After the failed attempt to put a collar on Skye, we have been having difficulties making any progress with the collar training. Skye was eager to train and interact with us, but not the collar. This has been a source of frustration for both, so our amazing dog trainer decided to change tactics. What about asking Skye what she wants to do?!
So here is me asking and Skye telling me no. "No I don't want to do anything with the collar right now.". So I just walk away.
You would think that Skye would deny doing anything with the collar for most of the time, but she actually doesn't. She wants to interact with us, she loves training, and me walking away is not fun.
Here is her saying yes.
In addition to asking Skye if she is in the mood for collar training, we are adding "shaping" to our training. So far, we've been luring her to put her head through the collar, but now we are rewarding her when she puts her head through it when presenting her the collar.
The idea is again to give her more control on her environment. We don't lure her to trap her, but she decides to offer the behavior we want and she gets a reward.
We will see how far it goes, but right now, it restarted the collar training and boosted our morale.