I realized that since Riot has learned his weaves and we dropped the contact and weaves class we haven’t done a lot of weave pole training. Since the last thing I want to do is have to relearn the weaves, we worked on them in short sessions all weekend.
I’ve only worked him maybe twice outside of class since we learned them and what I observed the last time was he was having issues with collection once there was a jump placed in front of the poles. I had planned on working on this with him this weekend, but we seemed to be having other problems. We’re having completion problems, but it’s not the same problem every time. I think a lot of it had to do with the poles not being staked down and moving on him. And that the base of our poles is the old style with the T on both end and not the new akc style. I think of lot of what was throwing him off was hitting that base today.
I moved the weave poles a few feet at one point today in hoping to find flatter ground with hopefully less wobble. When I moved them, the first set was overlapping the second by a good inch (that was all Riot’s doing). I think with more repetition, he’ll get more consistent. At this point I don’t want to do anything to discourage him because I like the speed I’m getting out of him.
We need to practice more, but I think I’m going to have to start staking down the poles (ugh) and may even need to consider getting another set of weaves. Chris is gonna love both those things.
(yes, we skipped yesterday. I decided to give him the day off.)
I think we’re at a cross roads. He’s got a wicked set of six weaves with some decent distance and very independent of my movement. I can rear cross them, I can be in front of him, behind him, running away from him and he’s still doing them. But some of the more difficult entrances have eroded. He’s getting bored or frustrated with the entrance drills on 6 poles. I get maybe 4 reps before things start degrading — he stops moving forward on “go,” he starts eating grass, and he starts trying to take his toy back to the house.
I think I’m going to see if we can move on to Step 6 (aka 6x6s) and see if I can get him to 12 poles. At the same time, I think I’m going to give him a break from entrance drills and slowly add them back in so we get a better balance of drills and fun. Maybe go to once or twice a week working entrances on 2 and then 4 poles?
I’m absolutely thrilled with his progress. And I think he could probably hit 65-75% of the entrances we seen on excellent level courses right now. I really don’t think he’ll have a problem with 12. We’ll see though…
Today’s session went a lot like yesterdays. There were some moments of brilliance, and then there were times he wouldn’t budge. Initially I was going to stick with “weave” since that’s what I use with Cisco, but I think this is causing some confusion on his part. (Maybe it sounds too much like “leave?”)
I’ve left the weaves poles up in the yard and we’ve gone out there twice and done 2-3 reps and called it done. This seems to be met with more enthusiasm than the repetitiveness of our 7 minute sessions.
(Day 14 was class last night.) Tonight’s session was… interesting. This was this first time he’s used our set of six poles and they’re the old style with the T base on both ends. Like these:
Riot did pretty well initially going straight on. We started working the left side of the clock face (6 o’clock back to 1 o’clock). When we got to 3 he started stepping on the base as he was wrapping and since the backyard isn’t level, they’d move. Sometimes he’d continue, sometimes he’d stop, and a couple of times he ate grass. The more we worked, the more I’d have to tell him go to get him to move. He barked at me once which is usually reserved for anything I’m making him do too much of — it’s pretty much “I get it already, let’s move on.”
We did manage to hit all entrances from about 2 o’clock to 7 o’clock. We really do need to continue to work on entrances around the clock, but I think I’m going to have to start mixing it up with some movement and other equipment. I’m not in a hurry to get to 12 as I want these entrances to be more solid than they are now — not that they’re bad now.
And we have six poles! We started out the morning with a few reps at 4. He always seems to miss the first time or two since we started on multiple sets — he gets the entry but isn’t expecting to have to continue. I’m sure that’ll work itself out and adding two more poles isn’t going to make that any worse. So after a few reps at 4 we added two more in front and worked bringing them in. We’ll probably be here for a while proofing entries, gaining confidence, his brain you can still see working at times and he does on occasion run into a pole. But I think I can say he’s weaving!
Second session started at 6. We had some misses, some hesitations, and some pretty decent ones. Need a lot of practice around the clock. Especially those positions less than 5 o’clock.
We got in one more session tonight and it wasn’t as good as this afternoon. Chris and Cisco had come out to enjoy the weather so I think they threw us off. We’re also still having a lot of problems on the left side. I think he knows he starts off going between the poles, but hasn’t figured out it has to be that first set. I let him make too many mistakes tonight as he was getting more and more hesitant. I need to get better about setting him up for success more ofter and faster when he makes a mistake.
I love days with no plans where I can work him more than once.
We started late this morning right where we left off last night — the two sets, approximately 4 feet apart. We had some hesitations and some misses, but got through it and managed to get the pole sets about 6 inches closer together. Not a bad morning.
