Does anyone know where I could get guide wires for weave poles in the UK? I've foudn a few links to the US, but I'm on rather a tight budget!!

I want to train Remy's weaving at home mainly, the club we go to train newbies by pulling them through the weave on leash - the other dogs are fine with it, but to say the least, it isn't popular with Remy - he's one of those dogs that just shuts down when you try to physically force him to do anything.  We did the weave on leash last Thursday, and afterwards, he wouldn't do anything I wanted - beforehand he was very good and obedient.  Just took all the fun out of it for him.

I'm going to make the pole setup myself, I'm aiming for a channel weave setup (hence the need for guide wires of course!!), I've already got the design sorted.  i just need to find those wires - or a suitable alternative, if anyone can think of one!

I trained Missy to do weave poles using the suport poles for electric fencing (about £10 for 10), and a food lure.  She also hates 'hands on' interference and this worked a treat :)

I got a load of broom handles etc laying around the house and stuck them in the grass :)

Why do you need expensive or complicated gadgetry to teach the weaves?

Dogs should NEVER be pulled through the weaves IMHO, what does that achieve?

The dogs certainly learn NOTHING from the experience except to associate the weaves with being uncomfortable.

Why would anyone want to physically force a dog to do anything?

Just start with 2 poles and get him to food follow

Then you can progress and take the food away and keep it for reinforcement and reward.

If you want to use the channel method you can use any sort of string like baler twine or gardening twine with a bit of cellotape to keep it in place much cheaper than special wire, my dogs are trained with a toy or a treat as a lure but the channel can be used with this as well & no need for pull & pushing edited to add I used the yellow poles for the weave & green ones for the channel

I use fence poles also, started off with 2, and clicker trained the weave which was pretty much fun for dog and owner (moi! :D)

Haven't done any weaving for at least 18 months now though! I agree, you don't really need weave channels although some seem to still use them, probably just a case of "more than one road leads to Rome" but then, why not choose the easiest route? <g>

Good for you for wanting things to be enjoyable for your dog too, it's the only way surely :) If training another way is going to work, you may have to insist on not following the very old fashioned methods at your club... can you find somewhere else with more clued up trainers? :)

Lindsay
x

OOps that edit should have read "when asked to provide a channel by club members to train weaving my dogs never needed any extra help other that a toy or treat ! lolololol" doh memo to self read edit before clicking post :D

I just used broom handles too and bait to lure my dog through - She was MUCH better once I'd got rid of the lead and I certainly would never have pulled her through.

Yvonne

Hi Nikita. How tight is your budget? RVA do competition weaves at £90 a set and channel weaves at £130. They are wooden poles which I think is better as the dog seems to have more respect for them. I trained mine on upright poles and enthusiasm is never in doubt. The trick is never to get flustered or frustrated and go completely OTT with the praise. I used food and toys with mine and never did more than 8 poles and always off the lead. I have a set of weaves from RVA but I actually taught mine on old windbreak poles and it worked. I never did more than 5 minutes a day on them and as soon as the dog had picked it up I stopped practising them at home and only did them at training, they were slow to start with but they soon picked up the speed. We now have fantastic weaves to the point that one dog is obsessed with them and will get the most ridiculous weave entry in competition... even when he is not suposed to.... ;-)

www.rvaagility.com/index.htm

Personally I would not use food as a lure. You end up with the dog following your hand when you really want their heads down as they go through the weaves. You can always spot a food trained dog, their head is up and the handler does funny arm movements to keep them motivated! I do click and throw food occassionally at the end or more often I throw a toy. But the food certainly isn't in my hand to bribe them through. Just my opinion. :-)

Ah yes but you haven't seen Deef's amazing two legged weave have you? LOL LOL. He doesn't go in and out of the weaves he runs in a straght line and paddles them out of the way but apparently his front legs rarely touch the ground. I actually used toys for him as that's all he wanted and food for the little Kel monster as that is what he wants. I only put deef through the poles 3 times and he sussed what was expected, smart arse! ;-) Why do you want their heads down? I only know 2 dogs that do that and they are related to the pup and their weaves are not fast.

CORRECTLY used, food as a lure is not a problem because you fade it very rapidly.

Neither of my "bribed" dogs weave with their head up and neither do I use "funny arm movements" to keep them motivated! :rolleyes:

Like anything else, food works IF it is used properly.  However, like a lot of other training methods, it is often INCORRECTLY used........ it is then you get problems.

We had an interclub show back in February between ours and 2 other clubs. One of the clubs had trained all the dogs using food to lure the dogs through the weaves. Every single one of their 30 plus dogs did the weaves looking either at the hand or the face of the handler and several of them missed a pole because they were so tuned in to their owner rather than concentrating on what they were doing. They also needed to have their handler with them on entry to the weaves which slowed them down and if the handler didn't get there fast enough they spun and barked and sometimes got E'd for going over the wrong bit of equipment while they were waiting.

