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Good morning!
>>And yep, I need to pay more for the effort anyway, because it was, as it 99.9% of the time is, my mistake!
My philosophy has changed over the years – I now pay a LOT for effort especially with handling, for 2 reasons:
the errors are mine, either in training or handling
and if perhaps the dog makes a rare mistake – one reinforcement won’t build that into an issue. But withholding reinforcement, even sometimes, can definitely create issues!Being able to review so much video has caused me to just blame myself and not the dog LOL!
Rotated sends:
It is fine that you didn’t use the verbals yet, we can add those when he does to the barrel more readily on the sends – he had some questions here (that is pretty normal for the first time). A couple of ideas to help him out:it helped to do a little bit of ready ready for him so he knew the send was coming, so keep doing that 🙂
Another thing to help – let him see you shift your eyes from his eyes to your hand, as you do the send. So basically your eyes will go from his cute little face and will follow your hand all the way throught the send. That can really help him know where to go – when we look at the pups the whol time, they often just look back at us 🙂 And keeping your hand lower will help too.>>I had a total brain fade at about :52 where I forgot which hand I was supposed to be using
Yes, you cued from the wrong side which is why he thought you were nuts LOL! But he got rewarded so he was happy.
One more suggestion – you can use some boring cookies for this too – the toy looked really interesting, so he was less likely to leave you to commit to the barrel. Starting with boring cookies can get him moving away form you better, then you can build back to the toy 🙂
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>>I really want to work on keeping my arms lower. I tend to have big arms when I run.
I practice keeping my arms lower by running with an open bottle of water in my dog-side hand – you’ll feel it right away if your arms get big or flingy 🙂
>>I am hoping that Dice will make me to use rear crosses on occasion.
Oh, I can tell already, you’re gonna need some rear crosses LOL!
>.This was the first session with the jump. It took a couple times on the one side but when I watched the video I wonder if my arm was back a bit on that side closest to him and maybe he was assuming I was going to call him into me?
He did REALLY well here, good boy! I think on the first couple of reps where he didn’t take it on your left were just because you were a little too far from the wing, and he might have more value for being near you when on your left. So on the next session, start your line of motion being closer to the wing, just skimming past it, so he has an easier time finding the bump and it is much harder to pass it (because there is no room between you and the wing LOL!)
You got things rolling really nicely after a couple of cookie tosses and he had a lightbulb moment – then you easily added distance. YAY!!!>> I also wondered if you would prefer I trade out the jump bump for something more flat? He did “jump” a bit on a few of the reps.
I don’t think he was formally jumping – I think he was joyously bopping along. LOL!!! So the low bump here is fine. Plus, we aren’t going to do thousands of reps, so he will not have any impact on his body. The session looked lovely!
Running Contacts Foundation:
This is also looking really good! It was a nice big obvious mat and he had no trouble offering behavior. The next step now if to only click for the back feet hitting the mat (which is what most running dog walk programs use) – I suggest NOT looking at him, but just staring at the mat the whole time so you can see the moment the back feet hit.Have you started playing with the Manners Minder yet? I think you mentioned it but Ican’t find that above. If not – you can itroduce it to him separately to make sure the noise of the grinding gears is fine, and then add the beep. If you have introduced it to him and he likes it, you can put the MM out past the mat on one side and then use that – you can developing a back and forth game where he gets clicked with the MM going one direction, then comes back through the mat and you toss the cookie the other direction.
>>I don’t have a PVC box made yet.
You can make a box if you think you want to use it for a running a-frame, or you can juts use the mat (I just use mats, but it is fun to shape the box too!)
Great job here! See ya tonight!
TracyGood morning!
>>I’ll look around for an alternative. A regular wing won’t do at this point?
You can do the turn and burn game on the hydrant on the ground – if can be a little lower for the beginning of the game, as we don’t want to start it on a wing (there is conceptual work there so we want to NOT have any real obstacles involved yet :)) . You can start shaping with the actual wing (the 2 bowls routine) and then the wing will have value and be ready with the transfer into the other games when she understands turn and burn.
>>Playing with the last couple of things in Week one. So here is the
Blind Cross Foundation Fun>>This looked great! Nice mechanics throughout, she had no trouble seeing which side to be on. Perfect! Yay!! You’ll see the next elements of this game add in decel and pivots, which will work perfectly in this space because you have to decelerate in order to not run into anything. If you have a longer hallway or any room to run outside, take these blinds there so she can open up and feel the wind in her hair 🙂 That will also challenge the mechanics because you will be running and having to do all the things 🙂
Great job here!!!
TracyGood morning!
