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What have we practiced in class?
Here are some notes from classes, they're not organized at
this point in the game, but maybe you'll find something in
here to help you, or that you'll remember if you're in one
of laura's classes:
--Important thing to Remember:
Reward the Behaviors that you Want!
--Warmups and things to do while you're waiting in line for
an exercise (make these fun!):
Practice contacts-make sure your dog is really working exactly
to your criteria. You can keep practicing these at home too
on stairs or on flat ground. If your dog is hitting the target
once with a nose touch before your click, start working towards
2 touches. We want these contacts absolutely accurate before
we start running the dogs over the contact equipment.
Circle work-Running and walking circles with your dog staying
at your side each direction. You might start naming each side
something like "close" and "side" so if
you ever need to pull your dog to you on the course this becomes
a strong cue.
Downs or Drops and Sits while walking-these are the basis
of our table. Walk with your dog on the leash, get him into
a sit or drop and continue walking a few steps, walk back
to his position and reward. Work up to doing this at a jog
then a run.
Watch Me-If your dog is having a night where he just doesn't
seem to be with you or giving you enough attention you can
reward just for attention. Eventually you have the watch me
as a strong cue.
Teach a trick-Sometimes you can just start teaching your dog
a fun trick with the clicker. Something easy, a high five
or a shake or a head down, any little behavior you can click
and treat to teach.
Figure Eight Jump Warmup-Left and Right Mini front cross turns
over the jump so the dog is jumping a figure 8 pattern.Keep
treating every jump, then every other jump to motivate your
dog, get your dog fired up and fast and excited over this
while working on both or your front crosses.
Play with your Dog!
You want your dog to associate agility with being focused
on you, not doing their own thing or visiting with other dogs.
When we leave our dogs to walk courses, notice if your dog
is watching you out there or thinking about other things.
You'd like your dog alert and waiting for you to come back
and play with them!
--What We Worked On:
Weave Poles-Everyone is working well at their level on the
channel weaves. As we start to move them in, some dogs are
having a harder time. If you have room to practice weave poles,
this is the BEST THING you can do right now, besides contacts.
They need to do practice poles a lot. Stick in the ground
poles are great, you can space them out to where your channels
are set in class. It's hard for dogs to learn these practicing
once a week-although it's not impossible. But if you can,
practice these!!!
Serpentines-Serpentines are 3 obstacles (we used 3 jumps)
in a line that the dog does in a "S" shaped pattern.
Handling serpentines will become an important handling skill.
Front Cross Turns-We are still working on these.
Teeter-We are now working on getting speed with your dog running
to the end of the teeter board, not off it, with the teeter
positioned for running up. After we get it a bit higher, we
will work on them running down it to the end before we start
tipping it for them. We will build the contact in at the end-by
then your contacts will be very strong!
--Next Week:
Bring something to class your dog will chase. Toys are a great
way to build drive and reward your dog. If your dog is a lot
more interested in treats than toys, find something you can
securely enclose treats in and bring that (a velcro closing
cordura treat bag, or stuffed animal type toy is perfect).
If your dog won't chase something or play with a toy, this
is something I'll address next week and can give you some
tips on.
Those tug 'n' treat toys (a little cordura vecro bag with
webbing straps) are available at www.cleanrun.com. You might
be able to find something similar at Pet Pals (on Soquel near
41st Ave.). You can sometimes use little velcro coin purses
or bait bags too. This is a toy only for you to have for agility,
don't let your dog just play with it on his own.
If your dog goes crazy for a tennis ball or other tugging
type toy, bring this!
--Some Resources:
Clean Run Magazine (their website is http://www.cleanrun.com)
has tons of information for people of all levels. If you want
to keep improving your agility, this might be a good magazine
to get. They also have info on their website, and a lot of
agility related products.
Private Lessons-If you feel like class goes too fast and is
too busy with so many people, you might also look into doing
occassional private lessons. Dee Hutton (I think most of you
started in Dee's class) teaches classes and privates at her
facility in Watsonville. Her website is http://www.d-dogagility.com
. Rob Michalski, who teaches the more advanced classes on
Wed. nite has a facility in Salinas and offers classes and
private lessons. His email address is is rmichalski@scu.edu
. They both teach me, and I recommend them both highly.
--Important thing to Remember:
Reward the Behaviors that you Want!
Play with your Dog!
