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Good morning!
Since winter seems to be never-ending this year, I am glad you have the bigger space rented! Yay! You can work these games in your home space, with a couple of tweaks that will work weel even if you don’t have a ton of room:Set point – she is clearly going to be a very talented jumper. Yay! With the dead toy, she is the tiniest bit ‘pouncy’ on the 2nd jump – she is not really thinking getting organized to stride through the set point, she is thinking about getting organized to pounce on the toy 🙂 I see this as not being a jumping form thing we need to tweak, but a it is a reinforcement placement thing we can tweak by having the moving target (slowly dragging the toy as she is moving forward). The moving toy should not elicit the pouncing and also encourages jumping organization when the dogs are stimulated by motion 🙂 It is not exactly pure Susan Salo to do this but the results have been amazing 🙂
Wind In Your Hair also looks good even in the smaller space – her commitment is strong. In this space and in the bigger space too, watch her head and as soon as she looks forward to the jump – throw the reward. You were waiting til she was between the uprights so she was looking at you (nothing else to look at, when she got there :)) and tracking the toy throw – so by the last rep, she was looking at you earlier to track the toy throw. So if you reward her moment of commitment decision (when she looks forward) by throwing the toy, she will look forward more and more on those.
You can totally leave the toy out on the line… but I think it is good human training to be able to watch her head and mark/reward the decision moment rather than seeing her between the uprights then throwing. That will help you develop your timing for when she is running courses.
>>I did leave in the brilliant return of the toy to hand for more tugging!
YES! That was great!!! She was all like, “here, I brought you the toy, let’s tug” SUPER!!!!
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHello to you and Fritzi! She is AMAZING, you have such cool dogs!!!
On the set point:
She did a great job focusing downward to the toy on the ground (and holding her stay).
She was ticking her toenails on the bumps a little when they were further and on the first rep when they were closer – but she adjusted nicely and then I really liked the reps at 2:11 and 2:42 and 3:10 (the bumps were close together there). Part of what was great on those were the distance she was from bump 1 (6 inches maybe?) and the distance between the bumps. So you can try maybe having them a couple of inches further apart, but not much more for now. She looked really good!Because she is doing so well with the stationary toy, you can add in the slowly dragging toy – have the toy attached to something long so you can be dragging it forward as she is moving (like in the pre-game). That might change her mechanics a bit so we might end up changing the spacing between the jumps.
Wind in Your Hair:
She did best with you just walking and not being too exciting (she wants to look at you and the toy when you are really exciting, particularly when she is on your left side). When you slowed down your motion, she was really getting it!
You can throw the reward sooner – when she is looking at the jump, throw it. You don’t need to wait for her to get close to it or be between the uprights: the early throw will reinforce her decision to look for it AND not look at you 🙂She was definitely stronger when working on your right side – the left side was harder for her, for whatever reason. It was a GREAT adjustment to move the toy out of the dog side hand when she was on your left and toss if from the opposite hand – that really helped. It was not a problem for her when the toy was in your dog side hand when she was on your right.
For the next session, start with walking like you did here and then is she is happy with that, add some jogging and see how she does.
Click/treat to you for using the verbals 🙂 The earlier we start, the easier it is for both of you!
>>She does get a little distracted by some ‘goings-on’ at our farm here and there, that’s her puppy brain and it’s always improving so I try to engage her with food or toy and ignore it.>>
From an outside perspective, based on the background noises – she is doing spectacularly well in an environment that most dogs would find really distracting!!!! I think she looks brilliant. Keep up the great work!!!!!
Tracy
Good morning!
>>I just watched the independent verbal wraps and I think my head may have exploded 😂😂😂🤯! Wait you can wrap a rear?! With the same word?!?! Haha, I was still in switch land before this class. I’m having trouble trying to imagine this on courses. What do you suggest on starting Promise on this one right now yay or nay???
I need to find the map of the speedstakes course I ran with Contraband last weekend – I have *planned* a big fancy blind to get him on my right side, to set up a soft left turn on the next jump. Yeah, well…. I didn’t make the blind and was pretty far from him – so he was on my left and he needed to turn left. So, I kept running (I mean, it was either run or freeze haha) and said ‘lehfft lehfft lehfft’ and I’ll be darned – he immediately turned his head to his left and made a perfect left turn on the jump. Good boy! So that is an example of when you can use the directionals to also mean “turn away”: when you are behind or not able to show great handling or both haha
T
The more I watch how the dogs respond, the more I see them having success when the words are different in sound and style of delivery. It is really cool to see!
