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Hi! Remember that the dogs develop preferences about which games are favorites and that can shift over time… I think he currently loves the bang game so your training should focus on that more than running down the board. And also, the bang game cousin of Elevator Game is something he will probably love and is one of the most important pieces to get us to the finished product.
And, as with the RDW, we can’t really train ‘fast’, we can only train accuracy and passion and that comes from the dog being able to consistently predict reinforcement… with that in mind, your new mantra for the teeter should be: less is more! I think the first 2 reps of the downhills where great! Quit there. 2 Hit Wonders LOL! No more running down the plank – when things are fabulous, it is always better to stop and do something else because the only place to go is backwards to less fabulous. You can do more bang games, and also add elevator games – but don’t ask for the full downhills again because he might not replicate the excellence, then you will be tempted to keep trying and then there is a vortex that never gets back the fabulousness in that session or that day (which I think is what happened here).
Thinking of the consistently being able to predict the reinforcement and also knowing what the board will do – By trying all sorts of different things to get more speed going down the board, you were changing a lot of variables on each rep so he slowed down more to figure it out, plus there is more pressure, which can slow them down too, which led to the vortex.So replay the first :27 seconds of this video – that is where the session can end, or maybe bookend it with a few more bang games. He has come a really long way with the teeter and it is an up-and-down progression (pun totally intended) for all of the dogs. So plan your next session to be more like the first :27 seconds of this one: bang, a downhill, bang. No vortexes 🙂 And if he doesn’t want to run fast downhill that day? Ok then, do bangs and elevators and target fading as those will all still get you to your goal of a fabulous teeter.
And no worries if he weight shifts a little bit in the middle of the yellow contact and not right at the end – the elevator game progression will take care of that.
You are doing great work here!!! Less is more 🙂 Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
Lots of good work here!Wobble board – this is going really well!!
>>I’m not exactly sure by rewarding forward if you were meaning to release to the reward ahead without rewarding to the target, but I did some of that.<< Yes, that is what I meant, sorry for the lack of clarity. So now on your thrown/forward rewards, wait one more heartbeat to be sure he is holding position not just arriving there otherwise you will get a bit of hit and go rather than hit and hold. You can add in a heartbeat of a quiet "good" praise marker and see what he does. And I like that you mixed in feeding in position a bit towards the end too. Keep adding in excitement - the next important piece is you being able to move faster, building up to a run over the course of a bunch of sessions. Plank work indoors - this is also looking really strong an the toy out front was challenging but not mind-bending: he rose to the challenge by going faster without losing accuracy. As with the wobble board, you can add in more of your motion and build to running. Plank work outside - the great outdoors was a pretty massive variable change so I think he did best on the reps where you didn't move and didn't use the toy as much, feeding in position more (making the other variables easier because the environment was so much harder). He was starting to sort it out with the toy out ahead at the very end, good boy! On the next session outdoors, start off with all variables pretty easy (not a lot of motion, not toy on the ground, feeding in position) and see what he does with the variable of the environment. If that is easy for him and he is super successful, you can add in one variable, I would say your motion is the next choice: walking by but using cookie rewards. Because you are installing the other variables in the other games, they should be easy to add here too! >>Do you think he can try the bang game on the teeter (small tip) yet?>>
Yes! The tip and teeter are the new variables, so keep everything easy: target visible, no motion, cookies in position and let him lead the way with how quickly you can add more. I think he will be fine with it and you can build it up quickly, but I want to be sure 🙂
Uphills:
OMG THE ICE CREAM that was just too funny! Brilliant! I admire your self-control because personally, I would have eaten the ice cream. All of the one hit wonders looked great, keep adding tip, keep adding ice cream LOL!!!! I think Lennan might also enjoy sprinkles on his ice cream cone.Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
The target fading is on the plank in the previous games package, I think you will find it easy for him 🙂Really nice work here!! On the elevator game: It took him a moment to get the target position (new teeter, new location, new-ish game) but then he got it and the scratching came back! Good boy! I was going to suggest you stop feeding him while doing the countdown (he still gets a hop on cookie) to encourage him to begin to look forward to the target – but then you did and he was fine with it and beginning to offer focusing ahead on the target. Yay! So…. add a little more height here! He is doing well!
Bang game:
Watch your toes! I am not brave enough to play any of these games without shoes LOL! The bang game looks really good! Your motion past the end position was not a problem, and the ball right out in front was a great reward without being too distracting. Super!!! So as with the elevator game… more tip! He is getting closer to these games beginning to merge into the full teeter, fun times ahead!
Great job 🙂
TracyGood morning!
