# What next? (Weaves)



## Guest (Jun 21, 2019)

Hi everyone,

Firstly just want to say I will be talking to my trainers about this too but thought I’d pick the brains of the amazing agility people here too!

My Wheaten terrier Elliot started agility back in March. He’s picked it up really well and he loves it. We are looking to compete in our first competition in a couple of months. Because I have competed with another dog previously I am in a different category for competitions than the rest of my beginners class, and my class has 6 weaves in it.

I’ve been teaching him to weave at home using 2x2, which is how my other dog learnt. He can now do 6 weaves fairly accurately, although not particularly quickly. He is doing them independently - I’m not luring, in fact if i ‘get in the way’ that’s when he tends to pop out so I just leave him to it.

My question is, what next? I can’t remember much about what I did with my first agility dog. Obviously we are going to keep practicing to get them really accurate, but do I now work on speed, or entrances from different angles, or working with me offside, or what? At this point I only need him to be able to do 6 weaves so I don’t need to increase the number just yet.

Just for the record he’s 3 so not a very young dog, and our weave training sessions are very short - usually just 3 correct weaves in one go. 

Thanks!


----------



## Burrowzig (Feb 18, 2009)

I've never used 2x2, but start my dogs on channel weaves, with a good wide open channel and guides, from when they are very young, just getting them to run the channel. Only when they do that, with entrances from every angle, do I start closing the channel (dog would be a year old by then), and only doing it gradually. They also do it independently from the start, I 'train' weaves at some distance (often from my garden chair with a glass of wine on the table) with the weaves being across the garden. They all do fast weaves and I can leave them to get on with it whilst I move to another part of the course. And you're so right not to overdo it. I see some people totally flogging their weave training.
You could try setting up a channel in your garden, not too close together to start with to get some speed up. Canes pushed into the ground with plumber's waste pipe over them should be easy to arrange and won't break the bank.


----------