T
How is she feeling today?
>>But I did think later that a threadle wrap might have been a better choice.
The other thing I think can help is to have changed sides atthe teeter – it looked like you had the on your right for the teeter and then did a threadle rear on the backside before the aframe… which puts you behind her because you can’t just send & leave for the threadle rear. So a rear cross before the teeter or a blind on the teeter exit can get you in position to send and leave on the jump before the frame, putting you ahead of her after the frame. Let me know if that makes sense or if I need more coffee hahaha
tGood morning!
She is just the cutest little pup! And I love the toy, it seems to match her personality 🙂You can mix in throwing rewards back to her, to help remind her that holding the sit is a good thing! You can use reset cookies to help when she has an error – bring her back, line her up, cookie, then lead out again. A question – will she be happy to play with the toy when cookies are in the picture? If so, great, you can toss cookies back as stay rewards and mix that in with releasing forward to the toy on the ground. If not, you can throw a toy back to her.
To get more success, you can shape the release with more approximations: you can ping pong between the release when you begin to lower the toy, release just before the toy gets to the ground, release when it it is on the ground, release when you start to move it, release after it starts to move… mix that all up 🙂 The errors came in this session when the toy was on the ground THEN you started to move it, I think it was just a shade too long for her to hold the stay in those moments 🙂 As you worked through it, she got lot better at this towards the end of the video! YAY!!! So keep mixing in the easy reps with the hard reps, to keep the success rate high and continue to add duration.
One other thing I notice – she seems to do better when you are connected the whole time (a least a little bit) rather than leading out without watching THEN connecting – I think she was reading the re-connection as part of the release. So add a little more connection and I think that will help too.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
All of these games look great! A couple of ideas for next steps on all of them – there is nothing really to change with what you did here. She was highly successful!!Moving target with the jump bump – she seems to like this LOL! And it looks like she is focusing downward enough for our purposes. Yay! This set up a strong set point session too!
One thing I notice:
She looks around when you lead out, so mix in more “catches” randomly, throwing the reward back at difference points – it will make things exciting and shape her to watch you – the reward could come at any time, so she won’t take her eyes off of you 🙂 I am not worried about her looking around, and I don’t think she is stressed – I just think she doesn’t believe anything will be happening for a while so loses focus for a bit.Onwards to the set point:
This went well! Super nice! I am looking forward to when you can take this to the arena or onto grass (Mother Nature is NOT cooperating!) I think you can move the distance to 4 feet for now but keep her front feet about 2 inches form the first bump, so she doesn’t have to ‘reach’ into the first gap.>>With the TnT she isn’t driving – not surprising given what I see with the RC foundation work. The toy definitely ups the drive quite a bit and she holds things together.
I totally agree – the more I watch dogs do jump work with a TnT or dead toy, the more I think it drains the dogs of all power because it is more about slowing down than powering through. The dead toy is better than the TnT for her, and the moving toy is best!
At the beginning of RDW training, we really don’t want the powering through so the TnT is actually perfect for that LOL!!! Then we fade it and move it away, adding the power and the speed. and since she is learning fabulous self-control with the moving target toy, I bet you can train the RDW with that. I have some more ideas about using the moving target toy, remind me when we get to the Motion Override games LOL
Since the set point is going so well, this is something to re-visit maybe once a week? She is so young that we don’t need to do a lot with it at this stage, because she is having not trouble with any of it. Yay!
Wind In Your Hair – these look great too. She is wrapping well and doing a great job of looking forward to the line. Click/treat for you both!
Now, going back to the the lazy game, add in 2 elements:
– Start very very close to the wing so as you walk forward, so drives ahead of you. You might have to hang out at the wing to let her finish wrapping it before you start walking forward.
– And do the opposite as well – start as far from the start wing as possible so you can send her way away to it, and you are past the jump when she exits it, so she has to find the jump from behind you (and not just chase you past it).And when she is fine with that (I’m betting it will take her just a couple of reps on each) then you can add in motion to those 2 challenges like you did here on this video. If she has any questions, keep the game in the lazy zone for a session or two 🙂
Distance video – yep, now she is feeling the joy of run run running LOL! Adding the distance allows us to get more driving ahead and that is great! After you do the lazy game with her driving ahead or finding the jump when you are way ahead, and adding motion to that – then add the distance to the driving ahead challenge and to the “send away to the wing and find the jump behind you” challenge. You can throw sooner or even leave the toy placed out there – I suggest placing it NOT because she needs the help finding the jump, but because as the distance gets bigger, it is harder and harder to throw on time and keep her head from coming up.
