[Kyla McNeill]

Sounds good, thank-you!

Aelfraed is right around 9kg so sounds like he could do 2o2o? I actually think he would love digging at the end too though. He has actually offered scratching on the training plank at times.

[Kyla McNeill]

Thanks so much!

For the teeter I was planning to do 4 on. He seems to like 2o2o though, so now I’m not quite sure.

Aelfraed says he is a big fan of chasing the auntie! He did start to figure out that pouncing on the treat hugger was also fun. Even though he over-ran it and went back for it most of the time, he was happy to snatch his bread and butter out of it himself when he got to it, even jamming his face into it a few times.

[Kyla McNeill]

Hello!
Aelfraed enjoyed banging the end of the teeter today and is also getting better at backing onto it.

We tried the sequences again with the jump bar hanging on the 8″ cups. There was bread in his treat ball for the straight ahead lines and he seemed eager to chase the ball but definitely still wants to look at me between the jumps. Should I reward the first jump out of the tunnel? Or is he maybe looking to see if I’m going to toss? He seems better on the other side with the one jump at the end. I didn’t try a treat dish today but I think that might be good to get him to run to it.

We tried the wingin’ it game. It hurt my brain, lol, but Aelfraed seemed fine.

We tried the looking ahead to the jump game again and he definitely thought about it since a couple days ago. He was great at going to the jump!

[Kyla McNeill]

Thanks so much!

This little boy is pretty challenging to reward.
His current opinion of toys seems to be that they are an activity on their own and not a training reward. He asks me to play tug with him in the living room at home. He asks me to play toys out in the yard. He will still play tug and chase toys outside in different places for short periods (he doesn’t play obsessively like the border collies) and does quite enjoy a ball outside. He has played a few times in the training arena if I ask him to play when we first enter, but will only accept the toy 2 or 3 times in that environment because then he wants to get going with other things and does not think the toy should be part of those things. If I ask him to do something and then offer the toy as the reward, he is immediately mad and will not take the toy even if he had been excited about it directly before starting the exercise. The last 2 times I tried with a toy, he was so mad about me offering the toy that he barked at me and bit me (definitely on purpose, he was not trying to bite the toy).
I did also wonder since he barks so much when he runs if that affects his desire to want to grab a toy.

For his food rewards, he has 2 types that are consistently Aelfraed approved and 1 is generally considered higher value, except for the odd time when he randomly switches, so that is typically the food that is used in his training sessions. There are a few other things that he will eat but is not actually excited about those things unless they are presented very sporadically (weeks in between).

He generally does enjoy the treat ball and can open it and doesn’t seem bothered by the velcro. He does wait for me to open the majority of the time though. The only times he opens it himself are if it happens to land with the open side up and he doesn’t have to manipulate it first, or if I ask him to do something really easy then he will manipulate the ball and open it himself. It seems like he doesn’t feel he should work for his reward when he already worked in the exercise.

I haven’t usually used bread in the treat ball, except for the time I ran him during the fun match. He did seem extra excited about it when the bread was involved that day. I am a little concerned if I use bread for everything that it will lose some of its value for him though. I guess I could load the ball with bread on the times I really want him to drive to it and use his other food at times it doesn’t matter as much?

He is not in love with the manners minder. I think mostly because it can’t dispense the type of food that he wants the most. He does also think the mechanical sound is weird and previously has waited for it to stop making noise before approaching to collect the treat. I think he could get over that if he was more excited about the food that was being produced as he wasn’t too scared, just suspicious.

He does enjoy a treat dish that he can run to. He doesn’t really understand not to run to it when it is present though, so maybe can work on that a bit more.

[Kyla McNeill]

Lol, Aelfraed is lucky that his mom also enjoys baked goods and that trips to the bakery now include the thought process of “what would Aelfraed enjoy a little bit of?”.

Today we tried the straight line sequences. Two sessions, with a break in between.

We also worked on the teeter again.

[Kyla McNeill]

Hello!
We worked on the mountain climber again with Aelfraed collecting his own reward. His rewards today consisted of croissant and buttered dinner roll.

We also tried the looking ahead to the jump game on the other side.

[Kyla McNeill]

Thanks so much!
Today we tried the looking ahead game.

We also worked on mountain climber and had more pie crust for this game.

We tried the motion override sit game. I expected it to not go well as sit is still not his favourite thing. He does prefer to stop standing and actually did very well when I had him do that. He was pretty confused as to why we weren’t doing equipment and ran away to do obstacles a couple of times.

[Kyla McNeill]

Thanks so much!

Today we did a little bit of lazy game and tried the blind cross to tunnel again. Also tried practicing driving to the tunnel with the reward pre-placed, except I forgot I was supposed to move the jump closer so will have to try that again. I did beat him to his reward one time and he was very unhappy about it and then decided he wasn’t going to do the tunnel so I didn’t try that again.

