Great job so far everybody! Again, please see as many videos of others as possible and read my comments to others too - I'm trying to bold the answers you really want to read, but the more you read, the easier it will be to understand what you're going for.
But things are mostly going well now, the only problem that I'm seeing more as expected is "up-in-the-air" movement. It looks like some dogs are leaping in order to get away from the plank. I think it's mostly due to the fact that everybody is going for those narrow planks and those are hard to run full speed on + they might sometimes be stepping on the edge and that can be uncomfortable and make them want to leave it as soon as possible. So again - it's no hurry to get to a narrow plank!!! If you can use two, side by side, with a carpet over, that would be perfect!
Anyway, here is your new list:
1. gradually make that plank higher&higher, still jackpotting the best hits, but make a criteria for a jackpot somewhat more strict and at this point also already stop clicking the highest hits even if the dog is striding equally - but at this point, don't click anymore the highest 20% of the hits you're getting (meaning that from 10 tries, don't click the highest 2 hits). It's no problem if the dog still gets the toy, just take it immediately when he comes back. When it's good, praise and tug and when it's especially good, be especially excited and play especially enthusiastically 🙂 And yes, dogs are smart enough to know the difference.
2. as the dog is probably already searching for the plank better, slowly start throwing sooner&sooner. Don't rush it, but you eventually want to throw that soon that the dog is technically running to a static toy. But again, you don't want to get there sooner as in 3 weeks as it's only then that we'll start using a static toy - you do want to throw it for those 3 weeks more! It's better to throw somewhat longer if necessary - usually not an issue with BCs, but with my puppy, I needed to throw VERY long to keep the speed and focus - if any of that gets weaker when you start throwing sooner, go back to whatever gives you back the speed and forward focus, we can deal with that later!
3. as you are still throwing a toy, your movement and position probably won't affect the dog's performance - but just to be sure, do try to run with the dog here and there, just to check if that's correct. If it does affect your dog's performance, add movement gradually, by first walking slowly along, then walking faster, running slowly etc. You don't need to do it on every try, especially not if it doesn't affect the performance, but do try it here and there.
4. another difficulty we can slowly start introducing now is changing starting position of your dog. Don't use the best spot all the time anymore, but vary it a little bit. If it makes their hits too bad, go back to the good starting position. But bad hit here and there is good, that's how they learn the difference between what gets rewarded and what doesn't.
5. new trick: shape a dog to go with all 4 feet in a box that is ideally as long as he is. Then gradually use smaller&smaller objects, your goal is the dog is standing with 4 feet in a small bowl. Good for balance and rear legs awareness! Also, teach backing up with you standing still, by throwing a reward for them first for one step back, then two and then add more&more distance. Great for rear legs awareness and coordination!
Send videos of the tricks and the plank work. For slow motion part of a plank work, PLEASE cut out all the parts where I can't see the dog! It's very time consuming and not much fun to watch just the plank or you, throwing a ball, in slow motion!
Also, here is a video showing different striding on a dog-walk. My puppy Le is showing the most common striding: two hits on up plank, two in the middle, two on down. Bu has this same striding. Bi can only do that if I start her from such an angle that she has no speed coming up. Her normal striding is 4 steps on whole dog-walk, on down ramp rear feet hit first and then she lands front feet above the contact, hind feet in the middle. I think that since US dog-walks are significantly shorter as mine, many of your BCs might end with this striding. Bi usually does shorter dog-walks in 3 steps (our dog-walks come in different lengths) - you can see one of those tries in this video too. She is pretty high on my dog-walk, but comes deeply in in 3 strides on shorter ones. At the end, you can see what big area she is covering with one hit, thanks to good reach forward and hind feet separation - with one hit, she is touching almost 40% of a down ramp, that's 1,5m!
Hi Sylvia,
Kris and Devo here. It has been raining non stop in Ohio and we have finally gotten out to train. I’ve been reading the discussions about reaching a frustrating point in training. What has been frustrating for us is that one training session can be excellent, meeting the criteria, and the next will fall apart with little success. I’ve put together a video of the best and worst of our first 4 sessions of lesson 2. Session one on double plank was the most successful, low hits with back feet. Session 2 on double plank started to fall apart, and 3 and 4 on a single plank (too lazy to drag out both DW planks) was disastrous, especially since I misjudged the hits and jackpotted all the hits with the front two feet, which I didn’t realize until viewing the video.
