Is there anyone who can help me with some dog agility questions?

Question

I'm getting ready to enter my dog in UKC AG1. I would like to start training her for weaving in AG2 as well as if we decide to do AKC. I've been practicing at the agility club with a set of 6 poles which I bend down and have her go thru the middle. For some reason, the instructors don't use those guide wires but don't those work well in weave pole training? What has been your best experience in training a dog to be proficient in the weave poles? This is my first experience with agility. I have a 11 month old Sheltie who according to the instructors is a "natural". All mistakes made are because of me! She goes thru the poles slowly right now. She goes thru the course fast but not nearly as fast as she can. Is this because I need to work on "distance"? Is she going slower because of me most likely? I mean, I can run preety fast but no where near as fast as she can! So my 2 questions are about the poles and speed. Will she get faster as I improve?

Answer 1

G'day, I'm a fellow sheltie and agility addict from Australia who can't help but give my two cents worth! I have a 22 month old sheltie who weaves quickly and confidently and the method I used to train the weavers is called free shaping. I won't go into the technique here but there is a lot of info out there, particularly books and videos on it. It is a technique that really needs to be used to train everything not just one thing as it requires teaching the dog to think for themselves. It takes longer at first, but things come much quicker once the dog gets the hang of it. Once you get them thinking, training pretty much anything just comes so easily. Shelties really love free shaping and I find my boy will follow me around the house offering all sorts of behaviours in the hopes that I will reward him - hint, if you don't like highly interactive dogs, it is not the training technique for you! Otherwise, I strongly recommend shaping if you haven't tried it.

But specifically answering your question - You will probably find she is going slowly because she isn't confident about what you want from her which means that you really have to go back a step and retrain. Just because a dog 'does' the weavers does not mean that they really understand them. I would recommend going back to two weavers, maybe at a slight angle if you prefer, although I didn't find it necessary, and reward her for first finding the gap (correct entry) and then driving into it. Be patient with her and start dropping back on the rewards if it is too slow and upping the rewards if she moves quicker. Don't correct her for going slow, just give her a chance to do it quicker. If you do find she moves quicker than usual, make sure you reward it and don't be disheartened if the next time she goes slow again, just don't reward. You will find she starts to move a lot quicker. Don't move to three weavers until she is confidently finding the right entry and moving quickly from all angles. Don't push her too far, if you stay on two for a month, that's better than pushing up to 6 too fast and confusing her. Then go to 3, then 4 and so on. I rarely train with twelve weavers, mostly with sets of 3 or 4 or 6 or 8 which I set up in various patterns over the yard with a couple of jumps between. Essentially, we will do patterns where he is entering the weavers at lots of angles and just doing short bursts of a few weavers (3-8) and getting rewarded. Because they are so hard they really have to be heavily rewarded - make it worth her while to want to work with you. This page gives a more detailed explanation of what I'm talking about http://users.tpg.com.au/users/rloftus/weaving.htm

I would also recommend a book called "shaping success" by Susan Garett, specifically written for training agility and focuses on weaver and contact training.

Personally I don't like guide wires - freaked out my other dog (a whippetxfoxiexkelpie) and I think just gives the dog too many things to concentrate on and to feel against their body.

As for speed, she may get faster as she gets more confident - my boy over his first 3 competitions improved by more than 10 seconds over the same distance just as he got his confidence. However, if they are inclined to stay with you then they will only ever move as fast as you can move to keep up - so yes, distance will help, but again it is about rewarding drive not just rewarding the dog performing the obstacle.

I have to echo someone else who responded about pushing a young dog too quickly - here in Australia we don't encourage people to even start training obstacles until the dogs are 12 months old and they can't compete until 18 months old - this is to allow them to be fully grown or you could end up with all sorts of problems/injuries down the track. I am concerned that an 11 month old dog is already doing courses when really you should still be on foundation work - working with contact planks flat on the ground, shadow handling, that sort of thing. Don't push her too hard or you could literally break her. Good luck with it all!

