Weaves are the bane of my agility life right now!  They are the only obstacle stopping us from serious competition and after 2 years of training we still haven’t got them.

First we started on channels in class, we progressed to the channels being quite close but never really developed a weaving behaviour.  Then I went to a 2 x 2 course.  That was excellent and really worked, Guinness learnt how to get any weave entry and his striding became good.  We progressed with 2x2s to upright weaves but then he started doing a funny foot dance, crossing his feet weirdly.  He was described as having “happy feet” but I preferred to call it “crappy feet”. So off we went to V weaves which sorted out his striding,  then back to straights and his funny feet came back.  We were advised to go to channels then.

Right now we are on straights, but have lost our decent entries and he is charging to the second “gate”.  ARGHHHH. But his feet seem fine every time and he is weaving 6 uprights but not at a high success rate.

So we have the 2x2s out to teach the entrances and we are training 5 minutes a day of 2x2s then putting a day of 6 uprights in there.

This is the first time I’ve trained a dog weaves and I feel really in the dark.  I haven’t got the experience or confidence to know what to change and what to do.  Plus I find it hard to watch Guinness weaving while moving alongside and getting ready to throw the reward.

I don’t think changing through the different methods has been wrong though.  The only difference I would do next time is teach 2x2s from the start, but the Vs were definitely needed to sort out his striding.  Guinness being Guinness just happened to develop a silly foot dance.

Right now we’re doing really well and we’re so close to upright 6 poles in a course.

We’ll get there one day!  Hopefully one day soon…