My blue merle does agility but no matter what i do i cant get her to weave any faster she slows right down when she gets to the weave poles and slowly walks through them.
I have tryed using toys treats getting her more excited but then she just misses the posts.
Shes really quick at everything else and her weaving really effects her times.
Does anyone have any ideas ??!!

Break it right down.  Use four weaves to start and have a ball or better still a favourite toy which is only brought out for this, make your voice hyper and as soon as she is coming out of the last one throw it in a straight line.  Don't be in a rush to increase the poles, get her confident on the four first.  If she misses the poles, run her back don't get cross and go for it again.

It often is a confidence thing and if she is that bad I would work on this on it own during the winter, not during an agility training lesson but a few poles and a ball on a one to one over the park.  Don't make an issue of it just treat it as a fun game.

Good Luck
Sandra

When I was trying to teach my beagle to weave quicker I set up 12 'weave poles' in my back garden and got her to weave for her dinner every day.  I don't know how food orientated your merle is but because beags are so greedy this really increased her speed.

Hi,

When trying to speed my young BC up in the weaves I used 12 poles in the garden. She wouldn't ever speed up much more than a gentle trot. Took them up to the park and gradually she sped up, she was much more enthusiastic to train when up the park, I think because she associates the park with training and the garden with relaxing.

As someone else has suggested, break it down so she just does 4 poles. Get her confident with you weaving her on both sides, plus letting her enter them and crossing behind her, working at a distance, and gradually as she learns to do all this her confidence should come. You could also try slanting the poles in a "V" type way, to get her confident running fast through them and gradually reduce the V until they are upright.

Good luck!

Char

Hi,

I don't know how much room you have at home but if you have a reasonable size bit of lawn then this might work for you.  Start with a complete set of poles but instead of having them in a straight line move every other pole out about a foot to the left (starting with the first one so your entrance is on the right side!) Then tie soft cord down each line of poles at about chest height so that you form a sort of tunnel or channel.

To start with the dog need not even be bending his body, just running straight down the channel.  We used to do this every time we went into the garden and the dogs love it!  make it really exciting and get them really running through fast.  As they get more confident gradually move the poles in again so the dog starts to bend more through the channel.  Only move them in in a bit every few days or so and make sure your dog stays really quick and excited at each stage.

Eventually the poles will be in a straight line and the dog will love doing weaving poles!  This has worked brilliantly with all our dogs but it does make it difficult to teach young dogs cause the older ones are always pushing them out the way so they can do it!

Just remember to be careful with the height of the cord and to remove it once the poles are quite close together.

Good Luck! :)

Hi Hannah
I found these sites when looking for similar advice, which you might find useful.
http://www.powerpawsagility.com/articles/WeavesWithoutWorry.pdf
http://www.dogpatch.org/agility/FAQs/faqweav2.html
Tracy