The weave poles I have at home are channel poles. Channel poles means that the base can be separated giving you two sets of three poles, correctly offset to create a channel (duh, right?). Monday when we were practicing at Katrin's Cat mentioned that when she first started working with Amanda Shynne at Masterpeace she (Amanda) devoted an entire class to working poles with the channel method. Cat claims that all of the dogs' pole weave performances sped up. Hmmm.....needless to say Cat suggested I try this with Mr. perfect-but-so-slow poles Ike.
Yesterday when I got home I had a package from Clean Run which included some yummy new treats I thought I would try with the boy, they are called Grandma Lucy's Freeze-Dried Tiny Tidbits Meatballs. I bought Ike the Cheeseburger flavor. Since I had some new, possibly spectacular treats I thought I would fool around with our poles.
I initially separated the poles quite a bit - about foot and a half. I was able to transition to about a 5 inch distance in 30 minutes or so. I put Ike is a stay and place his "fun" plate at the other end of the poles. Then I release him. Well, he flies! But more important, considering this is Ike we are talking about, he actually hits the poles on occassion and doesn't stop dead. YAY!!!
I am going to continue to work this at the 5-inch spacing and then move it an inch closer. I want to take it slow and reinforce highly with these apparently delicious meatballs.
2 months ago
1 comment:
Reinforcing highly is a good idea, but in this case you actually want to move the poles closer -faster-. Start the session at 5" next time and I would probably end it with the poles together.
As soon as he is doing 5" without 'thinking about it', move them to 3", and so on. (Although he is smaller, so you might want to do it in 1" increments. 2" is a lot more noticable to a Mini Schnauzer than to a BC or Springer, obviously.)
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