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Good morning!
>The beauty of video is we catch everything. >
This is so true! During training, our field of view is limited. But the video shows us everything š Plus, it is fun to have all of these puppy videos to look back on when she is all grown up š
>We ran off leash today and yesterday so we wonāt be training per se. Itās a good day to work on play skills.
>We ran off leash today and yesterday so we wonāt be training per se. >
Fun! And a great balance for all of the training.
Stealth Self-control video:
Really nice session here! She did well ignoring the object to play the game with you. Super!
We can ramp things up a bit to get her ignoring it even more. Putting the novel-neutral object down in front of her encouraged her to look at it and check it out at the very beginning and she might have even thought you wanted her to offer behavior on it (shaping).So for the next session, have the object off to the side in the training area before you bring her into it – so it is present by not enhanced by your interaction with it. Then as soon as she enters the environment, play the game as if the object doesnāt exist. That will challenge her brain to process it and ignore it.
The blind cross game is a great game for the stealth self-control too! It challenges her to ignore the thing in the environment AND process the relatively subtle upper body change to create the blind. She was pretty perfect here! You can try throwing the cookie further away so you can be further ahead for the blinds and possibly get 2 blinds in (she is fast so you will want to do the first blind immediately as she starts moving towards you, then the 2nd blind quickly after that).
Great job here!!
Tracy
Good morning!
>I need to become an octopus!>
Yes – multiple arms would make it all so much easier!
She did well with the game here – it might actually have been a slightly long session, because you can see her not quite getting on the tug as much at the end. It was only 2 minutes, but impulse control processing might be so hard for her brain at this age that even 2 minutes can be depleting! So letās keep these impulse control games to 1 minute for now (at 6 months old, we are entering the fantastic voyage of early adolescence LOL!!)
>In all fairness she came off the cot to check it out before I had released her to the game.>
That can actually be a good application of the game here: novel object in the environment and she gets released off the cot to come to you and NOT explore options of things to grab in the room š Seems like a good real life application for her! That first rep is the big important rep – have a BIG jackpot party for when she does not go to the object.
Also, what she does depends on what your release word means and the context, but you can have it be a ācheck inā with you before going on her own way – but it sounds like she is not fully ready to be free on her own yet there.
Great job here!
TracyGood morning! Sounds like a fun but busy weekend!
>During the break we worked on some ātricksā, so I now have a half-dozen, half-trained tricks hehe. But I was super proud toda when I let him off the lead, I got a nose touch, a sit, and a spin, then gave him a treat, then he didnāt run off until i cued āoff you goā ā super proud of that.>
YAY! Tricks are great. And the āoff you goā can also be the cue to take the toy on a run!
And yes, he is getting so big! Baby boy is growing up!
It was fun to revisit the prop game at this stage – he did really well!! The sideways and backwards sending was much more natural too him, and you were able to maintain criteria at a higher level. You were asking him to really hit it so when he didnāt get rewarded for almost touching it, he went back and smacked it LOL! He was also resilient to errors and didnāt get frustrated. Super!
He did well with the two toy game too – it was really energetic and engaging, so it shifted him from his party-of-one to wanting to engage more with you š
>I took your advice about putting a cue on him getting to win the toy- āwinner winner chicken dinnerā>
This seemed more like āLetās switch toysā marker and not as much as a go for a run moment for him? And that is fine – he can have a toy switch marker and it is fun marker too š
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
>we started outside to see if heād drive ahead- he was only interested in doing a few repsā¦ it was pretty cold for his tiny body.>
It is definitely cold for all of us! Even one rep outside is great then you can run inside and get warm š
He was on fire and drove away really well! I think you got 4 excellent reps and that is GREAT!! He was backing off a little when you were very close to him, so you can left him win more by moving after he is already 3 or 4 steps ahead of you š
The box shaping was great! He totally offered lots of feet in the box here! The next steps here are to get him offering getting in or getting on as many different things you can find: boxes, boards, pillows, etc.
The wrap shopping is looking fabulous! Interesting to hear that he didnāt get it when you tried it originally – a combination of latent learning and letting his brain grown up a tiny bit has made a difference! You can move the 2 bowls to be behind your knees now, so he has a little more room to wrap.
There was a bit of distance between you and the cone, so we can add 2 more things:
– do you have a barrel or a larger cone or laundry basked that he can go around? Bigger things to wrap will add a good challenge.