Great job with these! Let me know how she does with the added challenges!
TracyHi!
I think 5 feet will eventually be fine, but she is still developing her power, so keep me posted about how 4’6″ or 4′ go 🙂
Have fun!
TracyThanks, I had missed it. He is doing really well!!!! He was basically perfect when you were stationary – it was definitely impressive when you were at the center of the bar!
He had a little more trouble when you added motion, so just move a little more slowly for now.
You can warm him up in the next session without any movement, then add very slow walking… barely walking haha! When he is just about 90-100% with that, then add “normal” walking. 🙂
This will be very useful on course when you are behind him, or need to turn him away from a distance!
Nice work 🙂
TracyHi!
I am super happy with this session – it did blow his mind a little to see this ON A COURSE IN THE GO FAST PLACE hahahaha but by the middle of the session and all the way through to the end, he was producing the turns we want to see on course!I think starting with a wrap for the next session will be a better start, because it is the exact opposite of the Go. The soft left might have been a bit too much in the middle?
And you can have all of the bars at full height except the turn jump bar (keep it lower for now, it will get to full height soon).What I think your next move should be to identify areas in training courses where you think he might struggle with a turn. If he is in a class, or you are training at home – throw in the ‘helper’ jump and run the course. Then the turn becomes no different than maintaining criteria on contacts or weaves, right? For example, at the beginning of this session, it was REALLY easy to see if he was maintaining criteria on his left turns or not (he was not hahaha). Same on a course! he will get used to making the nice turns just like he did here!
One more gold star goes to him finding the jump AFTER the wrap. It is not exactly on his line and you didn’t have to help him get it. That is a BIG happy-making moment! YEAH!!!!
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi! Really nice work here! She did really well!
She did really well with the independent verbals, this is a really hard game!! One blooper but overall really nice! You can start to fade out the little bit of help you were giving her (tiny bit of motion help with feet turning) – delay that slight turn of you feet while you walk directly forward to the jump bar sayin the verbal – then as she is nearing the bar, you can turn your feet a little. She will let you know if she needs more help than that, by getting it wrong 🙂 You can start her a little further back from the jump so you have time to show her all of this and so she has time to process it.
>>Independent wraps were good unless there was a distraction jump too close. I started out with the same set up for both excercises and realized right away that was too confusing with the distraction jump. Thinking I might try it in the future unless you think that’s unreasonable (?)
I agree that the start wing and distraction jump are too much for the criteria of also turning away… for now 🙂 Eventually you can go to that distraction jump setup but you might not need to.
Raising the height:
>>Nice to review some wrap and soft turn stuff at different jump hts. Felt like she was doing well with that
Yes! She was SUPER! That bar looks so tall compared to her LOL! She did really well!
One general thing to remember is to try to be in motion the whole time, no standing still 🙂 You wee sending and standing still on a lot of them – but she was excellent when you were in motion, so keep moving.
Positionally, you can stay outside the wing of the jump for the wraps and soft turns – when you were moving to the center of the bar, you are pushing her off her line a bit, like when she thought you wanted the backside at 5:02 and 9:26.
You added more moving forward at 5:33 and she had an error on that rep, but then she was great with the motion after it like at 6:52 – she made the correct decision while you were moving with no handling help! Yay! And same with 7:10 – you were moving forward, not really helping -and she nailed it.
Also, when you were not moving, she tended to pull the bars more than when you were moving 🙂 She was really good with her jumping when you stayed in motion.So for the next session on both of these, I think the main theme is: add more motion 🙂 She is doing really well, so you can add more and more motion to challenge her. Great job!
TracyHi! This is a VERY hard game and you both did really well!
Great job breaking that accidental vortex 🙂 You can help her by getting closer to the start wing so she is not chasing your motion as much, or by running faster for the GO like at 1:24, 1:50, 1:58
When she was successful, you were a little slower on the serp reps and definitely faster on the GO reps – see if you can be medium speed (same speed) on both then if she is happy with that – go fast on both. Wheeee!
>>I struggled with my words too. I had so much to spit out at the end I ended up omitting the second directional verbal of the serpentine frequently or my reward marker sometimes.>>
Take a moment to plan before each rep: for example, it can be “left – right – get it!” or “GO GO GO get it”. I try to always take a moment to plan, and also to remember which dog I am running LOL!
>>I also had no trouble with spitting out the taboo “YES”, which left me little time for the correct words lol!!!