We also made some progress of backing onto the teeter. He said that it was worth it for pie crust.

[Kyla McNeill]

Thanks so much!
Today we tried the blind cross to the tunnel which went pretty well, but I can see how I should be more lateral for the sending to go better.

I did notice he was starting to look at me more going straight to the tunnel. Will definitely work on that. Aelfraed says I better be in the mood to run, lol.

Our weather is perfectly terrible right now. We had a nice day yesterday. Today cold and raining. We’re supposed to have rain for pretty much a solid week. I don’t foresee any outdoor jump grids in the immediate future. The “grass” is also very squishy and not growing yet (we had a snowstorm a week ago). Next month we’ll be outside.

[Kyla McNeill]

Hello!
Today we had a fun match at our usual training facility. I tried some of his sequences during the fun match and he didn’t seem bothered about the extra activity. Still working on the timing though.
The first part of this, up to 1:04, was before anyone else was there and then the other parts were during the fun match.

We also tried calling him across the teeter plank and he thought that was a pretty fun game since we had delicious bread and butter.

[Kyla McNeill]

Thank-you!
Aelfraed actually has worked on 3 legged standing. He doesn’t mind me lifting his paws but he can also lift front paws himself.

Today we tried the sequence with wraps.

Also tried the blind cross but didn’t quite get the timing.

[Kyla McNeill]

Hello!
Today we worked on some backing up. Aelfraed has backed up the tippy board before but with it propped up and not moving. He seemed happy to push it down.
Backing up onto the plank he is better at finding it with his rear paws but is not yet sure about backing all the way onto the plank.

[Kyla McNeill]

Hello!
We tried some lazy game again and Aelfraed liked the farther cookie tosses, although occasionally couldn’t find them.

We also worked on the timing and connection game.

[Kyla McNeill]

Tryouts went ok. Some of the runs were disappointing, but there were good parts in every run. We unfortunately E’d 4 out of 6 runs and had refusals in both runs we didn’t E. There were some surprises, some good ones where he did some things awesome that I thought would be difficult, but also some less happy surprises. 2 of the runs, he decided I has wrong right near the end of the course and went straight instead of doing the thing I was asking him to do. We struggled hard with threadle wraps. We apparently do not have that skill in the way it was presented this past weekend. All of the threadle wraps were off the line in the opposite direction to where we were heading next and each time I thought he was committed but then he pulled off. I’m guessing he sees me leaving and chases me. Most of the rest of the time he doesn’t look for me unless I ask him to, which is sometimes helpful and sometimes more difficult. He does not like when he has to jump towards me, but will happily go all the way across the ring away from me. I can’t quite figure out how to cue him properly on ambiguous jumps where it’s sort of a backside, but not really, and also he has to turn away. We had 1 amazing run where we had a refusal that was 100% my fault because I was worried about a section leading up to the weaves and he did it so perfectly I didn’t cue the weaves in time. All the rest of it I got him his cues in time and he responded exactly as I would have expected and it really was awesome. Overall though, he did feel more consistent throughout compared to other times, so hopefully we are getting there.

It made me happy to see all the shelties doing awesome things at tryouts!

For the teeter for Aelfraed, I was planning to do 4 on. He weighs just under 20 lbs but is definitely more front end heavy, although his back end is improving as he grows up.
I’m not too sure about teeter ice cream for him yet, lol. He definitely enjoys ice cream as long as you have the correct flavour (he’s a bit more discerning than Lennan) of strawberry being the best but vanilla also being acceptable. He really is crazy for bread though, especially with butter, but will also accept plain bread. It’s a heck of a lot more transportable than ice cream so if he keeps loving it then we might just have a bread and butter teeter!

We can try the calling across the plank. So far he has been very clear that he will not accept help when on equipment. He says he will do it himself. He wants us to be close but not help. If either of us has stood at the end previously, he will turn around prematurely and not go all the way to the end. However, we didn’t have bread at those times and since he enjoys running across the plank now, he may be more receptive.
A few weeks ago, I got him a jump box. We haven’t used it for any jumping exercises so far but he’s been getting used to it. The person I got it from wanted to see him turn on the box to check the size and he absolutely refused to let me show him to turn even though he can turn on other props, but something new he will not accept any help. He has since figured out how to turn on the box, at home, doing it for himself.

Lol, yes, he can definitely be judgey! Will try the lazy game with further treat tosses. He was also a bit judgey about his food in the sand but not too much.
I’m sure he will enjoy more distance!

[Kyla McNeill]

Thanks so much! Yes, that makes sense. I had noticed the upward push on the first rep. He definitely still struggles if I move the toy too much before releasing him so will keep working on that and working towards increased distance.

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