Agility Session 3 notes
Weave Poles
Start with 4 poles (you can use things like: electric fence posts that push into the ground, tall traffic cones, metal stakes you put PVC poles over, you can buy sets online at places like www.cleanrun.com
Set your 4 poles up like this:
Dog
Treat
Start with holding your dog at the gap between the two sets of two poles so they are facing the toy you’ve placed at the other end.
When they look forward at the reward let them go.
When they are comfortable add two more poles so you have 3 poles on each side.
Dog
Treat
You can keep adding poles until you have 6 on each side for a total of 12 or stop at a total of 6. For the novice level competitions many start with only 6 poles, but all advanced levels have 12 poles so if you plan to compete go ahead and work up to 12 poles.
Jumping Practice
Running with our dogs next to the jumps and using play to reward. If your dog doesn’t play with toys you can throw food if the area makes it easy enough to see where it lands, try not to hand feed as that makes dogs learn to jump and bend into you, and we want them landing out ready to keep running.
We also want to work on sending our dogs ahead of us over the jump as we hang back.
Stand next to dog facing jump
Take ONE step forward with the leg closest to the dog
as you step forward indicate the jump with the hand closest to your dog
as soon as dog takes any forward movement toss a reward over the jump
Gradually increase your distance from jump
We also want to teach our dogs to take a jump and wrap back 180 degrees so they are now facing the direction they started from.
Start with dog on stay facing jump a couple strides back from jump.
You stand facing dog, with your hip close to the jump, slightly in front of the jump
As you release dog, signal them to take the jump by using the hand closest to the jump to draw them over the jump, make sure your eyes trace the path you want the dog to take rather than looking in your dog’s eyes.
When they take the jump, step slightly away from jump so they have room to come between your hip and the jump, tossing their reward past you so they wrap around the jump and end up where they started but now facing the other direction.
Keep practicing your plank work & target training! As well as you sit stays and release to playing with you