I suppose if you were really careful it could work but having seen the result of luring with food with over 30 dogs I think I will stick to running them through channel weaves and throwing the reward, be it food or toy, at the end. Spy hammers through the channel weaves at 100 mph because he knows he will get a reward at the end and it doesn't matter where I am. I shout 'weave' he weaves! :p Each to their own I suppose. :-)

For what it's worth....

There is never a right or wrong way to train the weaves, apart from any form of training that physically harms your dog!!!  Will never get me to agree to that.  All types of weave training have some place.

Push and pull...  tends to create a dog that has less enthusiasm in the weaves. Mainly because the handler is dictating the pace of the dogs weave so unless you can move your arm at an incredible rate of gnots then you will end up with a steady weave.  Also the dog becomes dependent on the handler being there to know what to do and when.  However the above is not true for all dogs.  My first dog was taught by push and pull and he learnt to weave quite quickly.  As soon as he had the idea of what do to I stopped handling him and the more confident he got the quicker he weaved.  I did however always ensure that i threw a toy for him at the end of the weaves so that he got adequate praise.

Food... is pretty much as above.  If a dog is very food obsessed you may find that they won't take their eyes off the handler and as such they are not learning the action of weaving in and out of poles they are just learning to follow the handlers and and as such if the handler cannot be there the weave will fall apart.

V weaves... V weaves are great for creating an enthusiastic weave. If the poles are started very wide apart.  If you use the V weaves combined with throwing a toy then the dog will fly through with lots of enthusiasm.  The important thing here is to make sure that the poles are raised at the dogs pace and that at each stage you practice practice practice.  The only disadvantage I have seen with V weaves it that, because they move, SOME dogs don't respect the poles and will just try to barge them out the way.  Not neccesarily good for the dogs shoulders and also slower than a dog that weaves and barely touches the poles.

And by far my prefered method is channel weaves.  The important thing on channel weaves is lots of short reppition and to progress at the dogs pace.  Every dog is different so you really have to gauge your own dog.  The weaves should start off so that your dog doesn't have to bend at all.  You should work on sending your dog through to a toy, recalling your dog through the weaves, running either side, running either side with a big gap between you and the weaves, reverse turning at the end of the weaves, blind turning at the end of the weaves as well as sending your dog in to the weaves from all extremes of angles.  Obviously starting with the easy entries first.  When your dog can do ALL the above off lead and with enthusiasm, THEN and only then can you move the channel in.  You will find each stage gets quicker and quicker as your dog becomes more proficient.

Only when the weaves are closed up completely should you start to take wires off.  Start with the middle wires and work out toward the ends.  BUT do NOT take the entry and exit wires off for a very long time.  I still use entry wires and my dog has been competing for a while.

Patience is a virtue with channel weaves but... you do get the best results.

Slobby

Thanks for all the replies!!  colliemad, by budget is *very* tight - without the guide wires, the setup I've designed will cost me just shy of £20 - that's how tight my budget is!!

We're off to agility tonight again, if the trainer uses the same methods i'm going to plitely explain that I'm very, very uncomfortable with it and decline from joining in that part, I'll just train it at home until he's got the hang of it.

Another club isn't really an option now - this is the third one already!!  The first I went to for four weeks - I didn;t go back after the last session because of the trainer, he was a b*stard to one of the dogs.  She was a 1yr old BC called Skye, a tiny one, very nervous too - she'd been rescued from spending the first 8 months of her life in a cage, no walks, nothing.  not good with other dogs.  She picked a fight with one in particular, and the trainer went to break it up - got bitten by her by accident, and he pinned her to the floor by her throat scruff and shook her very badly, she was all teeth and growling, terrified of him.

The second club wasn't so bad - they used the channel, incidentally - but they also didn't start newbies off on lower equipment, everything was full height - when we tried the a-frame they put two leads on Remy, has two of us holding him, took a run up and pulled him over. :( he wasn't happy!  Shame, they were really great trainers apart from that.  So we are staying where we are - there aren't any others in an affordable driving distance, and the weave is the only bone of contention I have with this place, and if get-roundable, then I'm happy!

The only problem I've got at home is the environment - I can't use poles in the ground because the only training area I have is a patio, the rest of my garden is an 800 gallon pond next to a large mound of earth and rubble!!  Thanks for the twine suggestion, moonmaiden - I'll look into that.  It may be I end up not dogin a full channel (i.e. far apart, bringing together), but a straight weave with twine - or something like that anyway :) whatever gets the job done with the maximum fun!

