When Lynn Madden started training her border collie in agility, little did she expect to be aboard a plane to Finland to learn from world leading dog agility coaches four years later.
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On Tuesday the Parkes local flew out of Sydney Airport bound for Haukipudas, located at the top of Finland.
Her week-long training with the world’s best coaches doesn’t begin until November 6 but she’s making sure she’s fully prepared for the unique and rewarding experience.
“[I heard Haukipudas] is covered in snow and averaging temperatures of one degrees,” Lynn said.
“I’m leaving early so I can climatise and get over the jet lag before I get into some serious coaching.”
Lynn is only one of three Australians to be selected to become a OneMind Dogs instructor.
OneMind Dogs is an international agility training company with its head office based in Turku, Finland, and only has a handful of coaches in the world, including just one in Australia.
For that reason, OneMind Dogs put a call out for applications worldwide in June to train more coaches.
Lynn – who herself began coaching others in how to train their dogs in agility just 12 months ago – decided to apply.
She had to apply in video format – where later 100 people around the world were selected.
Lynn knows the remaining two successful Aussie applicants – Stacey Richards and Siegfried Clever – who are also both from NSW and will be travelling at different times for their training.
Until November 10, Lynn will learn from Finnish coaches Jacinta Leinonen, Jaakko Knuutti, Mari Kaplas and Mikko Aaltonen.
For two days they will discuss handling techniques, their philosophy and how to teach those techniques.
Coaches will spend time with students critiquing and giving feedback on their coaching style for the remainder of the week.
I love that partnership with your dog, it has its own mind and can run off if it wanted to, it’s that relationship with your dog.
- Lynn Madden
At the end of her training, Lynn will undergo an in-person virtual test where she will teach someone an agility technique with their dog from a beginner’s level.
“I’m looking forward to learning from the best there is,” she said.
“I’ve been teaching for one year on my own in Parkes so I want to learn to teach well from someone who knows.
“It’s very exciting to be meeting them (the coaches) in person.”
It will be the first time Lynn has travelled to Europe and she’s looking forward to comparing the coaching styles of Australians and Europeans.
“It will be quite interesting as far as coaching goes – with me being the only Australian there at the time,” she said.
“Dog agility is huge in Europe, Australia is only just catching up.”
Lynn became interested in dog agility training when her border collie Cooper was one.
“I heard about agility training and I heard border collies were really good at agility,” she said.
“I learnt from online tutorials because there’s no one around here who does that and I got hooked on it.
“We had our first competition when Cooper was 18 months.
“After competing I found more and more people became interested in agility.
“I love that partnership with your dog, it has its own mind and can run off if it wanted to, it’s that relationship with your dog.
“I love being able to show people how to get that feeling.
“It can go wrong and it does go wrong all the time but when it’s right it’s just exhilarating.”
Lynn now has three border collies – Cooper (5 years old), Miley (4 years) and Storm (2 years) – and a retired agility labrador Rusty (9).
Once her training is done and dusted in Finland, Lynn has her eyes next set on attending her first national titles next April in Victoria – where she plans to bring some of her students from Parkes and Forbes with her.
