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Good morning!
>> For the wing wrap do you think “Check Right” and “Check Left” would work since Cowboy is used to hearing the word Check?
I think having check as the start if both verbals will delay the direction info – he might know it is a wrap from the check cue, but the left or right will be delayed so he will end up waiting to know and making a late decision (or he will take a guess).
So, 2 of the best options are to either:
– keep check as wrapping in one of the directions (his stronger direction, perhaps) and add a new and different word to the other direction.
Or
– keep check as “wrap towards me” and add a different word that means “wrap away from me”.>>I am thinking about using the Manners Minder for this but if you have any alternatives, I am happy to give it a try.
I don’t think you need the MM for this at this stage: the wrap rewards can come from your hand (and that’s part of the commitment skill: leave the reward to get the reward LOL!)
>>I am not sure how to indicate to Cowboy how tightly he should turn when doing a rear cross. I rely a lot on my motion to get him to collect or jump in extension but would love to learn more how I can improve my precision in that area.>>
Yes, motion is a big cue but you can add wrap verbals for the tight wrap exits, and tomorrow we start soft turn verbals which can be used too. For example, taking motion out of the picture: if the rear cross has a wrap exit to the dog’s right, I say “choochoochoo” which means wrap to the right. But if it has more of a 90-degree exit, I say “right right right”.
>>Here is a video from Friday. I tend to use “Check” and “Check, Check, Check” interchangeably but am working towards being more consistent with the wording.
Saying check check check (repeating it) is helpful to the dogs, I believe, because it gives them more info and helps them process it.
He was definitely sorting out the wrapping on the video! He was relying on your deceleration a lot – if you were not very early, he would jump long. And since we want to strengthen the verbals so the perfection of your handling is not as important :), let’s help him sort out his turn mechanics on just a wing.
Looking at game 1, putting a wing in front of a jump and having him wrap the wing will help apply the verbals (yay!) And also you can just move forward towards the wing without needing to decel so that’ll strengthen the verbals and make handling easier (double yay!!)When we like how he is getting himself organized independently on the wing, then we can take him back to 2 jumps for games 2 and 3 (the MM might come in handy for those :))
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyOMG! Good for you, sprint running!!! I got my sprinting in today by running 4 dogs at a trial, 3 of them in the same class. Eek!
Hi! And welcome!
>> So this is where we do the back and forth with you correct?
Yes 🙂
>>And upload our video to Youtube and share the link here for critique? 😉
Yes 🙂
>>It is Saturday and I am want to get out in the yard with Desi before spring turns back into winter overnight!!
Hopefully you got some fun in! Did. I see that there is MORE snow coming?!?!? Nooooooo!
>>Anyway, looks like new week is soft turns? Can I submit the very short part of the trial video where we were doing the pinwheel and I screwed up and Desi got the refusal? It is very short and wonder if out would be good for the Tuesday night chat or just submit here on my class thread. ( There is not a FB page for this class is there?)>>
Yes – this sounds PERFECT for the Tuesday live chat! Please send it 🙂
>>And non-sequitur with this class if I may…..- Nathan Chen is simply amazing!!!
Yes! He is AMAZING!!! I didn’t know you were a skater – that is SO COOL!!!! I love the sport – it is so fantastic to watch!
Tracy
Hi! It sounds like you are getting really good work done!
Question:
Is your full verbal cue for the wrap “wrap left left left” and “wrap right right right”? If so, I recommend you drop the ‘wrap’ and just do the left left left and right right right. The wrap before it doesn’t indicate anything and delays the important info of left or right 🙂 So dropping ‘wrap’ will help him get even better!
And, if you also use left or right for ‘softer’ turns, we can look at that and clarify to see how clear we can make it for him.
Let me know what you think!
TracyHello and welcome, I am happy to see you and the Shelties here 🙂
This space is actually perfect for getting these games started!
At this beginning stages you can give her input with the physical cues, because it is a brand new skill. And then we will start to fade out the physical cue when she has a couple of sessions under her belt.
Helping her was the right thing to do for now, as you establish what these new words mean 🙂 It is always better to help the dog than it is to tell her she is wrong.
And it was fine to only work one side – the concept AND the verbal were brand new, so one side, short session, lots of rewards: PERFECT!
