Clean Run Magazine - January 2007 - 30

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Forum By Brenna Fender My dog weaves perfectly at home and in class, but
he acts like he’s never seen the poles at a trial. Since this problem
only happens in trials I don’t know what to do to ﬁx it. Can you help?
Lo Baker There are a number of reasons why your dog can perform perfect
weaves at home and in class and not in a trial situation. Agility is a
team sport. When problems occur, we often focus on the performance of our
dogs rather than ourselves. Your dog has correct weave performance during
class and home training because you and your dog are in a familiar and
comfortable setting. You feel conﬁdent and you know your dog won’t
make a mistake. It’s possible that your concerns or anxiety over your
teammate’s From Alton, New Hampshire, Lo has taught agility for 15
years. ADCH MACH Kava, her Australian Cattle Dog, was the #1 ACD in 2000
and 2001 and an AKC National Finalist in 2000. Her young BC, Perk, was a
2005 USDAA Grand Prix Championship Finalist and won the 2006 Northeast
Regional Grand Prix and Steeplechase. Contact Lo via www.barkagility.com,
where you can also see information on her BARK camp. weaving performance
while trialing create an unfamiliar atmosphere. You might be doing
something different while trialing. The best way to find out is have a
friend videotape you during class, at home, and while competing. Ye a r s
back, while showing my Australian Cattle Dog, we developed a 10th-pole
pop-out problem. It didn’t take long for me to become anxious about her
weaves before every run. Due to a personal injury, my husband started
running her for me, and without fail she nailed every weave performance. I
said to George, “I can’t believe Kava is not popping out of her poles
for you” and his reply was, “I’m conﬁdent she knows her job.” He
ran her like he knew she was going to get her poles and I ran her waiting
for her to make a mistake. If this sounds familiar, then I strongly
recommend that you read books on the power of positive thinking. I
particularly like “What Every Dog Agility Competitor Should Know First
About the Mental Game,” an audio CD by Lanny Bassham. Kim Collins First,
we have to ﬁnd out if the dog truly understands how to weave. Many people
think because the dog can weave 12 poles, the dog “gets it.” You need
to do a lot of testing of this behavior. I ﬁnd people never want their
dogs to be wrong when they are training. In fact, dogs’ understanding of
each skill needs to be challenged constantly to be certain those skills
will hold up under stress. Dogs need to make mistakes to learn. If your
dog is perfect all the time, you are not challenging him enough. My
students ask why we put hot dogs on the base of the weave poles; the dogs
will never see hot dogs in a ring. They are right, but working in a ring
environment is stressful and we have trouble replicating that environment
when training. We have to find 30 Kim owns and operates Pawsitive Steps
Canine Sports Centre in Prince George, British Columbia. She has won four
National Championships one USDAA and three AAC and nine Canadian Regional
Championships with three different dogs. A member of the 2004 Canadian
IFCS Team with two of her dogs, Kim teaches seminars and has students
across Canada. Contact her through her website at
http://www.pawsitivesteps.ca. other ways of adding stress to the learning
environment so that the dogs learn to work through any type of stress. We
also like the tests we do in training to be far more difﬁcult than any
seen in a ring, so that going in the ring will be a piece of cake! Below
are some activities to try while the dog is weaving at home and in class
to test how well he really understands weaving. If the dog can’t do
these things at home or in class, then he does not understand how to weave
well enough for you to expect correct performance under the stress of a
trial. Once the dog can perform well when you do all these exercises in
practice, you can relax at trials because you will have much more
confidence in your dog’s understanding of weaving! While your dog is
weaving 12 poles • Run past him • Stop half way down the poles and tie
your shoe • Roll a tennis ball across the middle of the poles in front of
him • Throw the ball past him • Put his favorite toy or bag of treats
on the base of the poles and have him weave over it • Run the ﬁrst six
poles beside him then run diagonally away from him on the last six poles
• Flap his toy or a food bag in front of him • Send him to the poles
and run the opposite way • Put a U-shaped tunnel around the end of the
poles, leaving only a dog’s body length to the middle of the tunnel •
Sit on the ground or in a chair while the dog is weaving • Tell him to
weave and turn your back to him • Send another friendly dog through the
poles ahead or behind your dog • Set up an odd number of poles And the
most difﬁcult test of all: • Recall the dog toward you and © LORNE
BUTT Test how well he really understands weaving. walk past him while he
is weaving behind and away from you. This one is very hard and not many
dogs will do it. T h e s e are not exercises to challenge the dog’s
understanding of weave pole entries, just his understanding of staying in
all poles no matter what. Weave pole entries are a different issue and
should be tested as well, but as a separate skill with a set of 3 or 4
poles, not a set of 12. If you play these games with your dog often,
increase the level of difﬁculty gradually until ﬁnally he can do all
the exercises above. Your result will be a weave pole maniac and you’ll
have fun with the dog, too. Get creative and see what kinds of things you
can come up with for your dog. Clean Run | January 07 Warning : Unknown : The session id contains invalid characters, valid
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Clean Run Magazine - January 2007

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Clean Run Magazine - January 2007