HA! that is because we have practiced the YES so many times, it is second nature (25 years of it for me LOL!)
>>One is about my reward placement on her line. I felt like I was rewarding on the incorrect line sometimes. I did find when I was actually successful with the second directional I was more likely to reward on the correct line. Hopefully I was anyway lol!
I was happy with your placement. If you do not say the 2nd directional, than a general toss past the jump was fine, because the placement matched the first directional. And you were also good at throwing it on the serp line. All of your GO rewards looked good!
>>How important is the second directional to say at the beginning? is this something i should really concentrate on?
The second directional is what matches the turn on the jump, so definitely try to get it going 🙂 Switch to it as soon as she arrives at the start wnig.
>>I had to really add my motion(Handling) with this game to get out of the vortex. Was this ok to do or does it just ruin the purpose of this game? Instead should I have gone back to the previous serpentine exercise and attempt this one when that one is solid with me running?>>
It is fine as a vortex-breaker 🙂 and then you fade it back out. Or, change sides like you did, or start closer to the start wing so there is a different picture to help break the vortex.
>>I do think things really started to click for her at the end of this game.
Heck yeah! You both looked awesome!! Well done!
let me know what you think!
TracyHi! I am glad you were able to play outside today!!
A general idea to make the line a little easier is to have the start wing more on line to the center of the bar of the first jump, so that you can just walk forward for the go versus the left or right. You were getting caught behind the jump on some of the reps and that was confusing the line a little.
For Keltie –
I think showing her the food toy is totally NOT cheating :), it is more about teaching her the concept of “seeing the MM out there does not mean going to the MM all the time” LOL! So you had to start that way in order to get her ‘unlocked’ from the MM (the MM is a very powerful visual). On your next session, warm her up with that reminder to not just run to the MM before you add much of your motion. Then when she remembers that, you can add the turns versus go.She was starting to get the idea for sure and I am glad you added a go rep – maybe just add one go rep before going back to the soft turns so it is not too hard for her, she LOVES that MM LOL! And you can also add a little more motion, moving forward faster/
Also, and you might have been doing this – have boring dullsville cookies in the MM, and really delicious ones in the toy you are throwing. That can help balance the value of the Go to the MM versus the soft turn.
And same idea with Buccleigh – he needed to learn that the MM is NOT the almighty cookie robot, so it was good to show him the other reinforcement option 🙂 he caught on pretty quickly though! He knocked the bar a lot on the early soft turn reps, but I think that was more about him learning to ignore the MM and follow the toy throws – the bar dropping went away as he got more confident with the skill.
For Buccleigh, you can totally mix in the GO a little sooner 🙂 so he doesn’t get locked into the soft turns.>>then I had trouble getting the go again. My attempt to make it easier was to move closer to the bar. Would it have been better to trigger the MM before I let them go? The motor makes a noise which they recognize and it would have changed their focus.>>
One thing to remember is that ‘go’ does not necessarily mean take jumps – it means stay on a straight line. So if he is on an angle over 1, he will not take 2 if it is not on the straight line, which is what happened a few times here. So the line up from the wing is important and so is your line of motion to make sure he sees jump 2 on the line.
When he was taking 1 straight on, he got the go lines pretty consistently. When he was coming to 1 on an angle, he would stay on a straight line and not take 2, but it was not necessarily wrong in that situation. So be sure to line him up to approach jump 1 straight. And at this point – don’t trigger the MM before you let go, I don’t think that will help them process the verbal. Trigger it as soon as you see him moving straight!He did really well after his break!! Really lovely job on these!!
>>I would like to try the wrap exercises again. Is is OK to mix them up? Maybe on different days? Or, should I stay with the soft turns until we have it a little better?
Yes, you can mix them up so no one gets bored. You can do the exit line criteria combo game, or even the fast lines game! All of those use the wraps and soft turns, but in different fun ways 🙂
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
>>Got a brag for you!!! We have a weekly Wednesday class with Lo Baker. Yesterday’s setup had LOTS of big, fast Go lines mixed in with lots of tight Wraps and Sly was freaking amazing!!! Per Lo “He really knows his Wrap/Wrap verbal” 🙂 Wish I had videoed! He/we (I’m including me is this as I was SO much better about getting the cue out in plenty of time) executed them all just about perfectly 🙂 Happy Dance…..cheeseburgers and Shamrock shakes on the way home!>>
What a fabulous update!!!! Happy dancing and cheeseburgers FOR SURE! I have never had a shamrock shake but now I want one LOL
>.’ve got a 1/2 dozen reps of him doing just about everything possible with the jump trying to figure out what I mean. Once I got my mechanics right he was like – Thank You, Mom!!!>>
Yep, mechanics are the make or break for some of these skills! And the ‘out’ is not a very intuitive movement for a lot of dogs and definitely requires training. He did really well with the non-out reps and needed a bit of convincing for the out reps here. The ‘out’ arm can be bigger, much bigger, almost urgent – I think of it as pointing to the exit wing of the jump with a fully extended arm. It is a USEFUL verbal nowadays, I used it a lot last weekend!