We got a second session in late afternoon starting where we had left off this morning. Slowly but surely we inched the poles closer and closer together. There were misses about half the time when the poles got closer together, but I never had to open them up to fix a problem. We varried positions between 3 o’clock and 9 o’clock as they were closing and finished the session at 6 o’clock with 4 POLES TOGETHER! That’s right. We closed that gap! Hopefully next session will be clock positions with the 4 together and we won’t have to open them back up.
Session 3 was shortly before dinner. We were able to keep the 4 poles together and start working clock faces. Initially when I went back to standing next to him (vs being between the two sets of poles), it caused some confusion, but we worked through that. We’ll probably spend a session or two where we are working different clock positions and working on confidence. I’m itching to add another set of poles (and we’d probably be okay if I did), but I’d rather be going too slow than rushing things.
Session 4(!) just wrapped up. 4 poles? no problem. we worked on clock entrances. 3-4 o’clock is still a bit of an issue which I’m sure will work itself out tomorrow. For the last minute, I put a jump in front of the 4 and had no issues. I need to get sandbags for the tunnel so that we can work that too.
We’re having so much fun and he is so toy motivated, it’s great. I made three new tugs we’ve been alternating between. He seems to love all three and they’re holding up much better than any I’ve made in the past.
So of course today was better than yesterday. I started the sets of poles further apart than yesterday (about 8-10 feet) and we hit them all. Slowly I moved them in and got through 4 feet with no problems.
When we went to three feet we again missed the first set and went to the second. The second time we tried at three feet, I think I said “no” when he missed the first set a little too sternly.
I moved them back to about 4 feet after the two misses. He was a little hesitant on the next few reps and kept looking at me to make sure he was doing it right before he committed. He was getting the confidence back just about as the buzzer went off.
Over all not a bad session.
We finished up with a few bumper throws. I love his enthusiasm for the game. We just need to work on the bringing them back to me without dropping them ;-)
We got through figures 10 and 11 this evening. No issues. We added a few positions, including me standing about 4 feet directly behind him. Onto adding a second set of 2!
We got in a second practice tonight and I added a second set. Nothing went as expected. Apparently the first set is meant to run by and the second set is supposed to be completed. Who knew.
We went back and forth between running by the first set to do the second set, me removing the second set and doing a few reps on the single set, adding the second set back in about 3 times. Obviously that wasn’t working, so it was time for plan B or C or D. Eventually I started standing between the sets completely blocking the second set. Calling him through the first, rewarding him, and then setting him up for the second set. I would slowly inch to the side and eventually got him doing both sets of poles. This would last a maximum of two reps before he’d start skipping the first set again.
In typical Riot fashion, tomorrow will probably be tons better. Lets hope so.
We’ve sort of have a routine going when we go out to train weaves. I let Riot out to pee and then I have him do a down stay on the patio while I get everything ready. Tonight he was standing in the yard looking at me expectantly and I gave him a very casual come’ere. He immediately came forward took 3 steps onto the patio and gave me a very pretty down.
Tonight we went on to step 4 and did all the positions in figures 8 and 9 in the article. We had two misses. One with me at 1 o’clock and him at 3 o’clock — I think the way I was standing and how I held the toy threw him off since when I released him, he went directly to the toy. The other with me at 11 o’clock and him at 9 o’clock — I threw the toy before he committed and he went for the toy. Whoops.
Tomorrow, we’ll aim for figures 10 and 11. I almost feel like we could skip them and move on to Step 5 (adding 2 poles).
My goal for our session tonight was to get that 2 o’clock position. And we nailed it and 1 o’clock no problems! We bounced around to different clock positions increasing the distance between us and the poles (probably 5-7 feet back by the end). Since he was nailing every position, I started leaving him at 6 o’clock and moving myself around to the different clock positions. He nailed every entrance.
In step 4, you’re not supposed to put them in any position that requires you to handle them to get the entrance and since I didn’t have the article with me, I didn’t want to try anything other than the 6 o’clock position. Since he was nailing every entry at 6 o’clock and I didn’t want to move him, for the last minute, I added a jump in front of the poles (probably about 10 feet back) and did 3 reps. One with me between the jump and the poles on each side about 4-5 feet away from the line, and one with me at the end. No problem there.
I should have quit while I was ahead, but I decided to try 2 o’clock again. This resulted in our first misses of the evening. He missed, I moved him back to 3 - fine, moved him back to two - missed again, moved him closer at two - he succeeded, and then we quit.
I think I need to work some more on 2 o’clock and 1 o’clock, but I think I can work them at the start of a session, but start Step 4 and the different positions tomorrow.
