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Hi! This was a good session!
The start location was good, she was striding right into it. And excellent self-control in the stay, allowing you to put the cookies in the bowl 🙂 One little tweak: move the reward bowl further away, so she can land and take one full extended stride to it. Will she hold the stay like that and drive to a toy? If so, you can add the toy instead of the cookie bowl, but also really far away (12 feet is my guess) from the 2nd jump.
She is totally getting the concept! She is still sorting out her body – the front end is a little more coordinated than the hind end at this point, but that is normal 🙂 At 6 months, it is a matter of just helping her sort out all her feets and balance – she will continue to sort it out as she mentally matures. This setup is something to revisit maybe once a week until she is old enough and mature enough for us to add bars 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi!
>>What is the theory for throwing the toy back to the dog vs. going back to treat? It certainly is easier on me (saves steps). Does it matter if I throw it TO the dog or BEHIND the dog?>>
The theory is two-fold:
it builds value for remaining at the start line (or wherever the dog was left) while the handler gets further and further away. Going back to treat builds value for the handler being close to the dog. So in order to build a great stay, we teach the dog that the further the handler gets from the dog, the more value there is in the stay 🙂
And the other thing is that when we go back to treat, the dogs (especially puppies) almost always move – either stand up, move forward, move their front feet…. and we end up either then withdrawing the reward (which reduces the success rate) or we end up rewarding movement. You can work through the ‘don’t move when I come back’ but that is best done separately from jump.
With the throw backs, it is better to attach a cue which means “the reward is coming to you via throw” so the dog does not move til they hear that cue and then if they move, it is actually back away from the jump to get the reward – they are allowed to move after I throw the reward to them.
>>Does it matter if I throw it TO the dog or BEHIND the dog?>>
I aim for generally throwing it to the dog as it is hard to get it behind them without them trying to catch it.
T
Hi! Hooray for lots of play and tugging and tunnels!
>>. Because I’m losing my start line outside!!! OMG. She don’t want to sit…OR stay.
That is pretty normal, you can do a couple of sessions of back-to-basics of short stays, high value rewards, no jumps or tunnels involved. And in the actual training sessions, you will probably end up doing more pizza and catch rewards for the stay than actual reps on the jumps: but that is fine 🙂 And that is totally what I had to do when I started this too!
>> I supposed I just need to keep working at it with the distractions outside. I need to stay really really fun and keep her attention. I keep really good treats on me outside too.
Also totally normal! Baby dogs don’t have much experience with these fabulous smells and mud and all the things that spring brings 🙂 Keep going with the super rewards and short sessions, balanced with the opportunity to explore all the new fun things 🙂
The session went well! When she was on your right and you led all the way out to the MM – those were the best reps! Nice! When she was on your left and you didn’t go out to the MM (like at :15) she was not as sure of what you wanted, so she was a little more “hoppy”. I think she was generally more hoppy when on your left, but that was probably because you were not as close to the MM as you were when she was on your right… and that MM provided a nice strong point of focus for her. Plus, the distractions were hard so she was not 100% thinking about jumping yet.
I think the distance was good for now – she is actually really little! As she matures, I am sure we will expand it but we have some time to let her develop physically before then. She was definitely catching onto the concept and that is exactly what we want.
Great job!
TracyHi! He is *totally* digging this LOL!
The first couple of reps were good intros to the warm him up. Then it looked like he totally loved doing it from the tunnel and wing. It looked like the middle section did not have the cookie on the target, so he was slowing down and looking at you more. When you went back to the cookie on the target, he was fast and furious, driving to the end like a teeter fiend! So definitely keep placing the cookie there in advance – that will keep him driving forward to the end until we replace the cookie with his eventual end position. When you put the cookie back, he was awesome and didn’t appear even notice the added tip. Yay!
So, keep on adding tip, and keep on going with the ‘think less, teeter more’ approach because he is doing great and it is helping embed teeters into course work!
Great job!
TracyHi! I agree – very solid session, he was very happy to leave you in the dust hahaha! Good boy 🙂
It was hard to tell if there was a treat pre-placed on the target – he was looking at you a bit at the end, so definitely keep placing the treat in there for now before sending him up the board. If it bounces around, you can use a little bit of ‘cookie glue’ like a dab of peanut butter to keep it in place. And when he is not really looking at you, you can add in the challenges: moving past, adding crosses, even adding the wing before it and rear crosses.When he is happy with the various challenges (will probably happen in one session) – add a tiny bit of tip. Yay! He is moving forward nicely!! Great job 🙂
Tracy
Hi!
