Video -- Kaiser & Luke weaving

Well I don't know anything about weaving but just wanted to say your dogs are beautiful !

Deb W.

Love the video!

What technique did you use to teach them?  I'm wondering when we'll be able to remove the "guidewires" as I call them.  I'm also waiting for the ground to thaw enough to stick my weave poles in, no practise at home for now!

Luke was Weave-o-Matics & guide wires -- But mostly just the guide wires because my homemade WOM's were notorious for falling over when he touched them (not very lucrative to training....).  Luke and I started agility in the winter, so that meant I had a set of 6 poles in the living room of my apartment.  We worked on weaves at least once a day (for like five minutes).  I would always cook him an egg in the a.m. and use that for his reward.

I tried to use the guide wires for Kaiser, but he absolutely would NOT go anywhere NEAR the poles when the wires were on.  Kaiser learned entirely through luring (which is why he needs such babysitting at this early stage).  I used my own copy-cat version of 2x2 as well, mostly just to work on his entrances.  He picked it up really fast -- going from 6 to 12 poles was no biggy at all, as he pretty much just keeps going once he's in the poles.  It's the entrances that still kill us (thankfully NADAC doesn't penalize run-bys). 

Your ground hasn't thawed yet???  Do you live on granite?  lol  The poles in this video are my stick-in-the-grounds.  I pounded them into the frozen ground for a while this winter and finally gave up after the third one broke (Luke snapped one and the other two just broke when I was pulling them out).  I live on very sandy soil, so I've been able to use them for a while now.

In regards to your guide wires question -- Start removing them slowly, one at a time -- and move them around so that it's a different one occasionally.  Most often, on a set of 6, you'd remove the middle ones first, as the entries and exits are the hardest for the dog.  Then you start testing by removing the first & last guide wires to see how the dog does.  A certain amount of correcting is okay, but if it's clear the dog still doesn't understand the wires should go back on for a while.  Just don't take them all off at once.  Luke was pretty solid after only a couple of weeks, but I often kept the wires on to work on increasing speed.

I like Luke's weaves! The only thing I would change?

I'd use a lot of play to jack him up like crazy and give him a big fat reward for being tight, fast, clean. Build up brownie points for the weave poles for only what you want.

Kaiser at this stage, I'd worry about this his head as it was staying up but several minutes in the footage, it was going down because he started to drive through the poles. The cause ... I think is your hand because he is looking at it for the reward. You might want to change or randomize where the reward is coming from. Because you could perhaps get a 'bopping' or hopping behavior through the poles. You can also tell when some dogs are being lured or guided through the poles. But he is looking very promising. I love his enthusiasm. But I typically throw the reward at the second to last pole as I am trying to get him to run and extend out of the poles.

More progress videos please. I love watching evolution take place.

Thanks JD -- I completely agree with you about Kaiser's issues and noticed them for myself.  All of his issues with his entries are due to his head being way up in the air.  When he flattens himself out and drives forward he has beautiful weaves.  I think a lot of it is just novice dog stuff -- but I fully agree with you that it would *really* help if I didn't reward him from my hand all the time.  The problem I have there is losing the small treats in the grass and thereby not rewarding fast enough.  I plan on bringing out his little frisbee to see if he'll work for that, because that will help with being able to reward away from the poles.  He's very food motivated, though, and not so much into the toys.

I'm not really understanding your comments about Luke.  This is about as jacked up as he gets, as he goes absolutely insane over his black rubber ball.  I think these are phenominal weaves for a dog his size.  The issue I have is getting THIS performance from him at shows.  I think a lot of it is footing, though, because his weaves on dirt were nearly this good -- when we show on the rubber mats I think he's more careful because it can be slippery.  He's also slower through the shorter-spaced poles, but I can't really fault him for that.  He's a 27" dog and if I could help it, I'd never weave him with less than 24" spacing.  The shows that still use 20" poles are killer for him.

For Kaiser and him being food driven, use "goldfish" since they can see them or you could use a food tube, bait bag, or even bait plate. When he gets older, I'd start to use more toys and slowly switch over the value.