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weave poles
Macula's still not ready for an agility class: she's improving (slightly)
in the class we're in right now--as long as we keep busy she stays focussed, but if I pause in the exercises her attention goes to the other dogs and she starts barking again :-( I still haven't figured out an effective way of *getting* her attention when she's this distracted--most of the things the trainer has suggested I've already tried. Her last suggestion was a shaker can, not thrown, but shaken with a sharp yell from me. My concern is that this won't really be viable on a day to day basis--not enough hands, usually--but it's got me thinking that maybe a sport whistle would work... Anyway, I was thinking that, if the good weather ever arrives (it's been cold and rainy all week), I might try working Macula with a couple of simple pieces of agility equipment in the backyard until she can behave in class. It would give her some mental and physical exercise, and give me something to do with her while the boys play (hopefully) in their pen on the deck. Weave poles were the one thing she didn't instantly figure out during our one course, so I figured that would be a good thing to work on. The trainer we started agility with had the poles set into a piece of metal that sat on the ground. She used two of these contraptions to teach weaves: the first week she set them about 18" apart and had us run the dogs through them straight, like they were two walls of a corridor. As the weeks went by she would gradually move them closer together. Her theory was that the dog would learn to weave "naturally" as the poles got closer together. Macula would just run the straight line to one side or the other when the "corridor" got too narrow. Other times she would try to squeeze between the rows and knock an entire piece of the set-up down. I was looking at dog-play.com's instructions for making weave poles, and I notice that there the poles start out as they will finish--I assume the dog is taught to weave from the start. And how do I decide how close to set the poles to start with? Any opinions as to which method is better? I've discovered with Macula that it's *way* easier to teach her something right the first time than to try and unteach something later. Marie |
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