[Kyla McNeill]

Thank-you! We will work towards adding more challenges. This sounds great!

[Kyla McNeill]

Good morning!
We tried serps again yesterday with the jump angled to start. I didn’t have the TnT with me so used a toy (on a mat because Lennan says plucking toys out of the sand is ew). Almost forgot to balance with wing wraps but remembered one on the second side.

[Kyla McNeill]

Thanks so much!
I did not try the mirror image of the tunnel for turns. That would have been good to compare. He could have been looking at the other tunnel. Tunnels are exciting!
I will try what you have suggested for working on turns and see how it goes.

Yesterday we worked on wing to serp. Lennan said my motion was a bit too exciting to start. He also wanted to know why we weren’t doing tunnels so he got rewarded by being sent to the tunnel a few times. He was becoming less excited about the Treat N Train as we went along so started sometimes rewarding cookie eating with a toy.

[Kyla McNeill]

Sounds good, thank-you. I also thought he looked more powerful from the sit for right now, however you’re correct that he’s not as used to starting from a standing position. “This is weird mom” is totally an accurate Lennan comment, lol! Will keep working on both.

Here are two videos from today. Left and right turns on the minny pinny (I thought he was very clever). He still likes right turns a bit more.
We also attempted some wing/tunnel sequencing. We seem to have some turning out of tunnel issues, particularly turning left. He loves going straight.

[Kyla McNeill]

Hello,
We worked on the set point again and tried from stand as well as from sit a bit further back. Do you think one is better?

[Kyla McNeill]

Thanks so much!
For the set point I think the stand might work better. I can try moving him back with the sit, but it is possible he might lean forward even more if he has more space. The jump height was set at 8 inches here. He has done a little bit of playing on jumps at different heights up to 16 inches, just not a lot yet. He accidentally jumped a 20 inch jump once (he decided to do a jump we weren’t working on). We haven’t trained with that height at all but apparently he has no hesitation about jumping.

In the smiley face game, I didn’t think about the a-frame attracting his attention. He hasn’t worked on it at all. I suppose he could still have been looking at it though since he could see it coming out of the tunnel. Will try with the tunnel not looking at the a-frame next time and see if he is still just wider in that direction. Will also try earlier rotation and see what happens.
Thanks!

[Kyla McNeill]

Hello!
Thank-you for this. We will certainly try the extra challenges. I think more motion will be most challenging for Lennan on the tunnel/wing but we will see!
We worked on wing wrap to jump again early this morning before I got your message so didn’t add too much extra motion yet and will add that next time. This morning we worked on having the toy on the ground ahead of time.

We also worked on these two games last night.

[Kyla McNeill]

Good morning,
Lennan apparently thought it was perfectly fine to wrap a wing only an arm’s length away from the tunnel. Also worked on turning out of the tunnel.

In this session, we worked on wing wrap to jump.

[Kyla McNeill]

Thanks so much! I noticed he was hitting bar 3. Will try without motion next time.

[Kyla McNeill]

Good morning,
Here is a video on our Minny Pinny training.

[Kyla McNeill]

Thank-you! It was other dogs walking nearby that got him the most excited, including his kangaroo impressions. Letting him assess the environment and choose when to disengage with whatever he’s watching and engage with me works really well for Lennan and we had done this earlier in the day with more distance away from all the action. I think I was a bit nervous to let him watch too long when dogs were coming closer as he has a bit of a history now of showing me he can get overstimulated quickly and lose his mind if I allow him to watch for too long when dogs are close. When I walked him out to that area I thought it looked like a good time with not too much traffic going back and forth, but it got busier. Lennan was being a very good boy though. I will have to try to work on me trusting him and letting him have that chance.
When I worked with him at the practice jump. I was actually planning to just work near the jump and not let him actually take the jump. Totally agree it is not ideal with leash on and I wasn’t brave enough to take the leash off at that time. He really wanted to do the jump though, so I thought I would cue it just once.

For the turning, yes, turning right is his stronger, easier side. This is funny to me because when he first learned to wrap around something, he preferred when he was turning to the left. Every since he built more understanding though and we started to do more things with the turning, it has seemed that turning to the right is easier for him.

[Kyla McNeill]

Good morning,
I am posting two videos.
This one is from an agility trial on Saturday. I had my other dog entered and took Lennan along. He was very interested and excited about all the other dogs around but he wasn’t acting like he disliked all the dogs even when we first got there, so I was very happy about that. I had him out a few times. Mostly we walked around and he checked everything out. The outing that is in this video, we worked on some training as well.

This video is working on head turn again last night. I realized after I got out and ready to start that I’d only been rewarding with food for this training before and I had only brought a toy for this session. I decided to try to see if he could think about it with toy reward and it turned out he could. The first couple of times I had the clicker in the hand I was directing him with and I realized he thought it was something I was giving him, so once I started using an empty hand that was better.

[Kyla McNeill]

Hello!
Our vacation spot was to my aunt and uncle’s cottage that is on an island in Georgian Bay, Ontario. It is an amazing spot and was so nice to get away for a few days.

When I commented on Lennan doing better when turning to the right, yes I meant the second turn that he was offering. I did not at all realize I was leaning in when he was turning to the right and not for the left. I went and re-watched the video and can totally see it.

Is this what you meant by rewarding the first head turn?

[Kyla McNeill]

Hello,
Here is a video of some improvised head turn training while we are away (with very happy dogs and mostly taking a break from training things). Lennan seems to totally get it when he is turning to the right but not quite yet turning to the left.
Also, when does this course end for posting videos? I’ve lost track. Thanks!

[Kyla McNeill]

Thanks so much!
I watched the video and thought how normal it looked too! Lol. It wasn’t quite normal. We all wore masks for walk throughs and practiced physical distancing unless already in the same social bubble. It was all very relaxed and fun. I can imagine things are different for you though.

We did have times of watching and checking things out as well.
Recently, Lennan has been overwhelmed in situations with groups of dogs. Even though he likes dogs, when arriving in a situation with many dogs, he acts like he doesn’t like anyone at all until he relaxes and remembers that he does in fact like dogs. If I ask him to do specific things too soon it takes longer for him to relax. He also will not at first be able to engage in toy play even though generally for training he would prefer toy to food. He will eat cheese though, even at the beginning.
What I did for the fun match was first of all I didn’t even enter Lennan. I entered my older border collie, Niamh. 4 runs total. I planned to take Lennan along to experience the environment, then if and when he was ready we could try some training, and if he was really ready, he could have the last turn in the ring instead of his sister.
First when we got there he had some time in his crate to just process the new environment. The first couple of times he came out he was allowed to watch everything, periodically being asked to turn away. He’s not big into sniffing except to sniff stuff to pee on it, lol, so we also practiced appropriate places to pee. He told me when he was ready to do things by helping himself to a toy from River’s bag when he was just hanging out.
At different times he got to watch people and dogs moving about, dogs in the ring, got to greet some people, also had to learn that you can’t always greet someone right away even when you know and love them. At one point I was distance chatting to a friend, Lennan had greeted her, and then just lay down and chilled beside me.
I actually think he would have been happy to go in the ring on an earlier round but I kept with my plan of him going in the last round.
I hadn’t thought to take two toys in the ring. That sounds good. Not sure when the next time will be but will keep that in mind! He really was bringing the toy back quickly mostly. He ran off with it after the tunnel mistake and took it to visit the auntie who was filming outside the fence. I was like, that’s fair, I messed up. I totally did take off too fast on that tunel and was like, sorry! Then he found the other end and I thought that was clever.
I was very happy with our day overall!

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