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Good morning!
Backing up is going well, she seems to understand what to do with her back feet and is moving them really nicely (and independently!) To maximize her form – we need to her head down, which means getting the reinforcement in lower and faster: the goal is to feed her with her chin pointing downwards and below her topline. She was reaching up here for most of the reps because you were clicking then taking the cookie out of your hand, then delivering it high. Som have the cookie ready to go in the reward hand, so you can get it in faster and lower – you might need to sit down to do this because it will make the mechanics faster. That will allow your hands to be lower the whole time, and sitting is much easier than bending over 🙂 Getting her head down will get the best use of her body as well as make it easier to add distance to the skill. Your last rep at about :29 was the best placement of the cookie in terms of speedy timing and low placement (a few inches lower would be even better).
Turn and burn is going really well! I like how she is really noodling her body through the turn on the cones! Looking at the mechanics: yes, you can start to leave sooner, that will be easier when you take it outside. You don’t need the clicker for this anymore because the clicks generally get the dogs looking at us (everything between the click and the reward gets built in to the behavior) and since the reinforcement comes significantly after the click in this case… we can just take the clicker out 🙂 This is more of a ‘fruit salad’ behavior so we don’t need the scalpel of a clicker 🙂
But, for reinforcement – you are placing the cookie with great connection, nice!!!! I think this will be even better with a dragged toy for her to chase, in our quest to get the pups to get their heads down and not look at us or at our hands. So with that in mind, do the next session with a long toy that has a tempting part that can drag on the ground – and because you can do it outside, you can run 🙂 Indoors, there was no place to run but outdoors, you can be ‘calm’ 🙂 til she commits then you can run run run dragging the toy (building up to being able to run the whole time, eventually). The dragging toy will get the ‘burn’ part of the game (she already has the turn!) and will also get her head lower and off of your hands.Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning! Lots of good work here!
Turn and burn is looking really good – she has excellent commitment! And her speed to it matches her speed out of it, which is perfect. And you were able to start leaving for the FC pretty early! Yay!!!! A couple of details: make sure you are not blocking her line to the barrel, so move yourself over so she has a straight line to it (you were on her straight line a couple of times, especially when she was on your right, so she had to go wide around you to find it).I notice that she is jumping up on the toy to get the part closer to your hand, and you are rotating pretty far back to present the toy. We don’t want the rehearsal of jumping up so we need to see what she will grab down low – you can try tying a really big hollee roller to an otherwise boring toy, so the HR drags on the ground and the rest of the toy is not as enticing. And, we already know you can run out of the turns: so in order to get her to not jump up, try it walking and when she grabs the correct part of the toy (down low!) then you can go wild with running to help build up value for the lower part of the toy 🙂
And time to start deciding verbals! I vote for a separate verbal for leftward and rightwrap, regardless of your position.
BC to pivot – the mechanics are looking strong but there is one detail to add: you need a longer lead out LOL! She is close enough to you that you don’t have time to do the blind , decel, pivot – so the blind and pivot are happening but the decel is not: so she is leaping up to stop other than weight shift, which makes the pivot a little further from your leg. So – simple solution: she seems to have a really strong stay, so lead out at least 20 feet so you can blind nice and early like you did here, then decelerate, then pivot. You will see her have time to get organized tp really bend around your leg 🙂
Rear crosses: I am glad you rewarded all of these, she was a good girl here! Another simple answer – you need to be much much sooner 🙂 You were moving straight for most of the rep then the rear cross info was happening within a foot or two of the prop, but she had already made her choices about how she was going to hit it (which lead, head position etc) and the rear cross info was too late for her to adjust. It would be the same on a jump – if it was a jump, she would have already reached her takeoff spot.
So, give yourself some more room, at least 15 feet between the starting point and the prop. Do a warm up to get her driving to the prop again – then when she is driving ahead on that parallel path you can stat to cut in behind her for the RC when she is still at least 6 feet (ideally more like 8 or 10 feet) from the prop, so she sees it before she makes a decision on how to hit it, and makes the adjustment. At first, reward the correct turn decision even if she doesn’t hit the prop – then you can raise the criteria to add the prop back in, he might be better one way or the other, but I think she will figure it out if she sees it sooner.The outdoor parallel path session was interesting!
