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I loved your happy dance LOL!!! And it was appropriate – that was a great session! I think a couple of things happened:
You were feeling more comfy with the strange mechanics 🙂 And did really well! And she has more experience now and is liking the game and the better connection (plus some latent learning kicking in, perhaps!) so she was pretty perfect.She definitely liked it when you were connected like this and went faster (Ike after :26, where you dug in a little more). She does not seem to be looking at the distraction jump at all… so now do all of the same connection, arm back, quiet verbals… and go faster 🙂 Ideally we work you up to a run, but that might take a few sessions. At this stage, alternate days so she doesn’t see this every day – I want the latent learning to help us out and usually a day off in between this game helps the dogs a lot.
Great job!! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
Thanks for sending this – I think of we can sort out what she needs for the first rep, things will be very smooth afterwards!!!I see what you mean about the first rep – she didn’t even look at the wing LOL! Same with the first slow job rep – didn’t look at the wing. I don’t think setting her up behind you will help, because she is not considering the wing at all – and seeing motion sooner might send her to the distraction jump sooner LOLO! !
So try this tweak to the start of the game:
Get her really really high with tugging.
Bring her to 2 or 3 feet away from the wing, hold her collar.
While you are holding her collar, start you wrap cue
Then just let go and see what she does (she should wrap!)That is designed to help her get it right when she is stimulated… and get it right on the first attempt which is what needs to happen at trials 🙂 From what you tell me, she has had trouble producing trained behaviors in the trial ring in that first moment (and, at trials, in the only moment since we can’t run the course twice LOL!) and this might be the key to success at trials!
Same when you add motion: get her really excited, start 10 feet away, hold her collar, start the verbal, then let go and start moving slowly up the line.
Let me know if that still doesn’t help her! If she has an error on that all-important first rep, we can break things down differently. I think our goal is going to be helping know how to get it right the first time!
When she bends out around the wing when you are moving, no worries. It is just a reflection of how hard this game is! She is still looking at the off course jump, wanting to go big in extension, but processing the wrap cue and getting it right. YAY!
Let me know if the suggestions help!!! Have fun 🙂
TracyGood morning!
Holy cow 90 degrees! That is really hot! The baby pool is perfect 🙂
The mechanics of NOT handling are pretty hard in this game, we are all so used to handling! You did a good job of just moving forward. To add challenge even more for her (she is ready, she is doing REALLY well!!) you can move forward longer (til you see her take off) and a little faster now too!
My only suggestion is to tweak the setup a little: Move the red start wing to be in line with the green wing of the jump you want her wrapping, so you can move up a line directly to the wing and not to the bar at all. You had it center of the bar, which caused your line of motion to be more towards the center of the bar too, which was causing her to ask some questions. You can see at about 1:50 when you are coming towards the camera that it puts your line to the center of the bar, so she has to shape her turn around you and sometimes gets you a backside Ike at 1:14 or a question about a rear cross at 2:07 (she jumped straight and turned her head left, because center of the bar pressure might also be rear cross pressure). But she did process the verbal there and turned right! So having you move straight up the line to thr wing and not the bar will be more realistic to what she sees on course and will help smooth her line out too.
:50 had NO handling help (you stopped moving and just faced forward) and she dropped the bar but she sorted it out BRILLIANTLY at 1:23 (I really liked what she did there, also with no handling help, good girl Katy!!!). The good news is that she seems to have processed that she dropped the bar, that it was perhaps not correct, and she changed to a better behavior (more collection in front of the bar) so that she wouldn’t touch it. Yay!
The last rep was my favorite: she had the same nice collection that she had in many of the other reps here, but we got a great view of her now turning her head to make the turn, and not looking at the distraction jump at all! Yay!
Since she is going so well, you can add more of your speed to challenge her to process the verbals as you are going faster. I believe that moving the start wing over to a better line will take out the accidental backside and rear cross questions.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
I am sorry to hear about Flurry but very glad that the vets think it is not too bad. Fingers crossed for the fastest possible recovery – she needs to have some happy, healthy times ahead!This was a really interesting session with Skye. When I watch the different pieces, it looks like he has a good idea of what to do *before* the jump but not *after* the jump. So he is organizing himself for a collection before the jump – but when he lands, he hesitates as if asking “what’s next” rather than driving around the wing back to you. He did this on the lower bar and also on the higher bar (he didn’t drop the higher bar because he changed his hind end us, but not necessarily in the direction we want – he was more extended).
He did his best when you were walking forward (not trying to help with handling) because he could process the cue better without the speed.
And I think he likes the ball better than the treats here 🙂
So a couple of ideas:
Leaving the bar at 10 or 12 (is there a way to lock it in so he can work his mechanics without dropping it?), do walking forward for both the GO and the wraps, using the ball as the reward: thrown ahead as you did for the Go, and when he gets back to you for the wrap, throw it past you.That purpose of that would be to get him driving back around the wing (high value toy!) without asking what the next obstacle of cue would be. We are trying to create driving around the wing back to you as a default behavior – which in turn will create a good head turn and better weight shift.
The other thing you can do is skip to game 3 for a bit, because that games specifically teaches the exit of the wrap. Using a wing, you can get him driving back around the wing and then we can go back to game 2 and see what he says. I think he has what we want before the jump, now we add in what we want when he lands. Let me know if that makes sense!!! Nice work here!
TracyGood morning!