Here are my questions. Is it in the normal range to be so inconsistent and what should be my criteria to improve these sessions? Back to double plank? Would you clarify the amount of low hits that we are looking for to count as a successful session before raising the plank?
Thank you!
BUT -- you did it right! I would jackpot those front feet in too! It’s just one very low front foot that I don’t like as it always looks more like an accident to end there as opposed to on the floor. The two front feet that you got are perfectly o.k., I especially liked the last try! I definitely don’t see anything disastrous! 🙂 I would probably still work on double plank, though. If you find a starting point that constantly gives you bad hits, change it and then go towards it SLOWLY. But again, a leap here and there is o.k., they need to learn the difference, so I don’t see anything to worry about in your video, it’s all very normal 🙂 To raise a plank, I want to see 90% or more of running and how many low hits depends on height as I introduce that criteria only when raising the plank. At your height, I’m not too picky, so I would probably raise it some more soon.
Great! I won’t be so lazy and get those DW planks out! Thanks for answering so quickly.
Here are our tricks!
Great job!!! And how is the plank work going?
Well, some days it is brilliant and some days it’s not, but that’s just part of training!! Sending some videos. Here is the video from yesterday at 12″ on the plank.
And here is a short session from a few days ago of our first time on a partial dog walk. Her striding and hits were all over the place, but with continued practice it will get better (right?!!!;) ). I’d like to continue to work on the double plank, as well as, start working with the partial dog walk at 12″. I used vimeo for this video so I hope it opens!
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Wow, looks pretty brilliant to me!!! 🙂 Double plank session was pretty much all to jackpot and also on a partial dog-walk, he is definitely trying -- he just needs some time to figure out the striding. I think this actually gets much easier when the apex is more pronounced, so I would probably add some more height on a double plank setting and only then switch to mini dog-walk setting.
That session was one of the more brilliant sessions! Ya shoulda seen the one before!! Not so brilliant! OK, will continue w/doulble plank and switch to mini dw. At what height should I switch? Thank you, Sylvia.
Also, at what height do you think it is too high to jump on the plank. Devo measures about 20″.
Well, you’ll actually need to switch as soon as he can’t comfortably jump on it anymore… You can probably raise it just one more time and for the next raise, you will probably already need a mini dog-walk.
We have been very lazy and also sick lately. But I think that he runs now better and hind feet separation is much better. Should I still stay on flat or add some high?
On this session I also rewarded him low front feet hits. I think that has also improved his running. He is now coming from the tunnel and the speed is better. However, quite often he jumps onto the plank. I think that I need a longer plank soon, that I can see is he running on the plank.
You have probably already answered this question but are those one hind feet on the contact ok? Should I jackpot them or it is better to have hits a little higher?
If I have assistant, can he/she take the ball before Furi gets it if the hit is too high or a leap? Or is it better to let him catch the ball anyway?
I will be rest of the week in Lissabon for work (and hope that Iceland won’t attack agains flights)
One hind foot in is o.k. as it means front foot was in too 🙂 At this stage, when we are still working on his running, I would let him have the ball every time, you’re risking slowing down otherwise and that’s the last thing you want. His hind feet separation is really nice now, but I don’t like that jumping on the plank, it’s too much air 🙂 Maybe it’s because of the wings? Does he know already they mean a jump, have you done anything with jumps already? I would try the same set up (with the tunnel), but longer and slightly raised plank next time. And in case he knows what wings mean, maybe try to find another object for that purpose… Or at least turn them the other way around (so that the wings are parallel to the plank)?
Have a safe trip, see you when you’re back!
Thanks for comments. With wings he has done only some cik/cap and run through training without bar. So, he shouldn’t know a jump. He was jumping on the plank without wings too (but it was the time when his speed wasn’t so good.)
But I try to find something else. The wings were first objects I found.
