AG470: Love'em and Weave'em - Speed and Independence in Weaves

Week 1 Assignment 1

Show Me The Entry!

Welcome to Love’Em and Weave’Em!  I am so excited to introduce you to my world of weaves and how to teach your dog to love them, fight for entries and drive through them with speed! 

The most important thing I want to address right away is your dog’s physical well being.  Weave poles are one of the hardest obstacles on your dog’s body.  If you have a dog that normally finds their entry well or normally loves their weaves but then all of sudden is popping out or missing entries your first thought should be seeing a chiropractor to make sure your dog is not in pain.  Dogs do not actively try to misbehave.  They are not vindictive in nature or wake up in the morning thinking about ways to push your buttons.  When a student comes to me saying they are having weave problems, 90% of the time I will find that their dog will have a rib out of place or back issues.  We cannot expect our dogs to run to the best of their ability if they are in pain.  Listen to what they are trying to tell you with an open mind. 

Now that we have covered one of the main reasons that your dog may not be loving weaves we can go into how we are going to teach them to love them.  I am assuming all your dogs know how to weave 12 poles but when I am teaching my dogs to love them I will start back at 2 poles because what is the first thing our dogs have to do when weaving…..find the entry!  The best way to teach the entry without the wear and tear on their bodies of doing lots of poles is to use one set of 2x2s.    The reason I use 2x2s over channels or guides is because with 2x2s the dog learns from the beginning how to find their entry with speed AND bending.  With channels the dogs learn to go fast but not be fast and bend.  As the channels move closer together the dog will slow down because it takes muscle to go fast and bend.  They can’t do both right from the beginning without building the muscle.  Guides act more like a lure so some dogs don’t generalize as well once the guides start going away.  With the 2x2s I teach my dogs from the beginning to be fast and bend and most importantly, doing their job completely independent of me.  I do not help them even in the beginning.  I let them problem solve and figure out how to do weaves without my help. 

For your first assignment, you are going to start out with one set of 2x2s.  Stand to the left of the poles with one hand on each pole and angle them at a 45 degree angle with the right pole closest to your right foot.  Have a high value toy or high value food ready.  A toy is the easiest reward to use because it is easiest to see but if your dog is a food motivated only dog then use something like large chucks of cheese that are easy to see and do not crumble. 

Start off standing no closer than 4 feet from the poles to prevent you from babysitting the entry.  You will vary your distance as your dog progresses.  Picturing a clock around the poles, start at 10:00 with your dog on left (refer to map) by bringing your dog around your body clockwise.  Throw your reward out on the line fairly close to the poles.  It is important not to throw the reward so far out that they do not associate the poles with the reward.  It is also important to throw the reward on a straight line off the poles so they don’t learn to curl into you for the reward.  Move your position on the clock each time your dog gets an entry correct.  Do not stand in the same place twice if your dog is correct.  Constantly change it up.  Do no more than 3 reps in a row on each side when they are correct.  Change sides after 3 correct reps and work the other side. 

Vary your position from 10:00-3:00.  Do not stand at 12:00 or spend very much time at 11 or 1.  These are easy entries.  The only time the dogs struggle with these is when you start adding in the sequencing and the dog comes in at speed.  So we address this when we add other obstacles.  At this point I want to increase their muscles for bending and hanging onto the poles at speed.  It is easier to do when starting with two poles and then working up.  Always send your dog on an arc from the side of your body teaching them to dig in and hang on to those entries.   Stay away from the straight entries at this point. 

The key to excellent weave poles is keeping your dog’s arousal level high so they are dying to play the game.  This also means keeping the sessions very short and keep them wanting more.  No more than 5 min sessions at a time but 3-4 times a day if you can manage it.  Do not attach any verbals at this point.  With my dogs I say “go” which means interact with whatever obstacle I am standing near.  Depending on your dog’s prior weave performance you may want to change your verbal this time around.

There will be no forward movement from you at this point.  The only movement from you will be rotating in place as you send your dog to the weaves.  We want the dog to be completely independent from you at this point.  Never stand in the same place twice on one side unless your dog is struggling with a particular entry.  Keep the entries changing every time.  As you have probably noticed I cannot stress this enough. 

As your dog gets consistent with the different entries on both sides you will move the poles straighter in small increments.  This stage should move rather quickly with dogs that already understand the concept of weaves.  If your dog gets 2 or 3 entries correct on each side then go ahead and straighten them more.  

Short and sweet are the words to live by this week in your training.

Have fun with it!!!