I've seen people talking about the 'V method' of teaching dogs how to weave and we have a set of poles that are designed for this. We are about to teach Os some basic agility at home and I want to make sure that we do it right. We would go to a club but our trainer doesn't think that it would be good for Os at the moment due to his lack of attention span / focus!

So, can anyone give me some pointers as to how to teach the weaves using the V? I know that youshould start with them all down flat and just get the dog used to running through the centre of them using the command word. Then bring them up slowly so they are off the ground and still have him running through the centre. After this is becomes a bit hazy ;-)

Which poles should I start to bring upright first? And when?

Thanks
Jayne

Hi Jayne,

You could try this book How to Train Your Dog to Weave by Lesley Harpley or look here under training and at the bottom it has an article called 'Weaving case studies' which may help

Hi Jayne,
I trained my youngest bitch on them. They were extremely helpful in building the dogs speed/confidence and keeping her motivation but didnt actually TEACH her to weave, as all she had to do was run in a straight line. I re taught her weave entries just using three poles and holding on to her collar hand fed her through the weaves, big, big fuss at the end. She's not got really beautiful weavies as has my older senior agility dog.
With the V-weaves, you do start with having the poles flat and gradually make them higher. Each time I moved the poles up slightly, I moved them all up, not just one side of them to make sure she balanced herself well. I got her to wait at one end at call her through them and also held her at the start and got a friend to hold a tuggy at the end so she got used to running ahead of me aswell as to me. By doing this I was able to do things like crossing behind and weaving on the right without her bothering.
As for the V weaves... I would use a different method next time I get a pup and have sold them to our agility club, the weaves have really helped bring out the speed in less confident dogs and let them enjoy themselves moer!
Charlotte