Here are videos from our first 4 sessions on a raised plank. After watching the videos I’m noticing that when he gets jackpotted the most, only one back foot is on the board. But he has good hind leg separation and his front feet are also hitting low…so I’m guessing that’s ok? I sure hope so because I’ve been rewarding A LOT of those 😉 Just curious what other ones you would or would not be jackpotting?
This is the video from our first two session of “get in the box”. I didn’t really cut anything out, so it’s kind of long… but he was getting the hang of it! I’ll work toward a smaller box and get videos of his back up!
Yes, I agree with your decisions. One hind foot is of course great as it means that both front feet were in too 🙂 so you definitely want to jackpot those. I would also make a difference between rewarding the good tries like 15 (one front foot in the middle of the contact) and 16 (two hind feet in the middle of a contact) vs. too high hits. I would click also tries like 15 and 16 and also play some for those (but be even more excited about those you marked as jackpotted) and do not click and take the toy immediately for tries like 36, 4 and similar. But you definitely look ready for the next height, I liked the trend through the 4 sessions!
Getting there with the box trick, but yes, still plenty of room to make it smaller 🙂
Hello,
httpv://www.dailymotion.com/video/k1FMBJnyNEfJ5e294ZT
Voici notre dernière session avec une nouvelle planche (mieux pour monter la hauteur, largeur 30 cm). J’ai changé un peu ma position pour lancer le jouet et celle de Fluff aussi, je ne l’ai pas toujours tenu bien dans l’axe pour le départ ce qui fait qu’elle est partie parfois en biais ! donc ça provoque des fautes ! Il me semble qu’il y a plus de pattes avant dans la zone qu’avant ? j’ai du mal a voir même au ralenti ! (voir les pattes arrières c’est plus facile) et en bougeant c’est encore plus dur de clicker quand il faut … pour l’instant je récompense quasiment tout ce qui n’est pas sauté avec jackpot fromage quand je crois que c’est vraiment bon !
This is our last session with a new plank (better to ride height, width 30 cm). I changed my position a bit to throw the toy and also that of Fluff; I have not always kept her well in line for departure so she is sometimes in part through! so it causes errors! It seems to me that there are more front feet in the area than before? I find it’s hard to see even in slow motion! (see the hind legs is easier) and if I move it’s even harder when i have to click … for now I reward almost anything that is not jumped with cheese jackpot when I think that’s really good!
Great!!! Those that were bad were mostly because your plank fell off the table and was so bouncy that it was amazing she could stay on! Pay attention to it and fix the plank when necessary, I would also add additional object under the low end so that it doesn’t bounce so much, it’s not very comfortable for the dogs to run on a bouncy plank. But she is sure doing great, if she doesn’t jump to the side with a fixed plank anymore, you can as well add some more height and professionally also run with her, just to check she is o.k. with that.
Heuhhhh !
sorry !
bad : 4 8 10 11 17 19 20 21 26
The good news first: We have actually made some progress on getting all four feet into a bowl! The smaller bowl (I know its not so small compared to other dogs working in this class) is much smaller than the boxes she would put all four feet into for the puppy tricks class. So thats good, I think she will even go smaller and we will continue working on it.
Ok, now the bad news: She is still being weirdly demotivated about Sassie/Frankie’s DW ramp in our backyard… last night she was better (no video : ( of course) than this morning, we did get some running again and running straight instead of jumping off the side at the contact end, but today she was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO slow on it. I didn’t bother to do slow motion for her striding.
the fact that there were flies buzzing around out in the back yard this morning could be contributing to her demotivation. she is afraid of flies… which is funny, but not really : (
Well, she was definitely faster when you were running with her, so maybe you should try that more often? She could be slower from different reasons, flies could be one of them -- or maybe you did too much of it now that you have a new plank? Maybe give her two days off and try again and make a big party out of it, run with her, play a lot etc.
And yes, that’s definitely a really small bowl for such a big dog already!
oh wow, I didn’t notice that--that the running with her did make her go a little faster… but even still it was pretty ho-hum, nothing like before
If we get left so very far behind with this class, is it possible to continue with a private class help over the summer? well, we shall see how we do
anyway thanks!!!
I think everything will get really easy when she learns to love that game! The trend is definitely good.
