Great job so far everybody! But again, please see as many videos of others as possible and read my comments to others too - the more you read and the more videos you watch, the easier it will be to understand what you're going for and see it in real speed too.
Anyway, here is your new list:
1. gradually make that plank/set-up higher&higher, still jackpotting the best hits, but make a criteria for a jackpot somewhat more strict and at this point also stop clicking misses and almost-misses, even if the dog is striding equally. Jackpot really good hits only. It's no problem if the dog still gets the toy on every try, 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 PyrShep puppy, I needed to throw VERY long to keep the speed and forward 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 the rest 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. If you use a low DW, you can use different approaches instead. 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!
SILVIA! I got one! I FINALLY got one! This is just one repetition, but if I recreate this setup, maybe we can get some good repetitions. This is the first one I have seen him run like this. All have been either trotting contacts or running misses. He is much more confident on the dog walk now and I had to play with a lot of setups. This is around a cone, over the DW to the MM. I’ll hopefully have something to edit and send with our next session. Fingers crossed!
Nice job Kristin! I know how frustrating it can be when things just aren’t working, but isn’t it great when it does!! 🙂
Great! He sure looks very confident now and stays on nicely even though he is not coming on straight. Good luck for next session!
Well, here it is! This is tonight’s session. I’m anxious to hear what you think. I know it isn’t great, but considering the challenges we have had going from plank to dog walk, “better” makes me happy today. I don’t think he likes starting on the horizontal plank…maybe doesn’t feel comfortable digging in? He seems more comfortable going the whole way…but of course that is a lot of pieces to put together…running AND staying on AND hitting. It feels like we have a starting point again to start working on class material. Would you agree?
Sorry for not posting much until now. In an earlier comment (a long time ago), you wanted us to work on finding something that works and stick with it. We have been doing multiple things to help him be more comfortable on the DW and HAVE been working on it this whole time. His motivation has changed from food to toys to food so that added challenge too. I have hope again 😀
Where should we begin with the class assignments at this point?
Thanks for your patience!
Kristin & Da Vinci
Oh, and Here is Callie’s latest DW 😀
Yeah, could be he doesn’t feel comfortable with starting on horizontal plank… -- but looks like you can do the whole thing now, you got enough good ones. He still needs some more confidence though so I would keep it easy for now to have plenty of things to jackpot and maybe try to switch to toy rewards (thrown after the tunnel/jump after the DW) and only then start to challenge him some more with different approaches to DW and maybe even exits.
Great job with Callie too. It looks as if she is doing a little bit of crawling at the end though… -- maybe a left over from her 2on2off? And yes, if she misses in trial, just keep going, if possible maybe adjusting the course so that you can take it again on a way out (not sure if that’s allowed?) to try again. Mark with “yes” if she does it well, ignore if she doesn’t. Good luck!
The only way I am allowed to retake the obstacle is to take her right back. But if I do that, I must then leave the course. Those are AKC rules. Would you have me take the opportunity to reattempt but leave the course or continue on? Am I understanding correctly what you have said in the past…that there is no harm trialing while continuing to train RC at this point? Is that simply because the attempt either gets reinforced by a verbal marker or ignored if not good. Or did I misunderstand? I think I’m a bit nervous about it. She did creep some…was getting tired and will do that after a mis to make sure she is in. Or if she really needs to adjust her footing, she will go into the creeping.
Yes, no big deal if she misses some at the beginning, you can simply keep going. The reason why it’s no big deal is that RC only gets better with time 🙂 -- even if you don’t do anything about it 🙂 Confidence and experience is a very important factor for good RC and once they have that, they will be in (if they are in in training of course). Stopping for bad ones might only take that confidence away. Especially retrains tend to convert back to stopping then, just as you have noticed she does after the miss…
Very cool :)! I guess Ill stop worrying and just go have fun this weekend! 🙂 Thanks, Silvia!