I like the MM but the Pet Tutor appears to be a far more reliable and less noisy device – so if you have the Pet Tutor, I recommend starting with that 🙂
Great job on this session – her commitment looks fantastic, she looks like a great combination of explosive and thoughtful – so we can get into some of the little juicy details:
The verbals are going well!!! Keep up the good focus on those!
OK, let’s obsess on the little details of handling 🙂 because now is the time to think about how you would like to stylize your handling. Bearing in mind that the sideways and backwards sends are basically showing the dog the last element of the commitment cue, as you would be finishing the rotation… At the beginning of the video, you were doing a sideways send with your arm across your body and the accompanying leg. What I mean by that is that your right side was next to the wing, and your left arm & leg did the cue (along with the verbal).You can use that cross-body cue if you like… but I think using the arm and leg next to the wing (in this case, the right arm and right leg) will ultimately be more effective for a variety of reasons (allows for earlier rotation, doesn’t get confused with any rear cross cues, allows you to move away sooner, and more).
Note how she commits nicely even when you give a small indication with that right arm right leg, like at :10 when you were moving and kinda pointed behind you: boom, off she went to the wing. GOOD GIRL! Then you did several backwards sends using the right arm and right leg – no problem at all, she was lovely.
When you switched sides, you started with the sideways sends and used the cross arm (right arm across the body). Then when you went to the backwards sends at :46, you used the arm/leg closer to the wing (left arm/leg in this case) and she was perfect.
So, you can do the sideways sends with the same arm & leg as you were doing the backwards (or mostly backwards) sending – the arm & leg closer to the wing.
And because her commitment looks so good, you can now add in countermotion: as she is passing you to go to the wing, you can now begin moving away (towards where you were throwing the cookie, just like you did with the prop).
Great job here! Fingers crossed that you get some good weather soon because so much of htis can be taken outside whenever you get a chance 🙂
Tracy
This all sounds good! Because she is sensitive about the noise, you want to set it up for now that she doesn’t react to it at all, almost to the point that you wonder if she even hears it LOL! So if she looks cautious – make it easier because cautious is still worried. That can apply to anything she might be cautious about, including the bang of the board. Keep it on the carpet til she has zero caution – then when you move it to the tile, put a towel under it to dampen the sound there too.
>> “a bit of stress but still doing it”>>
Ideally, we want zero or so little stress that she always seems happy to do it – that will get her into the doing it and happy zone 🙂
Keep me posted!
TracyHi!
>>That makes sense to work through “reaching for the toy just before motion” as a trigger. It’s been the “oh crap I did it again” moment on a few training runs.
Yes, we are human and do things like reach for the toy, so it is easier to teach the dog to ignore it LOL!
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Based on how hard it is, I think she will get a lot out of it!!
Tracy
Hi!
All 3 sessions look great – the most important part of puppy training is to have efficient, clear, highly successful sessions and you totally accomplished that in all 3 videos.Very nice tunnel session here! Very quick, very efficient – nice loop you had going there of line up, cue, reward, line up, cue reward. YAY! He was great about doing the threadle side too and was extra perfect when the MM did an accidental click and the end and he *still* went to the tunnel. Really GREAT!
>>I don’t have a cue picked for a tunnel threadle. Will this be different from our normal threadle cue?
Yes – I highly recommend that you have a different threadle word for a tunnel (versus the one for the jump). The reason is that judges are very cleverly putting jumps and tunnels close enough together than if we use the same verbal cue, the dogs are not able to tell if it relates to the jump or tunnel. Eeek! So we now need separate verbals for the tunnel and the jump.
Rotated sends: I agree, he did great!!! This was another nice session – he was happy to commit and turn tight, no matter if you were forward, sideways, or backwards. YAY! I don’t think he read your arm cue as a lure (his commitment looked great) but you don’t need the extra arm swoosh. You can send and then just step away – on the send, keep your send hand low and pointing to where you want him to enter the cone will probably help stop the swooshy stuff 🙂 I think as soon as we add countermotion, the swooshy stuff will go away naturally 🙂
RCs:
>>I have always struggled with rear crosses in general. I’ve never trained lap turns or tandem turns either, so I’m not as confident in what I’m doing.>>
He is a little speedster, we will get you happy with all the types of rear crosses 🙂 This session went well – great job getting him “on your hand” and then turning him away. He was great about committing to the prop too. So the next step now is to add motion – you can still toss the treat to get a head start, then start walking towards the backwall away from him – do everything the same with the turn cues except now you will be walking forward (slowly at first) as you do it 🙂
Great job here!!!! Let me know what you think and see you in class tomorrow!