– We are going to start to change your position so you are eventually standing. Because he is so small, you can start the next session kneeling (where you ended here) and move to sitting on a chair. We will see how he feels about that then eventually get you standing.Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
>Last week we had a few nice days of 40ās and no snow. That all changed yesterday & today, we have over 6ā³ now!>
Oh no! I hope it melts fast!! I am ready for spring weather š
Looking at the stealth self-control game:
The hardest part at the beginning was when she had trouble tugging with food in your hand. That is normal, and we can work through it: after she eats the tossed cookie, you can call her back to the longest, wildest toy you have swinging on the ground and empty hands. When she gets into the rhythm of that, it will be easy to add a (boring) cookie into your hand while she is tugging šShe did well with the novel-neutral object! It might have been a bit too much on her path so she investigated it on the way back to her on the first rep, but then she was able to ignore it with no problem. Super!! For the next session, you can already have a novel-neutral object off to the side in the room when you bring her in. As soon as she comes into the room, start the game and see how she does! If she appears to not notice the object: GREAT! Her brain is away of it and it processing it, but regulating her impulses to investigate it.
Drive to handler went great! She really loved it! Great job with the very low cookie hand to keep her head low. If you pivot a little more slowly, she will be able to keep her hind end lined up more and not swing out at all.
You can add a little more motion here: as she is getting the start cookie, you can start moving forward then as she starts coming to you – let her see you decelerate into the stop before the pivot.
The goat trick game also went well! She is a quick learner: you had a couple of clicks right at the beginning for putting her front feet I the box then you rewarded in positionā¦ so she was happy to do exactly that : ) To get her offering back feet too, you can change the reward placement: instead of dropping the treats in the box, you can mark her interaction with a āget itā and toss the treat to the side for her to go get. That will keep her moving more, so she is more likely to step in with her back feet too!
With the drive to handler and goat tricks going so well, you can add in tug breaks here too!
Great job on these!
Tracy
Good morning!
>Latent learning always surprises me! Interaction with the prop (jacket) wasnāt clicking with her in the pre-games, but the second I dropped it this week she was good to go.>
I KNOW!!! It always blows my mind. I might leave a training session with a puppy thinking that the puppy learned nothing and I was terrible. But then the next time, the puppy knows what we did and has figured out the next steps.
That is pretty much what happened here with Macklynn. Super!! When you added the sends, she had a little trouble going past the cookie in your hand at first (even when it was empty because the hand as a lot of value to interact with), but then figured it out really quickly and had a lot of good reps. Clever girlie!!!
And she did well with the sends on both sides – normally we see a stronger side and a harder side but she seemed very balanced here. Even with the prop not fully visible, it was still easy to see when she hit it because she was making it pretty clear with her movement.
The only thing to add is a bit of the ready ready dance to engage her with you before each send, to let her practice shifting from handler focus (engaging with you) to obstacle focus when you send. You can also play this with a toy š
For the next session, you can add the sideways ends and if she is happy with that, add backwards sending!
Looking at the wrap sessions:
First video – She might have needed a warm up at the beginning of the first video of seeing you put the treats in the bowls, to get her into the rhythm – then yo can shift to letting her offer it more. Once she got going, she did great!
One other thing worth noting: a week ago, you were getting more offers of sits and down but she did not do that here – she kept moving. Yay! And you can break it up with tugging too.
Second video – The warm up where she gets into the rhythm by seeing you placing the treats for the first few reps will help here too! And keep the cone very close to you at first so the option of sliding in between you and the bowl is not a possibility at the beginning.
Then once she is in that back and forth rhythm, you can let her offer more of it but n need to move the cone out yet. Because she is so young, you can increase the challenge by one factor at a time – in this case, the first factor to increase would be letting her offer (coming around the cone before you put the treat in the bowl). You can stay at that stage for a session of about 2 minutes, then give her a break and let her sleep on it.
Then the next session in a day or two can start where you left off (quick warm up of back and forth with the cone, then let her offer back and forth around the cone before you drop the cookie in). If she is zipping back and forth around the cone – then you can move it out away from you by a couple of inches.
>Pt 2 is where things got a little comical. She goes to my left side far more easily than she does my right. The cone isnāt an issue when going to my left, but she has decided itās much easier to cut behind the cone to go to my right.>
Aha! The side preference we didnāt see in the prop sends is visible here. This is totally normal and will balance out. When you do start moving the cone away, it cane move away on the strong side first (then slide it back in on the harder side). That way she can be correct in both directions.
Looking at the resilience walk:
>It seemed that the lack of direction made her more nervous. Weāve done fun walks in the past (at trials, the bike trails, etc) and she is much more confident. >
You can definitely move more, heading to a certain spot and also letting her lead the way if she has a destination in mind that is safe Also, being on pavement for part of it was hard because it did not provide an opportunity for sniffing. When you got to the dirt/leaves/etc on the 2nd half, she was sniffing and much more active in investigating the environment. This is probably what youāve seen in other environments, so yo can keep these walks to places where she has good outlets for sniffing too!
