Flying Poodles

Weaving and Wobbling

Yesterday’s training session involved a lot of weaves. We added a single set of two poles in front of the regular set of 12, to work on entries. Dancer was trained using 2x2s, but as we’ve tried to speed her up, we’ve found that she hits the entry fine, but has trouble bending for the third pole. I’ve been working on flexibility, but I didn’t want her to get in the habit of skipping that third pole. We started with the two poles and an extra gap of about 6 inches (total of 27″ in the gap between 2 and 3), and then gradually closed it down. Interestingly, the long set of poles (14 poles!) seemed to help Dancer learn the rhythm of footwork that works for her, and by the time we’d closed down the gap to 21″–about fifteen reps, I’d guess, with a lot of other things interspersed–she had a lovely and fairly fast rhythm going, and she’d never missed the third pole. (Although she did have trouble with gaps when I really sped up her entry–but she didn’t skip until poles 4 and 5. She’ll get better with time and experience.)

We also got out the wobble board and Dancer got right on it and sat right down for her treats. I got out her toy and by the end of the session, she was leaping onto the board, grabbing the toy, leaping into the air, tugging, sitting… whatever I asked, her usual fearless self. Next… Jay is building a rocker board (not just a wobble board–more of a low teeter).