Tuesday, April 18, 2017

13 months - Weave Poles

Kenna is 13 months old and she is an agility beast. I'm really enjoying her focus and work ethic.

Recently we started working on weave poles, the only piece of equipment she had left to learn. We don't start weave poles until the dog is just about fully grown, for the same reasons that we watch the jump height. I remembered weave poles taking quite awhile for Kili to master. We started them about 15 months old, and by the time we entered our first trial at 18 months she was JUST starting to do 6 poles very slowly. Confidence and consistency in the weaves comes with practice and I'd say about the time she was 3 her weave poles became really stellar, though she does sometimes still struggle with difficult on-side entries.

With Kenna I figured I'd start at 13 months and just really work on getting a really solid understanding of the first two poles and building confidence. Ultimately I wanted to get to 6 poles at about 15 months, giving us 3 months to build speed and consistency before she begins to trial at 18 months. Yeah, that plan didn't work. This dog is far too clever and confident for her own good. Even with a few short sessions a week we hit 6 poles in just 3 or 4 weeks. Oh well! We will work on entries and sequencing for awhile before we build all the way up to 12 poles!


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