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Yeah he doesn’t love the MM. So that does make this more difficult. You will need to use the MM for situations where you need to get more thinking from him but a lot of this you will be able to do without the MM.
I would not reward from your hand right now as we don’t really want to encourage too much handler focus. So when you are working this with toys try to place the toy on the ground so he is running away from you to get the toy. If you do have the toy on you, you want to work with it as a distraction. Definitely don’t throw the toy.
Right now would be a good time to start working on the plank. When starting with the plank you want to have him run to the MM in the beginning then as he starts to understand then you can start adding more speed/excitement with the toy.
This looks fantastic! Yes, I agree, I think having him do a trick after a miss for a reward is brilliant and seems to help him recover a lot better. He had some really beautiful hits in there with great separation! So I am very very happy to see that. fIt will continue to get more and more confident from here. I am so excited to see him moving so quickly after a failure. Great work with that!
Good! Way better understanding without the box!!That really looks perfect. Have you worked through the MM all around the clock to the left and right? The next step for her will be to start her a bit farther back on the plank and then continue with the MM around the clock. Oh I see that you are moving it now 🙂 We are not working on turning away quite yet so you want to be positioned on the inside of the dogs line. You can see at about 1:50 how you are on the outside of the turn. You want to be on the other side of the plank for right now.
The main thing is that it is now time to move her farther back to start building in some understanding that she can hit with slightly more speed. Be careful not to add too much too quickly.
I think it would be a really good time to work on the target to/from a wing wrap. That should keep him running a bit more and in motion.
When you start with the toy you want to throw the toy on the ground at a much harder angle. I have found the more they can see the toy on the other side of the target the more difficult it is for them. So by putting the toy maybe 5 feet from your side it makes the dog look forward to the mat, turn off of the mat, then run to the toy. So try it again with the toy but at a hard angle. Then gradually move it out to straight.
I agree. For him I think that would be the very last thing to do and in my opinion, if you don’t train collection turns at all but his understanding to hit the target is there you will be able to “fake it” for the very few times that would come up in a trial. I only say that because I just don’t know if training them would be that great for him right now as we want to encourage him to run fast. So why slow him down? Let’s say a year from now he is blazing fast and confident on the DW, sure you can always go back to train it later. But not all that important right now. Do you know what I mean?
She did really pretty darn well at the distracting barn! And really well in the second video. I am very happy with both sessions. Continue to work at the distracting barn as often as you can for practice in that distracting environment. Continue working like this moving the MM around the clock as she is successful every 2-3 repetitions.
Wow! I am so impressed with his speed out there! Really really great. And I am happy to see how well he did hitting the target with the additional speed as well. Good boy!
Yes, now would be a good time to switch to just the target on the ground. For mat size, I think this is great. I wouldn’t go any smaller for him because we want to encourage him to run faster so keeping it a tiny bit easier will be good for him. So I would keep it this size for everything except for collection exits which you will want a smaller size target because we want them to go all the way to the bottom of the DW for collection exits.
Yes, continue to let her think through it without any handler motion. I tend to add that in really late as they build up all that muscle memory. Yes, any adjustments she is making to hit the target right now is great even if it looks a bit odd. She will sort it out and in the end will understand how to do those pretty hits even on the hard turns. 🙂
That is correct, cue the next obstacle. It will still be a while before we add the right/left because we are doing all the down ramp training right now. And in the end when the dog is going down the down ramp you should be telling the verbal for where to go next. Later when the dog is running up the up ramp we will start adding in their verbals on how to exit. Plus we also want them to have a very good understanding of the desired hit before adding the extra difficulty of verbals. So no, even on the plank don’t say right/left. It would make more sense to say the wrap verbal right now if anything at all.
Awesome!
See what happens if you start one of your sessions with the inverted target. He understands that really well so try that at the beginning of the session and then part way through the session take the inverted target away and try just the target. Make sure to use whatever inverted target that you have with the smallest edges. Sometimes going back and forth will help a lot.
Hi Linda! This is looking really good. The second video with the back and forth game, don’t do the B&F game where you are on the far side of the target. You should be on the MM side of the target otherwise it can be very difficult for the dog to get the correct motion on the target and I think that is all that is going on with that.
He did do well with the target on the DW. Was he taught 2 on 2 off first? I am happy with how he did. Sometimes he looks like he almost gets sticky in a 2o2o. Just watch out for that as we don’t want to encourage it at all.
Driving to the target with your motion is really hard for the dogs. Just take it slow and very slowly add your motion into the picture.
Great job! This is looking great. You can also do this exercise with the inverted box or the elevated target. Some dogs seem to understand that better then you can fade the inverted or elevated part later. I think try that with her would be a good idea because that should help teach her how to adjust her strides to hit the target because right now that is hard for her. Then you are going to work the MM all around the clock.
No problem! I have used dog walks like that before. All I do it prop the one side up with a couple of tunnel bags until the bottom is flush with the ground. I just try to keep the slant as minimal as possible.
Yes, it did take this long or longer 🙂 When you can see the hits are immediate and pretty perfect right away then you can start moving the MM farther distances. Like I am sure that from 12 – 2 is pretty easy for her so you could move the MM over by 3ft each time but when you get to a hard spot then start moving it slower. You will start to see things get easier and easier for her each session.
In the second video it looks like the MM may have been a bit too far away and thats why she wasn’t driving to it? Did you go from straight to 90 degrees? You want to make sure to do every 3 feet or so as you are moving over. She handled it well but be sure to move the MM over in small increments. Great Work!
So keep in mind that every time you push her for speed you are undoing the thinking training that we are doing.. I would NOT push her for the speed like you did with the straight exits. I promise you that she will not loose it and that the speed will come back with perfect hits if you do the work. 🙂
Otherwise everything is looking great! She is really starting to understand the turns and doing really well! Turning to the right is so hard for her! Keep plugging away with the turns to the MM around the clock then start with the toy around the clock.
Yes, he cardboard should be just fine 🙂 Just be sure to start fading it when she is ready.
Yes, continue to hold off on the verbals until we have more solid understanding of turns then we will add them to it 🙂
Great work!
