Musings on Weave Training

Having now trained 6 of my own dogs to weave I have been thinking really hard about the methods I have used and my own views on the benefits and drawbacks of each. Below is a precis of the methods I've used with each dog.


Nero - 1989 - full upright set - lured with hand. A good if not lightning fast weave - left hand only.

Robbie - 1990 - full upright set - lured with hand. Robbie could only ever weave happily on the left and through experience had fairly good entries by the end of his career. It was an ok weave but not quick enough by today's standards.

Flame - 1996 - Channel with wires. Good bilateral weave with brilliant right hand entries - shallow left entries were never flash and required remedial handling.

Jafa - 1999 - Channel without wires - ok weave nothing too flash.

Fya - 2002 - 3-pole clicker trained weave. Good fast weave with excellent right hand entries. Left hand shallow entries not perfect but all around I am happy with her weave.

Kindle - 2008 - two-pole entry work followed by working through the weave-o-matic or V-weave method. Once I got to approx 4" at the top of the poles, it was evident that Kin's head position was not what I wanted. As the poles came in, her head followed the gap in the poles upward. At this time after much thought, I switched her to the channel weaves and within a couple of repitions her head position was much improved. We have been working through the method and are nearly finished.

In the meantime, my daughter's dog Zip has been working through learning the weave via the 3-pole cliker method. While I have been watching I have been struck by the difference in the understanding of these two dogs. Zip has learnt what the poles represent and how to negotiate them at any speed. Due to Amanda's diligence, Zip understands his entries brilliantly and his speed is increasing each day.
Kindle understands how to run very fast through a channel albeit an extremely narrow one. She single steps at good speed though the set with excellent reliability. However, I do not believe that she has a true understanding of what the poles are and if she approaches at a speed which means she can not automatically single step them, she is a bit lost.

In the middle of all of this, i have just watched Susan Garrett's 2 by 2 DVD. I am now convinced that this is the method I will use for Ash when I start her weave. It is that basic understanding which is missing from Kin's performance and I know it will come back and bite me at some stage.
Watch this space for updates!!!