>She does have a tendency to bark at concerning things that are at a distance (bikes, people, dogs) >
We will be teaching her some games that give her a framework to process weird things tar appear or move fast. For now, you can scatter some treats in the grass to let her snuffle around when something weird appears.
>One thing I observed in general this week is that she prefers to look for direction. With the Wing Wrap Game ā she would stop/stare at me, Resilience Walk ā hide behind me at loud noises, poke me if I wasnāt moving, etc.>
It makes sense that a Border Collie would look at the human for direction (as opposed to a terrier, for example) because they are wired to work with us. She is doing great with the shaping games where she is starting to offer without you needing to help her out – that will be great for her future sports where she will work independently and we combine her understanding of working independently AND paying attention to the info you are giving.
For being behind you when there is a loud noise, for example, that is her learning about the world or telling you she is not comfy. For now, you can set up her walks to be in quieter areas that are easier to process.
Also, do you have another dog that is super confident in the world, or maybe a friendās dog? One of my favorite things to do with puppies is use social support of another dog. The puppy goes on walks alongside a confident adult who models behavior. It is amazing to see how well it works!
For example, my Jitterbug (small black BC mix pup in some of the demos) was very concerned about the environment when he was a baby dog – he would bark or back away from weird things and be worried about all people in general. I paired him with Ramen the whippet who is about a year older and completely confident/neutral in the world. Their leash walks were together, they crated next to each other on trips, I took Ramen along when Jitterbug had vet appointments, etc. Jitterbug learned a whole lot by watching Ramen and now Jitterbug is completely confident in the great big world – and he is the confident adult model for my younger pup. Dog brains are wired for social learning so it is a great tool!
If you donāt have an adult dog who can be Macklynnās partner, you can ask friends/dog sport acquaintances to help out!
>Weāve worked the Drive Forward game a few times, but Iām realizing that my indoor spaces are pretty small for us to get up drive or speed so it all looks lack-luster. Would it be worth trying in the backyard? Or would the risk of distraction outweigh the potential drive/speed?>
Excellent question! You can test the waters by taking her out to the backyard on leash and playing tug with her highest value toy. If she is very engaged? Then you can start with the very first step of putting down the toy for her to focus on, then gradually moving through the other steps. You might not get through as many steps outside because it is much more tiring on the brain, but just getting some tugging and baby steps of the game outside, even if she is on a leash or long line, would be very helpful!!
>More videos forthcoming, but I felt I had waited too long to post as it is >
I am glad you posted! She is doing really well! Looking forward to more!
Tracy
Good morning!
Using the clicker mat is VERY clever! Love it! It really lets you and him know if he has hit it or not!
The forward and sideways sending looked really good and I think the clarity of the prop actually clicking made for some really strong hits.
Backwards sending was hard, so great job getting closer to the prop, refreshing the value, then he got a really strong hit right at the end of the session. Super! On the next session, you can start nice and close to it on the backwards sending. And when you send backwards, you can shift your gaze to look at the prop even more because following your gaze might help support the send even more.
Remember to also do the ready dance of getting him engaged before the send, so he can practice shifting from handler focus in the ready dance to obstacle focus on the send.
You can also play this game with tugging as a reward, instead of treats!
>TheĀ target did slide around a bit so, maybe, not the best for this surface. I bet if I placed it on top of anĀ anti-slip rug mat>
Yes – you can attach a rubber mat to the bottom. Maybe cutting a yoga mat to the right size would do it? You can even get fancy and attach it with velcro on the bottom š
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
>He mainly got his food for the training yesterday and that seemed to help his tummy. I will have to check into maybe just using some chicken for training. He will work for kibble but it isnāt enough for some training.>
I am glad his belly is feeling better! A little boiled chicken might be easier on his belly, and also spreading out the sessions will help too. He can still do lots of toy sessions š
>The little guy is three months old today so maybe he is in sensitive period. He is very different than my other goldens lol.>
3 months is a little young for true adolescence so it might be that his belly is bothering him. We will be teaching him ways to process weird things in coming weeks and that will help him through the sensitive periods ahead.
>I had thought maybe doing a couple of sessions 3-4 hours apart might be ok.>
I think it was probably just too many cookies and he is really young, so his brain got tired š As he grows, you will find that the sessions can get longer and he can do more of them.
>He loves to climb. It actually gets him into trouble š. I have not stacked things but will give that a try.>
Ha! He sounds like a natural goat! Low stacks with different objects leaning on each other will be great fun for him.
