Hannah & Hooli, Border Collie, 13 months, Canada.

Sorry this took me so long, I was going to reply yesterday, but I managed to knock down my computer and destroy it. :/
Anyways – great start so far. At the moment the Hooli gives the best speed when chasing you with a tug toy and also nice speed when you are both running to static toy. So on obstacles I would try to create “crazy balls” dynamic by sending her away with a thrown toy (Ideally from a restrain so she can focus on the throw) and than called back over the obstacles by running away with a tug toy. I would also keep doing straight line races to a static toy (and making that line longer and longer). Throwing is not her favourite – she is not really in a hurry to get it and when in motion, she often is not expecting it and therefore not really looking for it which causes confusion and lack of focus. So I would work on this outside of agility equipment. You can start with large pieces of food to get her used to the dynamic and than switch to toys. The bigger the space and the more you run away from her (as soon as you are sure she saw that you threw something to her and approximately where it went), the more hurry she will feel and the more speed she will develop as a consequence.
When working with toys it is also quite important that she drops one on time to get the next one, because if the dog carries one in his mouth, he is usually not willing to chase the next one with full speed. So when you start with toys you can just focus on that part. Throwing one, waiting for her to start coming back with it, encouraging her to drop it (giving verbal if she is familiar with it and teasing her with the toy you have on you) than getting really excited when she does and throwing the next one so it is presented as a reward for dropping the previous one.

“I realize I have a lot of holes in my foundation… when he was a puppy he would give up super easily and leave work (or worse would start to running the fence line and alarm bark!) when we would do “toy switching” games so I didn’t really push it, then he had to have OCD surgery … not to give excuses but just for backstory :).”
That is ok, no worries. Everything will wait for you. 🙂 You will upgrade your foundations very easily if you just do a minute here and minute there in your everyday life… away from actual training and agility obstacles. It might not look like a lot, but you would be surprised how quickly it shows results. 🙂

“Our year together has been tough! I can definitely see it is hurting us now though as he was obsessed with the fun, long toy in my hand and not the ball.”
Yeah it wasn’t easy indeed. And he is still just a pup – I wouldn’t say anything is hurting you – he is just better at some things than the others. Like all pups. 🙂 Chasing is a great skill to have as well! You can reward him plenty with that. But when I start to train a dog for any given sport – before going too much into technical difficulties of the sport itself, I like to broaden my skill set, so I can choose what I need to make the understanding of each exercise as easy as possible. 🙂

Overall my biggest tip today after watching your video is – when he is not focusing on the toy you are sending him towards (either because he didn’t see it, either because he wants something else or is just generally insecure), help him asap. Run there yourself and encourage him all the way there “where is your toy… go get it… go get it”. If he knows where it is but is just not too happy about it, since he was expecting something else – forget about that other thing. Get to the toy yourself and roll it/kick it/throw it/run with it… make it the best thing ever. And no matter what the original plan was – if he gets a good strong bite on the thing, always let him win and make him feel special about it. Same when he has a preference. Don’t give up, make the other ball look like it is the best thing ever and keep doing so until he is convinced. 🙂

Yes, no worries, perfectly ok to post such stuff as well! 🙂 Big improvement! I think that when you first start to train the dog you should take at least as much time for playing than you do for actual training. It makes things so much easier on the long run. She was really nice and confident here, switching without any problems. Way to go. 🙂

Don’t worry, you did fine! 🙂 It is hard to manage all those toys, yourself and the dog in a place full of obstacles. 🙂 One little thing you can add to increase the drive towards the static toy is to run in the direction of the static toy with the dog for a couple of steps. Start with restrain, throw, release and make her believe you are racing her there for a couple of steps, before you turn around and run away. Now and than you can stay with her, race her towards the static toy and play lots when she gets it, so she is not always conflicted “oh but if I go there, Hannah will escape”.
I think you can easily start doing the basic games from lesson 1 and 2 again. 🙂

Really nice! And am I calling HIM a girl this whole time? Sorry.
He has really nice understanding of the wrap. When using the toy you can vary the position and delivery some. You can throw it right next to the wing when he is exiting, you can run further away to get him to accelerate, you can lure him into the second wrap… You can also do more than 180ties at times. 270 or 360 even. Indoors you can also try running towards the static toy “behind” the wing.

Overall nice try :). I liked the progressive start! What seemed to be the hardest for him was sticking to the correct hand after the wrap with FC if you were in a hurry to get on with the sequence. So I would do some reps of just that wrap and reward over the next jump. First you can have the toy in the “new” hand (in your case left) and throw it over the jump as soon as you complete the cross and he is on the correct side. And than after some repetitions like this, leave the toy on the ground after the straight jump. If that still confuses him you can also do an exercise where you just use the wing you are wrapping him on and a static toy that you put further and further away from the wrap. You ask him to wrap, do your FC and run along until he reaches the toy. Just so he gets used to choosing the right hand and running alongside towards something. If he always shows tendency to cross behind your back when you are doing this and you don’t have the toy in your hand, you can try using food for some repetitions, rewarding from the hand for choosing it right and with an additional throw further ahead. And than a mixture of food from hand and send to the toy.

Nice! Seems to be the left side that is causing him more problems. So when you start the session next time you can do a couple of repetitions where you reward him directly from your left hand immediately after the cross before moving on to a static toy. Or ask for nose touch if he knows/likes it. Only make sure that you complete your FC before rewarding him – so he gets rewarded for coming to the correct side of your body once your body is turned already. Most people reward while still facing the dog which creates a totally different picture.
FCses when he was turning right were awesome, super tight turn and nice acceleration afterwards! 🙂