Swift Dog Sports
" Creating a stronger bond between you and your dog, one agility obstacle at a time "
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Training Video Page
Welcome to the Swift Dog Sports video page!
This video page will help my students get a visual reference to some of the things we cover in class. Furthermore, this page also has a and sneak preview of some of the things which we’ll be covering in future lessons and to help you understand the "agility lanaguage"
The videos published on this page include things that I would be teaching my 8 week old puppy to things that I would be teaching my 8 year old Border Collie in Swift at her current competition level. I' have headings to group everything under the appropriate categories. So please, as discussed in class please don’t go weaving young puppy ETC.
This is a very valuable resource to my students so I hope you take full advantage of it and frequent this page regularly. However, this page is only available to my current students only. The password for this page will change every 6 weeks so please check your e-mail's regularly for the new code.
Weave Polls
Viper was taught weave polls using a combination of methods. She 1st was taught to weave usuing Susan Garret's 2 X 2 method. This method gave her the skills to hit extremely difficult weave entries in literally under 10 days. Not only could she "weave" in ten days, she was able to find the correct entrance to the polls for extremly tough entry's which will take you much longer to master with other methods.
Once viper was weaving 12 poles. We did several weeks of WAM (Weave-A-Matic) style weave polls to help with her footwork. The WAM's are similar to the channel weave polls method. My Sheltie always perferred the channels to the WAM's but Viper was the opposite and preferred the WAM's over the Channel weave polls.
In conclusion, I suggest to my students they teach the 2 X 2's 1st and then determine if they need to do some channel or WAM work.
If your dog can currently weave straight polls, I still would suggest going back and work on 2 X 2's to get amazing entrances.
What is 2 X 2 weaves ?
The biggest difference between the 2 methods is that it teaches the dog to find entrances to the weave polls using 2 poles at a time and gradually you add another set of polls to make 4 poles, then another set to make a total of 6 poles in a line, ETC.
The other methods typically on the market teach the dog to "see 12 poles; run" and they take much, much longer to gain the skills to get to find the correct entrances to them. However, Swift was taught 100% on a mixture of WAM's and channels and can get any entrance you put in front of her. Although it was a long process with many, many reps over several years.
The biggest issue I see when my students go off and teach 2 X 2's is that they dont progress fast enough in the process. Granted, not every dog is going to be weaving in 10 days like Viper. However, it really should take you no longer then 3 weeks.
When you plan to train the weaves, you MUST get in atleast 1 training session 6 days a week (I prefer 2 a day). If not, you may struggle like I've seen with some of my current students that there dog's begin to believe that "weaving" only involves a set of 2 polls. So when they go to add another set of 2 polls they struggle. Now, go reread the last paragraph again :)
I would highly suggest purchasing the DVD of this method. It's worth every cent!
This is a very condense version of Viper's weave journey. Many repetitions of me working the harder approaches and entry's *at each stage* are not shown. Work each stage until your dog can master the hard entries consistently before moving on to the next stage.
Days: 1 - 5