A couple of ideas for you:
No need to do any Go reps on this setup, because we don’t want her to ignore the wing to wrap – we will add the Go when we go the 2 jump games. To help her getting started, you can totally give her a warm up starting nice and close to the wing. She was TOTALLY catching on to the verbals though!!! What a smartie!You will need this wrap cue for her on course – she is already a tight turning dog, but the wrap cue will also help speed out of the wrap on the next line, because the wrap cue also tells her which line to drive out of the turn on. That way she won’t need to ask “what’s next” and she can just run har to you. That will really help boost confidence and speed!
Because food is her great love, you can totally continue to do what you did here: food stuffed toy for the go (when you get to 2 jumps) and cookies from your hand for the wraps. Food is the most valuable reinforcement for her,so we will go with what she loves.
So for the next session, start with a warm up on just the wrap (doing the right turn to balance out all the left turns here) starting really close with not a lot of motion. Then start to add more motion to it. If she continues to excel like she did here, you can totally add the wing wrap before it for even more motion! And work both sides like that.
Then if that goes well, we can add the full jump for the wraps, which then allows us to add the GO reps too (because the reward for the go rep is really about what she is doing on the first jump – going straight).
Great job here!! You are off to a lovely start! Looking forward to Buccleigh too!
TracyHi!
This was challenging for him! I could see smoke coming out of his ears! But you could totally see that lightbulb moment – he went from trotting to the wing to practically skipping joyfully to it: “I figured it out, Mom!!” Very cool! And then it was smooth sailing after that, even when you added the wing. And you did a brilliant job of NOT being helpful with the handling hahaha!!!! It is hard for us, but really good for helping him learn to process the verbals.So on your next session, try a warm-up for a few reps of wing to the wing/jump setup, with you adding more motion (and still moving forward so your handling doesn’t help). If he is peachy keen with that, then replace the wrap with with the jump so he sees you being an unhelpful handler on the jump, and so you can contrast it with the GO cues. (If he is NOT peachy keen with it and thinks we are crazy, then stay at that level and don’t add the jump :))
Great job here!!!! Looking forward to seeing how he does with the next steps!
TracyHello and welcome! It is great to see you and Lanna 🙂
Hi!>>None of mine thought they should go while I was walking. In fact Lanna had quite a bit to say about my pace.>>
This super useful info!!! She wants you to accelerate more, which means she is reading motion rather than processing the verbal – which means when you DO run she is still processing the motion ahead of the verbal. And might get a refusal is decel too early.
So – let’s get your dogs happy to do it when you are walking, not just running 🙂 a couple of tweaks to help make that happen:
Start closer to the wing, hand on collar. Start saying the verbal, then let go, and walk forward very very slowly 🙂 When she goes to the wing: toss the reward to the other side (rather than reward back at you) to help convince her to leave you for the wing. Keep walking forward til she commits.
You did something similar to this at 1:45 on the video, and it was really smooth – I would just throw the reward to the other side of the wing for now, and start progressively further and further back.
And then you can progressively add more motion followed by decel – that will be challenging and the verbal should help her commit 🙂The 2 jump game was a little harder indeed! She had a lot of successes – and she totally has big opinions about decel haha!!! So on this game too, we can tweak the reward placement to help her out:
For the wraps, toss the reward to the exit of the wing wrap, rather than back at you – that’ll get her turning even if you are decelerating, and looking at the landing line.
She had a lot of opinion about the Go lines! You can help her out there too by tossing the reward sooner. The criteria we want for the Go rep involves looking straight and jumping in relative extension – so if you see that happening before jump 1, you can toss the toy out past 2! That will also help her understand that yes, indeed, she can take both on the Go verbal 🙂For this game too, add in holding her so you can start the verbal before you both start to move – that will help her process it sooner. And you can also add the wing wrap before the setup, because that way you can start the verbal before she even exits the start wrap, which gives her more processing time.
Great start here! Let me know whT you think!!
TracyHi!
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Tracy
Good morning! Really nice sessions here!!!! So many great things happening 🙂
I love how your videographer was helping – that is so useful!Looking at the videos:
Right wrap with wing: lovely! I love how she was able to wrap even when you were running. She was definitely pumped up 🙂 because she was wasn’t giving the toy back. We want her pumped up on training, so she can be pumped up like she would be at a trial.Well done to the left wraps too – especially the last rep where you ran forward with a lot of speed and she collected perfectly. Yay!