>>hopefully I can recruit some manual labor this weekend.>>
Good help is hard to find LOL!!!
The friz as a revver-upper is hard because it elicits the running like you had on the first rep – you slowed things down a little after it and he did great! This is going well!
>>he one issue I had was when the teeter slammed down the cheese went flying off the plate but he keep his 2on 2 off>>
You can use some ‘glue’ in the form of a little dab of peanut butter or cream cheese to hold the cheese in place, I am sure he won’t mind haha
He did well with the added drop here! You can do another session at this level and add in more challenges as he is driving to the end (more motion, more independence, maybe some moving away laterally) and then if that goes well like this, you can add a little more drop too 🙂
Target position on the wobble board was probably a weird new thing for him 🙂 So you can d a quick warm up with easy stuff before layering in the challenges – that can help him really look for the target and target position. One major thing on the target position is to not have yourself too close to it, in terms of standing next to target position – try to send him ahead or step past it, or step away – just so your feet are not near the target and won’t get built into the cue.
Great job here!! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
He is doing really well running this all the way to the ground. I don’t think he was looking for the pivot or stopping early. Let’s isolate the mechanics and slow down the start of each rep… which will result in a faster overall rep. What I mean by that is: have him hop up onto the very end of the board, turn and face the target, get excited for a moment… then give him his target cue and start moving. What was happening was that he was trying to hop on while the board was moving (like at 1:19) so he had to balance and tip, then run, then balance and tip again. I don’t think he was looking for the tip, I think he just starting running down the board before he was fully balanced. Smoothing out the start of each rep will solve that!
The other thing you can do is have big, super high value reward and toss it back to the target as soon as he hits position. And, sometimes mix in a release out of position to chase a toy or cookie: as soon as you know for sure he has hit target position, release and throw a reward straight forward.I am super excited about how well he is doing here!!!! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! He probably is still pretty sensitive to the teeter, which is why I use a less-is-more approach to protect that. I can do 4 or 5 minutes of weaving with a dog, no problem. But 4 or 5 minutes of teetering will be waaaaay too much for some dogs – the one hits wonders are the best way to get them super happy with it and end the session, leaving them wanting more 🙂
>>Sidenote I wanted to ask you how you transitioned your flyball rewards to Agility. Upon reflection I feel chincy if the goal is a KFC bucket time. Are you planning any connection reward seminars that are upcoming LOL…>>
I find that reinforcement value is hard for us humans – we like to do a lot of reps so we end up doing tiny bits of treats which is definitely NOT KFC bucket time LOL!!!! I will be doing the transitioning to trials topic as part of the CAMP class in June (it runs all summer) because that KFC bucket moment is soooooo different for each type of dog. What I did with my Papillon would be totally the wrong thing with my Crollie LOL!
T
Hi!
I am all for coffee before, after, and during weave training LOL!!!
Nice session here! You hit a variety of angles, you had motion involved, and he was highly successful and FAST! Yes – try to delay the click til you see left shoulder at pole 3 for now (we will delay it even more soon). I find that hard, I like to click as soon as the head gets the entry, but left shoulder at pole 3 really isolates that bend: so I remind myself before every single rep LOL!One more suggestion that he is ready for, now that you are adding a lot of motion: on the highly angled sends, don’t stand still or face him til he is in the entry. Move immediately, stepping directly away to where you want to go next (down the line to the MM at first). I don’t want him to rely on lack of motion or handler rotation to help get those wicked entries, so since he is getting them, we will take out any stationary or rotation positions. So it is basically send with your dog-side arm & leg first then immediately step away to the next line. You can start at a walk and on easier angles as he will be seeing the motion while he is still several feet away from the entry. But I bet you will be able to add more speed pretty quickly 🙂
And along with that… onwards to the crazy handling challenges and I bet 12 poles will be fine for him now too 🙂Great job!
TracyHi! I feel the pain of the rain! It is finally not raining here but the wind is howling. Sigh!
He is indeed doing well on the ‘top’ of the clock angles here (10-11-12-1-2)! Adding motion is good, he seemed fine with it – just try to throw the reward a little sooner and lower, to help convince him not to look back at you.
>>Cowboy is very comfortable approaching at 5,6 & 7.>>
I didn’t see a lot of bottom of the clock reps (which would mean starting closer to where the frame and teeter where here) but that are often a little easier because he has to bend more to get into the entry.