>So you can do recalls where you are moving away from him and have the object further away so it is not potentially something he thinks we want him to offer behavior on.
>How far away? To side more or maybe behind me?4 or 5 feet to the side or anywhere not near you when you stop moving. If there is something next to your near you when you are facing hi, it looks similar to shaping sessions where you are wanting him to interact with the object. So having it to the side and you aren’t near it when you stop moving and reward him, I think it will be something he ignores more easily š
Keep me posted!
Tracy
Hi!
>Iāll have to ponder what hand to hold the toy in though. I always have to think about it with the reward across the body.>
I do mini walk throughs to figure out where to put the toy LOL!! It goes in the correct hand for the 2nd blind.
The goat game went great!
She did really well with getting right up onto the board! She is starting to get her and end up on things which will really help as we add more hide end awareness games.
My only suggestion is a small change in mechanics: grab some treats as you get the toy back and before the plank goes down, so you can get the rewards in pretty immediately after the click. You clicked here and then reached for the treats, which allows room for more behavior to get offered – everything between the click and the reward delivery gets reinforced, so getting those cookies in as fast as possible is great practice for when we are shaping more precise behaviors.
Nice work!
Tracy
Good morning!
She did really well with the Feel The Wind game! Good girl! You can take off and run more – adding more of your motion will cue her to add more of her speed š You can see that starting at approximately:54 – you ran more and so she really accelerated š
To get a little more drive to the start wing, you can step to it with the dog side leg to indicate that she should go to it. When you didnāt step to it, she was a little slow probably because she was making sure she was allowed to do it. On the last rep, you stepped forward to the wing and she blasted to it. Super!!!
You can add more distance between the wing and the jump now too!!
>She was a little distracted and slow, and my coordination was off. >
One thing I have noticed with my whippets is that the first session is often a little distracted and slow – but then the next session is great. And when they have slept on it or a day or two? They are fantastic! So my guess is that they are processing new information in that first session and they donāt tend to throw themselves blindly into things (unless it is chasing a bunny haha).
>First, she seemed uncomfortable sitting close to the jump. >
You can let her stand! As long as she can hold a stay, she can pick her position. A stand is perfectly fine too and she did tell us here that the sit was weird LOL!
>Then she was very slow and didnāt want to drive to me and mostly stepped over the bars. >
It was hard to see the reward on the video, but was it the stationary reward? If it was mot moving, she probably thought the whole game was stoooooopid. Ha! Stationary rewards are boring, she says, especially if she is not hungry. So, add in the moving target reward (dragging a toy instead of a stationary reward) and I bet she finds it a lot more fun š
>Iām wondering if I should go ahead and add motion since I know that will motivate her? I do want to work with her on driving from a stay though. Maybe with no jumps, then through wings with no bars, and then with the bars?>
Yes, add motion in the form of the moving target and I think it will change her opinion of the game. The pre-game introduces the moving concept without jumps, so that is a great warm up! Then you can add one jump then two jumps (and lots of reward for the stays :))
>Iām so happy to hear you say you think chasing and letting them run with the toy is part of the reward for the hounds! In the past Iāve run into people who didnāt understand that. But then I always went home and let them do it anyway!>
Yay for you, letting the hounds run around and chase a lure as part of the reward! I think sighthounds are generally misunderstood by dog sport trainers – I for sure did not understand them when I got my first lurchers! They taught me a lot and the whippets taught me even more. I love every moment of it!
Have fun here and keep me posted!
TracyGood morning!
>I probably wonāt run with the water until I have my magnet fingers working. When I do move on to the H2O Iām definitely not risking my coffee! Haha!>
Running with water will help solidify magnet fingers LOL!! And I used to have a rule for myself: make exactly one cup of coffee and run a sequence with it. And if I spill it, I was not allowed to make a 2nd cup of coffee. That was risky LOL but I also got really good at keeping my hands low š Coffee is very valuable haha!
>I devised my own fuzzy holee roller toy (head of pink piggy stuffed in the ball then tied in place with the arms. What a difference. Amazing that she held her stay with pink piggy out there. >
She was brilliant! The toy was great and 100% did what we wanted it to do: support her forward drive and keep her head from coming up. My only suggestion is to add in rewards thrown back to her after you have started dragging the toy, because she is definitely smart enough to quickly figure out that dragging means release, and might start releasing when the toy starts dragging š
>Sheās so fast I canāt really tell how her jumping form looks. >
I use slow motion to watch the video. There is a setting icon on YouTube where you can set the video to play as slowly as 25% speed.