Right with jump – very nice too – don’t say ready 🙂 as it delays the info and that was when she dropped the bar. And since you mentioned that sometimes you don’t use the verbals and only use her name, I think the ready word here is replacing the name. So getting rid of “ready” will help you get the verbals out while running too.
On the redo of it – very nice – there was an earlier verbal (and no ‘ready’) and she kept the bar up. Since she had the error on the previous rep, you can reward that moment rather than continuing back to the start wing.
Left with jump – you were adding in extra “ready” here too 🙂 Since your videographer was helping, you can ask her to catch you if she hears you say ‘ready’.
And also it was perfect when you were not decelerating or matching the handling to the verbal (she had an oopsie off course on one of them!) – keep moving forward and saying the verbal, challenging her to collect without needing the handling to create it. That will help her isolate and process the verbal, rather than watching for handling.For your next sessions on this game, you can add challenge: Move the start wing further back, so you can have even more speed and ore room to just go forward without running out of room and decelerating.
Also, you can add in the balance GO reps on cue, so she takes both jumps straight, then has to listen for the wrap verbals so she doesn’t go on autopilot and assume everything is a wrap 🙂 To balance in the go reps, move that 2nd jump (the distraction jump) so it is about 6 feet away from the turn jump. That way she has more room to land and take off safely for the Go reps. And, since you will be adding more motion, the wraps will still be plenty challenging even with the distraction jump a little further away.
Game 3
This was hard for her! Slowing it down and helping a little showed her what you wanted for a rep on each and that is great! Then at :32, you didn’t help as much (you used the verbal but kept moving forward, rather than turning early) and she was GREAT!
I think she needs a few more reps or another session of the jogging – when you added running at :58 she took the distraction jump (it was too much change in motion). You dialed it back at 1:14 and after that so your motion was more of a fast jog, so she was able to process it nicely.When you added the wing wrap before it – try not to help as much with handling. You were really good, almost too good for the purposes of this exercise 🙂 I know, it is crazy to be asked to be a bad handler LOL! Look at 1:35 – you were really good with your decel and rotation, and I think that is creating the turn more than the verbal. So, to add challenge and to isolate the verbal, don’t decel or turn – keep facing forward until she makes a choice: wrap, or off course 🙂 You know (usually) if she is going to wrap if she slows down in front of the wing and turns her head – when she does that, you can turn and run and reward. That will help her understand that the verbal is a critical piece of info to listen for, and not just wait for the handling./ Let me know if that makes sense!
And try to keep it to one start wing then one wrap jump – when you did multiples in a row, you started adding “ready” before the turn cues, and that delays info so she was widening in her turns.
Great job here! I am really excited about what she is doing! Let me know what you think.
TracyHi again!
Really nice session of Game 3 here!
This game definitely made her think a bit and that is great! She still turned well but her first couple of reps had heavier landings, which is generally a sign that she was still thinking about it. Then she sorted it out really well!At :27 and :41 – you did Post turn handling and she still wrapped, didn’t take the distraction jump! That is great that she can process the verbal and not need your handling to help her. A post turn there can almost support the off course, but she processed the verbal and wrapped. VERY nice!
At 1:21 she pulled the rail and at 1:25 she moved the wing – you were a little late (as instructed LOL!) and added more countermotion – definitely show her that again, it was distracting and she needs to see the countermotion so she can sort out her jumping. You can start it by jogging through it then quickly move back up to running.
I am super happy with where she is, just in time for the new games on Monday.
If you do one more session, play this one again with more of the countermotion so she can sort that out.Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
The wraps are going well! She was lovely, wrapping nice and tight, even with you deliberately being wild, late, etc. And the post turn looked just as good as the FCs!!! Very nice! And I didn’t see her touch any bars or wigs – she was very organized in her jumping 🙂 YAY!!For the GO on this setup, we want to mark Go on the first jump (same as we mark the wrap on it) so you can throw the toy as soon as you see her going straight over jump 1. The head turn is harder to prevent in this setup mainly because she is jumping into a wall. She wasn’t really driving to the placed toy, so I think that throwing early will help – think of it as a reward for jump 1, not for jump2 🙂
Onwards to game 3:
Good morning! I am at a trialing, running 4 dogs with the 3 babies virtually back to back to back. Lordy!!!