>>She did the first one correctly, but after she got the HR the first time, she lost the ability to do anything. >
I think a couple of things were happening here – there is probably a conditioned response to the HR outdoors which is “YOU THROW I CHASE” or something like that LOL! So you were seeing a bit of that for sure. And, the prop is less salient in the busier outdoor environment, especially in the face of the conditioned response.
Knowing that the environment increases the difficulty, you can totally reinforce successive approximations of the behavior: she didn’t lose the ability to do things, she actually offered a LOT of behavior involving the prop! You can totally reward the small bits of that (like going towards it) as well as reducing the challenge of adding more distance when the environment presents challenges. Reinforcing successive approximations will bring the behavior back really nicely! So you can reinforce for going towards it and then work back up to hitting it really nicely. And since she had a low rate of success here, going back to just hit it was probably too late in the session because lack of success increased arousal, and causes precision behaviors to disappear, if that makes. So next time she is out in the yard doing this, you can reinforce approximations and also raise up the prop, put it on something bigger so it is more obvious.Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
This was a good session! He seemed very confident getting on and off on the longer plank here.
The next steps involve turning around in place – rather than do a few steps and turn, see if you can get him to stand still in the center of the plank and turn around without walking back and forth. First it will just be facing the new direction then do a complete 360. You started to do a bit of the 360s – do them slowly, so it is not a spin but just a turn in one place (you did it as more of a turn at approximately 1:45 and that worked well!)
Having him be stationary to turn is actually more challenging for balance 🙂
Nice work here!!!! If he is still really confident with the turns, you can raise the plank a little more 🙂
TracyCouldn’t hear the markers that well so I will assume they were perfect (try to say the turn back cue before you move your arm, to help fade the arm movement eventually.
I can see his reasoning for going to the wings – he was in a control position, you were facing them, you released… good boy!
>> I mark yes and he drops and comes in for a whoosh. Did I handle that appropriately? I feel like in hindsight I should have had him get more excited about the placed toy. >>
Simple answer: stop saying “yes” 🙂 I know, easier to suggest than to actually do! Yes is a marker we all use and most of us have accidentally trained it to mean “stop what you are doing and come to me for reward”. Oops! That is what happened at 2:30 – really exuberant YESSSSS and there was a presentation of the other frisbee so he was correct. Yes, you totally handled it correctly by just throwing the frisbee 🙂
And if you do say “yes”, reward say it quietly. And if you get excited and say it loudly and he stops what he is doing and comes to you, just reward 🙂 I have been in the same boat and have been actively working to retrain myself to NOT say yes in a way that is anything except quiet, so the dogs don’t pair it with anything.I think this is looking really good! Watching this, I think the fastest route to fully engaged agility should just be an installation of disc – frizgility on a grand scale. It starts and ends with throwing the disc, and you build up the amount of agility behavior in between. It will take some remote reinforcement because you can’t always throw the frisbee before a run, but that can come later as you work the engagement games using frizzers!! Food is interesting to him… but frizzy is LIFE!
Nice work here! Let me know what think!
TracyHi!
She did really well with her driving ahead game!>> First with a toy (not so much interest?!)
I think she was interested in the toy, but the mechanics made it harder perhaps – by holding the end of it, there was a little pressure with you leaning forward and then just as she got her mouth on it, you were moving it up and away. So she interacted but never got really into it. You can toss the toy further and let her grab it on her own – and if you feel she will grab it and take off with it, you can tie it to something longer so it can be further but she can’t go anywhere ) And also, when she gets it, leave it lower for a while longer, til she has a really good grip on it.
>> and then with a cookie. It’s a larger piece of cheese that’s not easy to see in video, but she can see it just fine.
She was definitely happy to drive ahead for the cheese – easy and delicious! You can totally add distance to this too.
>>I cut out the “play tuggy with toy” but it was there before & between reps.
