Clean Run - January 2020 - 13

By Megan Foster
Photos by Chance FeliskySwiftrun photography

Weave poles are often a large point
of struggle for many teams. It is a
complex behavior that requires a
lot of physical and mental skills for
the dogs. I have trained weave poles
pretty much any way you can imagine: luring on straight poles, Weaveo-matics, channels, 2x2s, 2x2s with a
twist, and any combination of those.
I've used shaping, luring, prompting,
wires, gates, etc., and I'm still learning new ways to teach weave poles!
My biggest takeaway over the last
twenty years of weaves is that every
dog is different, and every trainer is
different. But what isn't different for
each team is how you increase the
level of difficulty. If you make weaving too hard, too fast, you will probably end up with "poisoned" weaves.
By poisoned, I mean that the dog
will experience some sort of anxiety
around weave poles, and his weaving performance will suffer at some
point in his career.
There are a lot of things the dog has
to do to weave correctly, and how
challenging all of those different
things are depends on the dog-his
size and structure can play a big role
in how he has to move his body to
move between the poles efficiently.
January 20 | Clean Run

I believe it is really important to take
a look at all of the skills needed to
weave, break those skills down, and
train them all individually before
asking a dog to perform those skills
in sequence and at speed:
*

Seek out/commit to poles

Collect for entry

Rebalance their body (harder
on really angled entries)

Proper footwork

Duration (more poles)

Distractions

Speed

Independence

Sequencing

If your dog struggles with weaves,
can you pinpoint the skill that is difficult for him? Saying "he struggles
with weaves" isn't specific enough
to devise a good training plan, since
there is so much involved with weaving. If you know the piece the dog
struggles with, you can remove that
piece from the chain of behaviors
and make that piece stronger before
asking your dog for the chain of behaviors again.

In this article, I am going to address
some of the most common weave pole
problems and how I might go about
training those pieces individually.

Problem #1: Your Dog's Weaves
are Poisoned
If your dog has a negative reaction
to the weaves (e.g., ears back, tail
tucked, slower pace), you need to
start with changing his conditioned
emotional response to the weave
poles. Consider how it feels to be
trained to weave by you. Are the
criteria clear and fair? Is the rate of
reinforcement high? Are you training
multiple weave skills at once?
If you're afraid that you have poisoned weaves, start with this: reward
the effort. If you say "weave," and
your dog gives any response to the
cue that looks a little bit like weaving, reward him! Weaving is hard,
and oftentimes, we withhold reinforcement in training when one tiny
piece of weaving was wrong, but
many other pieces of weaving were
correct. Keep that in mind. Look for
something your dog did correctly
instead of looking for the mistake.
If there is anything that looks like
weaving, pay the dog! Your dog
13

Clean Run - January 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Clean Run - January 2020