So in theory, if you don’t say get it, then he will ignore it on the wraps. That is definitely a game you can try to test the theory! The toy out ahead is like a delicious off course tunnel LOL! Give him a day off from the wraps and then maybe tomorrow try it with the toy out ahead 🙂
TracyHi! I love how she is able to take the concepts into class and nail them. Yay!!!! So fun! It is going to be so fun watching her grow up!!
And yes, I love my daily Zillow emails lol!!!
T
That’s really interesting about the new iPad! The new ipads, Macs, etc have no trouble with the site loading. My older ipads struggle (my android phone and PC are perfectly fine with it LOL). And I think because the issue is relatively limited, the WordPress people are in no rush to fix it. Sigh.
She did well on the extensions!!! You can also mix in throwing a reward back to her while she is in the stay and you take off running 🙂
I like the pre-placed toy sometimes, especially to jumpstart the behavior. But you’ll also want to either throw it (as she is looking at and moving towards the jump) and, eventually, it can be pre-placed the whole time – some reps are extensions and some are the decel wraps where you are at the wing and she should ignore the placed toy. That’s really hard, and something to try on the flat first.
My only suggestion on the extensions is to start her as far back as possible now, so she can work on organizing her approach and jumping effort – she did well here, and starting her further back will add speed (which changes the picture).
Great job! Let me know what you think 🙂
TracyThe little guy is showing terrific tunnel commitment, he was happy to do both the regular sends and threadles, so we can now really get into the details of the handling.
So if I am reading it correctly, you don’t want to use the opposite arm/cross arm with him, you want to use the dog-side arm. Great! I think what was happening here was you were using the opposite arm (same as the old cross arm threadle) but in an extended position out away from your body. That might be why it felt weird – you want the other arm.
So looking at the double whammy game where the pups do a regular send then a threadle:
If he starts on your right to regular non-threadle send to the tunnel (you are between him and the tunnel), then when he exits the tunnel and is between you and to do a threadle into the same hole he just went into: that would be your left arm extended back, not your right arm.So basically the dog side arm sends him to the tunnel (forward regular sending) and the dog side arm is also the threadle arm (but extended back like strike a pose and maybe swinging it back a little :))
Let me know if that makes sense! If not, I can get a video for it – it makes sense in my mind but I’m not sure I’m writing in a way that makes sense 🙂
TracyThe little guy is showing terrific tunnel commitment, he was happy to do both the regular sends and threadles, so we can now really get into the details of the handling.
So if I am reading it correctly, you don’t want to use the opposite arm/cross arm with him, you want to use the dog-side arm. Great! I think what was happening here was you were using the opposite arm (same as the old cross arm threadle) but in an extended position out away from your body. That might be why it felt weird – you want the other arm.
So looking at the double whammy game where the pups do a regular send then a threadle:
If he starts on your right to regular non-threadle send to the tunnel (you are between him and the tunnel), then when he exits the tunnel and is between you and to do a threadle into the same hole he just went into: that would be your left arm extended back, not your right arm.So basically the dog side arm sends him to the tunnel (forward regular sending) and the dog side arm is also the threadle arm (but extended back like strike a pose and maybe swinging it back a little :))
Let me know if that makes sense! If not, I can get a video for it – it makes sense in my mind but I’m not sure I’m writing in a way that makes sense 🙂
TracyAh, what a cool breeding! My 9 year old dog is a Fetch relative too. And I know Barb, Nancy and Sally – fabulous trainers and handlers!!!
The OCD is in the rear view mirror now, he is ready for amazing times ahead!Hi! Nice work on these too!
The first session looked good, he seemed to have no trouble at all – I couldn’t see you on all the reps but when we did see you, it looks like you were moving forward and not using handling to help him. Yay!!! You can move to running on these, if you weren’t already running. His turn mechanics looked great!
I agree that if you say tictictictictic too fast, it starts to sounds like toctoctoctoc… mainly because in order to say it fast, you need to emphasize the consonant (t). To keep is sounding different, emphasize the vowels so it is longer: tIC tIC tIC or tOC tOC tOC (would sound like tAHk). Let me know if that makes sense:)
On the 2nd video, he did well too but having tue first bar that high made things too hard, too quickly. He couldn’t quite organize the turns like he did on the wing (and had some errors of wideness or taking the temptation jump :)), and also he had no landing room for the Go (that’s why he crashed, poor guy – trying to jump the taller bar and then going OMG THERE IS ANOTHER JUMP RIGHT HERE! both bars being low will prevent that).
Eventually the bar will go back up, but for now, let’s put him at 8 or 10 inches so he can organize his collection without having to multi-task the height of the bar too.
He did his best organizing when you were walking, so start with walking.He will let you know when he is ready for you to add more speed: you’ll see him slow down and weight shift before takeoff, so he lands ready to power out on the exit line. On these, he was still making the turn on landing. It might take him a few reps to get it, or a few sessions. Based on what he has done so far, I’m guessing you’ll be able to add speed in the first session 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! Even with the high wind, you still got in a really good session! His wraps are looking good and so did the Go lines at the end – and he is processing the verbals better because he is not needing you to do the FC to create the turn. Super!!!!!
On the Go, did you have the toy out ahead in advance? If so, and you want an added challenge… leave the toy out there the whole time. That way he can get it for the Go when cued, or he can ignore it for the wrap when cued.
You can add more motion to this one, and you can also try Game 3 now too. Give him a day or two off from the wraps, though – we don’t want to overwork him on these because it is really hard, physically.Great job 🙂
Tracy