I know you said to give it a rest for a couple days, but we lost so many days because of the weather so at the end of today we gave it one more little try, a really really short session — and some enthusiasm has returned
Hi Silvia Ok 1st things 1st. We did 2 sesions yesterday, i try do 1 really early and 1 late in the day. I changed the start set up and moved it to at least 2 m up and down, that is the cone she goes around. Well i was so excited cause she still had very successfull hits, the second session even better. The plank is 40cm raised now. Is it just luck that she is still hitting zone or is she understanding the job?
But now this morning not so good i warmed her up and on her 1st try she miss judged the getting on and wacked her knee into the end that is raised. I pulled her off and have treated her! I will have to rest her and see how she is but no running for now!
Ok the next question is a funny one but purhaps someone has tried it before. I have on area at home that has to levels in other words one level with grass and a bank to the next level, do you think it would be at all posible to place the 1 piece of DW as i have been using now and at the same angle and run her from the grass onto the plank and then she will finish and get ball on the lower level? provided i keep the angle as it is for now and slowly raise it? Then transition to full dog walk once we have a greater angle? Not sure if this is explained right!
Thanks for your help i am a bit down cause of Spy’s leg! Have you ever had it with your dogs?
I hope her leg gets better soon! I never had that happen with my dogs, but saw on the videos from this class some dogs sometimes don’t land well, it’s better to then switch to an object when they turn around on, not jump on it anymore. Instead, you can of course use your two levels areas, that’s even better! I guess you’re talking about something like what a girl with Ruby, a Whippet whose video I posted recently, is doing? It’s a great way to add height yes, I had several students training like this.
It’s also better as you can test her understanding there better -- at 40cm, she is probably landing on the same spot and then takes the same striding on the plank, from wherever you start her, so it’s hard to say if she is really understanding or not. But it looked to me like she does on the last video you sent, when her first hits on a new height were somewhat higher, but then she really put an effort into getting deeper.
Thanks so much i have tried to watch the video of Ruby you posted but i could not load it but i did see today that you have said it is sorted so i will try down load it again. thanks so much. i actually have this mornings clip on tape i will post it it is not good to look at and in the mean time i will move the DW down plank to where i can use the level change. But no training for now!
Hi Silvia,
Remember the leaping Beatrice? Well, she is back! As you will remember, I moved her to the lowered dogwalk because at the level of elevation we had acheived she slipped a bit mounting the board. I am posting the first 5 sessions of her on the lowered dogwalk. In the first session I attempted a few full length runs, but they were not successful so each of the other runs you see on this video are from a stand still somewhere along the cross plank. I have struggled with what starting position for Beatrice and what throwing position from me gives her the best success, because we have gotten a very few good repetitions when she is running the fastest.
I did not number each repetition on this video because I don’t really need you to review each attempt. The ones that I thought were pretty good I put into slow motion. Once I slowed them down, I saw that even though Beatrice looked to not be leaping much, she did not have split feet. Here are some rough statistics:
Session 1: 3 success of 11 trials
Session 2: 8 success of 22 trials
Session 3: 3 success of 6 trials
Session 4: 6 success of 19 trials
Session 5: 6 success of 9 trials
In the last session I lowered the DW even lower than the manufacturer’s construction allows by propping in up on a table and some boxes and sandbags. This may have set us back as in the next session we had 4 of 13 trials.
Here is my question: Is it worthwhile to continue in this manner, or has my frequency of successful repetitions fallen so low that she is not getting rewarded enough and the training sessions have become futile? Beatrice and I have infinite patience for repetition, so if you think we are on the right track, I will continue. I wanted your feedback, in case I am wasting precious training time.
Hurrah for my Coach from another continent!
Heidi
Another comment: After reviewing my now posted video and my statistics, I see that my video has misnumbered the numbers of my session. Oh well. I still think you can answer my question. There are too many repetitions, please don’t make life tedious for yourself.
thanks again,
heidi
Yeah, running whole dog-walk was too much, it looks too different, that’s why I always start with a down ramp only and then slowly put the dog further back. If the dog still doesn’t see it as the same thing, a good trick is to use one ramp and put in on the other, so that it looks more like a plank they know, put on another plank -- just as you can see in some videos. I always use that for not-adjustable dog-walks, but to make things look more like a plank exercise, it works well on low dog-walks too. However, last few tries are great, so if you can reproduce that again, then you can stay on that height, with you next to the contact, that seemed to be working the best. If not, put the plank on a down ramp to make it look more like her plank. Let me know how it goes.
