Started Training Hallie on 2x2's!

About 2 months ago Hallie started her Beginner Agility class @ J-Canine. The class covered all the obstacles; Jumps, Tunnels, A-Frame, Teeter, Dog Walk, Chute, Tire, Table, and Weave Poles. Hallie loved it; she just loved to be out there playing with Mommy, having some one on one time. She has some good focus and follows’ my lead rather well, she has a lot of growing to do but I think she is doing rather well for a 15 month old puppy. Having said that, the baby class is now behind us and it is time to start getting a little more serious with her training.

This past Monday night was Hallie and I's first class with Renee. At first I was a little concerned on how she would do, I think it is the same concern I had with Pyper her first day....but all in all she did really well. Areas that we need to concentrate on are: contacts and weaves. Her contacts are so, so...on the teeter and the dog walk she can stick her 2-on 2-off ok, but the A-frame she flips her butt over. I just need to do some more practicing with her and she will be fine. Now for weaves....I had already decided a while back that I would be training Hallie on Susan Garrett's 2x2 Method....


Well she has officially started her 2x2 Weave Pole training. We had attempted to start about a month ago, but in the first session I knew she was not ready yet. Needed to do some more shaping exercises. So we have been working on that for the past while, we have taught her things like, touch, shack a paw, wave, Role over, and bow.


So last night was session number 2; 1 set of 2x2's set @ 2 o'clock and 8 o'clock. At first I started with throwing the treat so she would drive down the line, she liked that. After a few successful tries like that I started throwing a treat bag for retrieval, she really like this. For everyone who does not know the 2x2 method I will explain what this session looked like in more detail. First off see below image to see what 2x2's look like...

The idea is to train your dog to enter the weave poles correctly no matter what angle they approach from and to drive through them in a straight line. See image below. The outside Blue line is the spectrum in which you practice driving your dog into the weaves, start off simple near the weaves, then expand to make it harder and harder. The red line is the drive line.We completed our session in about 5-8 minutes, nice and short, and we finished with Hallie wanting more. That is really important in any type of dog training, if they get bored or frustrated you will struggle in your training.