TracyHi!
He did really well on the lap turns with the prop!! !
This was a really strong session – Little details to consider:
Be further back from the prop (not parallel to it as much) so he is not just following the hand over to the prop – you can turn him then move forward so he hits the prop without your cookie hand overhead. You can also try this with an empty hand for the cues and toss the treats with the other hand!
Try not to “yes” it – use your get “get it” and that can also be your reset cookie since he has limited tummy space (I am sure he disagrees about that haha) – the reward also being the reset cookie can be very efficient and eliminates an extra cookie in each rep.Your tandem turn set up was great, in terms of being further from the prop so he could turn and then find it easily and you were also using the reward as the reset. Nice!!! As with the lap turns – use your get it, not yes 🙂
If possible, lower your hands so his head stays lower (with apologies to your back!) as you turn him away.Overall these look REALLY strong and his value for the prop looks great!
>>we see the surgeon this afternoon to see what is next. My plan is to keep him in the basement (it’s really not as bad as it sounds, there’s an 84” high def tv there, lol) so I can continue to practice upstairs. Hopefully it won’t goof up barn time >>
Oh no! Poor Joe!!!!!!! ACL recovery time is pretty speedy – I like your plan to keep him in the basement LOL!!! Now I am wishing I had a basement for my husband (nothing wrong with his knee, but it would give me more practice room upstairs haha!! Hopefully you will still get some barn time but we can figure out ways to get things done upstairs too!
Great job here! Keep me posted!
TracyHi there!
Good work on the mat click – you started by clicking for front feet, so just as I was typing “now move to clicking for back feet”, you moved to clicking for back feet LOL!!! You can now move to clicking for the 2nd back foot – that is a little harder! You might find it easiest to just start at the mat (even as you are moving) so it is easier to see his fast feet. And you can tuck a toy under your arm to toss or tug with for reset moments, so you can get a couple of treats ready before the next rep (he was watching you reach into the pocket to reload treats).
2 other things:
at this stage, to really isolate the foot movement through the target, I like to raise the target a bit – here is the first step of it when I raised it for baby Contraband. The goal is to really have an easy time isolating the moment he lifts those back feets onto the target 🙂
https://docs.google.com/document/d/12TLIUMPUG23NP0Hma2xTuUQ_TajrKzFUg65nxbwEnXc/edit?usp=sharingThis elevation was particularly exaggerated because the pup was all forelimb and front feet 🙂
The other thing you can do with the back-and-forth elements is have the Manners Minder out at one end so he gets lots of value for looking ahead and driving through.
The box looked good too, it was easier to go to the back feet clicks there because it is slightly raised. He seemed to find that really easy – you can add the MM here too!
On the 2nd video:
The retrieving looks good, you’ve done a great job with it (tugging with you is his #1 reward, which really helps!) and I love your collar cue!!!!!For the stays – he looked perfectly happy to stay while you did all of the crazy stuff haha! Remember to pingpong the duration so sometimes he gets rewarded for easy things too, not just progressively harder reps. And you can have the cookies ready on that first rep before you cue the sit – there was a lot happening there so it was hard to separate reaching for the treats, the marker and the toss on the first rep. You got much cleaner as the session went along.
I think he is ready for you to do this in front of stimulating things (like wings, tunnels, etc) if you are not already doing that. And, you can toss toys back to him instead of treats, when you are outdoors (for safety with flying toys LOL!)The tandem turns also look really strong – he is turning really well! At this stage, because he is turning so nicely, you can use a stay or a tossed treat to put more distance between you and him so he is driving into the turn cues (which requires weight shift into the bending) rather than already being at your side. You did that once or twice at the end, so definitely keep doing that especially as you add the prop after the turn. He is ready for you to add the prop for the advanced level (which is also a nice little pre-threadle game :))
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>> started working with Merlin inside turning away from the placed reinforcement to do something (in this case hand touch) then cue go get the toy. Is it OK to meet him halfway after he picks it up? because the harder the thing is or the more thinkey he gets… he stops shorter and carrys the toy off instead of back to me…>>
Yes, totally OK to meet him!! Basically, if the turning away to do the hand touch is hard, you can make the next thing easier by just engaging with the reinforcement without also expecting a retrieve.
T
Good morning!
The a-frames are looking great here in practice, especially that first one!! The next step is to bring this procedure into the ring to really get the amazing a-frame performance there too! I believe that UKI and USDAA are the only venues that allow thrown toys, so try to find some local UKI (Paws For Thought has them) and spend some trial time training this. It can be transformative!!