Sounds like a good plan! 🙂
One more questions…I’m trialing with Callie this weekend. It will be her first time in the STD ring since last November and retraining running contacts. What do I do if she misses a contact? Anything?
Kristin
Well done! 🙂 What’s MM?
Thanks! MM is the Manners Minder (remote food dispenser).
Hi, I couldn’t make my plank stable any taller than 17″ and I don’t have a table so I just lowered my dog walk. The past 3 days I did 2/3 of the dog walk at 24″, then 30″ and today at 36″ (3′). I also started doing the full dog walk today to get more speed. He has some leaps, some wonky foot placements, and a couple nice hits. Gorgeous agility weather today!
Huh, that was quite a fast progression… Not sure if he is ready, there are no jackpottable hits in this video and some more hind feet separation would be good too. What if you use a hill I see behind your DW to set a plank, send him around a tree and have him run the plank only for now, focusing on his understanding of the importance of going all the way down and trying to get some really nice, deep hits…
Hi, I raised the downramp bit by bit. In the first session the downramp is about ± 15 cm high. In the first attempts a few I just rewarded, the rest jackpot!! Sometimes he hit it really deep like 1.2 en 1.3 I jackpot those. That’s what you mean by deep hits? Most of his tries are like 1.6!! What I have seen when I only rewarded him 1.7 (no jackpot) the next attempt 1.8 he is trying very hard and I get a really nice hit with hind legs separated. The second session downramp is about ± 30 cm, first few attempts rewarded, then a few high hit and again the rest all jackpot and nice deep hits!! 3th session all JACKPOT, so proud of my doggy 😉 I think he really understands his job 😉
Is it imported to raise this set up more first? Or can we raise it when we are on a full DW? The table I use is actually a part of our garden furniture 😉 you have to improvise. Which setup is better “upramp -- table -- downramp” or “table, horizontal part of DW (apex??) downramp” When should we switch to 1 plank? So all together what will be the best for us to do next?? Thanks again for your comments!!
Looks good! His stride is somewhat shorter as I would expect so I would try to give him more length to run as soon as possible. I think the best next set up for him would be to first try this with a single plank and if he is still o.k., build a horizontal plank off the table, leading to a down ramp -- and if that goes well too, go to a low DW and yes, you can start raising it then if it’s easier. And yes, he is mostly hitting nicely low, my favourite try was 3.5. I think 1.6 was one of the worst, he was somewhat airy there (high head, high stride), but most tries were really nice.
Thanks Silvia,
You are absolutely right about 1.6 I didn’t look at his head, only at his legs 🙂 his head is really high in the sky, I think because of a bet throw of me 😉
I will do another rep with this setup, only with 1 plank, if it looks good I will go to the next setup, table, horizontal plank, downramp. Is it still ok starting from a tunnel or jump and then send him to the table for more speed.
Hi Silvia, These are the rep of today, with 1 plank. What a difference 1 plank can make, yesterday it was really good, but today it was really terrible. I tried to jackpot his best effort, or else he might get insecure. He does something very strange, tries to reach forward and touch the contact with 1 front leg. Do you have some tips how I can break this? We definitely need a few more rep with this setup 😉
Well, it was not that terrible, you got some nice ones too! If his successful rate goes up in the next session, I wouldn’t worry at all. If not, you can set the two plank again for some repetitions and then take one away. You could also try setting up ramp, it could be it will make things easier: and if not, you can still take it away. With RC, there are many ups and downs, so you can get used to it 🙂 One leg pattern you can reward (if he is nicely in, but not if it’s very high or very low), but definitely don’t jackpot (I saw you jackpotted one or two).
Ok I’ll try using the hill. He is competing so it’s certainly not his first time on the dog walk. He’s a retrain from a four on the floor, just so you didn’t think that he’s new to the dog walk and that I’ve just thrown him on it. I just wanted to start from the beginning with your program. I’ll definitely try the hill set up tomorrow 🙂
Thanks!
