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Hi!
A lot of dogs think the noise of the MM is weird – her reaction to it is really interesting and actually can be useful for helping with some other things you might be seeing! Her reaction of biting it might be correlated to arousal when she sees other dogs (like the GSD you mention) so you can use the MM as a way to countercondition that response.
Rather than have her interact with it as a food dispenser, you can turn off the beep noise and just have her walk by it (on leash, so she cannot bite it) and countercondition (pairing food or toys with the presence of it). When she is happily ignoring it, you then you can trigger it like you did a bit here (the gears will grind) and you can pair that with food/toys too. This all starts at a distance, on leash, as if walking down the street 🙂Then the beep can get added back, as that might have been the hardest part for her. And then you can add the “Look At That Game” to this eventually too! All of that is designed to help her override the impulse to react or bite it (and some dogs also bite the teeter, so this can help her override that too if she would consider biting the teeter).
At some point, the MM might be useful as a reward dispenser but not for now (and it doesn’t have to ever be used that way :)) You can use a toy on the ground or an empty food bowl for the visual target aspect of it.
Let me know if that makes sense!
TracyGood morning!
Thanks for all the videos! I think there is one key to the puzzle that will actually take care of all the struggles you had here on these (except for the MM, that is different :))
The Clean Mechanics and Markers training will make all the difference in these sessions – I think she needs the clarity of when the toy is available as a reinforcement and when you would like her to line up or look a the obstacle. Without the clarity, you will both get frustrated.
This is the game I am talking about:
https://agility-u.com/lesson/clean-mechanics-and-markers/More on this concept as we work through these videos specifically:
I think that some of her struggles to find the tunnel had to do with thinking that your motion plus the toy means “run because the toy will be thrown” rather than “find the tunnel.” Good job breaking it down to get her going into the tunnel early in the session! I think she was stimulated by your running and the toy, and couldn’t quite ‘see’ the tunnel She did a lot better after a few reminder rewards, then she lost is a bit, then it came back. By adding in the marker for when the toy is in play versus when it is not, as well as lining her up so she is facing the tunnel and not looking at the toy, you will have a lot more success (the line ups will be easier if you use a cookie to line her up too, but you can use tugging to help her get into position).Having to get her into the tunnel made the turn cues late, so for example the left cues at 2:19 and 2:33 happened when she was in the tunnel and you were running forward, so she took it to mean “take the jump and turn left” Or at the end, you cued a right but you sent her to the tunnel on your right (which cues a left turn) so the line ups will totally smooth all of that out 🙂
To help smooth it out, you can set it up a little differently:
Try a shorter tunnel, and send on an angled entry so you are closer to the enrty, more towards the middle of the tunnel (rather than starting from far away and running hard) That way you will have an easier time getting commitment while also cuing the turn before she enters.And sorting out the mechanics will totally help: for example at 4:22 you had the toy on top of your head and she didn’t know she was supposed to look at the tunnel. The toy up there might also look like you are about the throw it, so when you ran, she just ran and didn’t tunnel. Being able to have the toy in your hand without her staring at it will take some training but is sooooo worth it! And you can also incorporate food for lining up. If she struggles to take food or line up with it in the presence of the toy, that is a good one to practice without obstacles so she learns the order of events 🙂
Let me know if that makes sense! The toy mechanics are the only piece of the puzzle holding you back 🙂
TracyGood morning!
“Fading foibles” that made me laugh, and so did the moment when you were getting on yourself about getting the words straight LOL!!!
The first part of the session went really well and then it got harder when the entire target was gone. She might benefit from a target in-target out – target in- target out series of reps, alternating the targeting being visible and then when she is off getting her cookie during a reset, pull it and send her right into position (then it is back for the next rep, and so on until it is not there more than it is there :)) Indoors, you can also make the target smaller and smaller and smaller.
And she might actually find this MUCH easier on grass, because the target is less salient on grass and she will end up targeting the grass which is actually ideal (same as on dirt).The only other suggestion is to have your treat ready so you can get it in before she looks up at you, rather than getting it from a pocket as that will draw her focus to your hands.
She is pretty fearless on the Bang Game, I love it! She was falling off a bit (losing some balance) when on your left, so you might want to warm her up with a couple of reps with it lower on that side then raise it back u. She seemed perfectly fine with her balance when she was on your right.
And keep starting her super close so she can leap on when it is that high – she is a willing participant when you started her further away, but she is also willing to crash and twist LOL!! So to help her have some self-preservation, no speed or distance needed on the bang game LOL!!Great job here! New games coming soon!
TracyGood morning!
I like your variation on it! Starting in the ‘neutral’ position makes it a real verbal challenge for the pups! She was incredibly successful and that is terrific! I like that she is speedy and driven but also able to process verbals.