--What We Worked On:
Go On- We want the dogs to learn to work ahead of us. We are
starting to teach that by using a toy or food toy that your
dog loves (experiment with these-you'd like to use something
that makes your dog really crazy-unless your dog is so toy
motivated that the tennis ball or whatever it is will work
him up into too much of a frenzy for class. Then you might
use a slightly lesser valued toy). We started over a single
jump, throwing toy out ahead and using the word Go On.
If your dog isn't crazy for a toy, a food toy might work really
well. Here is an article by Nancy Gyes, one of the world's
top agility trainers who teaches, along with her husband in
San Jose that might give you some tips in building some toy
drive. http://www.powerpawsagility.com/articles/tugntreat.html
If you have a lower drive dog, we will talk about more ways
to start building drive as we progress in class. There are
a lot of ways to motivate dogs that are lower drive.
Weave Poles-Keep practicing your poles at home! We started
sending dogs out to a jump after the poles to get them to
start focusing ahead and less on their handlers. If your dog
is having a hard time focusing ahead in the poles, backchain
the poles, starting with the last few and sending dog out.
You can keep increasing the amount of poles until you have
your dog running back thru the whole set. If you dog is newer
to the poles, remember to do random and frequent clicking
in the poles to get that muscle memory set.
Contacts-Make sure you are staying consistent with your contact
criteria. This is a behavior we want absolutely strong before
we start the dogs running all the way up and down the contact
obstacles.
For a quick review-2 on, 2 off means:
Stage 1- dog has front paws off board, back feet securely
placed on board. Nose bobs down and hits target placed just
in front of his feet. You click at the firm press of nose
on target. Reward with treat placed very low, between dogs
front paws. Dog stays in this position until you release him
with a release word such as OK or Free.
Stage 2-You can step slightly to side of dog, in front, and
other side of dog and dog does not move, should start offering
multiple nose touches. When behavior is consistent, you can
up your criteria and click comes on second, then third nose
touch. Continue treating low between legs. Dog always stays
until released.
Stage 3- Dog can move ahead of you, you can place dog further
up dog walk ramp and a-frame ramp and dog will run down ahead
of you and offer touches, not moving. You can click and treat
these, you should also be able to step away and ahead of dog
and dog stays on that target until you release him.
Stage 4-When dog is confidently running up and down equipment
to their target, we will begin to fade the target out (using
an all clear target and/or small tiny target) until dog is
doing their 2 on 2 off without an actual target out there.
Dog will always do their 2 on 2 off until you relase them-we
want this a strong behavior that they have with them forever!
Teeter-We are now working on getting speed with your dog running
to the end of the teeter board, not off it, with the teeter
positioned for running up. After we get it a bit higher, we
will work on them running down it to the end before we start
tipping it for them. We will build the contact in at the end-by
then your contacts will be very strong!
--Next Week:
Bring your toy again. We will be learning more exercises sending
your dog out for the toy.--Some Resources:
Here are all Nancy Gyes's articles that she has on her website.
http://www.powerpawsagility.com/articles/index.html
All of your dogs are many months away from competing. You
might have a good time coming to a trial and watching, and
bringing your dog and exposing them to the high energy of
a dog trial. Or, you might want to help-trials always need
workers and working is a great way to learn about how a trial
works. If you do bring your dog, keep him close-a lot of dogs
in agility are very drivey and wound up at trials and it is
a bad idea to do meet and greets, even if your dog is friendly.
Walking your dog around the grounds and practicing focus exercises
is a good thing to do.
--Important Things to Remember
It is so easy for dogs to become frustrated. You're trying
to teach them something you are still learning how to do.
Signs of frustration can include sniffing the ground, spacing
out, offering other behaviors, barking, spinning, dashing
off. When your dog gets frustrated, figure out a way to simplify
the behavior you are trying to teach. You always want to break
it up into very small pieces, then you can chain the pieces
together. It's always ok to back up. When you finally get
the behavior you were looking for, reward big time! Especially
if it's something you've had a hard time teaching. Give a
huge jackpot award and go play.
Dogs are contextual learners-something they can do at home
will not always readily translate to class or other places.
The more places you can go to practice a behavior that they're
doing well at home, the better.
--Warm Ups
This week we tried a round robin approach where everyone worked
on a piece of equipment for a short amount of time, then played
with their dogs before switching equipment. The play is important-you
want to keep your dog excited and make training segments short.
Warm up time should be used to practice things you already
know how to do-set your dog up for success and get some successes
before moving on to new or more difficult things.
--What We Worked On:
Pinwheels-These were 3 jumps arranged in the shape of a U.
We worked on gaining a small amount of lateral distance from
our dog each time thru. Eventually we will build enough lateral
distance so that we can send our dog through a pinwheel without
having to step all the way inside it. Variations on a pinwheel
are a common part of agility courses.
