Success! It is just day 2 of my attempt to teach Gitta to swim straight poles. As mentioned in yesterday’s post, we’ve spent a good deal of time trying various methods to encourage single stepping in the weaves. But the results from my latest attempt seem to be sticking!
The first time she switched from offset to straight yesterday, she hopped the entire way. By the end of the session, her best attempt on straight poles was switching between 5 and 6. Today, her FIRST attempt had her switching between 4-5 and she improved to switching between 3-4 for the rest of the session.
I also clocked her three reps at between 3.1 and 3.2 seconds. Room for improvement, but not bad!
I am a huge fan of the 2×2 weave pole method, and have now had great success teaching it to several different dogs, including retrains. The entries I can get are astounding. However, one thing I haven’t gotten, at least with Gitta, is good footwork.
I know some people believe you should let the dog choose the footwork, but with a dog the size of Gitta, I really believe that swimming the poles would be not only faster, but easier for her. But during her training, focusing on hard entries, she learned to hop.
We tried going back to spring based offset poles, which was our previous method and produced fast weavers, but poor entries. She would swim these beautifully (and with those fabulous 2×2 entries!). But no matter how we tried to transition, or how long we stayed with offsets, she would start hopping again on straight poles.
My latest attempt has been to isolated the moment she switches from hopping to swimming with the clicker. This seems to be having some success! I started by clicking the moment she switched on offsets. I do believe that any dog will hop the first few poles when entering from an angle. So with offsets, she would hop through the first few poles and then switch to swimming for the remainder. After a few sessions, I switched to inline poles mid-session. The video below shows her progression. Her first time (during this session) on inline poles, she hopped the entire way. No click, just a few kibble pieces. The next attempt she switched about halfway, and the attempts after that she switched even earlier.
I’m hopeful that I can get her consistently swimming on inline poles using the clicker and will consider it a success when she starts swimming on her first rep by pole 4.
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