Course Details
Over the years, I have seen a need for a different approach to teaching and handling dogs during weave pole training. The typical approach is to keep things simple and gradually build the dog's performance into 12 closed poles. Dogs will learn weave poles fairly quickly but eventually start making mistakes because they never learned how to perform the obstacle without handler assistance, position, or easy straight-ahead entries.
Many dogs trained to perform weaves learn to slow down to succeed. Eventually, these dogs gain confidence, which increases their speed. When the speed increases after weave poles have been trained, errors will occur because the dog never learned to use its body correctly—its timing is off, the entry is missed, a pole gets skipped, or the dog will pop out toward the end.
When the dog starts trialing, the weave performance starts reasonably well. But mistakes gradually erode the dog's confidence. The many incorrect responses, poor handling, and negative responses from the handler further cause weave performance stress. Once that sets in, it can be more challenging to fix the weave performance.
I've used a modified 2 x 2 method to teach weave poles to all my dogs, and with a few adjustments over the years, I have been highly successful using this as a base. Plenty of other trainers successfully teach weave poles to their dogs using channels, wires, gates, or cages. Everyone eventually gets to the same place. My thoughts are not to change others' approaches but instead to strengthen my own.
My goal for teaching weaves to my young Border Collie, Vici, was to develop a procedure that increased energy, enthusiasm, and movement into and out of the weaves, while setting her up to learn how to use her body to find the entry, stay in until the exit, and focus ahead on the exit. Although she hasn't started trialing yet, we have worked through many common weave issues (incorrect entries, skipped poles, and exits) while she has lots of drive through the poles.
If you have a dog with weave stress at the trials or a dog that struggled learning weave performance, this class can build back confidence in both of you. If you have a young dog ready to train weaves and want to try a different approach, I'd love to show you one that is fun for both of you.
I have videos of all the stages with Vici (a medium dog). I am in the process of adding video progress with two Dutch Shepherds (large dogs)—one retraining and one learning to weave—and a Boston Terrier (a small dog) learning to weave with this method.
Teaching Approach
This class takes a step-by-step approach to building weave pole training. Each step will have written instructions and at least one video example. Lectures are released in one batch at the beginning of the week. Feedback will be mainly written, but occasionally, voiceover videos help the student understand subtle changes that are difficult to describe.
This class will have a Teacher's Assistant (TA) in the Facebook study group to help the Bronze and Silver students. Directions for joining that Facebook group will be in the classroom after you register.
Instructor: Nancy Gagliardi Little
