[Kyla McNeill]

Thanks for the sitting demo video. Aelfraed can now sit on a platform but have not tried with his front paws off the platform. Will work towards that.

We tried some lap turns and tandem turns today. A different park. It was noisy. He didn’t seem to care.

Also a few toy races. He seemed really happy to drive to the toy.

I forgot to say before, I laughed when I read your suggestion to train him using a bit of something I ate because earlier this week he got to practice tricks for apple pie crust!

Aelfraed lost one of the two remaining baby teeth a couple of days ago and although the other is still loose and waiting to come out, I guess the one he lost was bothering him more. His interest in food went way up as soon as that tooth was gone.

[Kyla McNeill]

Thanks so much!
Aelfraed definitely has opinions about his rewards! When I first started teaching him things, whatever reward I used to start the behaviour was the only reward he wanted. So, certain things were associated with toys and other things with food. He has become more flexible overall now about accepting different types of rewards but he still has strong opinions, which is usually totally hilarious.

He does seem to have a bit of a preference for left turns at the moment but is balancing out.

We worked on some stays today. He doesn’t like to sit much during stays yet, which is fine. I’ve just been working with position of his choice for now. I think the sit is physically challenging for him. He actually quite likes sitting and offers it frequently, but not for duration. His sit position has become tighter than it used to be though so it seems he is building up more muscle strength.

We also worked some collection sandwich. He had to have a line dragging as we were in a public park. He’s used to dragging that particular line during outings so he wasn’t bothered by it but I think it did possibly cause him to run a bit slower.

[Kyla McNeill]

Thanks so much!
I think he really just didn’t want food in that moment with the first session. I did also offer him food on the floor and on his bed and he wouldn’t eat it there either but did want to leave the food and return to the equipment. The food I had was 3 different kinds of treats that he has previously said were the best! The food he ate during the second session was the exact same food he rejected during the first session. Of course with a second session, it is also possible it was then easier for him at that point so it is hard to say, but it didn’t seem to me like he ever didn’t want to do the activity.
With the couch, I had felt he was adding the couch to his obstacles as opposed to leaving the activity. He has recently decided it is now easy for him to get on the couch and has been enjoying showing off this ability frequently.
His food desire is still really variable right now which I’m pretty sure has a lot to do with his teeth. He has 2 remaining baby teeth that are really taking their time and 1 of them just became loose 2 days ago. Yesterday, he didn’t really want food much overall and was very slow to eat his meals. Today he was quite interested in food all day, ate meals quickly, and was eager for treats. The only reliable times he is excited for food right now are whenever I’m eating and he thinks I should share, lol. Apparently we need to start training with linguine because he was quite excited about that.

We did the strike a pose again to experiment with rewards and he really does not think that a toy is an acceptable reward for this game. He will play between reps but will not go for the toy if he has not received his cookie. He did think the cookie dish was perfectly acceptable.

Chasing the auntie and adding the race part.

Working with the prop and trying out some rear crosses.

He seems to really like the plank now and has figured out how to turn.

[Kyla McNeill]

Hello!
Aelfraed worked on 2 sessions of plank plus other equipment.
In the first session, he rejected all of his usual favourite cookies so we played with the toy.
Second session he said food was acceptable.

Another session of strike a pose. Tried to reward directly with the toy but he didn’t seem happy with that. He seemed food with getting a cookie first and then playing.

Barrel wrap with chase the auntie.

[Kyla McNeill]

Sounds good, thanks! Will definitely try toy next time.

Aelfraed thinks that chase the auntie game is super fun!

He already had learned that the tunnel is super fun but we hadn’t added a cue so we did that today. We also did chase the auntie out of the tunnel which was great. Sorry about the poor camera angle that didn’t allow you to see the other side. We only did it with him starting on the outside, no threadle position yet.

[Kyla McNeill]

Thank-you! Aelfraed loves world watching. He did quite a bit of puppy world watching early on but not as much recently. I was thinking when we were out yesterday that we need more adolescent world watching now. Actually, when he offered a down at the end of his pattern game, we did just chill for a bit.

Here is our first try at the strike a pose game.

[Kyla McNeill]

Thank-you! Will definitely try that with the toy next time I have a helper. I suspect he will find it very fun!

I did take him back to the chiropractor last week as I wondered if something was wrong when he first went off his food. She didn’t find anything that really stood out as a particular problem, did some minor adjustments, and his lower food interest continued after. Will see how it goes. I think it could be his teeth as well. Not all of his adult teeth are fully grown in yet.

Aelfraed worked on some inflatable equipment that had lower inflation and he did seem to enjoy that. These particular shapes were new to him as well.

We played some pattern game in a park today. We were not particularly close to any distractions but close enough that they were interesting. There were people playing tennis, a parent who had both a very large dog and a small child inside an electronic play car, dogs barking in a nearby house, and cars arriving with more people for tennis.

