# Weave Poles....



## Gary Garner (Jun 30, 2007)

Anyone teach the weave poles exercise ?

It's a pointless exercise, but appears in many UK service/working dog trials and competitions, so it's something I had to teach Xena.

Does it appear in anything you guys do ?

This is what I mean;

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=chd1DOsVwf8

\\/


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## Maren Bell Jones (Jun 7, 2006)

I train in agility, so it obviously appears for us. It's also good for training core strength and shoulder strength. I don't have a video of it, but one of the folks who train at the agility complex won the Purina Incredible Dog 60 weave pole challenge in 2005 with her Dobe. Pretty cool! And always cool to beat the border collies in anything... ;-)


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## Terry Fisk (Jul 26, 2007)

Yep, a must in agility competition. We train so the dog's focus is directed more at the poles or the end of the poles and not on the handler so they snake through the poles instead of getting too much side to side motion or vertical motion. You can do this by placing the tug at the end of the poles (if she will stay in them), rewarding the dog by throwing the tug forward after the last pole or rewarding the dog from the hand but facing the same direction they were moving through the poles (not the opposite direction or coming back to the handler for the reward).


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## Gary Garner (Jun 30, 2007)

She has got much better with maturity....

If you compare the video in the first post, with this one from several months ago, there's a real difference in focus and speed;




Any tips/advice on making her even better would be appreciated. There are times when she'll miss one or two of occasionally three poles out. Normally due to speed/haste to get to the end and 'losing her head'..


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## Maren Bell Jones (Jun 7, 2006)

You're right, she has improved! I'm not an agility expert and I train when I can (which is not real often), but to build on what Terry said, if you get a set of weave poles where you can adjust the distance between them to make a channel of sorts that the dog can run down the center. You can have someone hold your dog and you can stand on the other side with a toy, ball, a toy on a flirt pole, heck, even someone with a sleeve. Get your dog cranked up in drive, have the holder hold your dog and release them so they run down the center of the channel. This creates the drive to keep going forward instead of looking back at you. Over the course of a few weeks, you adjust the poles so that the channel gets more narrow and eventually the dog is weaving through on its own to get the reward. You can also use channel wires to guide the dog through, since getting through the first few and the last few are probably the most important, as you said. Here's a good video that shows how to do it:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=fdBO91S7qf8


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## Anne Vaini (Mar 15, 2007)

Not bad at all!  Very nice. I love to see all the fun things you do with her.

Xena places her feet very nicely. I would be cautious to do anything that would change that. Her legs move well. The problem is with where her attention is directed.

Take it down to three poles. Stay BEHIND her and send her through. Before she comes around the last one throw the ball straight ahead.

Work on sending her from the right, from the left, from the side.

When you're happy with how she enters, and when she runs straight out of the poles, THEN add more poles.

Place an obstacle after the weave poles - like a touch pad or pause table. Think of it as a send away exercise. Send her through the poles to the mat. So she isn't heeling or turning towards you for reward.

I'm assuming she is missing the poles when she passes on the far side of the pole. She has her head turned toward you so it's pretty easy for her to miss those. 

Sort out where her head is going and you'll have beautiful weaves.

Taking it another step beyond would be teaching her to USE her head to push the poles aside. This applies more for the poles that are set in springs, but you can still teach it when the poles that are set like spikes in the ground.


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## susan tuck (Mar 28, 2006)

BOING...BOING....BOING....She reminds me of Tigger from Whinnie the Pooh! Gary, I love your dog. Her enthusiasm and drive seems endless in everything she does. She even seems to have a sense of humor regards weave poles!!! You two make a great team, you are doing such a great job with her.


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## Bob Scott (Mar 30, 2006)

Very [email protected]
It's great to see the cross training a lot of people seem to be doing today with their dogs. It can do nothing but build a stronger bond.


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## Gary Garner (Jun 30, 2007)

You're right guys regarding her head and the almost heeling, as it used to be.

I think she's almost got out of the idea that it's a heeling exercise. In the video taken yesterday, she seems more determined to get to the end of the poles than she is to turn and look at me.. which is great of course, that's what we're after...

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=chd1DOsVwf8

\\/


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## Terry Fisk (Jul 26, 2007)

Gary Garner said:


> You're right guys regarding her head and the almost heeling, as it used to be.
> 
> I think she's almost got out of the idea that it's a heeling exercise. In the video taken yesterday, she seems more determined to get to the end of the poles than she is to turn and look at me.. which is great of course, that's what we're after...
> 
> \\/


Much better! Great job with her cross training! Is she supposed to return to you or heel position after the weave poles?


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## Lisa Geller (Mar 29, 2007)

HI,

I played a little in agilitry with Goose when he was younger, because, well, I just don't do enough stuff with my dogs :-/ (I'm kidding of course)

I think the trick is to not have the dog looking at you, but rather at the course -- trying to determine the next logical route, then using your verbal then visual gudiance to lure the dog. Because Goose had so much obedience so young I will likely never have a great agility dog in him. He is looking too much to me.

Here's mongoose doing weaves in slow motion -- he is using his nose to guide him through. I think the way he is driving off each leg is correct.
He is little over a year in this video. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoinb-aVtos

lg


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## Terry Fisk (Jul 26, 2007)

Lisa Geller said:


> HI,
> 
> Because Goose had so much obedience so young I will likely never have a great agility dog in him. He is looking too much to me.
> 
> ...


Nice weaves Lisa. The handler vs obstacle focus is a common problem in agility, especially for dogs with previous ob training. I have been doing a good deal of re-training other instructor's students lately and it's pretty easy to modify the behavior with the proper placement of reward.


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## Lisa Geller (Mar 29, 2007)

thanks Terry

depending on how the next couple of weeks go, I thought about going back and doing a little agility.
It's been 2 years, but funny they do seem to pick it back up pretty quickly, don't they?


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## Terry Fisk (Jul 26, 2007)

Lisa Geller said:


> thanks Terry
> 
> depending on how the next couple of weeks go, I thought about going back and doing a little agility.
> It's been 2 years, but funny they do seem to pick it back up pretty quickly, don't they?


They usually pick it up again pretty quick especially if they have a good foundation.


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## Gary Garner (Jun 30, 2007)

Terry Fisk said:


> Much better! Great job with her cross training! Is she supposed to return to you or heel position after the weave poles?


Thanks Terry.

After the exercise she's supposed to adopt a position of your choice, which you'll have told the judge beforehand.

I always choose the 'down' position.


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## Maren Bell Jones (Jun 7, 2006)

One thing that will help with getting so a dog will listen to you instead of look at you is practicing JUST the verbal cue instead giving a hand/body signal, whether intentional or not. A test to see if they are going more by visual cues than verbal is having them on the pause table in a sit or down and say your free command (free, let's go, cut, etc) but don't move at all, hands at your sides. If the dog doesn't move, that's probably a good indication it's going more by visual cues than verbal. Even trickier if the dog is on the table and you turn 180 around and give the cue and see if it moves.


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