What, River doesn’t get ice cream? Hmmmmm… LOL!Target fading – she is very watchful of your motion here, so two things to consider with the motion:
move very slowly, for now, don’t be too exciting so she can think more about target position and less about you. But also… keep moving 🙂 If you are standing still, great, remain stationary. But if you are moving as you cue the target position, keep moving for at least 2 more steps after you would guarantee she has chosen to hit and hold the position (or until she totally doesn’t LOL!) I think here you were changing your motion and stopping with her or just before her, so she was cueing off of that. When you didn’t stop, she didn’t stop 🙂 So – keep moving slowly and then we will be able to build it up to running by.
You can also prop one end of the plank up on something to encourage more weight shift – that will help her choose to stop too with or without the target there. She is getting close to being able to to it without the target, probably just another session or two.On the donwhills, she is super confident (yay!) and that is making her weight very forward as she goes into position. A couple of ideas for that, now that the teeter is outdoors and things are getting really fun 🙂 I think with you moving past the board, she is shifting forward because it is exciting! So we can do a couple of things to encourage the weight shift:
First, do a bunch where you are not moving – sending her to position (I am not concerned if she slows down :)) Or standing still off to the side. Separately, do some bang game where you move away past the board and keep moving til she is fully stopped (it was hard to see when/where you stopped on this video) and also elevator game part 2 has the same challenges of moving while the dog is getting into target position.
Then when she is shifting her weight back on all 3 of those elements, we merge them back together into running downhill to end position while you continue to move past. She is super confident, so it won’t take her long at all.Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! The start of this clip on the original side looked great too, just remember to keep your chest facing the bar as you add more motion.
I think turning to her right is easier for her on this game than turning to her left is, which might be why she had trouble when you switched sides. Even when you broke it down to one jump, she still thought it was hard. You can keep the left turn side (when she starts on your right) one just one jump with you walking. But the right turn side from the beginning her and from the previous video can be the one with the barrel and the running 🙂 The left turn side will catch up 🙂You can also angle the jump a bit on the left turn side: when she exits the barrel, you can have the wing of the jump that is closer to the MM pushed out towards the fence, so she can see the bar a lot more easily – that way it is easier to take the jump and harder to pass it 🙂 I didn’t see anything wrong with where the MM was, but she thinks this is a harder side (totally normal) so we can help make it easier 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning! I am so glad the seminar went well! I am not surprised, Ruby is a superstar of course 🙂 And getting her to learn to work around other people and dogs is soooo important. Yay!!!!
She did awesome with the send and serps here – great job warming her up! Then calling her in and making the serp arm obvious was great, and then you were a little less obvious and moving more: also great. She was lovely and seemed to know exactly what to do on all reps.
>Should she be coming more to my hand First? Maybe not. >>
Correct – she does not need to drive to your hand anymore, she needs to serp like she did it.
The only thing to look at is the verbal cue for the different sections. you were using dig dig dig for the barrel: if that is your soft right turn cue, perfect! If it is a wrap cue, you won’t want to use it here because she is not wrapping – use your soft right cue. And the angles were soft enough that I don’t think you need your backside cue here yet, you can move the barrel further away to get it to be more of a backside.
Great job! Onwards to the next video!
Tracy
Good morning!
First up, weaves! The side wing entries with the channels all look really great. You can move them a little further down the line of poles, to add more challenge on those entries!The straight-ish entries are turning out to be harder for everyone except my dogs LOL I guess I emphasized angles too much and not enough 12 o’clock straight entries to you all, but I do tons of them with my own dogs. Looks like he got them better in the 2nd session, so keep adding them into the routine – maybe do one hard angle, then one 12 o’clock angle, then a harder angle, then a 12 o’clock angle. The collection on that 12 o’clock angle is actually pretty hard 🙂
If you find yourself throwing poorly
then don’t throw the toy, use the MM then tug during the reset. I know the MM is not the favorite thing when the toy is there, but at least you won’t be rewarding pop outs plus the carry bag is very cute 🙂 You can also delay the toy throw until he is done weaving – it might mean you need to stick to handling challenges where you can guarantee he will finish weaving for a couple of sessions and then slide in a harder one here and there after that. I think this looks really good so when the straight line entries are closer to 90% successful and the rewards are not early LOL you can start to tighten up the angles of the poles.
About the RC – yes, the MM is a bit dullsville for him, but for now he is being highly accurate and not missing or leaping. And even in this session, he was getting faster. I guess I have seen enough dogs start off a little slower and more thoughtful on a behavior and end up insanely fast that I am not worried (Voodoo is a really good example in general, he was a trotter for the first 18 months of his life. And Hot Sauce was a trotter at this stage of the dog walk training, and then she was able to go to a full sprint without losing her accuracy).
But I do have some ideas that will help! It was a little confusing about the MM beeping and the toy being thrown, I don’t think he knew where to look for reinforcement and that was causing hesitation at the end of the board – so I wouldn’t do both. I would do the MM then reset with tugging. Does he drive to a dead toy? That can be more exciting than a MM if you can call him off of it when he misses.