Serpentines-We revisited the serpentine pattern, first running
through it pushing the dog out, then pulling the dog in. Our
goal is to be able to handle a serpentine on a parallel path
to the row of jumps. We also tried it by sending the dog to
the first obstacle, doing a front cross, then handling the
rest of the serpentine on the far side.
A-Frame-We worked on contacts off the a-frame, putting the
dogs higher up towards the top of it. Several dogs in class
have very solid contacts and will be ready to start running
all the way over the lowered a-frame to hit their contact.
Contacts are one of the most important things you can practice
at home right now. We really want these rock solid. Contacts
and Weave Poles are also some of the hardest behaviors to
teach, and also require the most practice. If you are going
to pick anything to practice at home, these would be the best
at this stage. Contacts are also something you can practice
if you don't have room at home for equipment (trust me, I
know about this problem!). Use your stairs, get a board and
put an end up on some bricks, you could even build a contact
trainer!
A contact trainer is a tiny mini a-frame ramp on one side,
and a mini dog walk ramp on the other. They are only a few
feet high and are usually built to fold up so you can take
it places to practice. If you're interested in building one,
let me know and I can point you to a few resources on the
web.
--Next Week
Keep bringing a toy or something your dog will chase. We want
to use these to start working on our lateral distance by sending
the dog out on those Go On's (keep practicing these at home)
and keeping dog moving ahead of us and out to the side. We
also want to get the dogs to look ahead in the weave poles
by sending them after their toys after the last pole. Run
out there after the dog, make it exciting to go on instead
of always rewarding the weaves exactly at the last pole. The
reward can be for running ahead out of them as well.
What We Did This Week
Contacts-These are really improving. Remember-the position
you treat your dog in can affect and shape his contact. Treat
your dog low, so their head is down between their legs. We
want the dogs to stay in a head down position-this helps hold
the contact long after you have faded your target. If your
dog tends to look up at you instead of offering multiple nose
touches, try and start giving the treat down low and to the
dog's other side (so your dog is turning his head down and
away from you) to shape this better.
Weave Poles-Keep working with a jump after the poles. We also
started adding a little speed into the poles. Remember, you
want to teach your dogs a lot of different entry positions
as you practice this at home. Start adding a jump before the
poles too, to get a little speed. Just try and keep the entry
from being too angled if your dog is not confident with his
entry into the poles. Remember to throw your toy after the
poles so your dog goes out ahead of you a bit to the jump-this
is going to help your dog a lot from watching you during the
poles and to look ahead.
Teeter-We started tipping or slamming the teeter on it's lowest
setting. All the dogs slowed down somewhat as we started this.
We want to keep the adjustment from being static to the new
dropping feeling and sound (even when it's only dropping an
inch) very easy and slow so that the small dogs do not get
scared from the noise and drop. We want the large dogs to
be patient and learn to always stay with it til it reaches
the bottom-fast dogs sometimes get anxious to hit their target
and learn to fly off. The more you keep working on a board
at home, the better. You can just use a board, the longer
the better propped up on bricks or tables or whatever is in
your yard and keep working on the action of running down it.
We are not going to have the small dogs do a 2 on/2 off at
the teeter. If any of you pursued the "down on a towel"
at home, talk to me about it because we can teach small dogs
that have this behavior solid and quick to slam the teeter
with a down. If not, they will ride it down standing up. The
big dogs will start adding their 2 on/2 off at the end now
that they are racing to the yellow.
Sequences-We were able to run a few fast sequences last night.
We did one that used a serpentine pattern, working on getting
the pull and the push in the same sequence. We didn't handle
this one with a front cross. We also worked on a line that
was not completely straight. Everyone found out that the more
lateral distance they can start working on with their dog,
the better. If the dog is running over to you to get a treat
all the way down the line, your paths are crossing! We want
the dog to stay on one path, the handler on another path.
Working with the toy at home is a great way to get this to
happen. Work on the go on action with it, and also the homework
exercise below.
To Work on at Home:
Working on Distance-Put your dog on a stay in front of a small
jump. Take a toy that your dog will run to and put it out
about 4-5' in front of the jump. Step off to the side, and
relase your dog. You don't even need to say "jump",
you can just say get it. Dog should jump the jump and grab
the toy. Keep moving a little bit farther and farther off
to the side (in tiny, baby step increments) until your dog
is jumping the jump to get to the toy and not you. Run in
and play w dog with toy, or ever throw it again. You can also
do this one by throwing the toy out and sending the dog like
we've been teaching the "go on". We just really
want the dogs to start getting the concept of not having to
always be right next to you.
