send forward. When you were leaving too early by dropping your arm and leg back as he was arriving at the barrel, you were pulling him off and that was confusing.
As you saw, the left turns are really hard for him – either left turns are just hard, or maybe moving way from the cookie was hard, but either way I would definitely revisit turn and burn to get the left turns even stronger, whether there is a cookie/toy in your hand or not 🙂
>> I want him to feel more confident in what he’s doing.
Keep a close eye on the number of errors to keep the rate of success really high – that is where confidence comes from. If he has one error… ok, try again. 2 errors (in a row, or in the session): change something so he has massive success after that and no more errors, or stop asking for that behavior til you can figure out why he is not getting it. When the rate of success drops, he will lose confidence and get frustrated which is where you saw him launching for the toy or trying to do right turns around the barrel. So, if he can’t turn left for whatever reason, you can go back to right turns and then try a left turn rom a different angle or on a different barrel, or change the placement of reward by tossing it to the other side of the barrel instead of feeding from your hands. Gong back to the bowls was good to refresh things to get him offering again and raise the rate of success!
>> This was a lot better although I think my arms are probably too much in the picture and now after going through the reinforcement lesson I think I saw ‘Yes!’ way too much. I was wanting to give him some verbal encouragement though and not sure what else to do.
On the second session, you were using a lot more verbal energy and it is good to get him pumped up, but we don’t want to rely on it – so you can chat him up before the send, but be quiet for the send (or use your verbal wrap cue but as with the previous video, I would want it to be solid on turn and burn first). You were telling him “go” which is not good for wraps LOL! And definitely take out the ‘yes!’ because that might mean ‘come get a cookie’ and might be contributing to why he is not wrapping.
>>What else should I be doing to help us advance this game?>>
Revisit the turn and burn game and see how is does with the one step of a send into it. You might need to toss reward to the other side of the barrel as you do the FC. But I think the main thing here is to hold the send til he is halfway around the barrel before shifting your position into the FC. And add in challenge more slowly – he was stronger in the second video, especially with the left turns, so you were doing more in a row. Try to add challenge in more slowly. If you do a whole bunch in a row without reinforcement as you are building this, he will start to ask questions and slow down, which breaks the commitment a bit.
At the end of the 2nd video, you had really short, fast, fun reps and those were GREAT!!!Get out:
At this stage, in both videos, you can keep moving on the out, walking along the parallel line so that he can see the motion (which supports the out) and so that you don’t end up sending with a foot). Slow walking is the place. To start it, you did that on some reps especially in the 2nd video and he did really well!And he did well moving to you even he considered the prop – I don’t mind that he bubbled out towards it a little, it has a ton of value 🙂
And since you were using cookies he had to chew, before each rep, take a moment to be sure he is engaged and finished chewing LOL! Engagement to be sure the dog is ready is an important part of any of our loops here.He had a little bit of trouble at the start of the 2nd video – There might have been a little too much distance from the prop but also I think it was the line – it looks like you were using the rolled up towel to mark your line. But, the rolled up towel has the value of a jump bar now, so he was confused. You took it out after a few reps and he was GREAT! So, using a line on the ground is great but make sure it is something that doesn’t also have value for interacting with (a leash is perfect :))
Remote reinforcement:
The bug was probably delicious lol! Crunchy! Protein!
I think he did well here because it is an odd game at first. The main thing is that you can wait for engagement when moving away, letting him look at you – he was not really looking at anything and was probably wondering what was happening and why, when you ran back for the cookies. Is that where he was looking at another table with treats? That might be why he was not entirely sure where to look.Using the toy was harder but also because it is high value, definitely worth it to use! Start it higher up, such as draped over the back of the wooden chair you have in that room so he fails less. He does get bonus points for turning it into a goat game to jump up and get it LOL! He figured it out by the end, but I think starting the toy higher up will really help get immediate success here.
Nice work on these! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
Wow, really nice session here! And you have some pretty impressive distractions!!! CAMELS?!?!?!?! So cool!!!!! He was terrific.
I think working in the bigger space allowed our to add some really good elements of distance and a little speed, so if his feet held up with no problem, you can definitely keep using this til you get some dry weather.
I love that you were able to build up to you running on both sides, balancing coming to you with the out. He needed a bit of a warm up when you switched to your right side and added running, but you read that and slowed down for a couple of reps and that really helped.
He overall did really well. The best placements of reward were the ones where he was reset to have to move away from you again. Early in the video, your reinforcement was thrown straight so he wasn’t really having to ‘out’ to the prop, he was staying on his line. Later on, you shifted the reinforcement to more of a curve back towards you, which created more of a ‘banana’ shape to his line: starting near you, moving away then back towards you. That worked great for both the out and the staying with you!There is not much to add to the out for now… but if you want to add more variety, you can show him the difference between out and tandem turn/rear cross on the flat handling. The out is a simple lead change away then carry on with moving forward. The tandem turn is the turn away and go back the way you came (and of course there is the just-move-with-the-momma LOL!). He had a question about possibly turning away when you were on the right side but figured it out really nicely after that, so I figured showing him the difference between a get out and a tandem turn/rear cross on the flat would be useful because they both involve upper body cue but different verbals and footwork. Plus, it shows a bit of variety of when to go to the prop and when not to.
Let me know if that makes sense! He looks great!
Tracy
Good morning!
She did really well with her parallel path! Easy peasy! Your clicks were well-timed to hit the moment when she made the decision to go towards the jump (and not when she arrived at it). Yay! You can tell she was liking the clarity because she got faster and faster a faster. Nice!
I think at this point you can drop the clicker and just use your get it for the toss. Clickers tend to get the pups wanting to look at us, so a ‘get it’ and toss can help her not look at you.
How is her retrieve coming? You can use a toy for this too: mark and toss a toy, then reward with a cookie for bringing it back, tug, reset, and do the next rep.Nice work!!
TracyHi!
Reinforcement markers can get kind of complex, so this is just the beginning of it all 🙂 I personally do add additional markers for Contraband: I say ‘bite’ for the toy because he comes in hard for the toy. So if you feel this will add even more clarity for Levy, totally add the toy marker or the cookie marker so he knows exactly what is happening 🙂Tracy