>> I’ve got just the one verbal for a backside, Back and am relying on my handling to let him know whether it’s a wrap or a slice. Figure that I can always add a new cue for one of them down the road if I need/want to.
Yes, you can always add a new one. For now, you can use a compound cue for the circle wraps: back then the wrap verbal. So back plus nothing else is the slice, and back plus wrap is the circle wrap – you would switch to the wrap verbal when he is just about arriving at the backside wing.
He is doing REALLY well on these, especially the back versus the right – one oopsie but otherwise perfect with no real handling differentiation. He seemed to be truly processing the verbals. YAY!!!
These were all position 1, so start your next session with a couple of position 1 reps. Then move the wing over to position 2!
>> Hardest part about both of these games – remembering not to say Yes and to cue Get It for the reward!!! 30 years of Yes are going to take awhile to change!!!!>>
I feel this!!! So much!!!! I am getting better with the baby dogs, but it is still YAY or YES for the older dogs LOL!
Great job here!!! Let me know what you think!
TracyHi!
Great job here on the week 4 games – they are difficult!!!On the fast line game – nice job here! Great connection and timing of the verbals!!! She did really well. I think the left turns went well for her on all of the reps. The right turns were harder, probably because they are harder in general and because the turf is a little slippery for her right turns. But her last soft right turn was terrific! Keep up the great cnnection and timing – you were looking at her the whole time, and your verbals were happening pretty much while she was still engaged with the previous obstacle, making them nice and early!!
Game 2 (serp versus go) -She did well on both side here! I think that one thing tat will help her is if you change the volume of the left and right cues. When they are loud, they start to sound like the GO and are the same length. So she got some correctly, but had a miss a couple of times, one on each side. So you can change the volume and stretch the left/right verbals. GO is loud and short, and left/right can be softer and longer. It is easy to be loud when running, so I have to remind myself to say my left and right verbals more softly and not yell LOL! I think that will bring her success rate up to 100% 🙂
The turn aways are probably the hardest game of week 4!! She nailed it right at the beginning, it was amazing! Then she got into a turn-right-vortex where everything was a right turn. When that happens – do something really easy to ‘break’ the vortex, like a shoulder turn and a hand cue to help. She was guessing without when you were facing forward, so you can totally help her out! You started to add some foot rotation, and that broke the vortex and then she started to get it 🙂
So for your next session:Try starting you both further away from the jump – that will give you both more time: more time for you to give the cue and show her a little handling help, and then more time for her to process it. I think 12-15 feet away will be a good distance to help her out.
Great job on the jumpers course – it is a hard one!!!
Your wrap on 2 and backside on 5 looked good – nice handling, nice verbals! Woohoo!!!There are a couple of spots on this course where I can see that she reads lines very literally: when she landed from 6 at :08, she stayed on her line which took her right past the wingless jump (and it is harder to see a wingless jump). A left verbal on 6 can help her out! I think I used a GO there but it was set a little differently.
A verbal 9-10 will help and you blocked her line a little
A name call 12-13 at :20 should help her find the blue wing jump before the tunnelThe in in as a forced front cross had a little too much propulsion for her at :26 but your in in at :40 where you did it as a threadle was PERFECT!
The zip zip for the wrap cue happened after takeoff to the yellow jump at :45, so try to start it when she is in the air over the purple jump before it (:43)- it is similar to the timing you used in the fast lines game
FC-ing to the end makes the last turn a left at :50, not a go – – you said go, so she ran straight on the line she was on – she was totally correct (and very literal LOL)
So look for those soft left or right turns instead of GO moments, that should really help!
>> I’m going to try it again today and do what you suggested last night and add the small jump behind on some of the collection jumps and see if that helps her.
I think a good spot for it is at the yellow wrap jump, 3rd obstacle from the end. Start from the tunnel and work that line – lots of speed to a tight turn!
Great job on all of these! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
