Weave Entry Project

The goals I set out for this month were somewhat lacking in definable training improvements, and I've just come up with an addition.  I think this is more of a summer project than just a July thing, but I'd really like to work on weave entries.  I'll just use the 6 poles because after a few times through 12 Jonah is usually slowing down.  This is primarily about entries and we don't have trouble with popping out of the poles, so six should be fine.

Here are six entries that I'd like to be able to master without me babysitting the entries too much.  Some will obviously need a little more help than others, especially at first.  The following map is NOT numbered as a sequence (I'm not going to go from 1 to 2 to 3 and so on), and I'll probably only have two jumps or so set up at a time.  They are six different questions that I'd like Jonah to master.  Here's the diagram.  In all cases, I will take the weaves headed up/North:

Jonah's straight entries are looking super these days, so I don't have that listed.  Here's what we do have:
1.  An on-side, angled approach.  This should not be any problem at all.

2.  An off-side, angled approach.  I don't think this should trip him up at this point, but it has the possibility for a wrong entry, as he'll be approaching from the incorrect side, facing the incorrect entry.

3.  On-side, 90 degree approach.  This has been difficult for Jonah in the past, and now I want to drill it frequently enough that he can regularly find the entry on his own.

4.  Off-side, 90 degree approach.  With support, I think this is actually easier for Jonah than number 3.  So long as I can push him around the first pole, he understands well.  My goal will be that I don't have to be right there pushing him into the entry.

5.  Off-side, 180 degree approach.  Again, if I'm there to push around the pole I think Jonah will get this fine.  It would be great if he could be independent with it, though!

6.  On-side, 180 degree approach.  I think this is a really challenging entry.  We'll see how it goes!

7.  This isn't on the map, but I would like to work on distance with the weaves, with a specific goal that he will weave straight away and straight towards me.  His lateral distance is pretty good, but these (especially the send straight away) are harder.

That should be a concrete set of goals for us to work on progressing with our weaves.  I'll try to video the final results so you can see how it goes.

Sprints

I haven't done too much agility this week because I thought Jonah's slowness last week might be due to boredom and overdoing things.  I have set up three exercises that I've been really happy with.  They're super simple, but going back to the beginning has gotten his excitement up again, at least so far.

The first day I just put a straight tunnel out in the yard.  I took out a tug toy and would get him pulling and excited.  As soon as he'd drop the toy, I'd sprint to and past the tunnel, which he rocketed through.  I gave him some tricky entries, but generally it was straight forward and all about playing, having fun and going fast.  He thinks it's fun just to sprint with me, so it almost acts as a reward in itself.

The second sprinting exercise was a basic line of three jumps, about 18 feet apart.  At first they were all in line, but eventually I offset them so they were a zigzag, the middle jump about four feet to the side of the other two.  We played the same game of tugging and then sprinting.  This was fantastic because he'd really run ahead of me.  I'd throw the toy for him after the jumps so he'd get the reward out in front of me, too.  This was the best work of him going ahead of me that he's ever done.  I was very excited.  He's really fast when he wants to be, and his jumping form is lovely.

Today I put a set of 6 weave poles and one jump up.  First I had the jump in line with the weave poles, but I moved it around to work on different entries.  Jonah's entries were very solid and his weaves were fast.  With this exercise, he would charge out ahead of me and find the entry, but I can still catch up to him while he's weaving.  I guess that's true of most dogs with reasonably athletic handlers, but it wasn't the same excitement of him out in front of me as the three jump exercise.  There was no sign of him changing to the one-paw-each-side method, but he's doing well enough that maybe it doesn't matter so much.  It's fun to watch him sprint up to the poles at a full tilt, then gather his haunches under him to collect, and then power through the poles.  As Dave says, he has great body control. I'd like to do the same exercise with 12 poles next time so he gets more in a rhythm.

Tomorrow we have another lesson and hopefully Jonah will be a little more enthusiastic.  I'm going to bring our new tug/food toy and see if he'll get excited about it there.