Weave Trama

We have the best Agility Trainer!

A couple of weeks ago she said, "Next week we'll weave."

I became a bit apprehensiveness because we are not actually weaving yet.  We are at the 2 sets of poles about 3 meters apart section.  I thought about it a bit and decided if Susan Garrett believes weaving can be taught in 21 days, we can totally weave in a week.

It seems I may have forgotten to inform Marley we were going to weave like the big dogs. I started by moving the two sets about a meter apart and I figured within a couple of days we should be weaving.  The closer I set the poles the more Marley missed the second set.

I ended up sending our instructor an email confessing that not only were we not weaving but now Marley was skipping poles.  At this point I figured I was going to start at the beginning again and try to retrain the poles. By the time we got to class I was on the verge of tears.

Our instructor asked me to show her what I was doing and I sniffled the entire time as I showed her what we had worked on and the distance between poles.  Of course Marley didn't miss any poles and we actually impressed her with Marley's entrances.  She basically reassured me that we were fine and we should continue at our pace until we can weave.

I have to keep reminding myself this is a team sport and Marley is not capable of cramming for a test.

For our non-agility friends here is a brief synopsis:  weave training using the 2x2 method requires two sets of poles.  You begin with one set and build value for the dog for going through the poles.  Then you add the second set about 3-4 meters away and build value for the dog for going through both sets of poles.  Once the dog sees value in running through both sets you begin to shorten the distance between the two sets of poles until they are close enough.  I highly recommend the video.