Her form looks great: rounded, powerful, consistent, excellent rhythm, excellent hind end organization, lovely head position, and so on š As the young people say nowadays: no notes. Yay! Our goal is to introduce a variety of little jumping āpuzzlesā so she can read and solve these puzzles by the time she is ready and old enough to jump actual height on the bars.
>Let me know what you see. I left a āswifterā tug in the video cuz she is so dang cute!!>
She is totally adorable!!! I just love her!!!! Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
The moving target game is off to a good start and gave us helpful info:
Does Tarot love to drive to the toy? Yes!
Does want to grab the part of the toy right next to your hand? Also yes!
For a regular game like a handling game, no problem at all. For the jumping grids we are going to use it for, we want to get her looking down to the bottom of the toy. So something to try is dragging a giant lotus ball with a cookie in it attached to a line, because she might be more likely to look down at that and not try to grab it up by your hand.
You can start the set point and if she likes the lotus ball as the moving target, we can add it to the set point pretty quickly.
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
>Wait till you hear me say ready? And she answers..no barking allowed, lol>
Ha! She said YES I AM READY! š
Nice work on the games here!
She did well holding the stay and driving to the toy on the moving target game!
The moving target itself can be a few feet longer, so it drags on the ground and you donāt have to bend over as you move forward. Bending over might be a little too exciting for the stay as we add the set point, encouraging too much leaning forward from her. Plus when we get you moving fast, it will be weird feeling to run while bending forward š So tie this toy to another and it will be perfect!You can start the set point now – and when she is comfy with the setup, add the moving target to it.
She also did well with the wind in your hair game – her only question was about what the reward was: cookie or the frisbee you were holding.
You should totally use the frisbee for the wind in in your hair game – holding it but not using it was causing her to look at you more than needed (āare you going to throw that thing, human?!?ā) and I think she would prefer the frisbee getting thrown anyway over the treats begin tossed š
When you did throw the toy, you got a lot more speed and forward focus! So keep going with the thrown rewards and now add more distance between the wing and the jump.
The video goes black after 5:10 but there is still sound – let me know if there were visuals missing?
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
>I was surprised he was so spooked and off task. Normally he does not seem worried in this part of the property, but he normally has social support from his sister (who I had just put in the car) and the big distraction of her running and being so fun>
It might have been a combination of things – the arousing run around got him stimulated, the social support of his sister was removed, and he didnāt fully understand the toy game so perhaps a little frustrated. Combine that with him being 6 months old (early adolescence) where the brain is more likely to react rather than problem solveā¦ plus in the first moment he reacted: Noise from above (plane?) might have been the trigger? It was pretty loud on the video but it might not have been noticeable to you in the moment. Video will catch things we didnāt hear š
At his age, he is not likely to self-regulate automatically and if he leans more towards reacting, the work with the behaviorist will really help! In the moment when it happens, you can use a pattern game to help him out – you had one going at the beginning of the food video and he was great at it!
On the toy video:
He was tugging really well at the beginning! He is still learning the toy marker – you can throw it further so he will chase it more naturally than when it is stationary right in front of him to help solidify the understanding of the marker and get him driving ahead.The beginning of the food video had a lovely back and forth cookie pattern which is something you can totally do if he starts to notice things in the environment, to provide a framework for processing the distraction.
The get it for the food went really well – he was focused directly on it and moved towards it with no question at all. You can definitely build on it to add more distance for him to drive, and add your motion too! When adding more distance, you can put the cookie on a target or in a bowl so it is more visible and he will find it more easily outside.
Driving to you for the decel game also went really well! You can send him to a target for the cookie so he can find it easily and give you a bigger head start too š He was driving to you and then his butt was swinging wide as you rewarded, so you can add the pivot which will keep him tight to your leg.
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Good morning!
Well done working him through this progression! Your low hand position helped give him a focal point so he was able to drive to you and pivot nice and tight with you š Since this went so well, you can go to the next step which adds more of your movement: when he is going to get the start cookie, you can start moving away from him (slow jog will work well!). Then as he starts moving toward you, let him see you transition into a deceleration so he can collect to drive at your side then pivot.
He liked the toy in the forward focus game – but it was almost like he was waiting for you to move as āpermissionā to get it. I like your idea of using a hollee roller or anything that will keep rolling. We can get him moving on the āget itā word by throwing it further and letting him go even sooner, maybe even before it lands. That will help him drive ahead even more so he doesnāt need to wait for you to also move.
You can also try it with a giant cookie, he might be happy to drive forward to a stationary cookie and the we can transfer the concept to a toy.
Great job here!
Tracy