Front crosses-You can practice a front cross with a tunnel
and jump easily, like we did last night. Or 2 jumps. Remember-if
you start the sequence with the dog on your left hand (let's
say into the tunnel like we did last night) and you are turning
the dog with the front cross so he ends up on your right hand,
that you will be delivering the cookie with your right hand.
So the dog stays on this new side and doesn't try to cross
ahead or behind of you to get back to your left hand.
Directionals
We are now initiating the idea of the 3 most common directionals-ways
to get your dog moving in a certain direction that isn't just
running along with your dog.
Go On-Means move ahead of me in a straight line
Out-Means move away from me laterally
Turn-Means turn away from me
We started last night with Turn and Out.
For turn, we just want the dog to make a turn away from us.
So if dog is on our left, we want it to make a right angle
away. We start this by shaping a 180 degree turn at first.
Start to make the turn with your left hand/foot, finish the
turn out with right hand and deliver a treat. We tried this
out by doing a "turn tunnel". When the dogs understand
how to turn, the most common turn will be more of a right
angle or 90 degree turn.
For out, we positioned dogs in a similar fashion to how we
started teaching the go on-facing a jump and getting a toy
on the other side of the jump. The difference here is that
we are not facing the jump, we are facing the dog-last night
we aimed our bodies at the weave poles on the other side of
the jump. We pushed an arm and our bodies out towards the
dog. We are trying to get the dogs head, and then body to
turn away from us and move forward and laterally simultaneously.
Eventually, we will move the dog and ourselves farther away
from the obstacle, until "out" makes sense for dog
to look away from us and find the obstacle.
Dogs tend to go where your body is pointed!A-Frame
Keep working the strength of those contacts. You can increase
your criteria, if you've been rewarding for one nose touch,
increase the criteria to 2 nose touches. Before you release
your dog, make sure you are standing up in a natural position.
If you are crouching down, worried your dog is going to move,
it may mean you need to strengthen that behavior.
Teeter
The dogs are starting to tip the teeter, and we are putting
the 2 on 2 off back in for the big dogs since they've learned
to drive down to the end.
Weave poles
If your dog tends to pop a pole at a certain place, for instance
at pole 7, try a reward at pole 6. Keep working on sending
them out at the end after a toy so they are not always looking
up at you at the end of the poles. When you get a really great
set of poles, jackpot this reward!
Here's an article by Nancy Gyes about dogs and weave poles:
http://www.powerpawsagility.com/articles/weaves.html
There are probably about 20 ways to teach weave poles. (There
is a whole issue of Clean Run Magazine devoted to just different
ways of teaching dogs to weave). Susan Garrett uses a "2x2"
method, which I found also works great but has to be taught
methodically. I used this to really work on my dogs' entrances.
This is a description of it, and can be fun to work on at
home. It's a 2 pole, clicker method.
http://www4.tpgi.com.au/users/rloftus/weaving.htm
What's a Jackpot?
Just like you've hit the jackpot in Las Vegas-when you get
a really fabulous behavior-it could be something like really
good speed or a great front cross or a really good Go On,
jackpot! Dog just won the lottery-take them out to play their
favorite game, big cookies, whatever is most meaningful to
your dog. This is your highest level of reward.
Sequences
Last night we did a sequence with 2 sets of front crosses
in it to form a Z pattern. Reward your dog still for making
the turn-we want that action very strong.
For your reading enjoyment-
I pulled out some links that have some good articles on clicker
training and operant conditioning. Talking about jackpots-operant
conditioning is kind of like how someone at a slot machine
works. You sit there, trying and trying and trying your best
for that jackpot. You usually get little rewards along the
way. The clicker is a great way to train because it can mark
very specific, little actions where you are doing something
exactly right. It's so great for agility training because
you can mark the tiniest specific behavior, reward it, and
the dog remembers that behavior. One of these links is to
Karen Pryor's website. The site is very commercial looking
because she sells stuff off of it. But if you are interested
in dog behavior books, her book, "Don't Shoot the Dog"
is a great book on dog behavior and talks about operant conditioning
in depth.
Clicker Training Resources
http://www.clickertraining.com/training/clicker_basics/index.htm?loaditem=what_is_ct&itemnumber=1&salesitem=what_is_ct_s
http://www.clickertrain.com/whatis.html
http://www.clickandtreat.com/Newbies/TrueNew/truenew.html
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