Great job working both sides to get all the verbals in for the wing. I have one suggestion for you using your neutral position start: throw a toy out ahead so she can also be sent straight to it, either as a go or a ‘get it’. I suggest this because she was very clever and looking at the obstacle – and then you were cuing it. So to really add another layer of challenge, the toy out ahead that she sometimes goes to will keep her looking more straight, so you can then cue the wing or tunnel and she won’t already be looking at it. That way the verbals will be even truer to the obstacle and not associated with going to what she was looking towards. File it into the “trying to stay a step ahead of a really smart dog” department LOL!>>because I couldn’t envision when I would ever see a similar discrim on a course, i.e. asking the dog to go past the wing and into the tunnel without wrapping. But then, as I was editing the video, I could rationalize such a set-up>>
Yep, it is something we see on a lot of European style courses, I’ve just condensed it for puppies 🙂 And if the Europeans see it, we will be seeing it here pretty soon too 🙂 The main thing is to get the wrap and not go past the wing and grab the tunnel, especially with handler motion (not just verbals), as that is a common thing here. But the little bit of layering (past the wing into the tunnel) is coming in really handy for the distance classes in the various American organizations. And the Europeans are also shifting to big distance skills, layering, passing things to get to a tunnel… so this attempts to keep pace with them too LOL!!
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi again!
Nice job with your mechanics here (this game does require 6 hands) and what a great opportunity to do this with another person and another dog right there, providing a little bit of distraction.
>>. She was already looking down anticipating getting into her 2o2o>>
Your girl LOVES her end position!! She is willing to ignore all of our other crazy ideas & challenges in order to get to do her end position LOL! Good girl!!!! She did great here. And that love of end position is what will build extreme confidence on this teeter when we put it all together. I am excited she did so well here because this game is the beginning of the end, meaning this game is the key that puts it all together in coming weeks 🙂
If there was food on the target before she got there, the next step is to ask her to drive to the empty target (then you can get the food in there).
And if she is happy with that… more tip! More on this coming today. Great job here!!
TracyGood morning!
Can your friend come to my house? She is an expert rebounder and elevatorer and my dogs would appreciate it LOL!
Emmie did great here – she was generally fine with it, which is good because in the real world, it will only rebound on her once and not a bunch of times. One suggestion: you might have been doing this already, hard to see on the video, but after the initial cookie for getting into position you can keep your hand closed when the board is not moving. Then when the board moves… open the hand and feed feed feed. Then close when the board stops for a bit. And open again when the board moves. And if she is playing any of the other games and you see her deal with a rebound and push the board back down: jackpot!!!!
Nice work!!!
TracyHi again!
And speaking of things the dogs find inherently fun and easy to do: the zig zags seem to be a favorite of his! They use the same wing as the wraps, and have similar action in that you are moving, but maybe he likes moving towards you more than moving away? I think this is a harder exercise but he disagrees and seems to really love it! I point it out because while it is still really good to set up clean smooth mechanics here, you can see where we can loosen it up a little – like when you bring him back discussing how smart he is LOL!I think the hardest part here is that he is still learning the release from the stay, so when you are facing him and not moving a lot, he is not 100% sure that OK means to move forward (that is fine, he will get that sorted out really soon). The next step is to be able to fade out some of your motion: lead out to between wings an 2 and maybe walk backwards instead of jog, then eventually work it up to being able to stand still at wing 3 and point/turn your feet without having to omve backwards at all.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
He is a sponge for training mechanics, making it a really good thing to obsess on! Each dog brings their own new set of learning and I believe one of his gifts to us is really focusing on the training mechanics. Yay!!
>>more intentional lineup/start >>
yes, intentional, I love that word – every moment in the session should be intentional even if it seems casual. Dogs are masters at reading mechanics, and also masters at telling us things about our mechanics hahaha!!!!
I think the more intentional lineups and starts to the sends worked really nicely. Yay! One thing I was going to suggest from the early part of the session was something that you added in later and it covered the other thing I was going to suggest: add in a bit more engagement into the lineup process before the next rep… and let him finish eating haha!
Early on you were sending without as much engagement and he was still eating, so he was not as successful. You must have noted that because you fixed it: When you added the ready – eye contact – you knew that he had finished eating and was ready for the next rep. For example, starting at :47 – you did the ready, saw him acknowledge, sent, click, did your reward mark, then praised. Love it! Smooth, intentional and precise but also with the ‘warm fuzzy’ engagement stuff (which is actually intentional and precise because it pairs our praise and ready words with high value stuff, which ends up transferring to the competition ring when we no longer have cookies or toys right there – that is why I like to put in the various words :))
Since we are in full on obsessing mode: is your food marker aiaiai from hand or a cookie toss? I think there were both in there. Because he prefers clarity here, I will bug you 🙂 For him, I suggest different cues because knowing where to look and where to go is something he finds really helpful.
