Weaving Very Slowly

[BNM1980]

I'm teaching Blake to weave between my legs. I started with a food lure to lure him through my legs, and once he got the command, "Weave!" I rewarded him with a treat each time he did it. Then I progressed to taking large, slow strides and saying, "Weave! Weave! Weave!" and rewarding him after every third or fourth stride.

 

He is starting to get it, in fact he's doing it, but the problem is he is doing it very slowly, pausing between strides and I have to give the command, "Weave!" before he goes back through again.

 

This is after about 5 or 6 fifteen minute sessions. Will he start to speed it up with practice, or should I be doing something different?

[Root Beer]

One thing you can try is to backchain your moving weaves.

 

Have him do just one, and jackpot (and I do mean jackpot!).

 

After doing that a couple of times have him do two, but don't reward the first one and jackpot the second. Keep doing that (in short, but frequent sessions) until he is moving fluidly, not necessarily fast, for two.

 

Then add a third. Don't reward the first or second leg weave - jackpot the last one. Do this in short, but frequent sessions, until he is moving fluidly for three.

 

Continue to build your chain to the maximum amount of weaves that you would want at a time. Always jackpot the final leg weave.

 

As for cueing, with leg weaves, I do cue each individual weave. I use "leg". I've never even tried to teach it as "one cue means keep leg weaving until I stop". On the other hand, the step forward can serve as the cue, and you could drop the verbals after the first one.

 

I would get the fluency in place first, though, before I worried about that. You can go back to your backchaining process to convert the additional verbal cues into physical cues after the dog is leg weaving the way you want.

[Root Beer]

Oh, I forgot to say, as you build fluency, I think you will see Blake's speed pick up.

[BNM1980]

Awesome!

 

Thanks Root Beer!