He sure didn’t seem to have a problem with a DW at all, but he also didn’t seem to understand the importance of taking the last stride from the very end -- what is normal at this stage. Understanding takes some time: people often think the dog got it but in fact, it’s just the set up that helps taking the dog in every time -- and a new set up might make them miss every time just as well… So you need to find a good set up first and then gradually add some challenges to make them think about what they’re doing -- that’s exactly the lesson 2 plan.
Cayenne’s Lesson 2 Tricks – Backing up – used a variety of surfaces as she dislikes using her hind feet to touch objects. HUGE success in getting her to backup on aluminum ladder, plastic pipe and stairs. She explores items with her front feet and absolutely avoids anything touching her hind feet. Suggestions to improve our skills?
Ignore the 2 other dogs voicing their opinions in being left out and want to join Cayenne’s fun. Note: They each do get a turn. I train one by one and as a group (it’s quite a circus with all 3 wanting to outperform each other). It’s very hard for terriers to wait; however I’ve been working on allowing all 3 out during training and rewarding each for patiently waiting their turn.
Looks good to me! Keep practising, it sure makes a huge difference!
Here is our first time with up plank.
I look forward to your feedback.
Thanks,
Marla & Synergy
Great!!! Now you can either go to a low DW or keep this set up for a while and introduce different approaches to up ramp.
Hello Silvia and Classmates,
The last week of training has been perplexing for me. Eli is progressing nicely while Liberty has hit a brick wall. She has started doing something odd with her stride before she gets on the down ramp. I have both ramps very sturdy so there is little to no bounce. Initially when she started doing this I did not have an up ramp to the table. I was just having her jump on the table from the tunnel. Then I put an up ramp and it seemed to fix the issue for a short time but after a weekend off she is worse than before. If I start her from a sit on the table then she strides correctly into the yellow. I had some video of this but now I am unable to find. Any suggestions or ideas??? I do not have a full size dog walk at home so this is the best set up I have to train daily. If Liberty isn’t getting rewarded for anything then she quickly looses interest, so I have kept the sessions with her short until I can get some direction on how to proceed. The good news is that she is fetching like a pro. She chases the kong and brings back to me most every time 🙂
This evening I raised the height of the planks for Eli and aside from a couple of horrible throws he did well. I would like for him to be a little deeper in the yellow but not sure how I can acheive that. I have found that throwing the ball long for him causes him to leap early but the shorter I throw the ball the better he hits in the yellow. I really wish I could throw better!!!
Any ideas or suggestions you can offer for Lib I would much appreciate. I just don’t know how to proceed.
Thanks,
Melanie, Eli & Liberty
Well, it doesn’t look that bad with Liberty as you describe. She sure is airy on some tries, but some are o.k. -- not perfect hits, but good running. Another set up you can try to see if she will run better is a table to a horizontal plank to a down ramp -- if you can fix that well together. Maybe you will get more jackpotable tries like that. And yes, Le also learned to fetch while working on her RC 🙂 How close do you need to throw with Eli? The closer you throw, the more it affects his striding and the harder it is to get rid of it -- that’s why I’m asking. I think you should actually already work in the direction of throwing earlier in order to get to a static toy soon and then get rid of it, so I wouldn’t help too much with a throw. I think his hits were very nice on your first set up, but on the second one, he doesn’t get deep enough with first hit to get very deep with the second one… But I think this will come with more confidence, just slowly select for deeper hits. What worries me more is that he is somewhat airy on the set up, I didn’t like his first four tries -- something to pay attention to and try not to reward.
Hi Silvia,
When I throw the ball close to the plank, it is within 4 to 5 feet away from the plank(1.2 to 1.5 meters) If I throw the length of the yard or if the ball bounces high because of my throw then that is when he gets really airy. I worked last night with a static toy and he ran to it well. So I should gradually start not throwing the ball??? Is that correct?? I put him back on the lower set up last night since you were not pleased with how he did on the higher set up. I am guessing that I progressed too fast.
