[Tom Toomla]

Good morning
“When he left at :36, what was he heading towards?” – he was heading to his reward station which happened to be right behind us. Lots more work on leaving reward to get reward is in our future

Here’s a clip from this past Mondays class. The ring crew running out while he was on the line was hard for him, should have probably used a bit more volume dial work here. Almost lost him to the ring crew after jump 3, but was able to call him back to work fairly easily – probably should have paid him for that. Also threw in a bit more volume dial mid run when he noticed the near corner ring crew.

I have him entered into a UKI trial this Saturday – a new facility neither of us has been to – another horse barn with dirt footing, so he should love that. Plan is to work our in and out here – 2-1/2 hour drive for 2 or 3 jumps LOL, but hey, I’m thinking long term here

The bar training looks like fun – a good project for my small yard!

Decompression – things I use – all good?
Bully sticks – if he’s chewing he’s relaxed and stick can last 1 to 1-1/2 hrs
Lickey mats – he does love his peanut butter
Loaded snuffle mat in his crate
Putting him in the car crate for some sleep

• This reply was modified 6 months, 1 week ago by Tom Toomla.

[Tom Toomla]

Hey there, hope you had a great holiday

Attended a 1/2 day seminar taught by Stacy Goudy, had fun. Seminar topic was body language vs verbals – don’t count on your verbals to override body language,so we essentially worked on getting the body language right. Seminar was attended by 10 teams, all were behind the fence on the right side of the screen. Most dogs were crated, some were not.

I also worked on including some chill outside the ring and some volume dial into our runs.

This was our last run of the morning, he ran it well other than taking down the one bar. Has a discussion with SG about the dropped bar being my fault – gave him the tunnel cue before he took the preceding jump, according to her, dogs that understand the tummel verbal will lower their center of gravity when they hear the verbal. I ran it again clean, not giving him the tunnel verbal until he had landed. Unfortunately, for some reason my phone shut down the video so I got none of the redo on video.

[Tom Toomla]

Safe drive home – did they ever figure out the dog walk issue?

“So you can definitely take a look at the lead out games from the last package and see if maybe the cartoon mashup game will help him in that type of situation.”

Here’s our 1st session with the mashup game – he started out ready to break, but then figured it out. No distractions here. I could try this tomorrow night at class, but that would take the distractions up to the top of the ladder. My plan for tomorrow was to keep working on ringside chill to volume dial to ring entry.

[Tom Toomla]

“Were there treats in your pocket” – yes, doesn’t everyone walk around 24/7 with cookies in their pockets?

“And in training like ring rentals, you can try short sequences/short courses with no reward in the ring” – so we did try this yesterday, leash off – setup and run 4 obstacles – leash on and out to reward, got some good drive from him to the reward target.

[Tom Toomla]

A full run with clean hands (no lotus ball} at our ring rental today. I did split the rental with another so there was some action on the other side of the gates.

One oops on my part rear crossing the see saw – not something I train enough, with his stopped contact, I usually default to a front or blind on the landing side. Something else for the to be trained list.

[Tom Toomla]

And now for some ringside Chill we tried at our class last night. Not sure if we ever got to chill per say, he threw in a bit of LAT to help him process the action in the ring. What you see here is a huge improvement from where we were at in the past – he’s not losing his mind anymore at the barking, but he’s also not yet oblivious to it, not sure what a reasonable expectation is here?

I do like the middle position chin scratch for chill potential – going to work on building value for this

• This reply was modified 6 months, 2 weeks ago by Tom Toomla.

[Tom Toomla]

Here’s a few reps of remote reward with leash off and on – then off to reward.

OK to keep going with this or too much too soon?

[Tom Toomla]

“He did not quite drive to the tunnel after the teeter on the very last rep here – I don’t think you did anything too different” – this was probably a result of 1 rep too many. He does let me know when he’s getting bored, so I keep mixing it up.

Worked a bit on his Go – driving the line this afternoon. T&T down at the far end. Used a bounce grid so I could get a few more obstacles in the setup. OK?

[Tom Toomla]

And now some tunnel discrimination work – not your setup, but I have to work with what I find. Mixed it up a bit between the tunnel and frame to make sure he was listening though in hindsight, I didn’t give him a good line to the frame so i did shape it a bit on the 2nd rep.

[Tom Toomla]

And here’s some exit line connection and leash off engagement on. I’ve done enough with you to have connection burnt into my brain. It does get overridden on occasion by my desire to know where I’m going.

The leash off goes well in a quiet environment like this one. It does start to degrade if there’s stuff going on behind him. So keep building incrementally by slowly building the distractions?

[Tom Toomla]

Hey there we’re back. The trip was wonderful – what’s the secret to obtaining all the wonderful off leash skills I saw. maybe it’s being able to reward with a restaurant meal LOL.

Here’s where we are at with the find my face pattern and with remote reinforcement – maybe step 1? I’d like to see some more drive from him back to reward, I’m thinking that will develop as his understanding does.

[Tom Toomla]

Good morning

“He had two moments at the back of the ring where he was not with you (1:32 and 2:04) – was he finding a line because cues were late, or distracted by the other ring or ring crew?” – probably a bit of both I did not show him the decel he needed to get the turn into the weaves which launched him towards the distraction of the other ring. You can hear Karen telling me it’s all on me.

“I think jut tossing it away as fast as you can will be better” — what’s your thought, the faster I can get him started after the temperature games the better?

Here’s where we are at with the end of run routine, building it as a pattern, find the leash, put on the leash, leave and find the target, party on the target. We go place the target together close to the crate orI place it somewhere obvious by the exit gate. I’m also thinking that I can use the target to get the lotus ball out of my hand – leave it on the target and send him to it

I’m out now till mid November – off to Italy this afternoon – yay for us

[Tom Toomla]

Here’s some bits from our class last night. He was quick, taking away my margin for error.

Had some ring crew out on the floor, we’ve been doing this for a while, so the class people now have limited distraction value, going to have to figure out how to up that. Some dogs are “I don’t know what that is so I’m going to leave it alone” Coal has a “I don’t know what that is so I’m going to go find out” attitude.

Also worked on handing off the leash – I’m probably better off handing it to a leash runner or placing in on the ground next to the boy instead of throwing it.

I liked the hand bops while walking to the line in round 2 – going to work on building that.

[Tom Toomla]

Now Cody would climb Mt Everest for a tennis ball, Coal on the other hand, he’ll look at me and I can see him saying you want it you go get it.

This is what a restart during a run usually looks like. I’ll take him by the collar and walk him to a point where we can do a couple and get out. Rarely does he disconnect again after being restarted.

[Tom Toomla]

Well, you’ve seen some of the good, now it’s time for the bad and ugly

Did some CPE runs on Saturday, these clips are in the order we ran them.

Worked him from the car, I would bring him in during the 5 minute waiting period after the walk and put him in the interior crate – close to the ring in this facility. Would take him out 4 dogs before his turn and play some shoe top pattern games then enter the ring and do some volume dial work although probably not enough. I’m too worried about taking too much time at the line, something I need to get over. You can see the results in the video, but hey that’s why we are here!! Following the “vocal” PWD also did not help us,his focus was clearly split.

I would have run FEO, but CPE or AKC does not allow the use of the Lotus ball and Coal’s toy / tug drive is a work in progress – yet another project.

Next trial will be UKI in early December where I can use the Lotus ball but long term I do need to start fading the ball to remote reward – yes?

[Author]

Posts