Perfect! Was it the same toy as you used earlier in the video? And if so, was she happy to tug on it?
Great job here! Let e know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>I didn’t process it when you pointed out changing the treats from being in the hand closest to Dice. I’m sorry, i wasn’t consciously ignoring you. Lol. I don’t know why it didn’t click at the time, but I am making it a point to change that this week. It is such a hard habit to change after 20 years.No worries! Zoom makes it harder because we re all talking to computer screens LOL!
Prop games:
His front foot pounce is hilarious!! And adorable!
The deflated ball is a great prop! The easiest way to get faster with the treat and get him to not look at you is to not say yes – just say get it. Get it is a marker that says “you are correct, the treat is out ahead”. Saying yes says “you are correct” but doesn’t say anything about placement, so the dogs default to looking at us and then get rewarded for that when we say get it and throw the treat.
He is definitely happy to do t he parallel path game so you can keep adding distance and also the rear crosses 🙂He is doing well with the countermotion! I think he is a little better on your left side, but that might be because he worked through the idea on your right side first. This is going well, so you can add moving away sooner: start but stepping away when he is one inch form the pro, then 2 inches, then 3 inches, and so on. You’ll soon be able to step forward as soon as he leaves you to hit the prop.
Turn And Burn – I feel the pain of other dogs getting mad when they hear training happening LOL! Turn And Burn is going well! It looks like you were consistently taking off for the front cross when he was about halfway around the milk jug. Yay! And your mechanics looked really good! S for the next session, warm up like you did here – then start leaving earlier 🙂 On the very last rep, it looks like you did the FC and ran away when he was at the milk jug, maybe 25% of the way around. Nice!! Keep doing that, then make it even harder – start to run through the FC just before he even arrives at the milk jug. You might have to back up a step or two so you have more time to see it happening.
I think Dice did well on BOTH sides! YAY!!! They looked pretty equal here.
Have you thought abut what you want to use for your wrap verbals? We can start adding them!Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
It was interesting to see him enter a room where he has had a lot of experience and training – I think we can tweak the pattern game to get engagement faster and faster each time (which will transfer to the other similar distractions on the list 🙂
Two things to add would be:
– motion right away, rather than starting from a stationary position. Motion is more stimulating so the moving version of this game where you are walking back and forth might really help! He did better here when you were moving, but that was also later in the session so it is hard to know if it was the motion or the previous reinforcement. So – enter the room, throw the first “get it” cookie, and start moving back and forth with enough briskness that he has to trot.– you can also move to really high value treats for this, especially in the first instant: entering a new place means an immediate pairing with steak or cheese! That will be a head-exploding in a good way, making a powerful paired response and more likely to get engagement right away. Eventually entering a new place will be a cue to engage 🙂
For the startle stuff – I tend to not do engagement work for surprises that are startling, I just go to pairing. Loud noise? Cheese shower? Weird thing in the environment? Steak on the ground! Wheee! Or a favorite toy of course. Startle responses often override choices to engage, so the pairing will help get rid of the startle element, which makes it easier to offer engagement 🙂
Nice work here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>Reward procedures are very new for me so I am still sorting out the different scenarios. So far, I think this approach to training is fantastic!
Believe me, we are ALL still sorting out the different scenarios… there are SO MANY lol! And of course each dog is different. And I also really like it because we spend all of our time figuring out how the dog can be successful, which of course leads to more success 🙂
TracyHi!
A couple of ideas to help keep him engaged with the toy for the shhhhh – the main was is to let him play longer with the toy! You were cuing the give withing a second or two of him getting his mouth on it, which might be why it was losing value a bit (the give had more value). When you added the wing wraps after about 1:00, he really got to play – do more of that, he was really getting into it! You can fade the treat after the give by letting him use keep tugging as you go back to the starting point, then cue the give and either let him have the toy back, or cue the wrap (or whichever behavior you are working on).
