2x2 Weave Training - Day Three and a Half

Welcome to Day Three and a Half. It comes after Day Three and before Day Four if you've not been happy with the progress you've made on Day Three.

Enya's entry to the second set of 2x2s wasn't very strong yesterday, and when we started the first session today the entry on the first set was still problematic from high on the arc on the left hand side. However a lot more studying of the DVD and I had noticed something else. When Susan Garrett was working Trendy she was rewarding in-between the first and second sets 50% of the time. This is clearly stated, but when I watched the DVD again I realised that occasionally she'd rewarded from the hand rather than by throwing down the reward line. This set me to thinking and I decided to try something else.

I kept the toy in my hand and let Enya see it when I sent her on to the first set of 2x2s. That had the desired effect and she collected and turned into the first set of 2x2s perfectly. I rewarded her with a game of tug directly from my hand. And because she was turned into the first set tightly, she was now lined up on the second set as well.

Normally you don't reward from the hand when your teaching a young dog agility because your trying to instil value in the equipment, not in your hand. However in this case there was already a lot of value in the poles and so rewarding from the hand was a low-risk strategy to fix a specific problem.

Once she had the idea of turning in sharply things moved more or less back onto track. We moved from rewarding from the hand to throwing the toy down the reward line, something between sets, sometimes after set 2. Enya is now turning in on the first set of 2x2s and then picking up the second set of 2x2s.

The second and third sessions were purposely short and just built on this success, reducing the spacing between the sets to roughly 8ft.

So the lesson from today's sessions. Part of being a good handler is understanding your dog and understanding when you can break the rules. But even when breaking rules, there are rules.

• Always have a reason for what you are doing, don't break rules for the sake of it.
• Understand the rule you are breaking and the consequences of breaking it.

All of this is summed up in a great little saying -

"Rules are for the adherence of the foolish and the guidance of the wise"

After we finished the final session of the day we went for a walk, and a very hard working little collie was quite thirsty ....

You don't get much fresher from this, drinking from one of the nearby springs.

And the sunset was spectacular ....