The Princess and I started a "weaves" class and I’m kind of excited about it. First of all, she was GREAT in the first class. We did several exercises with sets of six poles. Now granted, I think she stresses more at 12 poles, BUT still, she did not miss a weave. Nailed all of her entrances, and was confident through to the end of the poles. And second of all, the instructor made the class fun. And THIRD of all, it will give me a goal which will result in actual practice!
The one idea I had had on my own was to not mark any error in the weaves and continue on no matter what she does. Then, if she did it wrong, just come back and try again (but do not pull her out). This is how we are doing it in the class! Well perhaps I did read this somewhere else and decided to try it, but at least I had started it on my own first <I’m so proud of myself – grin>. Anyway, the theory here is to convey to the dog that *weaving* is their job, not ours. No matter what we (the handler) does, the dog should keep weaving until there are no more poles. I like taking the handler out of the picture, and I’m glad we’ll be training through that.
In the next few weeks the class will be getting more difficult as we add distractions and add poles. But we are looking forward to it. Or at least I am…
The Princess says: Of course I can weave, I always could. I just don’t always want to. And its your job to make it motivational for me. Get the picture?
Parallel Tails 