Megan is being characteristically humble about this lovely bit of training so I am going to explain some of the nuance and context I see here and elsewhere in her training: https://twitter.com/bwdwriter/status/1384581972484296706

1. Lyra is a Border Collie and so finds movement that she cannot control very stressful. To help with this, Megan gives her lots of opportunities to control movement during training and play so she has the emotional resources left to deal with situations like this one.

2. Look at the floor where Lyra’s standing - there’s a mat. I’ll bet Megan invested a lot of time in training calm happy feelings around that mat, so now it works as scaffolding.

3. Megan’s treat delivery is important. She doesn’t shovel the food into Lyra’s face; she uses it to bring Lyra’s nose down. This creates a posture which not only helps Lyra feel calmer but would also tell any passing dogs to walk on by and not try to engage her.

4. Being told to turn your back on something you find anxiety-provoking is scary. You want to keep an eye on it! Lyra gets to decide when she turns away from the trigger; there is no pressure on her to do it.

5. Megan has chosen treats that won’t overshadow the trigger or distract Lyra. Lyra is fully able to engage with it. It’s her decision that it isn’t worth bothering with that gets her the food.

Here ends the lesson on why Megan is brilliant and far more skilled than a lot of professional trainers I see!