One thing that I did with HS that really got her running when she as ready was I put a flyball jump 10 feet past the end of the ramp, and the MM was another 10 feet past that. I have a ton of video of her doing the dog walk ramp but for whatever reason not a single video actually shows the flyball jump. She loved it and it added more speed to the ramp after a whole bunch of work doing what you are showing here with Stark.
Now, HS really liked the MM so the other option is to use the toy with Stark but after something else like a flyball jump so the chain is plank-mat-flyball jump – toy throw as he is approaching the jump. I used a flyball jump because it promotes running, the dog only needs to go straight over it and it would not dilute anything on agility wings or jumps if I was throwing straight or yelling Go or something. And I also used it to train the turns, really helpful! I think Jordan uses a wing but I didn’t use the wing for a couple of reasons. I also used it for the running a-frame which worked like a charm. It all got put on hold due to the luxating patella, so I will get her going again when the weave & teeter class videos are done 🙂
I think the worldwide accepted practice on RDW training is that you don’t really need running at this stage – the accuracy and understanding is more important. This is mainly because there is a lot of LACK of accuracy out there, and the full dog walk is needed for the dog to sort out striding anyway. I never really worry about it at this stage because the speed will percolate when it goes onto the fuller dog walk. I focus more on accuracy and independence so the dog is not looking at me.
Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
Looks like lovely weather! Yay!
He is bending now… onwards to the real weave cue 🙂 Add in in a moment where you would bet the house he will 100% get the weave challenge right 🙂He did nicely with the channel set up here! No worries about the early pop out on the countermotion – you can delay the reward a big on those to help solidify it.
After adding the real cue: for the next steps, using this setup: leaving the angles of the poles just like this, add more motion (running parallel, getting ahead, and running away laterally). The RCs and countermotion are not as important now, you cal allow running to be the main focus for a session or two.
If he struggles? you can open up the angles a bit to get the running comfortable.
No struggles, easy peasy like this session was? You got it… tighten the poles by the width of a finger 🙂 This is exciting!!!! We are getting real weaving!!!Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
I think weaving is great for aerating newly seeded grass LOL!!
He did great here – the frisbee was not a head-exploder, and when you ran, he was also really strong in the weaves. He did look at you before going to the MM (perhaps in hopes of getting a frisbee throw instead?) His dreams came through at 1:07! The most telling moment was the last rep – he had just gotten the frisbee reward, then tugging. Note how he was still able to line up and then he nailed the poles. This is cause for a happy dance because he was able to remain thoughtful in high arousal. YES!
At :57 he missed, no biggie because one miss is fine. But be careful of the mechanics after a miss… call him back to reset so he doesn’t offer back weaving. At 1:00 he weaved back to you *perfectly* so if that happens, reward him. Ideally we avoid that, but if he reads your body line as a weave cue because you didn’t show a clear reset… then reward him.
I think on the next session, you can tighten poles 3-4 to match the 1&7 of the first poles and do everything else the same.
Have fun!
TracyYay, swimming!!! I think the 2×2 work gave him a strong understanding of the entries but the channels are giving him the striding. Your description makes total sense (my big dog was doing the same thing). Smart choice to go to the channels, I really like what he was doing here! His only striding question was on the rear cross challenges. So, in your next session, tighten the poles up by the width of one finger and present him with easier handling challenges so he can focus on his striding (we only one to increase the difficulty of one variable per session). And if that is fine and dandy, you can leave the poles at that tightness and add the harder handling challenges on the session after that 🙂 I think he is going to absorb it like a sponge! Great job here!!
Tracy
Good morning! Yes, he is doing well here! I want to really focus on getting him doing it with you moving.
>>Other than one rep where I had too much movement (no surprise Katarina made me sit in a chair during early dog walk work), he was doing great finding entries. And you could also really see him doing a bit of weaving footwork. He was 100% finding that straight entry with me stationary, so I think next time I could add some slow motion.>>
You are going to laugh but for the weaving: no more standing still. LOL and definitely no chair!
I think with the weaves, I would take the opposite approach and install the motion before closing the poles. He is doing a lot of great entries and the poles are getting tighter… but there is very little motion. And when we go to add motion, chances are he might not fully understand the weaves so I think at this stage it becomes really important to add the motion. Make that the priority over closing the poles with little or no motion. His success rate with you stationary or very slow is really high, so the next step is going to be working up to you being able to run.On the rep where you moved and he did not get then entry at :19, there was not anything really incorrect about the motion (he got it with the same motion on the previous rep) and that was the hard spot for him last time too. So adding in motion is key here. When he missed, you went back to standing still so he was successful but we don’t want to dial back to stationary. You can keep moving along the line there and if the success rate is low… open the angle a tiny bit. Let’s get the motion going and then it will be pretty staightforward to close the poles up.
