[Kyla McNeill]

Hi,
Thank-you.
He has a verbal cue to get the toy, however he won’t not get the toy if it is on his line. I can place a toy and he will leave it there until it is right in front of him.

Weaves were trained with 2x2s initially but not with any open/closed angles. He has experienced channel weaves and was good with those too, but I don’t have access to channel weaves at the location we are able to train at most often. As with most other things, he has the greatest trouble with the weave entries once in sequence and with high speed motion. A few weeks ago, I worked weaves straight out of a tunnel after he had trouble with that in a trial. I had a tunnel and just 4 poles. He understood and was able to perform the task as an individual exercise. I did not need to help him, and I could be in different positions and moving.

He has played the wing vs tunnel game but we can definitely revisit that. Tunnels are his fave.

I have a really difficult time figuring out timing with him. Most of the time it seems like he needs to know what’s happening on an obstacle even before the previous obstacle. Then sometimes he will also randomly pull off something I thought he was going to.
Every so often we seem to figure it out at the same time and it feels amazing to run with him but I can’t seem to replicate that on a regular basis.

I’m clearly not showing him what he needs to see for turns but I also think it is hard for him and he keeps wanting to turn after landing from a jump. He can set himself up for a nice turn before jumping on an individual jump even with some motion in, but coming from another obstacle he doesn’t seem to do that. I understand what you’re saying about working on my timing and adding chasing out of a turn. I’m concerned that I’m not really sure I can tell the difference right now on whether my timing caused him to not turn or if he just chose not to turn because he almost never turns tightly within a sequence. How do I work on the turns and make sure he can be successful? Also, if he doesn’t turn how I was hoping but I assume it was my handling (which is likely) and reward him anyway, then I feel like I’m rewarding him for not responding to his turn cue. However, I don’t want to diminish his speed and joy.

Today we attempted jumper course 2 from package 1 in short segments.

[Kyla McNeill]

Haha! The last runs were done during a fun match (that I was part organizer for) so yes, they did whistle us off only because our time was done.

Slowing down is most definitely not his favourite thing. He’s basically having a lot of trouble putting his skills together with high speed motion in general. His dogwalk hits were much too high as he was having difficulty focusing on his contact, turning on the jump after the DW, and me moving to a different place all at the same time.

Here are our next attempts at the second standard.
In the 2nd video, I tried a prop to help him with the tight turn (he didn’t quite get it first try, lol), and as I saw him collect before jumping to get the tight turn I realized I don’t often see him do that. I think he understands his tight turn cues mean he’s supposed to turn back towards me but I think he usually tries to turn after the jump rather than collecting beforehand, so depending how tight he actually needed to be, he may or may not be able to get on track for the next thing. Any thoughts on how I should work on this?

We also practiced threadle wrap skills this week. No video as we practiced with a tree during a work break, but he was really getting it! Next to try with a jump.

[Kyla McNeill]

Thanks so much!
Here is our next attempt at course 1 from package 2.
In the opening, I didn’t consider that my pre-placed toy to help him on the teeter would be on his line for the opening. Oops.
Using opposite arm for weaves. I didn’t get my arm up in time the first time. It worked absolutely perfectly the second time. Unfortunately my videographer (Jen, lol) didn’t have the camera positioned appropriately to see. She says she vouches as a witness that it worked perfectly.
I was so excited about the weaves I forgot to focus on the front cross bit.

First attempt course 2.

[Kyla McNeill]

Hello! Lennan was on an unplanned and unfortunate agility break last week as he hurt his shoulder slamming it into the a-frame during a trial 2 weekends ago. He’s all good now and we are back to training.

This one was actually from just before he hurt himself and apparently I forgot to post it.

This one from today.

[Kyla McNeill]

Thank-you! Interesting that the soft sides weave entries seemed easiest. That has actually been his hardest entry. Perhaps I need to do more practice with the wing there and add more motion approaching the poles, or approaching from something else?

He does now have a nice stay which I am very pleased with! I think sometimes it might be fun for him to not have to stay so perhaps we will mix in some behind the back.

Here is our second attempt at standard course 1. I rewarded him before the poles the first time #1 because he was amazing and #2 because I forgot I was going to put in the wing. Not sure why he struggled so much with his weaving. Also not sure why he was turning the wrong way on the wrap. That surprised me.

[Kyla McNeill]

Thank-you so much for all the great feedback and suggestions.

Re: teeter/dogwalk. Lennan has not typically been confused about the dogwalk so that surprised me a bit. I did wonder at the time if he had thought it might be the teeter or if he had tripped or slipped. Teeter, he was having trouble with fly offs recently when teeter was directly before a tunnel. We were working on it and he had been much improved. I am just wondering if maybe he gets used to where the equipment is placed in his regular practice area (he trains in this field 1-3 times per week). With this course the teeter and dogwalk were completely flipped from where they had been the previous week. The previous weekend we had been at a trial in a different location and he had no questions whatsoever between teeter and dogwalk. The teeter was also directly before a tunnel there.

Here are our newest training ventures.
I’m going to guess you didn’t see the weave video included in the previous post so I am posting it again here. This was our first session on the weave exercise.

2nd weave session today. I didn’t realize I was off camera at the start for a few of the reps. Oops.

