Teaching The Weaves

[Sophie]

I have decided that after three years of agility training, Morse is going to learn to weave properly.

 

He's had a bit of a rag-tag of training methods. We started at one club where they taught by luring with a piece of food. Morse will do this, but he's following the food mindlessly with no awareness of what his body is doing. We then switched training clubs, and started using channel weaves, then on to v-weaves.

 

Now at training, we use V-weaves mostly, and Morse is getting there, but because he's a narrow dog, he doesn't have to weave too much at the width they're set at for the other dogs. Because we're in a group of dogs that doesn't compete, there is no real concentration on working on the weaves at class. Plus, as was pointed out to us, weaving is on of the things that really needs practice more than once a week. We had a different trainer this week, who had us working on upright weave poles, with the attitude that you have to do it at some point.

 

Morse gets worried easily, and if he thinks he's getting something wrong he'll give up and stop trying, so I haven't ever pushed him with the weaves, and I'll need to be careful when I'm training this. But, we're making progress with the seesaw, and if we can crack the weaves I may pluck up the courage to try competing with him.

 

Sooooo, we have weave poles at home, and I'm going to start training with Morse when I can, and am looking for ideas as to what we should be doing.

 

The main options I'm thinking of are:

(1) keep going with the v-weaves getting narrower.

(2) Work with upright weave poles and:

(a) start with two, and get him getting the entry right, then add one more each time as he gets the idea - more sort of free shaping of the weaves

(b) start with a small set of weaves (4 maybe) and get the entry and weaving action first, then add more

© start with the full set of weaves and work on getting the whole thing going

 

Am just sort of wondering how other people go about weave training, and if you have any suggestions, secret tricks, etc that might help?

[Shaun Jackson]

Sophie,

 

I am an agility beginner, so take my method with a pinch of salt especially if other more qualified people have a different method. (Not all dogs will respond to the same method).

 

I have found that the fastest way is to use garden fencing around my home made weaves so that the dog once it is in the weaves can only get it right. (I think technically this method is called wires) I had to be careful to ensure that all the sharp bits were pointed away from the dog. This enabled me to start by using toys and food to get the dog racing through them at top speed with me on the left. As she became proficient I removed the fencing between the last two weaves, then the next to last etc etc eventually working back till all the fencing was removed. This whole process took about two months, 15 minutes or so a day in 5 minute sessions. I just used to do it when she went to the loo etc. Even now I notice that without the fencing she slows down sometimes - so I put the fencing back up and really whack her through at top speed. I don't encourage her to go fast unless she can't get it wrong. Once all this is second nature I started on repeating it all with me on the right - this is the stage I am now at.

 

Another good point of this method is that I was able to practise entries at up to 90 degree angles as there was only one way of entering.

 

If you want to see a diagram of the weaves or a video of the results then PM me with your email address and I will forward it to you - you will need to download apple quicktime and have a broadband connection as the video is about 3mbs. (Interestingly, Ribena (a mutt) who has learnt this method is much quicker than Carly, my collie who learnt by being on a lead and with toys as a lure).

 

I now have a dog who can weave but can't do agility as she can't do more than one jump in a line without getting over excited and jumping all over me - still there is time as she is only eighteen months or so old.

 

Good Luck

 

Shaun

[mum24dog]

I'd agree with the gist of what Shaun says if you don't have access to proper channel weaves.

I taught Hazel on normal weaves with wires that I cobbled together in the garden and it does teach dogs to do the weaves independently.

I'm not a fan of luring for the reason you've found.

I think I used that method with Ross and his weaves are just about OK, but way slower than I would like.

Where I would differ from Shaun is that I would teach both left and right hand weaves from the start, especially if the weaves are set up so the dog can't go wrong.

As for motivation, I've been known to train carrying my dog's dinner in his bowl. It's amazing how much speed you can get up that way if you have a dog that isn't bothered about toys.