yes, he did well with a whole bunch of drills! You worked him at a super high rate of reinforcement and that really helped 🙂 Yay! We don’t need to over-do the drills, I like a day or two off in between them to let latent learning work the magic 🙂
Since you mentioned the deceleration and rotation – yes, ideally we would handle to support the verbal but for this training, think of it differently: keep moving forward until he makes a decision to wrap – you will see that decision in the form of him decelerating and turning his head. His decision is your permission to decel and rotate and run away with the reward, as that helps mark the behavior and make for a really fun reward 🙂
The reps in the beginning while you were walking looking really good!
From the rep at :14 (walk) to :29, that was a gigantic leap in challenge, too gigantic: you went from one wing wrap and walking up the line to starting in a different spot and running to the wing wrap then running into the setup. Too many variables changed so he had an error. Trial not to make such big leaps LOL!!! The rep after that was much better and a good next step – you were moving faster but started in the same position and didn’t sprint into it.He did have a little trouble when you dialed it back (he was looking a little straighter on the next rep) but he was successful and the decel helped him – so try to keep facing forward until after he makes the decision. You can add the low bar in now! And also visit game 3 – maybe give him today off (he has done a LOT of wraps lately and then try it again in a day or two.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
I think it is the dogs who teach us about the little details of the foundations – the more we learn from them, the better we get at putting in all the pieces!
And since he is only 13 months old, I think you were 100% correct to have done very little sequencing!!! All of the foundation work will come together very quickly, so it is better to let him physically and mentally mature. I like for my bigger boy pups to sequence closer to 15-16 months and older. They are more ready and the results are soooo much more fun for all of us. It is hard to see dogs the same age running courses – but long term success is found in how well the dogs understand their jobs, and how well we take care of their bodies. You are doing all the right things!And I love Lisa Frick’s barrel work, she is brilliant!
Have a great day 🙂
TracyGood morning!
Excellent point about seeing things differently in real life versus on the video – that is why I ask everyone to reward just about anything, except taking the distraction jump when there is a wrap cue 🙂 Seeing it in real time with a fast dog is hard!! I learned that lesson with my now-9-year-old dog: when he was young, I thought he was turning wide or falling or something during the session so didn’t reward as much as I should have. When I looked at the video, he was STUNNING and I should have given him a steak dinner and a few frisbees for each rep LOL!! Oops! He forgave me but I learned to reward all the things within the criteria – and if the video shows something I don’t like, we make a plan for the next session.
Looking at the video –
On the first rep, you were blocking the wing entirely so the only thing visible was the jump. He wrapped the jump beautifully 🙂 I think by the time he saw the wing there, he was past it. So it was an oops of handler line, not of dog decision. Compare that to the next reps where he could see the wing and he was lovely! You had the wing visible for the rest of the video and he was really quite excellent.Since you are coming from BCs which turn differently than he does, your eye will re-train to what to look for with him: watch the area in front of the wing as he arrives. Is he slowing down a bit? If he turning his head? That will translate to collection on a bar. And it did when you added the bar in like at 1:04 and 1:13. I am seeing proper mechanics from him on the left turns now, and the right turns are still percolating (more on that below).
Go on was easy for him! Yay! And he was a superstar to come right back to the wrap after 2 solid Go reps.
His left wraps are looking easier for him than his right wraps – he is bendier to the left and tends to jump straighter to the right, plus he had the error of go versus check on the 2nd to last rep. It is possible that he is just a lefty 🙂 and it is possible that there is stuff close by on the right turns, so he doesn’t want to turn hard into it. So try giving him more space to turn right and see if that helps. And if he is definitely a lefty, no problem, that is normal: you can add speed and challenge to the left turns ore quickly, and keep your speed for the right turns to a lower level as he gets comfy with the mechanics to the more challenging side.
Since he is really jazzed up by toys – you can bring them into the picture by playing before the session, then stuffing it in your pocket or putting it off to the side so it is visible – and rewarding with food. That can introduce toys in a way that maintains his accuracy while he gets more jazzed up. Then you can hold the toy the whole time, and still reward with food. And eventually, you can reward with all toy without losing the accuracy of the behaviors.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