OK, I will work the next few sessions with this configuration and reevaluate. Thanks for the guidance…
Heidi
Moi je fais la séance en fin d’après midi juste avant de lui donner son repas … c’est le moment ou elle est le plus excitée !!! et en plus des récompenses après elle a sa gamelle !
I’m doing the session in end of afternoon just before giving her her food … it’s the moment when she is most excited! and more rewards after work she has her food bowl!
Yes, that’s good timing for plank work!!!
Hi Silvia & classmates,
Here’s our second homework video. The backup for a toy trick was a bit challenge, when she first came to us she had the habit of spitting a ball at you and running backwards and then freezing transfixed on the ball, which I worked hard these past 6 months to reshape into having her come all the way to me, not backup but stay close and offer other behaviors instead. So we first had to work thru every possible thing because she was sure backing up was still not what I wanted. Luckily she will walk off the end of the Earth for a ball and she did finally figure out that was what I wanted, although at times she’s not convinced I wouldn’t prefer her just bounce backwards into a sit or down.
The get in the box work is coming along, she has the box her size figured out and is working on getting in a bigger bowl. Sure the bowl is like ten times bigger than the size the poodles are cramming their big feet into, and Emily’s feet are like 10 times smaller than the poodles but hey we’ll get there eventually:) We’ve got 3 paws and I’m sure in the next session or two she’ll figure out how to balance herself to pull it off. I’ll keep working on smaller bowls or boxes and getting her to back up further.
For the board work I am waiting until the ball is almost stopped or just stopped before letting her go, she seems to drive just fine that way but I do still sometimes throw and release her quickly too because she really loves that a lot. I struggled a bit with finding a way to make it clear which ones I loved because while she certainly knows the difference when I am happy & play with her and give clicks & treats it didn’t seem to inspire her to try anything different and I’m not a very patient person, so I played around with reward ideas. I started throwing her a second ball once she got the first ball on jackpots, that did the trick and now I am getting many more multiple low hits with nice hind leg separation since those produce magic second balls (her favorite game is to hold one ball and bat the other around with her feet). I have been varying her starting point, I think I see her trying to figure this out, because it used to be anything other than the perfect starting spot caused big leaps and now those are very few and far between and only tend to happen sometimes when I start her nearer to the down ramp and she just doesn’t have much space to work with getting herself up to speed. Even those spots after a couple non-clicks she will try to adjust and hit better.
Also, you might remember the last video she was struggling to figure out how to get up to speed and get hind foot separation until the very last stride on the elevated platform and I think she has that pretty well figured out as her first strides down the ramp seem much better than the last homework video. I think I am doing an ok job of seeing the high hits I don’t want to reward, sometimes I am not sure if I should be pickier once I start getting a lot of jackpots, then I remind myself she’s only 10 months old and maybe doesn’t have to perfect all the time quite yet.
Thanks!
Dawn & Emily
Very good! – Sounds and looks good! Keep trying to challenge her some with your movements and starting positions and slowly keep adding height. As you’re that far already – do you have an option to try it on real dog-walk here and there too? It’s great she runs well to a pretty much static toy too, we’ll need that for the next assignment! And yes, it’s of course perfectly o.k. to keep throwing it in advance here and there!
Getting there with the bowl and backing up too!
I have access to a non-adjustable dog walk once or twice a week, I can go more often but it’s a bit of a long drive. I am going to try that plank on the end of the dog walk that you have suggested to others once you think we are ready.
You don’t need to go there more often, you can do most of the work on your set up. But if you’re there once a week anyway, you could try it on a real dog-walk with the plank at the end, just to start working on generalizing the behaviour to other, somewhat different situations. You would of course start off restraining her just before the plank and then slowly move her further back, making it look as much as your normal training as possible. I don’t think you want her running full dog-walk at this age, but it’s good she gets some experience on different set ups if you have an opportunity to do so.
Will do!