One other thing of note here, which is important in the intentional training: by adding in the engagement of ‘ready’, we are basically asking the question of “are you ready”… and while most of the time he said “yes, sure am!” he also said “nope” twice (at 1:31 and then again at 2:15). He was probably hot and tired because he is new enough to the planet that he has not had to work in weather we define as glorious but he defines as hot.
So in those ‘nope’ moments, I vote against doing a collar grab to pull him into the rep you had planned (dogs are GREAT at teaching us to change plans in the moment). Yes, from the collar grab, he did go around the wing – but I think that had an impact on the rep at 2:15 where you reached for him and he said no way. This happens even if you give cookies for the collar grab (he avoided it a little at 1:31 and avoided it a lot more at 2:15) because in that moment the cookies are unlikely to override the pairing of whatever is happening with his internal state. So in that moment of “nope, no thanks!”, I see 3 options to choose from:
– switch sides and ask if he is ready on the other side. Maybe doing all the reps on the left was too much or the session was too long or he was hot or he had a phone call lol, we won’t know from one session but we can for sure ask a different question to maintain engagement then figure out why we got the nope later on. If he switches sides and is happy – end the session.
– increase arousal with a bit of fun engagement stuff: tricks for cookies, changing to different reinforcement, moving the setup to a new spot, etc. Then if he can offer engagement, maybe asking if he is ready again. And then maybe getting one more rep? Then end the session to evaluate why the ‘no thanks’ happened.
– you can also just end the session. There is a lot of conventional wisdom and gasping when I tell people it is OK to walk away from something when the dog says ‘no thanks’. And I walk away playfully, maybe go do something else fun, throw a toy around – it is definitely not a time out moment. Yes, I am ending the session on an unsuccessful moment but that is fine for that one session: and any time I get a nope, I am going to look at the session and plan for not getting the nope again for the next sessions. Make it shorter? Change up reinforcement midway through? Ask for something easier? Change something in my mechanics? That way I can end it and fix whatever was happening. Ending the session on a nope is fine to do on rare occasions as long as we don’t make a lifestyle of getting nopes, ending sessions on nopes, or trying to push the dog past whatever the issue was.
In general, I do my best to avoid the nope answers by keeping sessions super short and super high value. If I do get a no thanks moment, I respect that and will pull from the 3 things above but then end quickly and figure out what happened (usually the dog is just tired and the session is too long).
A quick example:
I was getting “no thanks!” from Contraband in his teeter training. I think he disliked the movement of the board and the normal training loops of ‘do the thing and get the cookie’ were not working as they would traditionally be expected to do. So, listening to him say ‘nope’, I changed the approach: each session was no more than 30 seconds in total (timer running along with video to keep me accountable :)). Engagement with a favorite toy, trade for treat, cue teeter behavior, mark with ‘get it’ for thrown toy reward. He would chase the toy, take a run of the field, get a recall, later, rinse, repeat. That would take the whole 30 seconds and I got 2 reps in. Each part of an intentional moment of the loop including the victory lap. Did that for a few weeks, never pushing past it because I didn’t want to get a ‘nope’ answer (either on the cue for the teeter or the recall after the toy lap) until I saw a change in his internal state in the form of him shortening the loop by bringing the toy back immediately. Then I went to about a minute, 4 reps. By doing this, the loop gets really clean and the ‘no thanks’ moment disappear 🙂Of course, we don’t have to do this on all things – dogs definitely have preferences 🙂 But it is good to implement on anything the dog finds difficult because it really sharpens our training mechanics 🙂
Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
Eek, the cheese was like popcorn on that first rep! He was SUCH a good boy to wait patiently!! He is driving up to the end of the board really nicely 🙂 I am so happy with his confidence here, driving right to the end and because of the target, his head was down and his weight was shifting. Super!Because we want him driving to the end and staying there no matter where you are – I have used stuff like peanut butter and cream cheese and squeeze cheese from a can as the ‘glue’ for treats on the target, or just as the reward 🙂 It served a dual purpose: the dog was not focused on me at all so I could add different handling scenarios, and it raised the value of the teeter through the roof because, well, it was food reward they would definitely NOT be getting normally LOL!!!
