Training with Elicia Calhoun

I went an Elicia Calhoun Seminar a couple weeks ago and had a private lesson with her today. Enzo ran great at the seminar. He's starting to collect and turn much better now. Seems like jumping 20"/22" is helping with that and he's starting to "get it". Still get an extra stride here and there but really doing a lot better. She noticed that Enzo needs some traiing on a send and go which tight wrap where I send him and then take off in the other direction. He kept adding a extra stride when I tried to do it. I also like what she said she does with her arm. Arm up means pay attention to the obstacle and arm down means pay attention to the handler so dropping her arm is a pre cue for a turn. I've been needing something other than his name which I'd like to use less and save for the really tight turns or discriminations.

Of course Enzo was doing his normal stuff with the leadouts. He would resist getting into position and once I got him down then he'd immediately get up and start creeping up on the start line. When we were doing the sequences with the contacts he would eat the cookie and then take off without a release. One time he took off so quick he knocked the cookie out of my hand as he tried to take it. Elicia said that I need to challenge him more on his stays and contacts. She also said that cookies should be tossed to them instead of coming from the hand and if the cookie lands too far away they should learn not to get out of position to get it.

At our private lesson, Elicia gave me a bunch of specific exercises to challenge his stay. She also said that I need to teach him a better send on his contacts. She recommended using a small raised plank that is as long as his body. She said to shape a down on it then work up to sends to the board. After he's good with that I should work on backchaining his contacts again and do 5 sends for every run with and run ahead. We definitely have a lot of homework to do!