 

Pam

[Shaun Jackson]

With the benefit of hindsight, I would have done as Mum24dog says and do both left and right hand weaves from the outset. It especially would have been of benefit to us as we do obedience and anything on the right is a major confusion (not just for the dog).

[DanishPastry]

we have just started practicing the weaves in Indys class, and we do it this way. Put two poles with the right distance, then skip one (so the distance to the next is doubled) then two more, skip one and two more. The dog is on my right side, so we start out walking towards the poles and I say "ind" (means in, doesn't matter what you say, but it's a nice sharp easy command) and she walks between the first two poles, towards me and gets her treat. Remember to make enough room for the dog not to feel crowded while walking towards you. On to the next one, (make sure the dog is walking in a direction where he has the pole on his left side) and again say ind and the dog comes to you, through the poles. Etc Etc....

 

It seems to work really well for us, Indy got the hang of it very quickly, and she is a dog that gets easily confused.

They have worked with other methods as well, but really wanted us to try this one, as some of them have had grat succes doing it this way with their younger dogs.

[lucyandmeg]

I have found that for a clicker trained dog its really easy to train a dog by building up the weaves slowly. Start off with 2 or 3 and then just start by showing the dog by luring once or twice. THen see if the dog will offer anything just by standing and waiting. As your dig has done the weaves by luring before you may find he may well offer a wiggle. Click any clear intention to go through the poles correctly no matter how little. Then once hes doing 3 correctly add in more poles. I don't have to lure any of my dogs, i just stand there and they will attempt the weaves. I am still at the stage of rewarding ever few weaves, but we are slowly lengthening the numbero f weaves before we reward.

[Paula]

Only advice I can think of at the moment is keep him on the lead until he really gets the hang of it as on the lead he can't make a mistake and thus get you frustrated.

 

I have been having some problems with Suzi and the more she wouldn't/couldn't do them the more frustrated I get and the flatter my voice and body language goes and the more upset she gets. One vicious circle later and no one wins. I went back to putting her on the lead everytime we trained weaves and if she didn't go in at a show I have just run past and carried on with out getting annoyed and last night we had a great session where she went in nearly everytime and at the end she was even looking for the weave entry herself.

 

Good Luck

[Sophie]

Thanks everyone - some good advice and things I hadn't thought of.

 

We had our first training session at lunch time today. It was more to see if he was going to be willing to practice or not. Morse won't do any training in the back garden, so we were working in the front garden which seems to be ok with him. He was as excited as he is at classes, due to me having his kong on a rope which is his favourite toy and he only gets at agility (or on the beach). So motivation turned out not to be a problem

 

I'm not sure about using fencing, simply because it's yet another method, and I don't want to confuse him any more than he already is. I am going to keep it in mind though if we don't make any progress with other methods. We've been working on getting the weaves on both sides when doing the v-weaves at classes, and I'll definitely have to remember to keep doing that at home (he definitely has a 'better' side already, so I'll need to watch it).

 

Anyway, i decided to start out with 5 weave poles, and see what he would do (this is what we had at classes on Monday when we only rewarded for the entry, so seemed a good starting point). I started clicking after the entry, then moved on to clicking after two poles, then three, and eventually up to all the poles. He's noticeably better if I am facing him (walking backwards), I guess since that is the position I was in when I lured him (would never work in an actual run since he's generally miles ahead of me). But, he got to the point of doing it with no hand movements from me, and I'm going to work on him doing it regardless of my position before I add in any more poles.

 

All in all, not bad for a first attempt I think. I'll hopefully be able to do a 5-10 minute session every morning, and 10 minutes at lunch 2-3 times a week. Would love to be able to do it more often, but he's not my dog and I don't live in the same house as him, and I have to fit training with him in around work and Sophie's basic training. My mum wants to help out with the training, but I think I'm going to ask her to wait until he's definitely got the idea - just to make sure he doesn't get inconsistent messages from the two of us.