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Originally Posted by Palmerck  Dolly has never been to an agility class. She can do the jumps but she's not a fan of the weavepoles. She wants to run in circles, or away from mama, when we take them to my uncle's big backyard to practice. The tunnel is hit or miss with her. After she finishes regular obedience classes we'll start some agility classes. |
It sounds like Dolly might be getting stressed by the weave poles. The first IG I trained use to get the most amazing zoomies in the yard when I said "weave" for a while. She'd do it in class too, and everyone would howl with laughter and it encouraged her.
I got Susan Garrett's video of 2 x 2 weaves to try on Lizzy. If I don't like that, I will go with channel weaves to train them. They've worked pretty well with my IGs. The 2 x 2s are suppose to be faster to train. I use guide wires too. The entry wires are always the last ones I remove and I have always had good entries from my dogs. Lizzy is so small, it should be interesting.
With the tunnel, it helps to shorten it as much as possible and get the dog to run through it, then extend it depending on how well the dog is running through it. You can use the same method for the collapsed tunnel, but hold it up and call her to you. Have someone else take her to the entrance. As she starts running through, drop the material on her, beginning at the end then each time through, farther up until she is running through it collapsed completely.
I also prefer running contacts. With smaller dogs, I don't think blown contacts are the problem they can be with big dogs, plus, they don't need the added time. Having the dog pause in the contacts just isn't time efficient, IMO. Lizzy has never missed a contact, not even initially. My IGs rarely did either.
The most important things to remember when you are training agility is to never say "no" and keep it fun for the dog.