>>Needed to have a high value reinforcement (Liverwurst) to keep N in the game. Need to fade the treat after Give, but this is difficult with trying to keep him playing. >>
He was playing that well with liverwurst? Impressive!!!! You can keep the sessions short and fast moving with the toy, and yes – keep playing indoors to build the value. The swinging chase toy is vey stimulating! You can also attach a food toy to something and use it instead of a tug toy for situations where he might not be interested in the tug toy but food would do the trick.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>Extending our sequences with the WPs is difficult now that winter is upon us. Need to find indoor facilities. Perhaps, Kim’s! Can work on that as a winter project for Nuptse.>>
Yes, other facilities would be great for this! You can also work the remote reinforcement games with anything – tricks, obedience, etc – and that understanding will make the weave training much easier.
>We began Shhhh yesterday. And worked on “Give” with low to higher value toy. Love the idea of training with shhhh. Perhaps,Nuptse will not get so frustrated with the directional training with using Shhhhh to keepthe game going.>>
He definitely seemed to like the shhhhhh game! And he was also really good about a snappy response to the give 🙂 And if he gives the toy back… you can mix in another shhhhh instead of a treat 🙂 I agree that he will like directional training a lot with the shhhh as a reset because it is fun 🙂 and keeps the rate of success pretty high!
Nice work!
TracyHi!
I know, it is CRAZY how the backwards value transfer works LOL! But yet – here she was playing with that toy like a wild woman and also offering stays (hooray!) Great job incorporating the get it shown rewards as well as coming to your hand to tug
The next step would be to get a little interaction with the toy – then the tunnel cue (as a reward for interacting with the toy) then the toy again. That way the tunnel is valuable immediately and not just after a tunnel.The turn backs are going well – I think at first she thought it was BIZARRE because she probably does not have a lot of experience turning *away* from you for the reward. So you got some question behaviors – hopping up, a little barking, some running off with the toy and a little sniffing: all of which say “THIS IS WEIRD MOM!” But by about 1:25, I think it was starting to make sense to her because she immediately turned back to the toy without barking or hopping up, and she brought it back pretty quickly. Nice!!! This is a good one to keep playing with, it is very useful with start line training!
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyAww thank you for all the kind words!!! I think training is a community effort: it takes a village to raise our puppies 🙂 You are doing a GREAT job and I am glad you are enjoying our reinforcement geek-fest LOL! And I love sharing ideas, I learn so much from watching you and your dogs!
Tracy
Hi!
Great distraction list!
>>– Judge in the ring that he does not know – needs to go check it out
– Ring crew who are friends of his – will go say hello, but usually not until the end of the run
– My wife when she shows up at a trial just before our run, the timing is always impeccable.>>For the people distraction, can you ask your wife to enter a training session when you are playing the pattern game with get it cookies? Cody can be on leash at first, so he learns to ignore her 🙂 Then you can transfer this game to people at trials and if you have a group class – ask someone to be a judge and you can play this in the ring too!
For the end of the run visiting, that *might* be linked to him not really knowing how to earn reinforcement at the end of the run. The remote reinforcement can help that, so he knows to come back and get leashed up and then go to the treats 🙂
>>– finish obstacle, timers when we have to take it mid run – we’re done Tom where are you going>>
Smart dog!!!! You can add weird looking uprights into training and with your remote reinforcement, have your course curl back through the “timers” and away from them – and only give the remote reinforcement marker when he is moving back into the course. He is predicting that the timers mean cookie time. Clever!! I have some video of this in the remote reinforcement stuff from this week and coming next week.
>>– other dogs, not a problem at trials, but elesewhere they all have the potential to be his new BFF
– squirrels and cats – super chase drive>>All of this can be taken “on the road” to include non-sport life such as leash walks, etc. Bring your treat bag or tennis ball and he can earn rewards for playing these games as a way of life 🙂
The video looked really good!!! He was VERY happy to do the turn back for the reward!!! At this stage, you can take a little lead out and add in either turning him back to the reward, or releasing him forward to you (for an additional reward that you have placed somewhere else) – this release forward and NOT predict reinforcement should also help him with the “I see timing lights, I am done!” reward predicting.
And the mat as tug toy? Still hilarious and brilliant. LOVE IT! Great job 🙂 Let me know what you think!
Tracy