And if he has 2 errors, don’t change your motion – change the angles of the poles to get success 🙂
Great job!! Let me know if that makes sense!
TracyGood morning!
Tell them that rain is not acceptable right now, we are too busy. LOL!On your 2x2s: yes, he was really good with you walking and near the entry. 100%! Towards the end of the session, you were walking and ahead of the entry, which is good because we don’t want you near the entry all the time so putting yourself ahead is great and also starting really close to the cone so he drives ahead is great too.
Question: with just one base of straight poles, how does he do when you run? I suggest revisiting that – using the cone and poles 1-2 straight, let’s find the question and answer it there. Then it should be easy to add poles 3-4. You might need to layer in running by adding fake running first (arms pumping or leaning forward but not moving faster than a walk) to see how he does.
And when poles 3-4 go back in, you can also reward between the 2 bases to keep the entry really valuable.On the channels clip – he did really well! And excellent butt usage in the dirt rolling LOL! For the channels – at this stage, try to always run. That will bubble over into the 2x2s because he will be used to seeing motion everywhere 🙂 And the channels are easier right now, so he will be more successful with the running 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
Great job using the tunnels for the variety of entries!
Looking at striding first: I think based on the width of the poles here, she did really well. The poles are still just open enough that she doesn’t quite need to choose a stride pattern, so she is making it work with good speed and rhythm here. And she found her entries really nicely too!
She is getting nice consistent speed in the poles themselves, and is faster to the poles overall without losing the accuracy of the entries. So 2 ideas for you:– if possible, have her do one or two reps, then let her watch one of her sisters do something (tunnels, weaves, anything fast and fun). Then Keiko does another rep or two. Then her sister gets a turn. That adds a layer of stimulation that can get her to run more like a maniac into the weave entry. Admittedly, it is a pain in the ass to do this but it is fun and also ends up allowing for more reps because she rests in between and won’t get fatigued. I do this with my smallest dog: she watches the other 2 train so she is MUCH wilder during training which has resulted in more speed to and through the weaves 🙂 (And more tunnel commitment, strangely enough, but I will take it LOL!)
– tighten up the poles! She has the speed and rhythm in the poles and looks super accurate finding the entries. So…. onwards to every so slightly tightening them up. In the video above, are both sets at 1&7? If not, they can both go to 1&7 (hard to tell from the camera angle). Then if they are still a bit far apart, move poles 3-4 closer to poles 1-2. We might be seeing some striding there! Fun! And then we can work towards poles 1-2 going straight later this week.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
I am also excited about this!!!!
On the downhills – the weight shift was just fine 🙂 We aren’t really asking for a behavior there that requires more weight shift because we are basically asking him to run across and eat LOL! And the more forward he is running across the board, the faster the teeter performance will be so I think he was perfect. Note how he was in no rush to release when you released him, and he was hanging out near the end of the board when you moved towards the camera. Those are small signals but also HUGE in that he is a lot happier to be doing the teeter (you have invested a lot of squeeze cheese into getting him there LOL!).
I think he was faster doing the downhill when you wrapped him around the cone then ran him into the setup, so try that next time (I tell most people NOT to do that but he is incredibly coordinated and is able to maintain speed without losing balance, so it produces more speed and excitement).When he gives you two short sessions on this setup where he is a bit of a joyous wild man driving across the board… fade the blue table out and let him run to the ground. That is a MASSIVE change so show it to him first with the bang game or elevator game there as a warm up, then let him kinda meander down the board. When he gives you the paws up… then add back the speeeeeeed and reward him even if it is not as fast as you want it yet. He strikes me as a dog that has to think about big changes before he can lay on the speed, and that is fine!
Because you mentioned you feel like he is still concerned about falling off, check out the angled approaches game. That uses a game he is very familiar with to teach him how to balance getting on the board so he doesn’t fret about possibly falling off.
Good job on the elevator game!!! He was doing it correctly but he seemed a bit less confident at first. So two things – be sure to say your target cue and then drop the board within a second, so he can predict when it will move. And, because he is so wiggly during the countdown and seems to be trying to lick your face, you can actually do the countdown more quickly. So it is more of a 3.2.1 and less of a 3…….2………..1…………….. LOL! Some dogs LOVE the anticipation of the drawn out countdown. Some dogs are more like “get on with it, lady!” My medium sized dog definitely prefers the fast countdown because she is already on edge and the countdown is more for information and not as a fun anticipation game. She presents many of the same behaviors as Krome when my countdown is too slow (leaning back too much, wiggling, face kissing). As soon as I switched to a fast countdown: boom! The game got much better.
You will find that you can move into the Elevator game part 2 within the next couple of sessions! It is an easy addition to what you are already doing (it was posted yesterday).
Great job here! Let me know what you think.
Tracy