In regards to Liberty last night I ran her on the low set up again and with 5 tries we had no hits. So I put her back on the low plank on the ground and she ran nicely. I am going to continue to work her at this level for awhile. There really is no since having her do reps on a higher plank set up if there is nothing to reward. I believe the down plank slightly raised on the table is what caused her to be off on her stride. In most all the videos I have watched of her she is compensating for the raised board. Once she progresses back to that level, I now have the low plank set up so the board is even with the table.
Thanks,
Melanie, Eli and Liberty
Well, he was getting better on a higher set up too, just first four tries were airy, so I think you can try it again soon -- of find a height somewhere in between. If he runs well with a static toy, you can switch between the two some for now, but the static toy needs to be much further as 1.5m (more like 7…) -- is he o.k. with that? You can already now position it at the jump (with a bar on the floor) so that he knows where it is and starts looking for a jump. And yes, might be a new set up will help Liberty with her striding. Post a video when you try it again.
I am pretty excited to show you this!!! I know there are a few issues, like his head turn, but his hits are some of the best EVER!! I am not even sure I jackpotted enough!! LOL!! Except that he sure is getting this quickly, so I guess I am.
I LOVE some of Spur’s hits here!!! What I am seeing is he is now sometimes having an adjusted stride half way with hind feet together, so then his hit in the contact has good hind separation. He used to almost always have hind feet together in the contact. This session he is landing farther down the ramp on his first stride down, adjusting on that second stride with a shortened stride and hind feet together, then a lovely deep hit with nice separation in the contact. Curious that the one rep going towards the woods had no hind separation, but I think what is happening is he is doing that head turn, plus there was not tunnel, which I should have had. I am sure I can get rid of that easy enough by a few sessions into a tunnel. I probably should mix the two always. Part of a session into nothing, then finishing the session with a few reps into a tunnel to get that focus forward again. He does focus forward on some of the reps going into nothing, but a head turn on many. Still, he’s going deep into the contact regardless. I thought my clicking was good, too, except for that one leap (whoops! I didn’t jackpot and just brought him back to try again).
Yeap, looks great, some of the hits were really perfect!
Good Morning, I didn’t do too many reps this morning because the grass was really wet and slippery so I’ll do a second session this afternoon. I put the plank on the hill and I am sending him around the tree to it which he thinks is so funny! He’s barking his head off this morning having a good time. Hard to measure the height of the plank because it’s on the hill and I put the wing jumps there so he wouldn’t jump off the side. The first run is a leap but I think he was just getting used to this new set up. Again a few wonky foot placements and the hits were all very high up.
I still don’t like his reach forward and hind feet separation: those were all leapy to me. Try putting a plank lower, so that he can get more speed after going around the tree and can hit a plank with more speed. I would also us a double plank again. If that still doesn’t give you a fully extended running, go back to the last successful set up.
Hello,
Comme c’est très compliqué de gérer le chien, mes ordres, le contrôle de la zone, le jouet, les obstacles venant après et le clicker, j’oublie parfois de clicker … à ce stage tu click toujours ? et est ce que c’est très embêtant que je ne click pas ? quand j’oublie et que c’est bon je donne le fromage, je lance le jouet et je fais la fête !
As it is very complicated to handle the dog, my command, control area, toys, obstacles coming after and the clicker, I sometimes forget to click … at this stage you still click? and is that it’s very tricky that I did not click? when I forget and it’s good I give her the cheese, I throw the toy and I make her hugs!
At this stage, I mostly still mark (either with a clicker or “yes”, it’s not all that important anymore once the dog knows what you’re marking) and reward the good ones. When I put it in real sequences, then of course I don’t click it anymore as I don’t reward it anymore 🙂 -- but I do mark with “ups”, stop and redo the bad ones, so that they can still see the difference.