Tunnel/jump discrimination.

Behind the back starts. He already knew how to circle the one way and we worked on the direction he didn’t know also.

[Kyla McNeill]

Haha! Ice cream is still a favourite and had another major role to play over the winter in convincing him that yes, actually, all the weave poles are required. It worked great! Ice cream cones have travelled to various fun matches and trials to assist him in environmental overload. Last, but not least, assisted with convincing him that start lines are cool.
Lennan does tend to be very forward, which I also love, but we do have a hard time with turns. I have tended to not run full speed with him as previously a lot of motion from me would kind of make his brains explode. It totally makes sense that the lack of contrast is creating a challenge though.
I have not specifically worked on a brake hand with him. I will give that a try.
Here is our second session with the sequences.

This is our first attempt (from earlier this week) at the package 1 standard course 1.

Today we worked on weave poles.

[Kyla McNeill]

Hello,
Here are our teeter sessions this week with full teeter! Also, cooking with Lennan compilation.

[Kyla McNeill]

Thank-you!
Lennan had done some elevator before and we were just about to progress to crazy elevator when we had to take a break for injury healing. I had wanted to make sure he was still happy with elevator before trying crazy elevator.

Here is our second session of crazy elevator, this time with wing wraps. We had one little oopsie where he slipped and said Mom! I’m sad! But then he got happy again.

[Kyla McNeill]

Hello!
Lennan is very happy to be back on the teeter!
Here is a bang game session we did yesterday.

Elevator game today. Normal elevator to start, then Lennan took a break and we did crazy elevator in a new session.

[Kyla McNeill]

Hello!
Lennan is finally back in action. He was quite excited to train on the plank tonight. I tried him on the plank a few days ago and although he had resumed crazy wild man running without hesitation, he was being careful on the plank so he wasn’t ready yet. Niamh got to be my helper for my mechanics practice again this week with me adding motion.
Lennan received a get well ice cream cone both times Niamh got to do ice cream training, however he was so so sad. The first time I tried to give him the ice cream before going out to train and that was not ok. He pinned his ears back, took the cone, dropped it on the floor, and stared at me with the most extreme of sad faces (he’s pretty good at the sad face in general).

Here is plank training from tonight.

Mechanics practice with Niamh from earlier in the week.

[Kyla McNeill]

Lennan is feeling much better. I have to watch him closely now because he would like to convince me that he’s perfectly capable of doing all the things, but he’s not sound yet. Laser treatments at home and chiro adjustments are helping with his healing. His poor shoulder was indeed very sore as well as his foot. He’s a sad and grumpy patient but pretty good for it all.
Seeing as Lennan can’t do it yet, I thought I would practice my mechanics for crazy elevator so that I’ll be ready when he is. Here is older sister Niamh helping with mama mechanics. Poor Lennan was so upset that the sister, the mama, and the ice cream all went out without him.

[Kyla McNeill]

Thanks so much!
Your discussion of mechanics including ice cream cone made me laugh so much! Totally a necessity but I’m not sure I ever would have thought ice cream cones would be part of my mechanics of training before.
I was super excited to progress to crazy elevator game and this was planned for Saturday. Unfortunately we’ve had a delay in our training abilities as Lennan had an altercation Saturday morning (through the fence) with the evil dog who lives next door to us and the dog got a strong bite hold on Lennan’s front paw and caused some punctures. So, I currently have a sad and limpy border collie boy who is begging to do all the things and says he can totally do it despite not being able to actually stand or walk on his paw normally at the moment. Hopefully he will heal quickly and we will be able to get back to our training.
Here is a video of target fading with the plank from a couple of days ago before the unfortunate incident. I don’t think the targets can actually be seen on the video but there were 3 different size targets and then no target by the end.

[Kyla McNeill]

Hello!
Here is some training we have been working on.

Uphill cooking with Lennan. So much tip and he loves it!

Uphill on a different day, even more tip. He said you can’t pull my ice cream away! Lol! The second hit he got a big chunk of cheese on the bit of cone that was left. Oops on the flying exit. He wasn’t supposed to do that (evidence of my horrified face at the end)!

Downhill to ground. The first two videos were on the same day but separate sessions and the third video is a different day. He seemed to have trouble with me praising him when he initially got into position so I switched to just using his reward marker initially and then adding praise after and he seemed to do much better. He also thinks it is great.

Elevator Game. 2 sessions on 2 different days.

[Kyla McNeill]

Thank-you!
Chico (the cat) probably was totally judging. A few things for Lennan on that session. He had never done target training in that space before, he had just woken up from a nap, and he’s a bit nervous of the cats (for good reason) so even though Chico got put in a crate to prevent further interference Lennan may have been feeling a bit worried about cat intrusion at the start of the session.

This evening I was like let’s go do target fading outside. Lennan was like it is cool and windy, I’ve been sleeping most of the day since my walk/jog this morning, I spent the last 10 minutes inside getting myself super hyped up with a toy, and I was really excited to see Mom set up the training equipment. So, that was hilarious and we didn’t fade the target during that session. Then Lennan took a break and we did a second session where we did fade the target and he was awesome. Picture in the middle of the video indicates the separation of session 1 and session 2.

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