That will allow you to start running past, and I think he is also ready for you to put the wing in front of the teeter to wrap – that adds more speed up the board and also you can set up rear crosses more easily. He seems ready to see that – and when he is happy with that, you can add more tip 🙂
One other suggestion – after he gets his reward at the top of the plank, he is turning around to come down the board, which is great! When he gets to the purple middle section, ask him to hop off the side rather than move through the yellow down contact without stopping. He doesn’t know enough about 2o2o for us to ask for it yet, but we also don’t want him to rehearse not stopping 🙂 So the easy answer is an informal cue to hop off the side, just like the early plankrobatics games. I think my informal cue is “c’mere” 🙂
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>>I know the poles were open, but she really seemed to like the difference in the approaches. No stupid wings. Enough, already. We did a Linda Mecklenberg jumping foundations class with tons of circling cones and wings. I think if she didn’t ever have to circle a wing again, she wouldn’t miss them…..;)>>
Yep – I think that with some dogs, if there is a lot of wing circling (especially for cookies), they go into a bit of a zen mode and the wings or cones are not exciting. And that produces lower arousal because it is associated with collection, repetition and cookies… rather than something like a tunnel with is associated with running and toys and excitement. There are a bunch of dogs in this class that are saying the same things: wing wrapping is dullsville, enough already LOL! And I agree: the wings here for this game are supposed to add speed and excitement. If they do NOT – then we use something else. Wings are the easiest to move around but the tire and the tunnel and even the table can be used!
>>So, what’s your read on this? Keep going with fun entries (she does like the tire, too), work on speed, tightening the poles, keep the sets apart for a while longer, and throwing rewards?
Oh yes, here’s the (really short!) video:>>Definitely keep working on the speed being part of this, but I think the tunnel is accomplishing what the wings were being used for in this game: speed speed speed! So you can use a couple of tunnels or curve the tunnel a bit and work both easy and hard angles with the poles at this angle for a session or two. If she is running AND highly successful… tighten the poles, moving through the next steps 🙂 Definitely keep throwing the rewards, she loves that!
Let me know what you think! Great job here!
TracyHi! I feel your pain with the rain! I am hoping for a few dry days in a row 🙂
I agree, this went well!!! Very nice session!! Only one suggestion: after the reward at the MM, call him back to you (to wherever you want the next rep to start from) but then stop him, reward the line up, get him engaged (I get the dogs pumped up with tugging, some ready ready ready chatter, or gentle restraint with the collar if they like it) – then send around the wing and into the poles. That will smooth out the wing wraps and also should add more speed driving to the poles (which transfers into his striding :))
By having him loop back around the wing and into the poles without the engagement, he was accurate but trotting. That is great to get the understanding solidified, so now using the same set up, we ask a slightly different question: can you do it at a run 🙂 So before tightening the poles more, let’s get him a little more pumped with that line up moment 🙂 It will also add a bit more arousal which will tell us about the true understanding: can he still be highly accurate when he is a little wilder and moving fast? I think he will be fine but it is important to ask that question at this stage 🙂
If he is highly successful doing it at a run – cool beans, then we can tighten the poles a little more on the next session. If he says, ‘whoa this is HARDER!’ no worries – he might take 2 sessions or more to build up to 90% success with speed at this level of tightness (all of my dogs take multiple sessions at speed, I don’t think I have ever gotten it done in one session LOL!!!)Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
Yes, because she had a little trouble finding the straight poles 1-2, you can warm up a session with just poles 1-2 out there, then end it with adding poles 3-4 wide open. Her rate of success will let you know if you need to stick at that level for a bit, or when to move to the next step of angling poles 3-4.Tracy
It worked! I am not sure why the copy/paste doesn’t work, I will ask the tech crew to take a look.
I think she is stopping because the value for the bowl as the reward target is lower than the value for you and the reward in your hand, for now. But she is VERY clever and you can already see that changing here and she was getting better about driving forward. You can try to throw sooner, before she gets through the 2nd poles – leave that 2nd base pretty open for now, so she doesn’t miss it on the early throws. I think that will help her look straight the whole time.
About tightening the poles – I think she has had a couple of sessions with poles 1-2 straight? But not with poles 3-4 there? Let me know and we can plan 🙂 You might need to get poles 1-2 to be angled more at the 1 and 7 angle with poles 3-4 there before they go straight. So the next steps would be poles 1-2 go to the 1&7 angles for a couple of sessions (with the early cookie throws and you adding movement). Then poles 1-2 stay at 1&7 and poles 3-4 go to 1&7 for a couple of sessions. Then… try poles 1-2 straight but poles 3-4 gop back to wide open at 3&9. So many numbers LOL!
And when you are ready to get poles 1-2 straight: yes, I like the idea of doing a couple of sessions on just those 2 poles straight, so she fully understands them before we add the distraction of poles 3-4.
Great job here!!! Let me know how it goes!
Tracy
