And For My Next Trick - Six Weave Poles!!! TaaaDaaaa!

Suddenly we have had a breakthrough with our weave training. Most of the problems we were having came from a combination of (1) having very light equipment, (2) having very wet soil in my training areas which meant that (3) being a solid, energetic dog, Eepie was knocking the weave poles out of position as she went through them - so she wasn't learning to W-E-A-V-E

First, a friend at work made me some beautiful, solid 2X2 bases (thanks, Michael!!) and then a friend at the dog club lent me her Susan Garrett 2X2* dvd (thanks, Barb!) and when Eepie and i were able to work the 2X2 method for a couple of days on proper equipment - almost overnight she could do four weave poles easily.

I noticed, though, that she didn't like stepping over the bases when they were sitting free on the ground - so i got some nice long deck nails with flat heads and hammered them in securely - suddenly the bases didn't move or wobble At ALL.........

and now she's getting the hang of it nicely -

So here she is doing her very first runs on six weave poles. She was zooming through four poles confidently and its clear on these first attempts at six that she's a bit worried and has slowed down - but this is after about half an hour of sporadic 2X2 training spread out over several days (with major breaks for tracking weekends and a sore foot!). We'll iron out the wrinkles and she'll be zooming it again soon enough.

It seems to be an excellent method of weave training and she clearly understands the task. My early observations are that the 2X2 method makes sense from the dog's perspective and it combines two of my favourite training concepts of shaping and back-chaining...(so it makes sense to this trainer, too :-)

At the end of this little vid, she also shows off the clever trick she learned for stopping on the target areas of agility contact equipment - (dogwalk, A-frame and see saw/teeter). She is such a fast doglet and she loves to FLY - so learning to control her speed (and her aspiration to be a bird) is really important.

But we don't have any contact equipment at home and we had to 'make do'.

So Eepie began her contact training on the five broad wooden steps off the back deck (not the steps in this vid). I wasn't happy with her slamming into the yard off the deck steps so her contact training had a useful spin-off - it was an opportunity to encourage her to come down into the garden in a nice, controlled manner - and to put this steady, controlled behaviour on command.

She learned to come down the deck stairs one at a time - hence my verbal cue "One". (i guess i'm not very imaginative with verbal cues :-)

Take a bow, Princess Peep - You're AMAZING!!

[Oh - by the way - her foot is much better today - for the last few days we haven't done much other than rest - and i think tomorrow we will be able to get out walking again...]



*2X2 method is the brainchild of Susan Garrett -