>>When you were doing your leash work, are you telling him to go to his leash at the end of his run or do you just run over with them, put it on and then ask for tug?>>
I always use some type of “we are done, head to reward” marker like the “let’s go”. Sometimes I cue the bite for the tug, sometimes I put the leash on and run out for the cookie, it depends on which dog and which situation. The younger dogs have seen all of it so I can use any of it – I want them to be able to be wearing the leash and tug, and I also want them to be happy to get the leash on before tugging.
On the video:
The leash tugging was really good! Will she tug like this at trials! This can be a nice toy to take into the ring as a remote reinforcement.
On the proofing game with the wings – move the cookie hands more as if you are repeatedly presenting the food or reaching into your pocket, She did well with the stationary distractions, so we can go to motion-based distractions.
And one important thing here – because these games really focus on the difference between when food (or the toy) is available as the reinforcement and to otherwise ignore it: remember to use your various markers and not praise. And if you were saying the markers – don’t praise til after she is on the toy or eating the treats so the marker really stands out from the praise. That way you can say “snacks’ for when the cookie is available in your hand. If ‘yes’ and ‘good’ are the markers, she is going to sometimes make mistakes if you say ‘yes’ on course, like for hitting a great a-frame position,
The dig dig with the toy moving was HARD and definitely one to keep working – you can probably make it easier at first by holding the toy higher and just moving it a little… then work back to having it kind of dangle there. And, as with the food – use your marker. Dig dig dig means wrap the wing, and there should be a distinct “bite”-type marker for when the toy is available. That will really bring clarity!She did a great job in the weaves with the leash dragging! So now… drag it the other direction, opposite of the weave direction – countermotion in the weaves 🙂 Yes, evil, haha! But start on 6 poles so it is easier to be correct and harder to be wrong.
>>What else do you think I should focus on?
– bringing the leash tugging to trials so you are effectively having a toy in the ring, and teaching her the remote reinforcement with the leash.
– when things are moving fast and are high energy, remembering markers not just saying yes or good (we all need to remember this!)
– planning to find more FEO and NFC opportunities to transfer these skills to the trial environment
– Making a general list of what you want to train or improve, and work through each list item in terms of planning how to approach the training and which reinforcement procedure to use.Great job here!
Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
On the handling combos:
You were definitely quicker on the FCs! Yay! On that first rep, you were not connected enough: At :03 note how your left hand is next to your knee while he is behind you. To make the best possible connection, extend your hand all the way back to his nose, elbow locked back. When you bring your hand down to your knee, it turns your shoulders forward and he cannot see which side to be on when you are moving faster
And if ends up on the wrong side, you can reward that! Any time he ends up on the wrong side of you, assume it was a handling error (because it was LOL) and reward him for his effort.Compare the hand position at :03 to your hand position at :11 and :27 – all the way back ad connection was much clearer, so he had no questions.
On the decel/pivots, you can be earlier on the decels to so he has more time ot make the adjustment. If he goes wide or looks at the toy, try not to mark when he is not quite right or still making a decision like at :30 (you were late so he was wider there and not sure). Just stay connected and see what he does 🙂
>> I also was wondering about being on Ronin’s line here – and I was in some other reps also – if that may also cause a side error?? Do you think he even knows what his line to the toy is at that moment? If so, do you think that fact that I’m totally in his way contributing to the confusion?
Being on his line will cause him to bubble out to get to the toy when you drive ahead (not a big deal here, no worries!) but it will not cause a side change question – that is all about the connection.
Retrieve – sometimes these early sessions are ‘exploratory’ as we figure out how to make a good plan. I think the dead toy at the beginning was not enticing enough – maybe start by tossing the toy and making it more alive – then reward for grabbing it, lifting it, and so on. The food value versus the dead toy value was not balanced here, so you can try making the toy more lively and using the most boring possible food if that even exists for him LOL
The ball was a great choice! And when he was interacting with the ball, you can reward the interaction and not wait for more – use successive approximations to get the behavior first of interaction, then grabbing, then lifting, then carrying, and so on. And rewarding with another toy works nicely too! That might even be easier than using food for now.
Parallel path looks great! A rolled up towel is BRILLIANT and I am totally going to suggest that in all future puppy classes!
Yes, a couple of clicks were a little late (he was between the uprights on those) but for the most part, your timing was good! You can throw even earlier s he is driving to it. Note how he kept getting faster and faster – that tells you that he was getting VERY clear info. Yay! You can take the clicker out now and just toss the treats. The click tends to get the dogs looking at us, so we can avoid that by just tossing and not clicking. You can mark with a get it before the toss but the early toss will be the best info for him 🙂Great job on these! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
