Weave poles - advice?

[Tamrick]

I started training my dog the weave poles using the channel and wire method approximately three weeks ago. Everything has gone really well and the poles are now in a straight line with the wires down. However, the wires pulled the poles apart slightly so that in essence he is doing a very late weave-o-matic system now.

If I try to straigten the poles so that they are 90 degrees to the ground then he misses (they need a slight slant) I have tried straigtening just one pole and then he will miss just that one pole and do the rest fine.

Has anyone trained with the weave-o-matics? How do I get him from the slight slant to the fully straight poles. Am I perhaps just going too fast with him?

 

[higgledypiggledy]

Sorry I don't know the answer to your question but I was curious- What is the channel and wire method and the weave-o-matics?

 

[Doberluv]

I would just slow it down and get accuracy first and make sure he knows he must always enter the first pole on his left side. Get the accuracy first, then work up the speed. He needs to know that he has to go through every pole. I don't ever say "no" or use anything negative. If my dog misses, I just stop and start him over. That way he knows to try harder in order to get the treat at the end. I would continue luring him through each one with a treat in your hand until he is accurate, then see if he can do it without your hand signal/lure at each pole...maybe an occasional pole to remind him if needed. I don't know either, what the wire thing is about.

Something else I do is use my clicker. I will set up just two poles and work only on the entry....left shoulder. I will stand at different angels and positions and tell him "go weave." I want him to really really understand that always he must enter with the first pole on his left, no matter where I'm standing. So each time, right as he passes the pole with his left shoulder, I click and then treat. That's really a seperate exercise at this point. If we do compitition and the dog enters with the pole on his right, right away that's the end of it. And he can't finish.

 

[Tamrick]

Tanis is doing the weave poles better now. With the wire method he has succeeded in getting the entrance correct almost all the time (and I stopped using wires early on) He can send to the poles and run through them, but I am still having difficulty when poles are in a stright line and upright. What I did was offset the poles and get a new set of uprights so that the poles were at 90 degrees but slightly offset - he can do this fine. I am now narrowing the space between the offset poles and so far he is doing fine.

Wires is the same as the channel method - you use "wires" attached to the poles (pole 1-3 and pole 2-4 and so on) so that the dog is forced to weave correctly. The wires must be attached at the level of the dogs shoulder I believe. There are training articles on this method on the net.

Weave-o-matics are poles that slant - you can lay them flat on the ground and gradually lift them up til they are vertical. Your dog runs straigth through them at first and then gradually learns to weave as they are raised. I was not keen on this method with my dog and only happened to be using it by mistake.