Here is Dusty on his first day of weaving 12 poles. Ths is approximately his 21st day of weave pole training. (I didn’t keep a journal so that I would know exactly which training day it was. Bad trainer!)
I used Susan Garrett’s 2-by-2 method to teach Dusty to weave. Susan also calls her method “12 poles in 12 days” but it took me at least 21 days. One reason that it took longer to go from zero to 12 weave poles is that I have to go to work to pay for this hobby (classes, DVDs, equipment, books, clothes, treats, toys, leashes, mesh crates, trial entries, travel expenses and so on) so I didn’t train Dusty three times each day. Some days I didn’t train him at all. (Actually, days without any weave pole training are part of the 2-by-2 method.)
Another reason is that after five days of training Dusty, he seemed not to recognize the weave poles and didn’t know what to do with them. I couldn’t figure out what the problem was, so I decided to start over. Deep sigh. Back to Day One.
I made a few mistakes in training Dusty. I realized that he didn’t like running off of my right side for the angled entries. I could send him off of my left side and he’d get the entry. I’d stand in the exact same spot, send him from my right side and he’d miss the entry. That was my training mistake in having him on my left side most of the time.
I’m planning on training Abby on the weave poles as well, so I won’t make that mistake again. I’ll make new mistakes with her. I just don’t know what they are yet.
It's a long story . . . 