Answer 2

There are several different methods to training weave poles., guide wires are only one of them. Check out this website for some of the other different techniques (it's a Corgi site, but the weave pole training applies to all breeds): http://www.pembrokecorgi.org/Perf_weavepoles.html
Sometimes one training method won't work for a dog, but another one will work great. Dogs, like people, tend to learn differently.

You'll know your dog has really "got it" with the weave poles by watching it's head. When it's turning it's head in anticipation for the next weave, that means it has got it down.

Don't get discouraged, weave poles are one of the hardest agility obstacles to learn.

As far as increasing speed, you'll want to work on distance training with your dog. Hand motions that tell it go to left or right, as opposed to being beside the dog the entire course, are helpful because the dog is then not limited to how fast you can run, only by how fast the dog itself can run. You can then stay around the middle of the course and move less, while you dog covers the entire course and is still getting direction from you.

Answer 3

Weaving is the toughest obstacle to master. The only way to get super fast and reliable on them is to practice them everyday. Although it is easy to get frustrated with your dog and the poles, getting angry at her will only make it harder on both of you. The method I use with my dogs and clients is the stick-in-the-ground weave poles. I start them out far apart, three at a time. As the dog gets really good with just three poles, I add another, and I put the poles closer together.
I do not use the guide wires because I do not find them to be efficient. If you start out slow and have a great deal of patience, you can master this challenging obstacle.

I also wanted to mention that although 11 months may seem old enough, you may want to consult with your dog's veterinarian. Shelties can be prone to luxating patellas, and you want to be sure her muscles and bones are fully matured and healthy for such intense exercise. Usually the proper age for regular training is 15 months, and competition age is closer to two years.

Visit this site if you want to buy the poles I mentioned above:
http://www.affordableagility.com/weavesground.htm

If you buy two, you can work up to twelve poles at the ultimate speed!!

Answer 4

There are several methods of training weave poles. The tilted poles doesn't usually use wires since the poole tilt directs the dog.
In time you will learn how to give yourself the short route around the course. Likey you (and she) will improve. but the bad news is that probably 90% of errors at the national championship level are handler errors- (one famous one was the handler that lost the chamianship because HE hit and knocked down a jump)

Answer 5

I paid a lot for guide wires and found my dog would weave weird with them, as she'd slide her body along the wires. I bent my poles down and she loved running fast through them. I was able to raise them to fully upright in short order. To work on speed, I used her obsession with frisbee. I'd throw it as she was exiting weaves; she'd be exited and would race to the end to have the frisbee thrown. This dog likes to race me at weaves in trials, so I tend to blast on past them. The other dog does poorly if I get too far ahead and will exit to quit. He was a rescue and fears toys. Too build speed with him, I put a target at the end with treat on it. He'd get the treat if he completed all, then as that became good, I'd remove treat if he wasn't quick enough. I did this for running contacts too. Speed comes with confidence. Trainers will tell you, that most of all mistakes are the handler! You learned that faster than me! She will also get faster as you learn what motivates her. Both dogs go faster when I send them through straight obvious obstacle line by yelling "Go, go, go, go", so we have especially fast endings this way. One dog has to have higher, lighter voice and "Woo-hoos" to motivate him. The other wants "just the directions" and no extra commentary. Your dog is younger than a lot of venues allow. A dog's brain doesn't fully kick in til around 2 yrs. I didn't enter my dog til 3 yrs., but I had only intended to play, not compete. She changed my mind. I didn't enter the rescue til 4 yrs., for too many reasons. We went into trials very ready and had immediate success, by waiting and training. However, some like to get early experience with their dogs at trials, though dog is barely trained. Just be aware qualifying won't likely come right off the bat. Dogs are often awesome in practice, and trial stress for you and dog make you a different team in trial. You want a long lasting and successful team, so keep it fun and don't get frustrate!