We're finally making progress on the Weaves!

This week was an excellent practice week for Clover and I. These have been the major changes I made in training this week.

Only give food as reward when in the ring training and reward Clover with the ball after we leave the ring.

After this weekends experiment at the trial where she was to hyper to successfully complete the contacts after showing her the ball prior to the run and then having successful contacts when giving food treats prior to the run, I decided to transfer that over to training. This will focus her more on the task than on the reward. Clover also does weaves slower, more careful when rewarded with food vs. ball.

Short frequent training sessions.

I know I said after chicken camp that I was going to do this, but I actually started carrying a stop watch and never have a training session over 7 minutes. I also try to do weaves at the beginning and if Clover looks at all tired, I switch to another more motivating contact.

Always run another obstacle before and after the weaves.

The Purpose of this is so she will view the weaves as just another obstacle and not some daunting task that she has to dread. This week I tried to work the weaves into a 6 obstacle loop that we could do Multiple times so she gets used to weaves integrated into a course.

Practice weaves under multiple conditions

I have notice that Clover performs weaves better outside the Sand ring. In a sand ring, the footing is not as sure as a grass ring. She needs to overcome this.

Only practice on competition weaves

One thing that may have brought this setback in weave pole may have been a bruised shoulder. Competition weave poles are much stiffer and when entered at to fast a speed, she may have bruised her shoulder. This especially may have happened because she was used to running through the home made weaves at great speed. The homemade poles are much more flexible and give. This may have made clover not want to do competition weaves. Switching between the two could have made it even worse.

We did not have Agility Class on Tuesday because our instructor, Linda Monico's dog was very sick and throwing up blood. I did however, rent the ring. It was a very good practice. We practiced in the Grass ring and worked mostly on integrating weave poles into a short course. I was very pleased with the results. Clover completed the weaves at about 80%. By using the guidelines listed above.

On Wednesday, of Course, we had Course of the week. I didn't run as much as I would of liked because there was also a Youngsville agility club meeting being held at Teamworks and everyone who attended the meeting also ran their dog. But what we did run, I was very happy with . She did the weave poles very well in the grass ring and in the practice area's outside of the rings. She was much more hesitant on the sand ring.

Yesterday Clover and I went to Teamworks because I helped set up the course for the Show-n-Go this weekend. When I was waiting for a ring to free up, Clover and I practiced weaves in the grass. Clover Completed 7 out of 7 times flawlessly... 12 poles!! After we had the new course set up in the sand ring we ran the novice course. Clover missed the 6 the first time and I restarted her but after that she stuck them every time, even with a hard entry. She also completed the 12 weave poles about 3 times in the course. I was very impressed!

This weekend is going to be a very busy weekend. There is a Teamworks staff meeting tonight and Show-n-Go all weekend. On Sunday afternoon there is both an ARFF meeting and a Teamwork Agility club meeting. We'll see if I have enough ambition to attend all of those. I definitely will run clover this weekend, even though it sounds like the weather will be crappy. I just can't wait to see how she will perform...

Oh, I forgot to mention, I finally bit the bullet and ordered a set of 6 competition weave poles from Max200. They should be here in about a week. I also learned that AKC has changed the specs for the weave poles. The Change is in the base and the poles are still at 21 inches, so I don't think it will bother Clover.