After fretting and thinking for a long time...I decided to go whole hog and go totally to the 24 inch poles for the weaves. My dogs do go back and forth with the different spacing and do fine, but I do notice the footwork changes, esp with Breeze, and since all the trials here are using the 24 in...I just feel like it would be best to work out their footing on what they will trial on. It really will be so much better for Breeze. Cricket should just learn on what she will trial with, and because she is so young, I feel better about the wider spacing to protect her body and spine. Sooooo....I had to buy some shiny new 2x2 sets of poles for Cricket to learn the weaves on. The 2x2's were Crickets birthday gift-they were actually ready to be picked up on her birthday, that worked out nice!
I got a really neat set of twelve poles last spring with the 24 inch spacing. These break down fairly easily into sets of three poles, which is what I usually use for entry training and for most practice. I can use these poles with sets of 3, 6, 9, or 12 poles, or add on a set of 2x2 for 14 poles. These are pretty sturdy, my dogs SLAM into the poles so they poles have to be pretty heavy and need to be staked. I have a little kit with these so they can be made into channels if I ever wanted to use those and because they break down so much, they are easy to take places or drag around.
Soooooo...the problem with making the leap and doing all 24 in spaced poles.....I have a bunch of sets of 21 in spaced poles. I am not sure how I ended up with all these poles but what do I do with the rest of the weave poles? YIKES! I have made a huge investment in weaves over the years, there is a set of WAMs, a set of 21 in 2x2's, and a couple of sets with channels that adjust easily, and then the set I saved up for for a long time, that I LOVED, a set of really nice, heavy competition poles with really nice non-skid bases. I got those shortly before everyone started talking seriously about changing the spacing. Figures-that was bad timing!
So now all these weave poles lie in the weave pole grave yard behind the pool....poor weave poles ;-)!
In the interests of not looking like a hoarder, I did get ahold of the beginning agility instructor at our club and told her that I had two sets of weaves for some students that could use them....one of of the ladies came today and picked up one set. It made me feel pretty happy to see a beginner that was so impressed and excited at getting their first set of poles. The lady who got the poles has a min. Schnauzer who everyone says is a really nice little dog-so I hope they go to good use, glad they are out of my house and not sitting in my back yard.
I could only get myself to part with two sets right now....but maybe in the next few weeks I can part with another one ;-).
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In the meantime for my CHALLENGE--
We had an exciting time--I went to the park and was working on sits and downs from a distance-so the dogs get used to responding to commads right away no matter where they are-wouldn't that be nice?.
I was doing working this exercise with an xpen. I dragged the xpen to several places in the park-first on concrete so I could try to throw the treat to the doggie if they did their sit or down while I was away from them. Well, that was a bust because I could not throw correctly, the dogs were not impressed when their treats they worked so hard for would end up ten feet away from them where they could not touch them, LOL. My poor dogs! I had to make due with giving the command then going back and treating. Everyone did really super good.
I had a red letter moment when Cricket who is very motion sensitive saw about thirty joggers that I could tell were going to go right by where she was in the xpen. I went over and shifted into doing some crate games with the xpen. I had not worked the crate games with the xpen before, but I opened the door, gave her a treat for sitting,.....repeated a few times... SOOOO by that time the joggers were right by her crate I was feeling very brave,...I opened the xpen and said "BREAK" (Cricks release word), and stepped on the leash as Cricket leapt out of the xpen. With the runners going by I knew what I hoped would happen but I was not sure. I could not believe when Cricket burst out of the xpen and thought for a millionth of a second then raced right back into the xpen. I think she understands that Yer Out Yer In game from Crate Games. I was impressed at the good decision she made. She is such a good girl.
I had some similar really good results with Lizzie. I think I will do a lot more of this work with Lizzie so she has a really solid auto down when I say Down, might be a life saver if she ever takes off-which has been known to happen with the little Lizard.
I am going to try to get some video later on in the week of the girls doing their distance sits/downs practice at the park, having the joggers end up there was a total surprise but turned out to be a fantastic distraction for training.