Monday October 9th 2006 - practice

(Backfilled in October 2009 due to impending closure of Geocities)

Anticipating the upcoming closure of the agility field, I took Walter to get in some more weave practice. Warmed up with some wams, then did the following set up: jump, 6 fixed weaves, jump, 6 fixed weaves, jump (jumps only at 10" since he worked so hard yesterday). I videotaped the whole session so I could keep track of the successful and unsuccessful passes and note any trends. Out of 20 onside attempts, he did 14 successful passes, 5 passes where he bypassed the first pole, and 1 pass where he popped. Out of 26 offside attempts, he did 11 successful passes, 2 passes where he bypassed the first pole, 9 pops, and 4 passes where he got the wrong entry and popped. (Note, an attempt refers to an attempt at one 6-pole set.) I noticed that the unsuccessful passes tended to clump together. Overall, a 54% success rate, and his speed is improving as he gains more confidence with the fixed weaves. I started rewarding with a ball instead of treats half way through the session to freshen things up for him, which worked. Next time I will do a different set-up because the way I had it today meant that if he did a successful pass on the first set of weaves and I didn't stop to treat him and he goofed on the second set of weaves, then either I had to reward him for the goof-up or not reward him for the first success. Also, I will try to keep the practice shorter - I had no idea until I watched the video that I had asked him to weave almost 50 times today! OOPS! Note, it was 13 degrees during the practice but it felt warmer than that (t-shirt weather).