We just had our first RFE practice after the very short one on the day we were rear-ended. On a positive note, the person who hit us has finally admitted liability, so now I can go about getting the van fixed.
"Under" video - I worked on "under" first, to warm up her brain. You can see her comfort level has improved a lot. She also figuring out "boop" means "side" to "heel" back-through. I'm using "beep" for the opposite, "heel" to "side" back-through. Note on the back-through how readily she tucks her heiney into proper "heel" vs. how long it takes her to swing her heiney in the opposite direction into proper "side" position. Seeing this is related to what I'm realizing about the backward weaves (next).
Backward weaves video - Then I again tried the backward weaves with the guides. This time I had her do a couple "otto" (back around CCW) before stepping my foot out and getting one of her going through. On the "otto" side, which will be "beep" for the backward weaves, she does better because it has always been her tighter turning direction so she's less likely to run into my leg. I said "yes" too soon and stalled her out, but it was more important to mark what I was rewarding. Going the other direction is going to be a bigger challenge, since Gimme doesn't turn as tight CW. She can do "izzy" (back around CW) reasonably well and even does it in the guides, but not with as much confidence. Too much tinkering and she gets uncertain, stalls out and tends to blame the guides.
Notice in this last video, she wags her tail while doing "otto", but not while doing "izzy". I believe this shows she has to concentrate much more to do the "izzy". I think the answer is spend a lot more time having her do "izzy" in the guides until she is doing them tight like her "otto" without the guides. Her skill/comfort backing or pivoting is much stronger going CCW than CW - so I think need to work on balancing her skill/flexibility. I'm thinking it's a muscle memory thing.
Rewarding-release-wait video - I've decided I need to go back to the original way I taught "wait" to re-establish it firmly in her mind. It has become unreliable and it used to be rock-solid, and rewarding the wait itself hasn't worked to bring it back. I start up right away with distractions, since not getting a reward is as important as the ones she gets. This method puts the responsibility on her from the start. See how quickly she remembers how this game works.
The rest of these videos are refreshers for the tricks we need for the AKC Intermediate trick title. I'm sure we can get both the AKC and the DMWYD Intermediate titles before the end of the year.
The behaviors we need for AKC Intermediate trick title are:
► Go to place - "mark" - minimum distance 10 feet
► Hand signals exercise - three behaviors without verbal cue
► Weave poles - "weave" - 6 standard poles
► Paws on arm -
► Leg weave -
► Wobble board - 10 second minimum
► Catch a soft toy -
► Fetch to hand - "Kong" - item must be thrown 20 feet
► Rollover - "grape"
► Alternate - "otto"
"Mark" video - We haven't done this in a long time, but she clearly remembered. I think all the distance send behaviors we did on the way to finishing her Parkour Grand Championship made this a really strong concept for her.
Hand signals exercise video - For AKC Gimme needs to do three behavior on a hand signal (she'll need 6 for DMWYD). I really expected her to do better at this. She seemed to get too excited and then just started flinging behaviors at me. Clearly we have more work to do.
"Weave" poles video - J'Anna was having a challenge with the camera, so I don't have our warm-up on video. It was very fast, especially considering we haven't trained them in years.
Paws on arm video - This is part of our "kisses" trick, so she doesn't even need a warm-up. The arm presented butler style is all the cue she needs.
Figure-8 video - We have a strong history of this with all our RallyFrEe work, so she does it perfectly.
Wobble board video - Gimme did this a lot when she was a puppy, so all she has to do is see a wobble board. Even though she hasn't done a wobble board anytime recently, she's done a lot of Get On Moving in her journey to parkour Grand Champion.
There are four other behaviors I want to get on tape, but the battery died on the camera, so that'll have to wait until next time. We practiced them and she did great on all of them.
This was a fun session for Gimme - she loves tricks.
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