Thursday, March 5, 2009

Devon's new adventure

Here it is, the eve of 2x2 weave pole training. Thanks to Susan and Luna for letting us borrow 3 sets of 2x2 bases. I'm reviewing (literally) Susan Garrett's 2x2 Weave Pole Training DVD. On the first viewing I believe it could solve Devon's weave issues.

To review, Devon finds her entrances beautifully, but skips pole 2 and weaves 1, 3 then weaves out. Once she gets into pole 3, she has a really nice fast style. I clicked her entrances very early on with two poles. This formed lovely entrances, but the variety of methods we used didn't communicate to Devon what she was doing "wrong" or how to fix it. I went back and clicked again using 3 poles, then building out to 6 poles (I actually did this twice). This worked at homebut didn't translate to class or trialing. I also used wires and opened the channels back up. 

Finally, because she knew she was doing something not quite right, Devon started offering other behaviors -- the down side of clicker training. Unfortunately, what she started offering was "more wrong" than the skipping pole 2. She started offering to enter with the first pole on her right. This started a downward spiral in her confidence in the weaves until the middle of last month when she started hitting the first pole, then wandered away looking anywhere but the weave poles. I've seen this behavior before, from Connor! At Devon least graced me by not leaving the ring or running to the ring stewards asking to be saved.

In viewing the 2x2 method, it focuses on the first two sets (or first 4 poles) a little differently than all other methods. What I know about Devon is if she isn't "getting" something, it's because I'm not presenting it well. She's a thoughtful dog, and she tries her guts out for me. I feel confident this will work well for us.

I'll post more tomorrow!

1 comment:

tailsofgold said...

I LOVE the 2x2 method! I retrained Miles' poles last summer starting with the 2x2 method until he was confidently weaving 6 poles and then used Joe Canova's "World Class Weaves" DVD to further his understanding and proof the weaves. He can hit almost any entry now and weaves confidently. Goodluck!

Kristin