Just to say that I've done the same as Digger and bought electric fence posts which you can buy cheaply from horse/farm shops and covered them with a plastic coating (from DIY shops).   Good thing about these is that the have spikes on the bottom so you can always take them down to the park with you if you haven't got a garden.   (My OH has actually drilled small holes in our driveway as we don't have grass any more in our garden!).

I don't pretend to be an expert in agility by any means, esp with 2 beagles, but I started off using food as a lure to get them through the weaves - never forced them - but gradually used food less and less, because yes, they do look at the food or your hand rather than what they're doing, but both of them now do the weaves on their own without the need for food, so it's not a permanent problem.   Happy weaving.

Thanks again all!  The looking at the handler problem is why the trainer won't let us use food lures for weaving.  She wasn't there last night - can't remember where she was, but we had someone else - I explained to her that Remy wasn't too good at the weave, and that if I forced him he'd switch off and do nothing - she was very understanding.  We did have a go, but only got through two poles on the mini-course we were running!  I did a bit of practice before and after class with him, jsut trying to coax him through with happy voice and his toy - he almost did it a couple times, but he's still not keen.

So come Monday, I'm going to go shopping and get what I need to make a setup for him - I've been thinking it over, I think I am going to stick with my original plan of channel weaves - whilst Remy will do almost anything for food, I still haven't got the hang of fading it properly, so chances are I'd end up with a problem weaver if I go that path.  Perhaps with Opi I may use food, we'll see - I'm going to be doing an awful lot of training over the next couple of weeks anyway, working on manners outside the house, loose leash walking for Remy, attention, that sort of thing, so by the end of that I should have the hang of it.  I hope! :D

we do channel weaves by putting 2 lines of posts, gap wide enough for dog to run through, then gradually making the central gap smaller, no wires involved and you woud only need some canes, or ideally plumbers piping, cheap as chips

I did wonder if it would work the same without the wires, would make it easier!  I'm going for the plumber's piping, it's a good price in B&Q :)

One thing I forgot to mention in my last post - On Thursday I lokoed over at the beginner's class - they are actualyl using the channel weave setup there, with wooden poles and wires, and the dogs are flying through it (the channel is almost a straight weave for them now) - and eyt our group is still using leash walking to do it.  Very odd!  i know I'm not the only person who didn't do the beginner's class, as only two of the half dozen dogs in my class actually weave properly, the others are still learning it like me.  Oh well.

Monday I will go shopping when I've finished my customers' dogs, and by tuesday we should be up n weavin' on the patio :D I'll keep you all posted!

there's some for sale on ebay for £21
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=43426&item=3983698939&rd=1

Thanks for the link, but it's made now!  I did a trip to Homebase and B&Q on Monday evening, and now I have a channel setup on the patio :) only 6 poles, but it's helping immensely already!

I tried the garden wire (thank you to whoever suggested it!), it certainly helped to start with - I've done a few sessions with both dogs today, and Remy is learning incredibly fast - he is faultless to about a 12" channel now, and I've taken the wires off.  He starts getting worried the closer the poles get with the wires on, and once already he ran under one - they are only a foot off the ground, he took half the weave with him!

Anyhoo, I'll let you all know how he gets on.  It was only a quick try today to get a feel for hwo fast the dogs learn this sort of thing, tomorrow I will start anew with the channel 24" wide, running each dog through 20 times then going down to 23", 20 more then to 22" and so on till they're in a straight line.  Will be a busy day! Also we have the next proper agility class tomorrow night, I will be intrigued to see what happens - needless to say, if he's still not doing it, I won't force him - I'll explain to the trainer about my setup and that he's learning well before the class starts, I don't want to nark ehr off halfway through!!

Thanks for all the help everyone, I must dash, my fruit strudel is beeping :D

Before you start to move the weaves in make sure your dogs will get the weave entry from any angle going both ways, you on the right and the left. You should be able to have the dog directly beside the weaves and he should still get the weave entry right. Personally I do not think doing it 20 times before moving them in is anywhere near enough. Mu dog has been doing channel weaves for 3 months now and they have only just gone in enough to get a body movement but I know it doesn't matter where I am or what angle they are, I say weaves, he will go in the right way. You also need to have them running into the weaves from other pieces of equipment. Obviously this will need to be done at training so if they have channel weaves for the beginner class, insist on being able to use them! :-)

My two youngest Labs did an agility course for the first time on Saturday :D

I found food to be a great aid to getting them to weave and both ended up with a clear round :D :D

Not the fastest round but who cares :D

Well done!   My oldest beagle is not the fastest but she loves it.  And yes, food has been a great aid for both of them when they were learning (surprise surprise!! lol)