[Kyla McNeill]

Sounds good, thank-you!
Aelfraed has definitely started into adolescence when he turned 6 months last week! My border collies didn’t turn into teenagers until 7 months so I wasn’t mentally prepared yet, lol, but that is where we’re at. I did wonder if the tippy board session was impacted by adolescence.

I did not expect him to be the type of boy to go off food based on his food love up until now, but he’s full of surprises. Last week he went off his meals for a couple of days which was a drastic change. He went back to eating normally but is still not nearly as excited about mealtime as he had been previously. He does want to work for food but even the best food right now does not really get him amped up.

During the plank session, the person who appeared was someone Aelfraed knows but neither he or I expected her to appear at that time (plus she was eating a snack) so I didn’t really have a plan for distractions and it didn’t bother me that he left, but I can certainly try a pattern game in the future.

More toy races. Throwing the toy more to Aelfraed’s side definitely helped!

Parallel path with prop.

Barrel wrap with toy reward. I was pretty sure he was going to be mad about the disappearance of his treat plates from the barrel game so decided to try him out with toy reward before progressing to the turn and burn game. He was still a little mad to start with but we worked it out. He sniffed the ground partway through because he found a cookie he had left behind from his parallel path game.

[Kyla McNeill]

Hello!
Here is Aelfraed working on the 2 side by side planks.

[Kyla McNeill]

Hello!
We worked on some more forward focus.

Toy races are still a challenge. It does seem to work better when I let him go and move later. He doesn’t really want me to win but it still seems to be his goal to arrive at the same time when I’m running faster to get there rather than really driving ahead. When he did miss, he was mad, but seemed more interested in then yelling at me about it rather than trying harder to get the toy.

Tippy plank with added noise. He definitely found this difficult but was willing to work on it. I don’t find him particularly noise sensitive so I don’t think the noise itself should have been too much but I have noticed in other situations as well that he finds it difficult when the “rules” of something he has done before change. Should I have shown him the change before allowing him to interact with it?

[Kyla McNeill]

Thanks so much!

Haha, it would be great if I had a giant hall for my living room, but no, the small carpet area is my living room. The hall is in a church where I teach some puppy classes.

I do have another plank so will try the 2 together next time we do that game.

We tried some more backing up.

We also did some more forward focus. The release timing was a little tricky as it was hard to tell sometimes if he was actually looking at the cone. I figured generally looking forward was ok?

For the last week, Aelfraed has been getting extremely excited when he sees me pick up the tripod. He knows it means we are going to play fun games.

[Kyla McNeill]

Hello!
Aelfraed worked on some forward focus. He was definitely more excited about the toy version.

He has started working on backing up in the last couple of weeks. He’s starting to get the idea. Also a little practice on turns. He’s been doing those for a few weeks now.

Slightly elevated plank. Still difficult to turn to his right but got it one time.

[Kyla McNeill]

Thanks so much! That totally makes sense about the inflated disc.
Will definitely try those progressions for the tippy board and toy races next time we work on those.
Today we worked on plank. He has been on a plank before but this specific plank was new to him and doing it outdoors was also new.

[Kyla McNeill]

That is so hilarious! Aelfraed would totally snap his fingers or ring a bell for his staff if he could!
He actually already has been to an outdoor restaurant patio once and he did great!

This video was from yesterday. He is quite fine with the black foam pad but having it on top of the folded laundry basket was new. The balance disc he has also worked with before but still has not been a huge fan of rear paws on it. Unfortunately my cookies were a bit bouncy when I tossed them but he didn’t seem to mind. He had already rejected the non-bouncy cookies I had intended to use.

Today we worked on the tippy board. He has worked on this before and had graduated to its full tip so the tip is not padded at all here.

We also worked on some more toy races.

[Kyla McNeill]

Thanks so much!
Yes, he has done restrained recalls and with this person holding him so he likely could have been thinking about that. I was using a run to toy cue (pounce) but I’m quite certain he does not yet know what it means. Will try slower running next time.
He is definitely hilarious and fun! We laughed so much about him telling me to go fetch his toy!

Today Aelfraed got a big city experience as we went to visit my sister in Toronto and went for a walk at one point. It was really good as we only walked a short way along the busy streets and then spent a while exploring a garden centre where Aelfraed mostly led his exploration (including finding a mud puddle to play in) except when I had to prevent him getting in the way of other shoppers. He had a great time exploring and had one startle moment when a tent side suddenly flapped in a gust of wind right into his face but he recovered quickly and was right back to exploring the same spot a few seconds later. He really was not a fan of super loud motorcycles (I don’t blame him for that) but otherwise handled all the busy places well too. He thought it was quite concerning to see a dog tied to a tree outside a shop without its human present. The dog was calm, Aelfraed likes dogs, and we had also passed a couple of dogs with their people as other points in the walk which was fine so I don’t think he was upset about the dog specifically. However, seeing this dog all by itself caused him to issue one single sharp bark and was the only time he barked during our whole outing. It was very interesting.
He has only met my sister once before so far, about 3 months ago, but he was quite happy to play tug and some version of fetch with her (indoors) which I thought was great.

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