>> However as I approach 3:00 & 9:00 he struggles a bit. If that happens, should I open up the second set of poles? >>
Bearing in mind that different angles will progress at different rates – how did he do with the 3 and 9 angles when the 2nd set of poles were at 2 and 8? If he was able to produce 2 consecutive sessions of 90% success… then you can leave the poles at 1 and 7 but change something else: start closer and send without motion (he seemed to do better on this video without the motion). Or, you can leave the 2nd set of poles at 1 and 7 but slide them 2 feet further away, towards the reward target: that can help him find poles 1 and 2 and also isolate the bend into poles 3 and 4.
And you can bring the clicker out for that – click/treat left shoulder at pole 3 for a session or two on the very hard angles.
Let me know what you think! It is totally normal for the dogs to need a couple of sessions extra to solidify the hard angles when we add in poles 3 and 4 🙂 He is doing great!
Tracy
Hi! I think you can still have ‘clean’ mechanics without necessarily doing loops – and you can also be clean but not fussy 🙂
Good session here! Call him right back after he gets the MM cookie, so he doesn’t offer the weaves on the way back to you. You can show your hand to give him a destination to drive to – I think after he gets the MM, he is not sure where to be next, so that quick recall will help.
He had a nice high rate of success on these! The threadle entries on the 3 o’clock side were harder – you can reward him for waiting, letting you step off to the side, then sending him – on the errors, he was sending himself as soon as you started to move to the side 🙂 But he was correct when you were clearer about being ready then sending.
Since he is looking so good here, you can add more of your motion – you were moving, but I think he is ready for you to work it up to going faster (jogging, running) on all the angles of sends – then we can add poles 3 and 4! Yay!
Great job!
TracyHi! He did well here when you get the throws more exciting after the first rep haha! I think the big difference was that there was no reward target to help prompt the behavior, so being in a new place with other stuff around made it harder to find the poles on your right and on the RCs. You can carry the PT to class or develop another reward target that is more easy to drag around (like an empty food bowl) – I think that will help generalize the behavior. The other option is to have the instructor throw the reward when his left shoulder gets to pole 3, especially on the rear crosses, so you can tap dance and do cartwheels and he will continue through the poles 🙂
It was really fun to see him picking this up so quickly!!!! Nice work!
TracyHi! Super session here!
He was nailing it and seemed to have no questions. Easy peasy! So…. add motion 🙂 The other thing to do is work the ‘bottom’ of the clock more (4-5-6-7-8) so he gets really good at finding those crazy ones before we make it harder – you can start him closer to the poles on those so there is less yardage to curl off the entry.
So you can do the next session with a bit of sending from the bottom of the clock on 2 straight poles, then go to the easier angles and add motion, once again working your way to the bottom with motion. Let me know if that makes sense!And on the threadles – yes, throw in a session of sending on slightly open poles. There is no need to go past 3 and 9 on the threadles at this stage. I think it will be easy for him.
If these next sessions go well, onwards to adding poles 3 and 4 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi!
>> I think I was cheating a bit the first couple attempts because I threw the toy before I could confirm she was looking over jump.>>
You call it cheating, I call it nice early timing to affirm the line. Ha! Better to be early to get it started than to wait too long 🙂 She is doing really well finding the line!
At :57, she ended up behind you. That was a connection break moment (and not a naughty moment haha) – as she exited the wing at :56, she saw your head turn from looking over your left shoulder to looking straight (I think you were looking at the jump) so she read it as the beginning of a blind cross cue – so she blind crossed. Compare it to the connection at :09 and :30 and 1:25 as she came around the wing – you kept your head turned towards her until you tossed the toy so she knew to stay on your side and not change sides. Clever girl! That head turn is an intuitive blind cross cue, so exaggerate the connection a little bit more to help her know where to be.
The foot rotation at 1:04 got the turn but you did not have a lot of connection there – the connection you had at 1:15 was really nice!
So, definitely keep connection as she exits the wing, let your eyes follow her head as she moves past you (rather than turning and looking forward to the jump while she is still behind you). She did REALLY well finding the jump, so you can add more motion and also delay the reward: keep it in your hand until she is just about taking off, then throw it.
You can also add challenge and hang out right next to the wing, close enough to touch it, til she exits the wrap – them move forward to give her the feel of driving ahead of you.
Great job! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
